Chapter 43
My mind was so full of questions, I wasn’t sure which to ask. I knew there were certain things he wouldn’t be able to tell me, and I didn’t want to waste my one question on something he couldn’t reveal. After careful consideration, I took a deep breath and asked, “How old are you?”
“Cassidy, if I tell you that, it’s just going to open a whole ‘nother can of worms and lots more questions.”
“That’s okay,” I said, feeling like his non-answer was actually good information to have. “I won’t ask you anything else today, and I’ll wait for you to call me again before I ask you anything more. Come on, Elliott. Aaron can’t get mad at you for telling me how old you are, can he? I mean… it’s a simple question. Like, you can ask me, and I’ll tell you I’m fifteen.”
“Yes, he can get mad at me,” Elliott replied. “He can get very mad at me.”
“He’s not going to fire you, is he? Aren’t you pretty important to your organization?”
Silence filled my ear. I tried not to breathe too loudly into the phone. “I have to go, Cass.”
“Please?”
“Cass….”
“PLEASE?” Apparently, I was not above begging.
There was a growl I hoped I never encountered in a dark alley. “Fine. I’m… seventy-five. And I have to go.”
The phone clicked dead in my hand and I let it slip out of my fingers onto the sofa. My mouth hung open for a really long while, and I was oblivious to my friends calling my name.
“Cass-i-dy?” Lucy said, pulling on my shoulder.
I turned to face them, still in a fog. “He’s seventy-five…” I mumbled.
“What’s that now?” Emma asked. She didn’t seem quite as alarmed as Lucy.
I swallowed hard and pressed on my temples with both hands. “He finally answered me. He said he’s seventy-five.”
“Years old?” Lucy clarified. “He’s seventy-five years old?”
“That’s what he said.”
“Great googly moogly,” Emma whispered. “How in the how?”
“I don’t know.”
We sat in silence for a very long time, and I almost wished I hadn’t asked. There was no way in the world the man that I had spoken to in person twice now who looked like he was in his mid-twenties, early thirties at best, could possibly be seventy-five freaking years old. No way. But why would he lie about that? Just to freak me out?
Lucy snapped out of it first. “Okay. Tell us what else he said so I can add it to my notes and the Wiki.”
I wanted to, but my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth. I grabbed my bottle of water off of the floor and downed a whole bunch of it before I started filling them in on the other side of the conversation. Talking about Jack was hard. I was concerned for him. Lucy took a lot of notes and then started putting them into her computer. I thought I should be writing this information down, too, but I didn’t want to, not right now. It had occurred to me that the only reason I had been writing everything down was to share with them and to make sure that if Elliott did anything to my brain, I could remember, but then, I knew now he wasn’t going to do that anymore. If I had never written the notes in the first place, to keep track of things and share them with my girls, I would likely be in a brainwashing-induced stupor without a care in the world. Presently, I wasn’t sure what was worse—knowing or not having a clue.
Lucy was just about done with her notes when my phone buzzed that I had a text. It was from Elliott. “You okay, lil girl?”
I was sure he knew how much he’d freaked me out. But I couldn’t tell him that. “Yep. Just fine, gramps.” I hoped he would know I was messing with him.
“Ha ha. You’re too cute. Don’t ever call me that again.”
I wanted to ask if what he told me was real, or if he was just messing with me, and something told me that if I pressed the issue and let him know how weirded out I was, he would deny it and say he was just joking around, which wouldn’t be too hard to believe considering how much he liked to do just that. But I wasn’t going to go there. I knew what I knew, and he’d have to be okay with it. And so would Aaron. Which reminded me of something else Elliott had said. “At least you’re not as old as your boss.”
“True,” he replied. “Or dirt.”
Not having any idea how old Aaron was, and not wanting to ask, I decided to let him off the hook. I’d had enough revelations for one day. “Have a safe flight to Paris.”
“Thanks. I promise we’ll chat when I get back. Just keep this convo to yourself, okay?”
I assumed he meant not to tell my parents or Cadence we were talking since it wasn’t likely I’d be seeing or speaking to Aaron any time soon. “Will do.” It was a promise I intended to keep, except for the other two ladies in the room. It was too late for that.
“And tell Lucy and Emma I said hi. They’ll know what it means.”
With that, I started laughing hysterically. It wasn’t that funny of a joke—of course they’d know what the word “hi” means. But the fact that he knew I was with them, that I’d already told them everything he said, spoke volumes to me. I got the idea he was crossing a few boundaries he wasn’t supposed to in letting me know what little parts of the truth he could reveal, and I appreciated it. Why he would take this sort of risk was beyond me, but the more I got to know Dr. Elliott Sanderson, the more I liked him. Whoever, or whatever, he was.
