Perfect Cover by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Author:Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780375849152
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2008-02-11T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 19

Code Word: Bubbles

Checking your email every fifteen seconds isn’t a healthy habit. I know this, and usually the only reason I check my email is to activate new user accounts through which I can mask my own internet activity, but Chloe had said she’d send the files my way, and as much as she wasn’t exactly the Honest Abe of the cheerleading world, I didn’t think she cared enough about what I thought to lie to my face. At least not about this.

I refreshed my inbox.

“Wow. You get like totally no email.”

I physically jumped in my seat, and Bubbles tilted her head to the side.

“Bubbles,” I said slowly.

“Uh-huh?”

“What are you doing in my room?”

“Watching you check your email.” She tilted her head in the other direction. “You don’t have any.”

I was tempted to thank her for the clarification, but became incredibly distracted when, without any warning, she hooked her hand around one of her ankles and lifted her leg straight up until it nearly hit her ear. To top it off, she just stood there, looking at me, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, like she hadn’t just contorted herself into a position that was painful to even look at.

“Stop doing that,” I told her.

“Doing what?”

The sad thing was, she was serious.

I gestured to her foot with my head, and when she turned and saw her ankle an inch away from her face, she blinked several times, surprise etched thoroughly into her baby-faced features.

I stared at her, refusing to say another word as she lowered her leg.

“Sometimes I do that without realizing I’m doing it,” she clarified needlessly.

“Bubbles.”

“Uh-huh?”

“What are you doing in my room?”

I could practically see déjà vu replacing the surprise on her face. I swore to myself that if she said a single word about my email, I was going to toss her out of my second-story window.

“I was on my way back from the stakeout thingy,” Bubbles said. “Chloe called, so I went to her house, and she said to give you this.” She thrust out a pink square box.

What was with these girls and pink?

It took me about a second to realize that pink or not, this box in all likelihood held the information I’d asked for. Chloe just hadn’t sent it via email. She’d sent it Ditz Delivery instead.

I opened the box, and inside there was an old-school Britney Spears CD.

“If this doesn’t have phone tones on it,” I told Bubbles, “Chloe is a dead girl.”

Bubbles tilted her head to the side.

I popped the CD into my computer, and prepared myself to immediately turn it off if “Baby One More Time” blared from the speakers. Instead, a password protection window popped up on the screen. Chloe hadn’t included the password in the package.

I smiled. My fingers flew across the keys, trying different combinations. I did some hard-core googling, and within minutes, I’d tried every combination of Chloe’s address, her cell phone number, her birthday, and the words to our halftime cheer.

Bubbles watched, fascinated, until the urge to do a back bend overcame her, and then she bent over backward and out of my peripheral vision.

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