The Charlatan's Conquest

by Vivien Dean

  He hadn’t encountered anything with the ghosts since leaving Binghamton. Much like sunlight seemed to keep them away, moving vehicles did the same. He’d always explained it by calling it self-preservation—meaning, when he believed he was at the root of the mysterious events, his subconscious refrained from creating incidents that would put him in real harm’s way. Minor accidents didn’t count. A car or plane in motion, however, could result in far more serious consequences if they malfunctioned or if he got distracted from his control.

  But he wasn’t the architect behind these occurrences, so it couldn’t be about safety. In addition, very few episodes happened at the lab. He’d told Cruz his research kept him focused enough not to notice anything amiss, but perhaps that wasn’t the case after all. Perhaps there was another underlying factor.

  You’re the scientist.

  “I better get back to work,” Brody said. “Keep me updated on what’s going on, will you?”

  “Of course.”

  Brody barely heard their goodbyes. He was too busy booting up his machine. Before he could contact Etienne, he needed to collate as much data as possible regarding his ghosts, their deeds and appearances, both the specifics and the lacks. The answers he’d sought his entire life could very well rest in those.

  The trick would be to find the patterns in order to determine their significance.

  His fingers flew over the keyboard. Motivation was a fickle beast. Funny it should come from his father, now of all times.

  A SUDDEN ring from the phone on his desk caused Brody to jerk his hands away from the keyboard. His nerves raced in the moment it took to snatch up the receiver, but he had it cradled in his neck, his hands back in place to finish up the last of his notes, before he spoke.

  “Weber here.”

  “Did I catch you at a bad time?”

  The deep throb of Cruz’s apologetic voice jolted Brody a second time, compelling him to abandon the file for good so he could concentrate on the call. “Never. What’re you doing calling on the lab line?”

  “Well, I tried your cell, but it went through straight to voicemail. This was a last-ditch effort to see if I could reach you.”

  “I kept getting interrupted, so I turned it off.” Brody glanced at the time on the monitor and blinked. “Shit, when did it get to be eight o’clock?”

  Cruz chuckled. “About two minutes ago. Lemme guess. You were knee-deep in slides and you lost track of time.”

  “Not slides, but the rest is right on the money.” His stomach growled. He’d skipped lunch too, embroiled in recreating every instance he possibly could. “Is everything all right? How’s your sister?”

  “Holding her own.” His tone had sobered. “She slept most of the day, and they’re keeping an eye on her, but her fever is still high enough for her to stay in ICU.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “The staff here is great, though. They’re taking excellent care of her.”

  “It probably helps having her big brother there too.”

  “Hopefully.”

  He didn’t sound hopeful. He sounded tired. “Are you still at the hospital?”

  “No, my parents’ house. We decided it was pointless for someone to stay all night, so I’m crashing here.”

  “Do you need help escaping? Is that why you called?”

  “As much as I would love to, I can’t. Mom waited dinner until I got home. I wanted to know how your day went. Did anything else happen with your ghosts?”

  “No, but I’ve got some theories I’d love to run by you.”

  Because Cruz was on a time crunch, Brody ran through his thought processes from that morning, skipping over the part about wanting to track down Etienne to focus instead on the data collection aspect. Cruz listened without interruption, even when Brody was sure he was babbling.

  “That’s why I didn’t notice the time,” Brody finished. “I’ve been charting every detail I can think of.” He paused as he clicked through his file. “I’ve got seventeen pages of data to sort through.”

  Cruz whistled. “You have been busy.”

  “I’ve got it broken down by location for now, but I’m going to dissect these further so the data’s more meaningful. It’ll be easier to extrapolate then, though I’m worried I might end up cross-contaminating my conclusions.” Brody chewed on the corner of his lower lip as he stared at the final page, the one for the lab. Since he’d detailed the data in chronological order, it was the last place he’d tackled. “Hm. On second thought, there’s going to be at least another two pages I need to add to this. I shouldn’t lump the lab in with its surroundings. Oh, but if I do that—”

  “You have a very long night ahead of you,” Cruz finished with a laugh. “No wonder Loren is so proud. You even make me look like a slacker.”

  “It sounds more impressive than it is.”

  “Uh-huh.” His tone said he didn’t believe Brody. “You know, I know he’s not your favorite person, but maybe you should run it all by Etienne. As long as you keep the science-speak out of it, he could see something you don’t.”

  His pulse jumped. “I was hoping to do that, actually. But I don’t know how to get a hold of him.”

  “You want me to call him?”

  “You’d do that?”

  “Of course.”

  It seemed so easy, but that was the way it was with Cruz. Rather than question his good fortune, Brody made the conscious effort to accept it this one time. “I appreciate that. Thank you.”

  “The least I can do.” Muffled voices came through in the background. “Listen, I’ve got to go. Dinner’s on.”

  “Oh.” Disappointing, but since he hadn’t been expecting Cruz to call at all, he had to take what he could get. Plus, Cruz had offered the perfect solution to approaching Etienne. He adopted his most cheerful tone. “Well, have a good night.”

  “Do you want me to call you back later on this number?”

  “You’re not going to spend the evening with your family?”

  “They’ve had my attention all day. Besides, somebody has to make sure you actually get out of that lab at some point, and if that means I have to call and nag until you do, then so be it.”

  It might fall under the realm of caretaking he’d disparaged before their date, but it was the sort of mother-hen behavior Brody could live with. “Then I better turn my phone back on so you can reach me.”

  He hung up feeling lighter than he had at the start. Apparently, good fortune came in pairs.

  Chapter Eleven

  FOR as little sleep as he’d gotten in the past forty-eight hours, Cruz walked into the hospital the next morning with his step jaunty and his head high, echoes of the Weeknd still in his ear from the drive through the heavy morning traffic. He smiled at the elderly woman he let enter the elevator first, and when he reached Mariana’s floor, he greeted three different staff members before he reached the nurses’ station.

  Stephanie, the perky blonde nurse who’d been on the morning shift the day before, looked up from the file she was reading and brightened. “You are just the person I wanted to see,” she said.

  “You can’t have missed my ugly mug already.”

  “Hardly.” She jerked her chin toward the corridor. “Mariana’s fever broke in the night. She ate some breakfast and everything.”

  A cocktail of relief and excitement coursed through him. “That’s great! But why didn’t anybody call us?”

  She arched a fine brow. “Because all of you needed the sleep. Her temp started going down at three, and nobody in this hospital thought for a second one of you wouldn’t be here first thing.” She looked pointedly at her watch. “And gee, look at that. Visiting hours started exactly two minutes ago. Who would’ve guessed it?”

  Abashed, Cruz shrugged. “Fine. Point taken. Is she still awake?”

  “Probably.” Then, when Cruz whirled on his heel and took off down the hall, she called out, “You’re welcome!”

  He waved a hand in gratitude back at her bu
t didn’t stop. As he walked, he typed out a quick text to his parents, updating them on Mariana’s status. They wouldn’t be able to leave work to see for themselves, but the good news would be a welcome respite from all the worry.

  Mariana’s room was near the end of the hall, and while they usually kept high-risk cases away from exterior walls, she overlooked the parking lot, a window he’d done a lot of staring out yesterday while she’d slept. When he stopped in her doorway, the curtains were already open, letting the summer sunlight stream through. On the bed, Mariana sat propped up, her half-eaten meal abandoned on a tray next to her.

  “If you really wanted me to come for a visit, all you had to do was ask,” Cruz commented as he entered.

  Mariana cracked a wan smile. She had always been a small child, taking after their mother physically, where Cruz was built more like their dad, but the cancer and subsequent treatment had ravaged her delicate body. Some of the gauntness had ebbed in her remission, but she was still too much like a baby bird left floundering in its nest for Cruz’s satisfaction.

  “Then you wouldn’t have talked to the cute new doctor they have here,” she quipped. She’d been trying to set Cruz up since his breakup. “Did you meet him yet?”

  “No, and I’m not going to.” He pulled the chair closer to the side of her bed and sat. “I’m here for you. Just like always.”

  Her smile faltered. “I scared Mom and Dad pretty bad.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed softly. They’d never bothered with lies between them. “They’ll be relieved to hear you’ve improved, though. And I’m proud of you, kid. You didn’t beat that cancer just to let a little thing like pneumonia take you down.”

  “Not today, Satan. Not today.”

  Cruz took her casual tossing out of the Drag Race quote as a good sign that she wasn’t putting up a front. “How’s your stomach?”

  Food had been an issue since before her first diagnosis. Never a big eater, she only managed to force it down afterward because she knew she needed the fuel for her body to fight the cancer. It was the reason Cruz had switched to being a vegetarian. In the first weeks of her stay in the hospital, they’d passed some of their time by researching healthy diets together, and she’d latched on to plant-based plans with a keen ferocity, ultimately choosing to become vegetarian. Cruz agreed to do it with her, and now he couldn’t imagine eating any other way.

  “Just okay. I haven’t thrown up, so that’s good, right?”

  “Very good.”

  “Why aren’t you going to meet the doctor?” she asked, switching the subject again. “He’s really nice. And smart. You like smart.”

  “I do.”

  “Plus, he won’t mind that you work so much because he’s a doctor and works hard too.”

  “Hey, I took time off to come to see you, didn’t I?”

  She looked past him at the backpack he’d set on the floor. “Is your computer in there?”

  She knew him too well. “Only because I didn’t know you were awake. They didn’t tell me until I got here.”

  “You should go find him. Tell him I need him.” She did a fake cough into her hand, which immediately turned into a real one that racked her thin frame. Picking up her untouched glass of water, Cruz scooped his other arm around her back to hold her steady as he held it to her lips. Heat poured off her skin through the hospital gown, but he did his best to ignore it. Her fever might be lower, but she was still very sick, and he needed to be more careful about riling her up.

  When her coughing had subsided, he helped her lie back against her pillows. They weren’t that full, but she seemed to disappear against the bed, prompting him to stroke the hair away from her forehead as a tactile reminder she was still there.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “Besides, it wouldn’t be fair for me to meet this really nice, smart doctor when I’m interested in someone else, now would it?”

  Her eyes fluttered open. “You have a new boyfriend?”

  “I wouldn’t call him that.” At the disappointment in her gaze, he added, “But I’ve got high hopes we’re going in that direction.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Brody.”

  “Is he smart?”

  Cruz flashed on the two hours they’d spent on the phone last night, most of it spent listening to Brody go on about his data and looking over the spreadsheet Brody had forwarded to him. It was so enjoyable, Brody hadn’t even been upset that he’d lost the chance to call Etienne. “Tomorrow,” Cruz had promised, and then he’d gone to bed at midnight with a smile on his face. Its return now felt inevitable. “Very.”

  “I want to meet him.”

  “He’s at work.” And until his ghosts were banished, Cruz didn’t want him anywhere near Mariana’s hospital equipment. Brody had been right in that regard.

  “What’s he do?”

  “He studies the brain and how it works so he can help people not have strokes.”

  “What’s a stroke?”

  “Why don’t we look it up? Then you can wow all the nurses with how smart you are.”

  She jumped on the offer, scooting over so he had room to share his laptop. On a whim, he googled Brody first, curious if there was a photograph of him online to show Mariana. The best he found was a posed headshot attached to his bio in an archive about featured researchers at Perelman. His hair was a little shorter, but the beard was the same, and the not-quite-a-smile very reminiscent of the man he’d met on his first day at the Weber house.

  With a frown, Mariana peered at the image. “He looks sad.”

  He was unsurprised at her shrewd assessment. “I know. But he’s cute too, right?”

  She ignored his question and pointed at the screen. “What’s that?”

  He had to lean forward to see what she referred to. A shadow curved around the back of Brody’s neck, disappearing beneath his shirt collar and up into his hair. It wasn’t part of the wall behind him, but the shape was too dark to discern what it might be.

  “Maybe it’s a birthmark,” he said, though he didn’t really believe it. Even though Brody’s hair was longer now, Cruz was sure he would’ve noticed a detail like that. “Or a trick of the light.”

  Though Mariana seemed satisfied with the answers, the mystery niggled at Cruz all throughout the morning. He was still thinking about it after lunch, when Mariana snuggled down to take a nap.

  Cruz kissed her on the forehead. “I’m going to call Mom and Dad and let them know how you’re doing. Try to sleep as long as you can.”

  “Mmmkay.”

  She was asleep before he closed the door behind him.

  He waited until he was outside before pulling out his phone. The calls to his parents were swift. Both promised to find a way to get off early in order to be there before suppertime. The call to Brody wasn’t as simple, though. His cell rang until it clicked over to voicemail, and when Cruz attempted reaching him through the university, someone else picked up.

  “I’m trying to find Brody Weber,” Cruz said carefully. “I thought this was his office phone.”

  “It is.” The young man who’d answered didn’t sound old enough to be out of high school. “I heard it ringing, so I picked it up in case it was something important.”

  Cruz bit his tongue to keep from asking whether that was part of his job description or if he was just a nosy jerk. “Is he in?”

  “No, he went out a few hours ago.”

  Nothing further. Who had hired this idiot? “When will he be back?”

  “No telling. He wasn’t really supposed to be here today, except he was.”

  This was getting him nowhere. Before he could say anything, a woman spoke up sharply in the background of the other end of the line.

  “Evan! What’re you doing in here? Give me that.” What she said next was unintelligible. Cruz imagined she had covered the phone with her hand. A moment later the line cleared, and she spoke directly into the receiver, her voice crisp and professional. “I’m sorry, you were lo
oking for Dr. Weber?” She didn’t wait for a response. “He’s not in at the moment. Can I take a message?”

  “Are you expecting him back today?”

  “He wasn’t sure whether he’d return or not. It depended on how long his tests took. But if you leave your name and number, I can let him know you rang.”

  Though Cruz rattled them off automatically, he kept going over what she’d said. Brody was out conducting tests. Considering his subject matter of the last two days, that could only mean one thing.

  He tried Brody’s cell phone again once he hung up, but it went to his voicemail again. Alarm started to bubble in his gut. Something had happened. He was sure of it. Brody was testing environments, trying to discern what prevented his ghosts from interacting with him and what might set them off, and now he wasn’t answering his phone? What if they’d hurt him for real this time?

  When he dialed Etienne, his nervous energy won out, and he started pacing up and down in front of the hospital. Thankfully, Etienne picked up.

  “So how’d it go with Mr. Weber? Senior, not junior.”

  “Um… I haven’t done the evictions yet.” Right. He hadn’t spoken to Etienne since before he’d left Binghamton. Etienne thought everything was on track. “I’m actually back in Philly. Mariana’s in the hospital again.”

  “Oh shit.” Etienne’s tone was immediately conciliatory. “How’s the kiddo? Everything okay?”

  “Yes and no. No, because she has pneumonia and that’s pretty serious, but yes, because at least it’s not the cancer again.”

  “So how’d Weber take the news?”

  “A lot has happened since the last time we talked.” He started with the details of Brody’s realization and how it culminated in his data collection, but before he could utter his fear that something might have happened with Brody, Etienne cut him off.

  “If Junior’s back here, who’s keeping an eye on dear old dad?”

  “Nobody. He went to Manhattan so he didn’t have to stay in the house by himself.”

  “Except Weber’s your client, dummy. He’s the one who’s footing the bill.”