Reina of the moon

24. One more step

My heart must have been beating fast for an eternity, covering the criticisms Rikki got and the silence Caleb gave.

Finally, after making his way to the door slowly, Caleb answered Nate who was on the other side of the door.

He opened the door carefully covering the inside with his body. "Can I help you?" He asked in a cool voice.

"Is Zane here? The fire- wait who are you?" Nate asked after realizing he didn't actually know who he was.

Zane hid behind the door and shook his head vigorously.

"Zane  is busy. In a business meeting."

"Oh, really." Nate suspecting something was off, "It fine if I can steal him away for a second? You are his assistant, right?"

"No, I'm the other party." Caleb said tartly, obviously hating the idea of working under someone like Zane.

"Can you just tell him that the fire department wants to talk to him. His café caught on fire somehow. They are saying that it was an arsonist." Nate explained.

We all looked at Rikki. Blaming her with glares for being so careless to just let a tree on fire.

She simply shrugged behind Will and Cleo who were next to Zane,Lewis, and Bella all hiding from Nate.

"I'll tell him that. Now if you excuse me, the sooner we finish our business the sooner he can get over there." Caleb said quickly closing the door, letting Nate mutter in agreement to the air.

As soon as the heavy door shut, loud heavy sighs were released.

"Rikki, what is wrong with you?! I could've been exposed!" I finally got a chance to scold her.

She pass by the other and came to my side to dry me up.

"Oh relax. I know what I was doing - and besides if Nate really did see a tail he would've thought that we testing some kind of mermaid costume and not even question why we are in the living room." She said calmly and sarcastically.

"Hey, Nate maybe dense but he's not an idiot." Zane defended.

"H-How did you know?" Caleb said in a dry tone, thinking about what he had just experience.

"Easy. I didn't." Rikki finally admitted, "I just knew that you weren't going to let Nate discover her.
I honestly just thought you were going to leave   and take Nate with you as soon as you open the door."

Caleb cocked his head quickly, "That did came to mind."

"Really! Wow, I might be an empath, heh." She said in a forced cheerful tone, giving me a friendly push.

I just moved away and saw her smile fade.

"That was reckless!" Cleo stressed.

"It was a huge risk." Bella agreed.

"But a risk that needed to be taken. Now we know we can trust Caleb." Lewis advised.

I nodded in response. It was true. If it wasn't for his quick thinking, we would've still be trying to get rid of Nate.

"Alright. We're almost even, Caleb.  You kidnapped me. I used magic on you. You nearly ended my semi-peaceful life, so now I am blackmailing you."

"Oh, yay! Compromise." Rikki blurted happily, hoping to distract me from what I really think.

"Yeah. Still mad at you, though." I stated.

"Oh."

"Well come on. We need to think of a plan to stop Dr.Denman." Will said, leading the group to the kitchen. 

We sat on the table, with Lewis, Bella, and Rikki pulling up a stool because by the time they got there all 6 chairs have been taken.

Lewis grabbed a pen and notepad before he settled. "So, does anyone have any ideas on how to shut down Denman's plan of exposing the girls to the entire world?" Lewis said in a dry tone. "No pressure." 

"How involved are you with her research." Zane asked Caleb.

"Not much. I just ask her about the equipment she needs but never about how she'll use them," he responded, "Hey aren't you supposed to be talking to the police?"

"Huh? why?"Zane expressed confusion.

"There was a major fire at the Cafe, I saw the firetrucks and police cars everywhere. Plus Nate told us they were looking for you." He explained.

"Oh right!" he said standing up, "thanks for that, Rikki. Catch me up later, yeah?" He shouted as he left.

I saw Lewis scribbling away as Rikki quickly apologized to Zane before the door slammed.

"Lewis, what are you writing?" I asked

Lewis hopped off and took Zane's empty seat next to Cleo. "Just notes. I wrote that in order for this plan to work, we can't have Caleb snooping around so easily, like asking so many questions about the research all of a sudden. It'll be too suspicious."

"well, we know she'll be talking to a lot of important people, maybe Caleb could, I don't know, talk to them on her behalf?" Cleo suggested.

"Right, since you are a businessman, she wouldn't hate that idea." Will agreed.

"Just be sure to sabotage her presentation when its time, so she'll look like a joke... That sounds harsh, I know, but it'll be the right thing to do." Rikki added.

"Also," Lewis looked up after writing some more, "you have to figure a way for you to ask and make an excuse as to how you found out about the meetings."

"Oh, I can just say that I found out through so of my connections." Caleb assured 

"And if you get this 'job' then you can keep us posted. I bet you'll have to do some script or presentation, so you'll have access to her work. you can let us know what she found out already." Bella continued.

"Okay... Did you get all of that Lewis? cause I'm going to need a copy of those notes to remember everything." he said nervously as he figured out that this plan might end his career before it even started.

" Great sounds like a plan. Now we just have to wait and find out what damage the fire cause to the cafe." I stated.

"I already apologized and besides we all left a mess back there...it's just that mine is the most expensive." Rikki trailed off.

"I get it, we did what we had to. Don't worry about it." Will comforted Rikki, after all, she is the one who is getting the most heat today.