Face the Change (Menopausal Superheroes Book 3)

by Samantha Bryant

  She was grateful Max still had the habit of yelling for her from three rooms away before he came looking. Sure enough, the next sound was his shoes slapping the floor as he ran through the living room and dining room at full speed. Jessica closed the refrigerator when she heard him arrive and turned around to greet her four-year-old son as he slid around the corner. She was surprised to see Frankie there, too, standing in the doorway staring. How long had her older son been standing there?

  “Mom, can I ride my bike with Annie and her mama? They’re going to the playground and back. Pleeeeaase.”

  Jessica looked at the clock and nodded. “That’s fine, Max. You still have an hour before dinner. Tell Annie’s mom to call me if she needs me.” As he careened around the corner, she called after him, “Don’t forget your helmet.”

  Walter started to pick up his things. He frowned at the calendar reminders on his cell phone before slipping the phone into his pocket. Jessica knew he’d have to pay for taking the entire weekend off with her and the boys. Work didn’t stop at the Department and Walter had lots of analyses to review after all the evidence and research they’d brought back from Indiana, not to mention all the other cases in progress.

  “I’m going to have to go. I need time to read through the lab reports before work tomorrow.” He walked over to Frankie who still stood in the doorway and held out a hand to the boy for a handshake. “See you tomorrow night? I think we’re doing pizza after taekwondo.”

  Frankie didn’t take Walter’s hand as he normally would. Instead, he stepped in close and peered up at the man, searching his face for something. Walter knelt so they could see each other eye to eye. Frankie blurted out the question that must have already been on his mind.

  “Are you going to marry my mom?”

  Jessica felt her face burn bright red as she sputtered something incoherent. That answered how long he’d been standing there—long enough to see the kiss. She shouldn’t have been so physical with Walter, not when her children could have walked in at any moment. They weren’t ready for that yet, and she felt guilty for letting her selfish needs get in the way of what was best for her boys.

  It was difficult, navigating single parenting waters at the same time as swimming the high seas of romance. Building a relationship while caring for her family and beginning a new career on top of it all. They’d only been dating a few months, and it was still less than a year since her divorce. She hoped this would be a forever thing, but they hadn’t talked that far ahead yet. She had probably put Walter in a very awkward position, and maybe hurt his budding relationship with her prickly older son. All because she couldn’t wait for a more appropriate moment to kiss him.

  Walter didn’t say anything for a long moment and Jessica’s ears burned in the silence. What was he going to say? He didn’t look back at Jessica, but her skin tingled as if he had. When he spoke again, his voice was very soft and gentle. “I was thinking about it. Do you think that might be a good idea?”

  Jessica’s heart lurched in her chest again. He was thinking about it? Frankie crossed his arms over his skinny chest and looked at his mom, then back at Walter. He scowled disapprovingly. “I think people are supposed to be married if they’re going to kiss and stuff like that.”

  Jessica wanted to grab her son and hug him, but she didn’t want to ruin the moment or embarrass him. Walter knew her son was a thoughtful child. Frankie took his role as the man of the house very seriously after his parents’ divorce. It didn’t matter that he was seven. He believed it was his job to protect his mother and his little brother. She held her breath, waiting to see what would happen next.

  Now Walter and Frankie were both looking at her, Walter still crouching on one knee. Walter held a hand out toward Jessica so she could grasp his fingers but turned his gaze back to the boy. “Your mom and I haven’t talked about whether we’re going to get married yet, Frankie. But I do love her very much.”

  Jessica smiled then, so widely she thought her eyes must be lost in her cheeks. She knelt beside the two on the floor and pressed her forehead against her son’s and then against her boyfriend’s. “And I love both of you.”

  “And I love everyone, too,” came a voice from the doorway.

  Frankie yelled, “Grandma!” and hurried to wrap his arms around his grandmother’s waist.

  Eva Roark held the plastic bag from the local dairy out of reach and tousled her grandson’s hair. “No one answered when I knocked, so I let myself in.” She arched a well-groomed eyebrow at her daughter, and Jessica knew there would be questions later about the little scene she’d walked in on.

  Jessica grinned at her. Oh yes. They’d definitely need to talk tonight.

  Cindy Liu’s Formula for Family

  Morning sun forced its way through the gaps in the blinds, waking Cindy Liu. She groaned and rolled over, facing the other bed in the hotel room. The empty bed! Cindy sprung up. Where the hell was he? A quick scan of the room showed the open bathroom door, with no one in the smaller adjoining room. How could her father have left without her knowing? Yesterday he could barely move.

  Her pulse still pounding almost audibly in her throat, she jumped from the bed and shoved the curtain aside. Pressing her ear against the glass, she could just see to the tree she had parked the van beneath. Still there. So he can’t have gone far. She forced herself to take a deep breath and to examine the room more carefully. What is missing?

  Her glassware still sat on top the microwave where she’d left it the night before, a bit of green sludge solidified in the bottom of the glass she’d used as a makeshift beaker. Her wallet with their remaining money was still in the pocket of the pants she’d slept in, along with the keys to the van. So far as she could tell, the only thing missing was her father.

  She ran into the bathroom and hurried through basic ablutions, throwing water onto her face, finger combing her hair so it lay down properly against her neck and shoulders, and rinsing with the mouthwash the hotel provided.

  A few moments later, she hurried out the door and scanned the parking lot.

  “So, you’re awake.” The voice came from a little alcove with a bench and a potted plant, out of sight between one block of rooms and the next. A wisp of smoke rose from the corner, and the smell of tobacco reached Cindy’s nose. Frowning, she took the few steps that put her in position to peer around the corner.

  Her father sat on a dirty, half-broken bench, smoking a cigarette and looking inordinately pleased with himself. Cindy perched on the arm of the bench, then leaned over and took the cigarette away from him, taking a long drag before she handed it back.

  “Those things will kill you, you know.”

  “I should live so long,” he said.

  Cindy peered at him. He looked much better than he had the day before. His skin tone was tighter, less slack. When he raised the cigarette to his lips, his hand had only the smallest of tremors, and when he pursed his lips to blow out the smoke, both halves of his face worked together to make the gesture. Could her formula have already changed him so much? Last night, when she’d given him the injection as he slept, she had feared she might wake up with an inert corpse instead of a reanimated scientist.

  “Where are we?” he asked. “This place is a dump.”

  “They took cash without question.” She shrugged. “I’d driven as far I could on the gas in the van. You were in no shape to get out and pump gas, and if I did it, we’d attract attention.”

  Her father stood up, dropped the cigarette, and twisted his foot to put it out. Cindy marveled that this did not cause him to lose his balance as such a movement would have the day before. She waited for him to notice his physical improvement, but he seemed to take it in stride. Maybe he thought the effects of the anesthesia had finally worn off.

  “Come.” He started walking toward the room, moving smoothly after an initial lurch in his step, his ever-present cane tucked against his hip. “Let’s find some breakfast.”

  An hour or so later, the two of th
em sat on opposite sides of a booth in a diner, both staring at the menu. The waitress walked up to the table and sat the coffeepot down on the table, sloshing a little of the harsh-smelling brown liquid and wiping it up with the edge of her apron. She pulled out a notepad. “What’ll it be?

  Cindy sat the menu down and smiled at the waitress, trying out what she thought was a shy, ingratiating smile. “I’ll have the number three, but without eggs or meat. Yogurt with berries, toast and hot tea, please.”

  “No eggs and no meat?” The waitress turned to her father, completing ignoring Cindy’s efforts to curry her favor. “All our combos come with eggs and a breakfast meat.”

  Anton didn’t seem to know how to react. He stammered, “My daughter is… unusual. A vegetarian.”

  Cindy shrugged. Not strictly true, but it was hardly worth trying to make a waitress who obviously didn’t like children understand she didn’t like the look or smell of the greasy breakfast meats.

  The waitress made a face like she smelled something bad. “All right then. It’ll cost the same without it.” When Anton nodded his acquiescence, she went on, “Okay. A bunny rabbit platter for the kid. What about for you?” Cindy fought down a desire to give the woman a piece of her mind. Children didn’t generally demand to speak to the manager, so Cindy settled for crossing her arms and glaring at the woman while she took her father’s order.

  When the waitress returned and had strewn the table with all the small dishes and plates that made up their breakfast, Cindy sighed over the Lipton teabag sitting in a cup of not-quite-hot-enough water. She should have opted for the coffee. She missed her house and the tea selection she kept in a cabinet over the sink, some from the tea shop in downtown and some of her own making. All of them much better than tepid leavings in a bag.

  Thinking about tea made her think about Jessica Roark. She’d been so close to understanding what was going on with her when her life had blown apart. She still felt sure Jessica’s condition was key to understanding all the strange changes and interactions her experiments had caused, not least of all the ones within herself. If she could just get back to a lab, she could complete her work.

  She dunked the teabag absently as she thought, nibbling on some of the blueberries. When she turned her attention to her father, she found him similarly preoccupied, staring out the window while chewing his toast. She took the opportunity to study his face again. She knew this face wasn’t the one her father had worn when he and her mother were together, but it was the only face she’d known him with. Anton Lorre’s original face had been square, with a strong chin skirted by a thin beard. This one was round and clean-shaven. While her Hungarian-American father had olive skin not that different in color from her own, this pasty pale flesh was covered in freckles.

  “Where was Daniel from?” she asked abruptly.

  Her father clattered his cup against the saucer. “Daniel?”

  “Yes, Daniel. Your skin suit. Where was he from?”

  “Pennsylvania, I think.” He stared at her, the blue eyes asking the unspoken why?

  “Did you know him?”

  Anton looked down and picked up his fork and knife again. For a moment, she thought he might not answer her. But after a couple of cuts, he set the silverware down. “He was my friend—when I was Victor Chaney. He tried to help me.” There was a break in his voice. Maybe the man did feel something after all.

  Cindy had met Victor Chaney, back in the eighties when her fiancé died. Chaney, whom she now knew was another incarnation of her father, had been instrumental in getting her access to the cryonics unit in Boston.

  “Why didn’t you tell me who you were? When you helped me with Michael?”

  “Would you have believed me?”

  “I don’t know. I might have.”

  “You were grieving. It wasn’t the right time.”

  “But you still helped me.”

  “I always did what I could for you.”

  Cindy looked away. Growing up, she would have given anything to know her father. To have something other than her mother’s sour memories and brutal pronouncements about the man he had been. But as a young woman, she’d been angry, and never angrier than when her fiancé had died. Michael had gone from healthy to dead in a matter of weeks, victim to an especially virulent and pervasive cancer.

  When she’d made contact with the cryogenics laboratory, and Dr. Victor Chaney had offered to help her, she hadn’t looked the gift horse in the mouth. She’d leaped on the opportunity to preserve Michael’s body in the hope of bringing him back someday. If her father had tried to tell her who he was, would she have listened? Probably not.

  She didn’t know whether she should be grateful to have been allowed to remain ignorant of her father’s continued existence and the murders he committed or angry at having been lied to for so long. Even now, she still wasn’t sure she was glad she’d found him. He’d helped her, certainly, by giving her a place to hide and work, but he hadn’t been exactly forthcoming. After months in his presence, she still had no idea who he really was. He’d kidnapped Patricia without even telling her and tried to use her as some kind of lure. If it had worked, if he’d captured Jessica as well… Who knew what he’d had in mind for any of them?

  Would he have killed the women? As angry as Cindy still was with Patricia for her betrayals, she didn’t want her old friend dead. Or Jessica either, for that matter. Jessica was an innocent in all this, the daughter of another friend. Cindy wasn’t above using people for her own ends, but there were limits to how far she’d go. And murder was a bridge too far.

  But not for Anton. He’d kidnapped a child—the sister of the surgeon—and used her to blackmail the transplant specialist into helping. He didn’t hesitate to grasp the opportunity to try and take over the body of the man who had come with the rescue team. If the Department hadn’t arrived, her father would have killed again, taking over another body in his quest to extend his life yet further—and she would have been culpable along with him.

  Cindy didn’t know who that man was or if he had survived his gunshot wound. There hadn’t been time to worry about collateral damage like injured bystanders when her freedom was at stake. So she’d taken her father, and she’d run.

  And now, here they were, eating breakfast, wearing Indiana T-shirts they’d bought at a gas station, and looking to all the world like father and daughter rather than the half-antagonistic strangers they really were.

  She broke the silence. “Who can you call? We can’t last on the cash in my pockets forever. We need a place to work.”

  Anton ran his hand over his head, making the short reddish-brown hair stand up, then smoothing it back down. “I’ll call Bertrand. But he isn’t going to like it.”

  Patricia’s Breakfast of Champions

  Patricia was already seated at a table by the window when Sally Ann arrived. Even though Sally Ann was short, she stood out. She was the only person of color in the room, a fact Patricia hadn’t noticed until Sally Ann strode into the room.

  The room wasn’t crowded at six thirty on a Tuesday morning. The few patrons scattered throughout the booths of the rather chichi diner were mostly white, upper class retirees from the local tech industries and corporations, like herself. Sally Ann was probably thirty years younger than the average patron in the restaurant and noticing this made Patricia feel old.

  Plus, Sally Ann was a strikingly beautiful young woman even when dressed for the gym. Her short, stylishly sculpted hair rested on cheekbones sharp enough to cut yourself on, and her gaze was forthright, alert, and attentive. As she crossed the room, a wave of gray and white-haired heads turned to follow her as if an alien had landed in their midst. Patricia watched Sally Ann take the measure of the place and everyone in it. She could almost see the gears turning in her mind. Patricia had another moment of doubt that she was equipped for the kind of work a woman like Sally Ann Rogers performed.

  But when Patricia stood up and waved to make sure the agent saw her, Sally Ann flash
ed a quick and genuine smile, and Patricia felt reassured she was doing the right thing, considering the opportunity seriously. After all, the Department had come calling for her, not the other way around. And Patricia, like Sally Ann, was more than she might seem at first glance. She’d been second guessing her gut instincts too often lately.

  Sally Ann slid into the opposite side of the booth and picked up the menu already on the table. She immediately let go of it like she’d been stung and didn’t touch it again. The waiter appeared quickly and refilled Patricia’s coffee cup and raised the pot toward Sally Ann.

  “No thanks,” she said, laying a hand across her cup. “I’ll stick with water.”

  The two women made their selections, and Patricia passed the menus in, now very curious about why Sally Ann didn’t want to touch hers. When the waiter left with their orders, Sally Ann pulled her feet into the bench with her, sitting up on her knees like a child, and leaned across the table to snatch a jelly out of the rack of condiments left on the table.

  She opened the packet and, using her finger, scooped out the grape jelly in one blob and popped it into her mouth. “I guess you want an update about our missing Asian girl?”

  Patricia blinked, stunned by both the egregious table manners and the question. That wasn’t why she’d asked for the meeting, but she definitely wanted to know anything Sally Ann would tell her. Her pride still smarted from letting Cindy Liu slip between her fingers. She nodded.

  “She’s still in Indiana. We’re tracking her and her father but not bringing them in yet. Trying to get a line on who has been helping them. Where their resources are coming from.”

  Patricia tapped her nails on the table, considering. Like all of them, she was impatient to bring Cindy in, but she had to admit it made sense to get all the information they could in the process.

  Sally Ann went on. “We won’t let her hurt anyone else, Patricia. We’ve got eyes on her. But we could always use more. We’ve got a new case right now, and a new initiative you’d be perfect for. Have you made up your mind about the Director’s offer?”