"And whose fault is that? But no, no jumping today. However, you"re gonna have to let your dad in on your secret job, a.s.suming the CIA people haven"t been watching you this whole time. He"ll probably sit up and pay attention if you mention certain symptoms."
I knew exactly where he was going with this and was glad that he was skirting around the issue. Especially after I"d just spent several hours with Courtney. He wanted me to fake brain cancer symptoms. Something my dad has been more than a little freaked about in the past few years. "Okay, what"s the plan?"
My dad was alone when he came rushing into the gym, with Adam greeting him at the door. "He just pa.s.sed out and said his head was killing him," Adam said.
I slid down on the couch and left my eyes half closed. "Dad, is that you?"
"Yeah, Jackson. Let"s go. I"ve already called Dr. Melvin. He"s waiting for you in his office."
"Really? On a Sunday?" I muttered as Adam helped me off the couch.
"You"re a special patient," Dad said.
Adam raised his eyebrows behind Dad"s back as if to say, I told you there was something in those records.
I was a little shocked when I found out Dad had driven himself here in my BMW M6. Hopefully, I could keep from spewing Gatorade all over it. I buckled my seat belt and Dad took off driving way too fast. "Don"t you think you should slow down?"
"Don"t worry. I have plenty of friends in the New Jersey State Police."
Yeah, I"m sure you do, Agent Meyer.
"We will discuss this new job later. It"s the reason you dropped out, I a.s.sume?"
"I thought we were discussing it later."
He muttered a string of profanities under his breath before making a sharp right turn, sending me flying into the window. "Is this because we have money? You want to feel normal for a change?"
"Not really. I just want to hook up with a girl who would never date a rich kid from Manhattan."
He glanced sideways at me. "What?"
"Kidding, Dad."
We were silent the rest of the trip, mostly because his crazy secret-agent driving was honestly freaking me out. He must have diplomatic immunity or some s.h.i.t like that. Or he knew he could outrun the cops. It would be all Adam"s fault if I ended up on TV in some crazy-a.s.s police chase, with helicopters flying over us.
He screeched to a halt in front of the hospital. "Wait for me inside while I park the car."
Dad returned in record time and we headed for the elevator. He rocked back on his heels over and over while I pushed the b.u.t.ton for Dr. Melvin"s floor.
"I thought they had some kind of lower level here. I don"t see it anywhere on the map. Something underground..."
I had been doing this for a few weeks now. Dropping little hints and testing his reactions. So far, I"d gotten nothing useful. He was good at covers. d.a.m.n good.
"No idea. I"m sure you can ask someone at the information desk if you really need to know."
The old man with the wild gray hair and round belly met us outside the elevator. "How are you, Jackson?"
"Not great, Dr. Melvin."
"We"ll go right to radiology and get an MRI, see what"s causing those headaches ... and the fainting spells," Melvin said.
His voice held the same friendly tone it always had, like a grandpa or a favorite uncle. Courtney and I had loved coming to see him. We were showered with presents and candy every time.
"I would prefer you did a full-body scan," Dad said.
"Okay, we can do that."
The machines in radiology were nothing new to me. Even the tunnel didn"t scare me anymore. I lay there patiently while the machine clicked over and over. When I was done, I got dressed in the MRI room. Through the gla.s.s, I could see Melvin and Dad in the observation area, and right after I pulled my shirt over my head, I saw Melvin drop the clipboard he was holding.
Dad picked it up, his face tight with concern. I turned my head when they looked in my direction and then waited a good five minutes until Melvin finally came in and we walked to his exam room. Dead silence hung in the air. Lots of secrets they probably wouldn"t tell me, but if I could just get a little bit of info, the trip here would be worth it.
I sat on the exam table and watched as Melvin displayed my brain images on a large flat-screen computer monitor. "Something"s wrong. I saw you guys in the observation room."
Melvin turned to me and faked a smile. "Nothing serious. No tumors or contusions."
"Then why did you look so wigged out?" I asked.
Dad paced the floor, then stopped to look at the pictures. "We"re not exactly sure what"s wrong."
Melvin had hooked up the blood pressure thing to my arm and had the stethoscope in his ears. "Your blood pressure is low and you"re dehydrated."
"That"s why you flipped out?" I totally wanted answers to all of my (and Adam"s) questions, but right now they were really freaking me out.
He tucked the stethoscope into his lab coat and glanced sideways at Dad, who nodded slightly. "I need to ask you a few questions before I make a diagnosis."
"Okay," I said slowly.
Melvin pointed to the right corner of the first brain image. "This section showed activity on the scan. That might indicate ... maybe..."
"What?" I asked, hanging on his words.
"Well, it"s unusual and may explain some of your symptoms."
Like getting stuck two years in the past? Is that considered a medical symptom?
"Unusual, like ... different from the other pictures you"ve taken of my brain?"
"Yes," Dad answered.
"Maybe it"s because I"m older." Like ... a lot older.
"Have you experienced any ... memory loss?" He seemed to choose those last two words very carefully. "For example, waking up somewhere and you"re not sure how you got there?"
"Okay, you guys are scaring me."
"What about a photographic memory? Can you recall pages from a book word for word, or possibly directions or maps?" Melvin asked.
"Should I be able to do that?"
"It"s possible with your genetics-"
Dad cleared his throat loudly.
"Sorry, I meant, it"s possible with that section of the brain showing activity," Melvin corrected.
It would have been nice to be completely calm so I could choose my words carefully, but that just wasn"t happening today.
"What part of the brain is it? I"m not a complete idiot. I did take anatomy and physiology."
"When?" both of them asked.
Oops, in college. "Um ... actually, it was more like a seminar. A one-day workshop ... honestly, I just went so I could get out of this algebra test-"
Dad turned around to look at me and his face was intense. "Look, Jackson. You ... you"re adopted. Courtney, too, of course. I"m sorry I never told you, but there was never really a reason. Until now."
Faking this kind of shock was tricky and I was nearly positive he dropped this bomb to distract me from the little slip about my genetics Melvin had made. He was really good at this secret-cover thing and would probably recognize that I was lying. I decided on a different course than fake shock. "Um ... yeah, Dad ... I kinda guessed that a long time ago."
"You did?" Melvin asked.
"Well ... we don"t look anything alike and, well..." I couldn"t come up with a good excuse because another question dominated my thoughts. "So, that story about my mother dying in childbirth ... is it even true?"
Dad shook his head. "Not exactly. I"m sorry I never told you."
Now it felt like I had moved backward. I already knew my dad wasn"t my dad, and now, it seemed, I actually knew less about my mother than I thought.
Melvin sat down next to me on the table, putting his arm around me like I was a hurt little kid. I half expected him to open his drawer of lollipops and hand me one. "Jackson, what you have to understand is ... we have no family history for you. As a physician, I rely on medical history of family members when making a diagnosis."
Hearing Melvin say out loud that I had no real family was tough to swallow. Was there anyone else who could do what I could do? Or was I just some crazy mutant someone found on the side of the road? "So ... you think whoever I came from had weird brain activity like me?"
"Not exactly like you, but similar."
To my surprise, Dad slipped right out of his careful cover and glared at Melvin, then said, "No, he"s nothing like them. I"ve been telling you that for years."
He walked out the door and slammed it behind him. Melvin stared at the door for a minute before turning to me with wide eyes.
"He knows my real parents?" I asked.
Melvin shook his head. "He"s just upset about ... your sister. It"s my fault for bringing up the bad memories. Her cancer was so aggressive and rare, and with your real parents being dead, no family history, you having the same cancer gene is a possibility that we can"t ignore."
What a perfect story. Too bad something was missing. The underground people knowing me, Dad, and Melvin didn"t fit anywhere into this plot they were feeding me. What my father and Melvin had just done was a technique I had used many times. For example, when I was accused of doing something really bad at school or at home, I"d admit to a lesser crime to distract from the original accusation. It always worked like a charm.
"My biological parents are dead?"
Dr. Melvin nodded grimly. "Yes, I"m sorry. We don"t have any information other than the fact that they"re deceased."
"But when ... when did they die? Right after me and Courtney were born? How long have I been adopted? Did I live with them?" I drilled, not able to hold back.
Dr. Melvin glanced nervously at the door again, but I didn"t know if he was hoping Dad would come back or that he wouldn"t and maybe he could tell me something. Finally, he took a deep breath and said, "All I know is you"ve lived with your father since you and Courtney were eleven months old."
Eleven months. So, for almost a year of my life, the first year of my life, someone else raised me. It didn"t really change anything but it seemed like it should.
My head was spinning with questions and I suddenly had to lie down. "I"m not feeling very well."
Melvin filled a cup with water and handed it to me.
"No lollipop?" I asked.
He smiled and grabbed a red one from his drawer. "Why don"t you rest here while I go and talk to your father?"
"Sure."
The second the door closed, I grabbed my cell phone and started texting Adam.
Later, when Dad and I were headed home, his defenses were back up and he apologized. "I"m sorry the fact that you"re adopted had to come out like that. I overreacted. Dr. Melvin just gets so deep into scientific details sometimes, I think he forgets he"s dealing with real people. Anyway, it was more about your sister than you."
"It always is," I said, without realizing how much I probably sounded like my seventeen-year-old self.
He gave me a long searching look before getting out of the car and handing the keys over to Henry. "You"re right, Jackson. Courtney may be gone, but you"re not. Sometimes it"s hard for me to pick up where we left off without feeling that grief. But I"ll try harder. I promise."
Was this another tactic? Create all this sympathy so I stop digging for answers and trust the man who"s been lying to me my entire life? "Okay, Dad."
"So, tell me about this girl you"re trying to impress. I could tell you weren"t lying about that."
Holly"s safety and Adam"s message about not wanting her to get caught up in any of this weird s.h.i.t ran through my mind, dominating my thoughts. I strode through the front door, keeping my back to Dad. "You wouldn"t like her, trust me. And it"s nothing, really. I just like having a job."
"If you say so."
In other words, he didn"t believe me.
My phone rang and it was Adam, of course. I walked to my bedroom and shut the door before answering. "Hey, what"s up?"
I filled him in on Dad"s sympathy act. "You can play that game, too, Jackson. Let him feel some guilt about whatever the h.e.l.l he"s hiding."
"Smart. Who knows ... maybe he"ll crack."
"All right, tell me what was so important you had to break the one rule I gave you."
I wasn"t exactly ashamed of wanting to visit Courtney, but I knew it was wrong for several reasons and I didn"t want to go into details with Adam. "First of all, you"ve given me a lot more than one rule. And second, it wasn"t anything, really. Just a short visit with someone, then I lost track of time."
He groaned into the phone. "You seriously need to be way more responsible than that. Just don"t let it happen again. I"m going to type up a new list of theories based on today"s data."
"Okay."
"Oh ... and Holly asked me how you were doing," he said, the sound of high-speed typing coming through the phone. "She called about an hour ago and then a second time five minutes ago."