Becca opened the notebook.
Birdwatching Notebook, the first page read in Heather’s mom’s neat script.
She tried to banish her disappointment. Maybe the first page was meant as camouflage. She turned the page. She didn’t know what she was hoping to find—a signed confession, maybe. Whatever she was hoping for, it wasn’t what she actually found: a page that was blank except for a date from about a year ago and the names of two birds. Bluebird: Sialia sialis. Barn swallow: Hirundo rustica.
She flipped through the pages. More dates, more birds. Goldfinch: Spinus tristis. On another page, underlined twice: Mockingbird: Mimus polyglottus. Useless, unless she could convince Heather it was some kind of dissident code.
“Was your mom into birdwatching?” Becca asked, hoping the answer was no.
Heather nodded. “She put a feeder outside the window and tried to identify all the birds she saw. She got really excited when she spotted one she’d never seen before.” Her voice was soft with memory. “Why?”
Frustration built to a pounding point between Becca’s temples. “That’s what this is. A birdwatching notebook.” She set it back into the box, only resisting the urge to hurl it across the room because it probably meant something to Heather.
Beside her on the bed, Heather was paging through the photo album, slowly tracing each picture with her finger.
Becca pulled out the last item, the jewelry box, without much hope. She examined each edge carefully, hoping for a secret compartment, but found nothing more mysterious than an earring without a mate.
They weren’t going to find anything.
She hadn’t really expected this to work. Still, the failure tasted bitter in her mouth. After they finished their search and came up empty-handed, Becca would have two choices: tell Heather that her parents were dead and watch her self-destruct, or wait for her to find out some other way and put off the explosion a little longer.
A soft sniff drew her attention. She turned to see Heather wiping away tears as she brushed her finger against the edge of one of the pictures. It showed her parents together, younger, probably before Heather was born. The tears fell faster, and Heather whimpered, like she had forgotten Becca was there.
There was no point in doing any more searching. Dragging this out would only hurt Heather more.
“I don’t think there’s anything here.” Becca took hold of the photo album. Heather didn’t resist as she slid it out of her hands. She wished she could say something else, something to ease Heather’s grief. But every word of reassurance she could offer would be a lie.
As Becca lifted the album, the picture that Heather had been looking at slipped out and fluttered to the bed between them. A piece of paper, folded in half, followed it.
Heather started to grab the paper, then pulled her hand back to her lap.
Whatever this was, it wasn’t the proof of their innocence that Heather was looking for. Nobody wrote out their support for the government and then hid it in a photo album.
Becca picked up the paper and unfolded it. Heather peered over her shoulder at her father’s tiny chicken-scratch scrawls. She deciphered the note before Becca did; Becca could tell from her sharp intake of breath.
The note was dated two days before the arrest. It wasn’t addressed to anyone. Becca squinted until the letters resolved themselves into words.
New info on false confessions—from conversation between Internal agent and someone from an unknown resistance group (both executed). Can you use this?
Ratio of false confessions to real is high: 4 to 1? More?
All confessions about unified resistance are false. It doesn’t exist. That’s why we’ve never been able to make contact.
Most false confessions are scripted by Public Relations. They use expendable prisoners. That means most high-profile executions are not from real resistance groups.
This isn’t widely known, even in Processing. Only a few handle scripted confessions:
Becca skimmed the list of names, hands shaking. She was about to put the note down when the last name on the list jumped out at her.
Raleigh Dalcourt.
Her mother.
Chapter Four
Becca left the apartment not long after Heather did. She walked along the road, past the half-finished new building, paying only enough attention to her surroundings to make sure she didn’t wander into the path of an oncoming car. She needed to get away. She needed to think.
She needed the playground.
All the old apartment buildings on Becca’s street had been demolished a few years ago to make room for more Internal housing. There had been plans to replace the playground down the street from Becca’s building, too, but after the park a couple of streets away had put in a fancy new playground, everyone forgot about the old one. Now weeds grew higher than the seats of the swings, and the metal slide had long since turned red with rust. The wooden playhouse to the side of the swing set had a sinister feel to it; whenever Becca walked by it she half-expected a killer to jump out.
This place used to scare Becca. For the past few years, though, she had come here whenever she needed a break from the world.
She needed that now.
She climbed the precarious ladder up to the top of the slide, where she sat cross-legged, watching the grass sway in the wind. The construction noises from down the street provided a background to her thoughts.
The words of the note repeated in her mind. The things Heather’s dad had written about so casually seemed impossible to Becca. The idea of Processing scripting dissidents’ confessions, faking an entire network of dissidents…
She would have called it dissident activity—what else could she call a plot to make the dissidents appear stronger than they were?—if Processing weren’t a part of it. If her mother weren’t a part of it.
Of course, all this was assuming the things in the note were true. She had no reason to—
At the edge of her vision, something moved.
Becca jerked her head around to face the playhouse, where she had seen the brief flicker of motion. Whatever it had been, it was gone now. Probably just more paranoia. She looked away, feeling silly.
It happened again. A flash of color between the boards of the playhouse.
She spun her head toward the playhouse again—just in time to see somebody walk out.
She didn’t move, didn’t even breathe, but the intruder looked up at her anyway. As soon as she saw his face, she recognized him. Jake. Giving her that smile, the one that made her want to trust him. She wouldn’t fall for it this time. She knew what he was.
She couldn’t deal with him right now. Not after what she had found.
She returned his smile with a glare. “What are you doing here?”
She knew she should be trying not to look suspicious. But right now she couldn’t bring herself to care.
He shrugged. “I just came here to think. It seemed like a good place to be alone.”
Right. Like he had just happened to run into her in the hallway yesterday. “You don’t need to worry about me getting in your way. I was just leaving.” She inched her way back down the ladder, tensing each time it creaked.
“You don’t have to go,” he said. “Maybe we can finish our conversation from yesterday. You know, since you ran off in the middle.”
She stepped off the ladder and onto solid ground. Her headache was starting to pulse behind her eyes again. “I have to get home.”
“Maybe some other time, then. I’ll see you in school tomorrow, right?”
“I guess.” She started walking toward the road. Leaving now would look rude. Maybe even suspicious. But she had to get out of here before she exploded.