“How do you....” A knock on the door interrupted her thought. “Did Mrs. Carminatti tell you?”
He didn’t answer, only raised his eyebrows at her, and Cadence felt the urge to laugh for a moment before she remembered the situation with Cass and was no longer amused.
“Hey y’all,” Heather said, traipsing in. “How’s it goin’?”
“We’re good, Heather,” Aaron said, gesturing for her to take a seat at the table.
The girl looked around for a moment. “This here’s a nice office. Big. Oh, look at this table! It’s bigger than my family’s whole cabin.” She ran her hand along the finish, and Cadence hid her smile behind her hand. She had no idea what it would be like to spend a century inside of a black hole, but she could only imagine life would look a lot different when she came back out.
Aaron pulled out the seat Cassidy had vacated for Heather. “Why, thank you kindly, sir.” She giggled, and Cadence could tell she was being overly formal in an attempt to be funny. She settled down into the seat, her hands folded in front of her. She still seemed a little out of place in jeans and a T-shirt, but Cadence was beginning to get used to her dressing like she belonged in this millennia.
“Heather, thanks for coming. We have a huge favor to ask of you.” Aaron was leaned back in his chair, looking relatively relaxed, but Cadence knew that was for Heather’s benefit.
“What is it?” she asked, her eyes narrowing slightly with concern.
“We need you to find Christian,” Cadence said, scooting her chair forward. “He’s done something to his IAC, and we can’t find him.”
Heather’s forehead scrunched. “Cass is much better at all that stuff than I am. I’ve been practicin’, but it’s still mighty hard.”
“We understand that, and we asked Cassidy to help us, but she wasn’t comfortable. Apparently, she and Christian have already discussed this, and he made her swear not to tell us where he went.”
“I thought he was in Hawaii or someplace.”
The way she pronounced the state, it sounded like Hawa-ya, and Cadence had to stifle her amusement again. “We think he went after Daunator by himself,” she explained. “He could be in danger.”
“So if you could do your best to find him, see if you can get into his head long enough to tell us where he’s at, that would be most helpful.”
“Gosh, I ain’t sure I feel comfortable with this either,” Heather said, but she wasn’t moving out of the chair. She took a deep breath. “All righty. I’ll give it a shot. I ain’t promisin’ nothin’ though.”
“Just do your best, Heather.” Aaron smiled at her reassuringly, and Heather closed her eyes.
It took a long time. In fact, Cadence thought maybe Heather had dosed off, it took so long. She sat there with her eyes closed, not moving except for the flutter of her eyelashes and a bit of a bob in her eyelids as her eyes moved around, for over twenty minutes. Cadence finished her water but didn’t throw the bottle away because she didn’t want to disturb the Hybrid. And then she thought she might need to go to the bathroom....
“Okey, dokey,” Heather said, her eyes flying open. “Yep, he’s in a heap a trouble, that’s for damn sure.”
Cadence looked at Aaron and recognized alarm in his expression. “What do you mean? Where is he?”
“He’s over there in that mountain, the one Daunator hangs out in. Klet?” She looked at Cadence for confirmation, and she nodded. “Yeah, he’s over there. And he’s stuck. He can’t get out, and he can’t do nothin’ to the bastard neither, so he’s just there.”
“What do you mean he’s in the mountain?” Aaron asked, each word measured.
“Exactly what I said, sir. He’s in the mountain. Can’t get out.”
Now, Aaron was looking at her, and Cadence had no idea what to say, so she gawked back at him. Her husband turned back to the cowgirl. “He’s... in... the mountain?”
“Yep, real deep, too. Way down in there. In a hole. Can’t see nothin’. And all he can hear is them other folks who’s stuck in there, too. Cryin’ and stuff. Been there couple days now. He told me to stay the hell out of his head and said if I told y’all where he was, he’d kick my ass from here to China. Course, I told ‘im I ain’t scared of that seein’ as though he’s stuck in a damn hole in a mountain, and I’m all the way over here walkin’ free. He didn’t ‘preciate that so he started singin’ some damn country song I ain’t never heard. But I sang along with him till he switched to Justin Bieber. Then I lit outta there.”
Once again, Cadence exchanged glances with Aaron before he shook his head slowly and then addressed Heather. “Thank you so much for your help, Heather.”
“Sure thing, bossman. You got anythin’ else you need help with, you just let me know. I was a little scared to try to do that ‘cause I heard Cass got stuck in one of them holes last night digging for Daunator, but he didn’t bother me none. Reckon it’s cause I ain’t a Findley.”
“Who knows,” Aaron replied. “Daunator isn’t exactly an easy one to figure out.”
“You got that right.” She stood and pushed in her chair. “Sure is a nice office. See y’all later.”
“Bye, Heather. Thank you!” Cadence called as the girl strolled to the door. Aaron got up and followed her, thanked her again, and closed the office door.
No words came to mind for how Cadence felt about the fact that her sister had allowed Christian to stay in a hole in the ground for days without saying anything to anyone.
“Let’s just get the rest of the team in here and then try to sort it out,” Aaron suggested, and Cadence nodded. Maybe someone else could make heads or tails out of it, but her brain was beginning to hurt again, just from trying to understand what was going on. The only thing she knew for sure was that Christian was in a real mess right now, and she had no idea how in the world they were going to get him out.
