Chapter 15
Late Saturday morning in the basement headquarters looked less like a covert operations center and more like a hostage situation organized by caffeine addicts.
Laptops glowed across the conference table. Half-drained coffee cups occupied every flat surface. Somebody, probably Wade, had lined up protein bars beside the tactical maps.
And for the last ten minutes, nobody had accomplished a single useful thing.
Because Piper’s SAT scores would post any second.
Piper sat at the center workstation hunched over the keyboard with the rigid concentration of someone attempting to defuse a bomb manually.
Refresh.
Refresh.
Refresh.
Cara leaned against the storage shelves at the back of the room and watched the collective unraveling.
Wade stood at Piper’s shoulder with his arms crossed, posture locked down tight enough to suggest he was prepared to physically fight the College Board if events took a negative turn.
Tom occupied the rolling chair beside Piper, knees bouncing nonstop, glasses sliding crooked as he leaned so close to the monitor he was practically inside the portal.
Owen stood nearby holding Agent awkwardly against one shoulder, cardigan misbuttoned, looking deeply concerned.
Skye sat cross-legged on the workbench watching the screen with the same flat operational focus she brought to surveillance footage and exit routes. To Skye, apparently, standardized testing and counter-surveillance occupied roughly equal tactical importance.
Honestly, Cara respected the consistency.
Outside the bakery walls, danger kept tightening in slow, careful circles around Haven Cove.
But down here a teenager was waiting to find out whether her future had just cracked open.
And every adult in the room cared too much not to pretend otherwise.
Cara remembered taking tests under borrowed names while her father ran scams three counties over.
Nobody had hovered at her shoulder.
Nobody had worried on her behalf.
No one had ever looked at her future like it mattered.
Watching Tom panic in real time over a standardized test score felt faintly unreal.
Watching Wade do it felt impossible.
Gabe leaned near the monitor wall with a mug of coffee he’d forgotten to drink. Exhaustion still shadowed his face from the last twenty-four hours, but something softer lived underneath it now.
Contentment, maybe. Like standing in this ridiculous basement full of anxious weirdos felt more natural to him than anywhere else.
Cara had not seen that coming either.
Piper hit refresh again.
The screen changed.
She froze.
“Oh no,” Tom whispered immediately.
“Nobody panic,” Owen said, instantly panicking.
Piper made a strangled sound in the back of her throat.
Cara’s pulse jumped. Good reaction? Bad reaction?
Piper stared at the screen like she’d stopped understanding English. “It’s…” She swallowed hard. “It’s…”
Then her entire face broke open. “I got a 1530.”
The room detonated.
Tom grabbed her first, hauling her into a hug hard enough to spin the chair sideways. “I knew it. I absolutely knew it.”
“You literally said you were going to throw up ten minutes ago,” Skye observed.
He kissed the top of his daughter’s head. “That was unrelated.”
Wade waited until Tom finally stepped back before moving in. He rested one heavy hand on Piper’s shoulder. Quiet. Steady. But his eyes looked suspiciously bright.
“Kid,” he said, “you absolutely smoked that mission.”
Piper laughed through sudden tears.
Wade nodded once toward the screen. “Top one percent. Objective secured. Minimal casualties.”
“That is not technically how standardized testing works,” Owen began.
“Nerd,” Skye said automatically.
Piper’s phone buzzed.
She glanced at the screen and gasped. “Janelle. Sorry, guys. I have to take this.”
Tom waved her off. Best friend time was, Cara had learned by watching Piper, sacred.
Phone to her ear, Piper raced up the stairs at full speed. “Fifteen-thirty!” They heard her yell from above. “You got WHAT? That’s ridiculously good. You know that, right? Like insanely good. Brainiac.”
The basement erupted into overlapping laughter.
Tom sat down hard in the rolling chair and dragged both hands down his face.
Cara crossed toward him. “You okay?”
He looked up with damp eyes behind crooked glasses. “No,” he admitted honestly. “I’m having emotions.”
“You’re entitled.”
“I guess I am.” His gaze drifted to his bank of screens.
Habit, more than anything. Cara knew the feeling. When the feels hit, she ducked.
Then she remembered the pastry tray waiting upstairs.
Right. Real life.
People still needed to eat while Neptune circled the town like sharks offshore.
Upstairs, Diane was boxing lemon bars behind the counter while Piper tied on her half-apron with the kind of glowing energy usually associated with Olympic medalists and lottery winners.
“Reagan’s going to lose her mind,” Piper announced the second Cara appeared. “I need to text her. She wanted to be here but Manny’s slammed—”
“I’m taking the pastry tray over,” Cara said, lifting it from the back counter. “I’ll tell her in person.”
Piper’s expression turned soft and hopeful all at once. “Tell her I scored high enough to make it into all three of my dream schools. Oh, and tell Manny if he doesn’t save me a mango street taco, he’s a dead man.”
“I’ll tell him that too.”
Without turning from the display case, Diane said, “I added extra bear claws. Wade doesn’t need to polish them off.”
“I heard that,” Wade called from the basement stairs.
“And? Someone needs to watch out for your health,” Diane replied.
Cara laughed under her breath, picked up the pastry tray, and headed for the front door.
The black SUV was gone from the Marina Inn overflow lot.
Not reassuring.
Worse.
Because predators moved when they finished observing.
Cara stepped into the bright harbor sunlight carrying cinnamon rolls and bear claws toward the people she loved most in the world.
Let Neptune keep watching.
The mistake they were making was assuming Team Sweet and Sawyer intended to stay prey.