I’d left my car back at Brynner’s house. So I walked down to the office, rousing the attendant from his sleep. “Can you give me the number for Bran and Emelia Homer? Brynner drove me home last night, and I need to get back to my car.”
“That didn’t take long.” The attendant chuckled to himself as he jotted down a phone number and handed it to me.
Only the intervening counter kept me from kicking him in the shin. Instead, I went out to make a call. When Aunt Emelia answered, I wasn’t sure what to say. “Hello? This is Grace—”
“Oh, honey. You left your car at our house. I’m out at the cemetery. I’ll be over in twenty to pick you up.” She hung up.
I went back to the line of salt Brynner poured out by my doorstep. The urge to kick it came in waves. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. The thought of those things outside my door made me want to vomit.
So instead I sat on the concrete, wondering what sort of world this was, where people did things for each other. Certainly not one I’d lived in. My kind of people left when you needed them most, if they were ever there to begin with.
Emelia pulled up twenty minutes later on the dot, rolling down the window of her Japanese coupe so I could unlock the passenger door. “You sleep well?”
I shook my head. “I don’t normally drink. Or try to shoot people. Or drive after drinking and trying to shoot people.”
She waved her hand like my problems were mosquitoes to shoo away. “You aren’t the first person to need a little Southern comfort after their first run-in with a meat-skin.”
When we got home, Bran sat on the porch, waiting. Emelia didn’t seem the least bit surprised to see him there on a weekday. She waved to me. “You best come on inside.”
My fears went from vapor to rock solid. “Did something happen to Brynner? Was it because of last night? Was it because of this morning?”
“Neither. Both.” Bran stood up and waved me over. “The boy’s decided to take some time off. You’ll need to contact the field commander and let them know.”
“What do you mean, ‘time off’?”
He hemmed and hawed. “Brynner told my honey he’s quitting the BSI.”
I’d been given a new badge, but not so much as a ‘welcome to field operations’ pamphlet before we left. “I don’t have the phone number for field command. I’m just supposed to be getting field pay, not finding co-orgs or killing them.” This couldn’t be happening. Not when I was so close.
“Brynner does. We can ask when he comes back.” Emelia opened the door and waved me in.
“If he comes back.” Bran dusted off a brie case. “I figured something like this was coming, the boy showing up out of nowhere. Then I saw he brought home a pretty young gal. You know you’re the first one he ever brought home to meet us.”
I stopped at the threshold, willing myself to not enter. To take a seat on the porch swing. And make sure they knew the truth. “He didn’t bring me home to meet you. He only brought me here to translate the journals. We’re not—anything. Director Bismuth thought you’d allow me to access them if Brynner brought me.”
Bran shook his head. “I knew it was too good to be true. Boy could charm the scales off a snake and played doctor with so many girls I swore he’d set up a clinic, but bringing home a smart one? A real one? That should’ve been the tip-off. That boy . . .” He rose and took his briefcase off the steps, got in the car, and drove off.
I sat on the swing. Rocked. Worried. And when I couldn’t worry anymore, I slid open Brynner’s phone, looking for his contact list.
The picture staring back at me could have been Emelia twenty years ago. Long black hair and dainty features, she stood next to a man who looked like Brynner would in fifteen years or so. From the square jaw to narrow eyes, Brynner was his father made over again.
I looked up to find Aunt Emelia standing in the doorway.
I couldn’t meet her gaze. “I’m sorry. I’ll leave as soon as I contact field command. I just really needed this job.”
She came out and sat down. “You seem like good people, Grace Roberts, not at all like