by Rysa Walker
He sniffs the skin on his forearm and then wrinkles his nose. “Would a shower help?”
I grin. “It couldn’t hurt. But I don’t think you’re quite up to that yet.”
“Later, then. Where were you guys?”
I catch him up on the other events of the past few days, including our interview with Skolnick and the creepy texts from Cregg.
“Yeah, Taylor told me about the messages. I read the ones he sent me, but they didn’t make any sense. So, what’s next? Did Aaron call the police to report the girl’s body?”
“No. Magda wants us to locate the other missing kids before we pull in the police. We’re supposed to talk to some teacher tomorrow. Offer her a reward. I’m . . . not exactly sure we should do that, though.”
“Why not?”
“Well, she’s a teacher. Some of these kids were her students, and all we’re doing is asking her to help us find them. What if she’s a person of conscience?”
“Even people of conscience can use a little extra cash.”
“True. But—think of it this way. How would Kelsey have felt if someone had offered her money for any of the extra things she did for us?”
He gives me a little shrug of admission. “She’d be insulted.”
“Exactly.”
“Have you heard from her? Dr. K, I mean.”
“Not directly. But Aaron’s mom says Kelsey is petitioning the state to give her legal guardianship over you.”
“Whoa. Can she do that? And, hey . . . what about you?”
I smile at the indignant note in his voice. “I’ll be eighteen before the paperwork could even be filed, kiddo. And yeah, apparently she can, since she’s closing her practice. Do you think Carla will give up her parental rights, though?”
“Don’t know,” he says. “Depends on whether she’s currently letting Patrick use her as a punching bag.”
Carla is Deo’s mom, although I use that term very loosely, since she tends to side with Patrick, Deo’s abusive stepfather, rather than her own child. Even though Deo doesn’t remember, I’m pretty sure the burn scars on his arm are from Patrick, and anyone who would stay with a man who did that to her child doesn’t deserve parental rights. About once a year, Carla gets fed up with Patrick abusing her and waltzes back into Deo’s life, because she’s lonely now and he’s her only kid. And every single time, she goes back to Patrick and tries to coerce Deo into coming, too—which would mean pretending to be someone he’s not, because Patrick is a homophobic jerk who insists that Deo “act like a real boy” as long as he’s under his roof.
The last time this parental charade played itself out was a few weeks before I picked up Molly. One of Deo’s former foster parents took it upon herself to share with Carla the fact that Deo seemed to have a crush on a girl for a change. Not exactly breaking news, since Deo is bisexual and has always been attracted to people based on personality regardless of how their private parts are configured. But Carla seized on it, thinking that all it would take was some persistent discipline, something that Patrick excels at dishing out, and her boy would be “normal” and they could be a “real family” again.
Deo’s old enough to recognize the pattern with his mom but not so old that it doesn’t hurt. Not so old that he doesn’t still harbor a tiny bit of hope that maybe this time his mom will choose him instead of Patrick.
I reach over and very nearly squeeze his hand before I remember that’s now verboten.
“I’m okay.” He gives me a tired smile as he pushes his mostly empty bowl of Cheerios to the side. “Carla’s games don’t bother me anymore. Living with Kelsey would be awesome. Assuming we ever get back to Maryland . . .”
He retreats to his bunk, still a little wobbly. I’m glad he grabs our old laptop and his earbuds to take with him, rather than simply collapsing into the bed.
It’s progress. And even if it’s only temporary, I’ll take it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Fayetteville, North Carolina
November 3, 2019, 11:36 a.m.
My nose comes to life before the rest of me. Some wonderful person has made coffee. Aaron and Taylor are talking softly, too softly for me to follow anything other than the rise-and-fall rhythm of their voices, and I drift off again for a minute or two. It doesn’t last, though, since my brain is harping on our assigned task for the day.
Bernadette Pruitt, our designated interviewee, is a fifth-grade teacher at Baker Elementary, the school that one of the kids on our list attends. More importantly, Pruitt taught at one of the four Department of Defense elementary schools in the area until last year when budget cuts forced her to take a lower-paying position at Baker. Magda’s theory is that she’ll have information about what’s going on inside Bragg, and the salary cut might mean she’s disgruntled enough to talk, especially if we wave the promise of a reward.
After talking to Skolnick, however, I’m less convinced of that. He was definitely correct about Magda’s cover story having gigantic holes. Maybe in the UK it would be possible for us to stroll into the school offices, wave bogus badges from a law firm, and state that we were investigating for a potential class action suit against a pharmaceutical company. Or maybe Magda’s kids have never actually attended a school, and she’s woefully out of touch.
We toyed with the idea of snagging a discarded badge—there are always a few tossed into the trash outside of a school. In my experience, the photographs are so awful that we’d probably skate right past security. But the names wouldn’t match the credentials Magda provided.
So we’re subverting Magda’s plan and doing a stakeout near the school this afternoon. We’ll follow Pruitt and ask our questions outside of school property. The address and phone number we have for Pruitt are a bit dated, but we do have her photo, the make and model of the car she bought last month, and the tag number, thanks to Sam. I’m still not excited about the prospect of interviewing her, even off school property, but it beats the hell out of getting arrested for trespassing in a place surrounded by security cameras and guards.
When I finally drag myself out of bed, Taylor is the only one in the main cabin. She’s stretched out in one of the recliners with a tablet in her lap, Deo’s purple earbuds in her ears, and glasses with dark-green frames perched on her nose. I’ve never seen her in glasses. Her drawing pad sits on the table next to her chair, and at first I think she’s trying to do a remote viewing. But the pad is covered with handwriting, small and neat, not sketches.
Taylor finishes whatever she’s jotting down and pushes the glasses on top of her head. “Good morning, Anna. Good morning, Daniel. Although, if we’re aiming for accuracy, it’s nearly afternoon.”
I sigh. “Good morning, Taylor. And you should add Jaden if we’re going to do a full roll call every morning.”
She shrugs dismissively. “Jaden’s dead. And I never met him when he was alive, so I doubt he’s too upset at my lack of greeting.”
Jaden laughs.
Nah, man, she’s way wrong. Tell her I’m wounded. Mortally wounded.
I tsk. “Never knew you were such a bigot against the dead, Taylor.”
Her eyebrows shoot up. “Oh, wow. I didn’t even think of it, but this means Daniel is undead. So . . . is he more vampire or zombie?”
“Hmm. Good question. I’ll go with vampire. He’s a royal pain—”
Taylor cuts me off with a groan. “Pain in the neck? That’s worse than the puns Aaron comes up with.”
I squeeze past Taylor’s outstretched feet to go check on Deo.
“He’s still asleep, and he’s fine. I checked on him a few minutes ago. He was up in the middle of the night raiding the pantry, so I guess being sick threw his clock out of whack. And before you ask, Aaron’s off getting fishing gear.”
“Fishing gear? You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope. It was his idea. I was online scouting out the area where Skolnick says he saw the body, and, while it is on military property, that section is open for hunting and fishing. So Aaron we
nt on post and registered for a permit to fish at Overhills Lake. We can hike over to the abandoned resort buildings from there. The area is open 24/7 most days, but they’ve got some sort of military exercise scheduled beginning tomorrow. So we’ll either have to go after you get back from talking to the Pruitt woman or wait until next week.”
“No,” I say. The idea of leaving Nicki Clary’s body out there that long is appalling. “Sooner is definitely better.”
I snag a breakfast bar from the pantry and pour the last of the coffee into a mug.
“Make more if you emptied the pot,” Taylor says. “I have work to do.”
“Diving right into your school assignments?”
“Ha. No. I sent Mom a text and told her not to bother. If I can’t finish with my friends, I’ll take the GED. School isn’t exactly high on my list of priorities right now.”
“Then what are you doing?” I ask as I reload the coffee maker.
“Research.” There’s a very explicit, unspoken duh at the end. “And now that you’re finally awake, I can shift the interview to the big screen. It’s always easier to spot the lies when their faces are big.”
“Interview?”
“Yeah.” She clicks the link to send the content on the tablet to the display over the fireplace. “With Cregg. It aired last night.”
I look up, expecting to see the face that’s visited so many of my nightmares during the past week. But it’s not Graham Cregg. It’s his father. That’s better, although there’s still something about the man’s expression—his fixed, ingratiating smile—that unnerves me.
Senator Ronald Cregg is in his late sixties, about fifty pounds heavier than his son, with a fringe of silver hair and rimless glasses. He might have been handsome when he was younger, but he looks like an elderly accountant now, the kind who would know all of the tax loopholes.
Right now, Cregg—no, I can’t think of him as just Cregg. That name is too firmly connected in my head with his nightmare of a son. Right now, the Senator is parked in the middle third of the screen. The younger man to his left is introduced as a spokesperson for the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force. To his right is a woman in her early fifties, identified as Juanita Breyer.
“She looks . . . familiar.”
Taylor raises one eyebrow and clicks pause. “She should. Governor of Texas? Switched over to Unify America just after the 2018 elections? Breyer is Cregg’s main opponent for the UA nomination. You don’t pay much attention to politics, do you?”
“Not the minor parties. I mean, obviously, I’ve heard of Unify America. I’m just not familiar with Breyer.”
I’m tempted to add, in my defense, that I know far more than Taylor does about politics in the 1950s and 1960s, when my hitcher Emily MacAllister campaigned for Adlai Stevenson and later for Kennedy. I could also give Taylor a lengthy lecture on the political factions of post–World War I Germany and the rise of McCarthyism in the United States. And I’m very familiar with the politics of the Rwandan Civil War, thanks to another hitcher, Didier. He was lucky enough to immigrate in the late 1980s but could do nothing to help his family members who were still in his native country when the genocide began.
“Well, I would certainly hope you’ve heard of Unify America,” she says, settling back into the recliner. “You could have had your head in a bucket of sand for the past two years and still have heard of UA.”
She has a point. After the tumultuous 2016 election and its aftermath, Senator Cregg and a handful of others in Congress and at the state level saw an opportunity to spin off their own brand of politics, pitching it as “a reasonable alternative for reasonable people.” Several dozen legislators and a lot of state officials formally switched their party affiliation, hoping to pull in disaffected voters from both main parties. They made some progress during midterm elections, thanks largely to being extremely well funded. While they’re still nowhere near as strong as the two major parties, it was the best showing for a third party in decades.
Taylor clicks play again, and once the introductions conclude, an inset window pops up with a familiar video of a large building blazing against the night sky. It’s Memorial Hall, the building that Deo and I found ourselves in when we escaped from The Warren, and this is the same clip that we watched while waiting on Daniel to come out of surgery. The newscaster repeats the mostly bogus story we heard before about a domestic terrorist group funding its operations through profits from a human trafficking ring.
“Senator Cregg, I’d like to start with you, since many of the questions that investigators have center on the involvement of your son, Graham, who was injured in the attack. Can you give us an update on his condition and how he came to be at the facility when the fire broke out?”
“I’d be happy to, Joseph. First, Graham is doing much better. He sustained serious burns on his hands and torso. While he’s currently in stable condition, it was touch-and-go earlier this week, and recovery will likely take longer than usual due to some unrelated health issues that he’s facing. As to your other question, as you may know, Graham is on the board of Decathlon Services. He’s also CEO of Python Diagnostic, a security logistics firm that operates out of Aberdeen.”
“And he’s a psychotic murderer,” I mumble. “Don’t forget that one.”
“Earlier this year,” the Senator says, “he grew concerned about some suspicious port activity in the area, and he had some people keeping an eye on the situation, including one who managed to gain a foothold in the group that was occupying the underground bunker. Last week, that young man—who is currently in a coma due to injuries he received in the attack—notified Graham that the group, which he referred to as a terrorist cell, appeared to be splitting into two factions and that violence was brewing. He was worried about the safety of several dozen young women and children who were being held, presumably against their will.”
“You lying son of a bitch.” Taylor wads up a sheet of paper and hurls it at Senator Cregg’s face on the TV screen. “Daniel was not working for you.”
Daniel has a similar reaction.
That takes some nerve. He has a real talent for spin.
What does he gain by pulling you into the story?
I don’t know. Extra sympathy points, maybe? Or a tiny bit of truth in his sea of lies that reporters could confirm—at least the hospitalization part—if they go looking?
On the screen, the FBI guy is clearly annoyed. “If I may interject, Senator, the responsible thing would have been to contact the authorities. Perhaps then your son and the young man you mentioned—”
The Senator’s opponent is nodding her platinum head in agreement. “That’s exactly the point I’ve been making. This sort of vigilante attitude toward our security—”
“Excuse me, Governor Breyer,” the Senator interjects. “I was answering a question concerning the status of my son, and I’d like to finish. As I’ve already noted, I passed information along to the Department of Homeland Security earlier this year. After months went by with no official action, Graham was concerned not just about the national security implications but also about the immediate safety of these young women—concerned enough to personally fly one of Python’s helicopters to the location and even enter a burning building to rescue the last few from the fire. So it’s a bit of a slap in the face to wake up and see that your heroic actions that saved the lives of nineteen people, most under the age of eighteen, are being used as political fodder not just by the Washington elite, which doesn’t surprise me, quite frankly, but also by members of my own party.”
All three of them begin talking over each other now, and Taylor lowers the volume. When the news anchor finally gets control of the conversation again, he gives the other two guests a few minutes to basically repeat their talking points and then returns to Senator Cregg. There are a couple of questions about his connections to Decathlon Services Group, the parent company of Python, which the Senator dodges with the practiced grace of a seasoned politician, noting that he has long si
nce terminated any ties to the company and it’s only his son who has an ongoing relationship with Decathlon.
The next question, however, seems to take him by surprise.
“Senator Cregg, have you seen the article in today’s Guardian?”
“No, I’m afraid I haven’t.”
“Okay, I’ll summarize quickly. The story links Decathlon Services Group to a covert government program that was ostensibly closed in the mid-1990s. Something that originated with a military project called Stargate.”
The Senator shakes his head. “If you do your research, you’ll see that links between DSG and that program were minor. They handled some logistical arrangements for the Delphi Project, much as they have for hundreds—no, thousands—of other government initiatives.”
“Okay, but to be clear, this wasn’t just your average government initiative. The article claims that the program was attempting to create psychic superspies—maybe even supersoldiers. And the recent terrorist attack and your son’s involvement have spotlighted Port Deposit and the surrounding area. The residents have some . . . interesting stories that give weight to the claims about the Delphi Project. Spontaneous fires, objects that move on their own—”
Breyer shakes her head incredulously. “Are we really going to talk conspiracy theories? There are so many other things that we need to be discussing—civil liberties, the national debt, foreign relations. This is a waste of time.”
The Senator ignores her. “The DSG allegations are spurious, but I will note that the other issues you just mentioned are under investigation. It’s quite possible that some . . . military technology . . . was acquired by the terrorist group that was occupying the Port Deposit facility. This is something I warned the current administration about several months ago after there were rumors of lax security surrounding the two military bases where the original research was conducted. The situation is under investigation, but that’s really all I can say at this time.”
