“One more trip and we can call it a day?” Reese asked as they walked single file into the spare bedroom of the Colorado house.
“It’s been a long twenty-four hours,” he agreed.
She pulled out her phone and tapped a few buttons on the display. “When we get back, I need to make a couple of changes to your phone. That way you can operate the platforms yourself.” She showed him what she was doing. Launching an app, she entered a PIN to gain access. From there she could select a teleport destination from the list, or search a database of locations. The options were displayed in various formats, allowing her to sort by state, country, or search by keyword. All in all, it was extremely user-friendly.
“That’s odd,” she said squinting at the screen of her phone. “The destination in Chicago is listed only as Chicago. Normally there’s an exact address and additional info about the site so we know where we’ll be landing. This doesn’t have any info at all. It just says Chicago.”
Cyrus smiled, mostly to himself. “Yeah. I have a theory about that. Give it a shot. Let’s find out if I’m right.”
She looked at him with curiosity, but stepped aside allowing him up on the platform first this time. He stepped aboard and noticed her looking at him in surprise. She’d just realized that he had a gun in his hand. He did a quick press-check, ensuring there was a round in the chamber before lowering the gun to his side.
“Sorry,” he smiled. “Just playing it safe. I have a guess about where we’re landing, but I’m still not comfortable teleporting in blind. Not when there are people after us.”
“Fair enough.” She stepped up onto the pad, toe to toe with him and tapped the last few keystrokes on her phone, initiating the five-second countdown.
It’s funny, Cyrus realized. They had teleported together several times in the last 24 hours. At first the experience seemed alien, but it was already becoming routine. Standing this close to Reese, though, was another matter. He felt the same tingling flutter every time she stepped near. In fact, the feeling had grown stronger with time. Then again, it could’ve had something to do with the way she now stood even closer than she had before. He could feel the heat coming off her body… He could feel the faintest touch of her breasts against his chest as she swayed slightly on her feet. And he could feel her breath on his chin.
There was a flash of light, and the journey was complete. And before Cyrus knew what had happened, he had pulled Reese up into his arms, drawing closer still as she kissed him deeply. He wasn’t sure who had initiated it. Maybe it was better that way. She’d invoked so many feelings since their first meeting. He’d been sure she had feelings for him as well. In many ways, the kiss confirmed things he already knew. It made them tangible and real. There was something here, something they both wanted to explore.
“Wow,” was all he could say when their lips finally parted.
Reese pale skin was pink. Her eyes fluttered, and she took a deep breath. “Wow, is right,” she smiled shyly.
They both stood still for long moments, still holding each other close. Cyrus had the sense that he was supposed to be doing something, but it was several seconds before he finally snapped out of the trace like state and looked around. He still had the gun in hand. They were standing in an unfurnished apartment. In the living room. He laughed and slid the gun into the holster at the small of his back.
“Where are we?” Reese asked. She had finally recovered as well.
Cyrus led her by the hand along a short hallway to the front door of the apartment. As they walked through the place, his suspicions were confirmed. The apartment was completely empty. Meade must’ve used the apartment strictly to house the platform. When he reached the front door, he pulled it open and looked at the number stenciled on it. Number 9-12. He could only shake his head.
Reese didn’t understand. “What is it?”
“That sneaky son-of-a-bitch! My apartment is one floor up, directly above this unit. I’m in 10-12!”
There was a pregnant pause, then they both burst out laughing. It was just like Walter Meade to do something cagey and divisive. It was simple, practical, and efficient. And at that moment they found it downright hysterical.
—————
After walking the halls and checking the stairwells as well as both elevators, Cyrus was relieved to find no surveillance set up on his apartment. Still, as they reached the front door he pulled his sidearm. Slowly and quietly, he unlocked the door. He pushed through the doorway with the gun held high. The interior of the home was well lit, with ambient light shining through the windows of his office to the left and the windows of the living room at the end of the hallway, directly ahead. Sticking his head into the office, he found it clear. Likewise he checked the kitchen as they passed it on the right and his bedroom on the left. The living room was last, but everything was just as he’d left it. He turned back to Reese, who was waiting anxiously at the door, and waved her in. It felt overly dramatic, but the way things were he couldn’t be too careful.
Cyrus pulled an empty backpack from the hall closet and handed it to Reese. “See if there’s anything worth taking in the kitchen. I don’t plan on coming back anytime soon.” He thought for a moment. “Same goes for the rest of the place. If you see something we might need, grab it. I’ll gather my clothes. Aside from that, most of what I need is in my office.”
She headed for the kitchen while he ducked into the bedroom. He pulled another large duffle from the closet and started emptying the contents of the dresser drawers and stuffing the hanging contents of the closet into the bag. Finally, he looked around. The rest could wait. They had a lot to do, and needed to get moving. He pulled his last oversized duffle from the top shelf of the closet and took it and the overstuffed bag down the hall.
When he walked into his office, Reese was already there. She was looking at the patchwork of notes and photos tacked across the back wall. She heard him enter but didn’t turn and didn’t say anything. She was clearly intrigued by what she saw. The information stuck to the wall was a mishmash of seemingly random bits of information with little in common. But even the haphazard scraps and clippings had the ability to capture one’s attention. Images of burned out cars, surveillance photos shot through restaurant windows, bank statements, and photocopies of receipts. Each one a disparate piece of information relating to a story he was developing.
“This is research?” she finally asked.
“Yes.”
“All for one story?”
“No. What you’re looking at covers three different pieces. Nothing researched well enough to write yet. Getting the facts takes time. It’s slow going. So rather than twist in the wind on one story, I try to keep a couple going at the same time.”
She looked over her shoulder, concern etched in features. “I’ve read some of your stories. You’re telling me you work a couple of those at a time?”
He nodded. “When I can. I bore easily, and I have a hard time sitting still.”
“It must take incredible concentration.”
He shook his head. “Not really. I live a simple life. There isn’t anything to distract me.”
She looked like she had something she wanted to say but was considering keeping it to herself. Rather than pry, Cyrus left her to think for a few minutes. He went over to the desk and pulled several empty file folders out of a drawer. Pulling the research material down from the corkboard, he placed each case’s information into a separate folder. Next, he started pulling additional files out of the desk and packing those as well.
Reese walked slowly around the perimeter of the room. She was still agonizing over something. “What’s wrong?” he finally asked.
She faced him from across the room, but didn’t make eye contact. It was unusual for her. He liked how she seemed to prefer looking him in the eye. In his experience, it was a surprisingly rare quality in people.
“I guess I wanted to ask…” she trailed off. She wanted to ask something but he didn’t know what it was. H
e wasn’t going to push.
“I wanted to ask you if you are seeing anyone.” She pushed out with some effort. “At first, I didn’t think that would be an issue, but after…you know... I guess it just has me rethinking things a little.”
“No,” he smiled. He was relieved that it was something so simple. “Not seeing anyone. Haven’t had anyone special for some time, actually.” Wow. Had he just said that? It wasn’t something he was comfortable talking about. But somehow admitting it to her just seemed right. The words just popped out.
But she still seemed uncomfortable. His answer should have alleviated her concern. Did that mean that she was seeing someone? Was that what she was trying to say? Then it clicked. He understood. He followed her eyes to where she was looking at a photo on the end of the bookshelf across the room.
“Ah, yeah. That…” He left his packing behind the desk and walked slowly across the room to stand beside Reese. He took her by the hand and walked her over to the bookshelf. “Her name was Natasha,” he said quietly, almost to himself. “She’s been gone…” he had to stop and think. “Going on six years now.”
Her eyes rose to meet his. She still held his hand. “You were close.” It was a statement, not a question. That wasn’t obvious by the photo. He just wasn’t doing a good job of hiding it. Talking about Natasha was still difficult and it felt clumbsy.
“Very close,” he admitted. “And it was complicated.” He laughed thinking about it. That was a first. He had never laughed at the idea before. Complicated was an understatement. “We were young. I was working a job in Europe at the time. We met under…unusual circumstances, I suppose you could say. I guess I knew all along it wasn’t meant to be. I just wasn’t willing to believe it.”
“What happened?”
He watched her eyes. She was sincere. She really wanted to know. There was genuine concern there. “She died,” Cyrus said quietly. There was a long silence. He shrugged. “Some things really aren’t meant to be.”
She wanted to ask more. She wanted to understand; he could see it in her eyes. But she seemed to understand he wasn’t ready to talk about it. That impressed him. Maybe even scared him a little. She could see into his being. This was a painful subject. And for the first time in his life, he actually found himself wanting to share the story. He wanted to tell someone what happened that day six years ago, working undercover for the Coalition. The day that Natasha lost her life. The day Natasha was taken from him.
Reese gently wiped away the single tear that had fallen from his eye. He hadn’t even felt it form. But she gently pushed it away. She rose up onto her toes and kissed him very softly on the cheek.
—————
A single tear had formed at the corner of Cyrus’s eye. It teetered there for long moments before finally breaking free and rolling down his cheek. This was clearly a very difficult conversation for him. Reese felt bad for bringing it up. But somehow the faraway look in his eyes made her think it was something he had avoided for too long already.
She wanted to know more. She didn’t understand. Natasha had died? How horrible. Reese raised a hand and gently wiped away the tear. When she did, his eyes pulled back to the present, back from some faraway place. Her heart broke seeing that hurt in his eyes. Laying a soft kiss upon his cheek, she whispered the only thing she could say under the circumstances. “I’m so sorry.”
But his eyes cleared and he looked down at her. He looked into her eyes, and his face brightened again. “Yeah, well,” he said quietly. “To be honest, I haven’t had a serious relationship since.”
He smiled again and pulled her close. “Thank you,” he whispered in her ear. “I’ve never talked about that before.”
She pulled back and looked up at him. “Never?”
He shook his head.
“With anyone?”
He shook his head again.
Good lord, she thought. The woman he loved died six years ago. And this conversation was the first time he had shared his feelings about it with another person? Who could do that? How could he live like that? She was sure people had gone insane keeping lesser emotions bottled up.
“So,” he said, clearing the air. “Let me grab a few more things, and we’re out of here.”
Cyrus went back to the desk and started going through the drawers again. While he did that, Reese turned back to the bookshelves. He had a massive collection of hardcover books. Some were very rare, antique leather-bound tomes. Many were newer. But all of them had their spines bent and cracked. That impressed her. He wasn’t one to buy books for show. But could he have actually read them all?
Perplexed and impressed, she moved on across the shelves. She found timeless classics as well as modern thrillers and mysteries. There were technical and scientific journals, as well as biographies by historic figures and Nobel Prize winners. With curiosity, the contents of the bottom shelf caught her eye.
“Wow!” she said with some admiration. “It looks like you’ve got every novel Alastair Rose ever wrote!” She went down the shelf. There were twelve hardcovers lined up. But none of these had cracked spines. She pulled the first book from the shelf and flipped open the front cover. The binding popped as she paged through the first few sheets in search of something. Her eyes went wide. She looked up at Cyrus, her mouth agape. “Are they all first editions?”
Cyrus pulled the last of the important files from his desk and shoved them into the end of the duffle bag with his clothes. He shot her a glance and nodded. “Every one of them. Autographed first editions.”
She looked back to the book and flipped the pages once more. Sure enough, she found the inscription! She looked back to Cyrus. It was curious. He didn’t appear very interested in talking about the books. “I don’t get it,” she said. It was almost an accusation. “You must be a collector. But you don’t seem very interested in them. It couldn’t have been easy to get a set of first editions. The first printing of each book was a limited run. Rose intentionally kept the first printing short. Each book was in extremely high demand when it first shipped, but most fans had to wait for the second printing before they could actually get a copy.”
“Yeah,” Cyrus said with a knowing smile. “Most people don’t know it, but Alastair Rose reserves the entire first printing for fans who signed up to his mailing list prior to the release of his first novel. It was 256 people. Every book that followed, those same 256 people were shipped a first edition as soon as it was available. Each book autographed and free of charge. It was his way of supporting the people who supported him.”
“That’s ridiculous! I’m just about the biggest Alastair Rose fan there is, and I’ve never heard any of that!” Her eyes narrowed. “How do you know that? Are you one of the 256?”
He didn’t respond. He just watched her carefully, enjoying himself.
The knowing look he was giving suggested he knew more than he was saying. But that could mean—
“Do you know Alastair Rose?” There was a long silence. “No one knows Alastair Rose!”
Cyrus laughed. He moved to the front of the desk and sat on the edge.
Dammit! He’s enjoying this.
“You seem to know a lot about the man. Why would I know Alastair Rose?” Cyrus asked.
She wasn’t sure. It was something about the look in his eyes. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but there was recognition there. He knew something he wasn’t saying. He found this far too amusing for it to be—
No way…
“You?” her voice cracked, as if her mouth had betrayed the word passing through her mind at that very moment. But the second the word left her lips, she somehow sensed it was correct. She didn’t know why, but she had confidence. “It’s you. I don’t believe it… You’re Alastair Rose!”
“What?” Cyrus seemed genuinely shocked by the accusation. “Why would you say that?”
She laughed and slapped closed the book still held in her hands. “I’ve read every one of these books. And, I don’t know, you read that
much by one person and you just have a sense of them. A familiarity with their humor—their way of looking at the world. It’s you! I’m sure of it! Everyone assumes Alastair Rose is some kind of hermit or recluse, because he’s never been identified. People have even tried to track him—you—through the publisher’s financial records. There have been two break-ins at the publisher’s office, for god’s sake! Everyone who has tried to identify Alastair has failed. The man’s a ghost!”
Cyrus shrugged, and finally nodded. “Fair enough. He’s a ghost. It’s just a pen name. But there’s no conspiracy to it. I’ll tell you one thing. It turned out to be one hell of a viral marketing campaign.”
She laughed, a really heart-felt laugh. “Wow! You’re full of surprises. Alastair Rose is Cyrus Cooper! Why didn’t you ever come forward? Don’t you know how hard people have worked to find the man behind these books?”
“Hell yes, I know! But it sort of snowballed with time. At first I did it on a lark. Then people started posting questions online. ‘Who is Alastair Rose?’ That sort of thing. There was a lot of conversation. By the time the third book came out, it had become a big deal. Everyone was talking about it. People who would never have known about the books knew the name. But since people couldn’t talk about the name without talking about the books, pretty soon the books were everywhere. The damn things even hit the bestseller list…Repeatedly!”
His smile lessened, and he just looked at her. “Can you imagine how crushed people would be if they put a face to the name now? After twelve books and all the build up? All the conversation? All the hype? If people found out it was someone boring like me, they’d be crushed.”
Now she laughed. “I don’t know if they’d be crushed, but I can see your point. It has grown into its own kind of monster.” It was true. Things had reached the point where reality couldn’t possibly meet with expectations. “Still, these are some of my all-time favorite books. I can’t believe you wrote them!”
“Thanks. Tell you what, when we get this Meridian thing sorted out, I’ll hook you up with a set of your own first editions.” He grinned mischievously. “I know a guy.”
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