Free Double Vision by F. T. Bradley Page B

around and went back the way we came.
    I tucked the card into my pocket. That conversation was weird, right? The stuff he said about Albert Black. He’s not who he seems . What did that mean anyway?
    I walked outside, where Steve was waiting in his black SUV. I got inside and saw the dashboard clock: It was twenty minutes after nine. “Can you step on it, Steve?”
    â€œSure thing.” Steve raised the little window and drove me back to the Thrifty Suites in a hurry.
    I couldn’t relax. All I could think about was that package.
    Maybe the key to finding the coat was inside. I would save the president from this bomb-toting Dagger. Be the hero, and leave Ben in my dust.
    I’m pretty sure I set a skateboarding speed record, the cold DC air burning my ears as I whizzed down the street. It wasnine forty-five when I finally reached the address—not that it mattered. Because when I looked up, I saw the sign.
    DC PACKING AND DELIVERY SERVICE
    And you’ll love what it said in big red letters on the glass storefront:
    NOW OPEN 24 HOURS! FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE.
    Thanks for mentioning the around-the-clock opening hours on the phone, Hans. I got all stressed out for nothing.
    So I picked up the package from Hans, who turned out to be just some dude in a polo shirt. The box was square and had URGENT stickers all over it. It felt a little heavy.
    You’re dying to know what’s inside, right? I was, too. But I made myself walk to the motel so I could open it in private.
    While I waited for the elevator, I tried to guess what was in the box. The return address was just a place in Maryland—that told me nothing. I almost shook the box but then figured I might not want to do that. Ben was a secret agent. For all I knew, there was a weapon in there. I imagined what it might be as I rode the elevator to the fifth floor. Knives or spy equipment? Anything was possible, right?
    As I got off on the fifth floor, I brushed past some bald guy in a brown leather jacket getting on the elevator. He was followed by a cleaning lady—the same woman I’d seen just before I left for dinner, with more strands of brownhair sticking out of her hairnet.
    Wasn’t it a little late to be cleaning rooms? And she looked vaguely familiar—I’d seen her someplace other than the motel. But my brain was too stressed for me to remember where. She gave me a smug little smile that said I know something you don’t .
    I was about to call her out when the elevator doors shut right in front of me.
    I punched the elevator call button but knew it was a waste of time. The stairs! I rushed to the stairwell and dropped my board near the door. I wasn’t about to leave my Ben package, but my board, I could risk coming back for.
    I raced down the stairs, clutching the box, hearing my footsteps echo off the concrete walls. Fourth floor.
    Third.
    Second.
    By the time I reached the lobby, I knew it was too late. I waited anyway, watching the elevator doors open. But it was empty.
    My mystery lady and her bald friend were gone.
    Then I had a gut feeling—and it wasn’t just the Tuesday Tacos. I remembered where I’d seen the brown-haired woman before: on the plane that Monday. She’d swiped my file—no doubt about that now. And that same lady had been on the fifth floor. My floor.
    Forgetting the elevator, I rushed up the stairs, two, three steps at a time, feeling the edge of the cardboard box cut into my side. I zoomed past the second, third, and fourth floorexits and yanked open the fifth-floor door.
    I grabbed my board without slowing, feeling like my heart was going to blow up like a bomb inside my chest as I hurried down the hall.
    I reached for my key card, but I didn’t need it.
    The door to 512 was cracked open.
    Someone had broken into my motel room.

19
TUESDAY, 10:02 P.M.
    TO SAY MY ROOM HAD BEEN TOSSED was an understatement. The mattress was leaning up against the wall, and the bottom was