Read Online Shock by Francine Pascal - Free Book Online Page A

impatient.
    â€œI need to know that you’re alone,” she said. “I want to know that nobody is up there with you. Nobody.”
    â€œI sent Sam for a walk,” Dmitri answered, as if he’d known she’d ask for privacy. She sighed with relief. Good old guy, she thought. Smart old guy. He buzzed again, and this time she pushed through the door and ran up the four flights of stairs.
    Dmitri’s door was unlocked and open. Gaia walked through it and shoved it closed behind her, flicking the dead bolt. The old man was in the green-walled kitchen, dipping a tea bag up and down in a tall glass, clinking it against the spoon that stood in its darkening depths.
    â€œHere’s your folder,” she said, plopping it on the table. Dmitri didn’t look up.
    â€œYou are as skilled and powerful as they said you were.” He sighed, shaking his head. “I knew you could do this, my dear girl. Please sit, and I will make you a nice hot tea.”
    â€œI don’t want a nice hot anything,” Gaia told him. “I’ve had enough heat for one day. The Organization destroyed their front before I could finish the job. They set it on fire.”
    That woke Dmitri from his meditative tea making. “What? My child, are you all right?” He looked up, and his face took on an expression of concern. For the first time he noticed what a mess she was, and Gaia saw herself reflected in his reaction. Her hair torn and matted. Her skin caked with dust and muck. Her jeans gray and her sneakers half melted. Ugh. No wonder people had kept their distance on the subway. She either looked like a crazy person or an extra from the newest Christina Aguilera video.
    â€œOh, my dear, I had no idea—how could I have let you go?” Dmitri asked, squeezing her upper arms and patting her face with concern. “I would never have sent you if I had known they were planning such an action.”
    â€œI don’t know who you got your information from, but whoever it is might be trying to set you up,” Gaia told him. “Not only were they planning on destroying the place…there was another problem, too.”
    â€œWhat?”
    Gaia forced herself to spit out the bad news. “The dossier on my father wasn’t where it was supposed to be,” she said. “I found the right file cabinet, and there were files in there similar to the one you said I’d find, but none was labeled Moorestown, and none contained information about him. I was in the process of checking out the rest of the file cabinets when the Organization operatives came back to destroy the place.” She paused. “I’m sorry.”
    The old man’s face fell as she relayed the story. He shook his head and sank into a chair, looking even older than he had when they’d found him.
    â€œDmitri, are you okay?” He was looking distinctly ashen. Gaia thought he might be having a stroke or something.
    â€œI feel terrible,” he said. “I put you in danger for an empty reason. Perhaps you are right—I am too feeble-minded to help you find your father.”
    Gaia sat next to him at the table. “Here, drink your tea,” she told him. He gave her a sad stare, and she pushed the tea closer to him. He took a sip, grimaced, then took a sugar cube out of a tin on the table and put it between his front teeth, then sipped again, and then a few more times. His color seemed to return a little bit.
    Frail as he was, he was Gaia’s best hope of finding her father: Even if fifty percent of his information were flawed, it was more than she was going to find anywhere else. Whether or not she trusted this guy, she had to keep the information coming.
    â€œDon’t worry about it,” she said. “My dad used to tell me that was part of any kind of information gathering. You have to know that a lot of it is going to come up short. You get what you can and don’t give up if it’s