The Law of Averages

Chapter 86

Chapter 86

"So let's talk," Anastasia Summers announced, taking a seat on Dan's living room couch. Her elbows rested on her knees, with her hands loosely clasped together in front of her. Her body sank slightly into the couch, forcing her to lean forward slightly. Despite her hunched posture and seated position, she seemed to loom over him.

Dan's ass planted itself in the closest chair. Abby followed behind him at a more sedate pace, rather more inoculated to the fearsome gaze of her grandmother. Rather than sitting down, she moved into the kitchen, fetching a cold bottle of water and shoving it into Dan's hands.

"It helps," she said, patting him affectionately. Across the room, Anastasia rolled her eyes.

Dan gulped down the cool liquid, his automatic motions somehow calming him. He wiped a hand across his mouth and asked, "Talk about what?"

"You."

"Sorry but I'm spoken for," Dan's mouth replied before his brain could filter it. The room's silence spoke for his error, and he stared at his water bottle, aghast. His eyes flicked to Abby. "Did you give me vodka?"

Abby's hand slowly covered her face. "That was all you, Danny."

"Moving on," the elder Summers commanded. The both of them instinctively snapped to attention. Cold eyes met Dan's. With a languid motion, she pulled a bundle of folded papers out of her pocket, and dropped it on the coffee table. She unfolded with a few flicks of her finger, then held up the first page.

"Daniel Newman," the Summers' matron read aloud. "Born January 14th, 1993, St. Joseph's hospital, Austin, Texas. Parent's unknown. Former guardians unknown. Former residences unknown. You have one bank account, opened slightly under a year ago, and a private delivery business without any listed clients nor any way to contact you. Purchased a short-hop upgrade from Terzo International at the same time, which mutated on the distance variable. No real digital footprint before that point in time."

Dan coughed awkwardly.

Anastasia dropped the page and raised her eyebrow, glancing between Dan and Abby, whose hand was now threaded through his.

"I knew all of this the last time we met," Anastasia admitted, confirming what Dan had strongly suspected. "I didn't much care at the time. Whatever you were hiding was no business of mine, and I'm not so blind as to miss the growing," she gestured between the two of them, "infatuation between you and my favorite grandchild. So long as you stayed out of trouble, I had no issue leaving the two of you be."

She slowly straightened, her shadow casting itself across the table, her presence seeming to engulf the room. Her words were slow, measured. Precise. "That is no longer the case."

Abby's hand tightened. She started to stand, but Anastasia halted her with a gesture. "Settle down my dear, I'm not going to hurt the boy." She paused, then shrugged. "Probably. But I do need clear, concise, truthful answers from him. My tolerance of this situation has reached its limits."

"Ahh," Dan's voice slipped out before he could help himself.

Both women focused their stares upon him, and he only barely withheld a shiver. Even so, he couldn't help but speak. This was his home, his life, and nobody got to dictate terms to him about it.

"I'm sorry," he said, his voice gaining confidence that he didn't quite feel, "but how is this any of your business?"

Abby sucked in a sharp breath, but said nothing when Dan glanced to her. His girlfriend's gaze was pinned on her grandmother, whose face was completely still. Dan ran his last statement back through his head, scrutinizing it for any possible insult, before giving the mental equivalent of a shrug.

Fuck it. It was a fair question.

Anastasia seemed to sense his resolve, her stony expression dissolving into something lighter. She regarded him like one might a particularly eloquent, if unruly, toddler. He could feel her lack of acknowledgement like a physical force. He was alotted only just enough autonomy to receive an answer.

"My granddaughter is romantically involved with a man who appears to be a fugitive of some kind," the older woman stated blandly. "How is it not my business?"

"That's an awfully loaded way of phrasing it," Dan pointed out. "Just because you haven't found my personal information, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist."

"My people are very good at what they do," Anastasia countered with amusement.

Dan shrugged helplessly. "That's nice. Doesn't really affect my point. And who Abby sees has nothing to do with you."

Abby watched their back and forth with a bewildered expression, her head snapping back and forth between them. Dan wanted to make a joke about whiplash, but this was hardly the time.

Anastasia crossed her arms and leaned backwards, assuming the aura of an adult humoring a child. The makings of a smile danced across her lips. She wasn't taking him seriously. He could practically hear her thoughts. Spunky. That's the word she'd use.

"Perhaps," the absurdly dangerous woman acknowledged. "She is her own woman, I'll grant you. But I'd argue that, as a concerned family member, it's still my responsibility to report my suspicions to the proper authorities."

Dan grimaced before he could stop himself. "Suspicions?"

"That your identity is, in fact, a forgery. That you've been sent to seduce little Abigail by old enemies of mine." The amusement was gone, now. Her voice slowly grew in volume and intensity. "That you've been lying about yourself this entire time. That you have foul intentions towards someone whom I love very much. That you are false."

Abby's hand practically crushed Dan's as she shot out of her seat. "You're wrong!" she shouted, her face fierce. Her free hand jabbed towards the door. "And if you believe my judgement is so flawed, then you can just leave grandma!"

The elder Summers only blinked at the sudden verbal assault. She seemed taken aback, waving a dismissive hand. "Of course I don't believe that, dear. It's just what I'll tell the police."

The frank admission took the wind out of Abby's sails. "What?"

"It's what I'll tell the police," Anastasia repeated. One hand tapped an easy rhythm against her thigh as she smiled at Dan. "I've often found the simplest threats to be the most effective. Don't you agree?"

"I really wouldn't know," Dan said, his mouth going dry. There weren't really any options left for him here.

A thought occurred to him.

"Why do you need me to talk? You've clearly been bugging Abby." He gestured to the phone that she had lobbed across the room in the aftermath of Anastasia's phone call. What seemed like years ago had barely been half an hour.

Abby's fury reignited. "That's right! You said you weren't doing that anymore!"

The old woman chuckled. "It's a recent thing. I try very hard to give you your privacy, Abigail, and you're very good about being safe, but your little," she wiggled her fingers between them, clearly searching for a word. "liaison has made you sloppier than normal. I had to take measures for your own sake. To keep you safe."

"Excuse me for having a life, grandma!" Abby snapped.

Ice blue eyes softened, and Anastasia smiled wistfully. "I don't blame you, sweetheart. Infatuation is a wonderful thing. The rush of emotions. The passion of youth." The smile widened. "I nearly got shot shortly after my second date with your grandfather," she admitted. "It was sloppy. Dangerous. I don't want you making the same mistakes."

And then the smile vanished. "But we've drifted off-point. Who are you really, Daniel Newman, and why has Marcus Mercury suddenly taken an interest in worldly affairs?"

Daniel's mouth, poised to defend his girlfriend, clicked shut. She knew. Of course she knew; she admitted to bugging Abby not ten seconds ago. But her question, it was off target. Wrong. Marcus had never cared about Anastasia, or Abby. He'd offered less than a grunt of interest when Dan had finally spoken the Summers' name. His sole obsession at present was the Gap.

Meaning Anastasia didn't know, not everything. She was making a guess. An educated one, almost certainly, but Dan didn't talk about Marcus very often, not even to Abby. The Summers' matriarch had likely only caught the name once or twice. Maybe a mention of space, or Neptune. She didn't know his origins. She didn't know about t-space.

Which led neatly to Dan's immediate issue: should he tell her? More importantly, could he get away with not. He could see Abby glancing at him, coming to the same conclusions. He could see Anastasia watching them, her eyes not missing a single thing. It was with a sense of glum acceptance that he understood a single truth.

He couldn't fool this woman.

Not wouldn't. In this particular moment, he'd happily lie to her until he was blue in the face. It would just be pointless. She'd nod, and smile, and then calmly threaten him again. Her love for Abigail did not at all supersede her desire to keep the younger woman safe. There was no contest.

Dan almost laughed at the realization. Anastasia Summers was the walking embodiment of a helicopter parent.

His mirth faded as quickly as it came, as he remembered the reason why she was so protective. There was real, tangible danger out there. There were people who wanted to hurt Abby, who thought it good and right. They might still be around.

He couldn't fool this woman. He wouldn't fool this woman.

In the end, it was an easy decision to make.

"Marcus doesn't care about you," Dan said. "Not a whit. Not you, nor Abby, nor anybody else on this planet." Not even Dan. Not really.

Anastasia's eyes hardened into steel. "Don't lie to me boy."

An invisible force crashed down on him, choking him, suffocating him, drowning him on dry land. His body remained perfectly still, unable to move even if he wanted to. His vision darkened at the edges. Abby was shouting something, but all Dan could hear was the babump babump babump of his heartbeat. Of blood pounding in his ears. He managed to force open his mouth, his tongue flapping uselessly. The muscle was spasming, and he fought for control. He took a deep, shuddering breath.

"Not lying," he forced out with a strangled gasp. The pressure vanished, and Dan's eyes managed to refocus. Abby was across the room, eyes wide, one hand fisting her grandmother's shirt and the other locked in a submission hold behind her back. Anastasia casually gripped Abby's free arm, and plucked it off her shirt. For an insane moment, Dan contemplated crossing the distance between them, and planting his feet on her face.

He didn't, because he wasn't suicidal. It was a narrow decision.

"You've made your point," Anastasia stated calmly, utterly unperturbed by her granddaughter struggling against her grip. "I'll let him have his say."

"But first I'll have mine." She released her granddaughter, and Abby darted back across the room, to stand at Dan's side. Anastasia noted the motion, but ignored it, choosing the stare down at Daniel. She held up a fist.

"Let's keep track, shall we? First," she ticked a finger, "you interrupted an attempted bombing on the APD by a pair of mercenaries, hired by a scientist with ties to the People. Odd, for a no-name neophyte, but stranger things have occurred." Dan's eyes widened, but Anastasia bulled onward before he could speak. "Next!" Another finger, "You join an Academy class for disaster relief, of all the things, and"—she makes air-quotes—"'stumble' upon hard evidence of the People's involvement in that clusterfuck of a forest fire."

He did what now?

"Third, you had my granddaughter push me to investigate a woman with a direct link to a known People sympathizer." She scrutinized his face. "I'm curious. Did Marcus know that Matilda Fairbanks was being groomed to spy on the Austin Police Department, or was it just a hunch?"

She did what now!?

"And fourth," Anastasia continued ruthlessly. "You purchased the home of Morgan Strauss; a People technician that even I was unaware of. I can't fathom what Marcus hopes to achieve by feeding me this information, but you're going to tell me."

Dan struggled for words, flabbergasted by this turn of events. Abby looked bewildered by her grandmother's accusations. Had the old woman gone senile, or did she simply expect such insane machinations from a man like Marcus Mercury?

Actually, no. Expecting something like this from Marcus seemed entirely reasonable. Shit.

"Ok." Dan quickly decided on a plan of action. "That's— well, a lot to take in. But it's really just a string of coincidences, combined with bad luck, and a poor choice of friends."

Anastasia snorted. "Once is chance. Twice is a coincidence. Three times is enemy action. What would you call four?"

"I'm only counting one," Dan defended loudly. "I stumbled on that collar through sheer blind luck, but I could see why it might be suspicious. I'll give you that one, but the rest of your claims are ludicrous! I don't even know what you're talking about for half of them!"

He searched for a reasonable defense.

"If Marcus wanted to subtly manipulate you, he wouldn't use me to do it. I'm not smart or subtle or clever enough. Not even by accident."

Anastasia blinked, her accusatory stare faltering for a moment. She nakedly considered him, what she knew of him, the things he'd gotten up to in the time since she'd heard of him.

"Well now. That might be the most convincing thing you've said all day."