Colette and Len received a go-ahead text from Kyle, so she went next, leaving me, Manfred, and Len. But before we could step through, Mrs. Maurer stuck her head in. “You have an additional teammate coming.” She backed out and said addition joined us in the bathroom. A very handsome, human addition.
“Jeff, Chuck, Buchanan, and your mother want me going along, Kitty,” Kevin Lewis said, flashing me a grin. He was a former pro football player who my mother had recruited into the P.T.C.U. early on in his career. He was tall, with dark black skin, twinkling dark brown eyes, fantastic teeth, and literally bags and bags of charisma. “I’m the most expendable right now in terms of what’s coming. No offense meant toward you,” he added to Len.
Kevin was married to Denise, who, besides being blonde and fair skinned, matched him in everything. They both had the best smiles and charisma to spare. Their children, Raymond and Rachel, were beautiful blends of their parents. Basically the Lewises were representing in the Humans Can Be As Hot As A-Cs department.
Kevin was also Mom’s right hand in the P.T.C.U., so if Mom wanted him along on this trip, then along Kevin would be.
“I never argue when I’m forced to travel with extra hot guys, Kevin.”
“Frankly, I’m flattered that Mister Buchanan sent you instead of coming himself,” Len said.
“I’m flattered, Kitty. And Len, I’ll try not to take that as an insult.”
Len laughed. “Never, sir.”
“Oh, stop the sir stuff with me. Like Kitty, I prefer informality, and you know it.”
“Let’s get this goat rodeo rolling, though. The faster we go over, the faster we get back.” That was me, Ms. Expedient. Len put his arm around me then stepped us through. I squeezed my eyes shut. It didn’t help.
As always, the feeling of the world rushing past me, visible out of the corners of my eyes if I was trying to be macho, and felt even with my eyes closed when I wasn’t, played havoc with my stomach. Happily, the journey was incredibly brief, and Len holding me helped considerably.
Opened my eyes to find out that, sure enough, we were in a bathroom. Nice of the police to keep to the A-Cs’ theme. Len moved us out of the way as Kevin stepped out behind us, Manfred bringing up our rear. No one looked surprised at our location. Yeah, we’d all been with Centaurion long enough—most gates were in the bathrooms of every airport, train station and, these days, bus station or any other potential transport hub we could think of.
This bathroom turned out to be in the basement level, near the holding cells. So nicely convenient for us to pass the least amount of people who might recognize that the FLOTUS was around down here, too. So far, so very good.
“Remember,” Melville said quietly, “the Chief didn’t want to bother you with this, Kitty. So we want to stay as low-key as possible. I only want to let him know you’re here if this turns out to be legit.”
“Word. And we’re all with you.”
Evalyne nodded. “Phoebe will stay with Kitty. I’ll go with the officers to secure the area.” I’d managed to get those agents assigned to my detail to accept that when it was just us, or we were with those in my inner circle, or we needed to be cool, they should use my first name, not my title. Thankfully, Evalyne and Phoebe were quick studies and had seen the wisdom of this early on. Chummy first names for others, however, weren’t necessarily on their docket.
So, Evalyne and the K-9 team headed off. Manfred nudged me. “I’ll go make doubly sure that we’re all okay in here.” He zipped off at hyperspeed, presumably to check out the entire building, not just this floor.
Looked around, for lack of anything else to do. It was a unisex bathroom with five stalls and five sinks and not much else, other than décor that didn’t seem necessary. Whoever had sent the weird turtle statue to me, though, had either sent the same to the D.C.P.D. or else the gift had been from the K-9 squad and they hadn’t shared—perhaps I hadn’t seemed enthused enough or something. But there were three rather large turtle statues in here, two of them on either side of the sinks, one near the back of the room.
All looked similar to the one I’d gotten. In fact they looked enough alike that they could have all been the same—the only difference was that they were each posed a little differently. Why anyone wanted turtle statues in here I had no idea, let alone ones about three feet tall. Of course, why I would want one was just as much of a mystery. However, right now, this wasn’t my circus and, therefore, these weren’t my monkeys. Or turtles.
Unsurprisingly, Manfred was back first to distract me from the D.C.P.D.’s odd decorating and possibly gift-giving choices. Hyperspeed rocked as always. “They’re ready. No one’s down here but those who came with us.” He shook his head. “I looked at all the prisoners. None of them are familiar to me.”
“Well, you haven’t spent as much time up close and personal with most of our enemies as I have. Let’s go see what’s what and who’s on first.”
“We’ll go at hyperspeed,” Phoebe said. “That way no one other than the one prisoner we want to see will get a glimpse of Kitty.”
This plan made sense, so we hooked up and did the Hyperspeed Daisy Chain. Meaning we were with the others in an instant. Only, as I looked around, Phoebe’s plan wasn’t actually going to work because while the cells were metal and sturdily made they weren’t exactly private. The design was sort of doubled-up chain link, but there was enough visibility for the prisoners to see who was in the other cells.
There were five cells down here—two were large and had people in them, women in one, men in the other. There were three smaller cells in between the two larger ones. Two were empty, but the middle one had someone in it. We stopped in front of the middle one.
Looked into the cell. There was definitely a woman in here but, as Manfred had said, she didn’t look familiar. Casey had been a stewardess, and she was an attractive brunette who was around my age. The woman in this cell had scraggly gray hair and looked like she’d chain smoked 24/7 since grade school.
She knew me, though, because her eyes widened and she came closer. And as she did, I realized that I did know her and it was indeed Casey Jones—at least as I’d expect her to look about sixty years in the future and, you know, after smoking all the cigarettes in the world.
“Casey, what the hell happened to you?”
“Cliff Goodman’s insanity happened to me,” she rasped out. “You have to stop him.”
CHAPTER 15
LET THIS ONE SIT on the air for a bit. “Um, you know, that’s almost funny, coming from you. Since when do you think we’re on the same side and since when do you ask me for help?”
Casey grimaced. “I went to Harvey first. He refused to see me, and that’s why I’m here. I asked for you, but they said you weren’t coming and that no one would contact you.”