Quicksilver Read Online Free PDF Page A

said. “But you don’t seem to understand the seriousness of what you’re doing. You’re protecting someone who doesn’t deserve to be protected. And as long as you keep lying to the people who care about you, you’re going to be on your own.”
    The French doors rattled and Mom stormed into the room. “I saw that,” she snapped at Deckard. “How dare you touch her! Get out.”
    For a moment Deckard didn’t move. Then with casual calm he picked up his hat and put it back on his head. “You’ve misunderstood the situation, ma’am,” he said as he rose. “I’m just looking out for your daughter’s best interests.”
    He delivered the cliche so blandly that it made me want to spit. I backed away, fists clenched, as he strode past me and into the front hall. He went to the door, opened it—then paused and turned back.
    “One more thing you might want to consider,” he said to my mother. “I’ve had a call from one of the senior scientists at our genetic testing facility. She’s concerned you’re not answering her messages. I’d suggest you get in touch with her before you leave town, just to keep things simple. It’d be a shame if you had to bring Tori all the way back here from Vancouver.” With an ironic smile he tipped his hat to us and left.
    My mom locked the door behind him, then put an arm around me and pulled me close. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I should never have left you alone with him. Did he hurt you?”
    I shook my head mutely, but I couldn’t stop shaking. Because I understood now who had given Dr. Gervais our unlisted phone number. Who had told Lara I’d visited Alison in the hospital and warned her that I’d lie to her the same way I’d lied to everyone else. Deckard was determined to get the truth out of me by any means necessary, and he wasn’t going to give up on this investigation without a fight.
    “Call Dad,” I said. “Tell him we can’t wait until next Saturday. Tell him we need to get out of here as fast as we can.”

PART ONE: Demand Load
     
    (The power required by all equipment in a receiver or transmitter facility to ensure full continuity of communications)
     

0 0 0 0 1 1
     
    “Hey, Niki, do you know the code for juniper berries? I can’t find it on my spinner.”
    I didn’t even pause to think about it. “4922,” I called back, stacking cans into my customer’s bag and swinging it onto the counter. “That’ll be $257.29,” I said brightly to the harried-looking woman before me, who appeared to be shopping for a family of eight or possibly just a couple of teenaged boys. “Do you have a Points Club card?”
    She didn’t have one, and she didn’t want one either, though I had to mention it anyway because that was part of my job. Like always remembering to check the bottom of the cart for large items and watching out for broken eggs or leaky milk. After a month of working the cash register for twenty-five hours a week, it had become automatic.
    Remembering produce codes was part of the job too, though nobody expected me to know all of them. But numbers had a way of sticking in my head. So I didn’t realize I’d done anything unusual until the woman moved on, and I saw Jon Van Beek goggling at me from the next register.
    “How’d you know that?” he asked. “I don’t even know what juniper berries are. ”
    “My mom bought some last week,” I said with a shrug. It was a tiny slip and probably not worth the trouble of lying about. But even after five months in this town, I wasn’t taking any chances. There was still a chance that someone from my old life might be searching for me, and anything that made me exceptional, or memorable, could be dangerous.
    “Oh,” Jon said. “Huh.” He turned to greet his next customer, and the tension eased out of my muscles. No reputation as Amazing Memory Girl: mission accomplished. Now if only I could get Jon to stop quizzing me about my plans for the weekend.
    It wasn’t that he was bad-looking.