“This is Zoe,” Lucy said, “and I’m Lucy.”
“Where did you hear that phrase? Ollie sent you to find the robin—where did you hear it?”
“Olivia told me.”
The woman flinched slightly and her eyes darted between the girls. “How do you know Ollie?”
“You mean Olivia?” Zoe asked.
The woman nodded, and Zoe’s assumption was confirmed. Ollie and Olivia were one and the same.
Lucy remained quiet, and Zoe could feel her thinking.
“I asked you a question!” the woman yelled, cocking the shotgun and setting Zoe’s teeth on edge.
“I don’t remember,” Lucy replied. “I can’t remember.”
Again the woman’s body responded to Lucy’s words. She pulled her shoulders back, and the coldness in her eyes chipped away.
“But she told me to find you, and to tell you that Ollie sent me to find the robin, and that I could trust you because you’re a friend. She said you would help me,” Lucy said. Zoe could hear the emotion capturing her words. “And I really need help.”
The woman held the gun steady, sizing them up, searching them with her eyes. The moment seemed to linger for an uncomfortable amount of time, most likely because it involved a gun being pointed at their faces, but eventually she lowered the weapon and held it to one side.
“Why isn’t she with you?” she asked.
“We got separated,” Lucy replied. “She said she would meet me here.”
Sadness filled Summer’s eyes, and after a moment she turned around and kicked the side of a barrel that sat beside the open door. She kicked it again and swore at the evening sky. Then she swung back around, tears sitting in her bottom lids. “Did anyone follow you here?” she demanded.
“No,” Lucy said. “We got away from them.”
“From them?”
“The men chasing Olivia and me.”
Summer dropped her eyes, and even in the fading light Zoe could see that she was thinking it all over. “They must have figured out what she was up to.”
“Do you know what’s going on here?” Zoe asked.
“Olivia can tell us everything when she gets here,” Lucy said.
“Don’t be stupid, child,” Summer snapped. “Ollie is never coming here. They got her.”
Lucy shook her head. “You don’t know that for sure.”
“Yeah, I do. They always get you if you let them. But not me, not here!” She paused a second and then paced.
Zoe wished she could see inside this woman’s mind. Something was clearly off.
“You two should leave,” Summer said as she turned away.
“No,” Lucy cried. “Please, we have nowhere else to go.”
“Not my problem,” Summer said.
“Olivia said we could trust you.”
“She was wrong.”
“You’re supposed to be her friend! You’re supposed to help me!”
“It’s too much of a risk. Without Olivia . . .”
Zoe stepped in front of Lucy. “They’ll kill her,” she said, which caused Summer to pause. “They’ll kill Lucy like they killed Olivia. And if you can help us and don’t, then that blood is on your hands. Do you want that?”
Summer glanced over her shoulder at them, and Zoe approached her, ignoring the terror still creeping up her back. “Tell us what you know and we’ll be gone. Don’t and we die.”
Silence hung around them like heavy smoke, making it hard to breathe. The wait felt longer than Zoe knew it was, their fate in the hands of this stranger. A stranger who could as easily shoot them as invite them in.
Summer didn’t shoot them. She didn’t turn around to face them. She just spoke over her shoulder. “Let’s make this quick.” And then she disappeared inside.
TWELVE
SEELEY FOLLOWED DIRECTOR Hammon as he pushed through the double doors that led into the central communications office at Xerox. There was news. A possible connection that may give them a viable lead on Lucy’s location.
There was a new sense of urgency as Krum had let on that there was now a deadline, an unknown date that they had to beat. Otherwise the world would know about Grantham and what they had done. And that couldn’t happen.
“Talk to me,” Hammon said. His voice drew the attention of the room. It was a large oval space filled with screens that displayed images of ongoing operations, data streams, and the site’s security feeds. In the center was a long comms central, four operators working its switches and buttons.
Dave McCoy, data pad in hand, took several steps from his position to greet Hammon and Seeley. With a swipe of three fingers across the data pad’s surface, he took over a large screen that hung on the left wall before them. A profile appeared, the face of a middle-aged woman and her details displayed.
“This is Robin Hester, an old classmate of Olivia’s while she was getting her graduate degree at Cornell University. Robin was a structural biologist, and she and Olivia were both employed by Corp Tech for nearly a decade.”
Seeley studied the woman’s photo. She had kind blue eyes and light blonde hair that brushed the tops of her slender shoulders. Pretty and unassuming.
“It seems Olivia and Robin were close through their school days,” McCoy continued, “as well as while they worked together at Corp Tech. We spoke with several of their colleagues. It seems Olivia and Robin were always talking about changing the face of science by merging structural biology and genetics in a groundbreaking way.”
“This Robin Hester is helping them then?” Hammon asked.
“No,” McCoy answered. “She was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2001 and passed away eighteen months later. But she had a stepsister who served in the US military from 2004 to 2007. She was honorably discharged after failing a psych evaluation. Apparently, she’s a bit of a conspiracy theorist.” He smiled at Hammon, who didn’t return his sentiment. McCoy cleared his throat. “Anyway, we scoured all the communications coming and going from Xerox and turned up nothing, but when we widened the search to the surrounding cities, a landline in Jasper turned up several phone calls to a pay phone on the outskirts of Corpus Christi. The landline belongs to a Melissa Glass, a known associate of Olivia.”
“So, you think Olivia was making the calls?” Seeley asked.
“Scanning security cameras shows Olivia wasn’t on campus when the phone calls were made, so if she wasn’t here . . .” McCoy said.
“Then she could have been there,” Seeley said. “We need to talk with Melissa.”
“We sent a couple agents, but no new information came from it,” McCoy continued. “Meanwhile, I’ve been looking for a connection to Corpus Christi.”
“I’m assuming this ties back to Robin Hester?” Hammon said.
“That’s what we think.” McCoy swiped the data pad again, and the profile on the screen changed. Another blonde woman replaced Robin’s photo. She was stockier with mean, dark eyes. Troubled.
“Meet Summer Wallace,” McCoy said. “Robin’s stepsister. She took possession of her ex-husband’s junkyard back in 2015 after their divorce. It sits on the outskirts of Corpus Christi, only six miles from the pay phone where Olivia’s calls were going.”