by Olivia Rush
Pregnant? No way. It just wasn’t possible. I mean, of course I knew that it was entirely possible—what Stone and I had been doing a lot of recently was known for having very specific consequences—but it just seemed impossible. I didn’t even know if I wanted a baby, the idea of it being some kind of hazy thing off in the far future, for after I’d secured my dream job and that perfect loft apartment in Tribeca.
I spent the next two hours pacing back and forth in the waiting room as I’d done before, taking occasional breaks to flip thoughtlessly through the magazines that sat in the clear plastic holders nailed to the walls. The time passed by like an eternity, and by the time Dr. Harford returned to the room, it’d felt like a week had gone by.
The big smile on his face when he stepped into the room was all the answer that I needed.
“Congratulations, Miss Sullivan—you’re—”
I knew what the next word was going to be before he spoke it, and the two of us said it at the same time.
“Pregnant.”
23
STONE
I’d been trying to get in touch with Callie since Monday and hadn’t heard a single word from her. She was going dark, and I didn’t like it. Sure, I knew that she was just as busy as I was, but I was getting the strong suspicion that there was more to her radio silence than just being swamped at the office.
Finally, on Thursday when I’d gotten back from my days on at the station, I finally got ahold of her. We had a brief text exchange and agreed to meet up at a dive near her apartment. I showed up early to the place, and as I munched on my bar nuts and sipped my overpriced IPA, I tried to piece together what might be the cause for Callie’s distance.
The most likely explanation I could think of involved the vague nature of what was going on between us. We’d been “seeing” each other, or whatever this was, for weeks now, and neither of us had any clear idea of just what it was. The fires had given us a convenient excuse to avoid talking about the issue, and now that, for whatever reason, the fires had stopped, there was nothing left to distract us.
At least, this was my best explanation. That is, unless she’d come down with something.
In the middle of a sip of my beer, I caught sight of Callie, her brilliant red hair standing out like a beacon amidst the dim lighting of the bar. I could tell right away that there was something on her mind, something preoccupying her. I raised my hand slightly as she scanned the bar, and she quickly caught sight of me and made her way over.
“Hey,” she said, sliding into her seat and giving me a quick glance.
“Afternoon,” I said, noting her tense body language.
She placed her hands on the bar and looked around as though it was the first time she’d been to a place that served alcohol. I got a strong guilty vibe from her, like she was doing something she shouldn’t be and was worried about getting busted.
“I hope you like fancy, ten-dollar-a-pint beers,” I said, passing the menu over to her, “because that’s all they have.”
“Oh,” she said, looking over the menu with a little surprise. “I don’t really feel like drinking.”
I raised my eyebrows in mild surprise at this comment. “Miss Callie Sullivan doesn’t feel like a drink at the end of her work week? You sick or something?”
She flashed me an odd look, as though I’d just said something she was surprised that I’d know about. “No,” she said. “Just trying to ease up off the booze.”
“Fair enough,” I said.
The bartender approached us, and I ordered another beer.
“I’ll take a club soda with lots of limes. And can I also get the steak salad?”
“Sure can,” said the bartender.
Then a look crossed Callie’s face, as though something had just occurred to her. “And is there any way you can put an extra piece of meat on that?” she asked. “I know it’s extra—that’s fine.”
The bartender gave a slow, assenting nod. “You bet,” he said. “And how would you like that c—”
“Rare,” said Callie. “So freaking rare that the lettuce gets all droopy from the juices.”
“Lady knows what she likes,” I said.
I glanced down to see that Callie had polished off the rest of my bar nuts.
“And another order of those,” I said.
The bartender gave a thumbs-up and was off.
“Raw meat and peanuts?” I asked. “And no booze? Is this some kind of new diet that I don’t know about?”
“Uh, yeah,” said Callie, her eyes flicking away for a second. “It’s a carnivore thing. Supposed to help you lose weight and make your skin look nice.”
“I see.”
I took a sip of my fresh beer once it arrived, a silence hanging in the air between us. “So,” I said. “I can’t help but notice that you’ve been pretty off the radar these last few days.”
“Oh,” she said, tucking a few stray curls behind her ear. “Just been busy with work, is all.”
I couldn’t help but smirk at her obvious excuse. “That’s all there is to it?” I asked. “You’ve been totally silent over the last few days because you’ve been busy at work?”
“Yep,” she said, forming her mouth into a flat line as soon as she spoke the word.
I sat back in my seat, shaking my head.
“What?” she asked, a tinge of surprise in her voice, as if she was totally shocked by the idea that I didn’t completely take her word at face value.
“Listen, Callie,” I said. “I know this…thing—whatever it is—that we’ve got going on between us is weird, but you can at least not obviously bullshit me.”
“It’s not that our ‘thing’ is weird,” she said, taking on a defensive tone. “It’s that I was busy, and that’s all there is to it.”
I wasn’t letting her off the hook that easily. “Come on,” I said. “It takes two seconds to send a text, even one that just says ‘I’m busy. Talk later.’ You’ve got a lot of strengths but lying isn’t one of them. So, give me the real reason why you’ve been so distant, and why you’re being so weird now.”
Callie wrapped her lips around her straw and sucked down half of her club soda in a single go before turning her attention back to me.
“I’m not being weird, all right?” she asked. “I’ve just got a lot on my mind, and the last thing I want to do is have to explain my emotions to someone else. Especially someone with whom I don’t even know what the fuck is going on.”
“Nice use of ‘whom,’” I said with a grin.
“Thanks,” she said, allowing herself the slightest hint of a smile.
I had the feeling I was on the right track, and it was looking more and more like I was right.
“Is that it?” I asked. “You’re just confused about what’s happening between us?”
“I’m not ‘confused,’” she quickly said. “I’m not some doe-eyed little kid who’s completely wandering around in the dark or something. We have a thing going on, and that’s all the explanation I need.”
“OK,” I said, not sure what her issue was. “Then you’re fine with this just being a ‘thing’?”
She opened her mouth to speak but stopped herself. I was getting the impression that her brain was working faster than her mouth could handle.
“No,” she said. “I mean, I’m fine with not knowing everything about all the details and all that, but I just think that what we had going on was a weird little thing that happened because you and I were working closely on a project, and now that it looks like that project is over, we don’t really need to being seeing much of each other.”
That was a shock to hear. Before I could respond, however, the bartender returned with our food. He set the small little wooden dish of salty, greasy-looking nuts in front of me before plopping down Callie’s massive salad, a pile of pink, almost-raw meat piled on top.
She snatched up the salt and pepper from in front of her, dusted herself a few generous servings, and dug in. I’d barely had time to pop a
few cashews into my mouth before the first portion of meat was totally gone.
“I have to ask you something,” I said. “A little bit of a personal question, maybe.”
“Shoot,” she said, her mouth full of meat and her eyes fixed forward on her salad.
“Is all of this…because you’re a werewolf?”
She stopped mid-bite and glanced her at me, her red curls hanging down both sides her face. “What?”
“It’s totally fine if you are,” I said. “I mean, I understand why that’s something you’d want to keep secret. But I just want you to know it’s fine with me. I’m not judgmental about stuff like that.”
She chewed a few more times before bringing down her food in a hard swallow. “Cute,” she said.
“Seriously, though,” I said. “You want to put a stop to…whatever this is we have going on because you think the fire situation is over with?”
Callie jammed her fork into another chunk of meat, brought it up to her face, and in seconds it was gone.
“I mean, is that so crazy?” she asked. “You and I only started being around each other because we had mutual goals—I wanted to write this article on the fires and your station, and you needed my help investigating. And it’s been, what, three weeks since the last fire? Maybe that’s it. Maybe the situation just took care of itself.”
I shook my head. “No way it’s that easy,” I said. “Situations like these don’t just ‘resolve themselves.’ If there’s an arsonist out there, then it’s only a matter of time before he strikes again. And the next time someone might die in the process.”
“This…this isn’t even my job, anyway,” she said, adding more salt to her salad. “I’m just a journalist. I don’t need to be sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong.”
Now I knew something was up.
“First I thought you were a werewolf, now I’m thinking an alien or something took over your body while you were sleeping. ‘Not even my job?’ That doesn’t sound like the Callie I know, the one who’d do anything to get her story.”
She looked away again. “Well, things change. Maybe there are more important things in life than obsessing over writing stories. Besides, maybe you’re right, maybe I’m just a gossip writer and I should accept that, stick with writing about debutante balls or whatever.”
I was starting to get worried. Without thinking, I reached over toward Callie and put my hand on hers. She froze in place as soon as our skin touched, her blue eyes going wide and locking onto mine.
“What are you doing?” she asked, that guilty tone coming back to her voice.
“Listen,” I said. “If there’s something you’re not telling me, anything, now’s the time. You don’t need to keep any secrets from me.”
“No secrets?” she asked, her eyes focusing on the patch of burned skin on my forearm. “You’re the one who’s so secretive about his past.”
She was getting personal, and I wasn’t about to let that happen. “Hey now,” I said, my tone stern.
She looked down, apparently realizing that she’d gone a little too far. But damned if she didn’t have a good point.
“Sorry,” she said. “But, I mean, do you and I really have a reason to keep seeing each other if we’re not working together?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe because we like each other? How about that?”
She shook her head. “I’m just so busy with work and all…”
I realized that I wasn’t going to make any progress with this angle.
“Fine,” I said. “You want to put a stop to things, that’s your call. But there’s one thing I think you might be interested in.”
“Yeah?” she asked. “What’s that?”
“I was going through our notes the other day, especially the ones that you had used to figure out which firm was likely to be hit next.”
“Oh yeah, a lot of good those did,” she said.
“No,” I said. “Your research was awesome, but maybe we just got the firm wrong. You said that there were a couple of other places that fit the profile, and I’m thinking we ought to check one of them out.”
“Are you serious?” she asked. “You want to go to another firm?”
“Sure,” I said with a smile. “We were such a good team last time.”
A small smile formed on her meat-juice-stained lips.
“Yeah,” she said. “I guess we were.”
“Right,” I said. “So, let’s check this place out tomorrow. If we don’t find anything out, then we can just assume that the fire situation is over with. Come on—don’t you owe it to yourself to try one last time, at least for the sake of your story?”
Callie speared the last bit of meat on her plate and shoved it into her mouth. I could tell that whatever her motivations might’ve been for saying what she’d said, appealing to her journalistic spirit had gone a long way.
“Fine,” she said. “Let’s do it.”
I stuck out my hand, she shook it, and the plan was on.
24
CALLIE
I couldn’t believe that I’d gotten talked into it, but there I was, standing in front of another skyscraper, Stone at my side. I wasn’t going to lie—it felt good to be there with him. He was right that we made a great team, and the idea of doing a little more sneaking around tickled me just right.
“You ready to do this?” he asked, an eager smirk on his face.
“Not as ready as you look to be,” I said.
“What can I say?” he said. “It’s almost as much fun as running into a burning building. Almost.”
I flashed him a smile, and we went in. Stone pulled the same trick as before, telling the guys up front that we were there to do some fire code inspections. He went through his lines with his same panache, and soon the two of us were headed up to the firm via one of the private elevators.
“So,” I said. “Same plan as before?”
“Almost,” said Stone. “I’m going to check out the server room again, but I want you to talk to the head of the IT department. See if there’s anything strange about him or anything else.”
“Got it,” I said, a thrill running up my spine as we arrived at the firm’s floor.
The doors slid open, revealing an office space that was nearly a carbon copy of the last one. There was the same tasteful elegance, the same men and women in sharp suits darting here and there, the same firm name of two hyphenated surnames written in big, bold letters over the front desk.
“OK,” said Stone. “Keep in mind I’m just checking to make sure this firm’s on the same fire safety program as the last ones—you’re the one finding out new information that could put us on the right path.”
I gave him a thumbs-up, and we went our separate ways. Stone checked in with one of the maintenance crew who, I assume, led him to the server rooms.
“Hi!” I said in a chipper voice to the woman at the front desk. “My name’s Betsy Willard, and I’m with New York Weekly.”
Even I was a little surprised that I’d gotten so good at totally lying through my teeth. At least, I hoped I had.
“Hi,” said the receptionist, clearly not sure what to make of me.
“I’m writing an article on some of the IT departments in the city, and I was wondering if I could speak with the head here?”
The receptionist gave me a confused look.
“Wait,” she said, her face scrunching up in confusion. “Isn’t New York Weekly a fashion magazine or something? Why are you guys writing an article about IT guys?”
“Uh,” I said. I’d gotten cocky, and I hadn’t prepared for the entirely possible situation of someone not buying my BS story. The receptionist raised her eyebrows, waiting for an answer.
“You’re right,” I said. “We’re doing, like, a before-and-after thing with the IT guys. I mean, they’re not really the most stylish guys in the world, right?”
The receptionist scoffed. “That’s probably putting it way nicer than he deserves. It took one of the
bosses months just to get Clark to start tucking in his shirt.”
“Clark?” I asked. “You’ve got one guy here doing all the IT work?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Well, I honestly don’t know how it all works back there. I’m a whiz at keeping everything straight up front, but whatever those guys do is totally out of my expertise.”
“So, does that mean I can talk with him?”
She shrugged. “Fine,” she said. “Just keep in mind that he … doesn’t get out much.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I think.”
She picked up her phone and let the IT guy know that I was on my way.
“Down the left hall, last door on your right,” she said.
I gave her a “thanks” and was off. After a quick walk, I arrived at the door of the IT department. Sure enough, there was only one name, Clark Waddle, written on the door. I gave it a quick rap and waited for an answer.
“Come in!” he shouted, his enthusiastic tone making it clear he was eagerly expecting me.
I opened the door to the IT room, the smell of stale soda and microwaved junk food hitting me in the face like a sledgehammer. I had to blink hard a few times just to acclimate myself to my new surroundings.
“You must be the reporter!”
The voice belonged to a scrawny-beyond-belief twenty-something guy seated at a desk in the middle of a room that looked more like a high schooler’s bedroom than an office. There were video game posters on the walls, empty soda cans here and there, and a three-monitor computer full of the vibrant colors of one game or another.
“Come in!” he said in a voice that seemed at once excited and a little put-off, as though I’d walked in during the middle of something important.
“Hi!” I said. “You must be Clark.”
“That’s me,” he said, spinning around in his seat.
Clark was a skinny guy, with buzzed brown hair and a face that reminded me of a ferret. Just as the receptionist had hinted, he was dressed sloppily in an oversized polo shirt and a pair of cargo shorts that went far below his knees.