Suspicious Minds (Stranger Things Novels #1)(71)

However…

The grousing security officer had raised some eyebrows after his reassignment, despite his admission he couldn’t bug a private garage. Several of the men wanted an update on the progress being made now that Brenner had been on the ground here for months.

And so he would extend an invitation for a demonstration to the director’s office. Kali would put on quite the show. She’d do anything to make him happy now, having been caught colluding with Terry Ives.

He kept waiting for the woman to realize the truth about her condition.

If Terry had designs that she might slip from under his thumb, well, surely she’d realize that wasn’t going to happen. Not with such valuable cargo.





7.


Terry wasn’t willing to give up. Brenner finding out she was searching for documents was bad. But on the van ride home, she had an idea.

So what if she didn’t have documentation yet? If her Polaroids were a bust? She could still invite someone to come investigate. They had to expose him to get Kali out. Brenner wasn’t the only one who could plan surprises.

When she got to the dorm, she asked for the phone book from the front desk and flipped to the section for the town closest to Hawkins. There, she found the name of a decent-sized newspaper and its phone number.

Then she waited in line behind the usual girls making their nightly calls to their boyfriends back home. Her fingers ached with anticipation as she guided the spiral dial around to each number, and then finally it began to ring.

“Newsroom,” a man answered, mid-yawn, three rings in.

“I— We wanted to give you a story idea,” Terry said. “I think it’d make a great piece. We have a brand-new director here at the Hawkins National Laboratory, with a history full of accolades. He’s working on some exciting, classified things…”

“Hawkins has a lab now?” the man asked.

“You won’t believe it.” Terry wound the cord around her hand and tried to keep from overselling what a great story this would be. The reporter was busy for the next two Thursdays. But the third Thursday? Sure, he’d be happy to come and meet this Dr. Martin Brenner, see what was going on next door.

Terry hung up with a grim smile on her lips.





1.


Bright morning light blasted in through the window of the dorm room.

“I don’t want to go, but I have to go.” Terry had her arm over her eyes, whining to Stacey. She’d been up for an hour, but getting in that van and trekking to the lab and into Brenner’s clutches again seemed impossible to face.

But she had to. She’d called the reporter back the day before, pretending to be from the lab, and confirmed he still intended to come. She told him to arrive at 10:30 a.m. on the dot and give Dr. Martin Brenner’s name to security. Now Terry felt nervous. Had she done something wise or something stupid?

She couldn’t say.

“Just blow it off like I did.” Stacey was busy doing three days’ worth of homework at a gulp, her usual method. How she’d fooled anyone into thinking she had average intelligence was beyond Terry—Stacey was obviously the smartest of all. She did what she wanted and got away with it.

Terry removed her arm from her eyes. Stacey’s side of the room was a riot of band posters and pages torn from magazines outlining makeup techniques. Terry was tidier, with a few family pictures in frames and a movie poster of Audrey Hepburn’s Sabrina her aunt had given her for a birthday when she was a teenager.

“I have a feeling the van would show up at the dorm and someone would force me into it,” Terry said.

“Are you becoming more paranoid or is it just me?” Stacey tossed the question over her shoulder and continued scratching away at her homework.

“I have reason.” Not that Stacey knew the half of it. Brenner had refused to elaborate on his pronouncement about a surprise this month. So far, there’d been nothing that counted as one and she hadn’t seen Kali again. The last two sessions had involved him grilling her about her past, so there was no way to go to the void. Dread was her constant companion.

“Yeah, all that LSD. I’m surprised you’re not permanently trippin’—maybe you are. Maybe that’s why you’re so paranoid.”

“That’s not what I mean.” Her paranoia had a name: Dr. Martin Brenner. She couldn’t blow the lab off. Kali might suffer. Gloria, Ken, and Alice were still on the hook and so was she. Brenner couldn’t be allowed to win.

We’re not allowing it.

“I’m not giving up,” Terry said, without moving.

“Good to know,” Stacey said, used to such proclamations. “If only you could’ve pep-talked Paul into staying with the band. It doesn’t seem fair to blame Yoko…but who else are people going to blame?”

The Beatles had decided to break up and kept it a secret until this week, when Paul made a big announcement about going solo.

“John supposedly was leaving first,” Terry pointed out. “They could blame him.”

“Yeah, right!” Stacey snorted. Then, “Oh! I forgot. You got a postcard from Andrew.”

Terry was off the bed like a shot. “You didn’t mention this yesterday?”

The mail came in the late afternoon, which meant the postcard had been here since the day before. It had a photo of the St. Louis Arch on it. Terry lightly whapped Stacey on the back of the head with it for good measure as she sat on the edge of the bed to read it.