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While Cassie made a fresh pot of coffee, I started to type a message to Chance but decided I may as well wait until I knew more. Any message I sent could sit in his phone for days before he was able to read it. By then, the situation would have changed. I typed "Call when you can."
We took our coffees into the living room. "Where's home for you?" she asked.
"Wil..." I started to say Wilkins' Gap without thinking. "Well, I'm actually between places at the moment, but home is just outside Atlanta."
"What brought you to Texas?"
"I was on a bigfoot hunt in the northeast part of the state." I was glad to be able to answer truthfully.
"All we can do right now is wait for people to get back to us with information. You're welcome to stay here as long as you want, but if you need to be somewhere else, I can call you if I learn anything helpful."
I was toying with the idea of telling Cassie everything. She seemed like an open and honest person. I didn't feel at all threatened by her but, if I was wrong, I wasn't only risking myself but Chance and my friends too.
"I'd like to stay for a while, if you don't mind. I know you must have a life you'd like to get on with. It's just that I'm driving back to Dallas today, and there are dead spots on the road where there's no cell coverage."
"Stay. Let's talk cryptids."
I asked a lot of questions about the thunderbird, bigfoot, and more. She answered them all thoughtfully, admitting that, like me, she'd been a skeptic at first.
I jumped when Cassie's phone rang. "Hi, Jared" was all I heard before she walked into what I assumed was a bedroom. When she came back she explained. "That was Jared. He's currently at BITES headquarters in Montana. It's not very big. Mr. Meecham told him about my call, so Jared called to see how we were doing."
The longer we waited for information the more concerned I got. I wanted to get up and pace, but it didn't seem right to do that. Cassie's phone rang again, and she did the disappearing act. That worried me a little. If the calls were about Gracie Layne, why not just put them on speaker. Then I realized maybe she was worried they’d have bad news, and she would want to tell me in a way that cushioned the blow. She seemed like the kind of person who would think about things like that.
When she walked out of the bedroom, she had put on a button front shirt over the t-shirt she was wearing. She was adjusting it but didn't button it. "Could you come upstairs, Maggie. Mr. Meecham and Jared want to have a conference call."
As I followed her up the stairs I asked, "Did they find Gracie Layne? Is she OK? Where is she?"
She didn't answer. She typed a few things on the keyboard, and a view of a small conference room appeared. I could see three men seated at the table—one older which I assumed was Mr. Meecham, and two close to my age.
Cassie pulled out a chair and positioned it in front of the screen. "You sit here," she said as she stood behind me and off to the side a bit.
"I've done some checking on Gracie Layne Mason," the older man said. "The most interesting thing I learned is that her only sister is Everly Mason. Who are you Ms. Jarvis?"
"Fudge," I said. I turned my head to look at Cassie and saw her pointing a gun at me. I wasn't sure if they were just concerned about my alias or if they were involved with the people trying to kill us. I wasn't sure either situation would end well for me. These were federal agents. I was probably going to jail if I lived. "Double fudge! I'm sorry. I can explain, but it will take a while." Cassie didn't lower her weapon.
"Are you armed?" Cassie asked.
Looking at the gun in Cassie hand, I decided my situation really couldn't get worse, so I tried to get out the most important facts as quickly as possible. "No. I'm Everly Wilkins Mason. My driver’s license is in my purse downstairs. Gracie Layne is my sister, and she is missing. I lied about who I was because someone has been trying to kill my friends and me. We think it has something to do with the BITES lab in Idaho."
After providing them with details they could verify like me being the owner of Hairy's and the date of my kidnapping, Mr. Meacham said, "We need a little time to check this out, Ms. Mason. Cassie, make sure she has no weapons and keep an eye on her. We'll call you back.”
Once the monitor went dark, Cassie checked me for weapons and directed me back downstairs. She tucked the gun back under her shirt. Now I knew why she added it to her outfit.
"Sorry about the gun, but we've had some threats against us in the past. Now, that we have some time, why don't you tell me what's going on."
I started with Uncle Harry and worked my way through the basics of what had happened. She stopped me when she got a text. "They've given me the all clear. Let me go put this away," she said, pulling out the gun again and heading for the bedroom.
I continued my story but left out lots of details. When I mentioned the lab, she seemed interested. I believe she was being truthful before when she said she didn't know where it was located.