MILA 2.0: Redemption (10 page)

Beneath his fingers, my android heart fluttered.

“Some people, like my uncle, they don’t have that second kind of heart. The most important kind. Even animals have the first type. There’s nothing inherently special about that. It’s the second type that distinguishes us. Our capacity to love. To feel empathy. To grieve, and to give.”

When he paused, a vein throbbed in his temple, and his eyes blazed. As serious as he often was, I’d never seen him quite so intense.

“It’s not what we’re made of that makes us human. It’s our choices and our feelings that do,” he said. Slowly and deliberately. “And in that sense, you are a thousand times
more human than my uncle will ever be.”

Neither of us blinked. I wasn’t even sure I could if my life depended on it. Finally, he dropped his hands to the comforter and bowed his head. “Please don’t ever say that again.”

I continued to sit without moving. Just looking helplessly at the unruly hair on his bent head. Lucas had always made it clear that he appreciated me, but this was something more. This was unwavering faith. A precious gift.

He lifted his head, and his hazel eyes glistened. “Please,” he repeated.

I placed a tentative hand on his chest, mimicking his action a moment ago. “I won’t say it again. I promise. But only because I believe in your heart.”

His eyes burned torchlight bright. So bright that I could feel something in me simmer. Then his lashes swept down, and his gaze fell away from mine. “Then I guess that will have to be enough. For now.”

He captured my hand and gave it a final squeeze before rising. “So, are we sticking with the plan to visit Sonja tonight?”

I knew I should be relieved to be back to normal. Better than normal, in some ways, since I knew I would never be visited by another hologram from Holland. Then why did my chest ache with sudden loss? I wouldn’t have minded lingering longer with Lucas. But we couldn’t waste any
more time. Every moment we were in the dark about Holland’s plan, he could be hurting people. Killing them. Just like he had killed Quinn. And probably Sarah.

I nodded.

“Good. I’m going to run out and get a few things first. We could use a burner phone, for one. Any requests?”

“I’m good.”

When the door clicked shut behind him, I stared up at the ceiling for a long while before flipping on the TV. Cooking show. News. Horrible rock video. Teen romantic drama.

I paused on the last one with a spurt of guilt. I’d been thinking of Hunter less and less. With no way to communicate, he was beginning to slip from my mind.

I looked at my finger, considering. Lucas had said my IP address was now fully cloaked. Maybe I should test it out. Lucas hadn’t been able to track Hunter’s cell signal, but it couldn’t hurt to try again.

Within a minute of trying, I had it. My breathing slowed as I located the telltale blip on the map. Hunter wasn’t in San Diego or Clearwater or even Chicago, where I’d last seen him.

Columbus. He was in Columbus, Ohio.

A scant seven hours away.

I rose and paced the room, my thoughts
whir-whir-whir
ing in time to the ancient fan. Why was Hunter in Ohio? Was
that where his mom had found a safe house? But how safe could it be if I could track him so easily?

Speaking of tracking so easily . . . if I could do it, then why hadn’t Lucas?

The sinister thought wormed its way into my head. Maybe Lucas had. Maybe he had, and lied about it.

I stared at my reflection in the mirror, and my gaze settled on the upper portion of my chest. The left side. I lifted my hand, placing it where Lucas’s had been only minutes ago. I closed my eyes and inhaled, feeling my chest swell, and the rhythmic
thump-thump
of my android heart.

My hand fell away, and my eyes opened. I stared at my face, and saw a scared girl. A lonely girl who’d experienced more than her fair share of pain.

Lucas had stood by me through thick and thin. He’d never given me reason to doubt him. I wasn’t about to start now.

Returning to my spot on the bed, I flipped until I found a sitcom, and waited for Lucas to return.

S
onja Lopez’s neighborhood wasn’t much when compared to the serene suburbs of Sherman. Many of the lawns had been converted to gravel and hardscape, and older model cars dotted the driveways and streets. Very little charm, but the houses and duplexes were tidy for the most part. Practical.

An automatic light clicked on when Lucas and I approached the concrete walkway. My body tensed, the sudden change a reminder that any new place could trigger a death sentence for me and anyone else in a quarter-mile radius. But all was quiet as we walked toward her building. We passed a small patch of grass, where a lone tree grew amidst a clump of sodden wood chips. A cheerful wreath crafted from orange and yellow leaves hung from a scarred
and peeling front door, emitting a faint fragrance of sweet mixed with decay.

Lucas stepped onto the porch and the wooden board creaked beneath his shoe. My sensors picked up something unexpected.

Security system.

Video feed.

With a casual turn of my head, I spotted the camera, disguised as part of an outdoor light that shed a sickly glow over the porch. I elbowed Lucas lightly in the ribs to get his attention. When he turned toward me, I pretended to rub my nose.

“Video camera,” I whispered.

His eyes widened, mirroring my own surprise.

A security system didn’t seem out of place. But a video camera, in this neighborhood?

Weapons scan: 5 firearms within a 50-ft. radius.

Looked like someone was prepared for a break-in. Or an old Western-style shootout.

With Lucas standing so close our shoulders almost touched, I knocked on the door. A gruff response came from behind the door.

“Who’s there?”

I slapped what I hoped was a friendly smile on my face and recited our brief story, much as Lucas had at Maggie’s. To my surprise, a series of beeps chirped—the alarm,
disengaging—followed by the metallic clank of locks being unbolted.

The door eased open, revealing a medium-height, middle-aged woman. Though she had brown skin and a wide forehead like the Sonja in the photo, the similarities were hard to find after that. That Sonja had life in her eyes, and a healthy glow on her round cheeks. Her brown hair had been full and glossy.

The woman who gazed at us looked like a walking skeleton. Sunken cheeks on a face that somehow, despite her deeper skin tone, managed to look chalky. Her clothes hung on her bony frame, and her entire head was covered in a woolen beanie. A short plastic tube jutted from the loose collar of her T-shirt, and when she gestured for us to come in, she grabbed for a metal device with four legs and wheels. She pivoted the walker and shuffled behind it, her gray slippers scraping across the bare, worn floor. We followed her to a cramped seating area with a ratty couch and two chairs.

Seeing her so frail and beat down triggered memories of Quinn. Anger boiled, but I tried to keep it contained. Any whiff of awkwardness or tension could send up a red flag to someone like Sonja, who was trained as a detective. She was sure to observe minute details.

Sonja half sat, half collapsed onto the couch. Not sure what to do, Lucas and I hovered. She shoved the walker out of her way to kick her legs out, flicking her wrist at the
chairs. “Sorry, not much on manners these days. Sit.”

Lucas took the chair closest to her, but she ignored him. Her attention remained focused on me as I perched on the edge of the other chair.

I prepared to launch back into our spiel, but Sonja beat me to it.

“I knew this day would come,” she said, brown eyes unflinching. “I knew someone besides Edgar had to suspect what happened to that little girl. Your cousin.”

Finally.

“What did happen to her?” I asked.

Sonja squeezed her eyes shut, the air leeching from her lungs in a gasp. Her cough was a hacking, ravaged sound that made me cringe.

Lucas half rose in his chair, but she waved him back down. “Can I get you something? Water?” he said, once the spell had ended.

“Water won’t fix what I’ve got. Thank you, though.” She seemed to notice him for the first time, but she turned her attention back to me. “What happened to her? I wish I knew. But one thing’s for sure—someone sure as hell wanted to make sure there weren’t any questions.”

Her gaze strayed over to the brick fireplace. Several framed photos were neatly arranged, but she only had eyes for one.

A picture of her and Edgar Blythe. She appeared to be in
good health, so it must have been taken several years ago.

“He was a good man, Edgar. A friend, and a damn decent cop. No one will ever convince me that he died in some hiking accident. Bull. For a cop, that man was as cautious as they came. Hated the rain and cold. He’d no more go hiking in a storm than I’d go run a marathon right now.”

“So, you think . . . he was killed?” Lucas asked without flinching. He put it right out there.

“Damn right, I do. I didn’t want to believe him, you know. Not at first.” Her voice softened, like she was recalling good memories. “I told him he was working too hard. That he was talking crazy—who would want to pretend a fire was an accident if it were arson? All his talk of cover-ups. That kind of stuff can end your career.”

She glanced at the photo again, and her eyes misted. Reminding us that much more than a man’s career had ended over this.

“I asked him to show me what he had, what proof. But he refused. He avoided me like I had the plague. I thought maybe he’d gone off the deep end. Right up until the call came in . . .”

Sonja’s chin dropped to her chest. I waited for her to collect herself, guilt tightening like a noose around my neck. This woman was clearly ill, and here I was, asking her to relive one of the worst moments of her life. Part of me
thought I should leave her in peace. But I knew I couldn’t do that. I needed all the information I could gather. If I knew the truth about the past, I might be able to stop Holland in the future.

When Sonja lifted her head, her eyes gleamed with unshed tears, but her voice was stronger. “All along, he’d been trying to protect me. He let me do some early work with him on the case, but he cut me off. To keep me safe, I think. After he died, I put in for a transfer. I got it immediately. Like maybe someone wanted me gone, I don’t know.”

She leaned forward and grabbed the handgrips on her walker. “Wait here.”

She shuffle-stepped across the room to a tall wooden vase on a pedestal table. She lifted it and unscrewed the bottom with a deft twist. A curled piece of paper slid out. She turned and brought the scrap back to the couch.

“This came in the mail, ’bout a month after Edgar died. Don’t know how he did it, or why me. There was a note too, but I destroyed it. He tried to be sly about what he shared, but I figured if I knew what he was saying, someone else might, too.”

Another coughing fit overtook her, longer this time.

“Stupid lungs. Just about worthless. Anyway, he told me not to talk if someone came asking questions. Not that I had much to say—he’d never told me much. But now I have nothing to lose. . . .”

I inched forward, hoping there was more to the story than that.

“He said he’d taken on a new filing system. No idea what he meant until I saw the slip of paper he included with the note.”

She uncurled her hand and extended the paper to me. I smoothed it out so I could read the words.

The bold black letters jumped off the page.

 
2240

A case number. Similar to Sarah’s, but older.

A spark of realization electrified me.

“He deliberately misfiled the evidence.”

“That’s what I think, too,” Sonja agreed. “I think he knew he was in trouble, but couldn’t bring himself to get rid of the evidence. So he hid it, in case someone else might be able to use it in the future.”

And here we were. The people from the future. And also from the past.

Lucas rested his elbows on his knees. “That evidence—would it still be at the station?”

She looked at him intently, then shook her head. “Closed cases or dead ends go to the local warehouse for storage.”

As Lucas prodded her for info, I assessed her body language and vitals for the fifth time. No hint of lying. Still,
there was something else I needed to know.

“Why are you talking about this now? You could have spoken up any time.”

Sonja nodded, as though she’d been expecting that question. “I’m not ashamed to admit that I was scared. If they could take out Edgar like that, then I knew nothing would stop them from going after me next.” She pointed at her tube. “I’ve got nothing to be frightened of now. Stage four lung cancer. If they come to kill me, they’d barely be cheating the reaper.”

She jutted her chin out, but shivered a little. Lucas rose, grabbing the blanket from the back of the couch and arranging the soft material around her shoulders. He stooped until they were eye level. “Thank you. You have no idea how much it means to us.”

I saw him give her hand a gentle squeeze before he straightened. “Do you need anything before we go? Hot tea, something to eat?”

She shooed him away with her hands, but from the softening around her eyes, I could tell she was touched.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t do more,” she said.

“Don’t say that; you’ve been a huge help,” I replied.

Sonja raised a curious eyebrow at me. “Now that you mention it, what am I helping you do exactly?”

I squirmed, realizing she wasn’t fully buying our cover story. “Just filling in all the gaps. We’ve always wondered—”

“Then why is your friend asking where the files are kept?” she interjected, pointing her thumb at Lucas. “You want actual proof. Evidence of a conspiracy. But why?”

Lucas scratched the back of his head and glanced at the floor, so I blurted out a quick response that I hoped would satisfy her. “We’re actually private investigators. Hired by Sarah’s parents. They want to sue the police and fire departments for mishandling the case.”

She cracked out a sharp laugh that turned into a choking cough. “You seriously expect me to believe that?”

“I don’t mean to be rude, but it doesn’t matter what you believe,” Lucas said, gently but firmly. “We have our reasons for needing the documentation and they don’t really concern you.”

It was strange, hearing Lucas shut Sonja down like that, but he was right to do it. We couldn’t give her any more leeway to question us. Not because she was a threat per se, but because trusting anyone with our real motives left us vulnerable.

Sonja didn’t seem offended at all.

“I respect that,” she said, wiping the corner of her mouth on her sleeve. “But the people who are involved in this won’t care what your reasons are either. They’ll do anything to make sure you don’t get too close to what they’re hiding.”

I thanked her for her concern as Lucas made his way
toward the door. His hand was on the handle when Sonja called out to us. “Do either of you own a gun?”

Lucas froze in the doorframe. I turned, remembering that we left Tim’s weapon back at the cabin. Lucas couldn’t even look at it after what had happened with the bear, and after my post-Peyton shock syndrome, I hadn’t wanted to touch one again. But none of that changed the fact that we could have used the protection.

“No, we don’t,” I said.

“Then there’s one more thing I can give you before you go,” said Sonja, before violently coughing into her fist.

An hour later, Lucas and I were idling outside the police warehouse Sonja had mentioned. From inside the Caprice, we could see that the street leading into the industrial complex was deserted, which was good news for us. But our luck turned when we pulled up to the automatic gate. Locked. Not a surprise, but a disappointment. I didn’t want anything to slow us down.

I opened my mind and linked with the signal flowing from the computer that controlled the lock.

Code streamed, in the form of a demand.

Access code required.

I assimilated the code, twisting and forming it into a precise combination of zeros and ones that I needed to communicate with the security system. A back-and-forth, as fluid
and easy as a ballet. I led the system through all the intricate steps of the dance before demanding the access code.

One second, two seconds. Three, four—

At 4.54 seconds, the code was mine.

My android brain shot the radio waves back at the sensor, and the gate computer accepted them. A whir and click later, the gate opened, and I drove inside, headlights off.

Night vision: Activated.

The street ahead gleamed before me, tinged in red but perfectly visible. We crept past a line of warehouses until we reached the one on the far right. I slowed and turned at the corner, parking next to a row of Dumpsters. Hopefully the buildings blocked the view of the Caprice from the road, and the Dumpsters would obscure the view from the north end of the complex.

Once the engine was off, the complex fell eerily silent. The only discernable noise came from cars in the distance. I’d take eerie silence over the blare of alarms any day. Especially the internal kind, ones that signaled I’d be blown to bits within two hours.

In my mind’s eye, I saw Holland, reaching for the switch.

“You ready for your first adventure as a hardened criminal?” I said, trying to lighten the mood.

Lucas laughed. “I think I already had that when I aided and abetted your escape.”

With trembling fingers, I reached under the seat for the
gun that Sonja gave us. Just as my palm grazed the grip, I felt Lucas’s hand on my arm.

“You sure we’re going to need that?” His voice was soft. Barely audible. I was grateful for bionic hearing.

My fingers curled around the handle. I understood his apprehension. But Sonja’s warning about Edgar—that he was killed for seeking the truth—added another layer of danger to our quest. I had to protect Lucas. And I wasn’t sure our special abilities were enough, considering how much power Holland wielded.

I placed the gun in my lap and stared down at it, reliving that moment at Quinn’s for what seemed like the millionth time. I didn’t want anyone else to die.

“This is for worst-case-scenario use only,” I said. “And I promise, no fatalities.”