The Astral Traveler's Daughter

by K. C. Archer

  “We don’t think anything yet,” Pyro said. “We need proof. We need to ask ourselves what Clint would do.”

  But thinking about what Clint Corbett would do—dean of Whitfield Institute, ex-cop, friend of Teddy’s birth parents—made Teddy feel even worse.

  Clint had personally recruited Teddy last year. And though she wanted to trust him, he’d made that nearly impossible by keeping secrets from her. Secrets about her past. He’d known all along about Sector Three, the covert government training facility where her parents and Derek Yates had worked—or, rather, been experimented on. The facility where her father had died. So yes, she respected Clint. Liked him, even. But on some level, she remained as wary of him as she would be of a crooked Vegas dealer. When it came to doling out the truth, somehow the cards always fell in Clint’s favor.

  “All we have are conjectures and—” Pyro said.

  “Veggie wraps!” Eli shouted from the hallway.

  Teddy shot Jillian a look, then sprang into action. Turned the corkboard around to face the wall and threw one of Jillian’s tapestries over the pile of papers on the floor. Eli had been told the same cover they used for close family and friends: they all attended a school for government and law enforcement trainees. It wasn’t untrue. And certainly nothing in the apartment screamed psychic.

  But Teddy didn’t like that Eli was always around. “How much do you think he heard?”

  Jillian shrugged. “It’s fine. I told you, we can trust him.”

  Teddy rolled her eyes.

  “Hey,” Eli said, stepping inside.

  Teddy couldn’t blame Jillian for being attracted to him. He was taller than Jillian, with strong shoulders like a swimmer’s, and curly dark brown hair that fell over his forehead in a way that made him look more like a member of a boy band than an activist. Today he was wearing a Greenpeace T-shirt and cargo shorts. Teddy loathed cargo shorts. And anyone who wore them.

  “Hey, man,” Pyro said. “We were kind of in the middle of something.”

  “No problem,” Eli said. “I can come back later. Just wanted to give Jill her lunch.”

  Teddy clenched her jaw. Jillian wasn’t Jill. She was Jillian. Naked-yoga-doing, patchouli-wearing Jillian Blustein. Her roommate.

  “Thanks, babe,” Jillian said, kissing him on the cheek.

  “Oh, and Teddy, this is for you.” He put down the take-out bag and fished around in one of the pockets of his cargo shorts (All those stupid pockets! What is he hiding?) and handed Teddy a folded piece of white paper.

  Teddy glanced at the paper and froze. In a voice she barely recognized as her own, she choked out, “Where did you get this?”

  Eli shrugged. “Some guy on the street asked me to bring it up to you.”

  “When? Just now?”

  “Yeah, like five minutes ago.”

  Teddy rushed to the window. She took in the usual people who called the Tenderloin home. Dealers staking out corners for the night, gangs of teens, men and women staggering home after twelve-hour shifts. Dozens of people, but not the one person she wanted to see.

  “What is it?” Pyro asked.

  Teddy showed him the note. On the outside, in a distinctive scrawl she’d recognized right away, was a single word. Her name. Theodora. But no one ever called her that.

  No one except Derek Yates.

  Pyro swore, leaning toward the window to search left and right. “He’s gone.”

  “Who?” Dara demanded from behind them. “Who’s gone?”

  “Should we go down?” Teddy said. “Start looking? Maybe—”

  “Waste of time,” Pyro said. “He was gone two seconds after he passed Eli the note.”

  Teddy reluctantly agreed. No one was better at disappearing than Derek Yates. Turning away from the window, she unfolded the paper. “Numbers,” she said, scanning the missive. “Just random numbers.”

  “If that’s from who we think it is,” Dara put in, “there’s no way those numbers are random. They mean something. What?”

  “A phone number?” Jillian suggested.

  Teddy shook her head. “Too many digits.”

  Suddenly, Eli was over her shoulder. “Those are coordinates. I know because this one time, when we were protesting in . . .”

  Teddy didn’t listen to whatever came next. She rushed to get her laptop and keyed the numbers into Google Maps. Heart pounding, she watched as the screen moved from California to Nevada. A small town called Jackpot pinpointed on the map.

  “Jackpot,” Dara said. “Anyone heard of it?”

  Teddy hadn’t. Although she’d grown up in Vegas, the only association she had with the word jackpot was a generic come-on to lure tourists into handing over their hard-earned cash. The town itself meant nothing to her. She scrolled through her mental time line of suspected PC events. No bombings or assassinations had ever been reported there.

  “Maybe he’s messing with you,” Pyro said. “Jackpot, you know. Winner, winner, chicken dinner, except not at all?”

  “That saying is messed up,” Eli said. “Poultry farming. Did you know they use arsenic laxatives on chickens?”

  God, what is Eli Nevin still doing here?

  Ignoring him, Teddy said to Pyro, “Yates isn’t like that. He doesn’t mislead on purpose. He’s giving me a specific clue. I’m just not seeing it.”

  “So switch your screen view,” Dara suggested. “What’s at the location?”

  Teddy clicked on the street view, and her heart stopped. The computer screen filled with a familiar picture. A cottage. A yellow cottage. The house that she’d dreamed about for as long as she could remember. The dreams had become increasingly vivid as she’d seen, heard, practically felt her mother in the abandoned rooms. Those dreams meant something, Teddy had known, but what? Last year, Clint had told her that the yellow cottage was where her parents had lived while they’d been at Sector Three. The last place they’d called home before her father had died, before her mother had gone missing.

  “Teddy? You okay?” Pyro asked.

  “We have to go to Jackpot,” Teddy said. “Now.” Turning, she began to grab things she knew she’d need. The bombing folder, for sure. Water bottle. Backpack. Clothes.

  Her friends watched, looking bewildered. “I’ll call you later,” Jillian said to Eli. For once, Eli took the hint. He gave Jillian a quick kiss goodbye and left the room.

  Once the door closed . . .

  “School starts the day after tomorrow, Teddy,” Dara said.

  “Which means we have to get to Jackpot tonight.”

  “Teddy,” Jillian started.

  “Yates wants me to go there. I don’t know why you all aren’t seeing this. It’s what we’ve been waiting for all summer!”

  “Teddy,” Pyro said. “Hold on a minute. Yates sends you one slip of paper, and you go running off into the desert? Just like that?”

  Her friends looked at her, arms crossed and brows furrowed. Teddy struggled to rein in her impatience. “It’s their house, okay?” She took a shaky breath. “My parents’ house. My house. It’s where we lived while we were at Sector Three. It’s probably a wreck now.” At least in her last dream, it had been. “But if there’s something there that leads me to her . . .”

  “Her?” Dara repeated. “You mean Molly?”

  Teddy took another breath. Her chest felt tight. “Yes, of course Molly. But also my birth mother.” She shot a glance at Jillian. There. She’d finally said it. What she didn’t want to admit to her friends or even herself. Right now, Yates was her only path to Marysue Delaney.

  Pyro, Dara, and Jillian exchanged a look—one that preceded a conversation starting with “We need to talk.” And not the good kind of talk that ended with ice cream and trashy TV.

  Pyro spoke first. “Aren’t you taking this too far? I mean, I know it sounds harsh, Teddy, but if your mother wanted to get in touch with you after all these years, she would have done it by now.”

  Teddy’s stomach dropped. “Whatever,” she said, turning
away to refocus on packing. “This is the only solid lead we’ve had all summer. It may help us find the PC, it may not. But there’s only one way to find out.” She zipped her backpack and tossed it over her shoulder.

  “Hold on.” Pyro caught her arm. “If I thought I could talk you out of it, I’d try. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to let you go alone. I’m coming with you.”

  “So am I,” Dara said.

  Teddy sighed. Despite her show of bravado, the thought of facing Derek Yates alone was terrifying. Realizing Jillian had remained suspiciously silent, Teddy turned to her roommate.

  Jillian bit her lip. “I promised I would go to a HEAT meeting in half an hour.”

  “Are you saying HEAT’s more important than the PC?”

  “No, of course not. I’m saying that I made a promise, and . . . well, I have other commitments.”

  “Other commitments? Derek Yates just gave me the exact location of the house where my parents lived, the house that’s haunted my dreams for decades, and you don’t have time?”

  Jillian looked at her feet. “I told Eli I’d go. It’s important to him. To me, too.”

  “How’s this,” Pyro said. “Teddy and I will leave now. We’ll take my car. And then Jillian and Dara will follow tonight after the meeting. You’ll be, what, an hour behind?”

  “At the most,” Jillian said, obviously grateful for the solution. “I’ll pop in and out really quick.”

  “Fine. But it’s like a nine-hour drive,” Dara said. “We’re not listening to any Grateful Dead.”

  Their discussion of logistics faded into the background. Finally. After months of waiting, poring over newspaper clippings and tracking dead ends, at last they had something. A lead. A clear direction. Teddy followed Pyro down the flight of stairs and to his truck.

  Only one problem.

  Even though she knew they were driving to Jackpot, to her childhood home, she had no idea what waited there, or what kind of trap Derek Yates might be leading them into.

  CHAPTER TWO

  TEDDY JERKED AWAKE WHEN HER head bounced against the window of Pyro’s truck. They’d left the smooth blacktop of Highway 93 behind and had turned onto the rough streets of Jackpot, Nevada. She rubbed her head and looked around. Not much to see. Desolate desert landscape stretched for miles in all directions, and plopped down in the middle of it was a rinky-dink town desperately aspiring to Vegas glamour. A smattering of ramshackle businesses, a single casino, and a few hole-in-the-wall bars. Dice Road and Aces Lane. The Royal Flush trailer park.

  Neon lights flickered off as they drove past, their arrival coinciding with sunrise. They’d split the driving, Teddy taking the leg from San Francisco to Reno, Pyro hauling in the remaining four hundred miles to Jackpot. Normally, the proximity to poker tables would have made Teddy’s palms itch, but now there were more important things at stake.

  Pyro pulled in to the first restaurant they came to—Cactus Pete’s. A perfect match for her prickly mood. Her head hurt. Her shoulder was numb. And her mouth was dry. Nine hours on the road would do that to a girl.

  “This okay?” he asked.

  She nodded. Sent a text to Jillian and Dara with their location. Jillian replied instantly: About thirty minutes away.

  Pyro parked and cut the engine. It was barely five a.m., but gamblers were awake, and that meant there were diners to serve. A waitress left them with menus they didn’t need. Teddy shoved hers aside, too agitated to focus on food. She picked up a paper napkin and began tearing the edges, a nervous habit. A tell if she ever had one.

  Pyro studied her over his menu. “How you feeling?”

  Teddy put the napkin down, dragged her fingers through her hair. “About as good as I look.”

  He took a long moment to look her over. “So, pretty good, huh?”

  Teddy allowed a small smile and shook her head. She hadn’t been fishing for compliments. Besides, Pyro knew she’d been nursing a broken heart all summer. More like a broken heart, a bruised ego, and a flattened sense of self-confidence, all courtesy of a failed and ill-considered whatever with Nick Stavros—the FBI liaison at Whitfield. Teddy’s brain told her that she was over Nick. Over his fancy suits and his cute butt and the future they could have had, but her heart—well, her heart was still on the mend.

  So, yeah, she could give Pyro another shot, see if he was the medicine she needed to be cured of Nick once and for all. But was that really fair to either of them?

  Teddy took a deep breath to fortify herself. Time to put up a roadblock before things went an inch further. It was the Right Thing to Do. “I know things have been a little weird between us,” she began.

  He leaned back in the booth, his body causing the plastic of the banquette to wheeze. “Definitely wasn’t the response I was hoping for.”

  “Let me guess. You just assumed that we’d sit down here at”—Teddy glanced at her watch—“five-twenty-seven in the morning, you’d say a magic line, and then I’d throw myself at you?”

  “Why not? We had a pretty good thing last year, and now that Nick’s out of the picture . . .”

  Now that Nick was out of the picture, what? They’d go back to hooking up until someone else caught his eye? Or someone else caught hers? That wasn’t what she wanted. That wasn’t what either of them deserved. Pyro thumbed the edge of the menu, quiet now. Teddy swore she could smell plastic burning. At last he muttered, “What do you want me to say, Teddy?”

  “You were the one who brought it up,” she said. “I think it would be best if we agreed to keep things platonic.”

  “Best for who?” he asked.

  “For both of us. Things are complicated enough as it is. And we’re good friends. I don’t want to lose that.”

  “Yeah, friends,” he said. He moved his hand from the menu. Reached under the table, placed it on her knee. The heat traveled from his palm and radiated up her thigh. She needed to move, put a little distance between them before her best intentions went up in smoke. It felt good. Too good. But then chemistry had never been their problem.

  She crossed her legs, dislodging his grip. “Trying to change my mind?”

  “Depends.” The right side of his mouth ticked up. “Is it working?”

  Yes.

  “No.”

  He laughed.

  “What?” she asked.

  “For an ex–poker player,” he said, “you’re totally losing your game face.”

  She felt her phone buzz in her pocket. Jillian: 15 minutes away.

  Teddy cleared her throat and sat up straighter. “We need to focus, Pyro. There’s a reason we’re here. And it’s not about you and me.” She tucked her phone away and looked at him. Even if he said her poker face currently sucked, she wasn’t playing him. “I’m scared,” she confessed. “All this time searching. Now I’m finally here. Truth is, I’m terrified about what I might find.” She felt in her pocket for the photograph she had of her birth parents. The one that included both Clint and Yates. Taken back when the four of them were young, hopeful, bright eyed and bushy tailed, and whatever. When they’d first met at Sector Three. She pushed it across the table toward Pyro.

  Pyro picked up the photograph, then turned it over so the image faced down. “I know what it’s like to want answers. After my partner died, I couldn’t let it go: Why didn’t I see the gun sooner, why didn’t I react faster? I spent years torturing myself that it was somehow my fault. And after this summer . . .”

  “What happened this summer?” Teddy asked.

  Pyro lifted his shoulder. “The guy was up for parole. I had to testify. I didn’t follow protocol that night, and they used it against me. Now he’s out on a shorter sentence.”

  “Lucas—” Teddy reached out across the table.

  “All that time beating myself up about it didn’t change anything. Sometimes the past is best left alone. The only direction we can move is forward.”

  Teddy pulled her hand away.

  And that was where they left it. With absolutely nothi
ng resolved as the waitress appeared to take their orders. Coffee. Omelets. Western for her; bacon, cheddar, and avocado for him. Rye toast and home fries for them both. The door to the diner opened, and Jillian and Dara strolled inside, drawing stares of open curiosity from the locals at the counter. But then, it was hard not to stare. They stood out. Even looking wrecked from hours of driving.

  They slid into the booth with Teddy and Pyro. Dara announced she wasn’t getting back into that car without coffee. And maybe a couple eggs. Also hash browns, toast, grapefruit, and a few cheese Danishes, just to keep their strength up.

  “I couldn’t sleep at all,” Dara said, and groaned. “Jillian chants while she drives. She chants.”

  “I was clearing the animal energy from the road,” Jillian protested. “Warning them we were coming. What if I’d hit a squirrel?”

  Teddy tuned out the ensuing argument. After what felt like the longest breakfast of her life—though in reality it was probably no more than twenty minutes—all four of them piled into Pyro’s truck, leaving Dara’s car at the diner to retrieve later, and got back on the road.

  They drove through the town of Jackpot, leaving its cheesy casino, auto parts stores, shuttered movie theaters, and broken-down dive bars behind. The downtown dropped off as quickly as it began. Then the GPS directed them into the suburbs. A few miles more and the houses spread farther and farther apart until they disappeared altogether. It felt like they were leaving civilization. Just barren ground, miles of shrubs, rocks, and early-morning sky. It may as well have been the end of the world.

  At last they drove onto a crude roadway. Nothing more than a long, worn patch of dirt on Teddy’s right. A turnoff so inconsequential they would have sped right past it had the GPS not alerted them to the coordinates they’d entered.

  Pyro slowed, shifted gears, and took the turn. Teddy swallowed hard. This was it. It had to be.

  When Pyro came to a stop, so did Teddy’s heart. It took a long, shocked moment for her to reconcile the house that had haunted her for years, one that had been so full of life and warmth, with the dilapidated structure she saw now. Even though, rationally, she knew the house had changed over time—she’d seen as much in her most recent dreams—she was nonetheless unprepared for how badly deteriorated the once charming home had become.