The Gryphon Project (18 page)

Neko tried to shut the door. “Oh, no you don’t.” Nadia stuck her foot in. “Tell us what happened.”

“I can’t.”

“You can!” Nadia tried to shove her way into his room, but he resisted, barring the door with his shoulder. “You can tell us, Neko. We promise we won’t tell.”

“I just can’t.”

Phee reached for one of Neko’s hands, and he let her take it. She held it in both of hers and looked him straight in the eye. “My brother … my brother is dead, Neko. He’s dead, and I need to know what happened. I
need
to know.”

With a glance at each of the girls, Neko relaxed his grip on the door.

“Now, talk.” With a graceless heave, Nadia pushed the door open, overpowering her little brother. Phee followed her into the room. The shades were drawn, and it stank of dirty clothes. Empty plates scattered the floor, and the desk was heaped with junk. There was nowhere to sit but the bed, but the sheets reeked of teenage boy, and she didn’t want to sit.

Phee glanced at her watch. “Neko, we don’t have much time.”

He plopped onto the bed. He was only wearing pyjama bottoms,
and his skinny torso just added to how little he looked. He was hardly more than a kid, yet he thought he was as mature as his older friends. “I told you. He tripped.”

“Tariq told you to say that, didn’t he?”

He shrugged.

“You were going to tell us something and you changed your mind.” Phee glared at him. “Didn’t you?”

“No.” It was a tiny word, but he’d managed to pack it full of remorse.

“What really happened?” Phee knelt amid the mess beside the bed, all the better to plead with him. “You have to tell us so that we can help, Neko. If we don’t convince Chrysalis that it was an accident, he won’t be reconned. He’ll be dead forever. No more Gryph. You’d do that to my family?”

With an anguished groan, Neko turned to the wall. But he talked. “We were just standing around, goofing off, and then the train was coming, and he just tripped. Is that so hard to believe? That he tripped? That the perfect Gryphon Nicholson-Lalonde actually tripped?”

“The cameras were broken. Who did that, I wonder?”

His answer took a beat too long. “There was a drug deal. Okay?”

Nadia grabbed for her brother’s bony shoulder. “Drugs?”

“Yeah.” He looked up at her and then at the wall again. “That’s why we busted the cameras.”

“So”—Phee looked at the ceiling, tired of Neko’s lies—“that’s your story and you’re sticking to it?”

Neko shrugged. “Yeah.”

“A drug deal. What kind of drugs?”

“Some performance-enhancing shit … you know. Roids or whatever.”

“Gryph gets tested all the time, Neko.” Phee glared at him. “
All the time
. He doesn’t do steroids, or anything else, for that matter. You have to come up with something better than that.”

“Look, I don’t know what it was about, okay?”

“You’re full of shit, Neko.”

“So what if I am?” Neko sat up and glared at them. “Apparently you’re not going to believe me no matter what I say!”

“Neko …” Nadia grabbed her brother’s earlobe and twisted it hard. “If I find out you’re messing around with that crap I will kill you three times in quick succession so that you will really and truly be dead, once and for all.”

“Like Gryph will be.” Phee heard herself say the words, but still they shocked her. “Like your friend and my brother and my parents’ son will be if you guys don’t start telling the truth.”

BUT WHAT IF
the truth did them no good? Phee wandered home alone; Nadia’s parents had asked her to stay home with her brother. Phee waited for the train on the platform, but when she heard it coming in the distance, she was gripped by a sudden, horrible panic that sent her running down the stairs and into the courtyard under the station. There was no other way home, but she didn’t want to get on that train. If she had any money she could hire a private shuttle, but she hadn’t even thought to bring her wallet with her.

It had been easier on the way here, when she was distracted by the thought of interrogating Neko. But now, after a fruitless visit with him—he was clearly in shock from the events of the day before—Phee could only obsess about the train. She spun around slowly, glancing at each safety feature. The cameras, the yellow painted line at the edge of the platform that set off an alarm when you stepped over it, the sensors on the track that shut off the current when there was an impact.

Impact
.

He would’ve been in so much pain. Her stomach knotted sympathetically, and she had to double over to keep from passing out. He would’ve been afraid. Even Gryph. He hadn’t meant to die. She knew this to be true. Now she only had to convince Chrysalis.

Phee got off at the last stop before the Shores and walked the rest of the way. She wanted to collect her thoughts, and she knew home wouldn’t let her do that. Not with her parents dripping with sadness, and confused little Fawn with all her questions and all the friends and neighbours with their casseroles and plates of cookies and good intentions.

The sky was clear and blue, and the air off the ocean smelled salty and clean. Phee wanted nothing more than to run into the waves and float on her back with the pelicans bobbing alongside her, none of them with a care in the world. She walked on an old road that had been made into a pedestrian boulevard that linked Pacific Heights with the Shores. It wasn’t used much, so she had the wide stretch of concrete to herself. Until she cleared the last turn and caught sight of the gated entrance to the Shores. A knot of private shuttles and people blocked her view of the little hut that housed the security guard and their bank of closed-circuit televisions. More media. She could see the station logos and the robot-like antennas that reached up from the shuttle roofs, twisting in constant search of a better satellite connection. Phee had two choices. Walk all the way back to Pacific
Heights and get the train, or carry on. The sun was high, and she was hot, and she had no water and she was tired. So really, she had only one wise choice. She kept walking, all the while trying to see who was on shift in the little hut. And then someone in the throng spotted her.

“It’s his sister!” A man with a spray-on tan jogged up to her, his whitened teeth gleaming in the sunlight. Out of breath, he shoved a tiny microphone at her. “Tom Archer, KLTV News. What do you have to say about yesterday’s tragic events?” His cameraman caught up to them, one eye squeezed shut as he zoomed in on her startled expression. And then, within moments and before she could think of anything to say, she was swarmed on all sides.

“What’s the word from Chrysalis?”

“Recon, or no recon?”

Phee felt the chill of panic race up her spine. “I don’t—”

“We understand there were several witnesses, and that they’ve all been questioned by Crimcor … is this correct?”

Where was the security guard? Phee strained to get a look beyond the designer-clad shoulders and carefully coiffed, TV-ready hairdos. The door to the hut was open.

“Did your brother express any hints that he might’ve been suicidal? Was the pressure getting to him?”

“No comment,” Phee whispered, with a catch in her throat. These people were the same media hounds who had nothing but praise and smiles and congratulations for her brother before yesterday. The very same people had been invited into his dressing room and to countless podium presentations, and now they were no better than vultures. Phee felt the panic melt into rage.

“Get out of my way,” she growled.

She could see the security guard Willis running toward her now, his utility belt bouncing against his bulk. At last! But still the reporters pushed in on her, tightening their scrum.

“Will your parents appeal Chrysalis’s decision if they rule Gryph’s death a suicide?”

Phee sensed something inside her snap, as if she’d cracked a bone. “Get out of my way!”

“Just a couple of questions—”

“How is your family coping amid—”

Phee elbowed the woman who blocked her way. She recognized her shimmering copper hair and plump lips from her prime-time podcast. “Leave us alone! All of you!” The woman stumbled back, but was kept from falling by the horde pressing up behind her. “He’ll be reconned—”

The woman had hardly missed a beat. She shoved her microphone in Phee’s face. “But reports leaked by Chrysalis state that—”

“Everyone back away!” Willis’s bellow cut the flurry of questions. He pushed into the crowd and grabbed Phee with his enormous hands and dragged her out of the chaos. Phee let herself be led away by him, his beefy arm shielding her the way she sometimes did for Fawn. How she wished she were Fawn right now … too little to understand. Too little to be compelled to make it right.

“Where were you?” Phee cried, as Willis hustled her into his air-conditioned hut.

“Helping Rawlins at the other gate.” Willis steered her to a chair before taking his own seat, panting, a sheen of sweat on his brow. “We thought all the jerkoffs were at his gate, and then I get the call that they’re over here too.” He swivelled to pour Phee and himself each a glass of water. “Now, you tell me. Why didn’t you take the train all the way home? What were you doing walking on your own?”

“There’s no law against it.”

“No,” Willis replied, “but plenty would say it’s not the brightest idea, especially now. All things considered. What your family’s going through.”

“What my family’s going through?” Phee almost laughed. “What
is
my family going through?”

Willis wisely let the question float between them, unanswered.

“I just wanted some fresh air,” Phee said. “Okay, I admit it. It was stupid. I should’ve taken the train.”

“That’s good to hear.” He reached over and rapped gently on her skull. “Nice to know that you still have your brains in there.”

“My brother doesn’t.” Phee heard herself say the words and couldn’t stop the rest. They were as unstoppable as the train would’ve been. “His brains are all over the tracks at the Steveston Pier station.”

Willis sucked in a breath as he wiped his face with a handkerchief. “And once this is all worked out and he’s reconned, his brains will be exactly where they’re supposed to be. New and improved.” He heaved himself onto his feet with a groan and offered her a kind smile. “Now, come on. Let’s get you home.”

“You’re not worried, are you?” Phee didn’t budge. “Why aren’t you worried?”

“I know your brother well enough to know that he didn’t jump. So once the controversy is sorted out, all will be well.”

“What else do you know about him?”

“What do you mean?” Willis asked brightly, his expression betraying his attempts at appearing carefree.

“You let him come and go, don’t you?”

Willis stared at her, his lips parted, mid-thought.

“Well, you do, right? How else would he get in and out?”

He crossed his arms. “And if I did?”

“Tell me what you know. Like, where he went—”

“Don’t know.”

“Who he went with?”

Willis paused. “His friends, of course. All good boys. All of them.”

“And what did they get up to?”

“You’d have to ask them that, kiddo.” Another pause, during which Phee watched his eyes shift away from her, fix nervously on a spot on the floor for a long moment before returning to meet her inquisitive gaze. “That would be a good place to start.”

“Start what?” Phee was really alert now, and anxious.

“Proving that this whole idea of him killing himself is ridiculous and unfounded.” Willis fiddled with the keys to his golf cart. “Let me take you home. Okay?”

As Willis drove her home, Phee was full of questions she knew better than to voice. She eyed Willis out of the corner of her vision, curious about him for the first time. Normally she didn’t give him a second thought. He was just the kind, constant presence at the south gate, but now she knew he was much more than that. He knew something. And he wasn’t telling her.

She was grateful to see him leave after he dropped her off. She was ready for a break from the mystery. Her father ran down from the porch to meet her, worry creasing his already tired face.

“I was going to come get you, but Fawn—”

“I’m okay, Dad.” Phee hopped out of the cart and let her dad fold her into his arms. “It’s just the media. I can handle them.”

“You shouldn’t have to.” Oscar thanked Willis and then walked Phee up the steps and sat her on the porch swing. “I’m keeping an eye on your grandfather. Fawn too. She’s upstairs with Lana, playing. Your mother and grandma are down at Chrysalis. We managed to get them to agree to start things in motion for your brother’s recon.”

“Fawn’s
playing
? With the neighbour kid? Like everything is
normal
?”

“She doesn’t understand.” Oscar tightened his arm around her shoulders. “She figures he’ll be back soon as good as new.”

“And he will, right?”

Oscar was silent. He focused his gaze on the green, where a group of boys a little younger than Gryphon were tossing a football back and forth with the laziness that tends to accompany hot summer afternoons. Phee wished she was somewhere else. Far away. With Nadia and the boys. Back at the rave, when Tariq came to dance with her. Back when everything was normal and her crush on Tariq was her biggest concern.

“Dad?” Her father’s silence unnerved her more than she could describe. It meant his hope was fading. “Daddy?”

Finally, he spoke. “God’s will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

Phee felt herself tense up. “What are you saying?”

Oscar took her chin in his hand and lifted her eyes to his. “You know what I’m saying.”

“You’re right. I do.” Phee stood up abruptly, sending the porch swing shimmying backwards. “And you better not talk to Mom like that or you’ll be all alone in this house, and she and Fawn and I will be camped out at Grandma and Grandpa’s again.”

As if he’d been listening in, Phee’s grandfather pushed the front door open and stepped out onto the porch. “Oscar? Phee?” he asked, as if trying out the names for the first time. “Where’s the kettle?”

“It’s too hot to boil water, Granddad.” With a warning glance at her father, Phee took her grandfather’s arm. “I’ll make you some lemonade instead, okay?”