Girl Undercover 6 & 7: Emma's Secret & The Truth (8 page)

“The stately woman who came into the restroom when you were so upset a couple of weeks ago. I saw the way you looked at her. You were terrified, like you were convinced she was about to do something bad to you. And then you ran into a stall to hide.”

“Hide?” Emma scoffed and sat up straighter. “I wasn’t trying to hide. Me running into that stall had nothing at all to do with anybody but myself. I just thought I was about to throw up when that woman entered the bathroom is all. That must be why you thought I was terrified. I was gagging.”

“Really?” I tilted my head. “Were you feeling sick yesterday too?”

“What do you mean?”

“When you came by as I was training the senator. You had that same terrified look on your face the second you saw her that time as well.”

“No, that had nothing to do with her. I just didn’t expect her to be sitting in that leg press. I thought it was someone else. I was just surprised.” She gave what sounded like a forced chuckle. “Good to know I must look scared when I’m really surprised.”

I exhaled. “Emma, come on. I know there’s something off with this woman and I think you not only know what that is, but have a reason to fear her.”

Making sure no one was close enough to hear what I was about to say, I grabbed Emma’s arm and leaned closer, hissing, “She was physically abusing Ariel up on the sundeck, for Christ’s sake! The way you react to her each time you see her tells me you just have to have an idea what’s going on. What is it? Please tell me. I really need to know.” Or
want
might be a more appropriate way to put it, but Emma didn’t have to know that.

Emma stared at me, and for a brief moment I thought she was about to tell me. But then she shook her head, removed my hand from her arm and stood up. “Please stop asking me about her, Jamie. I can’t tell you anything. You don’t want to know anyway. I have to go. I have a client. Thanks for buying lunch.”

She grabbed her purse that hung over the back of a chair and swiveled around, marching away from me.

I watched her as she walked out of the cafeteria, chewing on my upper lip.
Well, at least I can be certain something’s off with the senator,
I thought. Emma had just confirmed that for me. But how would I get her to tell me what was going on? Now I was convinced it was even more serious than I’d originally suspected.

Sighing, I pulled out my phone from my pocket to see if Ian had responded to the text I’d sent him an hour ago, asking if he’d gotten the recording device back. After a good night’s sleep, I no longer felt so sure Ian had lied about what he’d learned during the dinner meeting; I’d convinced myself of that in the cab back home. But only because I couldn’t imagine how anyone would ever be able to explain away the outlandish things he’d told me.

He had yet to respond. Disappointed, I put the phone on the table. I picked up the lonely piece of chopped tomato from my plate and listlessly stuck it into my mouth. I didn’t know what I wanted to know most—what Emma was hiding in regards to the senator, or if Ian had in fact been telling the truth about what he’d heard last night.

“Well, for example, I learned that they’re planning a coup against all major governments in the world six months from now.”

I huffed. How could he expect me to believe something so outrageous without having actually heard these people saying it? And why wasn’t he replying to my text? He was usually very quick to respond. Was it possible that he never got the text in the first place? Deciding that it was, I shot him another one, even though I was about to see him in an hour and a half for a training session.

Staring at my phone screen, I dared it to light up with a reply text from him. But of course it didn’t.

I put it in my pocket, got to my feet and left the cafeteria. I’d spend the next hour running on the treadmill. It was more than two days since I’d last put myself through any kind of workout and my body was yearning for one.

I went into the trainers’ lounge where I switched into workout gear, taking my sweet time. Then I walked back into the club and took a left where there was a stretching area. A couple of people were lying on the black rubber mats there, doing abdominal exercises and a variety of stretches. I plopped down between them and did some dynamic stretching to warm up before my run.

As I went up on my hands and toes in a pushup position, alternating moving my feet up to my hands to stretch my hips, I caught sight of Emma training a woman with big hair and too much makeup on. They were talking and laughing while the woman sat on a workout bench, doing bicep curls with dumbbells.

I couldn’t help but notice that Emma’s eyes were red-rimmed and that her nose was red, which made it look like she had a cold or had recently been crying. Since she’d been well when I had lunch with her twenty minutes ago, it could only be the latter option.

Had her hormones all of a sudden dipped again, making her depressed? Or was it something else that had made her cry? Thoughts of Senator Janine Eastwood perhaps? Conviction that this was so streamed through me.
Oh, God I have to find out what the deal is with this woman!

Just as Emma spotted me, I looked away. I didn’t want her to catch me staring at her. It was bad enough that I had ended up picking an area to warm up and not spotted her being there, training a client. She might think I was following her around, which might annoy her and make her even less inclined to reveal what was up with the senator.

I pushed myself up to my feet and hurried away from the area and walked up on a treadmill.

One way or another I’ll find out,
I told myself and started running.

Forty-five minutes later I was drenched in sweat. I ran down to the women’s locker room and took a quick shower, then got ready for my session with Ian. He had still not responded to my text.

When I was back up on the club’s fourth floor, I saw him waiting for me at the fitness desk. I let out a quiet sigh of relief; for a brief moment I had been filled with fear that something had happened to him. Something bad. Thankfully, my fear had been unjustified.

I walked up to him and tapped his shoulder. He turned around to face me.

“Happy to see you’re all right,” I said sarcastically.

“Why would I not be?” he asked and walked with me as I headed toward the stairs that would take us either up or down the club’s several floors. I pointed to the stairs that would take us to the third.

“Why didn’t you respond to my two texts?” I asked, ignoring his attempt to appear clueless. “Don’t tell me you didn’t get them.”

“No, I did get them. I just thought it would be better to discuss this in person since I was going to see you anyway. Besides, you know we shouldn’t discuss such matters over the phone anyway. Try to be less specific in your wording when you text me about them, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. You have the device?”

He exhaled. “Nope, unfortunately not.”

I stopped halfway down the third floor. “What? Why not?”

He stopped walking too. I expected him to at any second break into a big grin and tell me he was only kidding, then produce the chip from his athletic shorts. But he didn’t. Instead, he adjusted his shorts and said, “By the time I got hold of the waiter, it was too late. The busboys had removed the ice bucket. On second thought, I decided that trying to bribe him was too risky. This bloke’s different from the one at the Standard. Money might’ve pushed him to produce the bucket for me, but he’d also start to suspect that I’d lied about being a big supporter of the governor and that I had other reasons to get that bucket on the table. The stakes are too high for me to risk the politicians finding out they were being tapped. You’re just going to have to take my word for what was being said during that dinner.”

He started walking again. I remained in the stairs, thinking how incredibly convenient his explanation was. It truly was amazing how this man had an answer for
everything.

All the way down on the third floor now, he turned to look at me.

“Are you going to stay there the entire session?” he asked.

Not bothering to answer, I walked down to where he was. We continued into the functional training area in silence.

Well,
I thought. At least now I could be sure he’d been lying all along regarding the politicians’ conversation. If he hadn’t, he’d have produced that chip for me so I could hear the “truth” with my own ears. I wouldn’t have been able to question him ever again. Once more, it had been confirmed to me that this man was simply mad. Crazy or not, though, I could use his help in finding out what was going on between Emma and Janine. Since it didn’t seem like Emma was going to enlighten me, I had to come up with other ways—and I would begin by hacking into her email account.

After having spotted Emma’s full name in a subject line among the senator’s emails and hearing what Emma had said today, it seemed these two knew each other. Maybe I’d find some emails exchanged between them. It was worth a look. Surely, it would be a lot easier to get into Emma’s account than it had been getting into Janine’s. I didn’t want to involve George into this matter, so Ian would have to do the hacking. He owed me bigtime after I had gotten him the password to Janine’s account and retrieved the recording device for him. He also needed to make amends for having tricked me.

The thought of how he’d fooled me to make me go back into the dining room caused the skin on my cheeks to go hot. I had to clench my teeth together not to snap something nasty at him as we stopped at the TRX stand. I made myself smile instead and pointed at the TRX handles.

“Let’s do some squat rows to warm you up,” I said. “Give me twenty.”

Grabbing the handles, Ian began squatting and pulling himself back to a standing position repeatedly.

“Don’t you want to know what else they were talking about?” he asked when he’d finished the last rep.

“I do, but it’s better that we discuss that when we’re alone. How about we get together at your place tonight and you can tell me?” I gave him a seductive glance and smile that conveyed better than any words ever could what I really had in mind. Well, what I had in mind after we’d checked Emma’s email, that is.

His eyes gleamed darkly as he returned my smile. “Sounds good to me.”

As we continued the session, I focused on pushing Ian hard so that we didn’t have to talk more than necessary. There was plenty of time for that tonight.

***

“I’ll be damned,” I said, doing my best to sound shocked. “They’ve actually been putting
microchips
into the hybrids?”

We were sitting in front of the two big computer screens in Ian’s apartment. I had managed to convince him to hack into Emma’s email account almost as soon as I got to his place by telling him I had reason to believe she was involved with The Adler Group. Getting into her account had been as easy as I’d suspected. Right as we were about to check her actual emails, however, I made the mistake of reminding Ian that I needed to hear the rest of all the unforeseen things he’d supposedly learned while listening to the politicians’ dinner conversation. The words had begun pouring out of his mouth. Now I was struggling to make him stop talking without it being obvious that I couldn’t care less about his growing delusions.

“I’ve never been more serious in my whole life,” Ian replied and sipped on the big glass of red in his hand. “It doesn’t seem like they’ve put microchips into all hybrids, only in the ones created over the last fifteen, twenty years or so. In some labs. But for sure in all of the killer hybrids so they can control them. I did get the impression that it’s mandatory for everyone to have a microchip inserted into their brains before leaving the labs now, though. So that headquarters can keep track of them.” He exhaled. “God knows what
else
they’ll be able to do by inserting these chips… I can only imagine they’ll be using the chips to make the hybrids do what they want them to do when they want them to do it. But I really don’t know.”

He rubbed his face, looking frustrated. “The only thing I’m sure of is that they’ll play a big part in the coups. Adler and their cohorts will order all the killer hybrids to attack us using those chips…”

Ian was muttering, which made it seem like he was talking to himself more than to me. I sighed inwardly; the man must be close to snapping finally. I had to do what I could to stave that off. It was amazing how I could remain so sexually attracted to a nutcase like him.

“Wow…” I said. “This all sounds terrible. Did they talk about how old a hybrid must be before it’s let out of the labs?”

“They never said anything about that. I still have no idea how big a percentage actually grew up in the labs and how many only spent their first years there, then moved on to live with their parents. But to answer your question, my guess is most grew up like regular people… Which means that, since a number of them grew up outside of the labs, they’ve been among us for decades already, just like I’ve always thought. Maybe they’ve been procreating for a while even, if they’re old enough. It’s possible. Anyway, it does makes sense that they have labs in every major city if they’re planning a coup against all the governments there.”

“Oh, really? Why exactly does it make sense?” I needed to find a way to get back to Emma’s emails; listening to Ian going on and on was getting tiresome.

Frowning, Ian looked at me like I was stupid. “Because they’re going to use the hybrids to overthrow the governments of course! Using the microchips the way I just told you. Aren’t you listening to me?”

“Right. You did say that. Sorry. And it does make sense.” I shook my head as if in awe. “I can’t believe I’m training one of these maniacs. What did Janine say more specifically during that dinner? Did it seem like she had a leading role in this? If you ask me, the woman is evil.” Maybe I would actually learn something useful from Ian’s mad rantings by talking about Janine.

“She didn’t appear to speak more than the others. To be honest, it was hard to tell who was saying what at times. I’m not as familiar with her voice as you are. I’ve only heard her speak on TV a couple of times.”