Salem's Cipher Read Online Free

blood pressure cuff. The two of them have built a winding pillow-and-quilt fort and are playing “Escape” during what Gracie jokingly calls “Spy Night,” something they do every Wednesday, with Bel and Salem playing and the three adults drinking wine in the other room.
    â€œBecause I got the goggles?” Salem slides them to Bel. “You can have ’em.”
    â€œNo.” Bel shakes her head. The quilt fort has slipped at this corner, letting in light, so Salem can see Bel’s fine, reddish-blond hair sway toward the static electricity in the blanket like tiny snakes being called out of a basket.
    Salem giggles.
    â€œIt’s not funny.” Bel scowls.
    Salem wants to tell her that she’s laughing at Bel’s hair, not her words, but she isn’t sure that would help.
    â€œYou’re the luckiest duck because your dad is here.”
    Salem sets the goggles on the floor in case Bel really does want them. “Where else would he be?”
    â€œMy dad isn’t here.”
    It’s true. Salem has never met Bel’s dad. Neither has Bel. It’s just how things are. Salem has never questioned it. “Do you want him to be?”
    Bel licks her palm and runs it through her hair. It makes a crackling noise. “Kids are supposed to have two parents. Everyone knows that.”
    Bel is three years older than Salem. She’s used to Bel knowing more. She likes hanging out with someone so smart. “I guess.”
    Bel touches the edge of the goggles. “I’m going to be a police officer. Then I can find my dad.” She adds an afterthought. “I can help other people too.”
    Salem smiles. “If I were a spy, we could work together!”
    Bel holds out her hand. Salem grasps it. It feels warm and soft. They shake.
    â€œBest friends forever,” Bel says.

3
    Linden Hills, Minneapolis
    B el stepped out of the Minneapolis terminal, a one-hour red-eye flight having delivered her from Chicago to Minneapolis. She was bleary-eyed, face puffy from crying, still beautiful. Salem wanted to hold her but there wasn’t time. They sped through the disorienting pre-dawn—fog, henna-colored light, air scented with lake and leaves and eggy car exhaust—toward Grace’s four-story Linden Hills apartment building. They gripped hands, Salem unsure if it was her hand or Bel’s that was corpse-cold.
    Still, the words didn’t come, not until they took a quiet corner in one of Minneapolis’s tonier residential neighborhoods and Grace’s apartment loomed into view.
    â€œHoly shit.” Salem slapped her hand over her mouth. That was the wrong thing to say.
    It’s just she hadn’t expected there to be so many police cars.
    Neighborhood Halloween decorations added a level of surrealism to the scene. A witch collided face-first into a tree in the lawn south of the apartment building. A hanged rubber corpse was strung next to it. Fake gravestones decorated the yard of the house on the north side, strung with orange twinkle lights that pierced the predawn murk.
    Bel flew out of the car before it rolled to a complete stop. She bounded past the fleet of police cars toward her mom’s apartment building and stopped at the nearest uniform, her badge in her hand.
    Salem switched off the car in the middle of the street, snatched her purse, and raced to catch up. She scanned the gathering crowd for Vida. She’d tried her mom as soon as she’d hung up with Bel four hours and a lifetime ago, but Vida had never answered. She must be frantic. Gracie was her best friend. They’d been inseparable as long as Salem could remember, and they’d passed on that loyalty to their daughters.
    Salem reached Bel’s side, out of breath. Bel was asking questions in her police officer voice, controlled and firm. Her hair was tied in a messy pony tail, her expensive jeans and Salvation Army t-shirt rumpled from the flight, but even so,