Alien in the House

Chapter 79



TIME MOVED SLOWLY. Nathalie was screaming, the boys were trying to get to her and me, I was trying to tell the Poofs to activate and do something.

Jeff, however, had been the Head of Field for a lot longer than he’d been anything else. He took off into the building.

But using the fastest hyperspeed available or not, I saw the man fall just as Jeff got there. Jeff grabbed for him and almost fell off the roof himself, though he managed to stay on. But he wasn’t Mister Fantastic, and he’d have needed elongating rubber arms to catch the falling man.

Time might have been moving slowly, but gravity was on the case. The man hit the sidewalk with a sickening thud, cut off mid-scream. He was on his back, so identification was easy. Nathalie screaming even more and having to be held back by both boys made the confirmation. Brewer was on the sidewalk.

No one was holding me, and I ran to him. “Ed, Ed, are you okay?” He’d fallen twelve stories; I knew he wasn’t okay. However, I asked anyway, hoping against hope that he’d fallen onto the soft concrete.

His eyes were open and glassy. I touched his neck. Felt no pulse. My phone rang. I managed to get it out of my purse. “I almost had him,” Jeff said. “Is he . . .”

“He’s very dead. And there’s no way in the world he went up there willingly.”

“He was alone up here. There’s no way a human could have gotten to the elevator and past me, not at the speed I was moving at. And someone had to have forced him up there, because I had to jump up onto the ledge to try to catch him.”

“Don’t touch anything and get back down here. Fast.”

Jeff was with me by the time I’d hung up. “Why did you want me down?”

“Because if a human couldn’t get past you, that means there’s only one logical explanation. I thought I’d lost my balance when we were in the foyer, but now I think someone brushed past me at the super-fast hyperspeed.”

“Clarence,” Jeff growled.

“Yes. So he ran into the elevator before the doors closed and forced Brewer up to the roof. He ran down the other staircase, or he ran past you and you didn’t notice.” A thought nudged. “I told everyone to get security on Brewer. Why weren’t they on the case?”

“No idea. I’ll call James.”

“No. Let me. You need to help the boys with Nathalie.” I dialed. But not Reader.

“Yes, Missus Martini?”

“Mister White, I need you at the Cairo five minutes ago.”

“On my way.”

Hung up and now I called Reader.

“Kitty, what’s up?” Reader asked.

“Edmund Brewer just fell to his death. There is no way this wasn’t foul play. Jeff tried to save him but he was just a moment too late. There are no guards anywhere and it just occurred to me to look around for them. Did you assign teams to guard the Brewers?”

Jeff was holding Nathalie and he helped her over to Brewer’s body. I moved out of the way as she sobbed and Jeff held her.

“Yes, I assigned four agents.” Reader’s voice was tight. “I’ll call you back.”

White appeared. Raj was with him. “I see we’re too late,” White said quietly.

“Yes, but I called you after. . . . I think Clarence was or is here. James said he had four agents assigned to protect the Brewers but I haven’t seen any sign of them.”

“Rajnish and I will do a search,” White said. “Keep the young men with you and on guard.” White and Raj disappeared.

My phone rang. “The agents aren’t responding to any calls,” Reader said. “Sending more teams over.”

“Richard and Raj are already here and searching. I need you to call the police and advise Chuckie. And whoever else needs to know. My mom. She needs to know. Probably.”

“I’ll handle it. Kitty, are you okay?”

“No. I’m numb with shock and horror so I expect to be really freaked out later. And right after that I’m going to be enraged. But right now, I’m just trying not to believe this has happened. I’m also officially more than done with people dying near me, especially people I know and like.”

“We’ll find who’s doing this and stop them. I promise.”

We hung up and I dropped my phone back into my purse. The Poofs weren’t there. Jamie had pointedly told me to bring them and now they weren’t around. Tried not to be upset with them and reminded myself that they tended to do their own thing, for their own reasons, all of which had worked out for the best in the past. Decided to trust them now, too, and sent a mental “be careful” message to them.

What was in my purse, however, were the burner phones. Pulled out the one that was supposedly my new hotline to the Dingo and dialed. “Yes, Miss Katt?”

“I need the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Have you or your cousin killed a C.I.A. operative named Pia Ryan, put her and/or a car bomb into Clifford Goodman’s car, or shoved or caused Representative Edmund Brewer to fall off the top of the Cairo building?”

“No. To all of those.”

“I mean it. I need to know the truth. Frankly, if you’ve done all that, my life will be less complex, confusing, and stressful. So I want a truly honest answer.”

“I am not lying to you. We have not harmed or interacted with any of those people.”

“How about Representative Juvonic? Did you hit him with a blowgun dart tipped with the heart attack drug serum? Or something like that?”

“What? Who? No. What’s going on?” The Dingo sounded genuinely confused.

“Raul the assassin—is Raul his real name, or is it his assassin’s name? Like I know your parents didn’t call you the Dingo when you were growing up.”

“That is his name in the business, yes.”

“Do you know his real name? I know yours, at least, what the government assumes your last name to be—Kasperoff.”

“Correct. But no, I don’t know his real name. I do know that he comes from Florida. Originally.”

Leventhal Reid was from Florida. Time to make another leap. “Does he ever use the alias of Dier, or Reid?”

“Dier, yes. I haven’t heard of him using Reid.”

“Okay, so, when you said that Raul was around the Embassy the other night, he was disguised as a SWAT cop, wasn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell Amy and Caroline that?”

“I am not here to help you arrest Raul for impersonating an officer of the law. I am here to protect you from him.”

“Because he’s broken the rules, I know. What about his sister? Is she an assassin, too?”

“I am not acquainted with any of his relatives, other than the late Bernice, who was indeed his wife.”

“Are you planning on killing Raul, or are you merely planning to show him the error of his ways and appeal to his reason and sense of assassin’s honor?”

“The former, why?”

“Because I have a feeling that Raul is combining business with pleasure. I think he’s under contract, and that his sister’s in on the deal, too. Who normally hires him?”

“The Central Intelligence Agency.”