Three
The last time I saw Kelly Connolly, she was delivering George’s ashes for the funeral. The time before that, she was at the Memphis CDC installation where George, Rick, and I were taken into quarantine after an anonymous call claimed we’d gone into amplification. Not exactly the sort of encounters that lend themselves to easy companionship. I’m never really sure how to deal with people who aren’t a part of my team and aren’t trying to either kill or interview me. My usual tactics—gunshots and punches to the face—just don’t seem to apply.
Kelly was looking at me expectantly, the cup of coffee she’d taken from Alaric still held in front of her. I almost wished she’d throw it at me, just so I’d have some idea of what I was supposed to do.
Say hello, George prompted.
“Why—” I began, and caught myself, snapping my jaws closed on my tongue so hard I tasted blood. Talking to George in front of my friends and coworkers was one thing: It weirded them out a little, but they were essentially used to it. Talking to her in front of someone who was still practically a stranger was something else entirely. I didn’t have the time or the patience to deal with the questions it would inevitably raise.
Kelly was still looking at me with the same expectant air, now becoming slowly tinged with concern. I know that look. I get that look a lot. If I didn’t say something soon, she was going to start asking whether I was all right, and then I was going to need to decide whether or not I was going to deck her.
p height="0em" width="27">Punching visitors from the CDC would be a new low for me. It wasn’t one I was particularly eager to reach. I swallowed away the taste of blood and forced myself to smile as I stepped forward, offering my hand. “Dr. Connolly. It’s nice to see you again.” Kelly took my hand, the edge of concern not leaving her face. Her handshake was surprisingly firm. I looked closer and realized that the concern was masking an even more pronounced expression of fear. Fear? She was with the CDC. Short of Kellis-Amberlee deciding to jump species and start infecting birds, what did she have to worry about?
“You don’t need to be so formal, Shaun.” Her smile tightened for a moment before she dropped it. She let go of my hand at the same time. I kept studying her face, taking note of the dark circles under her eyes. The good doctor hadn’t been sleeping much recently… if she’d been sleeping at all. “I won’t call you Mr. Mason if you won’t call me Dr. Connolly.”
“Deal.” I stepped back, tucking my hands into my pockets. “Welcome to the madhouse, Doc. Have you had a chance to meet the rest of the team?”
“Well, I met Alaric here when he buzzed me into the building,” she said, smiling brightly at him. He ducked his head, blushing and slanting a glance toward Becks at the same time, like he was checking her reaction. He shouldn’t have bothered. Becks was staring straight ahead, giving Kelly her best “I am an ice-cold action bitch and you’d better not forget it” look.
Dave had managed to slink back into the room while I was gaping at Kelly. He hunched his shoulders as he sat down next to the bank of monitors, trying to make himself look small. If we hadn’t had company, I would have rushed over to tell him I was sorry and promise—again—that this was the last time I’d ever lay a hand on him. I’d mean it, too, even if we’d both know I’d never be able to keep my word. Dave would say it was okay, that I hadn’t actually hurt him, and we’d both feel better… at least until the next time I lost my temper.
That’s how things worked around the office without George. We were used to it; comfortable, even. Having Kelly Connolly standing there, clearly waiting for an introduction to the rest of the team, was just screwing everything up.
“Uh,” I said. “Well, that cool cat over on the news desk is one of our Irwins, Dave Novakowski.” Dave raised a hand and waved. “Alaric here is Mahir’s second-in-command. Mahir is… uh… Mahir Gowda runs the Newsie division remotely from London.” I still couldn’t bring myself to call him George’s replacement. The word was just too bitter to say.
Kelly nodded, offering a quick smile in Dave’s direction. Dave answered with a distracted nod, hands beginning to move rapidly across his keyboard. “Mr. Gowda interviewed me earlier this year,” Kelly said, looking back to me. “He was a very nice gentleman.”
“He did?” I asked blankly.
Alaric was staring. A note of excitement crept into his voice as he asked, “Wait—are you the Kelly Connolly?”
Becks and I exchanged a blank look, Becks mouthing “What the f**k?” I shrugged.
Kelly, meanwhile, was smiling half-smugly, with that look on her face that famous people always seem to get when they’re pretending not to be pleased about being recognized. Mom used to walk around with that expression permanently locked in place. “I am.”
“Oh, wow,” said Alaric, eyes going even wider. “It’s an honor to meet you, ma’am. I mean a real, genuine honor.”
“Uh, excuse me for asking, but does someone want to explain to the nice Irwins,” I caught the hopeful look in Becks’s eyes, and hastened to clarify, “nice Irwins and former Irwins exactly what ‘the Kelly Connolly’ is supposed to mean? Because I have to say, I’m clueless.”
“Truer words were never spoken,” Becks muttered, almost under her breath.
“Dr. Matras was her grandfather,” said Alaric, like that explained everything.
I paused, filtering through my recollections of college history seminars. Finally, I ventured, “You mean the CDC treason guy?”
They dropped the charges, George chided.
“Sorry,” I said, automatically.
Kelly must have assumed the apology was directed at her, because she shook her head and said, “It’s okay; that’s how most people outside of epidemiological circles remember him. His trial was a pretty big deal. They made us watch the tapes when I was in medical school.”
“Right,” I said. I was starting to remember more, probably because George was practically yelling in my inner ear. “He’s the guy who hijacked his kid’s blog so he could get the word out.” I could vaguely recall seeing Kelly in CDC press releases and interviews, always in the background, but pretty steadily there all the same. I always figured it was because she was photogenic. Turns out it was because she was an asset.
“His eleven-year-old kid’s blog,” said Becks, eyeing Kelly suspiciously. “You’re at least twenty-one. How did you manage that?”
“My Aunt Wendy was the youngest of six,” Kelly replied, with the ease of someone fielding an all-too-familiar question. “She was actually the flower girl at my mother’s wedding. My mother is Deborah Connolly, born Deborah Matras, age twenty-five at the time of the Rising.”
Becks nodded, her former Newsie’s instincts mollified. “So what brings you to our neck of the woods?”
“Uh, guys?”
“Dave, I told you, we’ll edit that report together in a minute,” Becks said impatiently.
My phone beeped. Holding up a hand to excuse myself, I took a step backward and pulled the phone out of my pocket, clicking it open. “Shaun here.”
“Why aren’t you online?”
“Hello to you, too, Mahir. Why are you still awake? Shouldn’t the Bride of Bollywood be threatening towithhold sex for a month if you don’t put down your keyboard and crawl back to the nuptial bed?”
“She’s asleep,” he said, flatly. “No thanks to you. Why aren’t you online?”
“There are a great many answers to that philosophical question, but for right now, I’m going to settle for ‘because we have company, and my mama taught me it was rude to use your computer in front of company unless you’ve got enough for everybody.’ ”
“You’re a bloody bad liar, Shaun Mason. Your mother didn’t teach you anything of the sort.”
“Maybe not, but she should have. Why do you need me online?”
“Guys?” Dave again, a little more insistent this time.
“Turn on the news and see for yourself. I’m blocking the live feeds out of the office and claiming site issues. You can thank me for it later.”
Mahir hung up.
Mahir never hung up on me like that.
Frowning, I lowered the phone. “Dave? What are you trying to tell us?”
“I was looking for CDC-related reports from the last few days, to see if I could figure out why we have company, and there’s a report from this morning of a break-in at the Memphis CDC.”
“So?”
“So they’re saying one of the doctors died.”
I didn’t need to ask which one. The answer was in Kelly’s sudden pallor, and the way her eyes darted from side to side, like she was looking for an escape route from the apartment. There wasn’t one. With the entire resident staff inside, the door had automatically sealed itself, and it wasn’t going to open for anyone who didn’t have a key.
Or couldn’t pass a blood test.
I wasn’t the only person who’d put two and two together. Alaric took two quick steps backward, nearly tripping over a beanbag chair someone had abandoned in the middle of the floor. Becks stayed where she was, tucking her hands behind herself. She always kept a firearm of some sort in a holster at the small of her back, where it wouldn’t necessarily be spotted. I knew from field trials that she could have it out and aimed in under a second.
Take charge of this situation, or it’s going to get messy. George sounded worried. That worried me, in a “less important than the possibly infected CDC doctor in our apartment” sort of a way. If my inner George was becoming more nuanced, did that mean I was getting more crazy? And if I was, did I mind?
“What do you want me to do here?” I asked, forgetting the whole “don’t talk to George in front of strangers” rule in the face of a bigger problem.