Chapter 4
THE CIG BASE was at an undisclosed location. You would think that
being one of them, the dimwits would let me see where I was going but no, as
soon as we’d boarded the plane, they’d put a blindfold over my eyes.
What was evident was that it was some place warm. Warm enough just
to wear a jacket in the middle of April. They undid my blindfold, and snow was
high above me and the area way down in the distance looked like a scruffy
desert. We were in the center of the big mountain. There was a lot of asphalt
covering the rocky expanse or at least it looked like it. Nope, the CIG
headquarters was not luxurious in any sense. Concrete slabs for buildings
nestled along the drag, a bar on one side, aptly named Dusty’s. There was a
grocery store next to it and a large building, which I remembered was the place
where they handed out uniforms the other side. Then there were large expanses
of offices all with flat-topped roofs and white-painted brick.
The plane taxied us into a hangar at the far end of the runway and
a jeep took us into “town.” To me it looked like something from a really old
film, the residential blocks at one end like a prison and the officers’
quarters, near the main office quadrant, didn’t look a whole lot better, all
with a huge perimeter wall or maybe it was just the edging of the mountains
around. Either way, you didn’t get in without knowing how to.
In a weird sense, I could imagine somebody shooting a movie up
here. That’s if they wanted to depict some alien landscape where nothing grew
and the ground was a weird color. Coming from the green of Oppidum, it felt
pretty hostile.
“Renee will take you to see the doctor.” Frei looked as cool as
ever. Considering she had milky white skin, heat or cold didn’t seem to affect
her . . . okay,
nothing
seemed to affect her. “Then when you’re done,
she’ll take you to your quarters.”
“Do I have to live in the dorms again?” I knew I sounded like a
whiny kid but after spending most of my life locked in a prison, I didn’t want
to recreate that here.
“Actually, you’re next door to me.” Renee shot a warm smile my
way. She’d thawed since the hospital. I wasn’t sure how long for but I’ll take
it.
“You got to live in dorms?”
She laughed as Frei shot a glare my way and strode off muttering.
“No, we get our own places.”
That felt strange. I
had
a place, a pretty awesome cabin at
the side of a river that Nan had left me. A place I wanted nothing more than to
retreat back to. I missed the river. I missed the quiet. I missed Mrs. Squirrel.
I would even go as far as saying I missed my dad.
Go figure.
Renee led me into another nondescript hunk of stone. Inside it was
tiled but pretty much resembled a sugar cube. It was stuffy warm, like when the
heating had been on too long. There was a lady sitting under a rotating ceiling
fan, her glasses way too big for her petit face.
She glanced up and spotted Renee, a grin breaking out. “Well,
Commander Black, you’re looking mighty fine today.”
Her southern twang made me smile. It was nice to hear her bubbly
personality oozing through it. I decided I liked her.
“Thanks, Sally, is Doctor Andrews in?” Renee looked a bit
flustered by the woman’s greeting, which made me chuckle.
“Why, of course. He is always happy to see you. I’ll just buzz
him—”
“It’s for Aeron.” Renee’s blush got more pronounced, which made me
chuckle again. She poked me. “Quit it.”
“You not feeling so good, sweet thing?” Her deep eyes were almost
royal blue behind the lenses. She looked like the kind of woman I’d seen pinned
up on the wall of Oppidum’s garage. Her blonde hair bounced, her make-up
perfect.
“Had a funny turn,” I mumbled. I hoped that somebody would tell me
what had happened at some point.
Sally, the receptionist, scooted from behind her desk and strutted
up to me. “What symptoms did you have?”
“Pain in my chest and arms. I couldn’t breathe.” I still felt like
it was harder than it should be to suck in air. “Then my heart went crazy,
pounding away and I blacked out.” I rubbed my forehead. “I’m pretty sure that I
hit my head.”
Sally’s eyebrows furrowed. She grabbed a wheelchair and motioned
for me to sit.
“What are you doing walking around?” She stared at Renee as if
expecting an explanation.
“She’s Lilia’s daughter. They couldn’t find anything wrong.”
Sally cocked her head, then relaxed her shoulders, making her
sizable chest bounce. “Explains. No problem. Well, Aeron, let’s get you checked
out.”
I glanced back at Renee. “Can she come . . . I mean . . . Can
she?” So, I sounded like a twelve year old. Renee was a familiar face even if
she was harder to predict than the weather.
Sally looked Renee up and down before turning back to me. “You
sure, hon? He might need to go into details.”
“There’s nothing Renee doesn’t know.” I didn’t get why that made
her grin at me. I also didn’t get why Renee now looked like her cheeks were on
fire.
“She means because I was her protection officer,” Renee mumbled,
tucking her hair behind her ears.
“Uh huh.” Sally sounded like she was suspicious about something.
“I was,” Renee protested.
Unsure of what I was missing, I just looked back and forth.
“She’s pretty awesome at it too,” I said. Maybe Sally didn’t think
she was.
“I’ll bet.” Sally shot a glance Renee’s way as she wheeled me down
the corridor. Renee trundled alongside, looking like a naughty teenager. “Least
Lilia put you in safe hands, darlin’.”
“It had nothing to do with
her
,” I muttered.
All my mother had ever done was abandon me. Okay, so she’d come to
St. Jude’s to help me with Renee. It earned her brownie points but she had a
way to go before I felt anything but conflicted about her.
“Doctor,” Sally said, pushing me through the office door. “I got
Lilia’s girl here to see you. She’s had a suspected heart attack but the
hospital couldn’t find anything wrong with her.”
It sounded like I’d made it up. Then cold sweat dribbled down my
back. “A heart attack?”
Sally smiled down at me as the doctor turned around. He was easily
over six foot, his dark hair shaved into a military cut but he had designer
stubble on his square chin.
“Hi, I’m Doctor Andrews but you can call me Smudge,” he said with
a winning smile. He reminded me of Sam. He was too much like Sam. I tensed.
“Hey, it’s okay. I’m qualified, I promise.”
I knew it was stupid. This guy wasn’t Sam. He didn’t even have the
same hair color but it was that easy charm. I shot a “don’t leave me” look at
Renee.
She held my gaze, concern in her gray eyes.
“Aeron’s father had heart problems,” Renee said, taking my hand.
“Maybe it would be a good idea to check there?”
The doctor nodded and tapped something into his computer. Sally
squeezed my shoulder and closed the door. I clung to Renee like she could stop
me acting so dumb. He wasn’t Sam. Why was it freaking me out? Sam was behind
bars someplace.
“Eli Lorelei, yes?”
I nodded. Renee pushed me to the desk and took a seat beside me,
her hand on my knee. He spent a few minutes reading the screen as I tried to
calm my breathing. Where had the freak out come from?
“Permission to engage the enemy?” he said, a gentle smile on his
face. “Helps if I can give you a check over.”
Fear rippled through me. Renee rubbed my knee. “It’s okay, I’m
here.”
I nodded again. I didn’t know how to explain my sudden terror. The
whole thing with Sam had been last summer. I’d seen lots of people since then.
Why was I scared now?
Doctor Andrews got up and dropped to his haunches in front of the
chair. “I’m going to check your pulse, blood pressure, have a listen to your
heart. Then, I might hook you up to this machine here for a minute or two.”
I looked at it. I’d been attached to one in the hospital.
“She hit her head,” Renee said as the doctor’s eyes drifted to my
temple.
“You feeling woozy?” he asked.
I nodded again.
He glanced at Renee whose eyes hardened with some thought. “Sam,”
she muttered. “You look like Sam.”
“Excuse me?” Doctor Andrews must have thought Renee had bumped her
head not me.
“Maybe it’s better I run the check,” she said, holding out her
hand. “He was the Unsub in Oppidum.”
Doctor Andrews let out an “ah,” and he nodded. “You know what
you’re looking for?”
“Three years undercover in a hospital, I should do okay.” She
smiled down at me and I relaxed. I could cope with that.
Doctor Andrews sat back behind his desk and watched as Renee
strapped the blood pressure band around my arm. Well, attempted to, then
laughed when it wouldn’t stretch. “I don’t suppose you have extra, extra
large?”
He took in the size of my biceps and his eyebrows rose. “Just the
thing.” He reached inside his top drawer and handed a band over to Renee who
switched them. “Normally only need it for the big boys.”
“I doubt even they could match her pound for pound,” Renee said,
managing to get the band to fit—just.
As the machine inflated the band, Renee held the stethoscope to my
wrist. I didn’t know what she was doing but she seemed to know. “Fifty seven
beats per minute and a hundred and seven over seventy.”
He smiled. “Do you run a lot?”
I shook my head. My tongue seemed to have gone on strike.
“But she cycles and she uses the cross-trainer . . . a lot,” Renee
said, patting my arm and lifting my top to put the cold stethoscope on my
chest.
“According to your records from Serenity Hills, your fitness has
improved.”
Again, I nodded. I didn’t know what else to do. They hadn’t had a
cross trainer or a bicycle in Serenity Hills and I had never been a runner.
Besides, all my weight crunching down on my knees didn’t seem like a great
idea.
“Heart sounds good to me, do you want to listen?” Renee squeezed
my shoulder. “It’s important he checks, okay?”
The doctor came around and listened as I braced myself with the
chair. Images of Sam laughing at me with a gun in his hand pulsed through my
mind.
“I’m happy with that.” He retreated to his desk once more and
Renee returned to sit beside me. “Your heart is fit and healthy. The ECG from
the hospital has come through and shows how fit and strong you are.” He read
over his screen before looking at me. “Aeron, have you touched anyone or come
into contact with anyone who has heart problems?”
“We were in the police station today,” Renee said. “Maybe one of
the detectives?”
The doctor shook his head. “No, this person would be conspicuous,
rubbing their chest, gray in the face.” He met my eyes. “They would have been
starting cardiac arrest.”
There’d been no one I’d seen or at least paid attention to. Renee
shook her head too. “The victims were all strangled, so that won’t account for
it.”
“What about the Unsub?” I asked her. “The one with the scar?”
Renee walked over to the doctor’s side. “Can I?”
He nodded.
I sat there, watching her. It would at least explain something if
someone had suffered an attack while I was there. Panic thudded through me and
I met Renee’s eyes. “What if it’s my dad? Can you check? What if he’s in
trouble?”
Renee pulled out her cell, one hand still tapping the keyboard.
“The Unsub has no heart issues. Ex-marine.” She tapped the phone and held it to
her ear. “Lilia, are you with Eli?”
I bit my lip. If I could touch a cell phone without it blowing up
in my face, I would call him more often. Technology and me were not compatible.
“Is he doing okay, any pain?” Renee tucked her blonde hair behind
her ears. I didn’t know what brought out the blonde but it added a “funky
touch” as Yasmin, one of my friends from Serenity, used to say. I missed her. I
wondered how her sparkly shoes were doing.
“No, Aeron just had some symptoms. She wanted to check he was
doing alright.” She met my eyes. “No . . . no . . . she’s fine.”
A slight white lie but I didn’t want nobody worrying.
“Lilia wants to know if you’ve asked Nan?” Renee shot a smile at
the doctor. “Did she say anything?”
“Nan’s been silent since St. Jude’s. Guess she’s winning her card
game.” I wasn’t sure how to explain to the dear doctor that my Nan often
wandered over from ether space and said hi, nagged me, or offered me words of
wisdom.
“Lilia hasn’t felt anything new. She’s asking if you’re
meditating.”
I folded my arms. It was a statement that showed how little my
mother knew me. “Do what?”
“She doesn’t meditate,” Renee said into the cell. She met my eyes
a few seconds later. “She says you need to.”
“What does she know about it?” I knew that Renee didn’t want to be
in the middle of a ping-pong spat so I shook my head. “So I’m all clear, doc?”