Chapter 42
My phone was ringing again. With a sigh I looked down at it and then held my breath for a second before I managed to pick it up and swipe. “Hello?”
“Cassidy?”
“Hi, Dr. Sanderson,” I said, mostly for my friends’ benefits. They both froze and put their laptops aside again.
“I was just calling to check on you, lil girl. How are you doing?”
“Fine,” I muttered. What are the chances he would be calling to check in on me just a few minutes after my sister told me about Jack and that she’s going to Paris? I didn’t think this was a coincidence.
“You been leavin’ well enough alone?” he asked. I glanced down at my computer, which was currently pulled up to the vampire website.
“Uh, yeah,” I said, glancing over my shoulder out Lucy’s window. Could he see me?
“Good.” His tone conveyed that he might possibly believe me. “Remember what I told you about letting all of this go, Cassidy. There ain’t no sense in you tryin’ to figure out a bunch of stuff that doesn’t concern you.”
“Okay.” What else could I say?
“We’re taking a little trip and will be pretty busy for the next few days, but once we get back, I’m going to come and visit you again, okay? I know you’re a little confused about all of this, and I’m happy to tell you what I can, but between now and then, just let it be. All right?”
“Sure.” I hoped my voice sounded compliant. Maybe he was right. Maybe I should just let all of this go. I mean, if I wasn’t going to find any answers anyway, maybe it would make more sense for me to concentrate on what was going on at school, or Wes’s birthday party, or Christmas, which would be here in a few weeks. Why was I bothering with all of this? “Wait,” I said, shaking my head to clear it, “does your voodoo stuff work over the phone?”
“Huh?” he asked, “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I’ve been leaving everything alone anyhow, but… while you were talking, I was thinking about why I should leave all of it alone and go on with my life before everything got all weird, like you were planting ideas in my head again.”
He snickered. “Nah, I wasn’t doing anything.”
I could tell by the way he said it he was lying. “Look, if this is one of those things you can be honest with me about, then maybe you should.”
“Okay, fine. Maybe a little.”
I wanted to reach through the phone and smack him, but I figured even if I could do so, I would just hurt my hand. “Someday, when I’m older, will you tell me how you do that?” I figured since everyone else was talking about me waiting until I was older for everything, I may as well qualify my statement, too.
“Sure. Look, I’m doing everything I can to try to get things back to normal for you, Cass. Including trying to convince Cadence that this isn’t the job for her. I know how important it is for you to have her back at home, or at least at school. So, just know when I said the other day I thought she wouldn’t be here for too long, I meant it. I’m just not sure what’s going to happen.”
I wondered if that was part of the reason Cadence sounded so off, although I would think the fact that Jack was so sick, and she was having to leave would be enough. “Does she like her job?” I asked, hoping Elliott wasn’t doing anything on my account if Cadence liked what she was doing.
“It’s too early to say,” he replied.
“Is she good at it?”
“Uh… I don’t know.” His voice betrayed him, though. He didn’t seem to think my sister was a good match for their business. Maybe that was a good thing. If my sister was bad at being a vampire, maybe she could pretend to be human. If that’s what her job was…. “I have to go, Cass. I hope I didn’t interrupt anything too important.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I wasn’t sure if you even knew I’d put my number in your phone. You can call me if you need to. I’d rather you called me if you have a question than go digging around. Stop doing that.”
“But you don’t answer any of my questions,” I reminded him.
“I answer the ones I can.”
“Not the really important ones.” I don’t know why I was being so bold right now. It might’ve been because I was on the phone rather than face-to-face with the man who was large enough to crush my skull between his palms if he wanted to.
Elliott cleared his throat. “I answer the ones I can,” he repeated. “I’ll answer more when I can answer more.”
“When I’m older?”
“Yep.”
I was frustrated now. “Well, that doesn’t do me a lot of good now, does it?”
“Just don’t be trying to find things out, Cass. There isn’t any info out there, like I told you before, and you’ll end up more confused and possibly get yourself into trouble.”
The last part definitely sounded like a warning. “Okay,” I said quietly. “Why are you going to Paris?” I wondered if he’d tell me the same thing my sister did.
“Work.”
“What kind of work?”
“The very important kind.”
“Is my sister in any danger?”
“Probably not.”
I didn’t like that answer. “Do you know what’s wrong with Jack?”
“Jack who?”
“Jack and Jill. Who do you think?” I was becoming a tad irritated.
He laughed. “No. I heard he’s sick. Probably Man Flu. It can be pretty severe, I hear. Luckily, I never catch it.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle at the seriousness of his tone, even if it didn’t match the words he was saying. When I realized we were laughing at Jack, who could be very sick, I straightened up. “If you find out what’s wrong with him, will you tell me?”
“Sure,” he said, but I didn’t believe him. “Okay, I really have to go now.”
I didn’t want him to hang up. I felt like he was a lifeline to the truth, and the second the phone clicked off, I’d be scrambling through the unknown again, drowning in a black abyss. “Elliott,” I said, trying to keep the urgency out of my voice. “Will you please just answer one simple question for me? I promise not to make it any more complicated than it has to be, and it won’t even be something you should get in trouble for telling me.”
He was quiet for longer than I expected. Finally, he said, “I will tell you what I can, if I can. What is it?”
