Project 17 (4 page)

“He had a daughter,” Max said.

“A teenage husband and father.” Jamie sat on Max’s bed. He pointed at the year. “Maybe they died in different months?”

Lillian imagined grim, damaged Caleb holding a baby girl in his arms. “But Caleb said he’s never been married,” she said.

Max found another news release:

Max clicked on the list of victims. “And that,” she said, “is how they died.”

“Bullshit,” Lillian said. At that point she could only think of one word:
cover-up.

“Do you know who owns Northpoint-Pascual?” Max said. “Northpoint United. Which has a controlling stake in various companies, including Sentry manufacturer Legacy Engineering,
and? Gander a guess?”

Lillian shook her head.

“Seton,” Max said, holding out two fingers as though she were flashing the peace sign. “Where Paul works now.” Max spun around on her chair. “Whatever it was that
your boys did, Northpoint is keeping them close.”

“But Paul gave me a list of emergency numbers I can call, and one of them is the local Sentry hotline.”

“Northpoint owns Legacy. Maybe the cops are in on it?” Jamie said. “Like in a Witness Protection Program.”

“But they’re not flagged in the database, I checked,” Max said. “So this is not Witness Protection. This is deliberate identity change. Can I see the numbers he gave
you?”

It was not an unusual list. It had Paul’s mobile, Paul’s local in Seton, and the local Sentry emergency number that could connect a caller to Sentry Services and its other
departments.

“This is not the local hotline,” Max said.

“What?”

“The local hotline is 793-HELP. This is a different number.” Max ran another search. “But it’s not Northpoint either.”

“A secret line,” Jamie said. “Let’s call it.”

Max shook her head. “They might track our number, and,” she spread her arms, “my lair’s not exactly legal.”

“Let’s say the number leads to some back office belonging to Northpoint,” Jamie said. “It’s still not a tight enough lid. If the brothers are under
Northpoint’s finger, then why did they allow Paul—I’m sorry,
Abe—
to hire this piece of work?” He pointed at Lillian. “They’re a pharmaceutical
company with vast connections in the healthcare industry. They could have sent an army of paid nurses to watch Zeke. If they’re hell-bent to cover something up, why spoil it all by allowing
an unscreened stranger into the brothers’ lives? A stranger who could very easily contact SentryServ directly?”

“But what could Lillian tell them that could undo them?” Max said. “Paul could easily deny the visitor’s ID.” Max turned to her. “What can force you to call
SentryServ, Lils? A fire? Home invasion?”

“Caleb becoming violent?” Jamie said.

And Lillian suddenly knew why Northpoint allowed Paul to hire an outsider. The answer came almost instantaneously because the answer kept nagging her whenever she counted off the pills into the
medicine cup or whenever she looked down the list and saw two brand names she didn’t recognize. The blank bottles, the lethargic way Caleb/Zeke went through his day, like a knife blunted by a
massive outside force.

It was the drugs.

The goddamn drugs. If only Lillian had a friend who knew chemistry. She could have found out the molecular structure of Senerex and Neuropro and figured out finally what the
hell they were for.

Lillian had been nibbling on an idea, a somewhat risky one, but she needed solid evidence before she could swallow it whole.

She was back in the Dolores house on Monday. Paul Dolores was in a good mood, whistling in the kitchen as he filled up his tumbler with coffee.

“So how’s work?” Lillian asked.

“Work’s good. I’m trying out a new chair design.”

Lillian fought back the urge to call out “Abe!” or “Mr. Ruiz!” and see if he’d look.

Instead she asked, “What’s Senerex and Neuropro?”

Paul screwed the lid on his tumbler.

“I mean, I’m familiar with all the other drugs, but I’ve never heard of those two before.”

Paul shrugged. “I don’t really know much about the drugs my brother is taking,” he said. “I’m thinking they’re both antipsychotics.”

“He’s been taking them long?”

“His doctor switches his brands a lot. Just to figure out what cocktail mix would work.” He slung on his backpack. “I have to go.”

In contrast to his brother’s sunny disposition that morning, Caleb was looking grimmer than ever. Instead of staring at his laptop, he dragged himself out of his room and planted himself
on the couch, flicking morosely through the channels. After about an hour the tabletop lit up. A call was being patched through. Caleb put on the no-hands attached underneath the tabletop and
answered the call before Lillian could take note of the number. She mentally kicked herself.

“I’ll read it,” Caleb said, who looked ready to scream. “Just give me time to breathe. Jesus.”

Caleb threw away the no-hands and stomped up the stairs. Lillian followed him.

“Work?” Lillian asked. Caleb shot her a look.

Careful,
she thought. If she asked too many questions she might get fired, and then she would never find out.

Caleb ate lunch in front of his laptop and fell asleep in front of his laptop. His screensaver showed a static photograph of an ocean wave. Lillian went downstairs and went on all fours until
she found the no-hands under one of the chairs.

Lillian turned on the tabletop and clicked on the phone icon. She tried checking the history but it was password-locked. She dialed the number, the supposed emergency hotline. She waited.

“You’ve reached SentryServ. What’s your emergency?”

So it was actually the hotline? Maxine, what the fuck?

“Um,” Lillian said. “I’m taking care of this guy Caleb Dolores, and he’s – ”

“Let me transfer you.”

Muzak. A transfer, before she was even done talking?

“You’ve reached Northpoint-Pascual. This is Laura. How may I help you?”

Lillian hung up and felt a hand on her shoulder. She screamed.

“Hey.” Caleb, rubbing his eyes. “It’s just me.”

“Oh.” She was still wearing the no-hands. Caleb was looking at it.

“Sorry,” she said, taking it off.

“It’s okay, you can use our phone.” He didn’t look suspicious, just sleepy. “I’m going to get coffee. Want a cup?”

Paul came back, as he always did, at half-past six. But for the first time since she started work, he asked her if she wanted to stay for dinner. They had barely dug through the spaghetti he
brought home when a car drove up to the house. The doorbell chimed.

Lillian felt a ball of ice form in the pit of her stomach.

“I’ll get it,” Paul said. As if Lillian could get it. As if
Caleb
could get it. They ate their pasta in silence.

Whoever it was who was standing outside, Paul didn’t let him in. Lillian stood up and peeked out of the dining room. Paul was blocking the door. Outside was what looked like a woman in a
gray business suit. She couldn’t make out what they were saying. Lillian tiptoed back in and shrugged when Caleb looked at her.

“Who was that?” Caleb asked when his brother came back. Paul looked at him a moment too long.

“They got the wrong street,” Paul said. “It’s okay.”

Lillian insisted on helping with the dishes so she sent Caleb away to the living room. She could feel Paul looking at her as he wiped the plastic glasses.

“How’re you and Caleb?” he asked.

Lillian decided to focus on the plate she was scrubbing. “We’re fine. He talks to me now. He made me a cup of coffee this afternoon.”

Paul nodded. “That’s good to hear. Listen, did he use the phone today?”

And here we go.

“I think someone called him,” Lillian said.

“But did he call someone up?”

Lillian shook her head.

“Okay,” he said. He looked confused. Something didn’t add up. “You still have the emergency hotline I gave you? If it’s about Caleb, you call me first,
okay?”

Not too hot on the emergency hotline number now, are you.

“Okay.”

Okay.

What the hell did they do? Were they witnesses? Did they see something they weren’t supposed to?

But if they did, Northpoint would have had them killed. Instead Paul is given a job within the family and Caleb is supplied drugs.

Northpoint had something on them. And the fact that they were alive meant Northpoint needed them, too.

Lillian went to the grocery and bought a bottle of calcium pills. She also got a free tube of mints, thanks to Paul’s Titanium card.

Max was right, but for three straight days Caleb ate and slept in front of his laptop, as though he was swamped with work and his deadline was looming large.

For a couple of days Lillian held onto her bottle of calcium pills and wondered.

She finally got her chance when Caleb went downstairs on Friday. He sat
tsk
-ing at the shows on TV for a quarter of an hour until he finally lay down and fell asleep on the couch.

Now or never. Lillian walked upstairs.
Happy is the spy who does surveillance in a house that does not allow locked doors.

It was the first time Lillian saw the inside of Caleb’s room. It was bigger than she thought, but despite the space Caleb didn’t have his own bathroom. Messy bed, messier table.
There were paper shreds on his desk, as though he had attacked his legal pad out of nervousness or boredom. Lillian brushed them off the swivel chair and sat down to boot up the laptop.

Locked gadgets were a whole other matter. She tried “caleb” and “paul” and “northpoint” and “fuckthisshit” and capitalized various letters.

Then she remembered his name—his real name—and she typed “ezekielruiz”.

She was in.

His desktop was almost bare. Lillian clicked on his Documents. There were 173 folders, most of them named a combination of letters and numbers. IGR-1155342 and so on. Most of them were
password-protected, and “ezekielruiz” didn’t work this time.

“Christ,” Lillian said, scrolling down.

A folder labeled PRIORITY was not locked. She clicked on it, but it was only filled with more locked folders.

Except for one.

Project Candy Striper.

Lillian craved for a licorice twist.

She copied the entire PRIORITY folder to her phone, shut down the laptop, and hurried downstairs again.

With the still-sleeping Caleb safely in her view, she opened a pack of Candy Stripe and opened Project Candy Striper. Lillian scanned the text files as she ate. “New design”,
“breakthrough”, “game-changer”.

She opened the photo files. Blueprints. Prototype photos. Instruction manual mock-ups.

Lillian couldn’t digest everything, but she was sure of two things.

All of the communiqués bore Northpoint-Pascual’s masthead and logo.

And Caleb was working on a robot.

I’m going to jail for this.

Lillian was thinking it so hard she almost said it out loud.

The steel cupboard opened with a pop, she took out the bottle of Senerex, and emptied the contents into a resealable bag. Ten pills.

She popped open her own bottle, counted off ten calcium pills, and slid them into Caleb’s labeled bottle.

The pills were not completely identical, but they could look the same to a tired mind now numb to routine.

Leaving it over the weekend to Paul’s possible scrutiny was a risk that Lillian had to take.

All in the name of science and dangerous curiosity.

“You look tired today,” Lillian said when the alarm finally came and Caleb joined her in the kitchen. She opened the steel cupboard and took out all the bottles.

“Can’t sleep,” he said, and downed Quetidol and Volban, followed by Wellmax and Topiramed.

Only two pills left in the medicine cup. Caleb looked closely at the two pills and Lillian held her breath.

“Maybe read a book?” Lillian suggested, and Caleb downed Neuropro and a healthy dose of calcium without further comment.

Jamie was reading an article on his Newspad when Lillian barged into Max’s room with
Project Candy Striper
in her phone. Lillian said, “I found something!” at the same time
Jamie walked up to her and said, “Read this.”