Cassidy Jones and the Seventh Attendant (Cassidy Jones Adventures, Book Three) (17 page)

“I already have,” her husband told her, poking her side.

With a coy smile, she slapped his hand away.

Sadness crept into the corners of my mind. This was no act. Gavin Phillips loved his wife, and she loved him. Looking at him just then, it was difficult to envision him as the killer who had emptied his gun into my stomach.

Why would he risk losing everything? And for what? Money?

“It’s your move, dear.” Mr. Phillips indicated the chessboard that sat on the coffee table.

Serena stifled a giggle.

I turned up the stairs, catching sight of Mr. Phillips wiggling his eyebrows devilishly at his wife, just as Emery did when he was teasing me. Downcast, I barely had the heart to enter their bedroom and snoop around.

When the nightstand, dresser drawers, and the closet produced nothing, I adjusted my vision and slowly scanned the room, to no avail. A microchip could be hidden anywhere, and it wasn’t like I had the time to search properly. I couldn’t very well turn their room upside down to do it.

I’ve already taken too long putting towels away as it is
, I thought with frustration.
Besides, hiding the microchip right under Serena’s nose would be super stupid—or very clever.

Before leaving their room, I examined a few family photos on the dresser: the Phillipses’ wedding picture, Emery as a baby, an awfully cute picture of him wearing a lab coat and big glasses at around age four, and a family photo when Emery looked to be about seven. After admiring the pictures, I slid the backs off each frame to make sure there wasn’t a microchip behind them.

Then I hustled down the hallway and the stairs, slowing my pace to toss a tight smile to Mr. Phillips and Serena as they actually played chess.

“That took a long time,” Emery remarked when I tromped down the basement steps.

“I was looking at pictures on your mom’s dresser. You were a cute little guy. What happened?”

“I grew into these.” He tapped the black frame of his glasses.

I dropped the laundry basket on the floor and began collecting dirty plates off the lab table.

“You don’t need to do that.” His eyes skimmed through the data he had typed into the computer.

“For appearance’s sake, right?”

He grinned at the screen. “Whatever floats your boat, sugar,” he said, quoting our deplorable neighbor, Jason Crenshaw—or as I referred to him, the Henchman. Emery had hired Jason to drive us back and forth to Catamount Mountain when we were hunting a tiger and a metal man. Then Jason had blackmailed Emery.

“Thanks,
Slick
,” I returned. Jason had given Emery the cool nickname Slick, while I got called every degrading pet name in the book. “I’ll be back.”

“And I’ll be waiting with bells on.”

I rolled my eyes. Emery could be such a dork.

While loading the dishwasher, I eavesdropped on the conversation in the living room, gleaning critical information. Mr. Phillips planned to grill steaks for dinner and made a bet with Serena that if he won their chess game she would watch a movie with him and Emery tonight, but if she won she would massage his feet. Obviously, he figured she would win. His bet and the dinner menu were irrelevant except for the fact that they revealed he had no plans to sneak off and sell biological weapons secrets that evening, at least not until after their movie was over. By then, it would be late enough for me to follow him.

But what about during the day, when I’m at school?
I wondered while scrubbing encrusted chili from a bowl. Serena was a huge fan of canned chili.

Cupcake
,
you do know one person who has all the time in the world and will do anything for a few bucks.

“Well,” I whispered to myself, sticking the bowl in the dishwasher, “looks like I’m hiring myself a henchman.”

Thirteen

Henchman For Hire

At 11:34 p.m., Emery texted me
good night
after he and his dad finished their movie. A few minutes later, I hid in the shadows of my fence line, waiting . . . and waiting . . . and waiting. Mr. Phillips never left his house.

At 2:00 a.m., jittery with energy and bored out of my mind, I concluded that Emery’s dad was fast asleep and left my post to take care of the energy issue. If I didn’t go for a run, I wouldn’t get any sleep at all that night.

Hopefully Mr. Phillips will make a move when Jason stakes him out during the day
, I thought, as if Jason had already accepted the job I planned to offer him in a few hours. I had no doubt he would, since I would be speaking his language: cold hard cash. Or at least the promise of cold hard cash, because I was broke.

~~~

“Darn!” I stopped dead in my tracks a couple blocks from school the next morning, slamming my palm into my forehead for effect. “I forgot my homework,” I explained to Emery, Nate, and Miriam. And just so my scheme to talk to Jason alone wasn’t totally deceitful, I actually
had
left my homework at home. “Gotta get it. See ya.” With that, I turned on my heels, homeward.

“I’ll go with you,” Emery offered.

“Thanks, but no need.” I waved him on. “We’ll both be tardy then. I’ll get my mom to drive me to school.”

Emery didn’t argue, though I could feel his suspicion hanging in the air between us.

He won’t follow me
, I thought, hoofing it.
He knows I’ll smell him
. However, he would spy on me via GPS. I already had a plan for that.

At Miriam’s house, I checked his location on GPS, or more accurately his phone’s location. Emery could have left his cell at school and followed me from a safe-scent distance. GPS showed his phone at Queen Anne High. When deep, dragging breaths and a thorough visual scan from my front porch didn’t reveal Emery to be lurking nearby, I placed my iPhone in the lavender plant next to the front door and walked over to the Crenshaws’, smiling at my cleverness.

I rapped on the peach-painted door, which sported a
Welcome
wreath comprised of ornate flowers. The Crenshaws’ wiry-haired mutt, Princess, answered with a howl and threw herself against the door. The dog was totally obnoxious. As I waited, I glanced around at the picture-perfect yard of the picture-perfect Victorian. Mrs. Crenshaw spent hours outside weeding, pruning and gossiping with Mrs. DeAngelo, who lived in the Dutch Colonial between our English Tudor and the Crenshaws’ house.

“Princess, hush,” scolded Mrs. Crenshaw from inside the house.

The dog kept barking.

The door cracked open, and Mrs. Crenshaw peeked out—pink bathrobe, hair in curlers, hazel eyes in a narrow face. I had forgotten how early in the morning it was.

“What’s wrong, Cassidy?” She craned her long neck out the door to look in the direction of my house. Her foot held back the rabid mutt.

“Oh, sorry, Mrs. Crenshaw, everything is okay,” I stammered, embarrassed. Of course she would assume something was wrong. It wasn’t like I stopped by for a visit often—or ever. “Is, uh, Jason here?”

“Jason?” She blinked at me in confusion. Totally understandable. As far as she knew, Jason and I didn’t know one another beyond sight. “Why do you want to talk to Jason?”

“Um, there’s something I want to tell him. It’s in regard to an employment opportunity.” The words had sounded much more sophisticated in my head.

“An employment opportunity?” Mrs. Crenshaw’s face lit up. “For Jason? Yes. Please, please come in.” She opened the door, again telling Princess to hush.

The dog ignored her.

“Thank you.” I entered the foyer, which was wallpapered in a pretty floral pattern. Princess backed away, snarling, with her balding tail tucked between her legs.

Mrs. Crenshaw shut the door and gestured to the living room, self-consciously touching the curlers on her head. “Please take a seat, and I’ll get Jason for you,” she said, and hooked her finger under Princess’s collar.

While she dragged the growling dog away, I went into the living room, which was packed with ornate antiques, fancy bisque dolls, floral-print upholstery, and oil paintings featuring more flowers. Along with the flowers, lace dominated the room: lace curtains, lace fringe on pillows, dolls wearing lacy dresses, lace doilies gracing tabletops and the arms and headrests of the sofa and chairs. Unfortunately, the smell of stale cigarette smoke, which had absorbed into the surfaces of the room, stole from the ambiance, as did the yellow tinge on the lace curtains. It made me think of plaque on teeth.

Since dolls occupied the chairs, I sat on the sofa. Having trapped Princess in the dining room behind French doors, Mrs. Crenshaw smoothed out her robe, which had become disarranged in the struggle, and turned to me wearing a hospitable smile.

“Excuse me for a moment,” she said. “I’ll get Jason for you.” She rushed up the stairs as if the opportunity of a lifetime was at stake. Maybe in her mind it was. Her twenty-five-year-old bum of a son finding gainful employment would be a dream come true.

I tracked her eager footsteps down the upstairs hall. They stopped, and a door opened.

“Jason,” she whispered.

No answer.

“Jason,” she said more sharply.

Jason groaned.

“Jason.”

“What?” he snapped.

The door closed. Apparently Mrs. Crenshaw didn’t want me overhearing them.

“You have company,” she explained from inside his room. “Cassidy, Drake and Elizabeth’s daughter.”

“Who?”

I gritted my teeth. He knew exactly
who
—I think.

“Our neighbors, the Joneses.” Mrs. Crenshaw sounded weary. “Cassidy wants to talk to you. Get
up
. It’s impolite to keep her waiting.”

“Tell her,
politely
, to take a hike.” His words were muffled, as if he had buried his face in a pillow.

“You
will
talk to her,” Mrs. Crenshaw insisted.

“Ma, knock it off!”

I pictured her pulling the covers off him. “If you weren’t up playing that computer game all night . . .” Her voice was strained, suggesting that she and Jason were having a blanket tug-of-war. “She wants to tell you about a job.”

“Yippee. Is Deluxe Burgers hiring?”

“Jerk,” I muttered under my breath.

“Okay, I’m up!” he said. Footsteps stalked across the floor.

“Jason, put on a robe,” Mrs. Crenshaw pleaded.

Jason blew her off.

A knot formed in my stomach as I listened to him come down the hall and stairs. I hated dealing with Jason.

He appeared a moment later wearing a holey T-shirt, pajama bottoms, and a sour expression. His sandy blond hair was in complete disarray, which would have been charming if it hadn’t been on his head. “Long time no see. This better be good, Cupcake.”

His mother came up behind him and gave me an apologetic look.

I cleared my throat and straightened my spine. “It’s regarding a job opportunity.” I tried to sound professional, aloof.

Jason mocked me with a look that announced I had failed.

“Is there some place we can talk privately?” I asked.

“As a matter of fact, there is.” He dug sleep from his hazel eyes, just to be disgusting, I’m sure. “Get up, and you can proposition me there.”

Mrs. Crenshaw gasped in horror. “Jason!”

I came to my feet, clenching my jaw and resisting the urge to march right out of that house. For the good of humanity, I would stomach Jason’s rudeness.

“Relax,
Mother
.” He flopped a hand in my direction. “She’s, like, twelve. If she hits on me, I’ll turn her over my knee and spank her.”

“Apologize to Cassidy immediately!”

“For what? Warning her to keep her hands to herself?”

Mortified, Mrs. Crenshaw was speechless.

“I don’t have all day,” he said to me, and headed down the hall toward the back of the house.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Crenshaw.” I felt sheepish, walking past her in pursuit of her deplorable son.

She nodded, wringing helpless hands. No wonder Jason got away with being such a loser. She let him walk all over her.

Jason collected the waist of his pajama bottoms, which had slid down on his narrow hips, and hiked them up. It was the only acknowledgement that he knew I was walking behind him. I figured he also did this to make me uncomfortable.

Tall, broad back, cocky walk—he still resembled the high school football star he had once been, though I was sure if I poked a finger through one of the gaping holes in his T-shirt, it would sink into marshmallow flesh. In a few more years, his chosen career path, Professional Bum, would catch up with him. Spending long days lounging around, smoking and playing the online game
Gods and Kings
didn’t do much for retaining muscle mass.

He flung the basement door open, releasing more cigarette stench.

So this is where the magic happens
, I thought, crinkling my nose.

Jason flicked a light switch and started down the stairs while I trailed him. Fluorescent lights buzzed to life over an unfinished basement. Utilities lined the right wall, while shelves stacked with storage containers occupied the back wall. Jason’s “command center” dominated the left side: two ratty recliners on a brown shag area rug, angled toward a wide-screen television with a loaded console underneath. The top of the console was coated in dust.

“So this is the man cave,” I remarked.

Jason plopped into one of the recliners and swiped a cigarette pack from amongst open cans of soda, candy wrappers, and empty chip bags littering a side table. A bowl of fine china serving as an ashtray looked and smelled like it hadn’t been emptied for weeks.

“Explain yourself.” Jason tapped a cigarette from the pack.

“May I?” I asked, indicating the other recliner.

“You may.”

I traversed the area rug, which literally crunched under my feet, and pinched a chip bag that had been deposited on the vacant chair. Pinky aloft, I transferred it to the side table with the other rubbish. “May I brush the crumbs off?”