Free Elementary, My Dear Watkins by Mindy Starns Clark Page A

that sometimes we cannot undo what has been done. Success does not come cheap, my friend, and it is not always worth the price paid.”
    “I’m not worried about any of that,” Danny said, settling back into the seat, eager to change the subject. “And I’m no stranger to hard work. But I’d love to hear some stories from the road. Tell me about your most exciting photo shoot.”
    Mr. Bashiri smoked several long puffs before he answered, seeming to accept the change of subject and moving in the conversational direction of Danny’s choice.
    “There have been many, too many to choose,” Mr. Bashiri said, resting the hand that held his pipe on his knee, “but there was this one time in the Sudan…”

    Alexa carefully folded the blueprint and slid it down the front of her shirt. Then she put the cap back on the empty tube, climbed up on the stool, and put it back where she had found it.
    What was it her tutor was always telling her? Knowledge is power?
    You bet, baby .
    With this map, she had everything she needed to make her escape. Now she just had to get it back to her room without being spotted, hide it somewhere safe, and go over it again more carefully tonight. From just a quick glance, she had found several possible routes. Right now, she was more happy and excited than she’d been in weeks. She was going to get some freedom after all.
    She crossed to the door, listened for a long moment, and carefully unlocked it without a click. Holding her breath, she pulled it open and peeked out into the hall. No one was there.
    So far, so good.
    If only it weren’t so far back to her bedroom. Sometimes this house felt bigger than the Newark train station. Alexa crossed her arms in front of her chest, nervous about the crinkling noise the blueprints made, and headed off. She tried to walk casually, as if nothing were wrong, as if she hadn’t just stolen a map of the whole estate and tucked it into her shirt.
    She passed two of the part-time maids in the hallway, but they were chatting with each other and barely noticed her. Alexa kept going. She still had to get all the way upstairs and down the hall without running into Consuela, the full-time cook and housekeeper. Consuela was nice and all, but she was always too much in Alexa’s business, always asking how she felt and if she missed her mother.
    “Señoritas need their mamacitas,” Consuela liked to say. “They belong together.”
    Alexa had overheard a conversation once between Consuela and the physical therapist, Yasmine. Consuela kept saying how wrong it was to remove a girl from her mother’s home and plunk her down in a mansion without any parents at all, even if it was for the sake of science. Yasmine just parroted Dr. Stebbins, saying that Alexa was a “medical miracle” and an “astounding prodigy” and that living here gave her opportunities far beyond anything her mother could ever provide.
    “Don’t kid yourself,” Consuela had responded sharply, taking her anger out on Yasmine, even though she had nothing to do with it. “I think Mrs. Bosworth is getting a lot more than she’s giving with this arrangement. Or at least she will once Dr. Stebbins brings home his Nobel prize.”
    Alexa had slipped away at that point, choosing not to hear the rest of their conversation. She didn’t like it when people talked about her that way—as though she was the sum of all those tests and examinations they were always doing, rather than a real person with feelings. Consuela’s intentions were good, but she had been wrong about one thing: Taking Alexa out of her mother’s home and plunking her down anywhere was the nicest thing anyone could have done for her. At least now Alexa didn’t lie awake at night worrying that her mother’s freebasing would catch the house on fire, or wake up the next morning to find yet another “uncle” in her kitchen, making breakfast. To be honest, her mom had never been much of a mother.
    Sometimes, Alexa didn’t even