The Academy Read Free Page A

physical contact between them brought unexpected and not entirely unpleasant feelings for Steel. Nothing he was comfortable with. They backed away an arm’s length and both erupted into blushing laughter, then talked over one another in a stream-of-consciousness blabber that had Kaileigh’s driver looking on in bewilderment.
    “Steel’s the reason I’m here,” she informed a middle-aged woman Steel hadn’t seen. She introduced the woman as Miss Kay, and Steel felt he knew her. Kaileigh had told him a great deal about her governess. Miss Kay shook hands with Steel, but he sensed her disapproval.
    “What do you mean, I’m the reason?” Steel asked Kaileigh.
    “Your father, I should say,” she informed him.
    “My father…”
    “He didn’t tell you?” She studied him for some kind of crack in his veneer. Was he kidding? “It was his idea. Your father’s. Wynncliff Academy. For me to go here. All my parents’ money, and it took your father pulling strings to make this happen.” She stepped forward and spoke in a whisper. Her breath smelled impossibly sweet—like a vanilla milk shake. “It’s not your typical school, you know?”
    He thought of the boys in the gym. Did she know more than he did? “I know,” he said, not really knowing. “But how was my father…?”
    “He contacted my parents about my going here. My parents have been planning on boarding school for me since I was about six. But this place? Do you know it’s not on the registry of private schools? It has like, unlisted phone numbers, no Web page. I mean…are you kidding me? And you don’t just apply: you’re invited to apply.”
    Steel knew approximately none of this. But he tried to look both unsurprised and unimpressed.
    “Which is where your father came in,” she said, returning him to the moment.
    “Enough, Miss Kaileigh,” Miss Kay said. “You’ll have time for catching up later.” The governess glanced overhead into the thick canopy of leaves, the branches swaying in the wind. She looked at Kaileigh thoughtfully, sympathetically, and shook her head. Clearly, beautiful campus or not, Miss Kay felt sorry for leaving her charge at such a place.
    “Can I help?” Steel offered, eyeing Kaileigh’s bags.
    “Sure, if you want,” she said.
    He reached for one of the larger bags but, trying to pick it up, changed his mind and opted for one of the many smaller ones. He took two, one in each hand. To his surprise, Miss Kay hoisted the heavy one like it was nothing.
    “My father?” he asked Kaileigh, still dumbfounded that he’d played a role in her attending Wynncliff. His father was full of surprises. Only recently had Steel found out that he worked for the FBI, that he wasn’t the computer salesman he’d always claimed to be. He was some kind of undercover investigator. He infiltrated organized crime and ferreted out wanted criminals. It was dangerous work, and Steel had never imagined his father— his father —to be that kind of person.
    Another thing he’d learned about his father was that he never did anything without a reason. So why had he helped Kaileigh be admitted to Wynncliff? To what purpose? To provide Steel a friend in hopes that he would like the place? He didn’t put anything past his father.
    “Can you believe this?” she asked excitedly, almost reading his thoughts. “Both of us here!”
    No, he thought. No, I can’t. But he held his tongue.
    Kaileigh was smarter than he was—he knew that. She lacked his photographic memory, a condition that tricked people into thinking he was smarter than he was. She, on the other hand, had a bright intelligence and street smarts that permeated everything she did. She had a keen sense about people, and plenty of nerve. He’d met her on a train on the way to the National Science Challenge. They’d had a wild time together—had been the target of a gang with terrorist connections. Together they’d saved a kidnapped woman’s life. She possessed an internal