Chapter 27
Shane
Freya was gripping my shoulder, but I couldn’t feel it. “Holy shit,” I muttered.
“It’s more or less what we guessed, right?” Ethan said. “I’m just sorry that it had to be rubbed in your face like that.”
Holly pushed between me and her aunt, her arms crossed. “Well?” she said, in ringing tones. “Let’s have a look!”
“No!” the four of us all said in unison.
Holly’s lower lip stuck out as she scowled at me. “Why not?”
“You do not need to see this,” I said savagely. “You are a kid, Holly.”
Holly tilted up her chin. “I saw a video Nicole sent of you chained to a ceiling with that collar with the chain pulling you up, so the wire almost cut your throat.”
“You what?” I looked at Frey, aghast. “What the hell? How did she see that?”
“Not by our choice,” Frey said grimly. “Nicole sent the video directly to her phone. She saw it before any of us even knew it existed.”
“Well, anyhow,” Holly said briskly. “My point is, it can’t be any worse than that, right? Does anybody get killed or cut up into pieces in it?”
“No,” I admitted. “But it shows Cass being all chummy and friendly with Halliwell. Which appears to confirm that she doesn’t give a damn what happens to her sister. I don’t think Reggie needs to see that.”
“I think you’re wrong,” Holly said. “I think it’s a fake. And if it is, Reggie’s probably the only one who might be able to tell us why. She’ll see things we don’t see.”
“Of course she will. She’s emotionally biased,” I said.
“Like you’re not?” Holly shot back.
I gave her a narrow look, but she stared straight back without blinking. My innocent little girl had developed a steel spine and a smart mouth while I was gone.
“Actually, she’s not wrong,” Jed offered cautiously. “We can’t afford to tiptoe around anybody’s feelings. We need all the info we can get.”
“Besides, it’ll kill her if you don’t let her see it,” Holly announced. “Cass is the only family she has left. It would drive her nuts if she couldn’t see it.”
“I think it’s you who’ll be driven nuts by curiosity, am I right?” I asked.
Her lips tightened. “I’m thinking about Reggie, not me,” she said primly.
“Let me watch it. Right now.”
We spun around to see Reggie swaying in the doorway of her room, in her hospital gown. She hung onto her IV rack like a crutch. Her eyes burned with determination.
“Reggie! You shouldn’t be out of bed!” Freya and Kat sprinted over, grabbing her by the arms and hustling her back into her room.
“I’m just getting back up again and coming out again if you don’t show me that video,” Reggie called from inside. “Until I fall down dead! And then it’ll be your fault!”
“Just what I need,” I muttered. “More pressure.”
Holly tilted her head and gave me a ‘what-did-I-tell-you’ look. Jed and Ethan just shrugged. I shook my head. Un-fucking-believable.
“Okay,” I said. “Really? You think she should see it? So today is all about heartbreak and disillusionment for everybody, then? Nobody should be spared.”
“There’s no way to spare anybody. Don’t even try,” Holly said, more gently. “Come on, Daddy. Let’s not waste more time.”
The phone rang. The display said ‘Red,’ once again, and oh God, how I hated being jerked around by that self-important prick.
I hit “talk.” “Who the hell is this?” I snarled.
“Who do you think?” It was Red’s voice. She sounded like herself again, not like she had in the video, just stressed and breathless. “Listen up. I think I found out how to help Reggie—”
“You think we’ll believe anything you say after that fucking video?”
She paused for a second, puzzled. “Huh?” she said, blankly. “Oh, wait. You mean that video that Halliwell sent you? It’s a deepfake. Never mind it. Listen, you have to tell Reggie’s doctors to look for a—”
“Don’t try to make me think you care about her,” I said. “You shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near that poor kid. Cassandra Halliwell, huh? Favored, long-lost daughter? Heir to two hundred billion dollars?”
She huffed out an impatient breath. “Is it my fault that I’m related to that psychopath? Like I care about his goddamn money!”
“It’s your fault for lying about it!”
“It’s not a connection I’m proud of, okay?
I didn’t want to acknowledge it, not in dire straits, with Reggie on the line.
Listen up, Shane. Be pissed if you want.
Don’t believe me if you want. But if you don’t get that implant out of Reggie, he’ll kill her to spite me, and you’ll have that on your head forever.
Just do this one small thing for me. Check for the scar.
It’s on her scalp, ear level, right side, back of her head.
If it’s there, have the surgeons remove the implant.
It should be very small. A flat little piece of some kind of membrane, a half centimeter square.
It has nano-bots on it. They’re making her sick, whenever a certain frequency is—”
“I don’t believe a word you say,” I told her.
“Fine, whatever. Hate me if you want. But cover your ass, and check Reggie’s scalp for that scar. It costs you nothing, but it’s life or death for her. Just do it. Tell me you’ll do it, Shane. Please.”
“I don’t follow your orders,” I told her.
“I am not Halliwell’s stooge. But as it happens, I’m probably going to die today. Will you take care of Reggie if that happens? She doesn’t have any other people.”
“Goddamn it, Red. You just never stop, do you?”
“No, never. Gotta go. Check for the scar. Please, Shane.” She hung up on me.
They were all staring expectantly when I looked at them.
“She told me where to look for the implant that’s making Reggie sick,” I said.
The others followed me into Reggie’s room. I sat down on the chair by her bed, my phone still clutched in my hand. “A couple of things, before I give you this,” I said. “Is it true that Cass is Halliwell’s daughter?”
Reggie looked back defiantly. “Yes,” she said. “But she’s not happy about it.”
My heart sank. “And… you?”
“Not me, thank God. I was an ‘oops’ baby. My mom was experimenting with having a boyfriend. The boyfriend didn’t work out, but she kept me.”
“Why didn’t Cass tell me?” I asked.
Reggie lifted her eyebrows. “Come on. How would you have reacted?”
“Not as badly as I’m reacting right now,” I said. “All things considered.”
“He’s not family,” Reggie said heatedly.
“He’s a monster. A nightmare. My mom ran away from him when she figured out how dangerous he was.
He scared her to death. He wanted to do, like, some kind of brain surgery on Cass, when she was really little, to make her more like him.
He did it to his other kids, too. A couple of them died in surgery, Mom said. ”
I exchanged glances with the other adults. “That would explain the state that Vincent and Nicole were in,” Freya said. “If they were surgically altered by a megalomaniac hack.”
“Are Vincent and Nicole the ones who kidnapped Holly?” Reggie asked.
“Yes,” Ethan admitted. “Very bad people. We had some trouble with them.”
“Well, Halliwell’s bad people, too,” Reggie said. “She only worked for him because he said he could save me from Varen’s Disease, but she hates his guts, and she couldn’t wait to leave.” Reggie gestured impatiently at my phone. “Can I see? Please?”
“One more question,” I said. “Do you have a sore spot on your scalp?”
Her eyes widened. “How did you know? I never told anyone about it.”
“Where is it?”
“It’s here.” She reached back and touched her scalp. On the back, on the right, at ear level. “It’s from when I passed out on the school grounds that time. Then I got so sick, I forgot. I told the doctors at the clinic, but they didn’t care.”
“Can I look at it?”
“Sure,” she said. “But hurry, please. I want to see that video.”
I parted the thick, glossy locks of curly red hair, shining, the flashlight from my cell phone onto her scalp.
Frey and I saw it at the same moment, and I felt rather than heard her soundless gasp. She touched it gently with her fingertip. It was a small, straight, recently healed scar on her scalp, vertical, a little inflamed.
“Wow,” Jed said, peering over Freya’s shoulder. “Well, I’ll be damned. Look at that.”
“Shane?” Reggie urged. “The phone? Can I see the video? Please?”
“Wait.” I looked up at Kat. “Call Demiguel and the surgeons right now. Let’s get this checked out immediately.”
Kat’s ear was already to her phone. “On it.”
“So that’s taken care of, right?” Reggie said impatiently. “So can I have the phone, please?”
I handed her the phone. Holly scrambled right up on to the bed next to her, putting her arm around Reggie’s shoulder and giving her a reassuring squeeze.
Reggie set it to play. We all stood there, jaws clenched. Staring at the two little girls faces as they watched raptly. The phone’s blue illumination reflected in their eyes.
We followed the tinny audio. Reggie frowned in fierce concentration through the whole thing, holding it close to her eyes. It finished, and she set it to play again, stopping it to enlarge the image, replaying individual moments.
Holly waited quietly. I was proud that she knew when to keep her mouth shut without being told.
After a few minutes, Reggie handed the phone back to me. “It’s not her,” she said. “It’s a deepfake.”
I let out a sharp breath. I’d been holding my breath. Well, duh. Nice fantasy, but of course Reggie would come to that conclusion. No one could blame a lonely, scared, sick little girl for going straight there, and holding her ground. To the death.
“How do you figure?” I asked. All of us were clustered around the bed now. Frey and Kat sat down at the foot of the bed, on either side.
“Well, her hands, to start with,” Reggie said.
She ran the video back. “Look how she waves. Cass doesn’t wave like that.
That twinky-wink finger thing, that’s totally not her.
Plus, those arms have no freckles. Cass has freckles everywhere, like me.
Whoever’s hands they used for that video doesn’t.
See my arms?” She held up her freckly forearm, with the dangling IV line.
“Look at my freckles. Cass has even more.”
“It could just be the light, washing them out,” Ethan warned.
Reggie just gave him a look. “And then there’s the hair,” she said.
“Her hair was straight in the video. Cass’s hair was in a really tight braid yesterday.
It takes time to get to that place, and she braided it wet yesterday.
So if she brushed out her braid, there would be crimped braid-waves.
Unless she got there, took a shower, and blew out her hair, which take forever.
There wasn’t enough time to change into the dress, put on that makeup and blow out her hair. Cass is slow with girly stuff.”
Kat and Frey stared at each other. “I didn’t think of that,” Kat said. “I have straight hair, and never longer than my shoulders. Didn’t even occur to me.”
“But the biggest clue is that there’s no tattoo,” Reggie went on.
“Cass has a tattoo?” Frey said. “I didn’t see one.”
“She was always wearing big sweatshirts with long sleeves since she’s been here,” Reggie said.
She pointed to her left wrist. “She has ‘Regina,’ in cursive, right up her arm. Her tattoo artist knows about ancient Chinese medicine, and she put it right on the heart meridian. When I’m big enough, I’m going to have one on my heart meridian that says ‘Cassandra.’ This girl didn’t have it.
She’s definitely not my sister. Cass made me some temporary tattoos with her name, but they took them away from me at the bad clinic.
And washed off the one I had. The bastards. ”
I digested that, all my nerves buzzing with… no. Goddamn it, I couldn’t afford anything as stupid as hope. I just didn’t dare. It was too damned tempting.
But the scar on Reggie’s scalp, the blown-out hair, the missing tattoo… that was huge. I’d seen Red’s tattoo, the morning we woke up together, but I’d forgotten it. We’d never had time for the kind of lazy bed talk where tattoo histories were discussed.
It made bombing Halliwell’s place into dust much more complicated, if Red was there. And if she was still the Red that I had always believed her to be.
The Red I’d fallen hopelessly in love with.
The doctors were filing in, talking excitedly. Demiguel was shooing us all away from the bed and out of the room. Stuff was happening in here. Thank God.
It was time to make it happen out there, too.
I looked at Ethan. “I’m ready,” I said. “Let’s extract Cass and grind that motherfucker into the ground. We’ll sort the mess out later.”
“Amen,” Ethan said.
We raced toward the parking lot, boots thundering on the pavement.