Voice (19 page)

There was a rush of air into the speaker. “And these are other victims in your area?”

Jemma made a face at his description. “They were with us in the facility, yes.”

“Something must have fallen through in your area.” Myles’s voice had fallen near a murmur, as if he were talking to himself more than to them. “Ridiculous since that seems to be where everything started and ended.” He raised his voice back to its normal level before he continued. “I’ll put in a few phone calls and make sure a detective is in touch within a couple days, okay? They’ll be able to sort everything out from there through all the right channels.”

“That’s not going to be good enough,” said Jemma, worried he might hang up. “That might take too long.”

A few seconds passed before he responded. “Okay. Tell me what’s going on.”

“Do you know whether they’re releasing the low-level employees?” asked Jack. “Have you heard anything like that?”

The senator sighed. “Rumors, discussions. Nothing definite. Staffing everywhere has been returning to normal pretty quickly since voices came back. I think people can’t feel good about their indefinite vacations now that things feel normal again. But with all the problems we had in the meantime, there are still a lot of issues in that area when it comes to staffing for law enforcement, prison guards, any positions in those categories.” Jemma remembered they’d only been able to escape because of low staffing among the guards. “So, yes. I’ve heard that some people want the low-level employees released, those who were just following orders to keep their jobs. They’re updating me with some regularity, but I’m not officially involved in any of the decisions, so I’m not sure what you want me to do, if you’re trying to say you want them to keep everybody locked up.”

“Not everybody,” said Jack. “There’s just one for now, Joshua Stevens. We need to make sure they know he’s not the nobody he’s pretending to be. He’s the one who set loose the Event. Remember the files mentioned an ‘overeager employee’? That’s him. He’s also the one who tortured Jemma. And today, he implied he plans to continue his work.”

“They have to keep him in jail,” Jemma said. “They have to keep an eye on him, too. He might have people he’s communicating with outside, and he has a lab set up, but he didn’t say where.”

“Okay, hold on,” interrupted Myles. “I need to write this all down.” After a couple minutes of near-silence passed, he asked them to continue.

“That’s it for more concrete details,” said Jack. “If he has people he’s working with, or if he’s let out, then everyone is still in danger, especially those like us.” He let that sink in a moment, locking eyes with Jemma. “Then, if you can manage it, we were also hoping to get better security for the people who weren’t cured, maybe background checks for anybody working with them.”

Myles sighed again. “I suppose there’s an excellent reason as to why you need these things.”

“When I reversed the Event, Josh was beyond livid. He’s willing to continue testing us now that things are back to normal, but he’d rather do it under Event conditions, with everyone having easier access to telepathy. We have a handful of people out there who have these nanocreatures still alive inside of them. If you were trying to make nanocreatures resistant to the cure, would you start from scratch, or would you start with ones you know already exist?”

“I’ll admit, that’s not the worst logic I’ve heard,” said the senator. “Is there anything else?”

Jemma shook her head.

“No,” answered Jack.

“Okay, look. I haven’t lost my position yet, and as I said, they’re keeping me in the loop on this. But I’m not sure how many strings I’ve got left to pull, so I’m going to need to tread carefully, here. I’ll do what I can, but in case the first favor I call in is the only one I get, where do you want me to start?”

Jack looked at Jemma, waiting for her to respond. She took a breath. “Keep Josh in jail. Whatever you do. He has a way of making everything sound completely reasonable, and if he gets out and has access to a functional lab, I’m afraid we’re all going to be back at square one.”

“Okay. Then that’s where I’ll start. You two be safe.” The line went silent.

“We were supposed to be assigned a detective,” said Jack, his mouth pulling downward. “I wonder how many others should have been and weren’t.”

Jemma shook her head. “We’ve known the local police don’t have enough people. I wish they hadn’t missed us, but maybe this only fell through in our area.”

“Are you feeling up to eating, now that we’ve gotten accomplished what we can? We really shouldn’t be skipping meals.”

“I think I might be able to.” She took a deep breath and then nodded. “I can at least try. I’m tired of swimming in my clothes.”

“Then let’s eat, and then we’ll try calling the local police, see whether they know how we can get ahold of our detective. If the senator is starting with the information about Josh, he might not get a chance to get us the information we need anytime soon. This way, we’ll have everything as covered as we can.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:

Questioning

They didn’t have any luck the rest of that day contacting the detective assigned to work with them, but they were, at least, able to track down a name: Darren Payton.

Jemma managed to sleep in the next morning, blinking in surprise when she saw the time on her phone. She’d missed a few texts from her mother, too.

I’m trying to give you two space, and I know it’s only Wednesday, but it’s been so long. I was hoping we could do Friday dinner? I expect Jack there if you come, and Don is welcome if he’s up to it, or we can make it work over that way if he wants to join but can’t.

Or we can do it a different day, if you need to. I was just hoping that we could start getting back into a routine, or at least figuring out a new one.

Jemma, after everything that’s happened, you really can’t expect me not to get worried when you don’t answer.

“Is everything okay?” Jack murmured, pulling her slowly back against him with a hand still on her waist.

“Mmm.” She enjoyed the feel of him, her eyes closing for several seconds, before focusing back on her phone, enjoying a thrill of success at the fact that her eyes seemed to adjust to the screen more quickly than they had the day before. “We overslept, and Mom got worried. She wants to know whether we’ll come over for Friday dinner this week.”

He kissed her shoulder. “How are you feeling this morning? Will you be up for that?”

She felt warmth flood through her at his touch, at his consideration. “I’m feeling all right, actually. My eyes are a little better, and so is the pain. I think the long sleep helped.”

“Nightmares?” His lips still against her skin, he sent a wave of apology at the question.

“Not bad enough to wake me up.” She hadn’t really understood the desire, when she’d read about it or heard about it, to stay in bed with someone all day, but this was nice, more than nice, and she had a feeling if they tried, they could forget everything else that was going on, could block out the rest of the world and just exist together in this room. It was tempting, more tempting than she wanted to admit.

But it wasn’t her. At least, not with everything that was happening, everything that was unknown, and not when she still needed to answer her mother’s texts.

When this was all over was over, she’d need to remember how good it had sounded.

“We should go, if you want to,” said Jack, breaking into her thoughts.

She unplugged her phone and rolled onto her back so she could see Jack’s face. She felt like they had skipped some steps, and yet, she didn’t want to move backward to cover what they’d missed. She responded to Carolyn, letting her know they would be there, apologizing for the delayed response, and she set the phone down beside her, peering up at Jack, who’d propped himself up on an elbow. “I haven’t even thought about going back to my house other than to get things, Jack.” She opened her connection, letting him feel that she wasn’t complaining, just mildly surprised. “I’ve been eating and sleeping here, with you, and we’ve even been calling it home more often than not.”

He traced his fingertips along her hairline, down behind her ear, his eyes chasing the movement, then latching on to hers when she swallowed. “It makes sense right now, us staying together. We’re safer. It’s easier to get information, to exchange it. And it just feels right.” He hesitated, some of the confident intensity leaving his gaze. “It’s too soon to say that, isn’t it?”

“Of course it is,” she said, sending affection so he wouldn’t take her words the wrong way, “but I feel the same. Like I said at the senator’s. It’s just…” She closed her eyes, trying to gather her thoughts. “I always assumed that if I ever moved in with somebody, it would be very deliberate, done with the same amount of planning I do anything. And this just sort of happened without any discussion at all.” Jack moved his hand from her face back to her waist, fingers lingering on exposed skin, his arm resting over her stomach, his face close. “I’m not saying I’m going to sell my house tomorrow,” she clarified. “But I’m not in a rush to leave, either, even if we resolved everything today, and I guess I just wanted to acknowledge that.”

His lips curled into a smile before he bent them to hers, effectively driving all competing thoughts from her mind, showing the same patience and consideration for her needs, both mental and physical, as he always did.

***

Jemma knew she would need to get off the computer soon, that she would need to give her eyes and mind a break, but she wanted to find something,
anything
, that matched the information Josh had given her, information about where he might own or rent property that he could fit a laboratory, information about who he might have associated with outside of work, anything.

They’d wasted the day yesterday, waiting. The time in bed this morning she wouldn’t call wasted, not by any means, but they hadn’t learned anything new about their situation, either. When they’d finally gotten up, after gathering their clothes but before heading next door to Don’s, Jack had tried to call Myles to see whether he’d gotten anywhere with the information about Josh. He wasn’t answering his phone or returning their calls.

When her phone rang, she jumped. Jack joined her from where he sat with his dad in the living room, resting his fingers on the back of her neck while she held the phone to her ear, answering the unknown number with a hesitant, “Hello?”

“Jemma Tyler? This is Darren Payton. I’m a private detective working with the PPD. I was told you were expecting my phone call?” His voice fit a television lawyer, smooth and polished, but his words were clipped.

She pulled the phone away and pressed the button to switch it to speaker. “Yes, Detective Payton. I have you on speaker; Jack Himmel is here with me, too.”

“Just call me Payton, please. I work with the police a lot recently, but I’m not a member of the force. I’d like to avoid confusion.” Jemma heard papers shuffling on the other end. “Jack Himmel was one of the others kidnapped and detained by Tricorp BioD, correct?”

“That’s correct,” Jack answered.

“I’m sorry. I like to be more prepared, but you should’ve been called days ago, and I didn’t want to make you wait longer.”

“What caused the delay?” Jemma asked.

“The PPD has been short on manning since the Event.” Despite the fact that she knew he couldn’t see her, Jemma resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Some of their cases, they’ve contracted out. This case was one of them.” Darren sighed. “Except they forgot to let me know, so I’m just getting the file today. I’m familiar with the basics, obviously. The whole world is. I’m calling you first because the file had a note on it, said you tried to call me.”

“Senator Myles Pratt,” Jemma said, “we spoke to him yesterday, and he told us that we should’ve been assigned a detective to work with. We didn’t know until then, so that’s why we tried to track you down.”

“I’m glad it wasn’t even a week that passed.” Payton sounded frustrated, losing some of his polish. “I can’t imagine how much longer it would have been if you hadn’t called. Let me explain my role in all of this. I’ll serve as your liaison. I’ll take statements, give your information to the people who need it. Part of this is to protect your privacy. It’ll also cut down on time you need to travel. It also makes sure we have all the information quickly. In theory.”

Jack moved from behind Jemma to the chair next to her. Jemma listened as the man continued, his short sentences making her feel almost breathless.

“It’ll go the other way, too. I’ll keep you updated. I’ll let you know what they need. I’ll tell you if and when this goes to trial. I’ll let you know whether you’ll be allowed to attend the trial. Basically, it’s my job to make things as easy as possible for all parties involved.”

“Are you working with Jemma, with both of us, or with all of us who were local?” asked Jack

Another rustle of papers. “You two, plus another four. I’m not at liberty to disclose names. I suspect you can guess.”

“And are you going to talk to us each individually or all at once?” Jemma asked.

Payton chuckled. “You two are gonna make my job really easy or really hard, I can tell already. Questions and initiative, I love it. I’d like to go ahead and get a basic rundown now, on the phone. Saves time. Later, we can meet in person, either individually or as a group. Whatever the situation calls for. Sound good?”