They reached the hotel and parked. Nathan retrieved Paige's luggage and then they entered. They moved quickly through the lobby. He noted the nautical theme, intricate model sailboats seemed to be on display everywhere. At the front desk he was greeted by an older woman in a blue blazer.
"Welcome to Bayside," she said as Nathan approached.
He inquired about their reservation and was told that their rooms were indeed ready. The woman was tapping away at the keyboard when Paige took Nathan by the arm and pulled him away from the desk.
"Something wrong?"
She looked at her feet, her grip still strong on his arm. Almost strong enough to mask the tremors she was having, but not quite. He had a few theories about her tremors and the possible reason they might be getting a bit more pronounced now, but kept them to himself.
"Paige?"
She leaned in close and whispered to him. She glanced and saw the woman behind the front desk waiting for Nathan to return and complete checking in, but Paige ignored her.
After a minute or two of discussion, Paige nodded her head, released her hold on him and he returned to the woman at the desk.
"Would it be possible to change rooms."
"You haven't seen them yet, but want to change already?"
"Umm, room type. Instead of the two rooms, can we get only one?"
The woman tried to hide her smirk, but failed miserably. "A king?"
"No, double please."
Nathan almost laughed at the woman's puzzled expression. He was certain he'd known what she'd been thinking and his request had definitely caught her off guard.
A few minutes later he was handed his room keycard. He thanked her and then he and Paige headed for the room. No, it definitely wasn't what the woman thought. He suspected it might be the same reason for Paige's nervousness. They were a stones throw from her school. Tomorrow they would be going there and that terrified her. Terrified him as well if he was honest with himself. They both believed that the answers to their questions would be found there, though exactly why they were both certain, neither could say.
What was all this about? What could the answers be and were they prepared to deal with those answers?
They dropped Paige's luggage in the room. They intended to head out and walk around the shops of the Brick Market Place in search of some clothes for Nathan and hopefully a pleasant afternoon distraction. They both knew tonight they would have to get down to the business of confronting their mystery, but perhaps for a few more hours they could forget about it and pretend that things were normal.
As Nathan shut the door behind them he was unable to keep his thoughts in check. Questions rattled around inside his head.
What if he couldn't deal with the truth? What if Paige couldn't? Worst of all, what if they didn't find any answers? What would they do then? What could they do then?
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
She slammed her hands on the keyboard then shook her head and started tapping on the delete key. It had definitely been the most used button of the day. She normally hated working on the reports, but today was worse than normal. Her hands refused to cooperate, she was having trouble reading her own hand written notes and none of the numbers in the various tables seemed to make any sense.
She pushed back from the desk and slouched down in her chair. She closed her eyes and gently massaged her temples. For the thousandth time today she wondered how he was doing. She wanted to call and check up on him but knew that would be a mistake. As it was, she actually feared she might get a call from them with reports of new behavior. She ran the calculations in her head again, even though she already knew there was no way for her to know if they would be right. There had been no actual testing on humans and certainly no testing period on anything that had been exposed to the drug for so long.
"What the hell have I done?"
"Hopefully nothing too serious," said a voice from the doorway.
She let out a startled yelp and opened her eyes. Cameron was standing in her doorway. He smiled at her response to his interruption. She wanted to yell at him for not knocking, it would have been her typical response. However, given the stress she was feeling, she wondered if she hadn't accidentally left the door open. She decided it was better to avoid a confrontation.
"Is there something you need, Cameron?"
He took her words as an invitation and stepped into her office.
"No. Not really. I was just on my way out to the airport and noticed you working away in here. You looked a little stressed. Computer problems?"
"Airport? Going somewhere?" She tried to keep the hope out of her voice. The thought of Cameron leaving town was almost too good to be true.
"No. I am picking someone up."