THE VALE CONSPIRACY

Lena's POV "You're doing it again," Tessa says. "Doing what?" "Staring at that wall like it owes you money." I don't turn around. My eyes stand on the photo in the middle of the board, the one of Maya laughing with her head tipped back. The red string runs out from it in every direction. Some strings lead somewhere. Most lead to a pushpin and a dead end. "It does owe me," I say. "It owes me five years." Tessa sighs. I hear her bare feet slap across our kitchen floor, then the hiss of the kettle. It is four in the morning. Our Koreatown apartment smells like instant noodles and old coffee, and the neon sign across the street paints the whole wall pink, then blue, then pink again. "Come sit," she says. "Eat something." "In a minute." "You said that at midnight." "And I meant it at midnight." She laughs, a short, tired laugh, and comes up beside me with a mug in each hand. Her black curls are piled on top of her head, and she wears a T-shirt that says WORLD'S OKAYEST BARISTA. She pushes a mug into my fingers. I take it without looking. "Drink," she says. I sip. It is too sweet. She always adds sugar when she thinks I'm falling apart. "Is this the new one?" She points at a small paper in my other hand. It is a bank receipt, wrinkled and soft at the edges. "Found it in Maya's old textbook. It's from a place in Culver City. Two weeks before she left." "Okay." Tessa takes the tape off the table. "Where does it go?" "Next to the library card." She finds the spot, smooths the receipt flat with her thumb, and tapes it up like it's a family photo. She does this so gently that my throat tightens. She has done it for every scrap I've ever brought home. Never once has she said it doesn't matter. "Thanks," I say. "Don't thank me. Just sleep. Please." "I can't." "You can. You just won't." I turn and look at her at last. She stands with her arms crossed over her chest, chin tilted, the way she does when she is trying to look strong. Her eyes give her away. They are red around the edges. "Lena," she says quietly. "It's been five years." "I know how long it's been." "I know you know. I'm only saying..." She stops. Try again. "Everyone else stopped. Your aunt, the police, even the neighbors. And you stopped going to school. You stopped seeing people. You barely eat." "I eat." "Noodles are not food. Noodles are a hostage situation." She almost smiles, and so do I, just a little. Then it fades. "I'm scared you'll wake up at thirty and this wall will be all you have." I look at the photo again. Maya's laugh. Her crooked front tooth. Her old brown jacket that I still wear when it's cold. "If I stop," I say, "then I'm saying she's gone." "Nobody is saying that." "I am. If I take it down, I'm saying it." Tessa lets out a long breath and rubs her forehead. "Okay. Okay. Then keep going. But eat toast first." "Fine." "Real toast. With butter." "Fine." She goes to the counter. I hear the bread bag crinkle. I sit on the arm of our broken couch and pull my knees up, and my phone buzzes on the cushion beside me. I almost ignored it. At this hour it's always spam or my landlord. But the screen says Vale Household Staffing. I freeze. "Tess." "Hm?" "Come here." Something in my voice makes her drop the knife. She is next to me in two steps, leaning over my shoulder. I open the email with a thumb that won't stop shaking. Dear Ms. Hart, Congratulations. Your application for the position of personal assistant in the household of Mr. Cameron Vale has been approved. Your start date is Monday. Please confirm by reply. Neither of us speaks. The neon outside flips from pink to blue. "Read that again," Tessa says. "I just did." "Out loud." I read it. My voice cracks on the word Vale. "No," Tessa says. "No, no, no. Absolutely not." "Tess..." "Did you apply for this?" "No." "Are you sure? Because you apply for a lot of things at three a.m. You once signed up for a goat yoga class." "I did not apply for this job." I scroll up with my thumb, then down, then up again. "I have never even heard of this staffing company." "Then how do they have your name?" "I don't know." "Your email?" "I don't know!" She snatches the phone out of my hand and squints at it. Her mouth moves while she reads. She is quiet for so long that I hear the toaster tick as it cools. "Cameron Vale," she says at last. "As in the singer. The one with the glass house and the six million followers." "As in Adrian Vale's son." Her eyes snap up to mine. "Yeah," I say. "That Vale." "Lena, that's the name on the back of the photo." "I know." "That's the name Maya wrote in her note." "I know what's in the note, Tessa. I've said it in my sleep for five years." I don't need to look at the wall. The words sit in my head like a stone. If anything happens to me, don't trust the Vales. Tessa hands the phone back like it's hot. "This is a trap." "Maybe." "It is a trap with a nice font." "Maybe," I say again, and I stand up. My legs feel strange, light and heavy at once. I walk to the board and stare at the Vale family tree I drew in black marker two years ago. Adrian. Helen. Cameron. A little arrow from Cameron to a question mark. "Please tell me you're not thinking what I think you're thinking," she says behind me. "I'm thinking it's the first door that has opened in five years." "A door someone opened for you. That's the part that worries me." "I know." "Then why are you smiling?" I touch my cheek. She's right. I am smiling, and it feels like a crack in glass. "Because I'm not scared, Tess. I'm tired of being scared. I've sat in this apartment for five years waiting for somebody to give me an answer, and now somebody is handing me the house." "Somebody is handing you a cage." "Then I'll look around the cage." She grabs my arm and spins me to face her. Her grip is strong, and her hand is cold. "Listen to me. I am your best friend. I will help you with anything. I will tape string to your wall until I'm eighty. But if something happens to you, I will not survive it. Do you understand?" My eyes sting. I hate that they sting. "Nothing is going to happen to me." "That's what she said," Tessa whispers. "Remember? On the porch that night? She said, 'Nothing's going to happen to me, Tess.'" The room goes very still. I did not know she remembered that. "I'm sorry," Tessa says quickly. "I shouldn't have . . ." "No. It's fine." It is not fine. I swallowed hard and pulled my arm back, and for a second I just breathed. "I'll be careful. I'll keep my phone on. You'll know where I am every minute." "Every minute." "Every single one." "And you'll text me when you get there." "Yes." "And if anyone offers you a drink, you say no." "Tessa." "I'm serious!" I laugh, finally, and it comes out wet and shaky. She laughs too, and then we are holding each other in the pink and blue light, her chin on my shoulder, the burnt smell of forgotten toast drifting over from the counter. "One more thing," I say into her hair. "I need to look at the email again. Something's bothering me." She lets go, and I lift the phone. I read it slowly this time, line by line, the way I read everything on the wall. Dates. Pay. A phone number. A start time. At the bottom, in small gray letters, a single line I skipped the first time. Referred by: Family friend. My stomach turns over. "What?" Tessa asks. "What is it?" "It doesn't give a name." "So? Maybe it's a rich person thing." "I don't have any family friends, Tess. I have you, and I have my aunt Victoria, and I have a dead end." I scroll to the address. It is a street in the Beverly Hills flats, one I have circled on a map twice. "Somebody who knows exactly who I am just put me in the Vales' house." Tessa's face goes pale. And on the board behind us, in the blue light of the sign, Maya kept laughing, like she knew this was coming all along.