by Nathan Roden
“I didn’t even think about that,” Q said. “I don’t know why I didn’t. I guess I’m just used to seeing them in airports.”
“Thanks again, Q,” I said. “I’ll see you in a couple of days.”
“I’m sorry that things didn’t work out, Wylie,” Q said. “But you should know that when I told Holly that you were coming, her face lit up like Christmas morning. It would be hard for me to say that you’ve done the wrong thing.”
“And while I’ve been bouncing around like a spasmodic pinball, my friends are taking care of business,” I said. “Did I mention that I have the best friends in the whole world?”
“I do think I recall hearing that somewhere,” Q said. “But I thought it was me.”
I laughed.
“We’ll see you, Q,” I said. “Good travels.”
“You, too,” Q said. “Good night.”
My flights went off without a hitch. Quentin spared no expense on the flight accommodations, which left many of the other passengers looking at me and wondering how this kid in his semi-wrinkled mall clothes could afford first-class. I resisted the urge to belch in front of them or scratch myself. I had a little bit of a wedgie, but I left it alone until I was in the private bathroom. I know how to act like a lady.
I loved the train ride from London to Scotland. In fact, I think I could do that every day. I wondered if there was a job for someone to write articles about riding trains across Europe. That sounds like the job for me. You know, always wearing a three-day beard, and always wearing a thick cabled sweater—even when it’s hot outside. Everyone would hate me just a little. Even I would hate myself a little bit. Of course, I would know deep down that I’m a decent guy. I could live with that.
The whole gang met me at the train station. Holly looked happy, despite looking exhausted. We hugged for a long time. We hugged for so long that Duncan, Nora, and Charlotte joined into it. We all laughed the best laugh we had shared in some time. I hugged Arabella in spite of herself. She eventually hugged back. I hugged Dougie, and Delbert, and even Bruiser Brady. They didn’t make it easy, but I told them,
“Look. We wouldn’t be her now if it wasn’t for you guys. So, you had better get used to this.”
We took a taxi to the hotel and went straight to Quentin’s suite.
“There are three bedrooms here,” Q said to me, “You can take one, or we’ll get you your own room. Brian McAllen is using one of the rooms on a part-time basis. He’s asleep right now.”
“That works for me,” I said. “Are the Finnegans here?”
Q turned and looked at the clock on the wall.
“They’ll be here in about two hours,” he said. “Anybody hungry?”
“Famished,” I said.
“I could eat a horse,” Holly said. “And then, a cow.”
Q picked up the room phone.
“Yes,” he said. “Three steaks.”
I cleared my throat and pointed toward the door where Brian McAllen slept.
“Pardon me,” Q said. “Four steaks. Rare. All the fixins.”
Pause.
“Fixins. Everything. Potatoes, salads—if you’ve ever seen anyone eat it with a steak, then send it up. All right? Thank you so much. May I remind you that I tip like a mad Irishman when I’m happy? Bye, now.”
An hour later, the three of us walked around the room. Quentin and I were in pain from swollen stomachs. Holly wasn’t so affected, despite finishing off the last three bites of my steak and some of my other “fixins”. The man who had brought up the cart with the food had just left with them empty dishes. He stared wide-eyed at the tip in his hand and said that he was taking the next day off to take his mother to dinner. Quentin added some more to the tip and told him to take his whole family. I have no idea how many rich people are cool, but Quentin Lynchburg is cool.
I made a lap of the room and ran my hands along the exquisite trim surrounding the fireplace. I was on my way back to my chair when I spotted an envelope on the floor, just inside the door. I picked it up. It was a large envelope; the type used for greeting cards. It was face-down. I picked it up and turned it over.
The envelope was addressed in a printed font, to:
Mr. Quentin Lynchburg
Confidential
I handed the envelope to Q. He looked at me. I shrugged.
Brian McAllen yawned as he entered the room. He crossed the floor and shook my hand.
“Good to see ya, Laddie,” Brian said.
“Hold on! Hold on, hold on,” Q said. He held the envelope in one hand and read from the sheet of paper in his other.
“What is—?” I said.
“Shhhhhh!” Q said. He dropped the envelope and held up a finger.
Q pulled the paper away from his face, and his hand fell to his side.
“He’s letting them go,” Q whispered. “He’s letting them go!”
“What?” Holly squealed. “Let me see!”
“What? Q?” I said. “Let me see—”
Q held the paper to his chest.
“Hang on!” he said. “Just a second!”
Q laid the paper on the overhead projector that belonged to the Finnegan brothers. Everyone began to read, and no one could believe their eyes.
Mr. Quentin Lynchburg and friends:
I am fully aware of your reason for being in our country. There is even a chance that you believe you know where your quarry is located, and who is responsible. For reasons that need not concern you, I have decided to release that which you seek. There is one stipulation. I will not be implicated, arrested, inferred or otherwise bothered with. No one has been harmed, and no damage has been done. I realize that this will go against every single initial response that you have, but I would have you think on this, instead. I took this quarry quickly and effortlessly, and I could just as easily do so again. Or I may enlarge my net to include certain…others. You know who I am speaking of. Let it be known from this day forward that failure to follow the terms of this release is the sole responsibility of Quentin Lynchburg.
Where should one find those who were previously thought lost at sea?
Holly’s hand flew to her mouth and she gasped when she read this—
Where should one find those who were previously thought lost at sea? Why, on a deserted island, of course. It would be good if you staged the ensuing rescue to play well in the media. You will receive the exact coordinates in forty-eight hours.
You have much to do, Mr. Lynchburg. I will leave you to it.
“Does this sound like Wellmore to you, Holly?” Q asked.
Holly bit her lip and nodded.
“That’s the way he talks,” she said. “Like a pompous nancy boy.
“What do we do now?” I asked.
“I’m not sure,” Q said. “The Finnegans will be here soon,” Q walked to the desk and sat down.
“For now,” he said. “I need to look into renting a helicopter.”
“I know what we can do,” Bruiser Brady said, “Check on that dungeon and see if those folks are still there.”
“Good idea,” Q said. “We need to know if this madman can actually be trusted.”
“I’m going with them, Elizabeth,” Dallas McIntyre said.
“Me, too,” Duncan said. “I’m not staying here with Arabella.”
“WH? What?” Arabella screamed, “I’m not staying here, you little—!”
Duncan was trying to keep from laughing.
“I couldn’t help myself,” Duncan said. “It was just hanging in midair—right there in front of me—”
Bruiser stared at Duncan.
“You had to go and stir her up all over again, didn’t you?” Bruiser said.
Duncan dropped his head and pouted.
“”I’m sorry, Bruiser,” Duncan said. He held out his arms. “Give us a hug?”
Bruiser drew his hand in a back-slap fashion, but then he just growled. And then he laughed. Thirty seconds later, the ghosts vanished.
They were back wit
hin forty minutes.
“The whole place has been cleaned up,” Bruiser said.
“The cage is completely gone,” Delbert Scoggins said. “You would never even know it was there.”
“How about the ghosts?” Holly asked. “Did they say anything?”
“They were all gone,” Dougie Day said. “Don’t know where they went.”
“They have no idea how lucky they were,” Arabella sneered.
“It might have been the smell that drove ‘em off,” Bruiser said.
“You can smell?” I asked.
Bruiser screwed up his face.
“Not…really,” he said. “It’s more a sense of when something ain’t quite right. But we know that there probably was a powerful smell down there.”
“How do you know that?” Q asked.
“When we saw that everything disappeared from the dungeon, we checked the garbage bin,” Bruiser said, “And then we looked in his car. He had ‘bout a dozen bleach bottles in the trunk. He’s probably gonna throw ‘em away somewhere besides his own garbage bin.”
“Ah,” Q said. “He may be crazy, but he’s not stupid. There will be no prints, no DNA, no evidence at all.”
“He may be telling the truth,” I said, “About what he plans to do, I mean.”
“What do you think, Holly?” Q asked.
“He’s not just ‘letting them go’,” Holly said. “He’s letting them go and actually believing that he will get away with it—Scot-free.”
“Scot—” Duncan began until he saw me shake my head.
Quentin blew out a breath and looked at Brian McAllen, who was still half-asleep and struggling to keep up.
“We’re really in no different position than we were,” Q said. “Except that we no longer know the location of the McFaddens. We know that Wellmore Castle no longer contains evidence that the McFaddens were ever there. We also have no motive.”
“No motive that we can tell anyone about,” I said.
“Exactly,” Q said. “We’re back to square one—we’re accusing a member of one of the oldest families in the land of committing a heinous crime.”
“It might be even more difficult now,” Dallas said.
“What do you mean, Baron?” Holly asked.
“Has Wellmore Castle carried out tours in the recent past?” Dallas asked.
“I think they had precious little luck with it after I left,” Holly said. “Why?”
“They were having one today,” Charlotte said. “Two young ladies and that Mr. Wellmore were on the front lawn, bidding ‘Thank you” and ‘Good day’ to a crowd of people leaving the castle.”
“They looked like college girls,” Duncan said. “They were pretty.”
Nora punched Duncan on the shoulder.
“Mr. Wellmore was smiling,” Nora said. “But his smile did not match his eyes. His eyes are evil.”
The ghosts all agreed on that point.
The door opened, and the Finnegan brothers entered with enthusiastic greetings.
Ian Finnegan rubbed his hands together.
“So, have we missed anything?”
Forty-Two
Wylie Westerhouse
Near Edinburgh, Scotland
Ian and Myron Finnegan were at a loss for words. That was not something they were used to. But then again, their lives changed forever on the day that Holly McFadden threw her arms around them.
“He really expects us to just let him go,” Myron said. “Like he hadn’t nicked these poor people and held them in a dungeon for six months? He is beyond mad.”
“Of course, he is,” Quentin said. “We’ve learned enough to know that, for sure. But we also know that he is no dummy. You can bet that if he intends to let them go, he is certain that he has iron-clad alibis for everything, and that he has covered all his tracks.”
“How do we know he’s tellin’ the truth?” Bruiser said. “Holly’s folks had a gun. Maybe they got away.”
“If they had escaped, they would have gone to the police, straightaway,” Holly said.
“Perhaps this is only his latest form of trickery,” Dallas said. “Perhaps he only intends to lure Holly to a remote location to try and take her again.”
Ian and Myron Finnegan shook their heads.
“He would be taking too much of a chance,” Ian said. “From what we have discovered, Wellmore doesn’t have the money to pay many accomplices.”
“We know that he had at least two goons working for him,” I said. “And enough money to get them to the States.”
“It wouldn’t take more than a few bottles of liquor to lead those two by the nose,” Holly said, bitterly. “They only came sniffin’ around my Uncle Seth when they were looking for free drink.”
“I suspect that he’s just given up,” Quentin said. “If the McFaddens are alive and well, then Wellmore has been feeding them. If he’s convinced that he can’t be charged with kidnapping, then he could have just made them disappear.”
“Maybe he’s had a change of heart,” Myron said. “If he’s carrying out tours of his castle, that doesn’t sound like the work of a total madman.”
Ian turned to Holly.
“You’re certain that neither of your parents has the same ability that you have?”
Holly shook her head.
“There’s one thing that ain’t been brought up,” Bruiser said. “One thing that ain’t good at all.”
“What are you talking about?” Holly asked.
“You’re talkin’ about Bert, ain’t you?” Delbert asked.
Bruiser nodded.
“Who the heck is Bert?” Brian McAllen asked.
“The Big Evil Red Troll,” Bruiser said. “The evil devil creature that presides over that dungeon—on the spirit side. He claims that he’s been there for hundreds of years—since the days that torture used to on in there. He says he was summoned by another Wellmore—a really evil one. Shoot, it sounds like them Wellmores have been spittin’ out evil ancestors since day one. Bert kept goin’ on and on about how him and this new Wellmore are gonna to team up and fulfill their destiny.”
“But Wellmore can’t see them demons,” Dougie Day said. “That’s why he kidnapped them folks in the first place.”
“Are you forgettin’ about the shoebox, Dougie?” Bruiser asked.
Dougie looked nervous.
“W-What about the shoebox?” Dougie said. “You know I couldn’t leave with it, Bruiser! They saw that hole I brung it through, and they were all over the place! I couldn’t get back out with it!”
“I know, Dougie,” Bruiser said. “I’m just sayin—”
“You took the box with the—?” Myron said.
“The box with Holly’s things?” Ian said.
“My toothbrush?” Holly groaned. “And my hair?”
Quentin’s head fell to his chest.
“You left Holly’s things in the dungeon?” he said.
“Hold on a dang minute!” Bruiser said. “That box of stuff wasn’t doing anything here—nobody could see us or hear us! We couldn’t tell them anything at all! There was no way we were gonna get that gun to Holly’s folks unless we could talk to them; they wouldn’t know where it came from or if it even worked. I figured there was a better chance of Holly’s things working on her parents than they did on Ian and Myron. We got that gun to ‘em and we had to tangle with a room full of demon monsters to do it. We had to leave that place in a mighty big hurry.”
Ian Finnegan ran a hand through his hair.
“So, there’s a chance that Wellmore found the gun and Holly’s things,” Ian said.
“He might have actually stumbled into the ability that he has sought,” Q said. “And if we do as he says, he’s free to do—whatever he plans to do.”
“And we could be facing a madman who has partnered up with a supernatural monster,” Myron said.
The room was silent for several seconds.
“If that is what happened,” Q said. “That would explain why he’s willing
to let the fish off of the hook.”
“Huh?” Myron said.
“If Wellmore has Holly’s things, and he’s able to see—those things,” Q said. “Then why should he bother with Holly’s parents anymore? Why keep them…or even go to the trouble of making them disappear? He’s not even sure that we know about him.”
“I’m following you, Mr. Lynchburg,” Ian said. “Why not just cover up any evidence, and just let them go? He doesn’t know anything about Bruiser and his gang, so what does he have to fear?”
“We’re taking a lot of things for granted here, Ian,” Myron said.
“Then why don’t we just wait for the forty-eight-hour mark,” Q said, “And see if he’s telling the truth. What else can we do?”
“I’ll tell you what we can do,” Bruiser Brady said. “We can head back over there and keep an eye on Wellmore. If he’s lyin’, he might have just moved them folks somewhere else.”
“Good idea, Bruiser.” Q said.
“Hey, Q,” I said.
“Yes?”
“If Wellmore is lying,” I said. “It may be time for that army of mercenaries.”
Ian, Myron, and Brian McAllen stared at Quentin.
Q nodded.
“Precisely,” he said.
Bruiser and the rest of the ghosts left and returned after about an hour.
“There’s nobody there at all,” Bruiser said. “We’ll go back later.”
Quentin went back to his computer.
“What are you doing now, Quentin?” Brian McAllen asked him.
Quentin rubbed his eyes.
“There are a limited number of places to rent a helicopter with a pilot,” Q said. “We could rent a boat, but that presents the same problem, and it’s considerably slower. How in the world are we going to keep this kind of thing quiet?”