Conspiracy Unleashed

by L. Danvers

  “Your ex?”

  “Don’t play stupid, Quinn. We both know you’re not. How long has this been going on?”

  “I didn’t know—”

  “Real nice, Quinn. Real nice.” She was so mad she was shaking. She balled her hands into fists. It took extraordinary will power not to swing them in Quinn’s direction. “Some sister you are. It’s not enough for you to have the glamorous job, flash your money around and have Mom and Dad dote on you every second of the day. Now you have to take my boyfriends, too? And you had the nerve to invite me here?”

  “Cal, calm down,” Quinn pleaded. “I’m telling you, I had no idea you had dated him.”

  “Calm down?” Cal laughed. Her eyes burned with rage. Maybe Quinn was telling the truth, maybe she wasn’t. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. Tonight made it clear their relationship was past repair.

  She thought she had come here to fight for their relationship. But they were just fighting.

  “I’m done with this conversation,” Cal said, jerking on her coat and slinging her bag over her shoulder. She stopped as she reached for the doorknob and turned to face Quinn. “So much for being close again.”

  She slammed the door behind her and went home.

  Cal was fuming. She got herself ready and crawled into bed. She pulled her gray and blue flannel sheets up to cover her shoulders. She shut her eyes and let out a deep breath. She turned to her stomach and brushed her long hair out of her face. She only lasted a minute or so before rolling back onto her back. She checked her wristband and stared at the ceiling for hours.

  She felt like a jerk. She didn’t know how the fight with Quinn got so out of hand. It was so stupid. What were they even fighting about? She didn’t like Luke that much anyway. Quinn could have him. He’d probably cheat on her, too.

  She’d bitten her thumbnail down to a nub. She knew she’d overreacted. She’d had a stressful day. Her nerves were already shot from worrying about how the evening would go.

  The guilt was getting to her. She squeezed her eyes shut and thought about calling Quinn to apologize, but she decided against it. What difference would it make? The damage was done. It was better to let things cool.

  And anyway, the two of them didn’t have to like each other. But they loved each other. Didn’t they?

  Chapter Seven

  “Have you seen Quinn?”

  “Huh?” Cal was half-listening as she typed up her report on the morning’s press briefing.

  Her mother lowered her voice. “Have you seen your sister?”

  Cal had a hard time hearing her over the static on the phone line. Janet’s words were hollow, void of inflection and emotion, like she was in a dreamy daze. “No,” Cal said, scanning her story for typos. “Not for a few days, at least. We aren’t on speaking terms. Why?”

  “Cal,” her mother said. Cal stopped typing at once. Something wasn’t right. “I’m worried something’s happened to Quinn. We can’t reach her. We went to her apartment, but she wasn’t there. We checked with NASA to see if they had her doing training. They haven’t heard from her. I don’t know what else to do.” Her mother swallowed back tears. “I think I need to call the police.”

  “No. Please wait, okay?” Cal’s heart pounded so loud she couldn’t hear herself think. “Let me check out her apartment first. I think I can figure out where she went.”

  “I guess another hour won’t hurt.” Her mother sighed. “But then I’m calling.”

  “Alright.”

  Cal hung up the newsroom phone, and without wasting time finishing what she was working on or shutting down her computer, she slid her things from her work desk into her satchel and booked it to the telepad.

  “Where are you rushing off to?” Gregory called out as she ran past him.

  “Gotta go. Family emergency. Tell Katz I’m gone for the day.” Cal punched the digits of the lawyer’s office a block away from Quinn’s apartment into the hovering keypad. It was the nearest place with a telepad to her sister’s building she could think of. She didn’t have time to waste with a hovercab. She stepped onto the base, clenching her teeth tighter with each beep. An icy rush coursed through her. She appeared in the law office of Samson & Stiles, covered in goosebumps.

  “Cal?” the secretary she’d interviewed once for a story said, peering up at her over an assortment of holographic images.

  “In a hurry, Valerie.” Cal waved as she swung open the glass door and hopped onto the hovering sidewalk disc. She waited for it to lower to the street level, slipped off her stilettos and ran once again, her heart beating in perfect rhythm with her feet slapping against the dirty sidewalk. She darted around people who were taking their sweet time strolling along, her satchel banging against her hip as she ran.

  She tried calling Quinn, but it went straight to voicemail. Where could she have gone? Could she have vanished like the people Cal had spent so long investigating?

  She feared her worst nightmare had come true. That she was now part of the story.

  She tried getting the thought out of her mind. A thought like that was poison, draining the life out of the little hope she had left that Quinn was okay.

  Cal convinced herself she was jaded from chasing the story for so long. Quinn could have gone on a last-minute vacation. Or gone somewhere with a friend. Or she may not want to be bothered by her family.

  Cal tried not to panic. If she was going to get to the bottom of this, she had to think clearly. Disconnect. Pretend she wasn’t looking for her own sister.

  Minutes later, her face flushed from running, she reached the familiar yellowish-pink glazed door. She tried not to look disappointed when a different doorman greeted her with a warm smile.

  “Um.” Cal gulped. “Where’s... uh...”

  “Dale? He’s in Nevada. Training for a big promotion of some sort. I’m Marty.” He offered her his white-gloved hand and flashed a crooked smile.

  Cal shook it, and her attention was drawn to how sweaty her palms were. She wrapped her fingers around the strap of her satchel and thought. She’d planned to ask the old doorman, Dale, questions about Quinn to see if he had any information that could help her put the pieces of the puzzle together. He could have seen someone or witnessed some type of unusual behavior. Heck, she could have told him where she was going. “Is there any way to reach him?”

  “Don’t think so.” Marty shrugged. “Didn’t leave a number or nothing. Somethin’ I can help you with?”

  “Are you familiar with the people in this building?” Cal asked. He furrowed his brow, trying to see what she was getting at. She realized that sounded peculiar considering he had no idea who she was. “I’m looking for my sister. Quinn. I haven’t heard from her in a while and was wondering if you’ve seen her. She’s blonde. Looks a lot like me.”

  Marty shook his head. “No, sorry. Even if I did see her, I doubt I’d be able to remember. I’m not too good with faces.”

  His thick southern drawl grated on Cal’s nerves, and she let out a sigh of frustration. “Look. I’m worried she’s in trouble. No one’s been able to reach her. My parents said they checked her place, but I’d like to take a look myself. Do you mind if I go up?”

  Marty shrugged and waved her through. He wasn’t the best doorman. She could have been lying, but lucky for him she wasn’t.

  She sprinted to the glass elevator and arrived as someone exited through the curved doors. She slipped her shoes on while she waited and recognized the old man she’d helped get his mail a few days ago. She reached down to pet his dog, who licked her legs up and down. The man apologized and ordered the golden retriever to sit.

  “By any chance have you seen Quinn since we last spoke?”

  “Who?”

  “Quinn. My sister.”

  “I’m sorry. Have we met, darling?”

  Cal wanted to cry, but she felt so bad for the man, who was confused. “Yes, we met a few days ago here in the lobby.”

  “I’m so embarrassed,” he said, his wrin
kles slumping into a frown. “My mind isn’t what it used to be. Sometimes I hate my body for betraying me in old age.”

  “It’s alright,” Cal said, trying to sound more upbeat than she felt. “I’m sorry to leave, but I have to go. See you.”

  She stepped aboard the elevator and pressed the button to take her to the 37th floor. Staring at her reflection in the glass, Cal smoothed down her dark hair, which looked frizzy and wild after running through the busy city streets. When the elevator stopped, she wasted no time getting to Quinn’s apartment.

  She knocked, but there was no answer. “Quinn? You there?” Nothing. Cal turned the knob and found it was unlocked, but that wasn’t unusual for Quinn. She had always been too trusting.

  “Hello?” Cal called out as she popped her head around the door. “Anyone here?” Silence.

  Cal closed the door behind her and set down her things. She walked through the entire apartment. Everything was in place. There was no sign of a break-in. No sign of a struggle. No broken glass, no splattered blood. The place was immaculate, as it had been a few days ago.

  She felt sick at the thought of how she’d left things with Quinn. She needed to sit.

  She plopped herself in the center of Quinn’s bed and looked around at her sister’s jewel-colored room. She felt guilty about the fight. She’d yelled at her and slammed the door in her face.

  She should have called to apologize that night. Why did she wait? What if she never had the chance to tell Quinn she was sorry? Quinn knew she was sorry, didn’t she?

  Cal shook her head, trying to snap herself out of it. This wasn’t the time to think. This was the time to act. She forced herself up from the bed and began rummaging through Quinn’s things, looking for any clue as to what happened or where she went. She paced, thinking about who could have an idea of Quinn’s whereabouts.

  It hit her. She swallowed her pride and dialed.

  “What do you want?” a gravelly voice said.

  “Luke, do you know where Quinn is?”

  “Who’s this?”

  “Her sister. You know. Cal. We dated like a month ago.”

  “Oh. Yeah, I remember. Sisters, huh?”

  Cal’s heart sank. “You didn’t know?”

  “Uh-uh. Anyway, uh, I don’t know where Quinn is. Haven’t heard from her in a few days. Why do you ask?”

  “No time to explain. Thanks.”

  She hung up before he had a chance to say goodbye. Cal’s head was spinning. It was bad enough that she and Quinn had fought, but now learning Quinn had been telling the truth about Luke made her feel worse. She wished Quinn had been lying. At least that way Cal would have had a reason to have treated her that way. But now...

  No, she needed to file those emotions away and deal with them another time. It wouldn’t be long before the police arrived, and she needed to think.

  She looked through Quinn’s desk drawer to see if she’d left her FlexTab. She hadn’t. But that gave Cal an idea.

  She booted up Quinn’s computer and skimmed through the programs until she stumbled across the one that could track the GPS location of the FlexTab if it were to get lost. She tapped her finger against the mouse while she waited for the program to load.

  There were footsteps coming down the hall. She cursed the machine for not working faster. As the knob to Quinn’s front door turned, a window popped up on the computer with the location of the FlexTab. South Danport, Tennessee.

  What the hell could Quinn be doing in South Danport, Tennessee?

  She entered the longitude and latitude into her wristband as someone banged against the apartment door.

  “Police!” an officer announced as he and another one entered. Cal shut down the computer and hurried out of Quinn’s bedroom. She introduced herself to the two officers and told them everything she knew. They assured her they were taking the investigation seriously, but asked her to clear the scene so they could have a look around.

  She grabbed her things and left.

  Her head was pounding by the time she reached her apartment. She went straight to the kitchen, filled a glass of water from the tap and popped a couple pills for her headache. She scrambled to her closet and changed out of her work clothes and into something more comfortable—tennis shoes, jeans, a fitted white tee and an espresso-colored jacket. She stuffed a couple more shirts, her toothbrush and toothpaste and few other essentials into a bag along with some snacks from her pantry.

  She pulled out her FlexTab and searched for telepads in South Danport, Tennessee, but there were none to be found. It wasn’t surprising with a population that small.

  Her jaw dropped when she checked to see how much it would cost to take a hovercab. There was no way she could afford it.

  She buried her face in her hands, trying to think of a way to get to South Danport as fast, and cheap, as possible. It occurred to her that Chattanooga wasn’t that far. And sure enough, there were plenty of telepads there. She was certain once she was there she could catch a hovercab to South Danport.

  Cal checked the time. It was almost midnight. The evening newscast had been over for an hour and a half, which meant Katz should be long gone by now. She grabbed her things, locked up her apartment and took a hovercab to Channel 12’s building. She scanned her wrist into the credittat reader by the door. There was a small gush as the seal of the door released.

  The hall lights were turned off for the night, and floodlights dotted along the ceiling lit her way to the newsroom. There was a number of muffled voices murmuring. The morning team was already hard at work prepping for the 4:30 a.m. newscast. Cal wandered inside, planning to keep to herself, when Sue bumped smack into her, knocking her back.

  “Cal! I’m so sorry. What are you doing here? Where have you been? Oh, you should have seen how mad Katz was. She was livid. I mean, are you supposed to be here?”

  “What?”

  “I thought for sure she was going to fire you.”

  “I had a family emergency.”

  “Ha. Like Katz cares.”

  “True. Listen, Sue, I’m in a hurry. I came to use the telepad.”

  “Is it for work?”

  “No. Well, I don’t know yet.” Cal didn’t wait for Sue to respond. She darted for the telepad and entered in the code for the aquarium. It was a good a spot as any. She shivered as her body fizzled into thousands of tiny bits and reassembled outside a penguin exhibit.

  “Fifty bucks, please,” said a woman with an embroidered blue polo shirt. Cal met the woman’s impatient, beady eyes. “What? You thought you could pop in here for free? Fifty bucks. Price of admission.” The woman held out her credittat scanner, and Cal offered her wrist without any complaint.

  It was late. Or early, technically. She asked the brutish woman why the aquarium was open at this hour.

  “Figured you knew since you teleported here.” The woman huffed, looking Cal up and down. “There’s an underwater sleepover. You know, where groups come spend the night and get behind the scenes tours. Better hurry, though, if you’re passing through. Lights are about to go out.”

  Cal thanked her and passed by the waddling penguins. The ice would be a welcome relief compared to the chill of teleporting. She zipped through the maze of exhibits and found the exit.

  Once outside, she hailed a hovercab. She was disappointed to find the one that came was an older model—with a driver. She wasn’t in the mood for small talk. And of course, as luck would have it, she was picked up by the world’s chattiest cabbie.

  “Where ya headin’?” he asked, scratching his long grayish-black beard.

  “South Danport.”

  “Whatcher doin’ there?” He began driving while he spoke.

  “Looking for someone.”

  “Lookin’ for someone, huh? I reckon they won’t be too hard to find. Not many people in South Danport. Who you lookin’ for, anyway?”

  “My sister.” Cal regretted opening her mouth. She could tell this short ride wouldn’t be over soon enough.


  “What’s your sister doin’ in South Danport?”

  Cal sighed. “I’m not sure. That’s what I’m here to find out.”

  “Bless your heart. You’re worried about her, ain’t ya?”

  “Yeah. Hey, um, if you don’t mind I need to text someone.”

  “Ah, alright. I know when I’m bein’ shushed.” The driver laughed. “I’ll be quiet.”

  Thank God, Cal thought. She wasn’t lying to him, though. She wanted to text Flynn to fill him in on what was going on and let him know where she was. But first she needed to update her mom. She told her about what she found on Quinn’s computer and that she was going to South Danport to look for her. Janet urged Cal to be careful and hurry home, and Cal promised she would. Cal noticed the time as she typed. It was 1:30 a.m.

  “Know of any places to stay in South Danport?”

  “Sure I do. Them’s my old stompin’ grounds, ya know. You could fork out the money for a hotel, but I know a great B&B run by some good ol’ folks. Er, just a lady now. Come to think of it, her husband passed away a while ago. Good man. Want me to see if she has a room?”

  “Sure.”

  The driver called someone named Madge and arranged for Cal to spend the night there. Madge came down ten dollars off the price since it was already morning.

  Minutes later, they arrived at the quaint B&B located on the street level. Every house in South Danport was on the street level, made of brick and vinyl. The porch light flickered on as Cal slipped out of the vehicle with her belongings. A frail old woman in a floral housecoat stood at the door, waving and wearing a bright smile.

  “Hi there, sweetheart. You must be exhausted,” Madge said, holding the door open for Cal. “Let me show you to your room.”

  Cal followed her through the living room. It was lined with shelves dipping in the center from the heavy load of books. The pages had yellowed, and the bindings had unraveled. It was rare to see so many books on display. Most people didn’t buy them anymore, at least where Cal was from.

  Cal’s dad would be thrilled at the utter lack of modern-day technology. Madge flipped the hall light and led Cal to a bedroom twice the size of her apartment in D.C. She put her things on the mattress of the queen bed and thanked Madge for giving her a place to stay.