Gallagher Girls 5 - Out of Sight, Out of Time Read Online Free PDF Page B

the convent.
    The couch was just a few feet away, and it felt good to finally sit—to rest. If Mr. Solomon said anything, I didn’t hear it. I was already fast asleep.

 
    “H ello, sleepyhead.”
    I jolted awake in the dim room. My neck hurt and my eyes burned, and it took a moment for me to realize that whoever was speaking, she wasn’t talking to me.
    “There are waffles for breakfast, Joe. Do you remember that little place outside Belfast? What was its name? The cook had a crush on you, and she’d make waffles every morning even though they weren’t on the menu.”
    I watched my aunt Abby sink into the chair next to Mr. Solomon’s bed, reach for my teacher’s hand just like I’d done the night before.
    “What was the name, Joe? Wake up and tell me it’s sloppy of me not to remember the name.”
    She wasn’t asking—she was pleading. She sat for a second, waiting for an answer that never came. Then she leaned closer and straightened the blanket that covered his legs.
    “Cam’s home, Joe,” she said. “She’s back. Of course, you know already know that, don’t you? Because even in here you know everything.” She gave a quick, easy laugh. “Well…that and because she’s sitting right behind me.”
    The thing you need to know about Abigail Cameron is that not only is she an awesome operative, but also, when her hair is down and the light is right and she spins around like she did that morning, she kind of looks like the star of a shampoo commercial. Her eyes didn’t carry the shocked relief of my mother’s. Her face was totally missing the detached anger of my friends. There was nothing but pure happiness in her when she looked at me and shrugged.
    “What? No hello for your favorite aunt?”
    It sounded like she was teasing—she looked like she was teasing. But my homecoming so far had been so totally not tease-worthy, that I guess I just sat there feeling dumbstruck.
    “So. .. were you ever going to say hello?” Abby asked with a pout. “I thought I wasn’t even going to see you until class.”
    “Class?”
    “Oh, yeah.” She smiled. “I’m your Covert Operations teacher, didn’t you hear? And I have to say I kind of rock at it. Of course”—she turned back to the bed, leaned close to Mr. Solomon—“I only agreed to fill in until this guy decides to go back to work.”
    She was daring him, taunting him, challenging him to wake up and say otherwise, but it didn’t happen. Joe Solomon wasn’t going to be dared into doing anything, and Abby gave a sigh as if deep down she knew it.
    “I didn’t know,” I told her. “I mean, if I had known, I would have come to see you, but I didn’t. I found this room last night when the doctors were finished with me, and then I saw Mr. Solomon and…I must have fallen asleep.”
    “We knew where you were, Cam.” All the tease was gone from her voice. “From this point on, we will always know where you are.”
    It was harder to look at her then, so I looked at Mr. Solomon.
    “Is he…better?”
    “He’s stable.” Abby smoothed his hair and pinched his cheek. “Isn’t he a cutie when he’s sleeping?” she asked, and leaned closer. “Get mad, Joe. Roll over and tell me to shut up. Do it.”
    “Has he been here the whole time?”
    Abby nodded. “We have everything we need to care for him. Dr. Fibs spent the whole summer developing a device that will keep his muscles from atrophying. Our medical staff is able to monitor his condition far more closely than a regular hospital would. And, of course, it’s significantly safer. Plus”—she smoothed the blankets—“everyone he loves is here.”
    I thought of the way my mother had sat for days at his bedside, holding his bandaged hands. Everyone he loves .
    “Who knows that he’s…”
    “Not dead? Or not really a double agent working for the Circle of Cavan?” Abby guessed, but then she seemed to realize that the two questions would have the exact same answer. “As few people as