“Actually…” Detective Bright waved for Chrissy to take the last empty seat by me, as we all sat. Her tone turned businesslike. “That’s why you’re here.”
Consider the mic dropped.
The guys who tried to kidnap me, the cops being so insistent and pushy, the fact that my mom was already in an interview room and not at the police station—everything started piecing together.
My mom was wrecked, but was sighing about a delusion that would never happen.
She was worried, but she wasn’t confused.
I frowned, mulling it over. “Those guys wanted me for a reason.” I didn’t know if I dared look to the side, but … “I don’t remember the whole thing, but they mentioned my father.”
Chrissy sucked in some air.
And I was tense. I was so tense. What did that mean?
I looked now. “They mentioned my dad.”
She wasn’t looking at me. That told me a whole lot, maybe too much.
My voice dropped low. “You said he was in the military, that he died overseas.”
She mashed her lips together. That was it.
My stomach flipped over, knotting. I kept on. “You had Barney tell me about him. Pike. Masteron.” There were others too, all friends of my mom at the VFW. And I was replaying some of those times when they told stories about him, all the shifting in the seats. All the looks they gave each other, not knowing I saw it too. The small tugs at their mouths, like they were uncomfortable, or how they watched my mom when she was in the room with all of us.
How she told me his name wouldn’t be in any computer database because he would be in classified files.
How he was estranged from his family.
How there were no pictures of him because she said she destroyed them in a fit of rage one time while she was grieving him.
She had a flag folded up in a display case.
Detective Bright sat back on her chair, drawing our attention. She folded her arms over her chest. She was eyeing my mom, her head turned almost sideways, then let her arms drop. “You’re very smart, Bailey.”
Before I had a second to digest that statement, she pushed forward. “You were brought here because those men didn’t want you to work on some software code. They tried to kidnap you.” She paused.
I was doing the math.
Bright was silent. One second.
A kidnapping attempt.
Bright’s eyes shifted, staying on my mother.
They mentioned my father.
Chrissy’s head lowered, her gaze falling to her lap. Bright pursed her lips together once again, in disapproval.
We were at Phoenix Tech.
“Why are we here again?” My voice was hoarse. “Why not the police station? Why not somewhere else?”
Bright was waiting. She knew I was putting it together.
All those scholarships.
The way my brain worked.
Only 2 to 15 percent of all children have a photographic memory, and an even lower percentage retain it into adulthood, but I had it. And I knew one other person who had it. His face and name were plastered everywhere—websites, magazine covers, documentaries.
He had dark hair that, in a small group of photographs, looked like it had a bluish tint to it. The details might have been missed. But I was savvy with the computer, and he was my childhood idol growing up. I was obsessed with learning as many facts about him as I could—another computer genius who worked with the government and ran a Fortune 500 empire that specialized in computer security.
There was a lock unlocking.
Click.
Click.
It connected, one last, final, and resounding click into place.
Detective Bright broke the silence. “You were taken because your birth father is—”
I spoke at the same time as her, and together we said his name. “Peter Francis.”
Peter Francis was the CEO of Phoenix Tech.
THREE
Bright’s voice was emotionless, cold almost. “My partner and I are here as a personal favor to your father. We’ve done work with him before and are familiar with your case.”
Father. I had a father. Not the one I thought I had, but someone else. Someone new. Someone powerful. Of course he’d want to be cautious.
There was a camera pointing at us from the corner of the room.
Bright cleared her throat. “You’re here as a precaution.”
“For what?”
She didn’t answer, watching me a moment before her eyes slid toward my mother.
I couldn’t follow. I couldn’t look at her. If I did, if I spoke to her, I’d lose it.
She had lied. All this time.
Chrissy Hayes raised me right. Violence was bad, unless defending yourself. And even though it felt like someone was attacking me at the moment, I was too shocked to do much except sit here, pretend I was a fully functioning human at the moment.
But.
Holy effin shit.
Peter Francis.
“Honey.” Chrissy knew it was her turn to step up to the plate. I had to give credit to her survival instincts. Her voice was starting quiet, all demure like.
I couldn’t look at her, but my voice dropped low. Hoarse. “You gave me my first Computer Weekly in fourth grade. I found it early. It was supposed to be a Christmas gift, but you gave it to me anyway. You special ordered it from the UK.” I remembered the feel of it, how much it weighed, how it felt like the clouds parted and choir music started singing. “They did an article on him. November twelfth.” I saw his picture, how black his hair was, how he had honey-brown eyes too, but they were covered by glasses. “I can tell you the journalist’s name, the byline under it. ‘Computer Genius, Peter Francis.’”
“Honey.”
I was not done. Not now, when I was just starting.
My voice matched Bright’s, emotionless and monotone. “I have two uncles, one in California. The other in New York. Both work in Phoenix Tech branches. Four cousins to the California one. Another cousin in New York. Two half brothers. One half sister. He has an estate on the outskirts of Chicago, in Ashwick.”
Which was an hour from where I lived.
I looked. I had to.
My mom was looking down at her lap, her hands twisting around the sleeve ends, and after her chest rose and fell once, she lifted her head.
Still no words. Fine. I could keep going.
“You said you worked for him one time.” Fifth grade. She told me over the phone, when I asked if I could join the computer club. They had an extracurricular program. “I nearly crapped my pants when you told me.”
“I took care of his mother when I was in nursing school. In Saint Louis.”
“I asked if you met him.” My voice rose, same as my blood had. “I asked you. You said no!”
“I didn’t say that…” But she looked away, because she had, and she knew she had.
“Okay. Let’s pause for a moment.” Bright held up a hand. She was wincing. “You’re shouting.”
I hadn’t realized.
I didn’t care.
I wrote my application essay on my father, the father that was a goddamn lie. I thought he served in the military, and I wanted to show my respect in my own way. But it was a lie.
Calm. I needed to be calm. Calm was mature. I was twenty-two. I could be calm.
Screw it. I couldn’t be calm.