"What?"

"Don't give up. Do whatever it takes to get that place shut down. I'll help you if I can. But I think you're all you need, Brit. It's up to you."

"You think so?"

"I know so, and besides..."

"What?"

"I need you to get out," he said, his voice softening. "The real you. I've been carrying on with the fantasy for years now."

"Don't you mean months? It was only March when we, you know, got together..."

"I mean years."

"Oh." I just sat there like an idiot, smiling into the phone.

"Can you call me again?"

"Maybe, but they probably go over the long-distance bills with a magnifying gla.s.s."

"Call collect then. And get out of there. Clod needs you. Seriously. If you don't get out of there soon, I'm going to turn into a total sap. You'll understand when you hear the songs I've been writing. All ballads."

"Yikes. I'm surprised Erik and Denise haven't staged an intervention." I paused, took a breath. "I miss you."

"Me too. And Brit?"

"Yes?"

"I love you, too."

Okay, maybe he wasn't a typical skittish boy after all.

The Sisters and I met a few nights later, and I laid it out for them. I told them I wanted to give it one more shot with Henley, to present him with the whole story. He didn't even know about Sheriff's history, and there was probably plenty more dirt where that came from. But it was up to us to unearth it. After all, who knew Red Rock better than we did? We would sneak out files, snoop through offices, catalog every inmate's diagnosis. And then, when we had an airtight case, we'd take it to Henley. He'd believe us. He had to.

"I don't know why you're so hung up on this old journalist," Bebe said. "He's such a rude man."

"I've just got a feeling. I mean, if you knew the guy's history-he's done all this work to expose injustice. He's got to have a big heart under all that gruffness, or at least he used to."

I explained what I felt we needed to do. Ca.s.sie, because she was getting out soon, would have to have the least risky job. She'd do an informal survey, find out what every girl at Red Rock was in for. How many s.e.xual deviants, how many kleptos, druggies, or none of the aboves. And how many girls were on medication.

"Be careful, Ca.s.sie. Don't take any risks."

"I got it covered, Brit."

I a.s.signed Bebe to get into the medical files-find out how many girls might have had suspicious "accidents" like Martha's or been sick. We needed a list of cases that stunk of typical Red Rock staff neglect.

I gave V what I thought was the second-hardest job: Getting the goods on the staff and finding out how many of them didn't even have the minimum qualifications to dole out advice and meds. She rolled her eyes. "Please, that'll take me all of five seconds. What else you got?"

"The insurance part. If we can prove that Red Rock 'cures' girls as soon as their insurance runs out if their families can't keep paying, that will help make our case."

"Done. And what are you doing?"

"I'm going to break into Clayton's office. Get our files. Compare notes. See if they're making stuff up. And I'm also going to go online, or have Jed do it, to find some graduates who can tell their own torrid tales. I'll bet there are a lot of girls out there who would happily spill their guts about this place."

"It all sounds a mite dangerous," Ca.s.sie said.

"I'm afraid so, darling," Bebe agreed. "You know I love the whole Mission Impossible idea, but however are we going to get access to all this stuff? You act like we can just waltz around wherever we please."

I was beginning to understand that we could do just that. I didn't want to risk the girls getting busted, especially Ca.s.sie, but in my few nights of sneaking around, my confidence had been growing. Red Rock had us all so scared, so convinced that they were lurking around every corner, that we all stayed in line (at least most of the time). But the reality was that Big Brother was mostly in our heads. Red Rock had some half-a.s.sed security system, and one measly nap-loving guard at night. The Sisters had been sneaking out for meetings for almost a year and no one was any the wiser. I'd been caught when I broke out, but that wasn't because any of the staff had nabbed me so much as that someone on the outside had seen me in my uniform and called Sheriff. I was starting to realize that the most effective restraint at Red Rock wasn't the locked doors or the alarms, but our own fear. And only we could unlock that. I tried to explain that to the girls, but at the same time, I didn't want my theory to be their downfall. Ca.s.sie and Bebe still looked a little dubious, but it was V who stepped up and saved me.

"Brit, congratulations. You have just discovered the secret of this place." She had a sad look on her face, but I could see that it was tinged with pride.

"I have?" I asked.

"You have. The only thing we have to fear-okay, maybe not the only thing, but the biggest thing we have to fear, with props to FDR-is fear itself."

Bebe took in a gulp of breath. "Oh, what the h.e.l.l. I'll infiltrate that infirmary if I have to break my leg to do it."

"I'm in too," Ca.s.sie said. "And I'll get Laurel to play sidekick. She works in the office and can make us photocopies if we need 'em."

"I thought you and Laurel were already playing sidekick," Bebe teased, making Ca.s.sie blush as she turned to me. "See, Brit? We've got your back."

"It's down to you, V," I said.

V stared at me, and then the stern mask of her face broke into a sad smile. "Of course, I'm in. There's no question."

"So, darling," Bebe asked. "What happens once we've dug up all the dirt we need?"

I had no idea. But I figured by the time we got there-if we got there-I'd figure it out.

Chapter 24.

For the next two weeks, the four of us were a hive of activity. We hardly saw one another except to check in, share what we'd found, and stash evidence in a hole that Ca.s.sie had dug on the edge of the quarry. All of us were totally invigorated-giddy even-the happiest we'd been since we thought we were getting a spa day with Bebe's mom all those months ago. Except no one else could take this excitement away from us because we were generating it ourselves. Unless, of course, we got caught.

But we didn't get caught, even as we grew more brazen. Bebe successfully called on her acting lineage and faked an epic case of stomach flu, willing herself to barf. "All I have to do is think about the time we were driving in Mexico and my brother puked on me-I just start to go," Bebe said. "I think Mother would call that method acting." She ended up spending three unaccompanied nights in the infirmary, where no one bothered to lock the files, and she left there, cured, with a bunch of names: In addition to Martha Wallace, there were Gretchen Campbell, Natalie Wiseman, and Hope Ellis. Each of the girls had suffered a suspicious setback. Gretchen had broken her leg, Natalie had come down with scurvy, and someone-the file didn't say who-had broken Hope's nose. We couldn't be sure that any of it had to do with Red Rock's neglect, because Helga, the awful nurse who cavity-searched me, wasn't exactly writing down "student suffered broken nose after fighting with a counselor," but Bebe said that in a lot of cases you could read between the lines. Like scurvy. That could easily have come from a vitamin deficiency brought on by Red Rock's horrendously unbalanced meal plan. And heat stroke? It wasn't hard to imagine girls like Martha being forced to stay in the quarry or complete a death march when conditions were unreasonably hot.

V, in that mysterious way of hers, had managed to get all sorts of goods on the staff. None of the counselors had advanced degrees. Two of them weren't even through college. One of the goon guards used to be a pro wrestler, and another goon had supposedly had his license revoked for drunk driving.

"How did you find out all this stuff?" I asked her. "Are you hypnotizing people, or something?"

"I just ask, Brit. When you give them half a chance people love to talk about themselves, and each other."

"Really? I was starting to think you practiced voodoo."

"Not at all. I'm just all smoke and mirrors, like the security system here. I walk into a place like I have a right to be there, and people treat me like I have a right to be there. I act like I have a right to know something, and people tell me what I want to know."

I thought about that. Just act like you had a right to be there. I wondered if I could psych myself into breaking into Clayton's office. Breaking in there and getting our files was the big task I'd set for myself, but so far I hadn't been able to bring myself to do it. There was no camera in Clayton's office, and her file cabinet wasn't locked-just the door was, and I had the pa.s.s key. But it felt like the walls had eyes, like they knew everything that happened even in the dark. Just like Clayton seemed to know what happened in the dark recesses of my mind. Why else would she keep harping on about me and Mom, wanting me to accept the possibility that I was going to end up like her? That the qualities I'd inherited from my mother were really just a stop on the road to madness? Part of me thought I should just own up to it. Otherwise, I'd be stuck on Level Four forever. And maybe if Clayton's theory was completely bogus, I would've pretended to agree with her by now. But I wasn't so sure it was, and I was terrified that admitting it to her would only make it real.

So I put off breaking into her office and helped Ca.s.sie and Jed follow up on former inmates instead. I'd put Jed in charge of tracking down blogs, diaries, or diatribes from Red Rock graduates. He was on the job, happy to be able to help. It felt good to have him on board. He'd found a bunch of stuff and had emailed links to a secret email account we set up. I checked it as much as I could, but it was Ca.s.sie, who took computer cla.s.ses, who insisted on checking our email account the most. This was pretty risky to do right in front of the counselors, but Ca.s.sie insisted on doing more. She'd had a shockingly easy time with her survey. Even the most circ.u.mspect girls opened up to her-even the Stockholm syndrome girls, who tended to look down on the nonbelievers like us, told Ca.s.sie what she wanted to know. Maybe it was because she was leaving, or maybe because everyone knew by now that Ca.s.sie couldn't hurt a fly and wasn't one to spill a secret.

I let Ca.s.sie be our computer girl until she almost got caught. One day in cla.s.s, when she was printing out an email Jed had forwarded, one of the counselors snuck up behind her at her terminal. "I thought my goose was cooked," Ca.s.sie told all of us at one of our late-night meetings.

"What did you do, darling?" Bebe asked.

"I hit the powerstrip on my computer, unplugged the whole thing and prayed. Ain't nothin' anyone could do. I mean a smart counselor might've checked my cache on Explorer, but the counselors here are all hat, no cattle if you know what I mean. Still, I was in a panic they'd see what I'd printed. Trust me, it was a long forty-five minutes."

"I'm glad you didn't get caught, but that's enough Nancy Drew for you, Ca.s.sie. You can do more for us on the outside," I said.

"I s'pose you're right. I wouldn't wanna get this close only to blow it."

"No, you wouldn't," I said, sneaking a glance at V.

After that, I took over the email correspondence. Through Jed I found a guy who'd sued Piney Creek, and he emailed that he would happily tell horror stories about Sheriff, including one about a time when Sheriff la.s.soed him to a chair and sat him in the sun all day. I also got a note from a girl named Andrea who'd been sent to Red Rock ostensibly for drinking. She wrote me that the real reason she'd been sent away was that her parents were fighting for custody of her, and her mom had enrolled her at Red Rock to keep her away from her dad. In the end, her father had to hire a lawyer to get her out. "We've both got lots of sordid things to say about Red Rock and would love to talk to you or whoever else wants to hear about it. I loathe that place with all of my being," she wrote.

I printed out all these emails and stashed them, along with Ca.s.sie's printouts and her survey, Bebe's infirmary records, and V's staff notes, in our secret hole by the quarry. After almost two weeks, we had quite the pile going.

"But our little dossier is missing one important element," V said. "Brit, when are you going to get our files?"

"Tonight."

"You said that last night."

"I know. But Missy was restless. It was too dangerous."

"You want me to go?"

"No, V. I can handle it."

"Then do it, already. You got everyone all riled up with this. You can't turn back now."

"By tomorrow morning," I said, "I'll have the files."

I never made it that night. As I lay in my bed, singing Clash songs in my head for inspiration, I told myself it was because of Missy. She was restless again. It was too dangerous to get caught this late in the game. Missy was a little restless, going to the bathroom a couple of times, but I could've gone if I'd wanted to, if I'd had the guts.

The next morning, Bebe sidled up to me in the cafeteria, dropped a note on my tray and left.

V got caught in Clayton's office last night. Missy told Sheriff that you'd been sneaking around, so they did a stakeout. V's back on Level One. They might press charges against her! I saw her in the bathroom. She said she hid the pa.s.s key in her slipper while they questioned her, and then hid it back in the plant. She said to tell you that she is sorry. What now? Are we screwed?

It was the second time V had taken the fall for me. And once again, I was angry. But this time it was me I was p.i.s.sed at. I'd allowed V to claim responsibility for my breakout and now I'd hesitated in following through with my grand plan. V didn't hesitate. She marched into risk. And willingly paid the price for it.

Right there in the cafeteria I made a decision: I would go into Clayton's office, not that night, when everyone would be looking, but that day. I would go in because I had a right to be there, and the walls were only plaster and brick. I would get our files. I would make copies of them during dinner and I'd have them back before dark. Soon they'd change the key or lock the files or do something to keep one of us from striking again. Now was my window, and I had to leap through before it closed.

Clayton saw students in the morning and then again in the late afternoon, and she left Red Rock in between. I just had to sneak off the quarry and into her office, hide the files somewhere for Laurel to copy, and replace the originals, with no one the wiser. It was the equivalent of a commando mission behind enemy lines in broad daylight, with no camouflage and no backup. But it was what I had to do.

As soon as the door clicked closed behind me, I shuddered. Even though the rest of Red Rock had lost much of its intimidating veneer, Clayton's office still had an ominous atmosphere. It felt like she was there, looking over my shoulder, though I'd checked to make sure her car was gone. I hated Clayton's office more than any other room at Red Rock. It was like a cave housing all my deepest fears. I took a deep breath and reached for her file cabinet. It was unlocked.

An odd calm came over me as I went through the files, plucking out WALLACE, JONES, LARSON, HOWARTH, and finally, HEMPHILL. I knew I had to work fast-get in, get out-but holding my file in my hand, I couldn't resist. I flipped it open, and phrases like "denial" "idealizing iconoclastic characteristics," "narcissism" "in common with mother," "paranoid schizophrenia" glared at me in Clayton's neat print. There was also a sheaf of Xeroxed letters my dad and grandma had sent, including some from Jed. And then there was a letter I'd never seen. It wasn't a copy. It was the original, on what looked like a brown paper bag in handwriting I knew all too well. I dropped the rest of the files and sank to the floor.

My dearest, darling ever-lasting lovey Brit: There are some mornings I wake up and it's almost like I've forgotten the years that have pa.s.sed. I see you so clearly-you in your pajamas, twirling scarves on the lawn, your feet wet with morning dew. You're just a blur of color, all brightness and joy. I'm inside, making breakfast, watching you, thinking, how is it that I made this? How is it that this came from me? Call it life, call it a miracle. I just call it you, my biggest and best contribution to the world.

I'm so sorry for everything that's happened. I'm so sorry for being taken away from you. I count it a blessing that most of the time I don't even know I'm sorry. But every so often comes a day like this when the chase stops, and for a moment, I'm free. It's like at home in the winter, when just for a day, the gray goes away, and the sky is so clear you can see the mountain perfectly. Today is one of those days.

It won't last. The clouds always return to the sky and my own clouds come back to reclaim me. But I write this for you now as a testament-a sign that I was here, that I was your mom once, that I still am.

When I finished reading, my tears were blinding me and I'd dampened the letter. I couldn't see, I couldn't hear, I couldn't move. But then it was like some invisible force pulled me out of that office, away from the dark room where all my worst fears lived.

That same force guided me through the rest of the day. I don't know how else to explain the way I managed to stash the files under my mattress, go back to the quarry, tell Laurel to make the copies, act halfway normal, get the files back from Laurel before dinner, and after dinner return the originals to Clayton's office. Especially on this of all days, when V's break-in had everyone up in arms again and acting all top-security. It was like someone else was leading me; it took me a while to understand that that someone else had really been the strongest part of me.

I hadn't meant to read anyone else's files. The plan had been to distribute each one to its subject and let the girls annotate their own, separating the truth from Red Rock's lies. And really, all I wanted was for Missy to fall asleep so I could read my file again, read Mom's letter again. I figured Grandma must have found Mom's note and sent it to me. But why had Clayton chosen not to show it to me? To protect me? To punish me?

When the lights went out and I cracked our door to read by the glow of the hall, V's papers were on top. And on the top of her file was her date of birth. V was Aquarius, born in February. At first I didn't give it a second thought, and I put her stuff on the bottom to get back to my own file. But then I looked back at her year of birth and I did the math. V was eighteen. She'd been eighteen for months-which meant she could've checked herself out ages ago. And I don't know why, but the truth about V made me cry almost as hard as seeing my mom's letter.

Chapter 25.

"I want to speak to Virginia."

It was the next morning, and after breakfast, instead of going to school, I had walked over to the isolation rooms where V was being kept. Once upon a time, I'd have been frightened to go over there, but, ironically, V's own words egged me on: Act like you have a right to be there. Act like you have a right to know the answers.

"You can't talk to her. She's on Level One," replied the annoying Level Sixer sitting outside the room.

"I wasn't asking your permission," I said.

"I'm going to tell," the Sixer said.

"You do what you have to," I said, pushing past her to open the door. V was in her pj's, sitting on the cot, with her legs curled up against her. When she saw me, she motioned for me to sit down on the bed.

"I probably should stop trying to do you favors," she said, offering up a weak smile.

"Yeah, it doesn't seem to go so well."

"I'm sorry, Brit. I think I blew it. I didn't mean to. I thought everyone was gone, but Sheriff was there waiting for me."