Cassidy Jones and the Secret Formula (36 page)

“See you soon, Dad,” I whispered, turning on my heels and heading homeward.

Twenty-Three

“Cassy, Dad’s coming home!”

Nate’s announcement reverberated through my head, which felt made of lead—or maybe it felt mushy, I couldn’t figure out which.

Dropping my forearm over my eyes, I cheered in a groan, “Yay.” When my pathetic cheer got no response, I realized the announcer had already left, his feet bounding down the stairs. Peeking out from behind my arm, I saw that
3:35
glowed on the alarm clock next to me. No wonder I was having trouble shaking myself out of this stupor. I had only made it to bed a little over an hour ago.

The front door opened, and a full-hearted cheer broke out. Suddenly in the here-and-now, I popped out of bed, squealing, “Dad’s home.” Flying out of my room to the staircase, I watched the heartwarming scene below. My teary-eyed father tightly embraced my joyfully weeping mother, and Chazz wrapped his arms around their legs. Dad’s left arm released Mom to pull Nate into the family hug. At the open front door, Detective Conlin watched the reunion with a tear in his eye, and Ben leaned against the stair banister, grinning from ear to ear, enjoying the picture-perfect moment. There was only one thing missing.

Bounding down the stairs, I paused to hug Ben. The last time I’d seen him, he had been gagged and blindfolded. Throwing my arms around his neck, I thought,
I know what you did, brave Ben. I’ll never forget it.

In my ear, Ben whispered, choking up, “I know, I’m happy, too. Go see your dad.”

Releasing his neck, I smiled up at him. Ben returned my smile with his sunny one, the worry lines gone from his forehead. His eyes welled with happy tears. “Go,” he urged, playfully shoving me. “Before I start bawling.”

Not needing to be told a second time, I ran into my dad’s arms, which had just opened up for me. After a tight embrace, Dad cupped my face in his hands, searching my eyes.

Hoping my eyes looked innocent, I smiled up at him. “I love you, Daddy.”

The concern on his face gave way to the loving expression I knew so well, the way my dad usually looked at me. Kissing the bandage on my forehead, he said, “I love you, too, sweetheart.”

Detective Conlin cleared his throat. “Well, Jones family, this has been a long night for you. Drake, my friend—” He extended his hand toward Dad.

Dad grabbed his hand. “Bob, I can’t thank you enough.”

Stepping over to him, Mom gave the detective a quick hug. “Thank you, Bob. Forgive me for not trusting you.”

He smiled regretfully. “No need to apologize. Reed snookered us all.” The detective ran his fingers through his thin hair. “He really tangled up this investigation. It’s going to be quite a mess to clean up. Thank heavens Emery left the map in Drake’s printer, or we wouldn’t have had any clue where to look for him. If he hadn’t, things would have worked out a lot differently.”

Interesting
, I thought.
Emery left directions. He must not have been convinced the
detectives were bad
.
Either way, it would have worked out. We had everything under control by the time the police arrived
. As if a cloud passed, I saw my predicament in a new light. If Formula 10X hadn’t changed me, everything would have still happened just the same. Professor Phillips would have still been kidnapped, Emery would have still come to stay with us, Dad would have still gone to King Pharmaceutical and been kidnapped, and we wouldn’t have had the happy ending we had now. My accident had saved all of them.

Detective Conlin gripped Dad’s shoulder. “Drake, get some rest, and I’ll see you at the station later this morning. I’m going home myself for a few hours, since King and his crew have declined to talk until their lawyers show up. Fine with me. I could use some sleep before jumping into that circus.”

As the detective turned to leave, Ben spoke up. “Wait up, Bob, I have something for you in my car.”

A smile froze on my face to cover the panic.

Ben hugged Dad. “Good to see you, man. What I’m about to tell the good detective, you and I will talk about later, okay?” Patting Dad’s back, Ben informed Detective Conlin, “I’ve got the kidnappers’ guns in my car.”

Everyone gasped.

Shocked, Dad began, “Ben, wh—”

Pointing at him and grinning, Ben repeated, “
Later
, Drake.” Turning to the detective, he added, “I don’t think they’ve been wiped. You should be able to lift good prints.”

I gulped.

As they walked out, the clever detective said to Ben, “I didn’t take you for a cat
guy.”

Closing the door, Ben laughed. “Yeah, Bob, I don’t own cats. I can hardly afford to feed myself.”

Staring at the door, Dad said to himself, “What did that kid get himself involved in?”

Hugging him, Mom mimicked Ben. “
Later
, Drake.” She kissed his cheek. “Let’s get you to bed before you have to go back to the station.” Waving her hand toward the stairs, she added, “Everyone back to bed. We’ll talk after Dad gets sleep.”

Tromping up the stairs, Dad held Chazz. Nestling his nose in Dad’s neck, he asked, yawning, “When do I have to get up for school?”

Dad kissed his ear. “No school today, son. You all get the day off.” He looked back at Nate and me. “Remember to stay away from the windows. Those pesky reporters will be showing up soon.” He chuckled. “It’ll be a media zoo for us and the Phillipses for a day or so.” At the top of the stairs, he asked me, “Cass, can Chazz bunk with you?”

“Sure,” I said as Dad put my tired brother on his feet.

Bending over, he whispered in Chazz’s ear. “When you wake up, I’ll tell you about the ninja that saved your daddy’s life.”

“Okay,” Chazz whispered back, nodding enthusiastically.

Wrestling a grin off my face, I wondered at what point Dad had decided I was a good ninja assassin. Go figure.

After another round of hugs, I took Chazz by the hand, leading him to my room.

As I flipped on the light switch in my room, Chazz cried, “My Spidey pillow! It’s in Nate’s room.” He said this like the sky was falling.

“I’ll get it, Chazz. You climb in my bed.” Crossing the hall to Nate’s room, I knocked on his door. There was no answer. Knocking again, I opened the door, “Nate, Ch—” The pillow hit me square in the face. I couldn’t believe I didn’t see that one coming.

Reclining on his bed, Nate impishly grinned at me. “Anything else?”

“No. Sweet dreams.” I stuck my tongue out at him as I closed the door.

Stepping through my door, I froze. Sitting on the floor, Chazz held in his lap the ninja costume that I had piled against my wall, along with other clothing evidence. Wide-eyed, he examined the tear from the star dagger. I noticed next to him were muddy footprints, trailing from the window to the bed. That explained the gritty feeling at the bottom of my sheets.

Thinking fast, I asked lightly, “Now, how did Nate’s costume get in here? Did you bring it in?”

He frowned. “Yeah.”

The kid totally threw me off.

“Well, here’s your pillow, Chazzy,” I said too cheerfully. “Let’s go to bed.” Turning to the bed, I saw a purple stain where I had pressed my face against the fitted sheet. Placing Chazz’s pillow quickly over the stain, I glanced at him to see if he had noticed. He hadn’t. He was too busy examining the muddy footprints on the carpet. “Come on, Chazz, in bed.”

Without looking at me, he walked past me and climbed into bed, turning to his side. After staring at his back for a moment, I climbed into bed, switching off the light on the nightstand. At a loss for words, I lay on my back, staring up at the ceiling.

Turning to me, Chazz rested his head on my shoulder. “Thank you, Cassy,” he whispered.

I responded carefully, “You’re welcome. I like it when you sleep in here, too.” I tensed, waiting for a response.

“Night,” he yawned, snuggling closer. Within seconds, he fell asleep.

Nestling my cheek in his hair, I continued staring at the ceiling, mulling over the night’s events. Of all the troubling things that had happened, from bloodied gladiators to guns with my fingerprints, the thing most disturbing was returning from the dead. The dying didn’t distress me, nor did what occurred afterward; it was being pulled back here that caused angst.
Does the quick healing make me immortal
? I wondered.
Will I be immortally fourteen
?
Gads!
The thought brought tears to my eyes.

Though the thought of being forever fourteen was horrid, even more tormenting was the idea that I would stay the same while everyone else aged and eventually left me.

The tears streaming down my face dampened Chazz’s hair, but I couldn’t bear moving away from him. In my grief, a heaviness spread through me, making me feel I was sinking through the mattress to the floor. Finally giving in to the heaviness, I began to drift off.

Somewhere between wake and sleep, a quiet, still voice from within whispered,
Though your destiny is like no other, it will not be an unhappy one
.
You will not be alone
.

I fell into a deep, peaceful sleep.

Twenty-Four

Later that morning, Dad filled in some missing pieces to the complex puzzle before returning to the police station to give his official statement. What he told us, he said, was for our ears only and was never to go beyond our kitchen. While Professor Phillips and Dad were held captive, she’d explained to him what had motivated her abduction. “Assassin” had led to her kidnapping, but Assassin wasn’t a person, like I had assumed—it was a weapon.

Sixteen years earlier, Professor Phillips had headed a top-secret military program, developing a biological weapon called Assassin. If it had been successfully developed, Assassin would have been a virus that, when released, would pass rapidly from person to person, without displaying symptoms, until it made contact with its target’s DNA. Designed to rapidly attack and destroy cells and tissue, the virus would liquefy the target’s organs in less than an hour after exposure.

Professor Phillips had justified developing Assassin, believing that in the long run it would save lives, since the weapon only targeted certain individuals. However, her feelings about creating the weapon changed when she got wind of corruption in the program and feared Assassin would go to the highest bidder. The risk of developing a weapon of such magnitude was too great. In the wrong hands, Assassin could put the world at an evil individual’s feet.

Professor Phillips left the program, and it shut down. She told Dad she had destroyed the program’s research so no one else could pick up where she left off. From that point on, she had dedicated her profession to helping others, making up for what she called her “destructive past.” She had successfully buried that past, until Arthur King resurrected it. His motivation in abducting her was obvious: he wanted to become “King of the World.”

King didn’t have to dig deep to turn up Professor Phillips’s past. His father, Arthur King Senior, had also been involved in the program. Later that day, I Googled King’s father and discovered that he had been killed in a private plane crash eleven years earlier. According to his brief bio, King Sr., a scientist and business tycoon, had founded King Pharmaceutical thirty years ago, among other successful corporations. His entire fortune had been left to his only heir: his son.

Another piece added to the puzzle was King’s motivation for kidnapping Dad. When Dad took the phone call outside King’s office in front of the photo wall, King assumed Dad had recognized one of the employee photos, Selma Heart, and had snapped a picture of it with the phone.