Edgewood Series: Books 1 - 3 (32 page)

“But you didn’t know. No point in beating yourself up over it.”

“Easy to say. I still feel guilty.” She took a big sip, polishing off the glass, and then poured herself some more.

“So you’ve known about the Associates for sixteen years and managed to keep it a secret?”

“Yeah. I’d like to forget and just live my life like a normal person, but I can’t. They’re always keeping an eye on me. I don’t know enough that they want me dead, but I still make them nervous. They don’t like loose ends.” She looked into the red liquid and swirled the glass. “And now I have to get another cell phone. That sucks.”

A realization dawned on me. “Is that why you keep getting new phones and different numbers?” My parents could never get over how often Carly changed numbers. She always had an excuse—a problem with the phone carrier, a stalker boyfriend, a better phone plan. None of her reasons were convincing.

“Duh. Why else would I switch phone numbers all the time?”

“I don’t know.”

She sighed. “I used to move all the time too, until I got tired of it. Now I just do periodic sweeps of the apartment looking for bugs. I’m sure I miss some, but it sure feels like a victory when I find one. Then I squash it like a real bug and flush it down the toilet.”

“And all your boyfriends…?”

“The best of them have turned out to be undercover Associates,” Carly said. “Believe me, that’s a definite deal-breaker. I don’t trust men anymore.” She paused and added, “Except Dad.”

The time seemed right for me to ask her something I’d wondered for hours. “Carly, what’s a ‘second gen’? The Associates kept calling me that.”

“Oh that,” she said. “They think you’re the second generation to have these powers and that’s why you’re so good.”

“But I’m not, am I? I mean, Mom and Dad never had this happen, did they?”

“I think it’s safe to say Mom and Dad never had superpowers. They don’t know anything about this, and I hope they never do.”

“You never were tempted to go to the police?” I asked. “Ever?”

Carly scoffed. “And tell them what? That my high school boyfriend was exposed to a bunch of falling stars and could shoot lightning bolts out of his hands, but then was murdered by a powerful secret organization because he turned down the opportunity to join them? They’d think I was crazy.”

“I could show them what I can do, and then they’d have to believe.”

“Yeah, go ahead and do that. Then we’d all be dead.”

“Seriously. We’d all be dead? Everyone?”

“Everyone involved. Anyone who witnessed anything.”

Carly could be so dramatic at times. I tried again. “I can’t believe they’d kill a whole police station. What if we call a press conference and there are hundreds of people there to witness it?”

“Oh, Russ.” She shook her head sadly. “Have you ever read in the news where a whole community is killed in a flash flood or a tornado or a wildfire?” She met my eyes. “And then you think, ‘Oh those poor people. What a terrible random thing to happen. Mother Nature can be so cruel.’”

“Those things aren’t random?”

She exhaled loudly. “Those are the kind of things the Associates do on a regular basis. You have no idea how much power we’re talking about.”

“So now what?”

“One day at a time. That’s all we can do is live life one day at a time. If there’s a better way of dealing with this, I haven’t figured it out.”

“What if I talk to Mr. Specter—”

“No!” She sat up suddenly, the wine in her glass lurching from side to side. “Leave it be, Russ. Just let it go.”

“But I can’t let it go. That Miller guy said they’d be checking in with me later in the summer.”

“And they will. Put them off as long as you can, would be my advice. Try to get through high school and college at least. And when you join them, see if you can work in some capacity where you don’t have to kill people.”

“So you’re telling me to just give up?”

“Don’t think of it as giving up. Think of it as surviving. If you don’t let this go, you’ll wind up like poor Gordon Hofstetter with an apartment filled with maps and lined notebooks full of illegible scribbles. He made himself crazy over this and wound up electrocuted.”

“How do you know what he had in his apartment?”

“I stopped over when David’s parents were cleaning it out,” she said. “They gave me some photos of David and some other things. And when they weren’t looking, I found this and I just took it.” She had a gleam in her eyes as she pulled a chain out from under her T-shirt. An old key dangled off the end of it. “You know what this is for?”

“Haven’t a clue.”

“It opens the door to the old train station building. David had the key, and we used to meet there. It was like our own clubhouse. We used to go there to make out. Among other things.” Now she had a grin on her face and the old Carly was back.

I knew it had been boarded up for decades. I could only imagine what it looked like inside. “Weren’t there like mice and bugs and stuff?”

“Not that I noticed,” she said cheerfully. “We had a blanket. And of course, I had other things on my mind at the time.”

“How did David get the key in the first place?”

“His great-grandfather, Gordon’s father, was the train station master a million years ago. The key stayed in the family.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“Nothing.” She slipped it back inside her shirt. “I just like having it.”

After polishing off her glass of wine, Carly got me a pillow, some blankets, and a spare toothbrush and left me to work it out. Sleeping on a couch is not the same as a mattress, but hers, at least, was fairly long, and I was dead tired. I knew I wouldn’t be awake much longer.

I sank into the pillow and pulled the covers up to my chin. It was then I was aware of Nadia’s presence in the room. Her voice cut through the silence in the room. Even in my head it seemed loud.

Oh, Russ, thank God you’re okay
.

I could feel her relief. Until a second ago, I sensed, she wasn’t sure if I was alive or dead. I played it cool.
Of course I’m okay. You know me, I’m indestructible
.

I’ve been worried sick.

Where’d you go, Nadia? You were with me and then you were gone.

I know, I know. I’m sorry. My mom thought I was napping and she shook me until I was pulled back. I wasn’t able to be alone until just now
.

I got a flash of her mother, an image in my mind. I saw her angry face, her hands like claws coming after her daughter. And I felt Nadia’s fear. I said,
I’m sorry she treats you like that
.

She didn’t question what I said. I guess both of us were getting used to being inside each other’s head
.
Instead she just told me:
Some days I think I won’t be able to stand another minute in this house.

Hang in there.

I’m trying.

Nadia, I’m sorry, but I’m seriously falling asleep right now. I had a really tiring day.

Go to sleep. I’ll watch over you
.

I’d thought I was through with sneaking out of the house, but just after midnight on the following night I found myself creeping down the stairs, putting on my shoes, and slipping out the back door. It felt good to be out on my own in the dark. The night air was fresh and the slight breeze felt good against my skin. All familiar, but I wasn’t going to be following my usual route tonight. Instead, I headed straight to Mr. Specter’s house.

He wasn’t expecting me, but when I got there, the lights were on in his living room and over his front porch, which made me feel better about my late-night visit. He did say to come over
any
time of the day or night, but still. I rang the doorbell and stepped back so I could easily be seen through the peep hole. After a slight pause, I heard fumbling on the other side of the door: a deadbolt being released, the clinking of a chain fastener sliding to one side, and finally, the turn of the knob.

Even though it was twelve thirty at night, a big smile crossed his face as he stood in the open doorway. “Mr. Becker. What a nice surprise.” He held the door open for me, and as I walked through he said, “So to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”

“I need your help,” I said.

He nodded thoughtfully. “I think it’s best if we talk downstairs,” Mr. Specter said, leading me through the house to the basement door. When he saw me hesitate, he said, “Don’t worry, I’m not going to ambush you. I’m home alone, and I’m quite sure you could overpower an old man like me if you wanted to.”

He was right about that. I followed him down, and when we got to the U-shaped couch I saw that it was true—we were alone. He turned on the overhead lights and switched on a floor lamp that stood behind the couch, giving us some more light. “I wanted to talk down here,” he said, “because this room is secure. I’ve spent a lot of time and money making sure it’s impervious to any electronic listening devices or any of that other spy nonsense the Associates use.”

“I could use a room like this in my house,” I said.

“We could use a world like this,” Mr. Specter said, taking off his glasses and polishing them on the front of his shirt.

“Were you expecting me?” I asked.

“No.”

“But you’re awake and dressed,” I pointed out. “And you didn’t seem shocked to see me here so late.”

He put his glasses back on. “I’m a night owl by nature and an insomniac on occasion. You’ll often find me awake at this hour, alone in my thoughts. I also like to read late at night. The world doesn’t intrude like it does during the day.”

I nodded, knowing what he meant.

“Am I right in guessing that you’ve had something significant happen lately?” he said, gesturing for me to take a seat.

I sat on the opposite end of the horseshoe couch—close enough to see him, but not close enough to be awkward. Before I got here, I wondered how much I was going to tell him, but as it turned out, there was no way to tell the story unless I revealed everything. “The Associates abducted my nephew Frank,” I began, and then it all came spilling out. I told him about Carly’s cell phone message and how we rushed to the Greyhound counter. How the bus was stopped by an overturned semi, and Carly and I received instructions to get out, and how we wound up getting picked up by a cargo van and taken to a mystery location. “And once I got there, Carly had to stay in a waiting room with a secretary, and they sent me through these obstacles. They said I had to do it if we wanted Frank back.”

Mr. Specter leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “What kind of obstacles?”

I told him about Tim wanting to shake my hand, and how I refused, and then I detailed all the tests: the dogs, the two thugs who tried to beat me up, the doctor’s office, and the mock Milwaukee Intermodal Station. The only thing I neglected to tell him was how Nadia was along for part of it. “The Associates timed me during this whole thing, if you can believe it.”

“Oh, I believe it,” he said gravely. “How’d you do?”

“Forty-eight minutes and fifty-three seconds.”

“Impressive.”

“They thought so. They practically had a parade.”

“Hmmm.” He looked off to one side. “Now that they know all you can do, they’ll certainly want you to join them.”

“They already asked and they made me an offer.”

“Which was?”

“Anything I wanted, basically.”

“Most people would find that hard to turn down. What did you tell them?” He peered at me over his glasses.

“I said no thanks.”

His face lit with admiration. “Good for you, Russ!”

I realized then that he’d used my first name for the first time ever. For some reason, I felt like I’d made a breakthrough. “They weren’t happy about it.”

“Well no, they wouldn’t be.”

The room became noticeably silent now that my story was over. Both of us knew that this wasn’t the end of it. The Associates weren’t going to take no for an answer. They’d just given me some time to come around to their way of thinking.

Mr. Specter said, “How is your nephew?”

“Just about back to normal except for a bad headache the next morning,” I said. “He woke me up by jumping on top of me.”

“It sounds like he won’t have any long-term damage.”

“He really thinks we spent hours testing video games. He remembers specific things I said to him, and he can describe the games. They really got into his head.”

“That’s a shame.” Mr. Specter spoke in a sympathetic tone. And then, he abruptly switched the subject: “You said you needed my help?”

“Oh yes!” I practically smacked my forehead with the realization of the real reason I’d come here tonight. “It’s about Gordy—I mean Mr. Hofstetter.”

“What about him?”

I stood up and reached into my pocket, pulled out the folded piece of paper, and spread it out on the coffee table in front of me. “Before he died, he gave me this.” I smoothed out the edges so it would lie flat. “He said his grandson was imprisoned and I needed to find him.”

Mr. Specter got up and sat next to me to get a closer look. “Have you shown this to anyone else?”

“No, I haven’t shown it to anyone else.” True that. I hadn’t shown it to anyone, but I’d told Nadia about it during our nighttime visits.

He stared intently at the page. “Would you mind if I made a copy of it?”

“No.”

Holding the paper between two fingers, he got up from the couch and disappeared through a door into the other part of the basement. A minute later, I heard the whirring of a copy machine. When he emerged from the room he had a stack of papers in one hand and a pencil and magnifying glass in the other. Taking his place, he said, “I made a few extra copies so we can write on them.”

I twisted around to look at the open doorway. “That’s not your laundry room?”

“No, my laundry room is upstairs. That room is my top secret home office,” he said, amused. “I keep it locked up when I’m not home so it’s Associate proof.”

“Good thinking,” I said.

He shrugged. “Better safe than sorry. I had a cleaning lady once who seemed a little fishy. You never know.” He set the papers down, the copies next to the original, then picked up a pencil and began going over the faint lines with sure, even strokes. Interlocking geometric shapes took form. Once done, he concentrated on the number combinations I’d been unable to decipher. After he’d darkened them, they had a familiar look. “These numbers, you know what they are?”