The Gryphon Project (17 page)

Her grandmother sat her back at the table and made her and Nadia bologna sandwiches with fixings she’d brought from her house. White bread and cheap bologna, a bag of ripple chips. Three things Phee’s parents never let them eat. Phee almost cried at her grandma’s small comforting gestures.

“Now don’t you pay any attention to the news,” her grandmother said as she set a pickle and a pile of chips alongside each sandwich. “There’s just been some kind of misunderstanding. That’s all. It’ll get sorted out.”

Her grandfather sat at the head of the table in his gardening clothes, dirt under his nails, his filthy sunhat misshapen and faded atop his bald head. “Misunderstanding,” he echoed. “That’s all.” Phee’s grandma wetted a towel and went about scrubbing her husband’s hands clean from his morning puttering around in the garden.

“That’s right.” Phee’s grandma patted her shoulder as she passed on her way back to the sink. “This will all work out just fine. Look at you, dear. You’re the perfect example to us all. You reconned beautifully. Twice.”

Except that Phee didn’t remember a thing from before she was six. That was not a beautiful recon. And if she died again, that was it. Some perfect example.

“Reconned beautifully,” her grandfather mumbled through a mouthful of sandwich.

“You just wait and see. Six weeks, and he’ll be in the news again for another one of his competitions. Getting another blue ribbon or what have you. All this fuss is over nothing. We’re blessed to be three-pers for a reason. Your job, Phoenix, dear, is to stay calm and help keep your mother calm.”

“Calm,” her grandfather echoed.

“I’ll try, Grandma.”

But her grandmother was wrong. If there was an investigation, it meant only one thing. Someone at Chrysalis or Crimcor had reason to believe that Gryph’s death was no accident.

What if he’d jumped?

Phee felt the colour drain from her cheeks.

Chrysalis did not recon suicides. Ever.

And it was widely known that no champion athlete could ever have been reconned, due to the likelihood and opportunity for performance-enhancing adjustments. What if he had jumped?

To get out of his contract once and for all?

What if he’d staged his own death?

No, no, no. No. Phee shook her head, arguing with herself. Gryph would not have killed himself. No way.

And she’d never believe that he’d fallen.

Which meant that he had to have been pushed.

And if they thought he was pushed, then who pushed him? If they caught whoever did it, they’d be decommed. Decommissioned. Chrysalis’s tidy term for the death penalty.

No matter how this went, it was not going to go easily.

Phee glanced up at her grandmother, who smiled at her. Phee knew her grandma was going for a reassuring smile, but to Phee it looked like poorly disguised panic.

“Everything will be okay.” Still with the smile. “You’ll see, dear.”

Her grandmother was a smart woman. She was hiding behind this homely nurturer act only because she was scared. Well, they all were! And should be! Phee wanted to grab her grandmother by her collar and march her out of the house. She didn’t want to be placated. She didn’t want to be soothed. She wanted answers! Her grandma turned to the sink, and Phee glowered at her grandma’s back.

“Don’t you—” Her grandfather’s tone was angry. Phee realized he’d seen her glare at his wife and didn’t like it. She couldn’t tell when he was as good as oblivious or when he caught on to something with fleeting lucidity.

“Sorry, Granddad.”

“Calm.” He patted her hand, still frowning. “Okay?”

“Yes, Granddad.” Phee couldn’t stand to sit still for one moment longer. “Grandma? You’ll stay here and look after Fawn?”

Her grandma smiled at her. “Of course, dear.”

“Come on.” She grabbed Nadia’s hand.

Nadia went along with her until they were out of the house. “We should stay here. Your parents will be back soon.”

“With what?” Phee felt frantic. “Not with answers! Not real answers, anyway! We have to go find the boys.” She pulled Nadia
across the green, heading for the train station. Nadia followed reluctantly.

“We shouldn’t—”

“Hurry!” At the top of the stairs Phee could hear the whine of a train coming to a stop. She took them two at a time until she reached the platform. The five-car train stretched the length of the station like a polished serpent. Heavy. Predatory. Nadia caught up to her and stood at her side while the warning bell sounded and the automated voice announced the train’s departure.

A terrible screech. A crash. Blood. So much blood.

Phee couldn’t move. She closed her eyes, willing away the images. The expression on Gryph’s face when he realized he couldn’t get out of the way. He would’ve tried. He would’ve scrambled up from where he’d fallen and tried to get a leg up. But there hadn’t been the time. Or so the boys claimed.

Phee wanted to sit them all down and grill them until they told the truth, but the boys were nowhere to be found. Phee and Nadia checked the Balmoral, the arcade, and even went as far as to make their way to the Steveston Pier, but Crimcor had the entire train station taped off. The train slowed well before the station, switched tracks, and took a detour. The girls had to get off at the next station to turn around. As they were waiting for the train Phee glanced up at the layout of the station, at the security cameras in particular. All the stations were the same, right down to doorways and staircases. There were ten cameras in total, three at the far end, where it had happened.

According to the news reports, the cameras on that end of the station platform had been destroyed moments before the collision, and the ones elsewhere on the platform wouldn’t have caught anything relevant. The boys were not talking, even to Crimcor. There were few bystanders, and all of them had been at the other end of the platform, and claimed that they hadn’t seen anything or noticed anything was wrong until the train screeched to a stop and the boys screamed for help.

“You can appreciate the situation.” This from the Chrysalis recon rep, sitting in the Nicholson-Lalonde living room not even twenty-four hours after Gryph’s death. Oscar and Eva stared hollowly at the man. He was wearing a suit jacket, despite the heat, but he wasn’t sweating. He’d rung the doorbell not ten minutes earlier, and now here he was telling Oscar and Eva that they were investigating the possibility of suicide. “Of course,” he carried on while the grief-numbed parents kept staring at him, “we’ll go ahead with the recon process until we can accurately determine the events of yesterday afternoon.”

“Thank God,” Oscar said with an enormous sigh. “Thank God for that.”

“And when will we know?” Eva fiddled with the locket at her throat. It was a tiny triptych, each section with a photo of one of her children as newborns.

“I can’t say at this point.” The Chrysalis rep tried for a sympathetic smile and failed. It was more condescending than anything, or that’s what Phee thought. She sat across from her parents, listening intently, holding the one hand that wanted to wipe off his smile with her other hand. “Soon, we all hope. We love Gryphon as much as you do—”

“What a retarded thing to say,” Phee blurted. Oscar caught her with a warning look. “Well, it is! Gryph is just a cash cow to them. He’s not a part of their family—”

“Actually—”

“Don’t you dare say he’s part of the Chrysalis
family
.”

“I was going to say that.” The man straightened, indignant. “And I still will. He
is
a part of the Chrysalis family.”

Scoffing, Phee looked away, disgusted. This man clearly hadn’t talked to Lex lately. She bit her lower lip, willing herself to shut up before she could make things worse.

Eva caught Phee’s glance and gave her tiny, appreciative smile before turning her attention back to the man. “What measures are you taking to determine what exactly happened?” Eva sounded
exhausted because she was. No one had slept well the night before— except perhaps Fawn—but no one had a worse night than Eva, who hadn’t slept at all. After Phee and Nadia couldn’t find the boys, they’d stayed up most of the night, poring over the news podcasts and online frenzy surrounding her brother’s death. Her mother had spent the night in the kitchen doing the same. Phee had finally fallen asleep sometime around three, but according to Oscar, Eva hadn’t been to bed at all. That morning her eyes were puffy, with shadows rubbed underneath, and there was a tired huskiness in her voice. She clutched a handkerchief in her fist and leaned forward. “How can there be any doubt? He was
hungry
for life.”

The rep straightened his papers, readying to leave. “I can’t say anything more on the matter at this point.”

“Where’s Lex?” Eva reached out for the man and caught his pants as he stood. She held a crease tight in her fist and implored with a catch in her throat. “Why can’t we see him? He’s been his agent for years. He can tell you about Gryph. He can tell you Gryph would never do such a thing. He’s a Chrysalis agent, and he knows Gryph the way we do. You would trust Lex, wouldn’t you?”

Phee raised an eyebrow at her mother. Had she forgotten Lex’s recent suspicions? The scene in the hospital? She shouldn’t include Lex in the picture at all.

“Mother …” Phee tried to infuse the one word with as much warning as she could.

“Dr. Nicholson-Lalonde, please.” The rep, clearly mortified by Eva’s desperate display, stood stock-still, unsure of what to do.

“Dear.” Oscar put his hand over his wife’s and gently loosened her grip.

“Lex will not be involved in this process.” The man backed away with a start. “Until further notice, any and all communications with Chrysalis go through me. Not Lex.” He smoothed his pant leg as he backed toward the door.

Phoenix’s eyes blurred across the pamphlet in her lap. He’d handed them out to her and her parents on his arrival. “When a
loved one dies … what you should know about the recon process.” There was a picture of a woman on the front, smiling down at a framed photo of a man, handsome in a soap-opera-star way.

The rep was still droning on. “We’ll send updates to your lync, coded only for you and your wife to read.” This made Phee glance up. She wanted to read them too, of course. Oscar winked at her. He’d let her read them. “Our aim is to have a conclusion by the end of the week.”

Eva nodded. “In time for the DNA test.”

The man ignored her demonstration of inside knowledge. The DNA test needed to happen within ten days of the patient’s death. Within hours of the death, the stem-cell sample that had been taken from his umbilical cord blood at birth would’ve been retrieved from the cryopreservation tanks, kept two storeys underground in an earthquake-proof lab. The sample was allowed to thaw slowly so that the cryoprotectant fluid could gradually be replaced by the accelerator. After ten days, if the cells had multiplied accordingly, the recon could proceed. If not, the process was started with another stem-cell batch from the same cord blood. It had never occurred to Phee before just how many steps there were to the recon process. Just how many things could go wrong. She’d always had this rather magical idea of it. One day you’re dead. The next you’re walking out the front doors of Chrysalis into the arms of your loving family, returned to life like a fairy-tale princess who’s been kissed by the prince.

Or in Gryph’s case, the prince himself.

Phee’s phone vibrated in her pocket, breaking her macabre thoughts. She slipped it out and read the message from Nadia. “Neko’s home!”

He’d stayed out all night, much to his parents’ concern and anger. None of the boys had gone home after questioning at Crimcor headquarters. They hadn’t answered any calls or texts—except Saul did send one text to Nadia. All it said was “We’re okay.” What was that supposed to mean? And what had
they been up to all night? Getting drunk? Sitting on the bluff and staring out at the ocean, not talking? Dodging further questioning from Crimcor? Phee had no idea what they’d been up to. Now was her chance to talk to one of them. Even if it was only Neko.

HE WASN’T OPENING
his door. Nadia banged on it again.

“Open this door or we will break it down!”

No response.

“Come on, Neko.” Phee leaned her forehead against the death metal posters and
KEEP OUT
signs. At home, Neko seemed even younger than when he hung out with Gryph and the guys. Nadia said Phee used to change his diaper when he was little, but Phee didn’t remember. “Let us in.”

Still nothing. The two girls slid to the floor and sat cross-legged, blocking the way. “He can go out the window,” Nadia mentioned after they’d been sitting there for a while. “He always sneaks out that way.”

“I know. But do you think he would?”

“Maybe.” Nadia nodded. “He stayed out all night. His friend is dead. He’s upset. Just because he’s grounded doesn’t mean he’s going to stay put. Look who he hangs around with.”

“Neko!” Phee reached up behind her and pounded on the door. “If you don’t open this door I’ll get an axe and chop it into little bits.”

Another moment passed, and then they heard him. “We don’t own an axe.” His voice sounded so small and scared that Nadia immediately started crying.

“Oh, Neko, come on, honey,” she begged through the thin wood. “Open the door!”

They heard footsteps and then the lock releasing. The girls scrambled to their feet. Neko opened the door a crack. He was pale, his eyes bloodshot. He stared at the girls.

“Neko—”

“I’m not talking.” His head was bowed, his black hair falling across his face. “None of us are. So don’t even bother.”

Nadia was immediately indignant. “You owe Phee some answers.”

He kept silent, but Phee could see his reserve shaking. He’d been in with Gryph and his friends only since the New Year, after chasing Gryph’s shadow his whole life. “Sorry, Phee.” His voice was even smaller. “I’m sorry.”

“What happened?” she asked as gently as she could, setting aside her impatience and trying for kindness instead. “You can tell us. We won’t tell the guys that you said anything.”

“He tripped.”

Phee stared at him, her arms crossed. “He did not.”