Chapter 24
The Feedmount Building
Hennings, South Carolina
2:06 p.m.
Cyrus waited in the living room of Gertrude’s spacious 10th floor apartment. He hadn’t realized how much larger units on the 10th were compared to Ashley’s place on the 6th, but the difference had now become apparent. The room held a pair of massive sofas and three large chairs arranged around a regal fireplace. Expensive antiques, the likes of which Cyrus had seldom seen outside of a museum, were on casual display all around the house. A large terrace, complete with a wrought iron table and matching set of chairs overlooked the city below.
In the next room, Ashley was tending to her grandmother. Gertrude had called in ancillary security teams to lock down the underground lab once William had been subdued. An intensive debrief had followed in which Cyrus had been thoroughly questioned about everything that had happened as well as his involvement in it.
After all was said and done, Gertrude insisted on returning to her office so she could get back to work. Recognizing the woman’s exhaustion, even if she didn’t, Cyrus had suggested that stopping by her condo briefly would give her a chance to freshen up. He’d phoned Ashley with hopes that she might convince the woman to settle down and recuperate. As he suspected, the moment Gertrude stepped into her home, the full weight of the morning’s events settled in, and she was willing to take the remainder of the day off. Ashley took Gertrude to her room and put her to bed.
Cyrus bided his time and waited for Ashley to finish with Gertrude; the events of the morning ran through his head in a constant loop. He still had trouble reconciling William’s ability to literally control the thoughts and actions of the people around him. If that wasn’t strange enough, his apparent inability to influence Cyrus was as much a shock to the young man as it was to Gertrude. By both accounts, William had never encountered an individual who he couldn’t Push. The thought was as curious as it was chilling. That there were people out in the world with such a talent was beyond frightening. They could literally be capable of anything.
“It sounds like the two of you had quite a morning,” Ashley said as she walked into the room.
Cyrus had been pacing, taking in the eclectic collection of antiques while he considered the unanswered questions of the day.
“It’s not what I expected when I got out of bed this morning,” he said with a tired shake of his head.
“You mean when you rolled off my couch this morning?” she corrected with an awkward smile. “I wanted to apologize for last night. That was embarrassing. I don’t usually drink. I’m terrible with liquor.”
“I hope you’re not sorry. I enjoyed last night. It was a long day, and it was nice to end it with some good company.”
He noticed her cheeks flush with the compliment and felt confident that she had enjoyed it as well. She slipped her hands into the hip pockets of her jeans and shied away from his glance.
Definitely embarrassed, Cyrus thought.
“The truth is that I’m on medication,” she explained. “It doesn’t mix well with alcohol. I pretty much go from zero to smashed with no time in-between.”
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “Why was I drinking at all, right?”
He offered only a shrug and a grin.
“The truth is, I’m not sure. I had a glass of wine and it was nice. Then it got me thinking about all that I’ve missed out on over the years. That bottle of tequila was a gift from my best friend. She always said I didn’t let myself go enough—that I was wound up too tight for my own good.
“Well, unfortunately the bottle of tequila lasted longer than the friendship. She just couldn’t relate to what I was going through and we drifted apart. I think that, meeting you last night and the stress of the last few months, just sort of put me over the edge. As soon as I remembered the damned bottle, it seemed like the perfect chance to break the seal and shake things up a little.”
“It was excellent tequila,” Cyrus offered. Shockingly good tequila. At over four hundred dollars a bottle, it should’ve been. He had more questions but it wasn’t the time, yet, when she invited him down to her apartment and offered to make lunch, he saw an opportunity to ask what he wanted to know.
“I should probably stay and keep an eye on your grandmother,” Cyrus said. It was his primary mission objective, as far as he was concerned. Even if the Coalition was really more interested in Gertrude’s database, his focus was on protecting the woman behind the research. It seemed like the better long-term play no matter what the orders he’d been issued. Then again, maybe there was something to be said for what he could learn about Gertrude from Ashley.
She nodded her understanding. “Yeah. But I just gave her something to help her sleep so I don’t expect to hear from her until morning. Plus, we can activate the alarm system, and we’ll only be a few floors down.”
Cyrus considered the idea.
“I make a mean cheeseburger,” she urged.
He smiled. “It’s a deal.”
Chapter 25
The Feedmount Building
Hennings, South Carolina
2:17 p.m.
Ashley greeted Cyrus at the door of her apartment. The moment she saw him, a smile spread across her face and she realized just how relieved she was to see him. Leading the way, they passed through the wide sliding glass doors. Her bare feet touched the cool tile floor of the wide balcony, and she took a deep breath, reminding herself that everything was finally alright.
“You had another interesting day,” she said over her shoulder as she looked over the balcony railing and into the city streets. She wanted to sound conversational, but in truth, she’d been terrified about the outcome of the morning’s events.
Gripping the rail tightly, she continued without turning to face him—if anyone could find the residual uneasiness in her eyes, it was him. It had proven harder than she first anticipated to set her anxiety aside. “Trouble seems to seek you out,” she said with deliberate calm.
As if in response to her reluctance to look at him, Cyrus didn’t respond until she finally turned and met his eye.
“It’s starting to seem that way,” Cyrus admitted with a bashful grin. “I think your grandmother’s the one you need to worry about, though.”
An uncomfortable silence stretched between them. Ashley felt Cyrus’s eyes on her the entire time. Finally she walked closer to him, only meeting his eyes as she stepped within arms’ length. “Thank you for not killing my brother,” she said quietly.
His eyebrows arched in response to the statement. “Gertrude told you about that? I was under the impression that it was a sensitive subject. ‘Need to know’, she called it.”
“William can be…overzealous. And it might be hard to understand, but he had a good reason for doing what he did. While I don’t agree with his methods, he went to the lab looking for answers, and he found what he was looking for.”
“He went there to kill your grandmother,” Cyrus said flatly.
Even as he said the words, Ashley was sure that Cyrus didn’t believe the statement he made.
She shook her head. “Don’t you think someone with William’s talents could’ve gotten to her a dozen different ways? Why go to that much trouble?”
“He sent two armed thugs after her in that convenience store. I think his actions speak for themselves.”
He was right about the store, she realized. But the armed men who had attacked them at the market had been William’s attempt to evaluate Cyrus while putting a scare into their grandmother at the same time. It was a major mistake. One that had resulted in a concussion for the innocent store clerk and one that could just as easily have cost Cyrus his life. The entire incident frustrated Ashley. She would never have allowed William to take such action if she’d known his intention.
Ashley had spent the majority of the morning sitting on her balcony at the wrought iron patio table working on her laptop. A wide foldout canopy had b
een extended from the side of her building, covering the entire expanse of the veranda, providing comfortable shade. She moved back to her chair in front of the closed laptop and motioned for Cyrus to take a seat opposite her at the table.
In hindsight, it would’ve worked better if she and William had recruited Cyrus to their cause in the first place. Now she wasn’t sure how to proceed.
“What is it?” Cyrus asked, sensing her trepidation.
Taking a slow, deep breath, Ashley leaned forward in her chair and rested her elbows on the edge of the table. “William’s actions at the market—his sending those men into the store? He wanted to put a scare into Gram, yes, but his primary goal was to observe you.”
Shocked, Cyrus leaned forward and glared. “What?”
“Is it really that surprising? You were her new protector,” Ashley explained. “Her assistant, at least on paper, but it was clear that you were there to protect her from him.”
With a shake of his head, Cyrus waved the thought away. “No,” he said simply. “Even I didn’t know about William, or the threat he posed. I was asked to watch over Gertrude, but that’s the extent of it. Until you told me about your…ability, I didn’t know anything about you or William beyond the fact that you were her grandchildren. There was a vague hint of some kind of threat against her, but nothing specific. I was just supposed to keep an eye out and discover if there was, in fact, a credible threat.”
A scowl crossed Ashley’s face. It would be so much easier if she could just Read him. The ability was so much a part of her that she hadn’t realized just how often she had come to rely on it. How did normal people know if they were being lied to? She needed to be sure.
Ashley settled for asking straight out. “Who sent you?” The words came out quieter than she expected, forcing her to realize just how afraid she was to voice the question. No, that wasn’t right. She was terrified to hear his answer. Truth or lie, it wouldn’t matter. It wasn’t going to be good news.
Cyrus’s wordless reply came in the form of a disapproving stare.
An unexpected pang of sadness rang through Ashley’s body. Her eyes dropped away from Cyrus and fell to her lap where she silently folded and unfolded her hands. No answer seemed somehow worse. But rather than lie to her, he’d chosen not to say anything at all. Perhaps that meant something.
An abrupt shift in her glance brought Ashley’s eyes to rest on her closed laptop. It lay on the table between the two of them. She felt a shiver run down her spine when she considered the report she’d read only minutes before Cyrus had arrived.
“What are you?” she asked, her voice a hoarse whisper. Her eyes moved from the laptop and met his. She could do nothing to mask the question, concern, and confusion that she was feeling.
All of that seemed to catch Cyrus off-guard. He stared back at her, looking entirely unsure how to respond. It was a raw, exposed expression that she’d never seen on his face before, and it made her realize she had just witnessed an honest to goodness crack in his ever-steady armor.
“Are you a Reader?” she pressed. “Is that why I can’t Read you? I knew there were others—I’ve just never met one.”
“Wait—What the hell are you talking about?” Cyrus interrupted. He looked sincerely confused.
While she had him off-guard, she decided to press the point in hopes of learning something new. She had so many questions. He had already proved unwilling to answer some of them, so she had no choice.
“You,” she urged. “I can’t Read you. William can’t Push you. I didn’t know what that meant until Gram did a blood work-up on you. So what is it? What can you—”
“Wait!” Cyrus was on the verge of losing his patience; she could see it in his eyes. “What are you talking about? Gertrude told you about the blood test? But how? She never had a chance to see the results.”
In a flash, the confusion in his eyes was replaced by suspicion. His gaze shifted to the laptop on the table. A moment later, his penetrating stare met her eyes, and she knew that he had guessed correctly.
William had accessed the laboratory database prior to Cyrus catching up with him. But rather than steal the data and attempt to escape with it, he had transmitted it to Ashley electronically. William hadn’t had the time to examine the data onsite, but Ashley had plenty of time in the hours that followed.
And the things she’d said about William attacking them at the market to evaluate him? That made sense now, too. He’d taken her comments as assumptions but he was wrong. She’d been in communication with her brother prior to they day’s events. William might not have told her about each plan to attack Gertrude, but she’d spoken with him after the fact. That much was now clear.
Cyrus sat back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. “You were in on it together,” he concluded. “Gertrude said that William couldn’t access the database without her, but you’d already taken care of that. You Read your grandmother prior to William’s attack on the lab. You’d already provided him with what he needed to access the computer network. By the time he finally had his hands on Gertrude, he had already transmitted the database to you.”
Taking a deep breath, Ashley considered how best to explain. She hadn’t expected Cyrus to sort things out. At least not so quickly. It was another reason she should have approached him about all of this after their first meeting. If she could just make him understand the truth, she felt certain he would see that everything that had happened was entirely justified.
“William and I are fraternal twins,” Ashley explained. “And we’ve been close for as long as I can remember. It’s almost like we share a mind.
“A little over a year ago, William went missing. He just up and disappeared without a word. That wasn’t like him. We’ve always been close. He never left town without telling me, and we always kept in touch on the rare occasion when he was away. But this time it was as if he just fell off the face of the planet.
“There’d always been a sort of link between us. We each had a tangible awareness of the others presence. It was something we took for granted as children. It wasn’t until we became older that we realized our bond was unique. It made it very obvious to me that, when William disappeared, something had happened.”
Cyrus settled into his seat. Ashley saw the impatience of his stare, but was relieved that he was giving her the time to explain. This was her best chance to get it right so she decided not to hold anything back. She would be putting a great deal of trust in him. It was a substantial leap of faith, trusting someone who might yet side with her grandmother and put an end to everything she and William were trying to accomplish.
“I knew something was wrong right away and I told Gram about it,” Ashley went on. “I explained that I was sure something had happened to William. But she told me that Will was an adult and could do as he pleased. She couldn’t make him stay in the city any more than she could make him do anything he didn’t want to do. She promised me that he would come back one day and I would see that all of my worry was for nothing.”
“And William did come back,” Cyrus urged her on.
Ashley offered a slow shake of her head. “No, he didn’t. But a few months ago he managed to make contact. He was being held against his will. He was being kept drugged by his captors; captors who knew about his ability to Push and had him on a drug cocktail that kept him too fuzzy to use his ability and too out of it to make contact with me.”
By now Ashley knew Cyrus well enough to understand what he was thinking. Whoever had taken William had to know of his ability and have an intimate knowledge of neuro and biological triggers, which narrowed the pool of suspects significantly.
“Once he reached out, I knew that William was still somewhere in the city. We’ve never been able to communicate over distances of more than a hundred or so miles…”
“You can communicate with William? What—like, telepathically?” Cyrus said quietly, as if testing the idea aloud. After all he had learned over the last week, it shouldn’t be too much of
a reach.
“You planned the attack on the lab together,” Cyrus said pointedly. “Why?”
“William and I grew up with these abilities. We were raised like this,” she offered in a equally tempered voice. “I was taught never to Read my grandmother, and William was taught never to Push her. It was a core part of the way we were brought up, so we never thought anything of it. Gram always had her work. She took care of us, and we took care of her. William and I never knew our parents, so Gram was all we ever had.
“And that was fine until we had a family dinner about a year and a half ago. I had a couple of glasses of wine with dinner, and I wasn’t as careful as I usually am. It wouldn’t have been a problem, but Gram took a call from the lab that night. Something had gone wrong and she was really worked up. I didn’t mean to, but I started to overhear random thoughts.”
Thoughts of that eye-opening night made Ashley’s stomach knot, and she found it hard to continue. But when she looked for some kind of judgment from Cyrus, rather than a look of criticism she was expecting, she found only patient concern. The truth of that simple, caring gesture warmed her heart and pushed back the curtain of dread that had felt so suffocating only moments earlier.
Taking a short breath, Ashley flashed Cyrus a slight but appreciative smile before forging ahead.
“We weren’t supposed to be able to influence Gram. That patch she wears behind her ear? It’s called a neuro-dampener. It’s specifically designed to prevent people with abilities like ours from influencing anyone wearing it. She worked on that device for years. She said that someday it would be necessary to protect ourselves from less scrupulous people with abilities like ours.
“But something was wrong. That night, I don’t know if it was my drinking or if something went wrong with the neuro-dampener, but I couldn’t help it. Her thoughts just kept surfacing in my mind.
Dangerous Minds: A Cyrus Cooper Thriller: Book One Page 17