Read Online Double Crossed by Ally Carter - Free Book Online

the proudest moment of her family’s long and colorful past. She imagined everyone sitting around Uncle Eddie’s kitchen table years from now, telling about the time little Katarina stole a whole other life and then walked away without a trace.
    Well, almost, Kat thought as she carried her bags past the once-perfect lawn. Ruts still tracked to and from the mangled fountain in the center of the quad: a muddy reminder that would no doubt last until spring.
    She heard laughter coming from behind her, and turned. A group of eighth grade boys was standing together, whispering, until one bravely broke away from the pack.
    “Uh…” he started, then glanced back at his friends, summoning courage. “We were wondering…um. How’d you do it?”
    A stretch limo pulled through the ornate gates and up to the curb. The trunk popped open. As the driver started for her bags, Kat looked at the boys and then back at Colgan one final time. “ That is an excellent question.”
    The bells chimed. Students hurried between classes, across the quad. And as Kat crawled into the backseat of the limo, she couldn’t help feeling slightly sad, or as sad as anyone could feel about losing something that wasn’t rightfully theirs to begin with. She leaned back and sighed, “Well, I guess that’s over.”
    And it would have been…if another voice hadn’t said, “Actually, it’s just beginning.”

K at jumped. In the dim light, she hadn’t noticed the figure sitting at the other end of the limo’s bench, smiling back at her.
    “Hale?” she asked as if the boy might be an imposter. But then a very different question crossed her mind. “Hale, what are you doing here?”
    “I thought you might need a ride.”
    “The headmaster’s office called me a car.”
    He shrugged, indifferent but amused. “And here I am in a submarine.”
    As the limo pulled out of the school’s circular driveway, Hale turned and looked out the window. Kat watched him take in the grounds, a faint smile on his lips as if there were no place on earth he really had to be. Kat sometimes wondered if that kind of self-assurance was something only very old money could buy. Then she wondered if it was something you could steal.
    Hale waved as the gates of the Colgan School faded into the distance. “Good-bye, Colgan!” He turned to her. “Hello, Kitty Kat.”
    “Hale, how did you know I was…”
    But Kat didn’t finish. Suddenly, she wasn’t in the back of a limo—she was sitting on a hard chair, staring at the black-and-white surveillance footage of someone in a hooded sweatshirt running across the quad. She was looking at the image of her own student I.D. magnified on a TV screen. She was watching Headmaster Franklin hold a crumpled vanity plate above his head for all to see.
    “Hale,” Kat sighed. “The headmaster’s car? Really? That’s not too clichéd for you?”
    “What can I say?” He shrugged. “I’m an old-fashioned guy. Besides, it’s a classic for a reason.” He leaned against the window. “It’s good to see you, Kat.”
    Kat didn’t know what to say. It’s good to see you too? Thanks for getting me kicked out? Is it possible you’ve gotten even hotter? I think I might have missed you?
    So instead she settled on, “Did my father put you up to this?”
    Hale exhaled a quick laugh and shook his head. “He hasn’t returned my calls since Barcelona.” He leaned closer and whispered, “I think he might still be mad at me.”
    “Yeah, well, that makes two of us.”
    “Hey,” Hale snapped. “We all agreed that that monkey seemed perfectly well trained at the time.”
    Kat simply shook her head. “You got me kicked out, Hale.”
    He grinned and gave a slow bow. “You’re welcome.”
    “You trashed the headmaster’s car.”
    “W. W. Hale the Fourth bought that car for Headmaster Franklin, or didn’t they mention that? Granted, it was to make up for a fire that W. W. Hale the Fifth allegedly started in the eighth grade—before