Hidden in the Blood: A Novel of the Terribly Acronymed Detective Club (Book 5)

Chapter Fifty-Three: Al, Tuesday

Al had become inured to the fact that his staff badge wouldn't work if he pressed it to the RFID reader with his hand. There was no point in asking Security about it again, because he was sure a new badge would only give the same result. He'd become expert at leaning in with it hanging from a lanyard around his neck and letting it tap the reader on its own. That always got him in, but it earned him a few curious looks from his coworkers.

It wasn't just at his work where this phenomenon presented difficulties. Whenever he booked a Modo car, the fob reader on the car would malfunction if he pressed the fob to it with his hand. He often had to get Rachel to use her fob if she was with him, and when he explained his theory to her, she showed her sympathy in typical Rachel fashion by laughing at him. "We should be relieved these nanobots of yours are only interfering with electronics on contact," she said. "Imagine the damage you could be doing, like making airplanes fall out of the sky. I have to wonder if you really are pinging cellular towers like we feared. There's no way to know without being on the inside, nor is there any way to know if anyone's tracking you."

"Thanks, honey," Al said sardonically, "I feel much better now." 

Today, he'd barely sat at his desk when the workroom phone rang. No one was around to answer it. He sighed and picked up. "Good morning, Catalogue workroom."

For a millisecond he thought it was going to be Lauren; she'd called him on this phone the first time he heard her voice in thirty years, to let him know Mrs. Anderson had passed away and to invite him to the memorial to reunite with his old Queensborough friends. Another time she'd called him when his work day was almost over, and they'd had an unexpected session of phone sex that still made him hard whenever he thought about it. She always asked for him by his full name in allusion to that first time she called him; it was a kind of shtick with them.

The woman on the other end only asked for Al, though, so he knew it wasn't her, and the anticipatory tingle he'd felt on the back of his neck disappeared. 

"This is Al," he answered. 

"Hey, Al, it's Daphne here."

"Oh, Daphne!" It was his cousin, calling from upstairs in the VPL Foundation office. "Hi! How's it going?"

"Good, good. I just wanted to call you before I forgot. Did you get your formal invitation and tickets by email?"

She meant the ice wine event being held by her brother, Richard Junior. "Yes, I did. Four tickets. Thank you for arranging this, and please thank Richard for extending the invitation."

"Actually, we've talked, and he's excited to meet you. He's getting to the age where he's interested in his family history, and he's been on those genealogy websites creating a family tree. You're a branch he doesn't have a lot of info for, so he wants to get your story."

"Really?" Al was stunned. "Won't he be busy that night? You know, hosting the party?"

"Come early. Bring your family in the morning, you can get to Kelowna by early afternoon. He'd have time to chat with you. I'm going up Friday night so I'll already be there. Mom and Dad and Marie will be there too, but Jason's bowed out this year, unfortunately; he doesn't feel too festive right now with his divorce."

"I understand. Wait, did you say your mom and dad will be there, too?"

"Of course! They're there every year, it's an excuse for them to go visit Richard and their grandkids."

Al wondered what Uncle Richard would say when he saw Al and his family there. He hadn't come round to visit them as he'd promised yet, and Al had bent if not broken his promise not to reach out to Richard's children. He cleared his throat and asked, "Does Uncle Richard know we're coming?"