Blood Ties (3 page)

Cassie Jones is stupid though. I know that making yourself sick over and over is a majorly bad idea. It’s bad for your body, bad for your heart, bad for your teeth even.

It’s bad for your head, too.

And my head’s screwed up enough as it is.

Anyway, I hate how it feels when you vomit. Maybe that’s the real truth. I’m just too scared to stick two fingers down my throat and feel that acid burn up into my mouth.
Ugh
.

‘Ro?’ Dad’s voice was insistent. ‘Ro, earth to Ro!’

I jerked back into the real world. Mum had vanished into the kitchen. Dad was smiling at me.

I tried to smile back. Dad doesn’t realise I know it, but he calls me Ro when he’s trying to make me feel better about something. Trouble is, I’m sure that’s what he used to call Rebecca, too.

‘Hey, Ro,’ he said. ‘You were saying something before Mum came in?’

‘It wasn’t anything major,’ I said. ‘Just a text. A wrong number. It said something about a goddess being in heaven. From some guy with the same name as you.’

‘Oh.’ Dad paused for just a second too long. ‘Well, that
is
weird,’ he said.

‘Dad?’

‘What?’ He smiled at me, but his eyes were all wary.

Mum bustled back in. ‘Homework, Rachel, sweetie.’

‘Yes, I’ve got loads of paperwork to check over.’ Dad stood up so abruptly he knocked his chair and had to steady it to stop it from falling over.

He left. I helped Mum carry the plates and stuff out to the kitchen. She was chattering away about her tennis again, but I wasn’t listening.

Why had Dad acted strange like that? Was I being paranoid or had he practically run away from me just then?

A few minutes later he was back, holding a bundle of papers, completely normal again. ‘Hey, Ro?’ He kissed my forehead. ‘Give us a shout if you need any help with your homework.’

He wandered through to the living room and switched on the T V.

I trudged upstairs. Back in my room I pulled out my phone.

Dad knew something about the message, I was sure. But if he’d sent it to me by mistake, why not just say so?

My heart beat faster. Was I imagining this whole thing? Before I could think about it any more, I pulled my mobile out of my pocket and scrolled through to the last logged message. I clicked on the number and pressed
call
.

I wandered out to the landing. Dad was downstairs, through two open doors. If his phone rang I was sure I’d hear it from here.

Nothing.

I turned to go back into my room. And then I caught it. A faint, muffled ringtone.

It was coming from across the landing.

From Dad’s study.

It took Mum several glasses of wine to get going. But when she did, I felt like asking for a glass myself.

‘There are people who . . .’ She hesitated. ‘. . . People who might harm you.’

‘Why?’ I frowned. I’d heard all this before and it didn’t make sense. ‘What people? Why would anyone want to harm me?’

Mum took a deep breath. ‘People from a long time ago. From when you were born.’

‘Is it to do with Dad?’ I stared at her. I didn’t know much about my dad. Just that he’d been a soldier. Killed abroad before I was born. Before he and Mum had even known each other that long. I knew his name – James Lawson. In fact, I’d often wished I was called Lawson, instead of Mum’s name, ‘Glassman’. And I had a photograph. Nothing else. Mum said he had no family.

Mum nodded. ‘Some of the things I told you about your dad weren’t true.’ She leaned back against the kitchen counter. ‘What things?’ My heart thudded. I don’t know why it mattered so much. It wasn’t like I knew a lot about the guy. Just that he’d been a soldier, killed abroad before I was born. Maybe that was it. Maybe I didn’t want to have what little I did know taken away from me.

‘He
was
a soldier, but not in any conventional army. He was a scientist. A geneticist.’ Mum looked down at the floor.

I stared at her.
Not a soldier?
All my life I’d pictured him in some British Army camouflage uniform. With a gun and a determined face.

A hero.

And now the hero was a man in a lab, wearing a white coat.

‘A scientist?’ My voice sounded hollow and small.

‘A geneticist,’ Mum repeated. ‘He worked for a fertility clinic, researching ways of manipulating genes so that people who wanted children and who couldn’t have them were able to. He saw himself as a soldier. Fighting bigots who thought his work was unethical. Immoral.’

‘What’s so bad about helping people to have kids?’

‘Some people just think it’s wrong. Especially when it involves messing about with embryos outside the womb and people’s genes and stuff.’

‘Okay . . . but . . . but you said he was shot abroad, being a soldier.’

Mum touched my arm. ‘He was,’ she said, softly. ‘He knew people were after him and his colleagues, but he didn’t take the threats seriously until you came along. Then he got worried. He tried to hide you, tried to organise security . . . but the clinic he worked at was firebombed a couple of weeks after you were born. That changed everything. He was listed as dead, but he got away. Then . . .’ She looked away, her voice all shaky. ‘Then, later, they found him . . . people from this organisation. It’s those people who . . . who would take you . . . hurt you, if they found you.’ She poured herself another glass of wine. Her hand was trembling so much some of the wine splashed onto the counter.

‘I don’t understand,’ I stammered. There were so many things I didn’t understand it was hard to know where to begin.

Mum picked up her glass and drew me across the kitchen and onto the couch. I sat down, trying to absorb what she was saying. My dad had been a scientist. Some organisation had killed him because they thought his work was immoral.

‘But why would the people who hated Dad want to hurt me?’

‘Because you’re your father’s weak point. His only family. The one way people can get to him.’

‘Get to him?’ I frowned. With a sick feeling I wondered if she was actually mentally ill. You know, suffering from paranoid delusions or something. ‘How can anyone “get” to him now? He’s dead.’

Mum just sat there, looking into my eyes. And slowly the truth dawned on me.

She nodded. ‘That’s right, Theodore. Your dad’s alive. In hiding still, but very, very much alive.’

I opened Dad’s study door. The muffled ringing grew louder. I looked round the room. The sound was coming from Dad’s desk in the corner of the room.

I walked over, my heart racing.

The ringing stopped as I reached the filing drawers under the desk. I reached for my phone and dialled the number again.

Ring, ring
. The sound started again.

I sank to the floor in front of the drawers. They were shut. Locked. The message
had
come from Dad. From a phone he kept hidden in a filing cabinet.

‘Rachel?’

I spun round.

Dad was standing in the doorway, a look of guilty confusion on his face.

We stared at each other for a second. The ringing stopped again. Silence filled the room.

‘That message,’ he said. ‘The one on your phone. It wasn’t for you.’

‘I don’t understand.’

Dad sighed. He rubbed his chin. ‘I sent a text to you by mistake, that’s all. It was a work thing. Nothing mysterious.’

I scrambled to my feet. ‘What have goddesses in heaven got to do with your work? And why do you have a separate phone, anyway?’

‘I told you, it’s work. It’s a work phone.’ Dad’s face was red. ‘The message was just code for something. A work thing. Honest, Ro.’

He was lying. I was sure of it.

‘Right.’ I didn’t know what to do. ‘Fine.’

I walked out and went to my room. Dad started to follow me, but then must have thought better of it. He went downstairs. I lay on my bed, thinking. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe he wasn’t lying. Maybe it
was
just some work project after all, some coded message he’d texted me by mistake – though why, I couldn’t imagine. Dad works in the cosmetic surgery business. It’s not exactly MI5. But he’d still lied to me before, when he pretended not to recognise the message he’d sent.

I turned over and buried my face in my pillow. Mum was one thing, but I couldn’t handle it if Dad was going to start being weird with me too.

I pushed down the sob that rose up from my chest. I wouldn’t think about it, that was all. I’d pretend it had never happened.

It was only a stupid text anyway.

Meaningless.

I was tired the next morning. I’d hardly slept, my mind full of what Mum had told me. Trying to take it in.

My dad was still alive.

I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

About him.

I got out the picture of him Mum had given me years ago. I’d looked at it so often the edges were curling and the colour faded. I stared at the smiling face, the dark blue eyes, the dimpled chin. Not for the first time I wished I looked more like him. James Lawson – a scientist, not a soldier.

Well, that kind of made sense. I’d always liked science, especially when we did experiments. Maybe I was more like him than I’d thought. And my dad was no ordinary scientist . . . even if he wasn’t a proper soldier, he was still brave. A hunted man.

Alive.

Mum had refused to tell me anything else. I tried again while she was getting ready for work.

‘But doesn’t he – my dad – want to know me now?’

‘Of course.’ Mum looked up from her handbag and sighed. ‘It’s just too risky. He’ll come for you one day, though. When he’s ready. When it’s safe. Until then you’ll just have to be patient.’

She had no idea. How could I be patient? All I had was a photograph and a name. And a million unanswered questions.

Where was he?

What was this group that was after him?

When was I going to meet him?

Mum begged me to keep the whole thing secret, but even as I promised her I would, I knew I was going to tell Jake.

He was my best friend, after all.

Of course, when we met up in the playground before school, Jake was full of what I’d missed yesterday afternoon in Starbucks. Apparently he’d got well into some girl while he was waiting for me.

‘She was way fit, dude,’ he said. ‘All over me, as well.’

I rolled my eyes. I’d seen girls be ‘all over’ Jake before. It usually just meant they hadn’t told him to piss off in the first ten seconds of him trying to chat them up.

‘Listen.’ I told him about my dad still being alive.

‘Whoa, man. That is wild.’ Jake stared at me intently.

I suddenly felt embarrassed. ‘So d’you get that girl’s number?’

‘Maybe.’ Jake grinned. ‘D’you get your dad’s?’

I explained what Mum had said about it being too dangerous to contact him. How she didn’t know exactly where he was, but that he sent money every few months to pay for school. And Roy.

We crossed the playground, heading for the main entrance. We stopped behind the crowd of boys struggling to push their way inside.

‘So what you gonna do then?’ Jake tilted his head to one side thoughtfully. ‘Just wait for your dad to get in touch one day?’

I looked at him. Jake isn’t anything like me. He’s shorter, for a start, with blond hair. And masses more outgoing. He’s always saying it’s good how different we are. How it means between us we’ll attract a wider range of girls. But in spite of the differences, Jake knows me really well. I could see in his eyes that he knew I wasn’t prepared to wait years to meet my dad. And suddenly I knew it too.

‘I have to do something,’ I said. ‘I have to find out more about him at least.’

‘Won’t your mum tell you anything?’

‘Nope.’ I shook my head. ‘And they don’t email or speak on the phone and there’s no information on our PC either. She told me.’

The queue eased and we pushed our way inside.

‘Why don’t you ask Max to help?’ Jake said.

I considered this for a moment. Max is my other best friend and an amazing hacker. But I had no idea what would be helpful to hack into.

And then it struck me. The obvious place to start – and something I could easily do by myself.

Roy stared at me suspiciously. ‘The library?’ he said.

I nodded, as innocently as I could. It was after school and we were standing on the pavement outside the school gates. I’d already apologised to Roy for trying to run away yesterday.

And for punching him.

He’d shrugged it off, neither accepting my apology nor demanding that I was punished. I was grounded for a week, but at least Mum had climbed down from her earlier decision to have him wait outside all my lessons.

‘Jake and I are doing a project on the Second World War,’ I said. ‘Air battles. We need books.’

‘What’s wrong with your school library?’

‘Not big enough.’

That was a lie. The school library was out because I needed to go online and, at school, that was impossible without some teacher nosing into what you were looking at. And our PC at home was no good in case Mum tracked my internet search. She’d done that once before. Luckily all I’d done was take a look at this dodgy – okay, well, illegal – gaming website. Nothing too embarrassing, though she still went ballistic when she realised what I’d been doing.

Roy made the call to Mum. She said I could have half an hour at the library. Roy drove us as close as he could, then we walked the rest of the way. It was cold and the light of the day was already fading. Roy walked slightly behind me, as usual, his eyes darting about, looking out for any trouble.

‘How long d’you reckon before he puts his sunglasses on?’ Jake whispered.

I grinned. This was a standing joke between us. Roy never went anywhere without his shades, even in the depths of winter – or today, chilly and grey and autumnal.

‘Give it ten seconds,’ I whispered back. I heard Jake counting under his breath. Then he turned round and looked over his shoulder. He suppressed a snort.

‘Yup. Mr FBI Special Agent is looking cooool,’ he said. ‘I reckon he only wears them so he can stare at girls without them noticing.’