Freak Read Free Page B

to sink with the finality of it all. “Starting now.”
    Out with the Old . . .
    GAIA OPENED THE DOOR TO THE 72nd Street apartment on Friday after school and immediately went on alert. There was a crash coming from Natasha’s—no, her father’s —bedroom. She and Jake looked at each other. There was someone else there.
    Her first instinct was to call her father’s name and see if it was him. But what if it was an intruder? Then she’d just end up calling attention to herself and Jake. Gaia tiptoed toward the living room, herrubber-soled boots soundless on the hardwood floor.
    Footsteps approached, confident and loud and not remotely trying to be stealthy. Gaia flattened herself against the nearest wall, around the corner from the hallway. That was when her father emerged into the room, all smiles.
    â€œHey, honey!” he said, shuffling a few envelopes in his hands. His dress shirt was unbuttoned at the top and the sleeves were rolled up above his wrists. “I didn’t hear you come in!”
    His eyes flicked to Jake, who was now standing outside the door to the kitchen, his muscles visibly slackening.
    â€œHello, Jake,” Tom said as Gaia forced her fingers and her jaw to unclench.
    Her father breezed by her and sat down at the head of the dining room table where there were dozens of neatly arranged piles of bills and papers. He started pulling papers out of the envelopes, sorting them, and tossing the envelopes into the kitchen garbage can.
    Gaia eyed her father. This was all very weird. Not only was he home in the middle of the day, but he was doing paperwork—something she hadn’t seen him do . . . ever. When her mom was alive, that was her territory, and since then her father had never been around for enough days in a row to even know that there were bills.
    On top of it all, there was an odd air about him. He was humming. His knee was bouncing under thetable. Her father was normally cool, aloof, sometimes intense, but always in a quiet way. Just then he was acting, well, hyper.
    â€œDad?” Gaia asked, tucking her hair behind her ears. “Everything okay?”
    â€œFine. Great, actually,” he said, glancing up at her for a split second before returning his attention to the papers.
    Jake moved into the room, stuffing his hands into the front pockets of his jeans and giving Tom a wide berth. Gaia could tell that Jake sensed something was up.
    â€œI heard a crash in the bedroom,” Gaia said, sitting down in a chair across from her father. She pulled her messenger bag off over her head and laid it on the floor.
    â€œRight, I broke a lamp,” her father said. “I’ll clean it up later.”
    Gaia looked at Jake and he tilted his head, giving her a look that said, “He’s your father.”
    â€œOkay, so what are you doing home?” Gaia asked, glancing at her black plastic watch. “It’s four o’clock.”
    â€œI decided to take some time off,” Tom said, slapping a piece of paper down on top of a pile. Her father taking time off? Was this some kind of new, previously unexplored reality?
    â€œWhat? But Dad, what about Natasha and Tatiana? What about your kidnappers? You can’t just—”
    â€œBut I am,” he said calmly. “My director thinks I need to take a break and I agree.”
    He was lying. She could tell by the way his jaw was tensing, making his cheek bulge slightly. He didn’t want to take time off—his director was making him. This was insane. How were they supposed to find out who had kidnapped him if they weren’t even going to let him interrogate the two people who might give them a lead?
    â€œWe’re both going to have to let the CIA do their job,” her father said, reading her distraught expression perfectly.
    Gaia had no idea how he could be so accepting of this. Her father wasn’t a quitter; he was a fighter—just like