Chapter 22
Cass
Iwas floating on air as I closed the call with Shane.
Darius and Amos high-fived each other, grinning ear to ear.
Holly and Kat were hugging, too. Kat slid her phone into her pocket and came over to give me a tight hug.
“Ethan came through,” she said proudly. “That guy is magic. It gets me every time.”
“Runs in the family,” I said.
She laughed. “That it does,” she said. “All those Masters. Genius, guts, and an incredible talent for getting themselves sunk knee-deep in shit. It’s spectacular to watch, if a little nerve-wracking. But we both have nerve. So it’s okay, I think.”
“I think so, too,” I told her.
“Excuse me, Ms. Clarke?”
I turned, and remembered the doctor who had been gesturing for my attention the whole time that I was talking to Shane. “Oh. Sorry. I got distracted. Yes?”
“Congratulations, by the way!” he said, grinning. “I’m so pleased for you!”
I focused on the young guy, mousy-blond and balding. His name tag said Dr. J. Avery. I didn’t recognize him, but God knows, I hadn’t been paying much attention lately. “You already heard?” I asked.
“Dr. Demiguel told us! Our pharmacy people are already working on it. We just want to expedite things, so I have a couple of quick questions for you about Regina’s medical history, if you wouldn’t mind coming with me for a moment.
Just down the hall a bit. It won’t take long.
To speed things up for Regina. We want to work fast.”
“Sure, of course,” I said, waving at Kat. “I’ll be right back!”
I followed Dr. Avery down the hall, around the nurses’ station.
The man was tall and walked quickly. I had to scurry to keep up, but I was thrilled to hurry, if a cure for Reggie was in the offing.
“Are they already compounding the drug?” I asked.
“What kind of medicine is it, anyway? How does it work?”
“I’m sorry, but it’s not my specialty, so I can’t really say,” he said, his voice apologetic “Dr. Demiguel and the others will be able to tell you more. Come right on in… here.” He opened a door, standing aside and beckoning me in, all gallantry.
I hurried in, my mouth already forming questions, and stopped short, sucking in a horrified gasp.
Halliwell stood in front of me, hands in his suit pockets. Smiling.
The door swung shut behind me. I inhaled to scream, but he held up his hand. “Not a sound, if you don’t want Reggie to die right now,” he warned.
“But what… how…”
He held up a white remote control. “This controls how sick she gets.” His voice had the tone of someone explaining a simple lesson to a slow-witted child.
“Remember last night, when she took a sharp turn for the worse around dinnertime? That was me, moving this dial from ten to twenty-five. It goes up to a hundred, though I suspect that little Regina would be long gone before I got up to sixty or seventy. But we can’t know unless we experiment.
Shall we see how she does at, say, thirty-five? ”
“No! Don’t!”
“Well, then.” He slapped the remote into his opposite hand. “I will need you to follow my instructions carefully.”
“What do you want?”
“Many, many things,” he said, smirking. “Some of them, you have already delivered, with spectacular success. Which puts me in a benevolent mood, in spite of your bad attitude. Very lucky for you. And for little Regina, incidentally.”
“Spit it out, Halliwell.”
“We start by walking out this door together… smiling. There are security cameras in the corridors. One across from this door. We walk together, with my arm around your shoulders. We smile up at the camera. Then we go out into the parking lot, get into the car, and go. Simple, no?”
“So you want… you want them to think…” My voice trailed off, appalled.
“That you were working for me all along, yes, Cassandra. Because in a way, you were. But I can explain that later. We have no time to waste. If you don’t smile at the camera and chat with me politely as we walk, I will dial up Reggie’s illness right now. Off you go, my dear. Left foot, right foot.”
I just stared at him, horrified.
“And as a very special treat, I will turn Reggie’s dial from 25 down to 15 once we are in the car,” he added. “That will make her fever break, at least, and will probably make the rash recede. The coughing will ease off, as well.”
I looked at the remote in his hand, and he chuckled under his breath, and wagged his finger at me.
“If you should have the bad judgment to make a play for this remote, just be aware. Dr. Avery has a duplicate in his pocket, and he’s been told to make sure that Regina dies instantly if you misbehave. Do we understand each other?”
I nodded.
“Okay, then. Off you go.” His voice hardened, the false jollity gone.
We walked out into the corridor, which was full of people, none of whom I could ask for help. His arm was slung over my shoulders. It felt heavy, flesh-creeping, repellent, like a poisonous tentacle of some monster draped across my body.
“Smile, Cassandra. Or I turn the dial up.” He smirked at me.
I smiled back at him, big and wide and empty. “Will this do?”
“None of your sass, girl. I hold the cards, and you have nothing. Look up at the camera right now, and smile.”
I did as I was told, smiling up at the video camera like a painted doll. Then we spun and marched toward the garage. Left foot, right foot. In lockstep with Halliwell.
The big black Porsche SUV idled outside the garage entrance, next to the curb. It was the same deadpan, asshole driver who had taken me to all those hellish restaurant meals. I slid into the seat and stared ahead as Halliwell went around the car and got in.
Thud, the door closed. Ka-thunk, the door locks snapped to. I was trapped.
He held out his hand. “Give me your phone, Cassandra.”
“Turn down Reggie’s dial,” I said. “You said you would.”
“First, the phone.” He made an impatient sound. “You have nothing to bargain with, so don’t be annoying. The phone. Now.”
I handed it to him.
Halliwell slid it into his pocket, pulled out the remote, and held it out with a theatrical gesture so that I could see it. He turned the dial from 25 to 15. “See? I keep my promises. Little Regina should start feeling better any minute.”
“Turn it down to zero,” I said.
“Oh, no, no, no,” he said, wagging his finger. “Not yet. The monkey has to do her tricks before she gets her treats.”
“How are you doing this?” I demanded. “How does it work?”
“All will be made clear in time,” he said.
“Make it clear now. What else do we have to do?”
“Don’t test my patience,” he said crisply. “Regina depends on it.” He put the remote in his pocket. “Back to us. You have surpassed my wildest hopes on this operation, Cassandra.”
“Operation? What are you talking about? I thought you’d kill me for breaking Masters out of jail.”
“Oh, God, no,” he said. “That was my idea all along. I set you up. I gave you keys, clues, deadlines, motivations. I nudged you in the right direction, and you performed like a dream. The bold and daring escape! The rescued little sister! Going to the Masters enclave, where you mounted a SmokeScreen attack on the Coatesworth to save her… ah. Beautiful. I never thought it would go so smoothly. Or so quickly.”
I gaped at him, bewildered. “Your plan? What do you mean, your plan?”
“I admit that when I recruited you to work for me—”
“Took me hostage, you mean?”
He looked amused. “Don’t be melodramatic, Cassandra. Hostages aren’t paid top dollar and pampered like lap dogs.”
“Bullshit,” I said. “You worked me to the bone. You stole my IP. You abused my sister. And I am no one’s lapdog.”
“Hmmph. So fiery. But I suppose I shouldn’t complain. That quality was exactly what made the plan work so incredibly well.”
“You planned this from the start?” I said. “I don’t get it. I don’t see how that works. I didn’t know Shane Masters even existed before I got here.”
“The idea came to me after you arrived,” he said.
“Originally, it was just a matter of wanting access to your brilliant malware, for the purposes of acquiring SmokeScreen, of course. And yes, I wanted to recruit your prodigious skills for Halliwell Enterprises. But the only way to get my hands on SmokeScreen was to use Glow-worm to counter a direct attack from the Masters themselves. And when it came to that, you performed as if you’d been coached.
Glow-worm slid into their system… and completely swallowed it. ” He kissed his fingertips. “Superb.”
“So you have SmokeScreen right now,” I said faintly. “Because they fished for Reggie’s cure. To help me.” My heart squeezed painfully. Shane must feel so betrayed.
He looked pleased with himself. “Yes, yes. It was very stupid, but I know how sentimental you all are. I got the original idea when Haley tattled on you. She said you’d gotten a crush on our handsome prisoner.
But of course you did. What girl would not be intrigued with a dangerous, beautiful, tormented captive?
And then, voila! Like magic, you genuinely fell in love with him. It was almost comical.”
“But… but…” What about Jana? I wanted to yell it, but I didn’t want to implicate her, if she had somehow avoided getting caught.
“You’re wondering about Jana, I presume,” he said.
My heart sank even deeper. “So she was just saying what you told her to say?”
“No, actually, Jana’s rebellion was quite real,” he said. “I just used it for my own purposes. I believe in using everything. I waste nothing, Cassandra. Not even hatred. It’s energy, after all. And hatred can be such a powerful force, don’t you agree?”
I didn’t want to touch that one with a ten-foot pole. I shook my head.