Suspicious Minds (Stranger Things Novels #1)(38)

Whatever they’d expected, it wasn’t that. Gloria’s hand went to her stomach, which felt sick. She remembered being locked in that room. She didn’t trust anyone there with children. “What did you find?”

“Folders, like you said. For several kids in some experiment called Indigo. I didn’t have time to see if there were detailed notes in them. Just a few progress notations.” Terry stated this with grim determination. “I saw Kali again, too, but I wasn’t able to talk to her. She looked healthy. But…it seems clear there is something going on.”

“We’ll find out what it is,” Alice said, her voice vibrating with the emotion in her promise.

Terry asked Gloria, “How’d you do?”

Gloria focused on Alice. “Can you teach me how to pick a lock?”

Alice nodded, frowning. “Of course. The kind at the lab?”

Gloria felt something relax at that. “They had me locked in when Ken’s alarm went off.”

“Wow,” Ken said.

“It wasn’t the best thing to discover,” Gloria said. “So I wasn’t able to get a jackpot, but I palmed my dose. I’ll try again next week.”

“So we are going back?” Terry asked.

“We don’t have a choice,” Gloria said. “Nothing’s changed.”

“But at least we know where to look for evidence,” Terry said, putting a spin on it. “Alice’s code worked. I’m not giving up.”

“None of us are,” Gloria said.

“Shit,” Ken said as a swipe of headlights glanced over them.

A van was making a circle. In the dark, Gloria couldn’t be sure. Was it the Hawkins van coming back?

“We’d better go. Be safe, everyone,” Terry said.

Alice hesitated. “Are you all right?” she asked Terry.

“Just fine, don’t worry about me.”

Alice nodded in a way that made Gloria curious about why she’d asked.





7.


Dr. Brenner entered the surveillance suite at eight thirty that night. The rows of listening stations were filled with busy staffers. The employee who’d called his office to summon him—as directed—got up and waved for Brenner to take his seat.

“They’ve been talking for about five minutes,” the man said.

He slid his headphones over Dr. Brenner’s ears, something Brenner could have done himself.

He heard a woman’s voice he didn’t know asking questions he wasn’t interested in, but he’d wait. Eight had been in a tremendous sulk when he’d visited her room after the others left. A disconcerting day, in which he’d been sent this way and that way. He didn’t understand it all yet, but his gut told him something was off.

His own subject Terry Ives had been found wandering the halls far from where he’d left her. She’d followed someone into a secure wing, far too close to Kali for comfort. The man Ken had reportedly experienced a seizure, but with no evident effects afterward to indicate he had. Brenner had gotten used to the startling mind of the mechanic townie, but today even she had made demands. The only non-problematic subject was the biologist, and the quiet delivery of information described during her session unsettled him too.

He’d put in a request to monitor closely the phone lines at Ives’ dorm and the boyfriend’s house this evening. There’d been something about her innocent act when she returned to him he didn’t quite buy. Now he’d been summoned to hear a conversation with her sister in Larrabee.

“Terry, you’ve hardly said a word, and you called me. What’s wrong? Is it Andrew? When does he find out?”

“Tomorrow,” Terry said.

“I wish he’d thought it through.”

A slight crackle on the line.

“He did. It mattered to him to take a stand.”

“I don’t see why—he should keep his nose clean and be glad he’s here. He’s not going to end the war by wearing a mask into the cafeteria.”

Terry’s annoyance came through in her reply. “Maybe not, but it’s better than doing nothing.”

“That’s where we disagree.” The sister sighed. “You can’t afford to be selfish, either of you.”

He’d heard all he needed to. He removed the headphones and handed them back as he stood. “Thank you. Keep listening to her.” He paused. “What’s the boyfriend’s name?”

“Andrew Rich.”

“Sir? I think we finally found it.” A new staffer had come in to hail him.

The room adjoining the phone monitoring station housed the building’s video security feeds. Going through every hour of footage of Eight’s room since their arrival and logging all visitors had proved time-consuming, even with three men on it.

He stopped in front of a paused monitor, which showed him another piece that went with the conversation he’d just heard. Theresa Ives sitting at a table with Eight. She wore a gown, so she’d managed to slip away.

“When?” he asked.

“Two weeks ago.”

He’d underestimated her. He needed to get her back under control.

The best way to do that was to distract her, give her bigger problems. He knew everything she cared about most, because she’d told him. The solution was obvious.