The Library Book

#44 - The SATs

Chapter 44 - The SATs
published: Wednesday, 21 October 2020

formal apologies for taking basically two months to write this...

—*—

"Everyone, meet Percy and Annabeth!" James declared as he dragged them to the front of the meeting room.

Percy waved brightly at the room — consisting of the precinct captain, lieutenant and three other detectives.

One of the detectives, a middle-aged Chinese man raised his hand. "Which is which?"

James pointed at him. "Don't be dumb, Ollie." He turned to Percy reassuringly. "Ignore him."

Sabrina feigned a bored yawn from her position on one of the desks at the front of the room. "Okay, so everyone in here is on the Mortelli case; which, as you'll all remember, is as close to completion as we'll ever get."

James nodded in agreement. "Now, we don't want him catching any whiff of what we're arranging here, or he'll get spooked and escape to Ecuador or something."

Percy saw a confused expression cross the face of the female detective beside 'Ollie'. She appraised James with an inquisitive look. "Okay, so what's your plan?"

"My...plan," James mumbled distractedly, averting his gaze. Percy felt Annabeth nudge him in the side. When he looked over, she wriggled her eyebrows suggestively, jerking her head in the direction of James and the female detective.

"Nadia," Sabrina cut in, not even bothering to hide the smirk she shot her partner. "Our plan actually involves catching Mortelli in the act — concrete evidence no attorney could dispute."

James, who appeared to have recovered his wits, gestured to Percy and Annabeth. "Mortelli hates them." Ollie raised a hand again, and James continued, "Exactly, sounds pathetic to have your arch rivals be teenagers — but I'm giving him a free pass."

"Because he's a psychopath," Annabeth filled in helpfully.

"Right," Nadia said with understanding.

The captain, who was older than the lot of them, cleared his throat. "James and Sabrina have already briefed me on their plan, which involves using Percy and Annabeth as bait — again."

"Won't Mortelli know what's going on?" the lieutenant questioned. "We already used that tactic once."

"Which is why we don't expect it to work ont he first try," Sabrina agreed. "But we're hoping that the prospect of revenge is enough to lure him out. We'll give it a couple of weeks, and if we don't get anywhere, we'll come up with something else."

"Sorry to have to involve you like this," the captain informed Percy.

"It's okay," Percy reassured. "She broke his leg once." Annabeth shot him a glare out of the corner of her eye.

+++++

"Shaded area, Percy," Annabeth reprimanded. "You found the—"

"Unshaded," Percy groaned. "Now I have to start all over again." He propped himself up on his elbows, the springs of Annabeth's bed bouncing beneath his movement as he glumly picked up a pencil and crossed out his answers. 

"Wait, you can just subtract the unshaded area from the whole area," Annabeth nudged him in the side. She was sitting cross-legged on the foot of her bed with an SAT prep book open on her lap. Percy glanced up at her. This has to be way too easy for Annabeth. Why was she even studying?