Chapter 368
Deciding my mom may as well know what had been going on with Aaron, I confirmed her suspicion. “I know,” I said as the microwave dinged. I grabbed my lunch and a can of pop out of the refrigerator and headed into the living room. I decide my mom may as well know what was wrong with her future son-in-law. “Holland was messing with him.”
My mom turned to look at me as I took a spot on the sofa. “She was what?”
“Yeah, she was clogging up his brain with all of this... black goo.” I realized as soon as the words were out of my mouth I hadn’t even told Aaron that much. “It was weird. But he’s fine now.”
“The things you kids do these days.” My mom’s utterance made it sound like Aaron had been listening to a controversial band or even eating Tide pods. “Well, I hope this is what he was looking for.”
“What is it?” I asked with food in my mouth. A quick glance at the map let me know it was of the area of Melbourne where we’d extracted Paul and killed Carter. But that’s all I could tell.
“These are all of the buildings that the Melbourne team cleared after Paul went missing,” my mom explained, gesturing at the diagram in front of her. “And these are all of the calls that came through their IACs.” She placed her hand on a stack of typed correspondence I assumed Aaron had printed off for her. It was a little spooky to me that that was possible, but I hoped he could only access communications that took place during a hunt. Otherwise, Brandon and I could be in real trouble....
“And this is a list of all of the buildings, what time they were cleared, and by whom.” My mom indicated a separate stack. “These are my notes. It looks to me like they checked every building.” She shrugged, ran her hand through her bangs and leaned back on the sofa.
“So Aaron thinks Holland’s headquarters is somewhere on this map?”
“Yes, I believe so,” Mom replied. “But if all of the buildings were cleared, that’s not possible is it?”
“I wouldn’t think so,” I replied, finishing off the last of my pizza pocket in one big bite. I wished I would’ve brought a napkin, but without one, my jeans would have to do. My mom made a tsking sound under her breath, but I ignored her, enthralled by the map now. I leaned forward and looked it over.
Immediately, something stood out to me. There was a large structure on the far northern end of the map, up toward the corner, and I thought I’d seen it somewhere before. The map was some sort of a rendering done by an architect or someone else skilled at drawing buildings, so I could tell which structure was which. I glanced down to the building where I’d killed my first Vampire and the movie theater next to it. I recognized the structures despite the fact that my view had been mostly from the roof. According to the scale on the map, this other building was about five miles away, so it was certainly in the zone that had been checked by the team. But it looked eerily similar to the building I’d seen in my dreams, so I was interested.
“What are you looking at?” Mom asked, leaning over with me.
“What is that building up there in the far right corner?”
She looked at a list of buildings she had and then replied, “Larundel—something like that. I’m not sure I’m saying it correctly.”
“What is it?” I asked, hoping she had a better explanation.
“I don’t know, honey. I only have names or addresses.”
The fact that the building had a name made me think it might be something. It was huge, so maybe it could be an estate with a name, but I doubted it. I checked the time. I’d need to leave in a minute, so I didn’t really have the time to look up what Larundel was. “Do you know at what point it was cleared?”
“Let me see.” My mom picked up her stack of communication logs and flipped through quickly. “Here it is.”
Rather than trying to explain, she handed it over. I glanced at it briefly and saw right off the bat there was a problem. “This is wrong,” I said with confidence. “There’s no way this is right.”
“My notes?” my mom asked, and I could tell I’d made her anxious.
“No, Mom. That part’s fine. What you have noted is exactly what the communication says. But it’s wrong. I’ll look at it again when I get over there. I’ve gotta go.”
“Okay,” she said, and I knew she wished I’d explain further, but I needed to check a few other things before I was certain that what I was seeing was as off as I thought it was. She carefully gathered up her work, stacking it in such a way that I could easily un-stack it without messing any of it up, and handed it to me. “Be careful with it, honey. Try not to get anything out of order. Oh, I hope I did it right.”
“Mom, if what I’m seeing is what I think I’m seeing, I’m sure you’ve given us exactly what we need.” I smiled reassuringly at her, and she nodded. It was too bad that the first taste of Aaron as a boss my mom had gotten was when he wasn’t himself at all. He might be demanding and want things a certain way, but she shouldn’t be scared of him.
She headed toward the door and pulled it open for me so I didn’t have to worry about dropping anything, which I appreciated. “I’ll be back.”
“All right. Have fun.”
I nodded, calling the elevator with my IAC, trying not to laugh at my mom’s last comment. “Fun” wasn’t quite how I’d put it, but then, I was excited to let Aaron and Cadence know what I’d seen in the notes.
Brandon was waiting for me in the lobby. He’d let me know to expect him there, and I was glad that someone would be able to open the doors for me. “Hey, what in the world is that?” he asked, pushing open the door to the outside.
“This is Liz Findley’s first assignment,” I replied, knowing that wasn’t exactly accurate. She had made reservations and things like that before.
“Looks... confusing.” He only glanced over the top of the stack, but I had to agree with him.
“I think... I know where Holland’s lair is.”
“Shut up.”
“Yep. I need to look at it again, but I have an idea we missed something.”
“Wow.” He walked along beside me in silence for a moment before he added, “Clearly, we missed something, but the fact that your mom found it....”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far. I found it. She just laid it out in front of me.”
“Oh, well, then, pardon me,” he replied with snarky tone. “I wouldn’t want to take anything away from you, your brilliance.”
I snickered. That’s not what I’d meant, even though I supposed it had come across that way. “Speaking of brilliant, how was your algebra test.”
“You weren’t kidding. That sucker was hard.” He pulled open the door to the building that housed Cadence and Aaron’s office. “I was lost on a few of them.”
“Yep. And what did you get?”
“You know, that’s not important. What is important is that you got a B, which is great.”
“I did?” I hadn’t even bothered to check. I felt a weight lift off of my shoulders. I was
certain I had gotten a C or worse.
“Yep. Solid eighty-two percent.”
That was barely a B, but I’d take it. “And you got...?”
“Not important.” He called the elevator, and I continued to stare at him. “I did a little
better.”
“Of course you did. Brandon, I’m okay with the fact that you’re better at math than me,” I assured him. “What did you get?”
“Uh, a ninety-eight,” he said quietly.
I felt my eyes widen. “Yeah, it was real hard.” I walked into the elevator, wishing I had a free hand so I could smack him.
“It was,” he insisted. “I’m just a good guesser.”
“Whatever.” The elevator was heading up to the top floor where their office was located. “I am proud of you. Good job.”
“Thank you. I’m proud of you, too. You aren’t bad at math, Cass. Just because it isn’t a shining star subject for you doesn’t mean you’re bad at it.”
This wasn’t the first time he’d pointed this out. The last thing I wanted to talk about was math. “I know.” I just hated the idea that I wasn’t great at everything. If there was a way I could improve myself, I wanted to take it. My thoughts immediately went to the Transformation serum and how it seemed to enhance every positive aspect of everyone who’d taken another dose, and I wondered if I’d ever get my chance to see how it worked on me.
