Read Online In the Grey by Claudia Hall Christian - Free Book Online Page B

the
child,” Alex said. “He was distressed enough.”
    “ We’ll need to talk to the
boys further,” Joseph said.
    “ Of course,” Troy said.
“Anything within reason. They’re little boys. Should I go get
them?”
    “ No need,” Alex
said.
    “ Have you ever read any of
your brother’s books?” Patrick asked.
    “ No,” Troy said. “I know
Alex asked me to, and I tried. I did, but it was too hard. I asked
Matthew to read them for me. He’s my partner, so I thought it
wasn’t any big deal.”
    “ Good thinking,” Joseph
said. “I would have agreed to that if you’d asked.”
    “ Wait,” Troy said. “Before
we start holding hands and singing Kumbaya, why were you upset when
I came in?”
    “ Why didn’t you tell us
that you designed the drones?” Alex asked.
    “ I don’t remember
designing them,” Troy said. “Seriously.”
    “ Do you remember the first
thing you said to me when you saw my fairy tattoo?” Alex
asked.
    “ No,” Troy shook his
head.
    “ You said that fairy was a
good name for me. You were going to use it in your thesis about
winged flight.”
    “ What was the premise of
your master’s thesis?” Patrick asked.
    “ I looked at bees,
butterflies, and dragonflies,” Troy said. “Basic aerodynamic
mathematics shows that they shouldn’t be able to fly – bodies too
big and heavy for their small wings. I postulated a mathematical
model consistent with their flight. But it wasn’t published. The
journals panned me because the reviewers were friends of my
father’s and . . . Wait. You’re saying that
worked?”
    “ Did you ever give plans
to Dahlia?” Joseph asked.
    “ Plans?” Troy looked
confused.
    “ Think back,” Alex said.
“You were working on your master’s thesis when Dahlia came for a
visit. You were in Argentina for the summer. You went to Uruguay
for a week’s leave? We met you there on our way to
Brazil.”
    Troy shook his
head.
    “ You know, about nine
months before she had Hector James?” Alex asked.
    “ Holy crap,” Troy said. “I
used the math to make a test model. A little plastic thing. I made
it out of stuff I had around. I gave it to Dahlia when she left. I
told her that I would always be with her.”
    “ Anything specific about
the model?” Joseph asked. “Anything a little odd?”
    “ You turn it on by
clapping. You know,” he blushed, “like how you save a fairy?
From Peter Pan ? I
had a Clapper, the light thing. They were all the rage in
Argentina. That’s where I got most of the components.”
    Alex opened the top of the
plastic bottle and gave a loud clap. The nanodrone sprung into
life.
    Troy reacted like he’d
been shot. He fell forward with his elbows on his knees. His hands
covered his face. His back shook when he started to sob. Joseph
came around the desk to kneel down next to Troy. After a few
moments, Troy looked up to see compassion in Alex’s
eyes.
    “ What else did he say?”
Troy asked.
    “ Nothing more,” Alex
said.
    “ What does this mean to
you?” Troy asked.
    “ I believe your brother
stole your work,” Alex said. “His career took off around the time
that Dahlia had Hector James. Rather than sending her to you in
order to get pregnant, like we thought, he might have sent her to
steal your work. She would have gone just to be with you. He could
have easily heard about what you were doing, maybe even seen a
draft of your thesis. He wanted the finished version.”
    “ But the plans don’t
work,” Troy said.
    “ That’s the question,”
Alex said. “Why did Dahlia have to make them?”
    “ Ok, why?” Troy
asked.
    “ Because she wouldn’t give
Hector a full set of the plans,” Joseph said. “She knew something
about these things that’s not evident in reverse
engineering.”
    “ You mean, the plans on
his computer were reconstructed from that thing,” Troy said. “Like
we did.”
    “ And don’t work,” Alex
said.
    “ But why would she do
this?” Troy asked.
    “ Why do you think?”