by Nina Perez
Jack grinned. “I have an idea.”
Violet narrowed her eyes. “Well, I suppose it happens to everyone at least once.”
“Just listen.”
Jack and Violet exited the school bus with the rest of the Carter High students, but purposely hung back while everyone else walked the half block to school.
“Let’s cut through the parking lot,” Jack suggested.
They were halfway across when someone called out. “Hey, Bobbsey Twins!” They stopped in their tracks, quickly turning their heads. Bobby had just been dropped off and was halfway up the handicap ramp. Jack tugged Violet’s coat sleeve, indicating that they should go over.
He whispered from the side of his mouth, “If we don’t, he’ll know something’s up. Come on.” Jack and Bobby bumped fists and Violet noted how easily the two had fallen into step from where they’d left off. It also didn’t escape her how Jack showed no signs of apprehension at having skin-to-skin contact.
“Where are you two going? School’s this way.” Bobby jerked his head towards the building, a mischievous smile on his face.
There was a brief moment of silence as Jack and Violet scrambled to think of a suitable excuse for why they were heading away from the school. It was long enough for Bobby to surmise that the two were about to play hooky. He lifted his hands, showing palms.
“On second thought, I don’t want to know. Plausible deniability. Just promise me that next time, I’ll get to come.”
Jack thought of his vision from the other day: the three of them in a park, happy, and Bobby walking. He looked down at Bobby and smiled. “You got a deal.”
“I’m holding you to that. Okay, delinquents. Get out of here before last bell rings.”
They made it all the way to Maclean without incident and boarded the bus into Little City.
From their booth by the window in the diner across the street, Jack and Violet had a clear view of Gervais’ office building. The downtown foot traffic was light considering that it was still early enough that people should have been heading to work, but being the Monday after a holiday that meant some were still home on vacation.
“Thanks for being subtle,” Jack said, eyeing Violet’s red coat. He took a sip of his coffee. They were on their second cups.
“Sorry. I was going for not freezing to death over incognito.”
“You sure he’ll be in today?”
Violet sighed. “For the third time, I called pretending to be interested in having a will written and his secretary said he’d be too busy to meet with me today because he’d be in meetings all day. Unless he’s making house calls…”
“And you’re sure she didn’t know it was you?”
Violet rolled her eyes. “Jack, really? How would she?”
“I’m sorry. We just can’t take the chance that he’ll call Dr. Tesla wondering why we’re snooping around.”
“I know, I know. If anything, he’s who we should be worried about. You said that’s his office building?” Violet pointed at the brick building a few doors down from Gervais’ building. Jack turned to look over his shoulder.
“Yeah, that’s it.”
Instinctively, Violet slumped lower into her seat. They ordered another round of coffee and waited.
They never saw Gervais arrive at work so they assumed he’d gotten there before they reached the city or that he wasn’t in the building. After waiting for an hour, Jack called his office from the diner’s payphone and was informed that Mr. Gervais was on a call. At least they hadn’t waited for nothing.
Their waitress, a middle-aged woman with washed-out blonde hair, cast curious glances their way while she waited on other tables. She didn’t bother to question them as long as they continued to place orders, but Violet could tell she was wondering why they weren’t in school. To pass the time, Violet tried to guess what her story was. By the time she’d come up with her favorite – divorced, waiting tables by day, in college by night – Violet decided to briefly connect to the waitress.
The more she did it, the easier it was. Now, connecting was as simple as blinking. Once she focused on the person, singling them out from everyone else in the room, she was synced. After a minute in the waitress’ thoughts Violet learned that she was partly right; she was divorced, but she didn’t go to school at night. She spent most evenings working here at the diner, and most days, too. She’d just pulled a double from the night before and her two children had to see themselves off to school – again.
A balled-up napkin hit Violet in the forehead. She broke the connection and blinked. It took a second to readjust to viewing the room from her perspective. Jack was looking at her, annoyed.
“Cut it out.”
“What?” Violet asked, trying to sound innocent.
“Don’t what me. You know what you were doing.”
“I was just curious. It’s harmless.”
“It’s rude.”
Violet tossed the napkin back in Jack’s direction and he caught it. “You know,” she said, “This isn’t so bad. Maybe if you tried to use what you can do in a positive way…” Violet had stopped speaking and kicked Jack’s ankle under the table.
“Ow! What was…”Jack turned to look over his shoulder and out the window, in the direction Violet was staring.
Gervais was leaving his office building. He paused in the doorway, pulled the zipper up on his leather jacket, and then jaywalked across the street in their direction. Jack propped a menu in front of the window and he and Violet ducked their heads behind it. After a few moments, Jack risked a peek and saw Gervais starting his Mercedes, which was parked near the diner.
“Really? How could we not notice that?”
Violet watched as Gervais pulled away from the curb. “Because we’re not professionals. Come on. Let’s get this over with.”
Jack tossed some cash on the table and they quickly put on their coats. Remembering what she’d felt when she’d connected to the waitress, Violet reached into her jeans pocket and added some money to what Jack had paid.
“See, sometimes it can be a good thing,” she said. Jack just shook his head and said, “Let’s go.”
They crossed the street, entered the building, and rode the elevator to the fifth floor. They followed the signs to the floor’s restrooms and split up - Violet went into the ladies’ room and Jack into the men’s room. They checked the stalls, making sure they were alone. Violet poked her head out of the bathroom door and waited for Jack to do the same. Moments later, he did and nodded to indicate that the coast was clear.
While Jack went back into the men’s room to hide in an empty stall as planned, Violet went a few feet down the hall. She stopped in front of the fire alarm, and after checking to see that no one was around, she pulled the lever and then hurried back to the bathroom.
After several minutes of grumbling from the employees about interrupted client meetings as they headed for the staircase, Jack could hear nothing but the constant blare of the fire alarm. He crept to the door and peeked into the hallway. The alarm’s automatic timer shut off. He quietly rapped on the ladies’ room door, and after a moment Violet emerged.
“We have to hurry,” she warned.
They ran down the hall past the reception area, and found Gervais’ office. They tried the door and found it unlocked. Violet let out a deep breath. “I figured it would be. The fire department needs to check each office.”
Gervais had a corner office with a view of the river. All of the furniture was ultra-modern and tribal art hung on the walls. Without speaking, they split up once again. Jack investigated a low bookshelf located near the window while Violet checked the desk drawers. Several of the drawers were locked and the ones that weren’t contained legal documents with names she didn’t recognize.
She moved the mouse on his laptop to deactivate the screensaver, but found that the desktop was password protected. “Any luck?” she asked Jack in a whisper.
“Not really,” he answered. “But come take a look at th
is.”
Violet joined Jack at the bookshelf. He was holding a framed photo of Gervais with an older man. They were both in tuxedos and holding plaques in their hands. They had the same smile. Violet looked down at the bookshelf and saw a plaque identical to those in the photo. She picked it up and read the inscription aloud.
“To Titus Gervais and Trevor Gervais for their humanitarian and pro bono work.”
Jack was reading over her shoulder.
“Is that his father?” Violet asked.
“It sure looks like it.”
“Well, that sucks. That means either of them could be the member of The Trust.”
“Great. What do we do now?”
“You could tell me what you’re both doing here.”
Violet nearly dropped the plaque. They turned towards the door. Dr. Tesla stood in the doorway looking furious, his arms folded across his chest.
It wasn’t that they hadn’t considered that they might run into Dr. Tesla - they knew it was a possibility since his office was so close to Gervais’- but in the end, they didn’t have a choice. They figured that they had to take a chance, and that the odds were in their favor. What would be the chances of Dr. Tesla looking out of his office window at the exact moment Violet and Jack had crossed the street? Apparently, the chances were pretty good.
“We don’t have much time.” Dr. Tesla said, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him. “The fire department is automatically notified when the alarm sounds. They’ll be here shortly and when they arrive, they’ll check every floor, every office before allowing everyone back in.”
“How’d you get in?” Violet asked.
“The same way we’re all leaving. Stick close to me, do as I do, and most importantly, don’t speak until I tell you to.”
Dr. Tesla waved his hand in front of Jack and Violet and said, “Umbram.” Violet started to ask what he’d done – she didn’t recognize the spell from the book, but his stern face told her that it was a question best left for another time. Without a word, Dr. Tesla left the office with Jack and Violet following closely behind.
They took the stairs down to the lobby. Jack and Violet started to protest when they realized Dr. Tesla meant to walk right out the front door where dozens of people were waiting in the cold, but he silenced them by placing a finger to his lips. As they approached the building’s front door, several firefighters loaded down with oxygen tanks and other equipment pushed through the door. Violet wondered what excuse Dr. Tesla had planned to explain their presence, but he remained quiet and the firemen walked by briskly, not acknowledging them at all.
They can’t see us, Violet thought.
Before the front door could completely close, Dr. Tesla slipped through it and both children followed quickly. They jogged behind Dr. Tesla as he walked briskly towards his own office building, careful not to bump into any of the people milling around the sidewalk. Violet glanced at their reflections in the window of a dry cleaner and nearly stopped in her tracks. They didn’t have a reflection!
Dr. Tesla turned down the alleyway between the dry cleaners and his office building and using a key, he opened a side emergency door. They took the back staircase to his floor and it wasn’t until they were safely inside his office did Dr. Tesla wave his hand again and say, “Ostendam.”
There was no invitation to sit, just, “Start talking.”
Jack hesitated. He didn’t want to say anything that would further anger Dr. Tesla, and Violet seemed to be angry enough for both of them. Yes, they’d cut school and snuck into Gervais’ office, and she was pretty sure setting off the fire alarm was illegal, but they wouldn’t have had to resort to any of that if Dr. Tesla would just be honest with them.
“We think someone on The Trust is behind our parents’ murder,” she said. “At the very least, they’re helping the person who is. You said it yourself - what you did to Lincoln and Ashlyn was a big deal and you couldn’t trust that information to just anyone. And you won’t tell us anything. You give out bits and pieces like rewards given to a puppy if it manages a new trick. It’s not right! You want us to trust you, but you don’t trust us.”
Violet’s rant left her slightly out of breath. Jack tried to touch her arm, but she brushed him off.
“That’s hard to do when you’re cutting out of school. I look out my window and see the two of you jogging across the street when you’re supposed to be across town. What if something had happened to one or both of you? This is serious. If it seems like I cannot properly take care of you, if there is reason for anyone to look into your home life, well… that wouldn’t be good. The whole point of The Alliance is keeping our existence a secret. You can’t jeopardize that because you’re curious.”
“I don’t care.” Violet said.
“Violet…” Jack tried again to calm her, but it was too late for that.
“I don’t. And neither do you.” She turned from Jack back to Dr. Tesla. “Do you know that we didn’t even know if we could trust you until the other day? We live with you! We eat meals with you and we thought that maybe you were behind it all. We didn’t know if we could trust you, or Kalina, or Ms. Sweet. For all we knew, it was a part of your plan all along to kill our parents and have us live with you so you could… could... I don’t know! That’s the problem. We don’t know anything.”
“I would never hurt either of you. Neither would Kalina. There are things we can’t tell you because it involves dangerous…”
“What’s this facility?” Jack asked and Violet’s shoulders dropped in relief. He still had her back.
Dr. Tesla looked at Violet, defeat settling on his face. “It’s the main building that holds important… items that are essential for The Trust to be able to protect and run The Alliance.”
Jack and Violet had guessed as much. “What was the breach?”
Dr. Tesla looked at them both thoughtfully for several moments. “Someone broke into the facility, but they did not get what they came for.”
“Who was it?” Violet asked.
“We don’t know yet. The area they broke into has the highest security so we know it’s someone very powerful. And because of the nature of the break-in, we believe they had inside help. Kalina was tracking down a lead last week. That was the Trust assignment I was talking about before.”
“This inside help, someone on The Trust?” Violet wanted him to admit it.
“Most likely, but we don’t know for sure and finding out needs to be handled delicately. You know, the exact opposite of breaking into someone’s office when you’re supposed to be in school.”
Jack mumbled, “I knew it’d come back around to that.” Violet lowered her head and said quietly, “We’re sorry. We didn’t see any other way.”
The phone on Dr. Tesla’s desk rang. He raised a finger indicating they should wait and answered it. He listened for several moments and then asked, “Why wasn’t I notified before this?” A pause and then, “Are we sure it was both of them? Damnit. I’m leaving now. I’ll be there within the hour.”
Violet was about to ask what the call was about, even though there was a better than great chance he wouldn’t tell them. He surprised them both by offering the information as soon as he hung up the phone.
“I have to go. I need you both to go straight home. Do not leave the house. Do you understand me? It is important that you stay put. The facility was broken into again last night and this time, they got what they came for.”
He walked with them to the bus stop, making several calls on his cell phone along the way. As their bus reached the red light at the intersection leading to the Sagaw Bridge, the children could see Dr. Tesla’s black BMW behind them. When the light turned green, the bus turned left and Dr. Tesla turned right, onto the freeway.
They were halfway across the bridge when Violet reminded Jack that they’d failed to ask what was stolen and if it had anything to do with them.
“Of course,” Jack said. “It always does.”
Chapter Ei
ghteen
Oh, I’m Not Going Anywhere
Back at the house, Violet couldn’t believe they’d gone through so much, had gotten in trouble, and still came away with little more information than they’d started out with. Jack was just relieved that Dr. Tesla received that phone call when he had. It was his experience that the punishment was usually less severe once the wronged party had a chance to settle down. Violet went into the living room, dialing a number on her cell phone.
Jack followed. “Who are you calling?”
“Kalina. I want to see if she knows anything.”
“The sun is just starting to set.”
“So? Didn’t Dr. Tesla tell you that vampires don’t necessarily sleep through the day?”
Jack shrugged. Violet let out a sigh in frustration and pressed a button. “I got her voicemail. So much for that.” Violet glanced at the wall clock. “I told Ms. Harkin I’d stop by after school. She probably thinks I’m not coming. I wanted to see her before she goes out of town. Do you want to come?”
“Didn’t Dr. Tesla say we should stay put?” Jack shook his head.
“Since when do you follow the rules? Come on, she really wants to meet you and we won’t stay long. I promise.”
“Maybe next time. You go ahead, but do me a favor? Keep your promise. Don’t be gone long. We’re in enough trouble as it is.”
“I know. I won’t be.”
“What am I supposed to say if Dr. Tesla calls or comes back?”
“You heard what he said. It’s going to take him about an hour just to get where he’s going. I’ll be back before then. If he calls, just tell him… you know what? Tell him the truth.”
“There’s a concept.”
After Violet had gone, Jack was left with a sense of foreboding. He’d felt it the moment he saw Dr. Tesla’s face when he answered the phone. Someone had a plan and killing their parents had been the first step. Stealing whatever was taken from the facility had been another. He didn’t know who they were up against or what the end game was, but it seemed that last night they became one step closer in achieving it. Something had changed.