Revived (Cat Patrick)

to call me on what I’m saying. I’m messing up the timeline and leaving out David’s involvement, but basically, it’s right. I speak quickly so she won’t question me.
    “Anyway, I’ve been talking to Nora,” I say. Mason’s jaw drops. Cassie inhales sharply.
    “You’ve been talking to a girl who thinks you’re dead?” Mason asks, sitting straighter in his seat.
    “See?” Cassie says to him. “You give her too much freedom. Now look at what she’s done.”
    “You guys are totally missing the point,” I say forcefully. “The point is that Nora was killed—on purpose—then relocated because she knew about me. Except that she wasn’t told anything real. She thinks that her family’s in the witness protection program.”
    Cassie rolls her eyes, then stands abruptly.
    “I’ve got real work to do,” she says. “I’m going to let you deal with this mess, Mason.”
    She leaves the room and Mason stares at me for a long time before speaking again.
    “Daisy, I can tell that this is really bothering you,” he says. “So I want to understand. It sounds to me like maybe the agents following Nora because of the sighting took advantage of the situation when she crashed. They made the call to fix the problem by Reviving and relocating her. It stands to reason that they wouldn’t want to divulge program secrets, so they kept it from her. I’m not seeing how God fits in here.”
    “I was getting to that,” I say. I take a deep breath and try to explain my hunch to Mason. “When we went to the aquarium when we first moved to Omaha, there was a guy who talked to me in the big ocean exhibit. He was there, asking questions, and then he disappeared. I couldn’t remember a thing about him other than that he had a lisp.”
    I take a gulp of air.
    “Anyway, when Nora told me about the crash, she said that the Good Samaritan who saved her sounded like Daffy Duck. Like he had a lisp. And when she described the situation, it sounded really weird. Like the guy didn’t move or react quickly, and he called a ‘friend’ instead of nine-one-one. It got me thinking.
    “I wondered if it was the same guy. At first, I thought he was an agent, but in that case, why didn’t he identify himself to me that day at the aquarium? The only person I can think of who might talk to me anonymously, then kill Nora, is—”
    “God,” Mason says pensively.
    “Right,” I say.
    There’s a flash of something in Mason’s eyes.
    “What?” I ask.
    “Nothing. The lisp thing just reminded me of… Nothing,” he says. Then he shakes his head. “Why would God be in Omaha? He has no connection to Omaha other than me and Cassie, and he never meets with agents in person. There’s no reason for him to be there.”
    “Who knows where God goes or what he does?” I ask.
    “Well, he doesn’t kill people,” Mason says in a way that makes me feel like he’s trying to convince himself.
    “He didn’t used to,” I say. “But you’ve said yourself that there are upsetting changes happening to the program. Like the new lab, like God wanting you to Revive new people—”
    “I did say that,” Mason interrupts. “But this is over the top. We’re testing a drug that gives people life—we don’t take it away. There’s no way Nora’s accident was at God’s hands.”
    “Then how do you explain that the one thing stolen from our house was my book bag, which contained a file detailing all of this and more?”
    Mason looks away and smiles a little, then says, “Maybe you left it at school?”
    “I didn’t,” I say flatly.
    Mason’s phone rings again. He answers and talks for so long that I think of going upstairs and giving up. But I’ve come this far. When he hangs up, I try again.
    “Mason, what did the lisp remind you of?” I ask.
    He sighs. “It reminded me of the bus crash,” he says. “The local news interviewed an employee at a gas station a half mile from the bridge. Police were looking for the worn red truck that eyewitnesses said ran the bus into the lake. The gas station worker claimed to have seen the truck ten minutes before the incident. He said the driver stopped in to buy a lottery ticket. Apparently, the driver said, ‘I think it’s my lucky day.’ ”
    Mason pauses; I look at him expectantly.
    “The guy couldn’t describe the man other than to say that he had a lisp,” Mason says. He jumps when I inhale.
    “Are you serious?” I say loudly.
    “Daisy, calm down.”
    “It’s not a