Cassidy Jones and the Secret Formula (18 page)

“Who told you to look the other way?”

“Conlin, Drammeh, Captain Woodrow…I don’t know how far up the ladder this goes. I think it goes high, real high…Drake, I want to stop them, but I don’t know how.”

Dad let out a long breath.

“With the cover-up, soon every lead we have in finding Serena Phillips will be gone. I don’t know who to go to. No one can be trusted on the force…Will you help me?”

“Yes, Paul, I will.”

“Cassy, are you under a spell?” Chazz anxiously asked, breaking the connection to the living room.

I smiled at him. “No, buddy. Just thinking.”

As Chazz turned back to his plate, I looked at Emery. He had been watching me. Frowning, I nodded to let him know it was not good, not good at all.

~~~

I’m calling this “the day that doesn’t want to end
,” I thought while listening to Emery creep down the hall. It was eleven-thirty p.m. He was sneaking out to do surveillance with Mickey and I was stationed in my room, monitoring the household. What a joke.

An hour and a half earlier, while we were all supposedly preparing for bed, I had slipped Emery the spare front door key. “You don’t need it, though,” I told him. “I’m going to wait up for you in the living room. I’ll let you in.”

“No, I want you to stay in your room,” he said, all authoritative-like. “If your parents should catch me, I don’t want it to appear you were involved. From your room, you can monitor the household for me. If someone should hear me leave or return, you can create a distraction and cover me that way.”

I started to argue, and then he threw my words back in my face. “Cassidy, you said you wanted to help. This is how you can help me.”

So, here I was. Helping.

The front door creaked open, and I heard an engine idling out front. Then the door quietly closed.

“Forget this,” I said to myself, springing out of bed. Within a second, I was at the front living room window, peeking through the drapes.

Emery climbed into the passenger seat of a Jeep Cherokee. Streetlight spilled over the car, but didn’t reveal the driver in the dark cab. I could only make out Mickey’s brawny silhouette.

“I can do better than this,” I mumbled, playing with my vision. I felt my pupils expand, absorbing available light, and I made an ability discovery: I had awesome night vision. As Emery began to pull the car door shut, Mickey’s shadowy outline became clear as day. My heart skipped a beat as I took him in.

Mickey’s name was deceiving. A street name such as Snake or Sledge would have been more fitting. He wore a brown leather biker’s vest and had a fierce dragon tattoo slithering down his thick, freckled arm. It spewed yellow fire at an aqua circle made up of interlocking knots. His shock of red hair was spiked in a short Mohawk, and a devilish grin split his whiskery face. A thin scar slashed across his right cheek.
A souvenir from a knife
fight
, I assumed.

“Where’d you meet this guy, Emery? Prison?” I whispered to myself. My stomach felt as though it had dropped several inches.

The Jeep drove off, and Emery’s straight-laced image went with it, or maybe that had flown out the window when he hacked into Wallingford’s computer. I recalled my initial gut feeling of Emery, and now knew without a doubt that there was much more to him than met the eye.

The difference between then and now, of course, was that this enigma was now my friend.

Emery, Emery. What have you gotten yourself into
?
I agonized, pacing the living room floor. Between hand-wringing and the strange energy swirling in my chest, I felt ready to implode or swim across Elliot Bay. Either way, I had to ease the pressure — immediately. Clearing a space in the living room by pushing the wingback chairs and coffee table next to the sofa, I started with jumping jacks.

My arms and legs moved in rapid synchronization, my feet barely touching the floor. The swish of my pajama bottoms and sweatshirt were the only sounds I made. I was sure if anyone witnessed me, I would look like an exercise video playing in fast-forward. I kept this up until I felt calmer, until the frenzy in my chest was tempered. Even then, I still had energy to burn.

Having always been envious of gymnasts and the amazing physical feats they could perform, I decided to try a handstand
.
Simple enough.
Okay, here it goes
, I thought, bending forward and kicking up. My palms planted into the area rug and my legs pulled up with ease, creating a straight, solid line. Delighted, I held the position for minutes without even a hint of weakening or imbalance. Then I got creative. Keeping my spine straight and arms solid, my legs slowly separated into side splits. My legs dropped until my pointed toes touched the floor.
I’m like Gumby
, I thought in amazement, dropping my backside so my straddled legs lifted up. Holding the position, I waited for my muscles to cramp and give out. They never did. Eventually, I steadily lowered my legs and rear to the floor and then sprung to my feet, inspired. From that point on, I found there wasn’t a challenging move or weird body contortion I could think up that I couldn’t perform agilely.
Pretty sweet for a girl who could only do a noodle-leg cartwheel three
days ago
, I thought, springing front flips across the floor, enjoying the moment.

Soon I became so engrossed in my discovery that I completely forgot why I was performing gymnastic routines in the dark, until the Jeep pulled up to the curb.
That didn’t take long
, I thought, flipping lightly onto my feet from a back handspring. Landing in front of the fireplace, I glanced at the mantel clock in surprise. It was one-thirty in the morning. I’d been flipping, jumping, springing, and twisting for two hours.

I peeked out the window. Relief flooded me when I saw Emery climb out of the car unscathed, slinging a black backpack over his shoulder. I raced to the front door and unlocked it. When I heard the Jeep drive away, I began to slowly pull the door open. Emery’s feet paused on the porch until he saw my face, smiling big to greet him. He greeted me with a frown, equally as big.

“If we were in the military, I’d make you drop down and give me twenty,” he whispered humorlessly, stepping through the doorway.

“Twenty pushups?” I whispered back eagerly. “I’ll do it right now.”

He gave me a funny look. “Are you feeling a little…energetic?”

“A little,” I admitted, closing the door. “I worked most of it off while you were gone.”

The funny look held. “Worked it off?”

I bobbed my head. “Here, I’ll show you.” As I excitedly moved toward the living room, my thoughts swung back on track. I spun around to Emery and demanded in a whisper, “Where’d you meet that guy?”

The house creaked.

Emery’s eyes shot to the stairs.

“Everyone’s asleep,” I assured him, pointing to my ears. “I’m paying attention. Now how do you know Mickey?”

“I met him through Riley,” Emery said, grabbing my arm. “I don’t want to talk in the open.” He ushered me into the living room, maneuvering me to the wall. “From here we can’t be seen, but can get up the stairs quickly if someone should come down,” he explained, releasing me.

“Don’t you ever stop thinking?” I teased.

“That wouldn’t be wise when I’m sneaking in and out of houses in the middle of the night,” he stated matter-of-factly. Coming from anyone else, a statement like this would have sounded sarcastic.

I fingered the backpack strap. “What’s this?”

“My bag of tricks,” he answered, a sparkle in his eyes. “Mickey put it together for me.”

“Bag of tricks” was certainly intriguing. However, Emery’s questionable taste in friends was foremost on my mind. “And Mickey? Is he all right? He looks kinda rough.”

“Rough, but a very good man,” he assured, staring at me strangely. I could almost hear thoughts clicking off in his head. “Cassidy, you do everything backwards,” he told me. “Aren’t you curious about what happened tonight?”

My cheeks heated up. He hadn’t meant to embarrass me, but he did. Trying to save face, I replied, inserting sharpness into my voice, “Of course I am. I’m assuming since my parents aren’t picking you up from jail that you didn’t get caught.”

He smiled apologetically. “No, Heart was unaware of the stakeout,” he confirmed, savvy enough not to mention the humiliation he had caused. Then he dutifully began his report. “She does live at the address listed in her records. Her residence is a little over a mile from your house. As far as we could tell, she lives alone, and she had no visitors during the evening.”

“And you got the tracking device on her car?”

“Yes, and I’ve loaded the software into my phone. When her car moves, my phone will alert me, as though I’m receiving an incoming call. I’ll be able to track where she goes.”

“Well, good,” I said lamely. Emery’s dauntless self-reliance had me thunderstruck once again. “I can’t believe you’re my age.”

He smiled. “What did you want to show me?”

My face burst into a beaming smile. “Oh, yeah!” I quietly exclaimed. “While I was waiting for you, I decided to figure out what I can do.” I stepped away from the wall and moved into the entrance to the living room, facing the foyer. “This is what I can do.”

Swinging my arms down and then forward, I sprung backwards. My palms pressed to the floor and I pushed off, doing a somersault with a twist high in the air, landing on my feet. Smiling proudly, I pivoted around to Emery. His mouth hung open.

“That was…fast,” he said, adjusting his glasses. He didn’t look impressed, though. He looked worried. “Cassidy, do you remember our discussion about your returning to school tomorrow, or later this morning, rather?”

“The discussion where you told me to resist using my abilities because it would be too easy to cross the line?” I replied, sidling up to him, smiling. “The one where I told you resisting wouldn’t be a problem because I have no intention of revealing my ‘mutant-ness’ to my friends?”

He smiled, too. “Yes, that one.”

“Well, you have nothing to worry about,” I assured him. “I can control this. With the exception of smell, it’s all voluntary.”

Emery didn’t look convinced, which sparked my temper.

“You’re harnessing a lot of power,” he pointed out.

“I can handle it!” I snapped loudly.

My parent’s bedroom door opened. Emery’s hand flew over my mouth.

“Go to the stairs,” he commanded in my ear as the upstairs hall light flipped on, washing down the stairwell. Feet padded down the hall. My sense of smell and the heaviness of the footfall told me it was Dad. Emery’s next instructions showed he, too, knew my dad was checking out the disturbance. “Tell him you came down for a glass of water.”

I nodded, feeling like a total idiot. Whatever confidence Emery had in my “harnessing” ability, I had just dashed away. He released my mouth, and I darted for the stairs. Taking a deep breath, I began to unhurriedly climb the steps. Dad appeared at the top.

“Hi,” I whispered to him. “I just came down for a glass of water.”

“I thought I heard yelling,” he said, with that look someone has when they’ve been startled out of sleep.

“Sorry. I stubbed my toe,” I fibbed, knowing this was one lie of many more to come.

He kissed my head. “Go back to bed, sweetheart.”

“Night, Dad,” I whispered, opening my bedroom door.

He hadn’t noticed my door had been closed.

Twelve