“It’s not,” Carter muttered. “Nowhere near. I could rent a transport plane…”
“But you’d still need an aquarium truck to get him from the swamp to the airport,” Roland pointed out, his eyes glittering with mischief. “And then from the Iowa airport to Kerenza Couch. In which case you may as well take him all the way.”
Coldly, Carter inquired, “Roland, is there some reason you want me to take a giant marine dinosaur on a road trip?”
“Yes.” Roland smiled. “It’s funny.”
“You’re such a troll, Roland,” said Tirzah admiringly.
“Here’s a tank that’s less conspicuous.” Merlin held up his phone. It showed a video of a container truck with a window in its side where a shark could be glimpsed swimming back and forth. The video was taggedVIRAL SHARK TRUCK VIDEO!
“That’s a viral video with ten million views.” Carter’s eyes flared crimson. “You can’t get more conspicuous than that!”
“Yes, you can,” said Merlin. “Our shark truck was completely transparent.”
“Merlin has a point,” said Ransom, somewhat reluctantly. “You could tape over one window.”
“That’ll make people wonder what we’re hiding,” muttered Carter.
Fen intervened. “They can wonder all they want, but it’s not as if they can do anything about it if they only see us for thirty seconds on the freeway.”
Carter flung up his hands. “Fine! I give up. We’ll go on a road trip with a Dunkleosteus while I’m turning into a monster. At least nothing’s going to getmorestressful than that.”
Fen’s phone rang. She glanced at the caller ID, and her stomach sank like an aquarium truck crashing into a swamp. Fen considered not answering it, but she knew what happened if she did that. They’d keep on calling, and then accuse her of dodging their calls when she did pick up.
She stepped out of the lobby and into the corridor, took a deep breath to gather strength, and took the call. “Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad. What’s going on?”
Her father got right to the point. “We saw your press conference on the news.”
Right,Fen thought.That.She’d been so distracted by Carter’s… everything… and then by the prospect of driving a mobile dinosaur aquarium to a witch in Iowa that she’d completely forgotten about it.
What her parents had to say about the press conference was anyone’s guess. It could be anything from congratulating her on a fine performance to demanding to know why she was dating an obviously erratic man who rushed away from his own press conference to criticizing her for holding a press conference at all when she was a witness in a criminal case and ought to go into hiding until it was over.
Cautiously, testing the waters, she said, “Uh-huh?”
“Whyever didn’t you tell us you’re dating Carter Howe?” her mother asked. “How wonderful! Darling, I’m so happy for you.”
That ought to have relaxed Fen, but instead it made her more nervous. She didn’t trust it when her parents were being nice, because she never knew when they’d stop. “Thank you. It’s very new.”
“It sounded serious,” said her mother.
“It is, yes.”
“Then we ought to meet him.”
The thought of Carter and her parents in the same room filled her with irrational horror. She didn’t even know why. They’d definitely be nice to Carter. They were charming to everyone but her. “Sure, some day—”
“Tomorrow night.” Her father’s voice, which had brokered agreements between nations, brooked no argument. “At our house. 7:00 PM.”
“Dad, he’s going to be busy. You know what my schedule is like. His is worse. I’m sure he already has plans.”
“If he really cares about you, he’ll make time for what’s important for you,” said her father.
“But…” Fen tried to figure out how to answer that without implying either that Carter didn’t care about her or that meeting her parents wasn’t important to her.
“We’ll see you both then.” Her father hung up.
Fen resisted the urge to hurl her phone against the wall. It was hardly the phone’s fault. She stood staring down at the blank screen. She was an adult woman. A businesswoman. A very, very successful businesswoman. So why couldn’t she figure out how to get her parents to treat her like an adult rather than a child they could boss around?
