But stay he did, and here I am now, giving the door a sharp rap.
I figure I'll be waiting a while. Expecting Graham to be out somewhere bursting with beer and draped half-asleep over a Hooters waitress isn't much of a stretch given his track record.
Sierra tugs on my hand. “This isn't my house,” she says quietly.
“I know,” I said, giving her my friendliest smile. “I need to pick something up first.”
She bites her bottom lip and nods, but she ducks behind my legs just the same, hiding herself from view.
The door to Graham's apartment cracks open, revealing a pair of very familiar serious brown eyes about three feet lower than I'm used to encountering them.
“Hi,” a sweet male voice says.
For a brief moment, I wonder if I've teleported into the right building.
“Uh, hi,” I reply, lacking a firm enough grasp on the English language right now for a more involved response.
The crack widens, and the boy standing behind it studies me with grave curiosity as he nibbles absently at the skin around one neatly trimmed fingernail. I wish I could imagine my temperamental brother offering to babysit someone else's adorable moppet, but Graham's always been more likely to pawn off a small child in his care on the first person to cross his path who appears to be remotely responsible. Or so I thought, I can't help but realize. Somewhere between the tight dark curls and the defined cheekbones still shaded with baby fat, this doesn't exactly appear to be some stranger's child he can just throw in someone else's lap.
“You're in a picture with my daddy,” the boy states.
“Oh, that one,” I say. There aren't a great many genuine photos of Graham and me together, save a single team portrait of the Brigade for which the photographer must have been slipped an obscene wad of cash to arrange us next to one another. As for any photos you might have seen of us partying together in Entertainment Weekly or the pages of Star, let's just say my mom and her need for good public relations are both far too glad for the existence of Photoshop.
I take a deep breath to steady myself for the uncomfortable conversation I can already see coming and ask, “Is your daddy home?”
The little boy chews on his bottom lip as he leans back to peer around the door. After a moment of silent communication, he focuses back on me and declares, “He wants me to say no.”
Huh. I like the kid already.
“That's not surprising,” I stage-whisper, bending closer to him to share, “He doesn't like me,” as though it's some fantastic secret.
“He doesn't like a lot of people.”
I cock an eyebrow. “Does he like you?”
“I'm working on it,” he solemnly informs me.
Graham appears behind him with a long-suffering sigh, resting his enormous hands on the kid's shoulders and making the little boy look even smaller than he already does, a round-faced munchkin cautiously peering out of toddlerhood. “You're a terrible bodyguard,” Graham says to the boy. He refuses to look my way. “Go eat your oatmeal.”
The boy frowns up at him. “It tastes like cement.”
“Oh, yeah? Have you eaten cement?”
“Yes.”
Graham makes a face. From the unsurprised look in his eyes, if that particular declaration is true it wouldn't be the first strange thing he's ingested. “Great, I know what to feed you for lunch now. Go on.”
He steers the kid back toward the kitchen and keeps a sharp eye on his progress, presumably to make sure he doesn't wander off to watch television instead or eat something else he definitely shouldn't. The moment it's clear the boy's out of listening range, Graham's usual demeanor returns, standoffish and a bit tense, but with a surprise side order of resignation. “I didn't invite you here, Vera.”
I shrug. “It's a free hallway.”
Sierra sniffles behind me, and Graham's eyes lower until he spots the little girl peeking out from her hiding spot. “Sierra?”
I narrow my eyes at him. “You know her?”
“Yeah, she goes to the day school,” he says. How he knows that particular fact isn't something he needs to expound on considering who answered the door.
Graham shoots me a calculating look, then holds the door open a bit wider. “We've got coloring books,” he offers.
Sierra needs no further encouragement. She bounds past him into the apartment so fast she nearly leaves a smoke outline of herself behind. Graham frowns after her before asking, “Where you'd pick that up?”
“Found her lying around in someone's lair,” I say. Before Graham can ask for more details, I add, “So when did you get one of those? I didn't even know you were a collector.”
Graham's gaze goes flinty and dark. “Right after you left town, and before you ask, no, I wasn't filling a fucking void.”
I suppose I should just be grateful Graham doesn't take the opportunity to add that a scrawny four-year-old would never fill any void I left behind anyway. Fat jokes are beneath even him, although that's certainly never halted his liberal dispensing of them in the wrong social situations, like at the hundredth anniversary party of the Aphrodite Assembly's illustrious founding. You've never lived until you've seen my big brother being soundly trounced by an angry group of female superheroes who joined their team specifically so they wouldn't have to take any sexist malarkey from smug imbeciles like Graham.
In a sorry attempt to take the edge off the conversation, I mention the obvious. “He looks like a pint-sized Dad.”
Graham lets loose a derisive snort. “Don't remind me. At least I've managed to train him out of lying through his teeth on a regular basis and he hasn't really had a chance to screw over the rest of his family, so he's one up on the old man.”
“Does he have a name, or is he just a pronoun?”
“Sam,” he says. There's a brief moment of internal debate on his part, a silent argument with himself over whether or not to add whatever bit of information he's clenching tight to his chest, but he finally breaks down and says, “Sam Hadley.”
My eyes widen. “Like Serena Hadley?”
“Exactly like that.”
I whistle a low impressed note. Serena Hadley has more money than God and about as much on her plate. Most heiresses in her situation gain their everyday amusements from spilling drunkenly out of limousines into a pile of paparazzi as they tumble their way to the next trendy bar on their social schedule. Serena's always been a bit too busy engaging in more intellectual pursuits to even pretend she's some pretty simpering idiot. Quite frankly, she's neither simpering nor stupid nor really all that pretty. Serena's constant boredom, innovative weapons designs, and bulldog tenacity led her to petition the Superhero Licensing Board for a special powerless license for those not exactly gifted at birth, by aliens, during an industrial accident, or so on.
When not in costume as Dr. Platinum, Serena is sharp but plain, a clever geek roped with lean muscle but graced with a face like a mud fence slowly disintegrating in a hard rain. She may not win any beauty pageants, but it's never been her main goal in life, that's for damn sure.
And she has a kid. With Graham.
I would have thought Serena would have better taste, to be honest.
“Didn't she threaten to castrate you the last time I saw her?”
“She tried,” Graham says, and he fights an internal war over being smug or embarrassed when he adds, “She just got … preoccupied.”
I pull a face. “All right, that's just repugnant.” Really, the last thing I want to picture is my brother having sex, much less doing it with Serena Hadley, of all people, and especially not after having a bombshell like a secret nephew dropped in my lap. “You never told me about him.”
He crosses his arms, his best impression of a petulant child. “Yeah, well, don't go looking for a shoulder to cry on, Vera. I didn't tell Mom and Dad, either.”
My jaw drops. I don't quite want to imagine what my mother might do if she were to discover she's been a grandmother for roughly four years or so. The ment
al image of a mushroom cloud comes to mind, and that's if I restrain myself to the more realistic outcomes. “They don't know they have a grandson?”
“Why should I tell either one of them a goddamn thing after the mess they made of our family?”
I wish I could be offended or even simply sympathetic of Graham's anger over Dad leaving Mom for Morris, but I just can't dredge up the betrayed rage anymore. It suddenly strikes me, cascading over me in a dull wave, just how tired being around my own family makes me. I reach up to rub at my temples, saying, “What planet are you living on, Graham?”
“I could ask you the same question, you know.”
“I fail to see how I was supposed to know to call and ask if I had a nephew,” I snap back. I regret it almost as soon as I say it, not wanting to start an argument over this where any passing neighbor could decide to listen in. “Look, I can't deal with this right now, and I'm fairly sure you can't either. Did you know Dad and Morris's apartment burned to a crisp yesterday?”
“Good,” Graham says. “One less place for us to share awkward family dinners at.”
“Flashpoint was the one who burned it.”
He frowns. “Why the hell would Arthur toast that place?”
“Because Dad asked him to.”
“Bullshit. Whoever it was who asked him to burn the condo, it wasn't Dad.”
My eyes widen, and he flushes bright red. I don't bother to worry about the source of his rising color, or hide the smile that tugs at my lips as he reaches up to scratch at the back of his neck. “Well, look at you, all paying attention and whatnot. That's new and different for you.”
He shoots me a hard look. “Don't start.”
Something clatters loudly inside the apartment, and Graham glances over his shoulder.
“Look,” I blurt out, before I can get horribly distracted from the reason that I came here today and Graham can get horribly distracted by an upended bowl of oatmeal. “I need your help.”
Graham frowns. “To do what?” he asks suspiciously.
I cock an eyebrow. He's not that stupid.
A muscle in his jaw flickers. I can almost see the synapses sparking behind his eyes before he grumbles, “Fine. Just let me hustle Sam over to the neighbors.”
I fail to completely suppress my triumphant smile as he ducks back into his apartment, calling out to Sam to put his shoes on.
24.
Fifteen minutes later, after Graham has thrown on his uniform – “We aren't going out for ice cream, Vera,” he snaps at me when I question him on it, then winces at the hopeful looks on the kids' faces – and hustled Sam over to the friendly heavily-pierced artist next door, I take Sierra's hand and latch onto his wrist.
A bit too enthusiastic to get back to her aunt for obvious reasons, Sierra tugs at me with nervous energy as we teleport to the morgue.
It takes her a moment to figure out what I've done, her limbs pinwheeling in a comic flail for a brief moment. But when it strikes her what I've done, Sierra turns to gawk at me with a delighted laugh. It quickly fades, though, replaced by a sickly pout.
“I don't feel so good,” she says. Her free hand clutches her tummy.
I frown as I kneel in front of her. “Sorry,” I say, glancing around for a water fountain. Two teleports in a half-hour is a bit much on anyone. A little time will settle her stomach after that ride, but some water would work better. “I wish I would have thought of this before we stuffed you full of Chinese food, sweetie.”
She makes a face, her lips pursing in an adorable pout. Graham shoots me a frustrated look over her head, then shakes his head and heads for the office in an aggravated silence.
I rise to my feet once again, taking in the entranceway to the morgue. The Plexiglas partition between Dr. Hale's office and the entranceway has been slid shut, a flimsy gray shade hiding the reception area from view. Elsewhere, something low and slow by Cat Power flits through the air, a song I don't recognize for the longest moment before I finally realize it's a cover of “Satisfaction.” The lead singer's voice rebounds off the cold clinical interior, giving an already eerie office a chilling edge.
“Dr. Hale?”
If she's here, she doesn't respond when I call her name. Neither does anyone else.
I call her name once again as I approach the door to the morgue hallway with Sierra in hand, hoping that maybe she hadn't heard me the first time. The morgue would never be left alone, and this is about the same time of day that I previously came here. Her niece may have been kidnapped, but I doubt part of her deal with the kidnapper involved time off of work due to mental anguish. If she didn't have a personal day when I arrived the other day, I can't imagine she wouldn't be here now.
Sure enough, when I teleport past the locked door to the main morgue hallway with Sierra and peer into her office, it turns out she definitely showed up for work today.
She's held aloft by Graham's hand around her neck, but still.
I don't even waste time stopping to contemplate what's going on. I just pull the very sisterly maneuver of releasing Sierra's hand, walking up directly behind an entirely too focused Graham, and smacking him on the back of the head.
It's not a hard smack, of course, and it wouldn't do much damage even if it were, but it's enough of a jolt to get him to loosen his grip. Dr. Hale drops to the floor, barely keeping her feet under her. Her eyes narrow at Graham, and for a moment I bless my lucky stars she doesn't have the sort of abilities that could result in my impetuous brother being wished into a cornfield somewhere. Well, at least not as far as I know, anyway.
“What the hell are you doing?” I yell at him.
Graham stands down, but his fists still clench at his sides, wringing invisible necks with barely restrained rage. “I'm just making sure,” he growls, not taking his eyes off Dr. Hale. “If Dad's been bodyswapped with someone, then what's to say she hasn't been either?”
“I can't take you anywhere, can I?”
“Who the hell comes to work when someone in their family is missing?”
“Of course. Because staying home and stressing out is much more relaxing,” I mutter. “Honestly, Graham.”
Dr. Hale shoots me a condescending look that silently informs me that I am not helping, but I don't really have a way of telegraphing that I know better than my brother does what she's suffered through the past week or so.
Graham, on the other hand, is too busy enjoying his current bout of unrestrained anger to imagine other possibilities than the most obvious. I'd be angrier about it bubbling up out of nowhere, but … well, I've met my brother before. “We've been hiding it from the media, but Dad's been gone since the factory incident,” he growls.
My brow furrows. “What do you mean, gone?”
“How many definitions of the word are there?” he snaps. He bites out his words like he's tearing them from a succulent piece of steak. “The man up and disappeared after they carted Nate away like he'd been a smoke outline the whole damn time. If I didn't know any better, I'd think he'd just shown up to get Nate out of the way and gone off to –“
“Aunt Melody?”
As soon as Dr. Hale spots Sierra peering out from behind my legs, her tough demeanor crumples in an instant. I expect her to call the little girl's name but a choked sob is the only sound to emerge from her throat. An instant later, Sierra bolts around my legs with a gleeful cry.
Dr. Hale sweeps Sierra into a fierce hug, swallows her whole with a voracious gulp of starving arms. Graham and I share an uncomfortable look. It's our job to stand there and hover, out of the loop, shifting our weight from one foot to another as Dr. Hale reacquaints herself with her niece, safe and well.
I try not to listen to the soft murmuring reassurances she gives as her hands run over Sierra, searching for hidden injuries. All of the barely hidden tension in her whipcord body bleeds away as Sierra's health becomes more evident, and she wraps her arms around her niece once again.
“Thank you,” she says, her gaze connecting with mine over
Sierra's shoulder.
“You're welcome.”
She sniffles at that, finally releasing Sierra as she gets to her feet. “I'd rather not be welcome to it again, if it's all the same to you.”
Understandable, that. I'm sure I wouldn't want my kid to be in a position to need to be welcome to future rescuing, either, if I had one. “That's fair.”
Graham watches the entire affair with unveiled confusion, his brow furrowing as Dr. Hale checks Sierra over once again for her own self-assurance. He doesn't apologize, of course. Heroes never do, and Nobles least of all. What he does is wrap his massive hand around my upper arm and lead me as gently as he can manage out of the way, which clearly means that I end up practically dragged to the corner of the room, my heels skittering across the floor.
“What the hell aren't you telling me, Vera?” he snaps.
Nothing like the truth, I suppose, especially at this point in the whole ridiculous debacle. “John Camden got the little girl to bodyswap him and Dad.”
“And were you ever planning on telling me?”
“It's just a theory,” I hiss.
It's a damn good one, though, as far as I'm concerned. I can't be sure that John Camden swapped bodies with my father, that he took control over Dad's life and turned it back into a hastily constructed white-picket mess. Sierra's been too scared to talk about it, but I don't think I need her to confirm it. What I can be sure of is that whoever is in my father knows the Brigade well enough to fool each and every one of them to believing he really is Everett Noble, that he's managed to maintain his cover for days, and that the John Camden I've seen since my return to the city has been everywhere and nowhere all at once.
It's just a hunch, but then again I aced Correct Hunch Determination Techniques 201 in my sophomore year at Lord and Cape.
Heroine Addiction Page 25
