Crosstalk (16 page)

“You don't have to get out,” Briddey said.

“You can't carry all this stuff by yourself.” He handed the violets and the throw-up pan to her and retrieved everything else, including Trent's bouquet of roses, from the back seat, raced up the stairs with them, and came back down to help her.

Once inside her apartment, he set the roses on the coffee table and took everything else into the bedroom. “This was on the bed,” he said, returning with a note. He handed it to her.

It was from Kathleen: “Sorry I missed you. What's the favor you need? Call me.”

“I wouldn't if I were you,” C.B. said. “The nurse said you should rest. Is there anything you need before I go? A cup of tea or something?”

“No, I'm fine,” she said, and he immediately went to the door, clearly in a hurry to be gone. Why? Where was he going?

“To do some more research,” he said, opening the door. “If anything happens—you connect to Trent or start feeling those ‘flickers' Dr. Verrick talked about, or if your head falls off—let me know,” and went racketing down the stairs.

Briddey shut the door and looked at the clock. It was a quarter past one. She still had forty-five minutes to connect with Trent before he began wondering why they hadn't. She turned on her phone to see if there were any messages from him and then turned it off again so Kathleen couldn't call and went into the kitchen.

She pulled out a chair and sat down at the table, clasped her hands together, and squeezed her eyes shut.
Trent,
she called.
Come in, Trent—

I forgot to tell you,
C.B. said,
that app we were discussing—

What app?

The one I was showing you in my lab this afternoon when nobody could reach you. Just in case anybody asks. Rule Number Three of Lying: Have a cover story ready in case people start asking questions.

I thought you said I didn't need—

He ignored her.
It was an app to use with Twitter. For when you send out a tweet you shouldn't have. It automatically holds it for ten minutes so you can decide, “Jesus, what was I thinking? I can't send this!” and delete it before it goes out to everybody and destroys your career. I call it SecondThoughts, which is what you should be having if you're still thinking about telling Trent or Dr.—

I thought you had research to do,
Briddey said, and, just in case he came back, went over to the front door and put the deadbolt on. She wished there was one that would work against his voice.

No, you don't
, he said.
What if you need another ride?

I won't.

You might. You never know. If you do, you know how to get in touch with me.

Very funny
. She went back into the kitchen and sat down again.
Can you hear me, Trent?
she called.
Where are—?

Someone knocked on the door.
If that's you, C.B.
, Briddey thought,
go away
.

“Briddey?” Mary Clare called, knocking again. “Open the door. I have to talk to you! It's an emergency!”

“Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.”

—Monty Python's Flying Circus

“Can you hear me, Briddey?” Mary Clare called from outside the door. “I've got to talk to you about Maeve. And don't try to pretend you're not in there, because I know you are. You've got the deadbolt on.”

Yes, or you'd already be in here,
Briddey thought, crossing the room to let her in.

I wouldn't do that,
C.B. warned.
Your hospital bracelet, remember?

“Hang on. I'll be right there, Mary Clare,” Briddey called, and sped to the kitchen to get a knife.

And you'd better do something about that bruise from the IV, too
.

Briddey grabbed a steak knife, sawed the plastic bracelet off, jammed it far down into the wastebasket, and then ran into the bathroom to find an adhesive bandage for her hand.

None of them were big enough.
Use an Ace bandage,
C.B. told her.
That way you can say you've got a touch of carpal tunnel,
but she didn't have an Ace bandage either. She had to settle for tying some gauze around her hand, with the sinking feeling that that would only draw attention to it.

It did. When Briddey opened the door, Mary Clare said, “What on earth were you doing that took so—oh, my gosh, what happened to your hand?”

“Nothing,” Briddey said. “I cut it…” And then for the life of her she couldn't think of a single thing she could have cut the back of her hand on.

You don't need anything,
C.B. said.
Remember Rule Number Two? No explanations. They only get you into more trouble
.

Go away,
Briddey hissed. “I had a flat tire on the way home from my meeting,” she said, “and—”

“How on earth did you manage to cut yourself on a tire?”

“I didn't. I cut it on the jack.”

“The
jack
? Why on earth were you changing the tire yourself? Why didn't you just call Triple A to come and change it? Or Trent?”

“I didn't have any cellphone coverage—”

“You're kidding! Where were you?”

Told you,
C.B. said.

Oh, shut up,
Briddey snapped. “You said you needed to talk to me about Maeve. What's happened? Did she lock herself in her room again?”

“Yes. How badly did you cut it? Let me see.” Mary Clare reached for her hand.

No wonder Maeve locked herself in her room,
Briddey thought, snatching her hand back out of reach. “I'm fine,” she said. “Tell me about Maeve.”

“She refuses to let me in, and when I tried to get on her Facebook page to see what was going on, she'd unfriended me. I
knew
I shouldn't have let her be on Facebook! You're friends with her, aren't you?”

“Yes—”

“Good. Then you can get me to her page.” Mary Clare went over to Briddey's computer. “What's your password?”

Briddey glanced at the clock. After two. She was almost out of time, and if she didn't give the password to her, Mary Clare would be here forever.

You're kidding?
C.B. said.
You can't let her invade a little kid's privacy like that!

Like you're invading mine?
Briddey shot back, but he was right. Maeve would never forgive her. “Mary Clare, I'm not letting you spy on Maeve using my computer. And if she unfriended you, she'll have unfriended me, too.”

“True. You don't know how to pick locks, do you?”

“No. I thought you were going to install a nanny cam.”

“I did. Maeve did something to it so that it transmits YouTube videos instead,” Mary Clare said, and Briddey had to bite her lip to keep from smiling.

“We'll have to call a locksmith,” Mary Clare was saying. “Do you know any?”

“No, and even if I did, I am not helping you break into Maeve's room,” Briddey said.

“But what if she's arranging to meet a terrorist as we speak?”

“She's
not
meeting terrorists—”

“You don't know that. Just because everything seems fine on the surface, that doesn't mean it is.”

That's true,
Briddey thought.

“There could be all kinds of things happening that we don't know anything about. You read constantly about children getting into trouble and their parents not knowing. I just read about an eighteen-year-old who was running an international money-laundering operation from the computer in his bedroom, and his parents didn't have the slightest idea.”

“Maeve is not running a money-laundering operation. She's nine years old.”

“Then what's she doing, and why won't she let me in her room? And why this sudden obsession with reading?”

“I told you, all the third-grade girls are reading
The Darkvoice Chronicles.
”

“No, no, she finished that. Now she's reading something called
The Secret Garden.
Do you know that one? What's it about?”

A nine-year-old girl with lots of freedom and no mother.

“It doesn't have any zombies in it, does it?” Mary Clare was asking.

“No. It's a Victorian children's classic. With a totally unsquelched heroine. Look, Mary Clare, if you're so worried about what she's reading, why don't
you
read the books?” Briddey asked. If she was busy reading, she wouldn't have time to harass poor Maeve.

“That's a good idea,” Mary Clare said thoughtfully. “But it still doesn't explain why she's unfriended me. Or why she won't let me in her room.”

I have
got
to get her out of here,
Briddey thought.
I'm running out of time.
“Look, how about if I call her and talk to her?”

“Or, better yet, Skype her,” Mary Clare said eagerly. “That way we can see if she's hiding something in her room.”

What? Stacks of laundered money?
“I can't call her while you're here,” Briddey said. “She'll know you put me up to it.”

“I'll keep out of the frame so she can't see me.”

“No. Go home, and I'll call her in a little bit.”
After I've safely connected with Trent.
“And in return, you have to promise me you'll stop fussing over her like a psychotic mother hen.”

“I am
not
a—you really should get that hand looked at, you know. You might need stitches.”

“And stop fussing over
me,
” Briddey said, pushed her out the door, and leaned against it, thinking,
Finally. Trent, please make contact before something else hap—

There was a knock on the door.

I told you you should have come over to my apartment,
C.B. said.
There's a lot less traffic.

Go
away,
Briddey said, and opened the door.

It was Mary Clare. “There's something wrong with your phone,” she said. “I just tried to call you and couldn't get through.”

“What did you want?” Briddey asked.

“To tell you if you can't get anything out of Maeve when you talk to her, you could suggest taking her to Carnival Pizza and then to a movie.”

Though presumably not one with a princess in it,
Briddey thought, and tried to shut the door.

“If that jack was rusty, you could get lockjaw. You need to get a tetanus shot—”

“Goodbye, Mary Clare,” Briddey said, and shut the door.

“Don't forget to check your phone,” Mary Clare called.

“I won't,” Briddey called back, and since Mary Clare would come back again if she couldn't get through, she switched her phone on.

It rang instantly.

“I forgot to tell you something,” Mary Clare said. “You're not still planning on getting that EED, are you? Because I read this thing about how they can cause terrible side effects.”

I should have had C.B. install that app that diverts calls to the Department of Motor Vehicles
, she thought. “Goodbye, Mary Clare,” she said, ended the call, and sat down on the couch.

Come in, Trent,
she called.
Please. Before Mary Clare calls again.

Her phone rang.

It was Maeve. “Mom said you wanted to talk to me.”

“I do. How would you like to go to lunch with me sometime next week?”

“Mom put you up to this, didn't she?” Maeve asked, and Briddey could almost see her eyes narrowing.

“No,” Briddey said, and thought,
That makes it official. I am now lying to everyone
.

“She did, too,” Maeve said. “She thinks something's going on and I won't tell her, and she thinks I'll tell you.”

“
Is
something going on?”

Maeve made a sound of disgust. “You're as bad as her! I bet you think I'm talking to terrorists, too! They cut people's heads off! How can she even
think
I'd talk to somebody like that?”

“She doesn't,” Briddey reassured her. “She's just worried because terrorists don't always
tell
kids they're terrorists. Sometimes people seem nice when they aren't.”

“I know,” Maeve said, “like—”

She stopped short, and Briddey suddenly wished she
was
on Skype so she could see Maeve's face. “Like who?” she asked.

“Umm…do you promise you won't tell Mom?”

Oh, my God
, Briddey thought.
Maeve
is
talking to a terrorist online.
“I promise. It's like who?”

“Captain Davidson,” Maeve said. “He's this cop in
Zombie Death Force
, and you think he's the good guy and then you find out he's not, that he's the one who created the zombie army in the first place.” And then, as if anticipating Briddey's question: “Mom doesn't let me watch zombie movies. She says they give me nightmares.”

“And do they?”

“Everybody else in my class watches them.”

Which wasn't an answer. But Briddey was hardly in a position to say, “If everyone else in your class jumped off a bridge, does that mean you would, too?”

“Where did you watch
Zombie Death Force
?” she asked instead.

“At Danika's. Her parents have Netflix. Please don't tell Mom. She'd go ballistic.”

Actually, she might be relieved to find out Maeve wasn't joining ISIS or running an online money-laundering operation, but Briddey said, “I won't tell her, but
you
have to promise me that if you do get into trouble or have something you're worried about, you'll tell us so we can help.”

“But what if you can't?” Maeve asked, and Briddey wished again that she could see Maeve's face.

“Can't what?” she asked cautiously.

“Can't help. I mean, like if you'd been bitten by a zombie, there wouldn't be any
point
in telling anyone because there wouldn't be anything they could do. You're gonna turn into a zombie anyway, and it's
better
if you don't tell them because they'd try to help and probably get bitten, too.”

“Has something like that happened, Maeve? Something you think we can't help you with?”

“What? Geez, I can't say
any
thing without you and Mom going all psycho. I was talking about a movie! I'm
fine
!”

But after Briddey hung up, she went and checked Maeve's Facebook page, just in case. There was nothing there except a post saying, “My mom is driving me totally crazy. She keeps asking me what's wrong and I keep telling her nothing, but she won't believe me. Sometimes I wish I was an orphan like Cinderella.”

Which Mary Clare would no doubt interpret as Maeve having latent matricidal tendencies.
Although in this case they're perfectly justified
.

She'd wasted half an hour talking to Mary Clare and Maeve, and now she had exactly ten minutes left to connect with Trent before the twenty-four-hour mark. She doubted that was enough time to establish a neural pathway, but she tried anyway.