Page 76 of Master of Chaos

Cass

If I kept eating like this, I was going to be in trouble, I thought, nibbling my fresh-baked cinnamon roll. Then again, I’d been unable to eat at Halliwell’s lair, so I had a lot to compensate for, and Angela was in wild celebration mode. She had to calm down at some point, and in the meantime, I might as well take advantage of the yum.

So, excess was the way to go. Maybe I’d have some coffee cake, too. What the hell.

I sipped coffee, watching Holly and Reggie giggling over a word game that they had found in one of Holly’s magazines. It soothed my heart to see her laugh, though she, unlike me, had eaten hardly anything. She’d nibbled toast, drunk a little juice. Her small square of egg casserole looked untouched.

And she looked… not great. Strangely, she’d looked better yesterday. Her eyes looked sunken and bruised, and she had lost the color that she had yesterday. Today, her face had a dull, grayish tone.

Maybe it was just in contrast to Holly, who was rosy and blooming, all pink lips and cheeks and bright sparkling eyes. I was being paranoid. I should give the poor kid a few days to recover from months of solitary confinement before I started to panic.

But panic swiftly overtook me anyway. “Hey, Reggie,” I said, interrupting their whispered conversation. “Can’t you eat a little more of your eggs?”

Reggie looked down at it and back up at me, her eyes apologetic. “It makes my stomach hurt,” she admitted. “I ate some of the toast. And I had a cup of hot chocolate.”

“Okay,” I said. “But try to eat, babe. Please.”

“We’re going to watch the latest episode of Relic Hunter now,” Reggie said. “It’s this adventure show that Holly showed me. It’s the best.”

“That’s wonderful, sweetie. Go have fun.”

Shane stood in the doorway, smiling at me, and them. He ruffled each little girl’s hair as she passed, and then sat down next to me. “Reggie looks pale.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” I said.

“Demiguel is coming up the driveway,” he said. “Maybe he has some news for us. Come on up to the meeting room?”

“Yes!” I leaped up and refilled my coffee before following him.

The whole extended family was there when we came in. I saw various surreptitious looks, smirks and grins. So it was no secret, where Shane had spent the night.

So much for discretion. Shane had sat down, so I marched over to him, trailing my hand intimately over his shoulder for everyone to see, and sat down next to him.

No kisses though, because that shit was private, thank you very much.

My performance touched off another couple of minutes of intense non-verbal communication, which at last was blessedly interrupted by the arrival of Dr. Demiguel, accompanied by Trey, one of the security guys.

We leaned forward eagerly as he spread out the array of blood test results, but his expression was worried and apologetic. “I wish I had something more conclusive for you,” he said to Shane. “Your bloodwork seems normal, considering your ordeal. You’re low in a few key nutrients, but that could just be stress. I’ve made up a list of supplements you should take, to shore up minerals and B-vitamins and suchlike, but that’s easily handled. We didn’t find drugs in your blood, but hair and saliva is still being processed.”

Shane waved his hand. “I’m fine. Never mind me. Tell us about Reggie.”

Demiguel’s eyes flicked down to the second file that was fanned out in front of him. “Well,” he said. “She was definitely malnourished?—”

“Motherfuckers,” Amos snarled under his breath. “Starving a little kid, all alone in a basement closet? They need to die screaming. All of them. In a fire.”

“It’s against my Hippocratic oath, but in this case, I have to agree,” Demiguel said grimly. “I read up on Varen’s, and I consulted with my colleagues. The blood test results are consistent with Varen’s, but they could also indicate many other things. I would never have thought of Varen’s on my own if you hadn’t mentioned it to me.”

“I don’t think it’s genuinely Varen’s,” I told them. “I was told by a person at Halliwell’s complex that Halliwell create fake illnesses that mimic real diseases. They have specific antidotes that only he has access to. So if that is true, then essentially, Reggie was poisoned, and the results mimic Varen’s Disease.”

“And you trust the person who gave you that information?” Demiguel asked.

I thought of Jana’s haunted, tormented eyes. “Yes, I do,” I said. “And I can’t think of any reason why it would have been in her best interests to lie.”

“Well, I suppose it could have been some drug she was given,” Demiguel said slowly. “But it’s hard to tell. We’ll keep working on it.”

I braced myself. “So I take it you don’t have any treatment options to suggest?”

He shook his head. “Sorry. Not until we know more. I’m hoping that Rose will have some more information.”