Page 82 of Strange Lights

Zara shifts uncomfortably, but Meredith leans forward.

“We could talk alone later?” Calvin offers tentatively.

“No secrets, lies, half-truths. That’s what got us here in the first place,” I say to my sisters. “But there are some things I need to talk to Calvin about in private.”

“Barf, gross,” Meredith says. Zara snorts.

“About what Adele said, that I told her about you and Eldi, I need to explain that,” Calvin says.

“Why did you tell her anything about us?” I can’t help the accusatory tone even though what I’ve done is arguably worse.

Calvin reaches a hand to pull me to my feet, but I hesitate. He waits patiently. “She emailed me a couple of years back. Told me she was your mother and that you’d run away from an abusive boyfriend. Said he’d made you cut contact, caused a family falling-out. She said she didn’t want to pressure you, just wanted to know you were safe.”

I thought I was free, but Adele has been keeping track of me all along. Calvin is still talking.

“She was convincing. She told me things about you that made me sure she knew you. That you hated lightning, not that you were afraid of it, but that you hated it.”

I hate her so much.

“She sent me tips on cases, sent me money. I took the cases but tried not to accept payment. But then the cases she tipped me off about, they always paid mysteriously huge sums. I felt too guilty not letting her know you were safe.”

“But why wouldn’t you tell me?”

“She asked me not to, said it would scare you off. And, Reggie, I was afraid you would run, that I’d lose you too. It was selfish; I know it was. And I should have told you. When I found out about Eldi, I started to realize something wasn’t right. I stopped telling her anything, but she knew you were with me, and I’m easy to track. Before we came here, I almost told you, but I was afraid to. I wasn’t sure what her motives were for keeping tabs on you, but I kept telling myself it couldn’t affect anything. Obviously, I was wrong.”

Calvin finally withdraws his hand, sinks to his knees so we’re level.

“Reggie,” he goes on, “I swear I didn’t think any harm could come from it. She never asked for much. If it makes you feel better, I saved the money. Eldi has a college fund set up in her name. I kept thinking it was strange how much was in there. I’d check the balance and be shocked, but then every time I looked at Eldi, thinking I would confess, I would forget how much money there was. Once Eldi stopped using that watch to hide from me, I checked the amount. The account, it’s worth, like . . . millions?” he finishes meekly.

A burble of laughter comes unbidden. They all stare at me, worried, like I’m losing it. I cover my mouth with my hand, but I can’t stop grinning. Eldi is an alien who’s been two for at least seven years, and Calvin has a college fund for her.

“You know what? I don’t care.” I really don’t. It all comes down to Adele. She’s the one turning us all against each other. And I’m done letting her have power over my life. “Eldi isn’t going to college. Or if she wants to, I’m funding it.” With all the other money I’ve stolen from Adele. The ridiculousness of it. “You’re forgiven. I blame Adele for all of this. All of it. But you’re hiring me a babysitter and taking me on a nice vacation. A really fucking expensive vacation.”

Meredith cuts in. “There are a few things we should take care of first. Mom isn’t about to roll over and give up, and I have some ideas about what she’s doing.”

With a jolt, I remember files full of children like Eldi, everything I stole with Eldi’s watch.

Zara clears her throat. “I have information to add to this little meeting as well.” She taps the Winnebago and calls up to the driver’s seat. “Hey, can you take us to the Waffle House?” She shouts out the familiar address.

“What do you know about the Waffle House?” Calvin asks.

“Have the Whistlemen mentioned they have an informant in Agency 51?” Zara asks with a wicked grin.

“Yeah, it’s me,” Meredith pipes up. Zara’s double take is comical.

“No, it’s me,” Zara says, but she sizes Meredith up and says, “Huh, well, I guess that makes sense.”

“It was both of you, separately, wasn’t it?” I say, looking from Zara to Meredith. “Tipping off the Whistlemen. And the things you did for me. The emails . . . Meredith sent them. And the nursery rhyme, it was a clue. You were giving me hints. And Zara, you sent Eldi to me.”

“I thought you knew that,” Zara says. “I just thought you didn’t care.”

“Why didn’t you leave?”

“The same reasons you didn’t. I was just a teenager. You’d left me behind. I had Meredith. I had no one else.”

“You took that little boy along, but you left us behind,” Meredith says. “You made it pretty clear you didn’t want us with you after all. If Mom found my emails, I didn’t want them full of tip-offs to someone who didn’t even want me. If I didn’t ever outright warn you, I could tell her it was my way of keeping tabs on you, sending you looking the directions I wanted. And the ones that looked threatening, well, I could claim to just be taunting you. I thought maybe you’d get the message anyway.”

It’s never once occurred to me that my sisters could misinterpret my motives. That they couldn’t see the reasons that are crystal clear to me.