Jess came from the kitchen. “But Robbie, you and El can’t be a team.”
Ellen seemed offended. “Why not/”
“You guys cheat.” Jess sat on the floor.
Elliott looked confused. “How . . . how can you cheat in Pictionary?”
“If you can cheat at a game . . .” Jess started getting the game ready. “These two find a way. Trust me. They cheat.”
“I’ll show you a cheat.” Robbie joined Jess on the floor. “Me and Elliott against you and El.”
Ellen saw Robbie and Jess so enthusiastically get everything ready to play, “Elliott,” she spoke soft. “If you aren’t up to . . .”
“No.” He shook his head “I want to but . . .” He leaned into her and whispered. “Can you show me how you pull off cheating in Pictionary?”
“Absolutely.” She smiled. “Robbie, Elliott and I are partners.”
“Even better,” Robbie said as he helped Jess finish setting up. “Elliott has honor.”
^^^^
Henry stayed close to the side of Bev’s house. He waited until he saw Hector and Bev walk far from his view and then he went inside.
He didn’t know how much time he had. He didn’t even know what he was searching for, but he felt deep inside of him there was something in that house. He just had to start looking . . . so he did.
^^^^
“I don’t understand.” Danny packed up his laptop. “It should have worked, Rich. I’m sorry.”
Richie rolled his chin over his shoulder “That’s, that’s all right, Dan.”
“Thanks. You’re a good guy. Too bad you’re mentally challenged now. I can’t figure it out. Maybe it’s me. Or maybe that chip of yours is screwed up. I couldn’t even erase it with the auralnator.”
“No chip.”
“Of course you have a chip, Richie. No one just all of a sudden goes nuts.”
“Drugs.”
“Did you do a lot when you were younger?”
“Drugs. No chip.”
Danny chuckled. “There’s a chip, Richie. You worked for George. Chances he implanted you are good. I better go.” He stood up.
“George.”
“Yep. Good ole George.” Danny moved across the room.
“Bev.”
“Bev? What is your infatuation with the girl?”
“George. Bev.”
“Richie, I have to go.”
“Bev.” Richie followed him down the hall. “Bev. Bev.”
“Richie, get over her.”
“Bev. Bev Hadley. Bev. Bev Hadley.”
Danny stopped cold and turned around.
^^^^
It should have been the first place Henry searched but, because he didn’t want to touch anything that intimate to Bev, Henry checked her underwear drawer last. As his fingers lifting the items, Henry zoomed in on the oddity of the small black case. It was one he never saw and it had to be something because it was hidden in her personal items. Lifting it from the drawer, Henry opened the case. When the lid popped up, four small round black disks flew out. “What the hell?” Henry lifted one of them and examined the strangeness of it. He had never seen one quite like it and there were four before him. He hadn’t any idea what was on the disks, but he was bound and determined to find out.
^^^^
“Danny ‘Rather’ Hoi,” Trish bitched when she opened her front door “I believe I have seen enough of you to last a lifetime. I’m getting ready to go to sleep.”
“It’s only eight o’clock.”
“I don’t have my baby and I want to enjoy my peace.”
“Too bad. Listen to this. Bev Hadley.”
“All right.”
“No, listen. Beverly Hadley. Wasn’t that President Hadley’s daughter’s name?”
“Hell, Danny, I don’t remember. Do you know how many years ago that . . .” Trish lifted her head. “No.”
“I think so.”
“How?” Trish asked.
“Richie.”
“He’s nuts.”
“It’s a shot. How can we confirm this information?”
“We’d really need confirmation. Like pictures.”
“A magazine would have it.”
Trish smiled. “The library.”
“Get dressed. I’ll meet you there.” Danny raced from her door.
^^^^
He didn’t care. Henry took them.
Even though the color was really deep, they looked like compact disks. They fit into his computer like them as well, but Henry growled in frustration when he tried to find out what was on them. Continuous patterns of mumbled letters and numbers scrolled across his screen. It was a sequence to something. But what? There was a familiarity about it and Henry wasn’t giving up, even if he had to stare at the useless information all night.
^^^^
“Thank you for walking with me.” Bev said sweetly as she and Hector approached her house.
“I think we needed this walk,” Hector said, hoping Henry was long gone.
“Want to come in?”
“No.” He shook his head. “So are you going to tell me? Is it just days off, free work time, or what?”
“What do you mean?”
“Bev, we walked for an hour. You all but blackmailed me the day before yesterday. Why? What is it that you want?”
“Blunt aren’t you?” Bev said. “You’re smart, Hector, very smart. And trusted. You don’t want this little Homo thing to get out do you?”
“No.”
“You could lose your Division position, Security position, lose it all.”
“I know.”
“So, what would you do to keep this information from getting out?” Bev questioned as she stepped up to her porch.
Hector tried his hardest to sound desperate. He looked down. “I . . . I would do anything.”
“Would you . . . work as an insider for the Society?”
Hector raised his head.
^^^^
“Damn it.” Trish tossed another magazine onto the pile. “This should be proof enough.”
“But it isn’t.” Danny handed her another. “Keep looking.”
“God, Danny.” Trish gripped open a magazine from the ‘viewed’ pile. “Come on. President Hadley and family in Disney World. The picture’s cut out.” She tossed it and took another. “President Hadley and family in Jamaica. Picture gone.” She reached for another. “What did she do, cut every picture out?”
“A ha!” Slurry and with drunkenness, old lady Josephine called out. “I knew it. The new hang out.”
Trish rolled her eyes. “Swell. She’s loaded. Josephine, go home.”
“No.” She staggered over. “This is the new young people’s hangout. I’m on to you guys.” She winked as she carried a bottle.
“What are you talking about?” Trish snapped.
“Trish,” Danny warned. “Be nice.”
“Yeah!” Josephine yelled. “Be nice or I’ll spill my guts about this place.”
Trish’s hand slammed in irritation on the table. “This is a library for crying out loud.”
“Oh yeah?” Josephine asked. “Then how come all you young people are hanging out here at night? Huh? Huh?” She stepped closer to Trish. “Huh?”
Trish waved her hand to bat away the alcohol breath.
“Secret Rendezvous. Love letters. Especially that Bev. She’s in here all the time.”
Danny and Trish both looked up.
“Josephine.” Danny had question in his tone. “When was she here last? Was she in these magazines?”
“No, she was typing a love letter to Jess. Telling him about this place. She wants him to join the new high society she’s starting right here. In the library.”
Danny mouthed the word ‘society’. He looked at Josephine. “How do you know?”
“I peeked at the letter,” Josephine replied.
“Damn it.” Danny shook his head. “If we could get the letter to read.”
“Don’t need to.�
�� Trish jumped up and raced to the typewriter. “The ribbons.” She flipped open the lid and took the cartridge. “They are single use.” She handed it to Danny. “Pull the tape, find it, and read.”
Danny grinned.
^^^^
“Shit.” Henry’s hand slammed down next to his laptop computer at the same time his front door flew open.
“Henry.” Hector excitedly raced in. “You aren’t going to believe this.”
“You found something out.” Henry stood up.
“Oh, yeah. The reason Bev is blackmailing me. Andrea’s gone. She needs people to work for . . . the Society.”
“Hector this is great. She actually told you she was working for the Society?”
“Well, no.” Hector tilted his head. “She asked if I would go as far as to work for the Society.”
“That’s not proof enough,” Henry stated. “We need proof she’s working for the Society.”
Danny walked through Henry’s open door. “If you’re talking about Bev, I have the best proof.”
Henry looked beyond Hector to Danny, Trish, and Josephine when they walked in his home. “Danny?”
“Check this out.” Danny pulled Josephine into the room.
‘Hey . . .” Josephine hiccupped. “Henry.”
“She’s drunk,” Henry stated.
“She’s a witness,” Danny told him, “to Bev’s connection to the Society. Josephine witnessed Bev typing some sort of blackmail letter to Jess to get him to work for the Society.”
Henry looked at Hector. “Jess too?”
Danny shifted his eyes “You mean Jess isn’t the only one she’s trying to blackmail?”
Henry shook his head. “No. I won’t say who else, but she has. Where in the hell is she getting this power to blackmail people? And why does a stupid kid like her have it?”
“How about the fact that she has a deep connection to the Society?” Danny said. “Like for example, I don’t know, her real name is Bev Hadley.”
“What?” Henry laughed.
“Oh my God,” Hector stated. “Beverly Hadley. That was President Hadley’s daughter’s name.”
Danny pointed to him. “I knew someone would have remembered,”
Josephine shrieked. “Bev is a Hadley!”
“Shh,” Henry silenced her.
“She can’t be,” Hector declared. “She was grown up then. Unless she was in some sort of suspended animation, there is no way she could go that long without aging. She would have had to be a kid. Hadley had no little kids.”
Danny grinned at Henry. “Suspended animation,”
“Hadley froze his assets,” Henry said.
“Literally,” Danny nodded. “Cryogenics.”
“Yes.” Henry clenched his fist. “And here I was searching her house for clues.”
“Did you find anything?” Danny asked.
“Just . . .” Henry walked to the computer. “These stupid disks.”
“Oh.” Danny looked at them “They’re video games.”
“No they aren’t.” Henry indicated to the screen. “Look how they come up.”
Danny checked it out. “Wait a second. I have seen this before. Not so much this exact thing but something like it. Think.” He began to pace, “When’s the last time I pulled something up that didn’t make sense?”
“When you tried to create the new program for Richie?” Henry suggested.
“Program. That’s it.” Danny moved to the laptop. “It’s on here. This is the one I used to download from Dean.” His fingers clicked. “There.”
“Holy shit!” Henry exclaimed. “That looks exactly alike.”
“A program for SUTs maybe?” Danny guessed.
“You know . . .” Hector peered from behind the pair. “You know what this looks like, don’t you?” He saw they awaited his suggestion. “Come on. Didn’t you ever try to attach a image to an email and it only came up as a document source.”
“Image?” Danny asked then looked at Henry. “An image.”
“I’ll pull up the image viewer.” Henry made room and sat down before the laptop. “We’ll see if we can link it through.”
“It’s worth a try.” Just as Danny leaned in to watch, so did everyone else.
Silence.
Embarrassed breaths and awkward stares came from all but Josephine after watching the computer screen. She still giggled.
“Well.” Danny cleared his throat. “Bedroom secrets, perhaps?”
Henry shrugged. “You can learn a, uh . . . lot from someone’s bedroom.”
Trish whistled. “I learned more than I wanted to know.”
“Bev . . .” Danny pointed to the computer “Learned what she needed to know.” He snapped his fingers. “Hector, stay here with Josephine. Trish . . . Trish, you make up a list of everyone this little girl’s games have affected and bring them here. We have a little visual presentation to give to them all except for Dean. He was the most affected for a while. Let me and Henry speak to him first alone. Henry?” Danny called Henry who stared blankly at the computer screen. “Henry are you coming with me to see Dean?”
“No.” Henry shook his head. “You go on. I’ll meet you back here. There’s . . . there’s something I have to do first and I need supplies.”
Shrugging and anxious to speak to Dean, Danny opened the door. “Trish, get on that.”
“Right away.” She stood up.
“We’ll meet back here in a half hour.” Danny, back to his upbeat self, walked from the house.
^^^^
New Bowman, Montana
The phone call without details made Hal curious. Late it came, but not too late and through his quiet home, he walked to get his father. He opened up the spare bedroom door to wake him and as he stepped foot in the room, he looked upon his father.
Hal had noticed all night the toll that Andrea’s execution took on his Joe. Things he had never seen before. Joe looked tired and drawn. He complained of a headache and trouble breathing, symptoms for a man his father’s age that spelled warning if a break wasn’t given and anxiety relieved. Joe had specifically given Hal instructions that unless Beginnings was literally falling apart, Henry was to handle it all. With that in mind, Hal closed the door.
Henry did say it was important and he needed Joe to hear something but to Hal, his father’s health was important as well. Figuring he was the leader of his own community, Hal gathered up his things and decided to go Beginnings himself. He’d help out as best as he could. That was his obligation as a son and leader of New Bowman. It was the least Hal could do to try to relieve the abundance of pressure Joe was already feeling.
^^^^
Dean’s eyes closed. “So that’s how she knew so much.” His head dropped as his hand fell to the lab counter. “Danny.” He looked up to him. “Thank you.”
“I had to tell you first. You needed to know. I hope this helps your cause out now,” Danny stated. “Dean, I’m sorry man. I treated you bad over this.”
Dean shook his head “Don’t apologize. I’m still not in the clear yet,” he said. “I still can’t figure out how she is pregnant with my baby. The best answer is she stole some of my sperm. But . . . there’s no evidence of that. Her amnio showed the baby tested as mine.”
“It’s a shame El’s not pregnant. That would be your answer.”
“What do you mean?” Dean asked.
“She could have just stolen Ellen’s amniotic fluid. Or wait, that’s not possible, is it?”
“Danny.” Dean’s eyes lit up.
“What?”
“You are a genius.”
“Yes, I know.”
“I am serious.” Dean grabbed Danny’s arms. “I could kiss you.”
“Now, now don’t go that far. What did I do?”
“God, am I stupid.” Dean backed up. “But happy. I hope I’m right, you’re right, whatever.” He moved to the door.
“Dean?” Danny, confused, looked into the hall. “Dean.”
“I’ll meet
you at the house. I think this mystery is solved.” With a gleeful scream and a basketball leaping jump that made Dean hit the exit light, he raced out of the clinic.
Danny smiled with a tilted head. “Ah yes, another life brightened by Danny Hoi.”
^^^^
“Ready?” Robbie held the timer then watched Jess who held the pen. “Go.” He turned over the timer.
Ellen huddled to Elliott and simply wrote down the words ‘cowboy boot’.
“Cowboy boot!” Elliott snapped his fingers.
“Yes!!” Ellen dropped the pen.
“Man.” Robbie tossed his hands up. “Elliott, you’re good.”
“They’re just coming to me,” he stated with a smile.
Robbie politely nodded, leaned into Jess, and spoke through clenched teeth. “Jess, write the word faster.”
“I’m trying.”
The door to Ellen’s home opened and without warning, Henry walked in.
Ellen looked up with a smile. “Hi Henry. Are you here to join us?”
Henry kept walking through the living room and to the hall.
Jess looked at Robbie. “He looks pissed.”
Robbie’s hand lifted in a point. “Was it my imagination or was he carrying a sledge hammers.”
Ellen shrieked, “My God he’s gone mad! He’s gonna kill my kids!”
Elliott, Robbie, and Jess leaped before her.
“Oh my God, it’s like one of those stories,” Ellen worried as she hurried behind the three men.
Henry’s growl of frustration rang out as he looked around the bedroom. “El! You rearranged the bedroom. Where the hell did the bed use to be?”
“Why?” Ellen asked.
“Where!” Henry snapped.
Robbie stepped forward. “Henry, don’t fuckin talk to her like that.”
“Where!” Henry glared.
“There.” Ellen pointed to where it used to set.
Spinning around as if looking for something, Henry stopped and looked at the bathroom door. He grinned, grabbed the desk chair, and pulled it to the archway. He climbed up and lifted the sledge hammer.
The Next Ten: Beginnings Series Books 11 - 20 Page 141