Convergence - The Last Science #2.1 - In Plain Sight

B2: Chapter 17 - Career Path - I

  "How's it gonna look that a senator left the country the day after she won re-election?" Jeremy asked as Maddie climbed into the passenger seat.

  "Like they care where I am," Maddie shot back. "As long as I'm doin' what they elected me for, my vacation plans aren't their concern."

  "Is this a fuckin' vacation?"

  "I thought that's how you sold it to your boss."

  Jeremy shrugged. "Close enough. Told him I wanted to go see the beautiful B.C. sights."

  Maddie glanced pointedly at the apartment complex down the street, with graffiti covering one wall. "Uh huh."

  "Someone thought their work was beautiful."

  "It's a dick, bro."

  "What?" Jeremy looked at it more closely, slowing down Lani's car. "Fuck me, it is."

  "Yeah, little bro, that's what that's meant for." She sighed exaggeratedly. "You gotta find yourself a new man. You get blind if you ain't gettin' laid."

  "I'm busy workin'," he grumbled. "I'm runnin' solo up here, 'case you forgot."

  "And whose fault is that?"

  "Some bitch-ass gunman with a cheap rifle?"

  "I wasn't talking about Lani, you asshat. I meant why didn't you invite me?"

  Jeremy pulled around the corner. The cheap hotel he was staying it was only a couple blocks away from the train station and they were nearly there. "Weren't you busy with election shit?"

  "Elections are won and lost way before Tuesday. Especially in our state. Thank you mail-in voting."

  "Well how the fuck was I supposed to know that?"

  Maddie rolled her eyes. "Because both your sisters are in politics, you fucker. Now let's go get something to eat. The food on the train was shit."

  "What are you feelin'?"

  "Anything. Pick the first goddamn fast food joint we see if you want. I'm starving."

  As they chewed through cheap fast food in hard plastic seats, Jeremy brought her up to speed on everything he'd found so far. He'd woken Maddie up minutes after the mysterious girl vanished from his apartment. It took a few minutes for her to understand what he was trying to say, but neither of them got another wink of sleep that night.

  The brief snatches of magic he'd witnessed until that point were one thing, but a girl teleporting in and out of his living room in the middle of the night was something else.

  He'd left for Vancouver the next day.

  As soon as he'd arrived, he started combing the town. The mysterious visitor hadn't given him an exact location, because nothing was ever allowed to be easy, but he knew what Rachel looked like. They had her on file, and a few photos from Hailey Winscombe's old social media feeds were more than enough to give him a good idea of who to look for.

  A six-foot-five white girl in Vancouver? Couldn't be that hard, right?

  Wherever Rachel DuValle was hiding though, she was hiding smart. Jeremy pulled out every trick of the trade he knew, and liberally abused some of the discretionary fund he still had on hand. He figured he could just talk his way out of any trouble with Aderholt later, especially if he actually found Rachel. But after three days, he didn't have a single lead.

  So he widened his search. And then he widened it again. Soon he was setting up a grid search across the entire town. Finally, on Tuesday, he struck something that sounded just close enough to work.

  It wasn't a report of a ridiculously tall girl, because Jeremy wasn't allowed to get that lucky, but it was a report of someone purchasing pain medications on a frequent and regular basis, combined with several reports of strange occurrences in the area. The police had investigated and found nothing, but Jeremy wasn't about to let even the slightest possibility escape.

  The pain medication purchases were really the big tip-off, in his mind. He'd suspected that someone had to be taking care of the missing Will Carbonell, who was in no condition to do so himself. There wasn't any particular reason it should be Rachel, but there wasn't any reason it couldn't be.

  "Maybe they were dating," said Maddie as they cruised through the Vancouver streets.

  "You're just stuck on my dating life."

  "I gotta live vicariously through someone, Jere-bear."

  "Why don't you try dating someone yourself for once?"

  "No time," she said, like she always did. "The people need me."

  "The people need someone stable."

  "Well, they keep electing me," she cackled, "so apparently not." She reached over and picked up the stone he'd left in the tray below the center console. "So what's up with this fucker again?"

  "I think it can feel magic or some shit."

  "Feel magic, huh?" She stared at it. "It definitely feels like it's doin' something."

  "Feels wrong."

  "Huh?"

  "That pulling. Feels fuckin' wrong."

  "I dunno." Maddie still had her hand on it, and every second was making Jeremy feel a little more uncomfortable.

  "You should let go of it."

  "Nah, hang on. I think I got this." She closed her eyes. "Yeah. You can make it stop."

  "Huh?"

  "If you just tell it to stop, it stops. You got control over it."

  "The fuck you talkin' bout? You didn't tell it to stop."

  "I did. With my mind."

  Jeremy shook his head. "Fuckin' magic."