I know whose bidding he was doing, and that we’ll likely never prove it. Even if we managed to charge Neva with something that stuck, I don’t believe it would stop her. Dick’s right about that, I decide as I blow-dry my hair, a towel wrapped around me. Still sweating from the shower, not bothering with a touch of makeup, I pad across the narrow hallway with its exposed-beam ceiling.
I walk back through my office, and into the bedroom where I started living in high school when Carme and I moved into the barn. Nothing’s all that different from what it was, the same posters on the cypress-plank walls. The first landing on the moon, and the Space Shuttle piggybacking on a rocket. James Bond when Roger Moore played him, Lindsay Wagner as the Bionic Woman, and the Dave Matthews Band.
On a shelf over the dresser is a collection of my dorky trophies for spelling bees, competitions for robotics, computer coding and mathematics, and one of my finer moments when I came in second at a truck rodeo. Throwing on a warm-up suit and thick socks, I grab a weapon-concealing fanny pack, and hurry down the stairs.
Rushing past Otto, I find my pair of UGG boots, my down vest in a closet. Collecting my gun belt, the journals, Lex’s thumb drive, I carry them to the gun safe in a small back room where Dad has a desk buried in paperwork and drone components.
“The combination has been changed,” ART lets me know in my earpiece.
“Well, it sure as shooting should have been after all that’s happened,” I retort in frustration. “But now what?”
“Would you like me to access?”
“That would be helpful. But I’d like the combination so I have it . . .”
“Unauthorized.”
“Of course it is!” I declare impatiently.
A series of beeps, a hum and a click, and he enables me to open the heavy steel door, setting the journals, thumb drive, my duty gun inside for now. Grabbing my Bond Bullpup 9 mm pistol, the same as my sister’s, I zip it inside the fanny pack. Thinking of the missing GOD chip again, it’s weird to think of it locked up in here while I had no clue. Dick and Dad knew about it, and I’m betting so did Mom.
It’s almost midnight when I venture outdoors to the sound of melting ice and snow drip-dripping. Galaxies of minilights glitter and wink, flickering like blue fireflies in swaying branches, and reflected in the river’s gentle current. The pecan tree is ablaze in azure sparkles, and underneath Dad’s shiny new cages look like mean-spirited gifts left by the Grinch, each baited with a generous pile of purchased nuts.
The shoveled sidewalk is lit up like a runway, and I climb the 4 wooden steps, my feet sounding on the sprawling porch. I walk past the glider settee where Mom used to rock Carme and me in warmer months as fireflies sparked in the dark, and cicadas sawed to beat the band. She’d tell us stories, describing her latest NASA lesson plans, and I’m hopeful those days aren’t gone for good.
I imagine us sitting out here again or in front of the fire, having a bite of supper the way things used to be when all was good. Emotions stirring, I clear my throat, taking a deep breath. Knocking my special knock on the knotty pine door, I’m aware of another new electronic lock. No doubt all of them have been changed, and my mother’s probably to blame.
Unless it was Carme who did it. Then again, Dick might have been the influence. Although it could be Dad’s reaction to what’s become of the GOD chip he shouldn’t have told Lex about. I doubt Fran’s responsible for beefing up security on the property since her knowledge is limited to my fabricated origin story. She has no idea why the hitman’s really dead or the danger all of us might still be in.
“There you are!” the door swings open, Mom hugging me, and I can hear the TV playing in the den down the hall.
“Something sure smells good,” the aroma of her chili and homemade bread make me ravenous.
“Let me look at you,” she takes my face in her hands the way she’s always done when she wants to see inside me.
Her hazel eyes are touched by gold, lamplight shining on her short graying hair. Strong and capable, she’s in her usual faded jeans and flannel, and a pair of sturdy Chelsea boots that could stand a polishing. She’s what I call outdoorsy pretty, her idea of makeup ChapStick, and you’ll never catch her in high heels or a dress, nothing impractical that doesn’t last forever.
“How are you?” she asks, knowing full well what was done to me at the Point Comfort Inn.
“Maybe you should tell me how I’m doing because you should know,” I reply, increasingly suspicious she’s had more to do with my engineering and predetermined destiny than anyone on the planet.
Mom was right there inside room 1, and later in and out of suite 604 tying me up, tethering me to an eyebolt, feeding and cleaning me, taking care of my every need. As altered as I was, I wouldn’t let anyone else within striking range to hear Dick talk. And I envision his bruised hands, and the cameras inside the room.
It’s hard to describe how it feels to think my mother has been watching, listening, and surveilling whatever she deems necessary. Invading every part of me, she evaluates and tweaks, tending to her flock while influencing ART right down to him informing me if I’m authorized or not.
31
“IT’S NICE weather, the river pretty in the moonlight,” Mom says.
Stepping over to the coatrack, she informs me that the winds are calm, and it’s not too cold. She sounds a lot like ART, and I can tell when she’s preoccupied by heavy thoughts.
“I’ve heard a few charters going by,” as she puts on her vintage adirondack jacket, “people night fishing for red drum, flounder. I don’t like boats going past this late. And I’m sorry our driveway isn’t gated. But we can’t live behind walls, may as well be in prison or the cemetery.”
“Are you doing okay?” and when she’s uneasy, so am I.
“Don’t you worry about me. I want to talk to you on the porch for a minute,” she says, and obviously she doesn’t want Dad or Easton waking up and overhearing.
As hard as my mother is to read, I always know when she’s down or angry. If she’s privy to as much as I think she is, I can only imagine what she feels about Neva Rong, who’s come close to taking out our entire family. Now things have become personal for Mom, although they were before, more personal than I know, I have a feeling.