The Aberration of Eden Pruitt, page 23
“Are you sure you have the right name?”
Cass looked down at his opened laptop, where he’d pulled up Amir’s public profile. Cybersecurity analyst for Under Armour in Baltimore.
“Sir? Are you still there?”
“Yes,” he said. “I am. And yes, I’m sure.”
He could hear more typing. When the woman finished, her answer was the same. Amir Kashif wasn’t in the employee database, which was why Amir Kashif didn’t have an extension. Cass disconnected from the call. He rubbed the stubble on his cheek and peered at the large building. He pushed his thumb across his bottom lip, then dropped the phone into the cup holder in the console, set his laptop in the passenger seat, shifted into drive and headed back to Bethesda.
An hour later, Cass drove down Amir’s street. There was no garage, and the driveway was empty. So, he parked along the curb, half a block away, and waited. At quarter past seven—after the sun had set and darkness had rolled down the mostly deserted street—Amir returned home.
Cass sank lower in his seat while the man parked his car and stepped out into the night. He strolled up his walk and let himself inside, unaware he had an audience. A light went on in the house. A shadow moved on the other side of the drawn blinds. Cass grabbed one of the trackers and slinked through the dark. He attached the device underneath Amir’s rear bumper, safely out of view, then quickly returned to his vehicle.
It was late.
And he was eager to get back to Eden.
As soon as he stepped inside the Miller’s home, she was right there. Waiting for him.
And for what felt like the first time since he left this morning, Cass exhaled. Before she could speak, before she could even glower, he pulled her to his chest and wrapped her in a hug.
She melted into him. “Don’t do that again.”
“I won’t,” he said, setting his chin on the crown of her head.
They stayed that way for a while, their hearts beating in unison, and when she pulled back, he kept his arms around her as she looked into his face. “Nice glasses.”
He crooked an eyebrow. “You like them?”
“I like you.”
To that, he kissed her. Without thinking, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Her lips were soft and unsuspecting.
And then, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back. The kind of kiss that would have kept going—a slow burn that built in heat and fervor until the clearing of a throat popped the intoxicating moment.
With his hat askew, he looked over Eden’s shoulder.
Cleo stood behind them, smirking. Then her eyes went wide. “Are those ghosts?”
Cass took off the glasses and handed them over to a greedy Cleo, eager to inspect them. While she did, he told them everything—about the masked man and his black-market shop, about Amir not working for Under Armour, about the tracker Cass put on his car, which would enable them to monitor Amir remotely. Before they could decide on their next move, they needed to establish his routine.
Tracking, like train-hopping, required patience.
Only this was far from miserable.
There wasn’t much to observe over the weekend. Nothing consistent, anyway. Amir stayed close to home—running the occasional commonplace errand. Which meant they spent Saturday and Sunday making themselves at home with Elmer and Eloise Miller, who were sweet, and Dayne Johnson, who was only slightly pompous and naturally inquisitive. An expected trait for someone who had dedicated most of his life to journalism. At first, Cass was hesitant to tell him anything. But reason won in the end. A guy like Dayne might have a piece of the puzzle they were trying so hard to put together. They told him handpicked pieces of their story, off the record. He’d never heard of The Monarch or this group called Invictus that seemed to be another name for Interitus. But he was very interested in the pamphlet and the recruitment database they’d found in the Bryson’s safe.
All the while, Cleo was in heaven, learning the ins and outs of the illegal newspaper trade. And the kiss between Eden and Cass had breached some sort of dam. Gone was the torturous self-restraint that had marked their time at Lou’s, replaced by the most rousing combination of deep affection and tantalizing desire. They spent plenty of time alone and Cass found himself relaxing, knowing things couldn’t get too carried away with Eloise humming in the next room.
On Monday, Amir didn’t go to Baltimore.
He drove to Fort Meade.
When his car was parked, they pulled up his exact location.
“No way!” Cleo practically hollered.
It was a warranted reaction. For the location was that of the NSA.
Cass had stared, deeply unsettled. They were wanted fugitives with a growing bounty on their heads, tracking a man who worked for a powerful government agency. A man who had connections to Prudence Dvorak, who was linked to Karik Volkova.
His car didn’t move again until 5:10 p.m., when he exited the parking lot.
He merged onto the highway without making any pit stops.
When the blinking dot that was Amir’s vehicle reached Bethesda, it didn’t wind its way to Amir’s home address, but stopped along the town’s derelict thoroughfare. This time, Cleo donned the ghost glasses and left to see if she could find out where he was. Cass and Eden stayed behind as she reported everything via phone. Amir was inside a diner, sitting alone at a table in the window. The waitress brought him food. He gave her a polite nod and dug in. When he finished, he paid and left. Then pulled into his driveway at quarter after seven.
The next day, the same routine unfurled. At exactly ten after seven, he left for work. His car remained at NSA headquarters until ten after five. He didn’t tarry in Fort Meade, but headed straight to Bethesda, where he would grab dinner at the diner—a Reuben and a house salad with French dressing. This time, Eden left to watch him—the only place they could as his blinds remained drawn at his house.
At 7 p.m., he paid his bill, nodded politely at the waitress, gathered up his belongings and went home.
This was his routine on Monday.
On Tuesday.
And on Wednesday.
Cass was beginning to think this was a wild goose chase. A euphoric, perfect wild goose chase. One that could happily go on for days. Weeks. Months.
But then Thursday came and Amir deviated from his routine.
36
Nineteen days had passed since Eden rode away on Cassian’s bike. Twelve since their faces became headline news, and Jane decided to be brave.
Ever since, the adults had become obsessed. They studied the print-outs from Barrett and they studied those same images on Dr. Norton’s computer, where they could zoom in and zoom out of Jane’s system at will. Every day, Jack made the commute from his home in Milwaukee to Dr. Norton’s cabin to study them.
There’d been one tip that led authorities to San Diego but didn’t pan out. And then, nothing but an entire nation on the lookout with no promising leads.
The world was in a holding pattern.
Jane and Barrett, too.
He hadn’t forgotten any more names, and she hadn’t experienced any more blasts of sound. But a relapse felt inevitable. They had diagnosed the problem, but they had no clue how to fix it. The days were long, and Barrett was going stir crazy. He had read and memorized all of Dr. Norton’s books, everything in their files, and every random fact and figure he cared to research online. With nothing left to do, they took to raiding Dr. Norton’s game cupboard.
They sat in the center of Jane’s bed, whiling away the hours playing mancala, backgammon, dominoes, and Gin Rummy 500. Barrett filled the quiet with stories of his childhood, of his family—so absolutely opposite from Jane’s experience that they might as well have been fairytales from a book.
Currently, he was talking to her about the time his brothers tried to sneak their pet guinea pig to school in Jameson’s backpack when, outside, Jack’s car tires came to a stop on the gravel. They abandoned their half-played game of mancala. Jane grabbed her sack of treasures and hurried outside with Barrett.
Jack gave them a curt nod as he strode toward the front porch.
Barrett launched into an idea he had—a potential new angle—as the two went inside.
Jane remained where she was, enjoying the cool breeze on her face. The sound of rustling leaves that had changed into vibrant shades of yellow and orange. The scampering of squirrels. The beating of insect wings. And …
She tilted her head, registering the familiar thump-thump, thump-thump of a human heart. Not from the cabin, but from inside Jack’s car.
The back door opened.
With a gasp, Jane took a lurching step away as a girl crawled out into the open.
A human girl with long auburn hair and bright green eyes and a fierce expression. She came to her feet, looking from Jane to the bulging pillowcase hugged tight to her chest, to the cabin behind her.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
With a squeak, Jane hid behind her hair.
“What is my father doing here? And was that …” The girl narrowed her eyes at the house. “Was that Barrett Barr, the kid who’s been missing since the summer?”
Jane took another step away.
The girl looked at her strangely, then noticed a curtain fluttering inside the opened kitchen window.
She crept closer, hunching between the window and the front door as the conversation swirled out into the open, so loud a person didn’t need superhuman senses to hear it.
“There’s no Queen Bee,” Jack said. “Her system doesn’t have one.”
His excited declaration was met with silence.
“It’s why her signal is so much weaker than Eden’s and Barrett’s. It’s not there. She doesn’t have a master node.”
“Does that mean …?” Ruth’s question trailed off into nothing.
“She can’t be controlled.”
Jane slapped her hand over her mouth.
Inside, Jack paced. She could hear his footsteps. “Now we just need to figure out how. How did she do it? And how can we do the same thing to Eden and Barrett and Ellery?”
The girl beside Jane shifted.
Jane could feel her voice—her words—burrowing deeper and deeper. To a place that could never be reached.
“Will she let us take more images?” Jack asked.
“I don’t know,” Barrett said. “It was really hard for her to take the ones she did. I mean, you should have seen her. She was legitimately terrified. I think something traumatic must have happened to her that makes the setup downstairs really triggering.”
“Well, she’s going to have to get over it.”
“Jack,” Ruth admonished.
“Your daughter’s life depends on it. My daughter’s life depends on it.”
The girl shifted again—her body coiled and alert.
“How would more imaging even be helpful?” Barrett asked.
“I don’t know. But I do know something that would be helpful. Jane talking. She knows. She has to know.”
Jane buried her face in the pillowcase.
She did know.
As hard as she tried to forget, she would always know.
“You can’t force her to talk,” Dr. Norton said.
Silence ensued.
A long, tension-filled silence with nothing but the drone of Concordia News in the background.
And then, “Why are you still messing with that? Surely you have the whole thing memorized by now.”
“Nervous habit,” Barrett said apologetically.
Jack was talking about the device. The projections. Barrett had a habit of mindlessly scrolling through them like a person flipping through channels on the television.
“Can we please turn that off?” Jack barked.
“It’s the only way we’ll know if Eden and Cassian are caught,” Alexander said.
With those words, the girl spun into action.
She marched up the porch steps and shoved through the front door.
Jane followed skittishly.
“Eden and Cassian? As in, Eden Pruitt and Cassian Ransom?” The girl looked around the room, from Dr. Norton to Alexander and Ruth Pruitt, both of whom had been on the news, to Jack, who had gone an alarming shade of gray, to Barrett Barr and the holographic projection that had come to a stop on the map with the five glitching dots. “And you’re the missing kid, Barrett Barr. Dad, what in the world is going on?”
“How did you get here?” Jack said, his voice a low, ominous rumble that made Jane want to flee.
But the girl—Ellery—didn’t cower. She folded her arms defiantly and lifted her chin. “I hid in your trunk.”
Jack swore.
“You wouldn’t tell me anything! Mom and I run off to Rome with zero explanation. Chicago blows up. We come home and you’ve lost about twenty pounds you didn’t need to lose. You reek like cigarettes, which means you’re smoking again, and you keep leaving without saying where you’re going.”
Jack took Ellery’s arm and stepped toward the door. “I’m taking you home.”
She jerked her arm free, then strode to the nearest armchair, where she parked herself obstinately. “I’m not leaving.”
“Then I guess I’ll have to drag you.”
“Jack,” Ruth said. “I think you should tell her.”
Jack threw daggers with his eyes.
“She has the right to know,” Barrett agreed.
The room erupted.
Everyone jumped in.
And in the midst of all that arguing, something strange occurred. Not another glitch. But another dot. On the map. Only this one wasn’t jumping around. It was steady and very suddenly … there. Nobody but Jane noticed. They were too busy arguing. And before she could find a way to notify them, a seventh dot appeared.
She squeaked.
Barrett looked at her.
Then he looked at the map, where an eighth dot materialized.
37
Eden was beginning to suspect that Amir Kashif was a dead end. He moved from Chicago to Bethesda because he worked for the NSA and while that surprising discovery had been a high note of intrigue, his actual life turned out to be quite boring. Not to mention lonely.
Their search had come to a standstill. They would have to find another lead, like one of the twelve girls who went to the Bryson’s home every Thursday. The thought of returning to Chicago carved a deep pit in Eden’s stomach. The trip itself felt like an impossibility. The city, a hostile danger zone. Not to mention, she was growing quite fond of Eloise and Elmer. She liked being here. She especially liked being here with Cassian.
When she was with him, she could ignore everything else.
Her worried parents in Wisconsin.
The mysterious pain in her temple that came and went without warning.
The national manhunt unfolding outside these walls.
Even the nanobots inside her; they could still be controlled.
None of that had changed. And yet, their time at the Miller residence was a reprieve from the insanity that had marked Eden’s life ever since she came home to a ransacked house in Eagle Bend. But reprieves couldn’t last forever. Leaving felt inevitable. When it came to Amir Kashif, there was nothing to see.
Until 5:12 p.m. on Thursday, the twenty-fourth of October, when he departed from his routine.
Eden sat up straighter, watching the flashing dot that was Amir’s car bypass the highway that would take him to Bethesda and head north instead.
Cassian sat up, too.
They were in the Miller’s basement. Cassian’s laptop, on a rickety table they were using as a makeshift desk. Upstairs, Cleo was in the living room with Dayne, chatting about the most recent edition of America Underground. Eloise was making dinner in the kitchen, humming along to Frank Sinatra while Elmer sat at the table, his pencil scratching against paper. Eloise gave him a Word Search every evening. To keep his brain sharp. Which was, when it came to Elmer, a losing battle.
“Where’s he going?” she asked.
Cassian didn’t answer. Cassian didn’t know.
They watched—transfixed by the moving dot—for forty minutes. Until it stopped and stayed in a residential neighborhood in Baltimore.
Cassian zoomed in on the location and jotted the address.
It was a large, gated home owned by—
“Aigner,” Eden said, coming out of her chair.
It was a name she knew. She hurried to the cigar box they kept tucked in Cassian’s pack and pulled out the pamphlet.
There it was.
Melody Aigner.
The very first name on the back.
One of ninety-three Magnes Matres.
And here Amir was, inside a home that belonged to Jason and Veronica Aigner, surviving parents listed in Melody’s obituary.
The inevitability of leaving vanished.
This wasn’t a dead end.
Whatever was going on, Amir was involved.
Amir, with the NSA.
Cassian pulled up drone surveillance, but they couldn’t see anything beyond the large trees covering the property. Amir’s car remained. Dinner was prepared. They brought Cassian’s laptop upstairs, where they filled Cleo in and ate Eloise’s chicken casserole.
Amir’s car didn’t move until 8 p.m.
The property gates opened. His car exited. Followed by a parade of eight more.
“It’s Thursday,” Cassian said meaningfully.
The same night the Brysons hosted a meeting of their own. One in which twelve girls attended, all of them on a holographic database stored in what was quite literally a monarch butterfly.
The bird's-eye view prevented them from collecting license plate numbers.
They would have to collect them next Thursday, assuming the meeting was a regular event. One of them would have to drive into Baltimore. The only time they drove anywhere was in the evenings to watch Amir in the diner. They took turns, leaving through the garage, driving the Miller’s car, always under the cover of dark. Always right here, in the ghost town that was Bethesda. The trips lasted an hour and a half altogether and came with little risk. Going into Baltimore would be something else entirely.
