Page 42 of His Toy

I did the same. I could play that game. “And you’ve never had sex?”

“God, no,” she said. “He’s like a brother to me.”

A brother-like figure that she worked for asked her to do something that she didn’t want to do. I could understand the annoyance.

“Tell me about them,” she said. I furrowed my brows.

“What’s there to say?” I hugged myself tighter. This was embarrassing. In a quieter voice, I added: “I don’t know anything. Not really.”

“You want to know what happened to them?” Kiley asked. “I can help with that. But I need starting points.”

“What do you do for Zaid?”

“My technical title is research assistant, but it’s more complicated than that.”

“Are you a P.I.?”

She shrugged. “Nerdier than that. Think genealogist combined with forensics and detective work, add in one hell of an obsession with paper trails, and some light hacking skills.”

I guessed I could tell her. I was stuck in this house anyway. And I got the feeling that Kiley was all business; she wouldn’t make the conversation weird by inserting the generic comments I was used to:But you don’t remember them? Wow, that must be so hard. I can’t even imagine.

No one could imagine it. Yet everyone thought saying that made it better. It never did.

So I told Kiley everything I remembered. The fact that Hazel and I thought we might have been given a different last name than our parents, that we didn’t think they shared a surname to begin with. That my earliest memories began with being shuffled from house to house, from cousin to aunt to great uncle, because it was hard to take care of two sisters, especially when one of them refused to stay. We were lucky they always kept us together. That Great Uncle Walter finally took us in for good.

But when it came to my parents? There was so little I remembered. I couldn’t even picture their hair color. I told her about the recurring dream I had: holding Hazel, sitting on the wet grass, both of us screaming. My age changed in the dream, but Hazel was always the same, less than a year old. Both of us searching frantically.

Kiley didn’t take notes or interject her comments. She simply nodded. When it was clear that I was done, she said, “I can work with that.” Then she pulled out a cotton swab. “Cheek?”

I opened my mouth and let her take my DNA. What did I have to lose? She yanked a hair from my head, but took more than one with her.

“Ouch!”

“Sorry,” she said, though her voice was unconvincing. “Comes with the territory I’m afraid. I’ll see what I can do.” She dropped the hair into a plastic bag and tucked both that and the vial into a shoulder bag. At the door, she stopped in the frame and turned towards me.

“He cares about you, you know,” she said. A warmth filled my chest, making me feel fuzzy. I wanted to hear her say who she meant, to make sure I wasn’t getting my hopes up.

“Who?”

“Zaid.” She stared at me with unwavering confidence. “He’s never asked me to do anything for someone else before. You’re different.” She added air quotes as she said the word, grinning to herself. I didn’t think it was funny, but I still liked hearing what she said about Zaid. “Joking aside, I’m serious. He’s…” She turned back towards the hallway. “He’s got something for you. He cares, believe it or not.” She looked down at her phone, then added as she walked away, “And he wants you to meet him in the operations room. Have fun.”

But before I could ask Kiley which room was the operations room exactly, she was gone. I walked down the hallways, then found an open door. Zaid and Grant were discussing the next event, and after a while, I found myself blanking out of their conversation until Zaid said the word ‘sadomasochism.’

“And the rest of the men will secure the perimeter,” Zaid said. “Your thoughts, Grant?”

“This is only a negotiation? He hasn’t requested any actual services.”

A cold look crossed Zaid’s face. “You know who we are dealing with.”

“Yes, sir,” Grant said.

“Do you doubt his capabilities?”

“I don’t, sir. But you underestimate yours.”

Zaid made eye contact with me and waved me in. “That’ll be all for now, Grant. Thank you.”

Grant nodded at both of us, then left. We were alone. A colorful map took up nearly one wall, and another had a clean whiteboard. Zaid gestured to the chair across from him and I took it.