Page 9 of Connected
“Yeah, well that wasn’t the name I was born with either. My birth certificate says Christopher Morris, but nobody’s called me that since I was six.” He sat back in the chair with his arms crossed.
“What game are you playing at?”
“Nothing. Jesus, you’re the one who contacted me, remember?”
That was accurate; and it took a little wind out of Owen’s sails, but not much. This situation was hinky as hell. Tenrael must have known who he was sending Owen to, but then, what was his motive—or, more likely, the chief’s motive—and why hadn’t they told him what was going on? He was tempted to call HQ right then and there, except in his anger and shock he’d left his phone in the guest house.
“What the fuck are you doing in Copper Springs?” There. That was a good first question. No way this was a coincidence.
“I needed somewhere quiet, without many people, but not quite hermit-in-a-cabin remote. And also cheap. Copper Springs fit the bill.”
“There are hundreds of towns—thousands, more likely—that meet those criteria. Why are you inmyhometown?”
Gale winced and shifted in his seat. There was something oddly childlike about him despite his graying beard, and it wasn’t just his size. Maybe the way he fidgeted. Finally, not meeting Owen’s gaze, he spoke. “You mentioned it, back when we first met. I’d never heard of it, but for some reason it stuck in my mind. A bunch of years later, when I was looking for a place to land, it felt right.”
“That doesn’t make any?—”
“You were really fucking wholesome, okay? Big and handsome and so goddamn earnest. Going on about saving lives and being a part of a team. I guess I figured—well, it was stupid, but I figured that any place that had produced such a… Richie Cunningham… would be what I needed.”
Owen squinted at him, somewhat bewildered. Had Owen ever been as fresh-faced and innocent as Gale claimed? Had Gale just called him handsome? And who the hell was Richie Cunningham?
“Iescapedthis shithole as soon as I could. I wouldn’t ever advise anyone to move here.”
“Well, it worked out fine for me.”
“But how did you?—”
A sudden loud beep startled them both. Gale, who recovered first, pulled a phone from his jeans pocket and frowned. “Shit. I guess we better get into the basement.” He stood and gave Owen an impatient look.
“I don’t hear a tornado siren.”
“The sound doesn’t carry well to this part of town—not well enough to hear over the storm, at any rate.”
That made some sense. Owen had grown up a few miles outside of town, and they hadn’t heard the sirens at the ranch either. Now, cell phone alerts were helpful—as long as the storm didn’t take out the cell towers.
He followed Gale through a dining room and kitchen, both of which were in good condition, and down the stairs to the basement. He wished he were wearing shoes, but surprisingly, there was a finished room near the bottom of the stairs, complete with old furniture, a bookshelf stuffed with paperbacks, and a half bath. A couple of large flashlights sat on a side table.
“You rent this out too?” Owen sank onto a couch that looked a lot like the one his parents owned when he was a kid. It had the same somewhat scratchy plaid upholstery.
“Nope.” For a moment, Gale seemed to consider sitting on one of the wooden chairs, but then sat on the couch, as far from Owen as he could manage.
Although Owen still had a host of questions, he didn’t say anything, and neither did Gale. The sounds of the storm were muted down here. Somewhere, water dripped slowly, which made Owen wonder whether basement flooding was a problem here. His parents’ basement used to take on water during the worst storms, and then they’d have to use the sump pump. When he was very young, one of his brothers told him that the sump led directly to hell, and for a long time after that, Owen had been afraid of it.
Stupid kid. He hadn’t had a fucking clue about the world’s real horrors.
Gale spoke first. “Are you still with the Bureau?”
“Yeah.” And then, because he couldn’t help himself, he asked, “What the hell happened to you?”
That elicited a humorless laugh. “Ihappened to me. My life is a cliché straight out ofE! True Hollywood. You know the story: child actor grows up and has a hard time finding adult roles. Everyone wants that chirpy twerp Sasho Pandev, not me. When Ididget jobs, I screwed them up because I was always wasted. I got arrested a couple of times. Bounced in and out of rehab. Some of my money got stolen by people I trusted, and the rest I threw away on drugs and stupidity. I kept thinking I had hit rock bottom, and then I’d fall some more. Then I woke up one day, broke and sick and sliding toward middle age, and I remembered a squeaky-clean cop who was from a town in Wyoming. You can tell your boss he was absolutely right about me.”
Owen shook his head. “He’s dead. And he was always right. It was fucking annoying. And I’m not squeaky-clean.”
“You were. But as a certain man once said, what the hell happened to you?”
“The Bureau.”
That wasn’t entirely fair. It wasn’t the Bureau itself that had hardened him but rather the things he’d been exposed to by being an agent. The deaths he’d witnessed—and caused. The abominations he’d seen various creatures commit against humans, and worse, the abominations he’d seen humans commit. That flight on a dragon had suggested that the world was filled with wonder, and maybe it was, but it was filled with horror too.
