Spliced

“Indi!” Cat rapped on the door to Indi’s place. “Are you home? I need your help.”

To her disappointment Falco was the one who opened the door. “Hi Cat.”

“Is Indi home?”

Falco shook his head. “Nah, I was out on a run and she just left me a note saying to watch the kids once they got home from school and that she’d be back later. You want me to give her a call?”

“Nah, it’s alright. I just wanted to see if she could look up some information for me. I would have called but I’ve misplaced my phone somewhere. I’ll find it later and call her then.”

Behind Falco, Jewel had been watching and creeping ever closer, curious to see what their visitor wanted. Bree kept pace with her, just a step back and a slightly more timid look on her face. It didn’t overrule her curiosity though.

“What did you want information on?” Falco asked, not noticing the girls behind him.

“Maybe I can help, I’m pretty good with computers,” Jewel bragged loudly.

Falco jumped slightly as the closeness of her voice and then relaxed again as he realised it was just Jewel.

Cat held up a newspaper clipping. The one that had been left in her garage. She’d folded the paper so only the photograph and not the heading was visible. “This guy.”

“That’s Perri!” exclaimed Bree.

“Perri?” Cat asked.

Jewel shot her cousin a glare for stealing her thunder then she put on a pretty smile and nodded. “She’s in our year. She hangs out with the weirdos and Ally, the teacher’s pet.” Jewel rolled her eyes.

“Jewel doesn’t like her because she gets better grades than her,” Bree explained.

Jewel turned on Bree. “She does not. That was only one test and only because the question was stupidly worded. And anyway you’re only going to my school on temporary exchange while you stay here so you don’t even know.”

“Jewel,” Falco warned.

“I think she’s nice,” Bree said quietly.

Jewel poked her tongue out at Bree and then turned back to Cat with a smile. “The teachers just like Ally cause she’s a mindwalker. She’s super manipulative. They have no bad thoughts of her because she makes them all go away.”

“That’s quite the accusation Jewel,” Falco told her.

She widened her eyes at him. “It’s true,” she emphasized.

“Then how come she doesn’t remove your bad thoughts of her and make you like her too?” Bree asked with a superior bored look on her face.

Jewel opened her mouth to reply but Cat interrupted, “What about Perri and her parents? What do you know about them?”

“Well Perri is kind of quiet. She doesn’t talk much.”

As Jewel paused to think Falco gestured toward the kitchen. “You want to come in for a snack or something. We were just having lunch. Gotta take the kids back soon though.”

Cat shook her head. “No it’s alright, I’ll just be a minute.” She turned back to Jewel. “Do you know where she lives?”

Jewel and Bree both shook heir heads. Then Jewel added, “Her mum stays at home. I think her dad’s an architect or something. He has a car and it’s got a name printed on the side, like Horizon Creations or Architects or something... I can search.” She ran off toward the computer.

Falco gave Cat a narrow-eyed look. “Why do you want to know about this guy?”

“No reason,” Cat said as she breezed past him and followed Jewel to the computer.

“Oooh, it’s Horizon Aesthetics Corporation, that one,” Jewel pointed at the screen showing. “They design houses.”

“Thanks Jewel, do they have an address?”

Jewel nodded and wrote it down for her.

“Thank you,” Cat told her.

Jewel beamed.

Falco frowned as Cat waltzed past him and back out the front door as fast as she’d arrived.

Cat pulled up outside HAC. It was a white fancy looking two-story building surrounded by pine trees, just off the southern motorway, south of Baz’s thicker-treed forest, and nestled among a small group of obscure techy type commercial buildings. It wasn’t far from the more upmarket end of suburbia. The type that liked enough trees between themselves and their neighbours such that they could pretend they owned a larger plot of land than they did.

Cat parked her dark sportscar and then stayed seated for a moment thinking. She just needed to talk to the guy. Ask him a few questions. His reaction should tell her if he was guilty or not. Then what? She wasn’t sure. She’d figure that out later.

She got out of her car and walked determinedly toward the building’s front entrance. A receptionist glanced up from the front desk as she entered. Some young mousy-haired skinny thing wearing small glasses and oversized earrings.

“Hello, how can I help you?” She gave a pleasant smile.

“I’m looking for Nolan Perninski.” Cat was already scanning the list of names on wall behind her. Unfortunately none of them had room numbers.

“Do you have an appointment?” the receptionist asked as her fingers went tappy tap tap over the keyboard. She looked at her screen and frowned. Then she looked at Cat and then back to her screen.

“No but it won’t take long.” Cat eyed up the two hallways. There was an upstairs too but she could see from here that the offices had names on the doors and it wasn’t like this was a large building.

“I’m sorry, you’ll have to make an appointment. What did you say your name was?” The receptionist glanced up just in time to see Cat walking into the right-hand corridor.

“Miss! Miss, you can’t go that way without an appointment.”

Cat walked swiftly along the hallway, scanning the names as she went. Amber Morris, April Smith, Brendan Hale, Carl Kitteridge, Frank Prince. Were all these offices in alphabetical order by first name? What crazy system was this? She hoped the corridor went around in a loop because she’d obviously picked the wrong side.

“Excuse me miss! Miss!”

She could hear the receptionist trotting after her in heels. But the shorter woman couldn’t keep up with Cat’s longer strides, at least not in those shoes.

Somewhere behind her Cat vaguely heard a door open.

“Amelia?” a woman’s voice asked.

Cat was stalled then as, in front of her, an office door opened and a man stepped out. Not the one she was looking for. He gave her a surprised once-over.

“Who are you?”

“Move,” Cat told him.

He just stared at her.

She made a move to push past him but suddenly found herself blocked by a wall that had appeared between her and the man. It had grown out of the sides and filled the space in front of her. It blended in perfectly with the surroundings, pale green wallpaper and white trim. Cat spun, figuring she’d just go the other way around then. She wasn’t after that man anyway. But as she turned she realised that it wasn’t him who had created the wall. A woman had emerged from the second office along the corridor to join the receptionist in the hallway. This was evidently the one who had spoken to Amelia, the receptionist, a moment before. She was taller than Amelia but not by much, and Amelia herself was much shorter than Cat had originally assumed when she’d been sitting at the front desk. This new woman, April had been the name on the door, also had brunette hair but she was slightly more professionally dressed and her hair was loosely but very neatly piled up at the back of her head.

Neither looked particularly threatening. In a physical fight Cat could have taken them easily but April had her hand placed against one wall indicating she was the materiokinetic and a pretty darn good one at that. Cat started to stride toward them. And she soon found herself facing another wall.

She gave an exasperated sigh that almost came out like a growl and then she reached for one of the other office doors. But she found it would not open. Had the woman somehow locked those.

“Oi! Let me out!” Cat banged against the wall.

A moment later a gap in the wall widened like a little window. Even the edges of the little window were neatly wallpapered. Well, Cat supposed, it was a useful power for an architect to have.

April’s face appeared, unfortunately not close enough for Cat to grab, nor would she want to given the woman could close the wall at any moment. The window was perfectly at April’s height and Cat had to bend over to be able to peer through. When she did she could see April staring coolly at her with blue eyes. The woman didn’t seem even remotely tired or distracted from moving the walls about.

“I hear you wish to see Nolan?” April asked as she casually tucked an invisible loose strand of hair behind one ear.

“Yes.”

“Well, if you come calmly back to the front desk, Amelia can set you up with an appointment.” April spoke perkily like she was trying to sell something.

“I only need to talk to him for five minutes.”

April gave her a sweet smile. “That may be so but you’ll still need to set up an appointment.”

A little further back, Amelia was nervously glancing from April to Cat and back again.

Cat considered it. It didn’t look like there was any other way the woman was letting her out, and if she went back to the front then she would be closer to the other hallway and thus closer to Perninski. She could try the other hallway once April was gone.

“Fine,” Cat agreed.

“Very good.” April smiled and a moment later, the extra walls disappeared. She stepped aside to let Cat past. So did Amelia.

April was watching her closely, but to Cat’s pleasure, she didn’t follow them out into the reception. She did pause in her office doorway a moment to make sure Cat was doing as instructed.

Amelia sighed and returned to her desk.

Cat waited. When she next looked down the long hallway, April had disappeared back into her own office. Amelia wasn’t watching.

Cat took her chance.

“So,” Amelia started, with her eyes on her computer screen, “When-” she glanced up. But Cat was already gone.

Cat was unsurprised but a little disappointed to find that the first name in the other corridor was ‘Zoey Zips,’ followed by ‘Peter Xie.’ She paused and briefly reconsidered her knowledge of the alphabet when the next two were ‘Yolanda Tummus,’ and ‘Andrew Viktor.’ Then, with a shake of her head, she continued on her way, walking almost to the end before she checked anymore.

As luck would have it she’d stopped right next to ‘Nolan Perninski.’

She didn’t want even a second before barging right on into his office.

Two men glanced up as she entered the room with surprised looks on their faces. She recognised Nolan from his picture.

She walked right up to him, grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and pushed him toward the back wall. She figured she probably didn’t have long to ask her questions so she might as well cut straight to the chase.

“Did you kill your daughter?” Cat asked him directly, watching closely for a reaction.

And she got one, briefly, a widening of the eyes, then a narrowing. Not surprise but something else, Cat was sure of it.

That was as far as she got before she suddenly found her arms being pulled to her sides by her own clothes. Her jacket was getting bigger, wrapping itself around her, pulling her arms down.

“What?” Cat released Nolan and looked down at herself in confusion. Somehow her jeans had fused themselves together, trapping her legs. She tried to turn her head to see what was behind her. A moment later someone else rotated her. She came face to face with a very large man who looked like security, and April again, whose eyes were fixated on Cat’s prison. Her fingers were held out in front of her her as if she were playing some invisible instrument.

Finally, she met Cat’s eyes. “You were given a chance to make a appointment. Unfortunately we cannot tolerate this kind of violence.” To the security guard she said, “Manny, please escort this woman from the building.”

The large man nodded, grunted, and then, much to Cat’s humiliation, he hoisted her up and over his shoulder and carried her off down the corridor.

April followed.

Cat glared at her.

Manny sat her down outside the front door.

“Thank you, Manny.” April said politely.

Manny nodded and left.

Cat continued to glare at April who had raised her hand again and looked to be considering whether or not to release Cat’s binds. How had the woman managed that without contact? She must be a pretty good materiokinetic.

“Why do you want to talk to Nolan so badly?” April asked.

“Because he’s an abusive child-murdering fiend and I wanted to hear him admit it,” Cat told her plainly and calmly.

The woman looked taken aback for a moment and then she replied. “I see. I’m going to let you go now, but you should know, it will only take me a second to restore those binds as they are, and I don’t have to put your clothes back as they were, so if you don’t want your very nice jacket ruined I suggest you leave here.”

April waited for a moment, perhaps hoping Cat would acknowledge her, but Cat just gave her a sour look. Eventually, with a slight shrug, April stepped back, far enough away that Cat knew she’d never be able to reach her even if she had wanted to. Then she twisted her hand in the air and Cat felt her clothes returning to their original shape.

April returned to the building, watching Cat the entire way. Cat could see Manny inside, also watching. This was fine though, she’d gotten what she’d come for. It wasn’t quite a full confession but from his reaction she was pretty sure he was guilty. Wasn’t she? She turned and walked back to her car.

She didn’t immediately leave. She didn’t know where he lived and for the next stage of her slowly developing plan, she needed that information. But she could wait. He shouldn’t be more than a couple hours. Then she could follow him home. Possibly that’s what she should have done to start with. The look on his expression had been helpful though, hadn’t it? She shrugged that thought off. It didn’t matter. Once she knew where he lived then she could figure out the next steps.