Alien Collective Read Online Free Page B

probably a man trying to sound like a woman. Or else Julia was calling from beyond the grave. The way my luck ran, I didn’t rule this possibility out.
    Buchanan made the “keep them talking” motion. Rarely an issue for me. I was great with keeping the baddies monologuing. He pulled something out of his pocket and plugged it into my phone’s audio jack. The small, blinking device didn’t affect the call.
    “My friends identify who they are or I’m able to recognize their voices. So far, you’re not really falling into my Friend Zone.”
    “I will shortly. You need to leave the protest.”
    Shared a “what the hell?” look with Buchanan and several other people around me. “Um, why?”
    “It’s not safe. For anyone, but for you especially.”
    There were a lot of people, and dogs, in here, so it wasn’t silent. But the room didn’t sound like an outdoor protest, either. And from experience, you could tell when someone had you on speakerphone. So either the caller wasn’t paying attention or he was playing stupid for a reason.
    “Where are you? At the protest, too?” They couldn’t be, because we hadn’t exactly been quiet about being dragged off into the police van. Someone had to have seen us, probably a lot of someones. And I heard no background noise at all—they weren’t on speaker, and they weren’t with a noisy crowd.
    “No. I’m at . . . headquarters.” My caller cleared his throat. Probably hard to keep up the Julia Child impersonation for this long. “You need to get to safety.”
    “Why?”
    “Because they want to hurt you.”
    “Who are ‘they’ and why are you warning me?”
    “You need to stop taking an interest in the elections. They’ll leave you alone if you stay out of it.”
    “Blah, blah, blah. I doubt it.”
    “Why aren’t you taking this seriously?”
    “Dude, I get weird phone calls like this all the time. Sometimes they’re from crazed psychopaths, sometimes they’re from friends in trouble, sometimes they’re just from crazy people who have time to kill and have chosen me in their version of Phone Russian Roulette.”
    “I’m not a ‘dude.’”
    Interesting where you got them. “Uh, you’re faking your voice. Or else you’re Julia Child, and if you are, then I’d like to request an easy-to-make recipe that the whole family will enjoy that will not cause me to burn down my kitchen.”
    “This isn’t a funny situation! And I’m not faking my voice. This
is
my voice.”
    “Suuuuuure it is. I believe you. Truly.”
    Mona and Olga were talking quietly to each other and Oliver. Decided they’d let me know if their conversation was relevant or not later.
    “You need to believe me! I’m taking a terrible risk contacting you. If he finds out . . .” Julia Child dropped her voice. “He’ll kill me.”
    “So the drama. Okay, you tell me who the hell you are, so I know why I should believe you. And, if you’re really telling the truth, we’ll protect you. How about that?”
    Buchanan gave me another “what the hell” look. I ignored him.
    There was noise on the other end of the phone. Reminiscent of when Karl Smith had been on the line with me right before he’d been murdered during Operation Drug Addict. Got another bad feeling in my stomach because I was pretty sure my mysterious caller was no longer alone.
    “I’ll speak with you later, dear,” my caller said cheerfully. “Thank you for supporting the Cleary-Maurer presidential campaign. We look forward to your generous donation.” The line went dead.
    Buchanan pulled his device out of my phone and plugged it into his.
    “You think that was really a woman and really her voice?” Lorraine asked me.
    “No guess. You think he/she/it was really associated with the Cleary-Maurer campaign?”
    “Yes,” Mona said. “We recognize the voice.”
    Olga nodded. “It is a woman, about my age.”
    “Really? A woman? You’re sure?” They nodded. “Okay, I’ll bite. Who?”
    Oliver opened