Sleight of Hand (24 page)

I nodded unhappily. I didn’t want to go here. “Please, Mom.”

“Be quiet, Amber. I’m sorry, I’m going to break my promise to you.” Her hand covered mine on the table. She turned to my sister. “You listen to me, Kathleen. You’ve got a fine job and you worked hard for it. No one can take that away from you. But you never once questioned how we were able to manage it. Never once. Well, it’s time you put that intelligent mind to thinking about it. I couldn’t have paid to get you through college. Even after I sold the house to pay for your father’s medical bills, I was still in debt.”

Kath looked shocked. She was intelligent all right, just a bit too focused on herself to think through what had been going on around her, all those years.

“It was Amber, Kathleen. All the money from her part-time jobs while she was still here at South High, and then most of her salary when she was in the army. Right up until you got your own apartment and I met John. Without her, we wouldn’t even have had a place to stay.”

Mom’s cheeks had bright spots of anger and her eyes were full of unshed tears. “Amber made me promise never to tell you, and now I’ve had to break that promise. You should be ashamed of yourself for not helping your sister, even if she’d done nothing.”

I got back up. I couldn’t stand this. Mom tried to stop me, but I grabbed my jacket and fled the house.

Yes, I did all that, but that wasn’t the way it happened. I’m not any kind of saint. It was much more complicated than that. And I remembered standing on the school clock tower, wondering if I was going to pull the ripcord or not. It wasn’t a good time.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

The office was cool and quiet.

I sat at my desk and listened to the muted sounds of the Sunday traffic outside, feeling numb. I had tried to do some work, but there was nothing I could concentrate on at the moment. There were two missed calls from the colonel on the cell, but I turned it off.

The desk was clear, except for my photos. I took the one that wasn’t a real photo and held it in front of me. Even in the half darkness, the glossy black granite reflected my face above the inscription
Tara Farrell
. No one seems to remember her any more, except me. My twin sister was stillborn, so there are no dates. No photo existed of her, but I didn’t need one; she was my identical twin. I looked into the reflection and saw her as she would be. There wasn’t a day when I didn’t feel as if a part of me was missing, a gaping hole in my life. There wasn’t a week when I didn’t speak to her. She was the only one who knew everything about me.

“Tara, it’s so hard sometimes,” I said. I was ashamed of the tears on my cheeks, but she would understand.

I heard her voice, soothing me. “It’s all right, Amber, just talk to me.”

MONDAY

Chapter 30

It was just before dawn and I was in the guest suite at Manassah when I turned my cell back on.

I felt better. Talking to Tara yesterday evening had helped me. I needed to get things moving and stop worrying about things I couldn’t change. There was another missed call from the colonel. That was as good a place to start as any, early as it was.

“Colonel. Sorry about the missed calls.”

“Where were you?”

“It was the weekend, Colonel. I ran in the Boulder charity race, visited with friends and had lunch with my family. Okay?”

“Sergeant, these samples you sent are important—”

“And they weren’t going to get any less important over the weekend. This may be the very top of your agenda—” I stopped myself. If I went on like this, I would start to whine about how little sleep I was getting and irritate both of us. I had taken time off. I didn’t need to justify it. “Anyway, you just lost the opportunity to say ‘what’s all this shit you sent me?’ And that’s the question I’m wanting to ask you.”

The colonel took the change in approach better than I’d have thought. It sounded as if he was smiling. “Your evidence gives us tangible proof of werewolves. It suggests that there’s a large local pack where you gathered the samples from.”

“Any doubt about the analysis?”

“Not unless your sense of humor’s really gotten out of control, Sergeant. Wolves don’t eat pizza and burgers, nor do they drink wine and beer.”

“But they can tell it’s wolf shit?”

“Yes. The mixture of the digested remains includes raw rabbit and deer. It’s wolf scat, just with human digested food added. And, although the prions break down outside of the body, the team has been able to identify that there were prions in it.”

“Same as Ath—” I caught myself just in time. “—as vampire prions?”

“No, similar but different, but difficult to tell exactly from the disassembled proteins.”

“Okay, so we have werewolves.” I scratched my scalp. “As to where, w-h-e-r-e, which I feel on the tip of your tongue, if these people are werewolves then they could drive to this site and change there. The site’s not important and may never get used again for all we know. I have no direct contact with them yet.”

“Why do I feel you’re going to say the same thing as you said about vampires?” said the colonel.

“Because I am. Look, why don’t you set up a three-way meeting with Morales and we can talk it through and try and set up some kind of a plan of contact which doesn’t assume these people are monsters and need to be locked up. Morales is feeling left out, by the way, and it is his backyard.”

“Okay. I will,” he said.

We were quiet for a second. Both of us, I realized much later, trying to think how to open the next topic. I beat him to it.

“Colonel, I’ve got to go, but I need more information on what the readings from the blood test mean.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, what reading should I expect from a vampire? What reading do I get to before you want to have me back under observation?”

I could hear him sigh. “Well, the scientists aren’t much clearer with me than they have been with you. I believe that 1.00 means that the prions have taken over completely and that level should be fatal to the host. They’re currently estimating a vampire would function with a reading of about 0.8.”

I ignored the sinking feeling in my stomach. I can plot a graph and I didn’t like the answer that my readings were giving. I tried to concentrate on another question while he was in a talking mood. “And what level do I get to before you want me back?”

“If you’re asking me personally, Sergeant, I have a respect for the opinion you expressed at our last meeting. I wouldn’t want you restrained unless it’s necessary. I mean unless you go rogue. But the same caveat applies on infecting anyone.”

“Thanks, Colonel,” I said.

“If you’re asking me on behalf of the scientific team, they want you now.”

“Okay. I’ll need to talk to you about this when you come. I’ve got to go. You’ll text me the meeting details?”

“Yes,” he said. “We’ll need to talk more next time.”

Though I didn’t realize it at the time, I’d hurried him to end the call, and so I was spared his news for a couple more days. I just closed my cell and sat back to think.

Had the colonel been keeping the Obs team off my back all this time? And how quickly might I move from my current level of prions to the 0.8 reading, if that’s where I was going?

I was around 0.45 now, and I had gone up that 0.05 in the last week. At that rate, it gave me only a month or two before I was fully Athanate. Diana had shown me a hint that Athanate weren’t as bad as I had thought, but the burning question in me was still how I could get the levels back down.

I was all questions and few answers, as usual.

Jen wasn’t up when I left the house at dawn. I did a quick check of Victor’s team on the grounds and then headed for the office in my car.

On the way, I stuck my earphone in and flicked through the speed dials to ‘Diana / Bian.’

It was picked up almost immediately. “Hello, Round-eye,” said Bian.

I smiled. “Not too early for you, Pussycat?”

“It’s late, not early. You need to meet Diana this week.”

“Yes. Tuesday at my office? Say 10 a.m.”

“Okay.”

“Should I get some drinks and snacks?”

“Oh no, just you. That’ll be fine,” she purred.

I laughed, a little nervously. Skylur
had
said they would be banned from biting me. I wondered what the penalties for breaking the ban were. I would remember to ask on Tuesday.

“One other thing…”

“Yes?” said Bian.

“Can you tell me the name of the girl you were with on the train?”

“You like that goth look, do you, Round-eye?”

“I’m straight, Pussycat. I just wanted to check up on her, make sure she’s all right. She looked completely out of it. It’s not a good thing to be walking around like that late at night.”

There was a silence, then, “Mykayla. I’ll text you her cell.” The line went dead.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Tullah came in as usual, with her gift of coffee, but she looked tense.

I gave her Mykayla’s number and asked her to try it at times during the day. If she got an answer she could put it through to me.

Before she could sit down, there was a courier at the door. Tullah came back in, puzzled and then delighted as she scanned the envelope.

“Amber, oh wow! You’re going to the charity ball.” She jumped up and down.

I grinned. “Yeah, but I have to leave before midnight or my car turns into a pumpkin.”

She laughed. “But it costs a fortune. How did…oh, of course, this is work? You have a fairy godmother that you’re doing work for?”

I nodded, smiling to myself at the thought of Skylur as a fairy godmother. Tullah looked puzzled again. “But who? You haven’t opened any new files. Is this from Jennifer Kingslund?” She was looking for the return address on the envelope, which of course wasn’t there.

“No. I’m sorry, Tullah, I haven’t started a file for this client. I’m not expecting payment at the moment, other than this ticket. I’ll get around to it.”
When I figure out how I’m going to write it up.

“Okay.” She turned and went back to try Mykayla’s number from her desk.

The arrival of the ticket confirmed my plans for the day and made me shake my head in dismay. I had hitmen, organized crime, Athanate and werewolves hanging over me, but because my latest clients wanted me at a charity ball, I had to go out today and buy a dress. I didn’t think Mr. McIntire and Mrs. Harriman would look kindly on my arriving in my office clothes and there was nothing else in my wardrobe. Outside of my uniform, that is, and that probably wouldn’t go down well either.

I also had to wait for Jen’s geek to show up with the information from the ZK cells and I had a couple of other things to do during the day. I was thinking about how I could do it all efficiently when my email notification flickered on my screen. Kath.

She didn’t apologize and she was very busy, but she realized her obligation and so on. She would take the case, and promised to do a review for me soon. However, she was so busy that her only time off this week would be at the charity ball. I laughed. She just had to tell me that. The cost of the tickets was legendary. I responded, thanking her for changing her mind. I said I would mail the documents and signed off by telling her I would see her at the ball. She would probably dismiss that as just my sense of humor. I grinned as I visualized her face when I showed up.

I heard a motorcycle coast in outside. Not a whine or a hum, but the throaty tick of a Harley. Surely not Jen’s geek? Did geeks ride Harleys?

The guy who came in wasn’t a geek. He was a snowboard dude, complete with ratty jeans, bleached blond hair and sky-blue eyes. He looked nervous, his motorcycle jacket still zipped all the way up and his hands anxiously fiddling with his sunglasses and keys.

“Hi,” he said to Tullah. “I’m Matt. Um. Matthew Bierbach. From the Kingslund Group. I’m here to see Ms. Farrell.” He could see me through the glass partition, but he kept his eyes on Tullah.

“I’m Tullah,” she replied. “What’s it about?”

“It’s an analysis of phone calls,” he said.

I wandered in. He didn’t exactly shrink away, but he seemed to be very wary of me. I looked him over for a while, leaning against the doorframe with my arms folded and legs crossed. “I specifically asked for a geek,” I said. “You don’t look very techy to me. Geeks don’t ride Harleys.”

“I’m the real thing, ma’am.” He almost smiled. God, he was going to break hearts if he did.

“Jen told you to call me that?”

“No, ma’am.”

I rolled my eyes. “Well, it’s Amber, then. Come in and show us what you’ve got.”

Once we sat him down with some coffee and let him load up his results on Tullah’s desktop, he relaxed a bit. The job he had done was fantastic—he had created a database of every call made and it was analyzable by frequency, length and recipient. He’d tagged names and addresses against numbers, with a score indicating where he thought the name and address were fake. He’d listed every text message.

“Awesome! Can you do that on any number?” Tullah asked, pointing at the name and address information. When he nodded, she gave him Mykayla’s cell phone number.

He logged onto his work system remotely and ran the number through his software. In a couple of seconds it displayed Mykayla’s name and address, an apartment in a small building on the other side of the interstate, less than a couple of miles away. Easy enough to walk down to from Colorado station if you weren’t high, but still not something a girl should be doing in the middle of the night. I wondered if she’d had the sense to get back on and get off at Yale station, which was closer for her.

“Wow,” said Tullah, as he got his system to email the address to her.

“Matt, that’s good work, thank you,” I said. “I have to head out now, but this has made my job much easier, and I’ll be telling Jen that.”

“No problem. Thanks, umm, Amber,” he replied, as he made his escape out the door. He opened it again and put his head back in. “Thanks for the coffee, Tullah.” He smiled at her like a scruffy angel and then he was gone. The Harley growled and moved off quickly.