Chapter 18
Cass
If I kept eating like this, I was going to be in trouble, I thought, nibbling my fresh-baked cinnamon roll.
Then again, I’d been unable to eat at Halliwell’s lair, so I had a lot to compensate for, and Angela was in wild celebration mode.
She had to calm down at some point, and in the meantime, I might as well take advantage of the yum.
So, excess was the way to go. Maybe I’d have some coffee cake, too. What the hell.
I sipped coffee, watching Holly and Reggie giggling over a word game that they had found in one of Holly’s magazines.
It soothed my heart to see her laugh, though she, unlike me, had eaten hardly anything.
She’d nibbled toast, drunk a little juice.
Her small square of egg casserole looked untouched.
And she looked… not great. Strangely, she’d looked better yesterday. Her eyes looked sunken and bruised, and she had lost the color that she had yesterday. Today, her face had a dull, grayish tone.
Maybe it was just in contrast to Holly, who was rosy and blooming, all pink lips and cheeks and bright sparkling eyes. I was being paranoid. I should give the poor kid a few days to recover from months of solitary confinement before I started to panic.
But panic swiftly overtook me anyway. “Hey, Reggie,” I said, interrupting their whispered conversation. “Can’t you eat a little more of your eggs?”
Reggie looked down at it and back up at me, her eyes apologetic. “It makes my stomach hurt,” she admitted. “I ate some of the toast. And I had a cup of hot chocolate.”
“Okay,” I said. “But try to eat, babe. Please.”
“We’re going to watch the latest episode of Relic Hunter now,” Reggie said. “It’s this adventure show that Holly showed me. It’s the best.”
“That’s wonderful, sweetie. Go have fun.”
Shane stood in the doorway, smiling at me, and them. He ruffled each little girl’s hair as she passed, and then sat down next to me. “Reggie looks pale.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” I said.
“Demiguel is coming up the driveway,” he said. “Maybe he has some news for us. Come on up to the meeting room?”
“Yes!” I leaped up and refilled my coffee before following him.
The whole extended family was there when we came in. I saw various surreptitious looks, smirks and grins. So it was no secret, where Shane had spent the night.
So much for discretion. Shane had sat down, so I marched over to him, trailing my hand intimately over his shoulder for everyone to see, and sat down next to him.
No kisses though, because that shit was private, thank you very much.
My performance touched off another couple of minutes of intense non-verbal communication, which at last was blessedly interrupted by the arrival of Dr. Demiguel, accompanied by Trey, one of the security guys.
We leaned forward eagerly as he spread out the array of blood test results, but his expression was worried and apologetic.
“I wish I had something more conclusive for you,” he said to Shane.
“Your bloodwork seems normal, considering your ordeal. You’re low in a few key nutrients, but that could just be stress.
I’ve made up a list of supplements you should take, to shore up minerals and B-vitamins and suchlike, but that’s easily handled.
We didn’t find drugs in your blood, but hair and saliva is still being processed. ”
Shane waved his hand. “I’m fine. Never mind me. Tell us about Reggie.”
Demiguel’s eyes flicked down to the second file that was fanned out in front of him. “Well,” he said. “She was definitely malnourished—”
“Motherfuckers,” Amos snarled under his breath. “Starving a little kid, all alone in a basement closet? They need to die screaming. All of them. In a fire.”
“It’s against my Hippocratic oath, but in this case, I have to agree,” Demiguel said grimly.
“I read up on Varen’s, and I consulted with my colleagues.
The blood test results are consistent with Varen’s, but they could also indicate many other things.
I would never have thought of Varen’s on my own if you hadn’t mentioned it to me. ”
“I don’t think it’s genuinely Varen’s,” I told them.
“I was told by a person at Halliwell’s complex that Halliwell create fake illnesses that mimic real diseases.
They have specific antidotes that only he has access to.
So if that is true, then essentially, Reggie was poisoned, and the results mimic Varen’s Disease. ”
“And you trust the person who gave you that information?” Demiguel asked.
I thought of Jana’s haunted, tormented eyes. “Yes, I do,” I said. “And I can’t think of any reason why it would have been in her best interests to lie.”
“Well, I suppose it could have been some drug she was given,” Demiguel said slowly. “But it’s hard to tell. We’ll keep working on it.”
I braced myself. “So I take it you don’t have any treatment options to suggest?”
He shook his head. “Sorry. Not until we know more. I’m hoping that Rose will have some more information.”
“She’s coming here today,” Shane said.
“Good,” the doctor said, looking relieved. “In the meantime, as I said last night, I strongly recommend that you admit Regina to the hospital.”
“She doesn’t want to go to any hospital after what she’s been through,” I said firmly. “Unless the circumstances are dire, I don’t want to insist on it.”
Demiguel let out a sharp, frustrated sigh. “Then I just don’t know what to say.” He shoved the files of bloodwork to the middle of the table. “I’ll leave these with you. Look them over at your leisure. Let me know if you change your mind, and I’ll expedite everything for you. Please. Consider it.”
He stalked out, his mouth tight, and shut the door smartly behind himself, right in the face of Trey, the security guy who had gotten up to escort him.
Trey opened the door and followed the doctor without comment.
I let out a slow breath. “Shit,” I whispered.
“Why do you say that?” Freya asked. “She’s stable, right? So it’s a no-news-is-good-news situation.”
I shook my head. “Halliwell’s not done fucking with me yet. I’d like to just kill him now, but I can’t until I know how he made Reggie sick. And how he makes it stop.”
Shane’s hands clenched and flexed. “Ethan?” His quiet voice asked the question he didn’t have to put into words. It was hanging in the air all around us.
“It’s too dangerous,” Ethan said grimly. “He could be luring us into a trap. If he gets his hands on SmokeScreen, he’s one of the few people in the world with the resources to actually use it. And he would have absolute power. All the money, all the information, all the access, all the time.”
“It’s hard for me to care, if Reggie is the sacrifice I have to make to prevent it.” I got up, shoving my chair back.
Shane put his hand on mine. “Red—”
“Don’t.” I shook his hand off. “I’m sorry. I know I’m being bitchy and unreasonable, but I’m just scared. I feel helpless, and I need a minute. So if you’ll all excuse me. I’ll let you all talk this through without me.”
“Wait,” Ethan said. “Just wait, Cass. Please.”
I let out a shaky breath, and waited.
“We are on your side,” he said. “We will help Reggie in every way we can. We’ll find out everything there is to find about the Coatesworth Facility. We have skills, and we are going to exercise the shit out of them for Reggie. We won’t let you down. I swear. Please, trust us.”
“Okay,” I said, in a small voice.
We got down to business after that, and several hours of hard, focused research followed.
I had never worked on any project with people who were as skilled, or perhaps even more skilled, than I was.
I’d pretty much concluded that I was a top-shelf, shit-hot hacker, but Ethan and Freya Masters were neck and neck with me, keeping pace.
Plus, they were accustomed to the way each other’s minds worked, and brainstormed ideas and solutions with blinding speed.
Shane wasn’t shabby either, and the Drakes also had their moments. It was a formidable group.
After a while, Kat got up, shaking her head. “My eyes are crossing,” she said. “Call me when there’s some ass to kick. I’m going to go check on the girls.”
The day flew by. Coffee and sandwiches appeared, at one point.
Eventually, the personnel winnowed itself down to Ethan, Freya, Shane, and me, deep in the weeds of the Coatesworth Facility databanks.
But Halliwell’s cybersecurity was of the highest order, as I well knew.
I’d done some penetration testing on his security myself when I was testing Glow-worm.
The day began to dim. Angela gave us a heads-up about dinner, which would be served in about twenty minutes, and I was a little horrified to realize that I’d spent all those hours in hyper-concentration mode and had not checked on Reggie once.
“Where are the kids?” I asked.
“Last I saw, they’d gone to the gym with Kat, who was going to teach them a martial arts kata,” Angela said. “They were making Bruce Lee battle yips, and karate-chopping at each other, having a grand old time. Don’t worry about Reggie.”
“Where’s the gym?” I persisted. “Just tell me where. I’ll find it myself.”
“I’ll take you,” Shane said swiftly. “Follow me.”
He led me across the inner courtyard, which was enormous, with gorgeously landscaped gardens. I’d been so busy and distracted, the luxurious details of the place had not registered in my mind at all.
He led me across the huge inner courtyard garden and past a swimming pool to a building on the other side of the quadrant. Inside, in a huge practice room, Kat was slowly demonstrating a graceful crouching move in a karate form.
The two little girls tried to imitate her, Holly with more success than Reggie, who was weaker and frailer after her illness and captivity. Then the girls caught sight of us and came running full tilt. Holly barreled into Shane and Reggie into me, both of them chattering about their ninja training.