Chapter 144
“OMG indeed,” Lucy agreed.
We sat in silence for a long time before Emma muttered, “Interesting, and scooted away from me, back to where she’d been sitting most of the night, and picked up her laptop.
“What are you doing?” Lucy asked her.
“Seeing if Christian has already given us access to the cameras we need to try to find out where Giovani went when he left the airport,” she said with a shrug.
“Emma, you do realize that we just saw a dude our age who looks just like Elliott? Except not as old, no offense.” Lucy looked up at the ceiling with that last comment, like she was talking to him in heaven.
“Yeah, I saw him. His name is Brandon,” Emma said, still typing away. Her forehead crinkled. “It doesn’t look like it was part of the original install. I wonder if he could push it through email.”
I was too startled by Brandon’s existence to even think about who he might actually be, although I had an idea. Could Elliott have had a son and not told me about him? Why would he do that? Like Emma, I sort of wanted something else to think about, although it was getting late, and part of me just wanted to close my eyes and think about nothing for a while. Instead, I picked up my phone again. “I’ll text Jamie and see if he can send a message to Christian since I don’t have Christian’s number and Cadence obviously isn’t going to do it tonight.”
“Great,” Emma said, still searching. “Maybe it’s on your laptop, and I just didn’t know to search for it. Do you mind if I look?”
“Knock yourself out,” I replied, sliding it to her the best I could on the comforter as I sent a quick text to Jamie asking him to let Christian know we’d found Giovani in Austria and asking if there were external camera files he could share with us. I didn’t bother to try to keep it a secret now that my friends were helping. I think Cadence had figured out that they knew more than we were letting on, and while I wasn’t sure Aaron was with her at the restaurant, I got the impression he was, so he must know as well.
Jamie’s reaction was much different than my sister’s had been. Two seconds after I hit send, my phone was ringing. “Hello?” I answered cautiously.
“Cassidy! You found him! That’s awesome!”
I was suddenly so overwhelmingly proud of myself, I didn’t even know what to say, although I had a feeling Elliott’s reaction would’ve been similar had it been him on the other end of the phone. “Uh, thanks,” I stammered. “It was actually Emma who spotted him.”
“Still, solid group effort. Way to go. Have you told your sister yet?”
“I told her.”
“Oh, I can tell from your tone that she was not as excited as I am.”
“Let’s just say she didn’t seem to think it was that big of a deal.” I hoped I didn’t sound whiny.
“Well, I think she’s getting ready to go on a hunt.”
“Right. That’s what she said.”
“I’m sure Christian will be excited, too. I’ll let him know. He’s pretty busy right now, and I’m not sure what he can push out to you, but if he can send you what you need, I’m sure he’ll do it.”
“That would be awesome.” I was so glad my sister’s friends were nice and talked to me like I was a grownup, even when she didn’t seem to have much time for me.
“All right. Thanks for letting me know. Great job.”
“Thank you, Dr. Joplin,” I replied, smiling. I’d thrown in his formal title there just to remind myself this wasn’t a nobody who was giving me accolades. This was a certified medical doctor and the world’s best Healer. I hung up and leaned back against the wall.
“Jamie seemed proud of us,” Lucy said. She did not have her laptop open. She was staring across the room like she was still puzzled over Brandon.
“He was,” I agreed. “He said he’d let Christian know.”
“Are their apartments near each other?” Lucy asked.
“I have no idea. He can always use his IAC, which is instantaneous,” I reminded her. “I desperately want to go back there, though.” Even though I was at headquarters for the worst reason in the universe, I couldn’t stop thinking about what it would be like to be there again.
“We have Monday off,” Emma reminded me, finally looking up from her laptop. “Parent teacher conferences.”
“I know.” I would be lying if I hadn’t been thinking about the possibility of begging Cadence to come and get me.
“Maybe you can use Brandon as leverage to make her feel bad,” Lucy said, raising and lowering her eyebrows rapidly. “If he really is Elliott’s son, and she hasn’t told you….”
“I can make her feel bad, and then she’ll be forced to come and get me?” I finished.
“Precisely.” Lucy folded her arms and nodded at me.
It was a good idea. I would have to go over it a bit in my mind to see if it might work. Before I could comment further, Emma’s cell phone rang, which was strange because Emma’s cell phone never rings unless it’s her parents or one of us, and I was sure her parents wouldn’t still be up.
“Hmmm,” she said, answering it. “Hello? Uh huh. Uh huh. Uh huh.” She clicked a few keys on her own laptop, having set mine aside. “Okay. Uh huh. Uh huh. Okay. Thanks.” She hung up, set her phone down, did a few more clicks, and then set her laptop down and picked up mine.
“Uh, Emma, who was that?” Lucy finally asked as she did the same few clicks on my laptop.
“Oh, that was Christian,” she said. She set my MacBook down. “Can I have your laptop, Lucy? And make sure your email is open.”
“You were just in my email?” I asked, still wondering how in the world Christian had gotten her cell phone number, although it shouldn’t have surprised me. CHENRY77 was everywhere.
“Yeah, to get the email Christian just sent us.” Lucy handed over her open laptop, and Emma clicked through it. “There. It’ll take a while to run, but he said everything he has access to will be there when it’s done. I doubt it’s really everything,” she clarified, “but it should be what we need.”
“You don’t think it’s weird that some Revolutionary War soldier just called your cell, Em?” Lucy asked. “Does he call you frequently?”
“No, he’s never called before, but he said he figured I’d be the one most likely to know how to run the install.” She shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal. Maybe it wasn’t. My sister was a Vampire Hunter after all. In comparison, how could anything else ever seem odd?
