“We’re canvassing, but it’s just old office buildings and warehouses around the drop.”
I shuffled through the stack of papers. There were blueprints, technical schematics on the cube robots, some computer programming stuff, and a diagram that looked like one of the EMPs next to a series of mathematical equations.
I couldn’t make heads or tails of it, really. Neither, apparently, could anyone else, as all eyes were on Dr. Aynard. He licked his thumb and flipped quickly through the papers, mumbling from time to time. We all stood and stared and waited as he rattled through page after page.
“This is fascinating,” he whispered to himself.
“Screw fascinating,” said Fabretti sharply. “Is it real? Are these the people?”
The NYU professor looked up and nodded vigorously at Fabretti, his eyes very wide.
“Without a shadow of a doubt,” Aynard said.
CHAPTER 70
AS WE LEFT the mayor’s office, I didn’t know what to think about the contact the attackers had made. By that point, I was too tired to even try. Luckily, Robertson and Arturo were pulling the night shift at the intel division, so I sent an e-mail of the schematics over to them to see what they could make of it.
I dropped off Emily at her hotel and headed home. I gauged that I was about 10 percent awake when I stumbled in through the front door of the Bennett Estate half an hour later. Make that 5 percent, I thought as I almost tripped ass over teakettle on a Frozen princesses lunch box in the hall.
I wasn’t the only sleepy one, apparently. I found Martin on a stool in the kitchen with all the lights on. He was facedown, snoring lightly between some engineering textbooks open on the counter. He woke up as I crouched down and lifted a worn paperback of the science fiction classic Ender’s Game that had fallen on the floor beside his stool.
“Mr. Bennett!” he said, sitting up suddenly, stifling a yawn. “There you are. You’re back from your travels, I see. What time is it?”
“Eleven thirty.”
“Eleven thirty so soon?” Martin said, checking his phone. “Well, let’s see. The kids are all fed, teeth brushed, and sacked out, et cetera. I got the boys’ laundry done. The girls didn’t have any. They never do. Funny. I had the boys running sprints down in the park. While I had Trent doing calisthenics, Eddie lost the soccer ball. We looked and looked but couldn’t for the life of us figure out where it had gone to. The Hudson River? But I told Eddie not to worry. I have plenty of practice ones I can bring from my dorm tomorrow.
“I wanted to do vegetarian for the crew, but Seamus came by and insisted on making turkey clubs. He’s quite a heavy on the mayo and bacon, if you want my opinion. Especially for a man of the cloth. That’s about it. So if there isn’t anything more, I’ll be on me way.”
“Nice try, Martin,” I said, my head still spinning from his dispatch. “Only place you’re going, kid, is the couch,” I said, pointing toward the living room. “There’s blankets and a pillow on the top shelf of the hall closet.”
“I couldn’t impose,” said Martin, yawning again. “Besides, I have an eight o’clock exam.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll wake you up and drive you to campus.”
“In your cop car?” said Martin, excited. “Get out! Never been in a fuzzmobile. That’ll be a gas, so it will. Will you hit the siren and lights?”
“If you’re good, Martin. Now, good night.”
I smiled as he left. There was at least a little silver lining in all the current chaos. Seamus had hit one out of the park by finding Martin.
He really was a great kid. It was especially funny how he was running the couch potato out of the boys. They griped, but if Ricky’s request for a FIFA Soccer PlayStation game for his birthday was any indication, Martin was starting to grow on them as well.
I made the mistake then of glancing at the mail table.
There was a letter on top addressed to me, and I stood there staring at Mary Catherine’s familiar perfect handwriting.
One part of me wanted to tear it open immediately and devour it, but something else told me, “Not so fast.” Maybe it was just my exhaustion, but I suddenly felt like there was something ominous about it, as if the news in it actually might not be so good.
Mary Catherine and I had become so close recently. Closer than ever. And yet here we were, still with an ocean between us. Her last call especially spooked me, how comfortable she seemed running her mom’s hotel. I couldn’t stop thinking that somehow we were drifting farther and farther apart.
Bottom line was I couldn’t deal with bad news. Definitely not now.
I left Mary Catherine’s letter on the mail table untouched and quietly turned off the light in the hall as I headed to bed.
CHAPTER 71