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“Uh-huh. ” There was a desk in the corner of the room, largely ornamental, but it held some writing paper and a pen, and Bryn quickly jotted down the number on the caller ID and said, “Do you want to meet somewhere and talk things over?”
“Yes. ” He sounded relieved. “Yes, I need to talk. Please. ”
“Anyplace you feel comfortable that you can get to tomorrow?”
He named a coffee shop she knew, and she wrote it down. “I’ll be reading a book,” he said. “Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time. ”
“What’s your first name?”
“Carl,” he said. “Carl—”
“I don’t need your last name, Carl. That’s fine. How about ten a. m. ?”
“Fine. Thanks. I just need—I need to deal with this, and I haven’t been doing a real good job lately. It’s my family. My wife. It just seems…”
“Overwhelming,” she said. “I know. It gets better when you talk to someone else who can really understand. ”
Carl was one of those the government had saved, and kept saving, every day that they provided him with a shot. He probably had the same question Bryn did: how long would that last? Not long, Bryn thought. She wouldn’t tell him that, but she knew the ruthless truth: the government didn’t need these people, other than a key few; they were just excess baggage, and sooner or later, they’d get dumped as the stockpiled supplies of Returné dried up.
These were victims, innocent victims—Pharmadene employees who’d been designated as mission-critical. They’d been “converted”—corporate-speak for killed, then Revived. And now the government was stuck with a bunch of people they couldn’t allow to run around loose and unsupervised because of their undead status…but there were too many to simply, conveniently disappear.
Bryn didn’t fool herself into thinking there was any genuine moral or ethical dilemma involved. Just expedience, risk, and reward.
Word was starting to get out, and Carl wasn’t the first Pharmadene employee to cold-call, looking for answers. Bryn didn’t know how many Revived were out there under the government’s control, and Riley Block wasn’t going to tell her…but this, in a small way, was making a difference.
Though absolutely nobody wanted her to do it. Particularly not Pat McCallister. He thought there were risks—and he was right. She just couldn’t not do it. …She felt responsible, somehow, to all these luckless bastards who had (like her) never asked for this sinister gift of pseudolife, who had to live a lie now.
Her lies, at least, were less personal.
She finished the call and hung up, and turned to find—no surprise—that Pat was standing
there silently watching her. She shook her head. “Don’t start. ”
“I won’t,” he said, but she could tell by the stillness in him that he wanted to. “Come on. Dinner. Liam won’t be happy if you let his beef Wellington get cold. ”
It was so odd that she lived in a house where beef Wellington was what was for dinner. And it wasn’t even that exceptional.
“I need to change,” she said, and kissed him quickly on the way out the door. “Be down in a minute. ”
Her room still didn’t feel like hers, exactly, although all her stuff was here, or as much as she’d wanted to bring with her. …She hadn’t wanted the old, cheap pressboard dresser, the secondhand couch or bed, but she’d brought the old armchair she’d always preferred, and her pictures, mementos, books, music, and movies were all neatly ordered on shelves. The room had come with a television, a vast flat-screen thing that probably also made coffee, as high tech as it was, and she was a little scared of it. It had its own curtains to conceal it, so as not to upset the soothing autumnal glory of the furniture and fabrics; they wouldn’t have been out of place a hundred years ago, in this very house.
Her clothes were not great, but they were better than they had been, mainly because she had some grasp now of how to dress for her job. She’d come straight out of the military to her first funeral home job, and wearing a uniform hadn’t prepared her for the challenge of buying suits. She’d gotten some advice from Lucy, the funeral home’s formidable administrator, who’d surely trained with some kind of fashion-related Zen master.
Bryn stripped off her doggy-mudded jeans and shirt and put on what was casual evening dress here in the mansion—a dress, which was a little sexy, like for a first date at an upscale restaurant. She added a necklace that she’d been given by her mom years ago, and then picked up the nice watch that Annie had given her as her “first job” present.
I wish…
Bryn stopped the thought, held the watch in her hand for a moment, and then put it on with sure, quick snaps of her fingers.
I’ll find you, she promised the absent ghost of her sister. I will. I swear.
But she had nowhere to look, and nothing to go on. If her sister was still out there, still alive, still waiting, Bryn was letting her down with every moment she didn’t find her. Worse, she was letting down her whole family, who didn’t even know Annie was in trouble.
After a deep breath, Bryn went downstairs for a dinner for which she had, suddenly, very little appetite.
Chapter 3
Bryn had never liked mornings, but she’d usually been an early riser anyway—life in the army did that to you, accustomed you to being out of bed before dawn whether you wanted to be or not. She woke in the predawn light, comfortable and warm, with Mr. French snuggled against her legs on top of the covers. His chin was on her hip, and he was snoring like a little old man and twitching as he dreamed. The room was cool, dim, and soothing, but for a moment it felt…wrong. Early mornings sometimes brought her doubts out of the depths and up to breach the surface. What am I doing here? I don’t belong here, in this house.
