Cassidy Jones and the Luminous (Cassidy Jones Adventures Book 4) (9 page)

“Only with himself!” Briggs ribbed.

“I can’t believe you asked him that!” Jared whispered, grinning, as we jogged up the stairs.

“Well, he looks like he’s in love.” I touched the stair rail and immediately pulled my hand back. There was a thick coating of dust on it, just like there was on every flat surface of the house, due to the construction. “I seriously don’t know how they live like this,” I remarked, wiping my filthy palm on my jeans.

“About Cristiano,” Emery called from the spare room at the top of the stairs, having overheard my question. “You do know what killed the cat.”

“Curiosity,” I answered. We stepped up to the landing. “Now it makes perfect sense why I’m curious.”

We veered left into the spare room. Jared’s eyes roamed the thirteen-by-thirteen-square-foot space.

“Welcome,” I said with flourish, shutting and locking the door, “—to the temporary laboratory of the world-famous geneticist, Professor Serena Phillips, and headquarters to the finest spy on Earth, Gavin Phillips.”

“You’re making me blush,” Gavin teased from his desk. His eyes scanned the screen of his laptop. A live feed of the inside and the outside of the house streamed in each of the eight blocks on a large monitor mounted over the desk. Gavin had hidden the cameras so expertly that even I’d had a challenging time locating them.

“I’m the consigned lab technician,” Emery said from behind the steel cart, where he’d prepared for the blood draw. He held up a syringe with a sinister smile. “And the spy’s
zealous
interrogation assistant, when
persuasion
is necessary.”

Serena clucked her tongue with disapproval as she prepared a slide for her microscope.

“Ha-ha.” I slid Jared a concerned look. “He’s kidding, you know.”

“Oh,
am
I?” Emery wiggled his eyebrows.

“Psychoactive drugs are rarely necessary,” Gavin chimed in. “My suspects usually break when Emery lectures them on the mathematical odds of their success.”

“Which I don’t understand. Who doesn’t enjoy probability theory?” Emery shook his head as though dumfounded, and then patted the medical exam table. “Come, Cassidy. Let’s settle the question that has been eating at Jared’s mind these last seven months: What exactly
is
Cassidy doing at the Phillips’s house?”

My jaw dropped. Emery was in rare form.

“You have my permission to deck him, Jared,” Gavin said.

“Do I?” I managed a smirk.

Emery grinned at my crimson cheeks. “You haven’t asked permission before. Jared, if you only knew what I deal with.”

“I’ve got a good idea,” Jared joined in.

“What is this? The ‘Harassing Cassidy’ hour?” I tried to sound playful. Serena, with her usual tact, utterly defeated my attempt.

“You’ve embarrassed Cassidy,” she reprimanded the boys. “Take note of the widening blood vessels in her cheek tissue.”

“Noted,” Emery goaded.

I shoved him with my shoulder.

“Jared, it was nice when he couldn’t be himself around you,” I retorted as I hoisted my backside onto the exam table.

“I like this version better,” Jared joked. At least, I think it was a joke.

“It’s my preferred version, too.” Emery tied a tourniquet around my arm.

“You have so many,” I quipped. “How do you keep track?”

“Jared, get used to this,” Gavin contributed. “Cassidy is like the
sister
Emery never had.”

I noticed how he emphasized “sister.” Then I noticed the tightness of Jared’s smile.

“Yeah, he is almost as annoying as Nate,” I added hastily to further derail Jared’s thoughts from the track they were on. He was obviously reading more into our bantering than he should. “How’s the remodeling coming along, Gavin?”

As he felt around my elbow joint for a juicy vein, Emery let his grin subside.

“The crew is making progress,” Gavin answered, congenially and vaguely.

“Oh,” I said, unsure why he didn’t want to share more details in front of Jared. Jared knew Gavin was a CIA operative, Emery was a genius, and I was a mutant, after all. Why would the future Batcave be a secret, then?

Emery inserted the needle. Blood flowed into the syringe.

“How often do you draw her blood?” Jared asked, watching with fascination.

“Whenever ordered.” Emery jerked his head toward his mom. He was acting really strangely.

After the blood draw, Serena conducted her usual examination, which Jared watched with fascination, too, peppering her with questions about the virus. She answered him in excruciating detail, obviously not sharing Gavin’s and Emery’s reluctance.

“Oh, Jared, this reminds me,” I said as Serena flashed the beam from her ophthalmoscope into my eyes. “Did you notice my eye color changed?”

Jared stared at them with confusion. “When?”

“Like, over two months ago. I just woke up one morning and they were this jade color. Can’t you see the difference?”

He narrowed his eyes on mine. Serena examined my ears.

“They look the same to me,” Jared said a moment later.

For some reason, his not seeing the difference disappointed me.

“Why did they change color?” he addressed Serena.

“We don’t know,” Emery butted in. He sat behind his mother’s laptop at the opposite end of the lab table, inputting data from her notes. “She’ll ask you about the freckles next. I
can
tell you why those vanished.”

I motioned at my nose to show Jared where the spray of freckles had been.

Jared smiled. “You don’t need to,” he told Emery. “Rapid cell regeneration.” His smile flipped into a frown as he studied my nose. I could see on his face the very moment he remembered my freckles. “How did I miss the freckles?” he asked himself.

“Way to go, Sherlock,” Emery jeered.

“Don’t be rude!” I rebuked him. I was sick of his attitude.

Emery’s head jerked up in surprise. I glared at him.

“I didn’t mean to be ru—” Jared cut his apology short when he realized the dirty look was aimed at Emery. “You were talking to Emery?”

From the corner of my eye, I saw Gavin turn around in his chair. Puzzled, I wondered why he and Serena weren’t jumping down Emery’s throat.

“What did Emery do, dear?” Serena inquired. “Did he say something under his breath?” She gave her son a look.

“Guilty as charged,” he said and directed his attention back to the laptop.

I stared at him, baffled. It almost seemed as though his confession were a lie, like he hadn’t made the remark at all.

“Stop provoking her,” Serena ordered, placing her stethoscope on my chest. “I’m about to listen to her heart.”

“Oh, you’ll find this interesting,” I enthusiastically said to Jared. I wasn’t about to let Emery’s weird mood put a damper on mine. “My heart beats more slowly now, like forty beats per minute. A healthy heart doesn’t have to work as hard. If you listen, it sounds like I’m dying—”

“
Shh
,” Serena shushed me with a frown.

When the exam was finished, I led Jared to the world map pinned to the wall next to Gavin’s desk.

“All these thumbtacks are where Lily White has struck.” My forefinger hopped from tack to tack. “Gavin is tracking her, trying to figure out if there’s a pattern with her heists.” I glanced at Gavin. His mouth held a small smile on his none-too-pleased face. What was his problem?

“Well, we should go,” I said to Jared with feigned brightness. “Bye, everyone.”

We left, and I shut the door behind us, resisting the urge to slam it.

“This is going to be a problem,” Gavin whispered when we were halfway down the stairs.

“She’s listening,” Emery warned him, not bothering to lower his voice. He was really getting on my nerves.

“SPD classed the two new missing persons filed yesterday in this last hour,” Gavin changed the subject. “The media will be notified soon.”

Gavin had hacked into the Seattle Police Department’s computer system
, I deduced, assuming that he had been reading a confidential police blotter.

The missing homeless people Joe had told me about leaped to memory. I toyed with the idea of going back upstairs to tell Gavin about them, but decided against it for now. Why give Emery another opportunity to take potshots?

“Cassidy!” Leroy Rays boomed as Jared and I entered my house.

On his feet in one second flat, Leroy scooped me up into his huge arms and turned me in a full circle around the living room. It didn’t take me aback in the least, even though I’d only met him once before.

Everything about the big-game hunter was excessive—size, energy, personality, voice, and movements. You wouldn’t think he could sneak up on anyone or anything. However, I knew from experience that he could be quite stealthy. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have managed to shoot me with a tranquilizer dart last November.

“How are ya, girl?” he inquired with a Texas twang and a Texas-size smile, setting me on my feet.

He had blue eyes, a shaved head, and a blond handlebar mustache growing down the sides of his mouth. He was wearing his standard ensemble from both of his cable shows,
Big Game
and
Monster Hunters
—combat boots, a mustard-colored T-shirt, and camouflage pants that clung to the muscles roping his large legs.

Before I could answer, he shoved a young, pretty blonde woman at me. “Cassidy, meet my niece, Jenna Wade.”

As Jenna and I shook hands, Leroy added, “Jenna is my producer for
Monster Hunters
.”

Ben caught my attention. Seated next to Dad on the sofa, the cameraman couldn’t take his eyes off Jenna. Chazz sat on Ben’s lap, and Athena was curled up on Chazz’s.

“Nice to meet you, Cassidy,” Jenna said with enthusiasm. “I’m
so
excited to be here! Aren’t the Lake Washington Monster sightings thrilling?”

Dreamy-eyed, Ben sighed. This was a match made in heaven.

I introduced Jared to them. As Leroy practically pumped his arm off in a hearty handshake, our front door burst open and Bobby Neigh stumbled into the foyer. Startled to see everyone in the living room, he hastily smoothed his mop of brown curls and struck a pose that he thought would make him look cool. It had the opposite effect.

“Hey.” He lifted his chin and smoothed his hair again.

I swallowed a laugh and glanced at Nate, who was sitting on the stone hearth of the fireplace. My impish twin winked at me. Obviously, he had texted Leroy’s “biggest fan” that the cable show star was at our house.

Bobby strutted into the living room.

“Leroy, this is our friend, Bobby Neigh,” Dad introduced, careful not to show his amusement. The rest of us didn’t bother.

“Hey,” Bobby said again, and casually offered his hand to Leroy, who took it and gave Bobby’s arm the same treatment that Jared’s had received. After shaking Jenna’s dainty hand, Bobby discreetly massaged his bruised arm, wincing, and parked himself next to Nate. He’d probably have to ice his muscles tonight.

Leroy settled his hulking body back into the wingback chair that he’d jumped out of when Jared and I had arrived. Then he launched into an animated account of every creature from myth and legend that he’d pursued since a five-foot-five Sasquatch had propelled him into a tree and opened his eyes. Sea serpents, werewolves, hobgoblins, dragons, little green men from outer space, and now—

“The Lake Washington Monster.” Leroy rubbed his big palms together, as though he were about to dig into a juicy T-bone. Like Ben, he lived for the outlandish.

“We have an interview scheduled with eyewitnesses at three o’clock,” Jenna’s tone betrayed her own breathless excitement. Her ever-present smile leapt to Dad. “I hate to rush things along, but we should do the interview soon.”

“Absolutely,” Ben answered for Dad. “We’ve chartered a boat on Lake Washington for the interview. We thought filming where the sightings happened would be cool.” He stood. “Come on, I’ll drive!”

“Awesome!” Jenna hopped to her feet, too.

She and Ben will have the cutest and happiest kids.

“Can I come with?” Bobby asked.

“By all means,” Leroy boomed.

“Right on!” Bobby pumped his fist in the air.

“Why don’t y’all come along?” Leroy invited. “Unless Ben chartered a rowboat.” He hooted at his own joke and slapped Ben’s back, causing Ben to stumble forward.

“There’s plenty of room.” Dad sought out Mom’s gaze.

Smiling, she nodded her approval.

The doorbell rang, which only I could hear over all the boisterous chatter.

“I’ll get it,” I shouted, but no one appeared to have heard me.

I jogged to the door and flung it open. My heart stopped. Owen Wells was standing there, smiling at me.

“Hello, Cassidy. Sounds like I’m missing all the fun.”

It took me a second to find my voice. “Dad!” I finally screamed.

The chatter ceased. Unable to peel my eyes from Mr. Wells’s quizzical face, I could hear Dad walking briskly toward me, and everyone else following to see what was up.

“Owen,” Dad said, standing next to me. “Please come in.”

Now why hadn’t I thought of inviting him in?

“Dad!” Jared squeezed between us to hug his dad.

“I’m sorry,” Mr. Wells said. “Thank God you weren’t hurt.”

Gavin and Emery came out of their house. I figured Gavin had seen Mr. Wells drive up on his live camera feed.

“Where have you been?” Jared pulled back from his dad. Outrage had replaced relief, and rightly so.

Mr. Wells appeared to be paying more attention to everyone crowded in the foyer than to Jared.

“Let’s discuss this inside,” Mr. Wells suggested with a miry smile. I really did not like the man. He looked over his shoulder, sensing Gavin’s and Emery’s approach.

“Please come in.” Dad said again and tried to remove my hand from the doorknob. When he couldn’t budge it, he cleared his throat to get my attention.

I released the knob, and Dad opened the door more widely. Feet in the foyer shuffled backward as he did so.

“Drake, how ’bout we go ahead of you guys, and get set up?” Ben offered thoughtfully.