Mute (Muted Trilogy Book 1) (29 page)

Regretfully,

Jemma

Jemma put down the pen and covered her face, then ran both hands through her hair, taking a deep breath and releasing it. She relayed the message to Jack, who acknowledged it, and she got another sheet of paper.

Mom, Dad, and Jilly,

I’m sorry you’re reading this. Jack and I are gone, but we have reason to believe we’re okay, just not able to communicate. We didn’t tell you sooner because we didn’t want you to worry, and because we thought it would put you in danger. With us gone, though, they should leave you alone.

I’m sorry I can’t say more.

Love,

Jemma

She folded both letters, writing Cecily’s name on one and her parents’ names on the other.

“My letter for Dad should be printing at the desk,” sent Jack, his mental tone lacking its usual energy. The printer started as if on cue. When it was done, she took that letter, too, folding it and addressing it to Don.

“Got it,” she sent. “I’m going to put these away now.”

Jemma checked to make sure nobody needed help, then she went to the staff room and put the letters in her cubby, writing face-down, placing a paperback she kept in her cubby atop the letters to keep them from blowing away and to ensure they weren’t read if they weren’t needed. She pulled out her phone as she walked back to the circulation desk, replying to her mother’s text before Carolyn could worry.

We’re okay, Mom. We just have some things we need to do tonight.

"Okay, Jack," she sent. "What can we do to make these just precaution? Any ideas?"

“Well, there’s the blood bank,” he sent. “I’m not having any luck getting to it from here, but maybe…” He paused, some discomfort seeping through.

Jemma’s phone buzzed. “One sec,” she sent, stopping to read the text.

Okay. Come by soon, though, all right?

We’ll try
, replied Jemma.
Love you.

“What did you have in mind?” she sent Jack, setting her phone under the desk. “I’m getting the feeling I’m not going to like it.”

“Probably not,” he agreed. “It isn’t something I would normally suggest, not something I’m really comfortable with myself.”

“Just say it, Jack,” sent Jemma.

“We can break into the blood bank and find their hardcopy files, giving us the other names and maybe even a reason for all this.”

Jemma blinked and then closed her eyes. It wasn’t actually that much of a stretch, breaking in physically when they’d already been willing to break in digitally. Still, though, she felt much safer in the library than she would breaking and entering into a strange place.

Perhaps not so surprisingly.

“What do you think?” sent Jack, caution lacing his tone. “I’ve been trying to think of other options, any alternative other than doing nothing and just waiting to be taken as Kendall seems willing to do.”

“I need to think this through a bit,” sent Jemma.

“Of course.”

“Speaking of Kendall, though, have you checked in on her today?” sent Jemma, rubbing her arm. “I know she said she would let us know when she was willing to talk, but…”

“Not yet,” sent Jack. “I was wanting to check on her, too. Should we go ahead and do that?”

“Yes, let’s.” Jemma focused on both Kendall and Jack. “Hey, Kendall, are you doing okay?”

There was no response.

“Kendall?” tried Jack.

“I’m going to try just her,” sent Jemma, waiting for Jack’s acknowledgment before she tuned him out and focused on just her connection with Kendall.

Or at least, she tried to.

“I can’t find her, Jack. It’s like I know I’m knocking on the right door, but nobody’s there.”

“Same. I can tell where her connection is, but I can’t… connect.” Jack’s tone was frustrated and worried.

“Do you think she…” Jemma trailed off, taking a deep breath. “Either she’s blocking us or she’s been taken. This is what it felt like when Marcia’s connection cut out.”

“We can check on her tonight,” sent Jack, “but I think we have to assume she was taken.”

“That means we don’t have much time,” sent Jemma. “If they took Kendall, they have to know that we know everything she does. I don’t know why they haven’t taken us yet.”

“We have to assume we’re on borrowed time,” sent Jack. “So what are we going to do with the time we have?”

Jemma had never really had a good answer when asked what she would do if she knew it was her last day on earth. Some of her best options had included curling up with a good book on her parents’ couch while her family was nearby, spending the day in the library, or curling up alone with a book under a shady tree. Now she would probably want Jack around, too, but she didn’t really have time to examine that desire too closely. Instead, though she didn’t know whether it would be a full day or not, she was being presented with one of the few questions she’d never really known how to answer, and this time, it wasn’t rhetorical.

How did she want to spend the rest of her time, knowing it was limited?

She flashed through various scenarios before settling on the only answer that worked for her: she would spend the rest of her time trying to make sure it wasn’t the only time she had.

“We’ll do it,” she sent finally. “We’ll take our chances and break into the blood bank.”

“Shiny,” quoted Jack, his tone laced with desperation and hope and humor at his attempt to lighten the mood. “Let’s be bad guys.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT:

Action

“So how do we even go about starting to make a plan for this?” asked Jemma, pacing in front of Jack’s couch.

Jack had eaten a quick dinner with his father before meeting Jemma where she waited at his house; they’d decided it wasn’t safe to completely split up, even during the day, and she’d felt guilty at the thought of eating dinner with his dad when she’d turned down the dinner invitation from her own parents.

“We start with research, of course.” Jack seemed back to his normal self, in a relatively good mood considering what they were planning. Jemma stopped pacing and sat next to him, her arm resting against his as she looked at the screen on his laptop. “Okay, so here’s the tax assessor’s page for the building.” He scrolled through written descriptions, photos of the plot and the building itself, and what looked like a floor plan. “It doesn’t have as much information as there would be on a residential building. We can’t see interior walls, but we’ve both been in there. It was just a big room with cubicles, and a small office to one side, right?”

Jemma sent a wave of agreement, then looked between the photos and the representation of the shape of the building. “Those back windows there, that’s where the office is.”

“That’s what I’m thinking, too. That’s about where my initial planning ended, though. This isn’t exactly something I’ve ever come close to doing.”

“Me neither.” Jemma scanned through the information on the page but didn’t see much that she didn’t already know. The building was one floor, standard height, carpet inside, slab foundation. “There are those big vent-type things that look like they’d be easy enough to get into, but they face the busier street, don’t they?”

“Yeah,” replied Jack. “Plus I’m not sure what’s on the other side of them, whether we could get through into the building. There’s not likely a guard after hours. It closes at 6:30, so employees should be gone pretty soon.”

“Are we doing this tonight?” asked Jemma.

“Tonight or tomorrow night, if we think we can make it that long.”

“Tonight probably gives us better chances.” Jemma sat back. “But that means we have no time to plan. If it was guarded, at least we might be able to just bribe someone. There’s an alarm, I’m guessing?”

“More likely than not.” Jack navigated to Google Maps. “There’s a security sticker on a couple of the windows.”

“What does an alarm do when it goes off? I mean, it makes noise, obviously, but who does it notify?”

“Sometimes just the owner. Sometimes the security company or the police.”

“We know the police are pretty overworked,” sent Jemma. “Would they respond to something like this?”

“Maybe. Probably depends what else is going on.” Jack ran a hand through his hair.

"Do you think we could just break a window, get what we need, and get back out before the police or anyone gets there?" asked Jemma.

"It depends. Have a way to test it, though, maybe. I need to Google a bit more."

Jemma watched as he ran through a list of terms quickly enough that she had trouble following, despite her well-above-average reading speed, running through information about alarm systems and radio signals.

“Okay,” sent Jack. “So I read an article a couple years back, before one of the big computer conferences, that said most security systems were still using unencrypted radio waves that have been outdated for a while. If we had more time, I could probably get us in and out completely without anyone noticing. As it is, though, I think I’ve got the parts to put something together that’ll trigger a false alarm.”

“Just once or do we get a few chances?”

“It should work as many times as we need it to. We’ll have to be close, though,” he added. “Probably across the street at the furthest.”

“There’s a Subway or something there, right?” Jemma pulled up the map on her phone. “So we go there and set off the alarm and see how long it takes someone to show up. Then we’ve got an idea of what we’re working with.”

“Right,” sent Jack, beaming at her. “It gets better, too, if we keep setting it off. What would you do if your alarm kept going off and seemed like it was malfunctioning? On top of that, it’s a place without much in the way of high-risk valuables.”

“Eventually I’d either shut the alarm off or just ignore it,” sent Jemma. “Also, even if the police come out, they’re not going to do it more than once.”

“Exactly!” Jack’s eyes sparkled. “We do it until there’s no reaction or until we have a good idea of how much time we have inside.”

“And do we… Is there a way to break in without actually breaking anything? Or are we going through one of those back windows where we’ll be hidden?”

“I’m thinking the window might be best,” sent Jack. “Less chance of setting off some backup alarm before we’re even in there.”

“All right. So that gets us inside and then back out. Do we know what, exactly, we’re looking for?”

“Paperwork. That’s more your area, sorting, reading quickly. Hopefully the office isn’t a disaster and we can find what we need without too much issue.”

Jemma nodded. “We can check under our names first, check for any sections kept apart from others. If it’s there and we have enough time, I’ll find it.”

“Well, then that’s our plan. We’re doing this tonight?”

She nodded again. “Seems like it makes the most sense.”

“Okay,” sent Jack. “I’m gonna go get what I need to mess with the alarm system.”

Jack exited the room, and Jemma was left with her thoughts. The whole situation seemed surreal. They were being watched and could potentially be captured for who-knew-what use, and now they were planning a break-in to get information. From a blood bank. There may not have been any vampires, but given the telepathy, it didn’t take much of a stretch of the imagination to get firmly into the supernatural.

Creatures of lore aside, though, she really was here planning to break into a building, and it didn’t quite feel like anything but a dream, like she was brainstorming for a story. Or maybe an episode of Buffy.

And then there was Jack. She’d finally made a friend, a good one, and they were about to commit a crime together, but their chances of getting arrested seemed slim compared to their chances of disappearing without a trace.

She felt around for Kendall’s connection again, but she was still unable to connect, and there’d been no lights on when they’d driven by her house on the way to Jack’s. Again, it was something she had trouble wrapping her mind around; yesterday, she’d Talked to two people who were no longer around to Talk to. The connection’s continued presence, if inaccessible, did at least mean they were probably alive.

But for what purpose?

She jumped as Jack came back into the room.

“Sorry,” he sent, arranging several parts on the coffee table. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

“You’re fine,” sent Jemma. “I was just thinking.”

“Plenty to think about. Anything in particular?” Jack sat next to her on the couch and started arranging the electronics in the order he wanted them.

“Tonight. What’s next. What was yesterday.” Jemma aimed for an airy tone and was rewarded by Jack’s grin, a sparkle in his eye as he looked away from the electronics and toward her. She grinned back at him, the moment carrying more than just the attempt at a joke. He searched her eyes before responding.

“So you were thinking about everything in particular.” He smiled again and then turned his attention back to the pieces, putting them together as if they were Legos.

“Exactly.” Jemma watched him, his quickly-moving fingers proof of his familiarity with the various boards and wires and metal.