He nods, then puts the phone on speaker.
“Oakley, sweetheart! I can’t wait to talk to you about that psych rotation at Wakefield General.”
He’s just about to get his PhD in Complex…something. Psychology?
Psychopathy.
“That sounds great, Aunt Hedy, but…we’ve got a situation here, and Maverick and I were told to call you.”
“Oh?” she asks.
Oakley gives her the rundown.
“Oh.”
Maybe I’m reading too much into things, but she doesn’t sound even a little surprised.
“Hedy?” I ask, already out of patience.
“You deserve answers,” she says after a moment, the practiced calm in her voice making my scalp itch. “But first I need to make a few calls.”
She hangs up on us, and I grind my molars to dust. Oakley doesn’t look much happier.
A few minutes later, she calls back, the sound of her heels on tile like a series of gunshots.
Leaving off any kind of greeting, she says, “As you know, most of your fathers were associated with some form of high-level, mostly covert government-level work. They are no longer members of an official government agency, but they are all still involved in high-level ops in one capacity or another.”
She lets that hang there, and Oakley and I stare at each other, waiting for her to clarify. She doesn’t. Oakley pulls himself together faster than I can.
“Do they…?” He shakes his head. “What exactly do they do?”
An engine starts with a loud whine in the background, and a lowwhomp-whomp-whomp.
“I am holding on to some of those details until I have a conversation with the team. Obviously, this is not the way we wanted you two to find out about the Guardians, but?—”
“The Guardians?” I ask, shaking my head. “Like protectors or…bodyguards?”
“Protectors, yes,” Hedy answers carefully. “Like I said, there are details we’re hanging on to for the time being.”
I can practically see Aunt Hedy working out what to say as the engine noises get louder. “Look, I’ve got about thirty seconds before I hafta take off,” she says, voices rising in the background. “But I’ll explain the mission when I get back.”
Oakley mouthsthemissionwith a million questions in his eyes. Also, is sheflyingthe helicopter?
Oak and I exchange a look. He takes a breath, then says, “Doesn’t feel great that we were left out of something that’s clearly a family-level operation. I’d like to know why that is.”
She sighs and shuts a door. “I know it’s frustrating not having all the details, but…” Another fucking pause as people talk to her. She comes back on the line. “The choice to not tell you was up to your fathers, so they may be the best ones to ask.”
I walk away from the phone and over to the massive wall of windows, choosing the corner that overlooks Lady Bird Lake.
Oakley ends the call and joins me at the window.
“What are you thinking?” he asks, his familiar calm keeping me on this side of sane.
“That she’s flying one of the helicopters that were scrambled.”
“Agreed.”
“And that they were waiting for you to get your doctorate before bringing you in.”
