Two Weeks' Notice tr-2

by Rachel Caine

  That almost was an expression of…concern. Which seemed very strange, coming from Agent Block. Bryn nodded and felt the tension in her neck relax, just a little. She crossed to her desk and locked up the file as Riley gathered her briefcase.

  “So,” she said. “I guess I’ll get on script after all. Coffee, Riley?”

  Riley smiled, and she seemed relieved. “Thought you’d never ask.”

  When she told her boyfriend, it didn’t go well.

  “Have you gone completely off the ledge?” Patrick McCallister asked. He didn’t yell it, didn’t even sound angry, but there was a tension in his shoulders that warned Bryn he was very unhappy. “You can’t do this for them, Bryn. It’s blackmail—Oh, come on, dog, that’s the third time you’ve watered the same spot. Move on.”

  He was talking to Mr. French, her bulldog, whose leash he held; Mr. French’s start-and-stop progress was worse today than usual, and whatever scent he was trying to eradicate by peeing on it was clearly pretty stubborn. Mr. French ignored McCallister, nosed the grass, let out an explosive sneeze, and peed again on the same spot. Then he licked his chops, circled the perimeter, and must have decided he’d done his job, because he trotted on. For a few steps, anyway, before snuffling the bark of the next tree.

  It was, Bryn reflected, a real test of a good boyfriend that he’d come out in the rain and put up with this. She was carrying the umbrella as the evening shower pattered down; Mr. French didn’t much care, but he would later, when she had to towel him off to take him into Patrick’s huge, fancy house. No, mansion.

  McCallister gave her a straight-on look, and she read the worry in it. He was a good-looking man, although not drop-dead gorgeous.…It was more subtle than that with him. He was usually guarded, but not now, and not with her; she could see his concern, and all that went with it.

  Bryn took hold of his right hand—he was holding Mr. French’s leash with his left—and leaned forward to brush her lips over his cheek. “Blackmail or not, it’s not worth it to test their patience just now,” she said. “Riley was right. Manny’s fragile, and he’d bolt at a real scare. Think about where that would leave us.”

  She realized, when he cast her another look and a devastating smile, that she’d said us and not just me. Not that McCallister shared her…condition, but he was invested in her safety, both financially and personally. Without McCallister, she’d be dead several times over…but that was also true of Joe Fideli and even Riley Block. The difference was that when she got near McCallister, her whole body came alive and grew warm. She wasn’t quite prepared to call it love, at least not out loud. They’d started out as adversaries, then allies, then…something else.

  And now he was walking her dog. In the rain. And worrying about her. She wasn’t sure what it meant long-term, but it felt so, so good to have him here.

  “Manny’s fine,” he said. “And he’s tougher than he seems, trust me. He can’t be stampeded quite that easily, though they’d like to believe it. They’ve already tried scaring him off a few times.”

  “They did?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Manny was expecting it. The government would very much like to have total and utter control of the drug, but he’s not about to part with his own formulas.”

  “They’ve got Pharmadene’s. They don’t need his, do they?”

  “They want it all, of course, but their biggest problem is that Pharmadene encrypted the formula and all the developmental records, and the FBI scientists aren’t having much success at cracking it. They’ve got a refrigerated warehouse of the stuff to try to backward engineer, but it’s getting used up fast. They need Manny’s formulas, and he’s not sharing.”

  “I’m surprised he doesn’t trade it to them and run.” Manny Glickman was a bone-deep paranoid, but he still held some residual loyalty to the FBI, who’d trained him; if he was going to give up the formula to anyone, it’d be Riley Block and her team.

  “He’s not that keen on them right now.”

  “I’m just worried that he could get spooked and leave us.”

  “He’s already moved three times in six months,” McCallister said. “But he always lets me know where he touches down. Don’t worry about him. I’m busy worrying about you. You don’t have to play in the FBI’s snake pit, you know. You don’t really owe them.”

  “I know,” she said, and squeezed his hand. It was a nice sentiment, for all that it was completely unrealistic. She took in a deep breath; the air was cool and heavy with moisture, and it tasted clean and sweet. They paused beneath another tree as Mr. French investigated the area, then finally decided to do his solid-waste business. Raindrops splashed heavily on the umbrella she held over the two of them, and Bryn leaned in closer. McCallister freed his hand and put his arm around her shoulders to pull her closer. They were much the same height, and she could feel the solid muscle of his body beneath his clothes; it woke all kinds of things inside her—hunger, pleasure, memories, longings. Living things. In his presence, at these times, she could forget a little. “Will you promise to keep an eye on me, though?”

  “I thought you’d never ask,” he said. He let go of her as Mr. French finished up, and fished in his pocket for the plastic bag, which he snapped open with a flourish of his wrist and handed to her.

  “Really?” she said. “I thought you were walking him.”

  “I am doing the manly part of holding the leash,” he said. “But he’s your dog, and I have to draw the line somewhere. This seems like a good place.”

  She grinned, kissed him on the lips, and bent to clean up after her dog, who chose that precise moment to shake himself, shedding mud and rain like a sprinkler. Lovely. “I don’t know why I put up with either one of you,” she told Mr. French severely, as she scooped the poop. “It’s way too much trouble.”

  “Obviously because we’re adorable,” McCallister said on behalf of Mr. French, who barked sharply to support the statement. Or maybe just to indicate his desire to get out of the rain.

  Bryn disposed of the bag in the first bin they passed on the way back to the house, and then stopped to look back. “Pat?”

  “Yes?”

  “Since when are there garbage cans on the lawn?” If you could call the enormous, sprawling, carefully manicured parkland around the McCallister estate something so prosaic as a lawn.

  “They’re for the gardeners,” he said. “Don’t worry. I didn’t have them put in just for you.”

  “Liar,” she said.

  “Oh, I’m not. We’ve got other dogs, too. If it makes you feel better, garbage day is Thursday. You can roll all the bins to the curb.”

  That summed up why she liked him so much, she decided; when he was relaxed and the armor was off him, he was oddly unaffected by all…this. The sumptuous multimillion-dollar estate. Most people of his particular social status probably wouldn’t have known what day the garbage was taken out any more than they could locate the laundry room—but Patrick McCallister was one of the most practical people she’d ever met. It helped that he didn’t actually own this place; his family had left everything in a trust, and his income was relatively modest, given the lush surroundings. He was more like a caretaker than the lord of the manor—or at least, that was how he felt about it. The odd thing was that he was happier that way. Too much money makes people callous, he’d told her once. I don’t want to take that chance. I’ve seen what can happen.

  They walked in companionable silence, Mr. French tugging at the lead, and stopped in the mudroom to make themselves and the dog fit for entry into the house. He didn’t like it, but the simple, physical effort of toweling him off was kind of bracing.

  So was the kiss McCallister gave her, warm and sweet, before they went into the more formal areas. McCallister headed toward the library, which was his favorite evening spot. Bryn was following when Liam came down the stairs with a telephone in his hand.

  Liam insisted he wasn’t a butler, but Bryn couldn’t help but think of him that way. He was silver-haired, di
gnified, and even though he didn’t wear butlerish clothes, he definitely had the manners. And the grace. She’d felt clumsy and glaringly out of her league when she’d first come here, but he’d never made her feel anything but welcome.

  Tonight, he gave her a smile and said, “I have a phone call for you from someone who doesn’t wish to give a name. Do you want me to decline?”

  That call could have been from anyone, but Bryn had a sudden, painful conviction—irrational as it was—that it would be her sister, Annalie. The metallic taste of adrenaline filled her mouth. No one had seen or heard from Annie—or her kidnapper, Mercer—for more than a month; there were no reports coming in through Pat McCallister’s contacts, or through Joe Fideli’s.

  They’d simply dropped out of sight.

  She needed to know that Annie was all right, so without a word, she held out her hand, and Liam put the phone into it, then walked away to give her privacy. She headed off in a different direction, Mr. French at her heels. “Hello?” Her voice shook a little, more from eagerness than fear. Annie, please let it be you. Please. She’d let her sister down in a huge and awful way; she’d allowed Annalie to come into her life knowing things were dangerous. She’d done it because, in the aftermath of her death and Revival, she’d been feeling so alone, so vulnerable. It was Annie who’d paid the price for that.

  Annie, too, had joined the ranks of the Revived, against her will. And she now depended on Mercer—the original creator of the drug—and his slimy henchman, Freddy, for daily shots to keep her alive.

  Please, Annie, help me find you.

  It wasn’t her. In fact, it was a voice Bryn didn’t recognize at all. “Bryn Davis?” A man’s voice, medium register, not much of an accent she could detect.

  “Yes.”

  “I—I’m sorry for calling out of the blue, but I was given your name by a friend. A Pharmadene employee. Like me. Her name is Chandra.”

  She turned her back to the doorway, unconsciously shielding the phone from any accidental eavesdropping by Liam or Patrick. “I’m listening.”

  “My friend said you run a kind of…counseling service. Support group.” The man pulled in a deep breath, then let it out again. “For those of us who are, you know…addicts.”

  “You mean, you need your hit every day or you get very sick?”

  “Yes.”

  “Uh-huh.” There was a desk in the corner of the room, largely ornamental, but it held some writing paper and a pen, and Bryn quickly jotted down the number on the caller ID and said, “Do you want to meet somewhere and talk things over?”

  “Yes.” He sounded relieved. “Yes, I need to talk. Please.”

  “Anyplace you feel comfortable that you can get to tomorrow?”

  He named a coffee shop she knew, and she wrote it down. “I’ll be reading a book,” he said. “Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time.”

  “What’s your first name?”

  “Carl,” he said. “Carl—”

  “I don’t need your last name, Carl. That’s fine. How about ten a.m.?”

  “Fine. Thanks. I just need—I need to deal with this, and I haven’t been doing a real good job lately. It’s my family. My wife. It just seems…”

  “Overwhelming,” she said. “I know. It gets better when you talk to someone else who can really understand.”

  Carl was one of those the government had saved, and kept saving, every day that they provided him with a shot. He probably had the same question Bryn did: how long would that last? Not long, Bryn thought. She wouldn’t tell him that, but she knew the ruthless truth: the government didn’t need these people, other than a key few; they were just excess baggage, and sooner or later, they’d get dumped as the stockpiled supplies of Returné dried up.

  These were victims, innocent victims—Pharmadene employees who’d been designated as mission-critical. They’d been “converted”—corporate-speak for killed, then Revived. And now the government was stuck with a bunch of people they couldn’t allow to run around loose and unsupervised because of their undead status…but there were too many to simply, conveniently disappear.

  Bryn didn’t fool herself into thinking there was any genuine moral or ethical dilemma involved. Just expedience, risk, and reward.

  Word was starting to get out, and Carl wasn’t the first Pharmadene employee to cold-call, looking for answers. Bryn didn’t know how many Revived were out there under the government’s control, and Riley Block wasn’t going to tell her…but this, in a small way, was making a difference.

  Though absolutely nobody wanted her to do it. Particularly not Pat McCallister. He thought there were risks—and he was right. She just couldn’t not do it.…She felt responsible, somehow, to all these luckless bastards who had (like her) never asked for this sinister gift of pseudolife, who had to live a lie now.

  Her lies, at least, were less personal.

  She finished the call and hung up, and turned to find—no surprise—that Pat was standing there silently watching her. She shook her head. “Don’t start.”

  “I won’t,” he said, but she could tell by the stillness in him that he wanted to. “Come on. Dinner. Liam won’t be happy if you let his beef Wellington get cold.”

  It was so odd that she lived in a house where beef Wellington was what was for dinner. And it wasn’t even that exceptional.

  “I need to change,” she said, and kissed him quickly on the way out the door. “Be down in a minute.”

  Her room still didn’t feel like hers, exactly, although all her stuff was here, or as much as she’d wanted to bring with her.…She hadn’t wanted the old, cheap pressboard dresser, the secondhand couch or bed, but she’d brought the old armchair she’d always preferred, and her pictures, mementos, books, music, and movies were all neatly ordered on shelves. The room had come with a television, a vast flat-screen thing that probably also made coffee, as high tech as it was, and she was a little scared of it. It had its own curtains to conceal it, so as not to upset the soothing autumnal glory of the furniture and fabrics; they wouldn’t have been out of place a hundred years ago, in this very house.

  Her clothes were not great, but they were better than they had been, mainly because she had some grasp now of how to dress for her job. She’d come straight out of the military to her first funeral home job, and wearing a uniform hadn’t prepared her for the challenge of buying suits. She’d gotten some advice from Lucy, the funeral home’s formidable administrator, who’d surely trained with some kind of fashion-related Zen master.

  Bryn stripped off her doggy-mudded jeans and shirt and put on what was casual evening dress here in the mansion—a dress, which was a little sexy, like for a first date at an upscale restaurant. She added a necklace that she’d been given by her mom years ago, and then picked up the nice watch that Annie had given her as her “first job” present.

  I wish…

  Bryn stopped the thought, held the watch in her hand for a moment, and then put it on with sure, quick snaps of her fingers.

  I’ll find you, she promised the absent ghost of her sister. I will. I swear.

  But she had nowhere to look, and nothing to go on. If her sister was still out there, still alive, still waiting, Bryn was letting her down with every moment she didn’t find her. Worse, she was letting down her whole family, who didn’t even know Annie was in trouble.

  After a deep breath, Bryn went downstairs for a dinner for which she had, suddenly, very little appetite.

  Chapter 3

  Bryn had never liked mornings, but she’d usually been an early riser anyway—life in the army did that to you, accustomed you to being out of bed before dawn whether you wanted to be or not. She woke in the predawn light, comfortable and warm, with Mr. French snuggled against her legs on top of the covers. His chin was on her hip, and he was snoring like a little old man and twitching as he dreamed. The room was cool, dim, and soothing, but for a moment it felt…wrong. Early mornings sometimes brought her doubts out of the depths and up to breach the s
urface. What am I doing here? I don’t belong here, in this house.

  Her apartment—cheap and crappy as it had been—had been her own space, but she’d started worrying about not her own safety there, but that of her neighbors. Innocent people, families, who had no knowledge of the kind of knife’s edge on which she lived. She’d woken up with every noise, every car engine, wondering if the government was coming to make her disappear, or worse, if someone else had decided to grab her, experiment on her.…The paranoia (justified or not) had driven her half nuts.

  Patrick McCallister had made the offer to give her a room at his mansion—a protected space, safe, controlled, where she endangered no one who didn’t know the score. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to take that last step with him yet, and they weren’t lovers, but she knew she could trust him. And she knew that she wanted to be with him.

  But in the mornings, she still wondered whether she’d sacrificed her independence for security.

  Then again, she thought, and yawned, the apartment complex didn’t set out a full breakfast, and have coffee going by the time I got up. Which Liam did, every morning. He was an even earlier riser than she was, and he seemed to feel that it was his sacred duty to be sure she had fuel before starting her day. Screw independence. Who doesn’t get used to that?

  She didn’t, apparently. She still felt like a guest here; regardless of what Patrick did, or what Liam would excuse, she didn’t feel that she could roll out of bed in her bathrobe and shuffle down to breakfast. No, she had to get up, shower, fix her hair, do her makeup, dress, and then go down. And she was self-conscious about it. Every day, she had the argument with herself about moving out, finding her own space, but every day, the larger part of her wanted to stay.

  And truthfully, it was because of Patrick. They hadn’t slept together, but they’d had some fantastic everything-but-skin sessions; she didn’t feel like either of them was reluctant to take the next step, but she did feel that they were both…cautious. And careful not to push. He was waiting on her, and she was waiting on him, and that made for an interestingly frustrating relationship, because fairly soon, one of them was just going to seize the moment.