The Shadow Cabinet Read Online Free PDF Page B

I heard his voice wavering and my mom in the background saying, “Is it her? Is it her?”
    â€œI’m fine,” I said. Now there was some strength in my voice, but I was openly crying and turned to the wall, away from Boo and Thorpe. My dad was crying, and my mom had the phone, and I kept saying I was fine. They asked again where I was, and I said something about being safe. They just wanted to know where—where? Where? They would be wherever it was now. They’d come. Where where where . . .
    I said I was safe. I said I didn’t know where Charlotte was. I said I wasn’t with her. I said to tell the police that. I said I needed time. I tried to tell them I loved them, but that was too hard. I hung up in the middle of them saying where, where, where . . .
    I set the phone back on the granite bar and grabbed a paper towel to dry my face. I took a long sip of the water bottle and crinkled it in my grip. The silence that settled on all of us after that noise was one of the most deeply unsettling that I’d ever felt.
    â€œThere are some things we need to do,” Thorpe said. “An attempt was made to kidnap you, and you generally need to stay under the radar for a bit. Your parents won’t immediately stop looking. Basic precautions need to be taken.”
    He went over to his bookcase and pulled down a heavy German-to-English dictionary. Under the cover was a stack of twenty- and fifty-pound notes. He counted off a few of these and handed them to Boo.
    â€œThere’s a Boots two streets north of here. We need hair dye. Not green.”
    Boo always had a different color in her hair. Red or pink streaks, purple edges. At the moment, the bottom third of her bobbed hair was green.
    â€œSomething more natural,” he said. “A contrast. Rory has dark hair. We’ll need to change it. There’s a Marks and Spencer across the road from the Boots. Get Rory a full set of clothes—trousers, a jumper, some shoes and socks. Don’t go for fashionable. As basic as possible. Whatever’s in the front window. Make the shoes practical—a pair of trainers is best. She’ll need a coat as well, and hat, gloves, and scarf. Black, if possible, or any solid color. Nothing with a distinctive pattern or decoration.”
    As Boo left, Thorpe went to the kitchen and got out some scissors and a trash bag.
    â€œYour hair,” he said. “You need to cut it. Take everything you wore when you arrived here and put it in this bag. All the clothes. Shoes. The lot. There’s a dressing gown on the back of the toilet door you can put on until Boo brings your new clothes. The toilet is the first door on the left.”
    It was unsentimental and sudden, but it was action. I needed something to do. I walked in and shut the door and took in my first fully private moment in some time. My parents’ voices were still ringing in my ears. I grabbed a handful of hair on one side and cut. I’d grabbed too much, because the scissors couldn’t get through it, and I had to hack at it a few times, dropping clumps into the sink with every labored snip. Suddenly, my neck and jawline were exposed, curtained by an uneven jag of what remained of that side of my hair. I stood there and looked at myself, mid transition, this lopsided freak and partial stranger.
    My face was very round.
    The girl in the mirror had started to cry. No time for that. I wiped my face on one of Thorpe’s steel-gray hand towels and started in on the other side, going much more slowly. This was a better effort than the first, but it still leaned in the wrong direction, and I had to work at it again to try to make the two sides match. Within twenty minutes, I had what appeared from the front to be a reasonably passable haircut. Or at least I told myself I did. It was not, I told myself firmly, reminiscent of an upside-down pear. I tried to reach around to the back, but I knew I’d mess