Three Wishes (13 page)

Or, I thought, feeling like an idiot as I stared at the breaker box next to the garage door. I could just cut the power the old fashioned way and call him.

I dug the phone out of my bag. I hit the redial button and cut the power. I had only a beat or two before Ian stormed in to check it out.

The phone rang twice, and I flipped the power back on.

I could hear the chaos in the garage as the guys scrambled to get back on track.

Leo stepped through the door with his phone in his hands.

His gaze warmed as he saw me. “You rang?”

My eyes flashed briefly to the biceps under his shirt. “Seal the door or something. Those girls will follow you for sure.”

Leo raised a brow, then turned and flipped the bolt lock on the door.

“Uh, yeah. Right. That works.” Duh. “Leo, your father! They’ve changed the hearing back to next week and lifted the no visitation. I just read Mom’s email.”

He stared, complete astonishment on his face.

“Leo! Did you hear me? You can go see him.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes!”

Leo stepped forward. “What happened? How?”

“They don’t know how it got moved, but they changed it back. They’re looking into it. Leo. You can go see your dad right now!” I couldn’t resist any longer, I jumped to hug him.

He hugged me right back. “Thank you, Jen!”

I didn’t want to leave the cocoon of Leo’s warmth. Quit drooling, Jen. Leo’s dad is in danger. He doesn’t need you panting after him right now.

Leo started to move away, and I was already missing him. He paused and leaned to kiss me on the cheek. “I’ll call you later.”

I stood in shock, feeling his kiss burning into my cheek, as he unlocked the door and went into the garage.

“Gotta go,” he said to the guys. “Family emergency.”

The guys groaned, and one or two girls whined, “But Leo.”

I touched my cheek. I should never have gotten this close to Leo. In a week he’d be gone, and I’d be a lovesick little idiot pining after the bad boy hottie.

Haley and her entourage poured in from the garage.

“Bathroom?” she asked with a flip of her hair.

I pointed toward the foyer.

I didn’t have the patience to chaperone the bimbos, but before I could yell for Ian, he came inside.

“Where’d Haley go?”

I pointed. Good, he could have them. I had some pictures and addresses to deal with. I grabbed my backpack and dashed up the stairs.

As I studied the pictures, I realized that none of the Directorate looked imposing in modern day clothes. Ben Franklin looked a little like the governor of Georgia, but I figured that was a coincidence. I mean, the U.N.I.V.E.R.S.E. would have noticed if a Directorate member had gone rogue and was running an entire state.

Several of the men had picked more handsome personas than what they were stuck with when they were alive before. I guess I couldn’t really blame them, but what about that whole selfless thing? The worst was Maximillian Valerio. The man had the look of an Italian playboy. Something off the cover of a romance novel. Of course, he was still at least forty, so really old compared to me.

Socrates looked surprisingly like Alan Rickman, a British actor my mom had a bit of a crush on.

Six of them were supposed to be in the Southeastern United States. Maximillian lived in Europe and Socrates in Canada.

Later, I heard Sean scream, “I have too gone through puberty.”

He and Ian were at each other’s throats again.

I hadn’t heard Mom come in, so I jumped up and decided to run interference. If my parents walked in to a bloodbath, it might put them in a bad mood.

Yeah, and uh, it would be sad too, I guess.

Ian had started harassing Sean about being a child while Ian was supposedly a man. Even thinking about it made me laugh.

“Ian, leave him alone!” I turned the corner to Ian’s room relieved that at least Ian wasn’t giving our little brother a mega-wedgie this time.

“I’m already going through puberty, you idiot!” Sean yelled.

Since his voice hadn’t changed, he didn’t even wear deodorant yet, and he didn’t lock his door when he went to bed like Ian did, I pretty much figured Ian was right. No way had Sean hit puberty.

Ian rolled his eyes. “Come back when you’ve got some pubic hair.”

Ewww.

“I have pubic hair!” Sean said with fury.

“Yeah, then prove it,” Ian yelled back.

Oh, please God no.

Sean turned red and shook with emotion. “You fag!”

Unfortunately for Sean, my dad walked up the stairs in time to hear one of his least favorite words. “Fag” was not acceptable in our house. Although, in this case, the hurled accusation had probably been Sean’s best defense.

“Sean Farrelly!” Dad yelled.

“Dad, Ian’s harassing him again about puberty.”

My dad focused his hard stare on his oldest son.

“I’ll just go set the, um, table,” I said, slipping past my father and down the stairs.

After dinner, Mom and Dad announced that they wanted to talk to me and Ian about the band.

Ian rolled his eyes.

“Thanks, Mom, but I really don’t care anymore,” I said.

“You don’t?” She wrinkled her brow. “Why not?”

“I’m just tired of fighting about it.”

Mom and Dad looked at each other.

“Well, okay,” Dad said. “If you’re sure.”

Mom studied me with a puzzled look.

I snuck back upstairs while Ian trashed me to my parents, telling them I didn’t have the work ethic for his band. Puhlease!

I was dying to hear what Leo had discovered. I needed to hit the drums, and hopefully they’d distract me.

I spent an hour jamming. I hadn’t had such a good session in days.

When I finally finished, I needed a shower.

I pulled out my books and folders and set them on my bed. I had some trig to do, which would be no big deal if I could manage to concentrate. Then I needed to read three chapters of my bio II for a quiz tomorrow.

Before I got started, I decided to get my shower over with. I took the cell phone into the bathroom in case Leo called while I was in the shower.

Like he was really going to call.

I shaved my legs and then wet my hair. I had reached for the shampoo bottle and dumped some onto my hand when the phone rang. At first, I thought I’d imagined it, but I hurried to wash the shampoo off my hand after it rang a second time.

I turned off the shower, jumped out, grabbed a towel, dried one hand and my face enough to avoid drowning the phone. Then I picked it up and answered, butt naked, with a towel clutched to my chest, and dripping wet.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Jen.”

“Hi,” I said avoiding saying his name. Talking to him while naked was one thing, saying his name was beyond me.

“You aren’t busy are you?”

“Um,” I glanced back at the shower. “No.”

“I just wanted to thank you again. I got to see my dad. He’d been pretty freaked out about having no visitors. When I got home, I had a message from the U.N.I.V.E.R.S.E. telling me the hearing was moved and that I could visit.”

“So did your dad know anything?”

“No. But whoever set him up is obviously well connected in the U.N.I.V.E.R.S.E. Rescheduling his hearing is way more involved than cloning those lottery tickets.”

I glanced down but realized I was staring at my breasts. I cleared my throat and focused on the fish shaped soap dish on the counter. “Um, so, what’s next? Did you find anything suspicious on the staffers?”

“Nothing so far. I forked over a bunch of cash to get the PI to check on the last batch. I didn’t think we had enough time.”

I shuddered to think about how much he’d spent. “Did you find out anything about David Laverdiere?”

“I had the PI rush on his background check. He’s not a good guy, but so far nothing connects him to anyone in the Genie world other than my father.”

“What do you mean he’s not a good guy?”

“He just did ten years in federal prison.”

“Leo, are you sure this PI is a good person? I mean she could be lying.”

“I don’t think so,” Leo said. “She seems okay.”

“How did your dad know her?”

“She investigated him once when his girlfriend thought he was cheating.”

“Was he?”

“Cheating?”

“Yeah.”

“Um. Yeah.”

“That’s not real reassuring. She may not like your father.”

“It was a long time ago, but I guess I should look into it.”

“Maybe you should hire somebody else to double check what she tells you.”

“You might be right. I’ll see if I can manage it. I’ll catch you at school in the morning?”

“Sure.”

I hung up the phone and set it on the counter.

Talking to Leo had kept me warm, but now the cool air was getting to me. I jumped back into the shower and turned it on. I’d forgotten again to tell him about the pictures. First I’d been distracted by his hug and now by my nudity. Aargh.

Maybe I should call him back.

As I dashed back to my room, Mom stopped me and asked what I thought of the memos she’d forwarded to my email.

Oh crap. I’d forgotten all about it. I had to show I was interested though. I’d made a big deal about it and I needed Mom to start giving me more information. “I’m just headed to my room to log on,” I told her.

I pulled up my email to find that Mom had taken my request seriously. She’d forwarded position papers arguing both sides of the Techno Echo issue. She also sent me a U.N.I.V.E.R.S.E. newsletter that mentioned Leo’s dad. Nothing as good as what I had found when snooping in my mother’s email, but still good information.

The newsletter also had a human interest section with a profile piece on Maximillian. He’d apparently died saving the love of his life at age sixty. The widely held belief that he had so much more to contribute had led to his appointment on the Directorate. The story was accompanied by a portrait of the woman. I’d never been able to tell much about people from a painting, but even I could see she was beautiful with exotic green eyes. Something about her was vaguely familiar. Maybe I had seen the painting before somewhere.

I guess that was why he’d chosen such a handsome persona this time. Maybe he wasn’t vain, maybe he just appreciated beauty. Yeah, right.

I didn’t even bother to read the RokrGirlz emails. I was days behind anyway.

I hadn’t started my homework, and I had another week to get through before the hearing. If I wanted to keep helping Leo, I had to get enough work done to avoid a concerned email to Mom from one of my teachers.

I woke up at two, sound asleep on my government book. With a grunt, I tossed it on the floor and pulled the covers over me.

Chapter Eleven

The alarm went off and I jumped up so I’d have some time left for my mother. I needed to talk to her, plus I didn’t want her to know I’d been up late with homework again.

I set a world record getting ready for school and bounded down the stairs to catch Mom.

Today she wore a black suit, which I’d noticed she pulled out when she had a lot of serious stuff going on at work. She was on the phone already, and the conversation sounded tense.

“I don’t care about the ramifications, Bob. We have to do something about the Richard Williams situation asap.”

Richard Williams? I’d heard her mention his name before, and it hadn’t been in a good way. Who was he?

Mom rubbed her temples with her thumb and forefinger as she listened. Finally, she said, “If you want to play it that way, fine, but you have until three p.m. and then I’m acting.”

Mom disconnected and shook her head.

“Sounds serious,” I said, hoping for some details.

“Hi, hon!”

“Hi, Mom,” I said pouring some OJ and taking a seat next to her.

“I’m glad to see you have more energy than yesterday.”

“Uh, yeah. So thanks for sending me all that stuff. I read it all, and it’s nice to feel like I know what’s going on.”

“The Techno Echo is a high pressure situation,” Mom said, cautioning me. “I’m hoping for a peaceful resolution, but we should be prepared in case that doesn’t pan out.”

“Which side is right? The freedom side or the monitoring side.”

Mom grimaced. “As a high level employee of the U.N.I.V.E.R.S.E., I’m afraid I’m not allowed to express an opinion, other than that of the U.N.I.V.E.R.S.E.”

“That sucks! Does Dad know about that?”

She nodded. “He’s pushing me to take a straight Genie Communications job so I’m not bound by all the secrecy and loyalty agreements.”

“Will they let you do it?”

“No. I’d love to though. The cell phone business is my favorite part of the day.”

“So why won’t they let you?” How come I never knew all this about my mother?

“They say my skills are irreplaceable,” she said with sarcastic emphasis on irreplaceable. “But I do have a plan. I’ve been studying up on several possible ways to expand the cell business. If they went with one of them, they’d need a devoted Genie Communications VP to handle the extra workload.”

“How do you know they’d pick you?”

Mom frowned. “I don’t. That’s the problem I haven’t managed to work around yet.”

“You’ll figure something out. How long have you been working on this?”

“Six years,” Mom admitted with a grin. “But the longer I wait, the more options they have for well-trained possible replacements.”

“Uh, yeah.” I drank the rest of my juice. “So you really can’t talk about the Techno Echo with me?”

Mom leaned over and whispered, “Once you form your own opinions, I’ll tell you mine. Just remember, that I have to stay in good with the U.N.I.V.E.R.S.E., for my sake and for yours.”

“So I can’t tell anybody.”

“Exactly.”

“Don’t worry, Mom. I wouldn’t do anything to make you look bad.” Except that I already was, a voice called from the back of my head.

“I know,” Mom said, making me feel even worse. She put her hand on mine. “You’re the child I’ve never had to worry about.”

“You know Ian’s being really hard on Sean lately.”

She nodded and took another sip of her coffee. “Dad and I talked about it.”