by Maddie Wade
“How did he find her, and how does him killing Claire fit in?” Dane asked.
“Marcus has a team that monitors the emergency services and hospitals. They report anything or anyone that seems different somehow. Claire came to his attention after her brain tumour was diagnosed. Something in the electrical impulses in the brain are different in people with abilities. Most doctors wouldn’t spot it, necessarily, but The Divine Watchers have been studying people like this for decades and have found a way to single them out.”
“Claire had a tumour?” Everyone turned to the door where Lauren stood, looking ghostly pale. Dane hurried round the table to her.
“Come and sit down, sweetheart,” he said, urging her into a chair next to him. When she was seated, Drew continued.
“Yes. She had a stage three brain tumour and was having treatment. Margo, one of the scientists that works for The Divine Watchers, approached her. They wanted to get her into a trial at one of their private clinics. But Claire refused and when she kept eluding them or refusing to meet with them, Marcus had her murdered.”
“But why Claire? Why was she so special? There must be others out there with her abilities!” Lauren asked.
“I’m not sure, but from what I can tell it was a numbers thing. They wanted as many people with special abilities as possible and people with serious illness are more likely to try something like a trial. I’m so sorry Lauren. I had no idea until after, that he would kill someone.”
“He’s always been heartless, but as I was explaining before you came in, he’s gotten increasingly more unstable, of late. When he sent Michaels to her home to kill her, there were pictures of you two together and Michaels must have recognised you.
You’re the very image of your mother and Marcus has pictures of her everywhere at home. It used to drive my mum mad. It was one of the reasons that Marcus got us our own place. I was too young to remember what it had been like, but apparently he never let my mother forget that she was just a fill-in for his beloved Martha.”
Lauren shuddered. That was creepy. She was almost glad her mother wasn’t here to see this day.
“I still don’t understand the trials, though, who is running them and how do they help the Divine Watchers with their plans for cleansing the Earth?” Lucy asked thoughtfully.
“I honestly don’t know, I’m sorry.” Drew looked genuinely upset that he didn’t have all the answers.
“So how do you know about the electrical brain impulses and the trials? That doesn’t seem like something Marcus would tell you?” Dane asked Drew sceptically
Drew shrugged. “I’m a hacker, I hacked his computer and found a file. Most of it was in some sort of ancient script, but this part wasn’t.”
“Could have been a trap,” offered Lucy.
“Maybe the info was, but, the hack wasn’t,” Drew said with the arrogance of youth.
Dane looked at Lauren.
“Don’t worry, we’ll figure this out,” he said, taking her cold hand. “This still does not explain the man in the photo Daniel had or…” Everyone suddenly went silent and looked at her.
“Or?” she asked, looking round the room quizzically. Dane hunkered down by her chair, rubbing her cold hands in his.
“You had some flowers delivered here earlier, with a note from the same person who sent the note to Daniel.”
“Where? Let me see.” He pushed the note towards her, which was now in a clear pouch to protect any evidence.
Lauren scanned it.
"He’s right, you know. There is so much I didn’t know that she was dealing with. What sort of friend was I? I didn’t even know she had a brain tumour, for God’s sake.”
“Hey, stop that. She loved you and for whatever reason she kept it from everyone, even her husband.” Dane kept rubbing her knuckles with his thumb, knowing she needed the connection. “What we need to do now is find out as much as we can about The Divine Watchers and how Marcus fits into that. Then see if we can find any connection between our suspects and Claire.
“Lucy I want you to speak to all your contacts at GCHQ and get as much info as you can on this. Nate can you talk to your friend on the force and see if he can give us access to the CCTV in the area? I want to know if any of these pricks are close. Also, see about getting some cameras put up on all the surrounding buildings. They are all unoccupied so nobody will care. I want to know if anyone gets within a hundred metres of this place.
“I’m gonna run this note through the handwriting database and see if I can get a hit anywhere. It seems strange to me that in this age of computers that this perp is still handwriting his notes. I’m also going to talk to Zack and see if he can help with this. Drew can you write down everything you know about your father’s operation, including names, dates, times and anything else that you feel might be important. Also, is there any chance of you hacking his computer from here?” Drew looked slightly smug.
“Of course, no problem.”
“Lauren, I want you to go back over the last few months in your mind and see if you can pick up on any change in behaviour with Claire, sometimes hindsight is a wonderful thing.” Dane crouched back down to eye level with her. “We will fix this honey, I promise.” He kissed her gently not caring that everyone was watching and then stood. “Come on, you can sit in my office.” He turned to Drew “Lucy will show you everything you need.”
“Great, but can we get some food I’m starving, I never got breakfast?”
Dane nodded and smiled to himself “Sure I’ll get some food ordered in for everyone.” Drew grinned then and it made him look young and he felt sorry for the kid, he sure hadn’t had an easy life. Great, now he was going soft on the kid. “Let’s all meet back here at 6pm to go over what we have.”
~~~
Lauren sat at Dane’s desk and thought about everything that had happened today. Her hand unconsciously playing with the newtons cradle there. She felt heartbroken that Claire hadn’t shared something as important as a brain tumour with her. Why hadn’t she seen the signs or had she and she just didn’t realise it? Surely if Claire was having chemo or radiation therapy, they would have noticed the symptoms. She had seen lot’s of patients that had had chemotherapy and the side affects where awful.
She cast her mind back over the last few months for any clue that her friend had given and there were none. Except her will! Lauren got up and started pacing the windowless room, playing with the pendant at her neck. Claire and Daniel had asked her if she would raise Paige if anything happened to them both. She had agreed and been flattered that they would trust her to do something like that for them. At the time they had said it was just a routine precaution as you never knew what the future held and she had never questioned it. Did Daniel know about the tumour-had he seen the signs?
Lauren went over and over it in her head, Claire hadn’t complained about headaches or black outs or anything that would have raised a red flag, so what had made her go to the doctor in the first place?
The more she thought about it the more she was sure that Claire had deliberately hidden the signs from them. But why? Lauren would have tried to help her, to heal her. Just because she hadn’t been successful with that type of thing before didn’t mean she wouldn’t have tried. She knew it might have killed her to fail, but she would have done it. Claire had everything to live for and while she enjoyed her life she didn’t have anyone depending on her like Claire had. The only explanation she could think of was that Claire had been trying to protect them.
Claire’s dreams still puzzled her though, had she known she would die like that, had she seen it and were the dreams the reason she saw through the trial so quickly? She rubbed her temples as the spiralling thoughts gave her a headache. It made her angry to think she would never get the chance to ask Claire about any of this.
~~~
At 6 pm, everyone reconvened in the conference room. Dane stood at the head of the table with his hands on his hips. The authority in his posture was evident. Lauren settle
d in on his left with Drew beside her and Nate and Lucy opposite.
“Okay, what has everyone got? Lucy, you go first.”
Lucy stood and hooked her laptop to the overhead projector.
“Well, I did talk to a friend at GCHQ, he said, The Divine Watchers have been on the radar more and more of late, but every time they seem like they are getting somewhere, someone from SIS shuts it down. They don’t know who or if they do, they aren’t saying. Just that the order is coming from somewhere inside SIS.
“Sorry, what’s SIS?” Lauren asked.
“It’s the Secret Intelligence Service, formerly known as MI6.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Anyway, as I was saying,” Lucy continued, “I did find out a few important details and a few names that have been linked to The Divine Watchers.” She clicked a button on her laptop and a picture of a distinguished-looking man came on the screen. He had to be early fifties, but was tall and lean, with dark hair slightly greying at the sides.
“This is Elliot Henderson. He owns Omega Pharmaceuticals, which on its own means nothing but after trawling through loads of data, I found a link to a shell corporation called Redcast. Redcast seems to own a few different companies, one of which is Pure Living.
Pure Living are the people offering the trials for The Divine Watchers. He has also been linked as a Divine Watcher, himself, but always denies it.”
“Shit, so there could be some big players then?” Nate asked.
“Looks like it and that, with the fact that GCHQ keep having any chatter shut down, is worrying,” Lucy said, grimly.
‘Good job, Luce.”
“Nate, what have you got?” Dane asked.
“Well, nothing like that, but my contact is gonna give us back door access to the CCTV in the county for the foreseeable. He went to school with Claire too, so wants to help.
“Who is it?” Lauren asked.
“James Stevens, do you remember him?”
“Oh yes. He was such a sweet guy.”
Dane tamped down the jealousy. He didn’t like hearing her talk about men he didn’t know and trust as sweet, but he wasn’t enough of a tool to say anything. The last thing she needed was him getting all possessive and jealous, especially after what she had endured with Jeff the jerk.
“Did you manage to get that extra CCTV around the area sorted?”
“Yes, Drew helped me and it’s already working.”
“Great thanks.”
“Drew-have you got that list for me?”
“Yes and I wrote down as many contact details as I could remember. The security code for the property gets changed weekly so I don’t know what it is now, but I have written down what types of security he has. Some of it can be accessed by computer so it’s actually quite easy to get round. I’ve done it more than once and he never found out.”
“What about the hack?” Dane asked.
“I got in and downloaded all the files, but they are all in some sort of ancient script that I can’t read.” Dane looked at Lucy, “Luce, can you?”
“No this is way over my head, you’re gonna need a specialist in for this.”
“Okay, I can talk to Zack about that. Thank you, Drew.” Dane said, taking the paper from Drew.
“I have spoken to a few contacts and they have offered their assistance, should we need it,” he finished.
Dane stood up “It’s late and I’m tired and hungry. Let’s meet back here tomorrow at o-eight-hundred hours and decide what we should do next.”
“What about Daniel?” Nate queried.
“Well, he was passed out when we left him yesterday. He was pretty upset about the photo and the note and he would have probably felt even worse when he woke up,” Dane said.
“Do you want me to check on him?”
“Yeah, that would be good, thanks.”
“Lauren you can stay at my house if you would like or would you prefer to stay at home? Either way, I’m not leaving you on your own. Not with two maniacs on the loose.”
Lauren was happy to concede to that. She wasn’t stupid and had no ideas of bravery.
“Mine please.”
Nate looked at Drew, “You can crash at my place.”
“Thanks,” Drew answered, looking pleased that he was being treated less like an enemy and more as a member of the group.
“Everyone stay sharp. Anyone of us could be a target as we were all close to Claire.” He turned, looking at Lucy.
“I know, I know,” she said, laughing. “You do remember I know how to shoot a gun and have black belts in karate and jujitsu right?”
“Shut up bratfink,” he said, ruffling her hair. “You’re still my baby sister.”
“I know,” she said with an affectionate smile, hugging him.
~~~
He could be an overprotective jerk sometimes, but Lucy knew it was only out of love, even if it was annoying. Lucy gave him grief about it, but she loved that her brother was so protective. She often wondered if she would have been the same with her little sister, had she not been taken. She’d been so young when it happened that she hadn’t been able to comprehend it. Thinking about it now, she still couldn’t. How does a baby simply disappear from a secure hospital wing without a trace? Maybe when this was finished, she would open up her old files and start looking into it again.
Chapter Thirteen
Driving back through town, they drove past Irish pubs and modern dance clubs. Thai restaurants, Italian restaurants, Chinese, everything you could think of, all nestled together. The town was humming with life. They drove past all the takeaway chains.
Lauren leaned her head back against the headrest and let her mind wander. She smiled to herself as they passed through the centre and the life sized bronze statue of the famous Hereford Bull. She and Claire had at sat astride it last New Year Eve, while Daniel took pictures. They had all been slightly tipsy. Her and Claire had been giggling as they tried to climb on. It was a wonderful memory. How had life gone from that to weird cults and stalkers? It was so hard to wrap her head around.
Dane broke through her reverie.
“I thought we could get some Italian take-away from the place on Church Street, if that’s ok?”
“Perfect, I love that place. I definitely need comfort carbs and maybe even some tiramisu for after. I’m sure you’re not used to a woman who can eat their body weight in carbs,” she said self-deprecatingly.
“Actually, it’s very refreshing not to have to be the only one eating. I hate it when a woman orders a salad and then spends the whole meal looking like they want to devour my food,” he laughed. Just as well, thought Lauren, because when she was stressed she ate, unfortunately.
Pulling up to the curb, he came around and opened her door, careful to put his body between her and anybody that might be watching from across the road.
“Come on, I’m not leaving you alone,” he said, scanning the area as he spoke.
“Do you think he is watching us?”
“Well, we weren’t followed, but we have to remember he knew you were at Fortis earlier so I’m just being careful.”
Their senses were assaulted by the amazing smells of garlic, tomatoes, and oregano as they walked into the restaurant. Coming to meet them was a tall mountain of a man who clearly loved his job. In his fifties with a gentle face and dark, slicked-back hair that was greying at the temples, he was a handsome man who oozed charisma. Lauren could practically smell it from here. He had a white apron on and a pad and pencil in his hand.
“Dane!” he boomed in a strong, Italian accent. He grabbed Dane around the shoulder in a fatherly hug. The affection between the two men was evident.
“So good to see you. And who is this beauty?” he asked, grasping her hand.
“This is Lauren Cassidy, a very special friend of mine. Lauren this is my good friend, Andreo Barsetti.”
“A pleasure,” he said, kissing her hand, and she blushed. “Ah and she blushes. What a wonderful woman. What can I get you?
Do you need a table?”
“No, we’ve had a really long day and would love some of your wonderful food to take away.”
“Ah, of course, I will have chef make you some of our wonderful Insalata di Pancetta with Penne Biondi for main and does the lady have a sweet tooth?”
Lauren blushed again “Yes,” she sighed, “I fear I do.”
“Wonderful I will make you Torta al Cioccolato to finish.”
“That sounds like heaven.”
Andreo beamed at her words.
“Take a seat; I will bring you something to soothe you while you wait.” Ushering them into a table in the corner, he disappeared and quickly returned with a dry crisp Pinot Grigio for her and a bottle of Bulmers Original for him.
“Ah, it pains my heart to serve cider in my beautiful bistro, but alas, we are in the home of cider.” He laughed at the expression on his friend’s face. He had heard the same comment since he had been able to drink.
“Well, you can’t grow up here and not drink the drink that has made it famous, my friend.” He replied as he always did. It was a trusted routine and it always helped to ground him
“Alas, this is true.”
“Well, I’m a wine girl, I’m afraid,” she interjected.
“Ah a true find my friend, I will leave you know, Maria will bring your food over soon”. He kissed her hand and clapped Dane on the shoulder.
“Make sure you come and see me soon.” Then he was gone like a whirlwind zipping between tables.
“What a lovely man!” she exclaimed.
He nodded, “He is, we met when I was fifteen and looking for a Saturday job. I strolled in here looking like shit, with my trousers hanging round my arse and my long hair hanging over my eyes asking for a job. He told me to come back looking like I deserved it and he would consider giving me one. I was very cocky, thinking I would smarten up and he would give me a cushy job.
“What happened?” Lauren asked enjoying the insight into him.
“I put on some smart trousers and got a haircut and went back, he gave me a job washing up for £1.20 on hour. I worked my arse off that summer. I thought it would be a good way to pick up chicks. But instead learnt about hard work and respect. I did a lot of growing up that summer.”
