by Rysa Walker
But can Unify America take the White House? Senator Cregg and his opponent, Texas governor Juanita Breyer, are currently attempting to convince prospective major party voters that they can win. That is, however, pretty much the only point of commonality between the two candidates. This has caused some analysts to question whether UA is an actual political party or simply a collection of opportunistic politicians who sensed the winds of change and decided to jump before their ship went down.
Senator Cregg’s current lead in the delegate count is almost, but not quite, insurmountable, due in part to his central role in the ongoing hearings on how to best address psychic terrorism. Breyer, speaking yesterday at a campaign stop in Connecticut to an audience of purple-clad UA supporters, claimed that Cregg is manipulating the Delphi situation to his political advantage and blamed the media for allowing this. “Cregg was a major player in the company that created the serum. The evidence is there if the media would investigate. But all Cregg has to do is stage another fake attack with psychic explosions, and reporters are off like kids chasing after the ice cream truck, hoping they’ll be first to get a really big scoop.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Port Deposit, Maryland
April 24, 2020, 9:18 p.m.
Taylor presses her hand against the hood of the van. “I wouldn’t say it’s still warm. But the grass is mashed flat back there, so it was parked fairly recently. You’re sure this is the same van?”
I nod and crouch down next to the dented area, tapping it with my fist. “I got an up-close-and-personal look at this when it nearly decapitated Abbott earlier today.”
As I stand, the blood rushes to my head. I lean against the van for a moment and wait for the world to stop moving.
“You okay?”
I nod. “Just light-headed. It’ll pass. Could you take a look inside the van?”
Taylor peeks through the window. “Or I could just open the door, since they didn’t lock it.” I brace for a body or blood, but the van is empty, aside from a hand truck and a few moving blankets.
“Good,” I say. “Maybe Abbott just dropped her off somewhere.”
“Dropped who off?”
“The woman who was driving the van when he hijacked it.”
“Oh. Could you stop calling them Abbott and Costello? That doesn’t even bring up a visual for me.”
“Tall and thin. Short and fat. What should I call them? Is Laurel and Hardy better?”
“No. Bert and Ernie, maybe?”
“You okay with the fact that Ernie’s probably dead?”
“Ick,” she says, grimacing. “No.”
“Okay, then. I’ll stick with Abbott and Costello.”
Taylor checks the glove compartment but only finds a stack of fast-food napkins and one of those tire-gauge thingies. So we return to the dormitory. Once we’re back on the top floor, she calls to let the guys know about the van, holding the phone out from her ear as Daniel not-so-gently reminds her that we were only supposed to be on lookout.
She flips the phone to speaker mode once his outburst dies down. “It’s done. We’re safe. What’s up on your end?”
“Police car went straight to the underground parking area. But it did not come out. Aaron isn’t picking any vibes up, though.”
“How long have they been inside the garage?” I ask.
“Yeah, that’s kind of the problem,” Daniel says. “It’s already been more than ten minutes. We were about to text you that we’re going in to check it out. But, back to the van—you sure it’s the same one, Anna?”
“Positive. Same dent near the tire. You said there was an entrance to The Warren in this building?”
“No, I said there was a rumor of a stairway they blocked off years ago. I never saw it. It’s more likely this Abbott guy used the shaft that goes down from Memorial Hall.”
Deo starts talking in the background. I can’t tell everything he says, but he’s clearly disagreeing, and two of the words that I do pick up explains why he disagrees: second floor.
Aaron’s voice breaks in. “Taylor. We’ll call back in five.” Then they’re gone.
Taylor sticks the phone in her pocket and stares down at her feet before looking back up at me. “So . . . do you think Tall-and-Skinny used the entrance in Memorial Hall?”
“Not unless he’s got climbing gear. That’s what Deo was trying to tell Daniel just now. Without power, elevators are useless. So there’d have to be stairs . . .”
Or a ladder, I think, remembering the vision. A ladder that extends into a pitch-black hole in the ground. I don’t say that, however, since my mouth and part of my mind is stuck on that other track, the one where all of this is happening for the first time.
Instead, I say, “I still think Abbott came through here, given that the van is nearby and the door was bolted from the inside when we arrived. So, now we’ve just got to . . . figure . . . out . . .”
“Ah, we have processor pauses,” Taylor says. “Those tiny little hamster wheels in your brain are spinning, aren’t they?”
I flip her off and extend my hand. “Flashlight, please.”
“Nope. In case you’ve forgotten, this isn’t just a flashlight.”
“Oh, right.” I’d forgotten it was a gift from Sam when Taylor went on her first date. Push one button, and it will light your way. Push the other button, and you can deliver a few million volts of electricity to an attacker.
Taylor motions toward the stairs and follows me. When we reach the ground floor, I point out the pile of junk near the fireplace.
“Aaron said earlier there was no debris in this building when you guys searched it. Do you remember seeing this pile when you were here last October?”
“I don’t think so.”
The junk pile turns out to be a mix of boards and drywall. When Taylor nudges one of the boards, it slips to the side, scraping a line through the layer of dust on the floor. Underneath is a crowbar and a hammer.
“Looks like someone left tools behind. But if they were uncovering a door or a passageway, where is it?”
She’s right. Despite the trash all over the floor, I don’t see a door. Just the walls and the fireplace. And . . . aha. Footprints. In the dust. Not just one set but two.
Taylor uses the flashlight to follow the prints. They lead directly to the fireplace and disappear. She runs the beam along the inside walls, and sure enough, there’s a large handprint on one side of the back panel.
We both step back and look at each other. I know what she’s thinking. Do we wait for the guys to call? Or do we follow Abbott and his hostage down the rabbit hole—the deep, dark rabbit hole—into The Warren?
After a long silence, Taylor says, “You know what pisses me off?”
A whole lot of things, I think. But I shake my head and wait for her to tell me what it is this time.
“This is sexist. I mean, making you stay here is one thing . . . there’s actually a very good reason not to trust you with any responsibility right now. But Deo is younger than either of us. He’s never even fired a gun—well, aside from shooting Daniel, and that isn’t exactly something that should count in his favor. But he’s there, with Aaron and Daniel, and I’m here.”
She doesn’t add the word babysitting, but I can tell she’s thinking it.
Truthfully, I don’t like that Deo is here at all. I’d far prefer that he was back at Sandalford or on his way to West Virginia with Sam, Stan, and Maggie. But he’ll be an asset if Daniel or Aaron need to expand the reach of their abilities.
And Taylor knows that as well as I do. She’s just trying to work up an argument for why we—or at least why she—should ignore Daniel’s instructions to stay put.
“Aaron said they’d call back in five. And it’s been at least two minutes already. So why not wait and let them know what we found? See what they’re planning. Then we’ll decide.”
She lets out an exasperated sigh and parks herself on the floor. I join her and, for distraction, pull Cregg’s tablet out
of my knapsack. “Okay, Taylor, font of all wisdom. Help me figure out what this passcode might be. I’ve already tried his birthday, Shakespeare’s birthday, the birthday he gave my new identity, and a bunch of other possibilities. What else do we know about Graham Cregg?”
I expect to hear the scraping noise or feel some sort of movement when I speak his name aloud, but I don’t. Perhaps the rat-spider is sleeping. Or maybe I have to say his name three times while staring at my reflection in order to rouse the bastard.
“Well,” Taylor says, “aside from the fact that he’s a mostly dead psycho who’s currently hitching a ride with you . . . let’s see. Rich kid, followed in daddy’s footsteps working at the same companies—well, except Graham never did time in the military. Married in his thirties, two kids . . .”
“Married. That’s right. You said that before—back at Kelsey’s place—but I forgot. I mean, there was no wife or children with him in the silo, even though he was fighting cancer and dealing with the effects of chemo. I’d started thinking of him as a lone wolf.”
“I don’t think it was a happy marriage. Probably one of those merger weddings—does his estate take her estate, ’til bankruptcy do us part. That kind of thing. Anyway, his wife’s face popped up in a picture with him at an event every now and then, but they seemed to go their own way a lot. And the kids are grown . . . probably early twenties.”
“What about his mother?”
Oddly, it’s that question that hits a nerve with Cregg. There’s a faint increase in pressure along my back wall as if something slumps against it. I don’t like that he can still get any signals through to me, but I’m not seeing spider eyes, and he’s not getting full sentences through like he was yesterday. I’ll count that as a win.
“I think his mother’s dead,” Taylor says. “Or maybe they just divorced. The Senator remarried, so the woman behind that whole Sanctuary for Psychics scam is wife number two. Graham’s stepmom, and he may even have been older than she was. Actually . . .” She stops, taps something into her phone, and slides it across the floor. “Here. You want to check dates or whatever? Knock yourself out.”
Senator Ron Cregg’s face stares up at me from his Wikipedia page. I’ve read it before, but I wasn’t paying attention to family details. His first wife, Penelope Arnett Cregg, was the sole heir to an auto-parts fortune. She committed suicide at age thirty-eight. I try her birthday and date of death with no result. Then I try the keypad letters for GCregg: 427344. Nothing.
There’s no further information in the article, so I click on the link for Graham Cregg, which is little more than a stub—wife, Marie, and two children, Alexandra (twenty-one) and Jonathan (nineteen). I hunt for their dates of birth but come up empty. Then I try the keypad code for the first six letters in his kids’ names: Jonath and Alexan. Still no luck on the code, but as I’m typing in that last name, something else hits me.
“Alex. Damn.”
“Who’s Alex?” Taylor asks.
“A name that tripped me up today. I thought they were talking about a guy, but . . .”
On a whim, I check Google Images for pictures of Alexandra Cregg. There are several, most of them family shots from Ron Cregg’s last Senate campaign. Her brown hair is longer, but it’s definitely her.
I slide the phone across the floor to Taylor. “Cregg’s daughter, Alex. Who also happens to be the girl driving the van today.”
“So . . . not a hostage situation after all.”
“Nope. They told me to call Alex when I was getting out of the car this morning. And they said Alex would be picking me up to take care of some financial matters. Didn’t even think it might have been a woman.”
“Tsk tsk. See where sexism gets us? And speaking of sexists . . . it’s now been seven minutes. I’m going to call them.”
“Is that a good idea? What if it rings and they’re—”
“They’re not total idiots, Anna. Their phones will be on vibrate.”
“Hopefully they remind Deo. He’s not used to keeping his phone in stealth mode.”
Taylor ignores me and calls Daniel. No response. She tries Aaron next, with no result, and finally Deo, who answers but hangs up immediately without saying anything.
“So they can’t or won’t talk. Okay, then. That’s what the tracking app is for. Locate Aaron.”
After a moment, a pin appears on the map, showing Aaron less than a quarter mile to the southwest of us, near Memorial Hall. Taylor repeats the process for Deo and Daniel. They’re not with Aaron but are about the same distance away to the northwest.
She pulls a copy of the print map labeled Python Diagnostic from her bag, the same map that she and Daniel were looking at back in the RV. “That’s near the entrance to the garage,” she says, tapping at the paper. We scan this section of the map, but whatever is behind the fireplace in front of us isn’t listed.
Taylor rolls up the map and stashes it inside her bag. “Aaron shouldn’t be going anywhere without backup.”
“Right. And neither should you. I’m coming. It’s my father down there, and I’m as worried about Aaron and the others as you are. Plus . . . I’m not staying up here alone.”
Even though I know I’ll soon be following Taylor down through the dark on a ladder, I half expect her to say no, maybe even to pull out duct tape and leave me here strapped to one of the support beams. But she seems to be weighing what I said. Maybe she doesn’t want to be alone either.
“I can’t give you a gun. You’ll just be a liability.”
“But I’d be a second set of eyes.”
As soon as the words leave my mouth, I remember the spider face in my reflection. Not just a second set of eyes. Also a third set, and a fourth. I push that thought away. “More importantly, if I’m with you, you’ll have a hostage. Or better yet, I can pretend to be Cregg. Plus . . . I had a vision back at the RV. I do go with you . . . it will be dark and—”
Taylor snorts, shaking her head. “God, Anna. You are an unbelievably bad liar. That’s one reason I could tell when it was Cregg and not you. He can actually lie.”
Is she saying I’m lying about the vision or saying that they won’t believe me if I pretend to be Cregg? Maybe both. Either way, I’m not sure her claim makes sense. If Cregg was that good of a liar, how did Taylor know he was lying? But I don’t want to piss her off by questioning her shaky logic, so I simply stick to my point.
“I won’t need to convince them of anything, Taylor. Even if Cregg isn’t in control, they both know that he’s in here. Abbott won’t risk losing the paycheck that he’s put forth a lot of effort to get, and this . . . Alex . . .”
I stop, searching for words. It’s hard for me to reconcile the Graham Cregg who tortured Molly and was the cause of countless deaths with the image of anyone’s father, much less as a father who might be mourned by his offspring.
“I guess she loses what’s left of her dad? I don’t know. The point is, if you need leverage with them, you can threaten me because they do not want me dead. I don’t even think Whistler will kill me if he can avoid it. They consider me and my father valuable commodities. Not just as weapons but as potential . . . second skins, I guess?”
Taylor wrinkles her nose. “Very glad that the Delphi gods made me a lowly sketch artist. And I wasn’t actually planning on leaving you here.” She pulls up a message on her phone and holds it out to me. “This came in when we were still in the car.”
It’s from Stan:
If you listen to your brothers, the path clusters unravel.
“I don’t know about you, but I like Jaden’s style of visions a whole lot better than Stan’s,” Taylor says, echoing my earlier thoughts. “These are way too iffy. I kind of hoped he was talking about us checking out the van. And maybe he was. There’s no way to tell.”
The phone buzzes in my hand, startling me to the point that I nearly drop the thing. It’s Deo.
“Deo? Where are you?” I answer out of habit, not even thinking about the fact that it’s Taylor’s
phone until she snatches it away. Which is silly, because she’s right next to me and I can hear every word he says.
“Um. Not entirely sure? . . . somewhere between the gar . . .” There’s about a second of silence, and then he says, “Pfeifer to the lab . . .”
“You’re breaking up,” Taylor says.
“. . . tunnel on fire. Daniel saw something different. We’re still . . . were supposed to meet Aaron”—another, longer break—“through Memor . . .”
The call drops this time. Taylor tries again, but no luck.
“So,” I say. “I’m getting that they dropped Aaron off near Memorial Hall. They were going to meet at the lab—”
“And Daniel and Deo can’t get through the tunnel. But why did they separate? And why didn’t they grab Pfeifer before he got into the building?”
“No clue.” I nod toward the fireplace. “Guess we’ll have to go ask them.”
“Yeah.” She sighs. “Go unlock the front door. I’ll text and tell them we’ve found a way in. They can circle around.”
I start to protest that we haven’t actually checked yet to determine whether this is a way in. But it seems kind of pointless when I’m 99 percent sure there’s a pit and a ladder somewhere on the other side of that fireplace wall.
When I return, Taylor is finishing up the text. After she hits send, she says, “There. I feel better with them knowing either way. In case they can’t find another route in . . . and in case something happens to us. I don’t know if they’ll even get the text if they’re already underground, but . . .”
“Worth a try.”
“Yeah,” she says. “Before we go, here are the rules. You stay where I can see you. That means you go in first and at no time do you get behind me. Nor do you point this”—she holds up the flashlight/stun gun—“or your pepper spray toward me. Are we understood?”
I nod, then I place my palms over the current set of handprints on the fireplace wall and push. It creaks a bit as it slowly pivots inward to reveal a small room, no bigger than a broom closet. She hands me the flashlight, and I crouch down and squeeze through the opening.
