The Mediator #2: Ninth Key

by Jenny Carroll

  "Hey," I yelled. "That hurt!"

  But Marcus just laughed and clocked me again.

  Let me tell you, that didn't feel so swell. For a minute or so, I couldn't see too straight. It was during this moment that it took for my vision to adjust that Marcus closed the passenger door, which had continued to yawn open, stowed me back into my place, and buckled me safely in. When my eyeballs finally settled back into their sockets, I looked down, and saw that he was keeping a firm hold on me, primarily by clutching a handful of my sweater set.

  "Hello," I said, feebly. "That's cashmere, you know."

  Marcus said, "I will release you if you promise to be reasonable."

  "I think it's perfectly reasonable," I said, "to try to escape from a guy like you."

  Marcus didn't look very impressed by my sensible take on the matter.

  "You can't possibly imagine that I'm going to let you go," he said. "I've got damage control to worry about. I mean, I can't have you going around telling people about my, er . . . unique problem-solving techniques."

  "There's nothing very unique," I informed him, "about murder."

  Marcus said, as if I hadn't spoken, "Historically, you understand, there have always been an ignorant few who have insisted upon standing in the way of progress. These are the people I was forced to … relocate."

  "Yeah," I said. "To their graves."

  Marcus shrugged. "Unfortunate, certainly, but nevertheless necessary. Still, in order for us to advance as a civilization, sacrifices must occasionally be made by a select few – "

  "I doubt Mrs. Fiske agrees with who you selected to be sacrificed," I interrupted.

  "What may appear to one party to be improvement may appear to another to be wanton destruction – "

  "Like the annihilation of our natural coastline by money-grubbing parasites like yourself?"

  Well, he'd already said he was going to kill me. I didn't figure it mattered whether or not I was polite to him.

  "And so for progress – real progress," he went on, as if he hadn't even heard me, "to be made, some simply have to do without."

  "Without their lives?" I glared at him. "Dude, let me tell you something. You know your brother, the wannabe-vampire? You are every bit as sick as he is."

  The car, right at that moment, pulled into the driveway of Mr. Beaumont's house. The guard at the gate waved to as we went by, though he couldn't see me through the tinted windows. He probably had no idea that inside his boss's car was a teenage girl who was about to be executed. No one – no one – I realized, knew where I was: not my mother, not Father Dominic, not Jesse – not even my dad. I had no idea what Marcus had planned for me, but whatever it was, I suspected I wasn't going to like it very much … especially if it got me where it had gotten Mrs. Fiske.

  Which I was beginning to think it probably would.

  The car pulled to a halt. Marcus's fingers bit into my upper arm.

  "Come on," he said, and he started dragging me across the seat toward his side of the car and the open passenger door.

  "Wait a minute," I said, in a last ditch effort to convince him that I could be perfectly reasonable given the right incentive – for instance, being killed. "What if I promised not to tell anyone?"

  "You already have told someone," Marcus reminded me. "My nephew, Tad, remember?"

  "Tad won't tell anyone. He can't. He's related to you. He's not allowed to testify against his own relatives in court, or something." My head was still kind of wobbly from the smack Marcus had given me, so I wasn't at my most lucid. Nevertheless, I tried my best to reason with him. "Tad is a super secret keeper."

  "The dead," Marcus reminded me, "usually are."

  If I hadn't been scared before – and I most definitely had been – I was super scared now. What did he mean by that? Did he mean . . . did he mean Tad wouldn't talk because he'd be dead? This guy was going to kill his own nephew? Because of what I'd told him?

  I couldn't let that happen. I had no idea what Marcus intended to do with me, but one thing I knew for sure:

  He wasn't going to lay a finger on my boyfriend.

  Although at that particular moment, I had no idea how I was going to prevent him from doing so.

  As Marcus yanked on me, I said to his thugs, "I just want to thank you guys for helping me out. You know, considering I'm a defenseless young girl and this guy is a cold-blooded killer, and all. Really. You've been great – "

  Marcus gave me a jerk and I came flying out of the car toward him.

  "Whoa," I said, when I'd found my feet. "What's with the rough stuff?"

  "I'm not taking any chances," Marcus said, keeping his iron grip on my arm as he dragged me toward the front door of the house. "You've proved a good deal more trouble than I ever anticipated."

  Before I had time to digest this compliment, Marcus had hauled me into the house while behind us the thugs got out of the car and followed along . . . just in case, I suppose, I suddenly broke free and tried to pull a La Femme Nikita–type escape.

  Inside the Beaumonts' house – from what I could see given the speed with which Marcus was dragging me around – things were much the same as they'd been the last time I'd visited. There was no sign of Mr. Beaumont – he was probably in bed recovering from my brutal attack on him the night before. Poor thing. If I'd known it was Marcus who was the blood-sucking parasite and not his brother, I'd have shown the old guy a little compassion.

  Which reminded me.

  "What about Tad?" I asked as Marcus steered me across the patio, where rain was pattering into the pool, making hundreds of little splashes and thousands of ripples. "Where've you got him locked up?"

  "You'll see," Marcus assured me as he pulled me into the little corridor where the elevator to Mr. Beaumont's office sat.

  He threw open the elevator door and pushed me inside the little moving room, then joined me there. His thugs took up positions in the hallway since there was no room for them and their over-muscled girth in the elevator. I was glad because Thug #1's wool peacoat had been starting to smell a little ripe.

  Once again, I had a sensation of moving, but couldn't trace whether it was up or down. As we rode, I had a chance to study Marcus up close and personal. It was funny, but he really looked like an ordinary guy. He could have been anyone, a travel agent, a lawyer, a doctor.

  But he wasn't. He was a murderer.

  How proud his mom must be.

  "You know," I remarked, "when my mom finds out about this, Beaumont Industries is going down. Way down."

  "She's not going to connect your death with Beaumont Industries," Marcus informed me.

  "Oh, yeah? Dude, let me tell you something. The minute my mutilated corpse is found, my mom's gonna turn into that creature from Aliens 2. You know the one where Sigourney Weaver gets into that forklift thing? And then – "

  "You aren't going to be mutilated," Marcus snapped. He was obviously not a movie buff. He flung open the elevator door, and I saw that we were back where all of this had started, in Mr. Beaumont's spooky office.

  "You're going," he said, with satisfaction, "to drown."

  C H A P T E R

  19

  "Here."

  Marcus, by applying steady pressure to the small of my back, had steered me into the middle of the room. He went around the desk, reached into a drawer, and pulled out something red and silky. He threw it at me.

  I, with my lightning quick reflexes, caught it, dropped it, then picked it up and squinted down at it. Except for the lights at the bottom of the aquarium, the room was in darkness.

  "Put it on," Marcus said.

  It was a bathing suit. A Speedo one-piece. I tossed it, as if it had burned my fingers, onto the top of Red Beaumont's desk.

  "No thanks," I said. "Racerback straps don't really do it for me."

  Marcus sighed. His gaze strayed toward the wall to my right. "Tad," he said, "wasn't nearly so difficult to persuade as you."

  I spun around. Stretched out on a leather sofa I hadn't
noticed before lay Tad. He was either asleep or unconscious. My vote was for unconscious, since most people don't nod off in their swimwear.

  That's right: Tad was sans apparel, save for those swim trunks I'd been lucky enough to have seen him in once before.

  I turned back toward his uncle Marcus.

  "Nobody's going to believe it," I said. "I mean, it's raining outside. Nobody's going to believe we'd go swimming in weather like this."

  "You aren't going swimming," Marcus said. He'd wandered over toward the aquarium. Now he tapped on the glass to get the attention of an angel fish. "You're taking out my brother's yacht, and then you're going jet-skiing."

  "In the rain?"

  Marcus looked at me pityingly. "You've never been jet-skiing before, have you?"

  Actually, no. I prefer to keep my feet, whenever possible, on dry land. Preferably in Prada, but I'll settle for Nine West.

  "The water is particularly choppy in weather like this," Marcus explained patiently. "Seasoned jet-skiers – like my nephew – can't get enough of the whitecaps. On the whole, it's the perfect kind of activity for a couple of thrill-seeking teenagers who have cut school to enjoy one another's company . . . and who will, of course, never make it back to shore. Well, not alive, anyway."

  Marcus sighed, and went on, "You see, regrettably, Tad refuses to wear a life vest when he goes out on the water – much too restricting – and I'm afraid he's going to convince you to go without, as well. The two of you will stray too far from the boat, a particularly strong swell will knock you over, and . . . Well, the currents will probably toss your lifeless body to shore eventually – " He pulled up his sleeve and glanced at his watch again. "Most likely tomorrow morning. Now hurry and change. I have a lunch appointment with a gentleman who wants to sell me a piece of property that would be perfect for a Chuck E. Cheese."

  "You can't kill your own nephew." My voice cracked. I was truly feeling . . . well, horrified. "I mean, I can't imagine something like that is going to make you too popular at Grandma's around the holidays."

  Marcus's mouth set into a grim line. "Perhaps you didn't understand me. As I have just taken great pains to explain to you, Miss Simon, your death, as well as my nephew's, is going to look like a tragic accident."

  "Is this how you got rid of Mrs. Fiske?" I demanded. "Jet-ski accident?"

  "Hardly," he said, rolling his eyes. "I wasn't interested in having her body found. Without a body there's no proof a murder has taken place, correct? Now, be a good girl and – "

  This guy was a complete mental case. I mean, Red Beaumont, for all his believing he's from Transylvania, isn't anywhere near as cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs as his little brother.

  "Is this how you get your kicks?" I glared at him. "You really are a sicko. And for your information, I am not," I declared, "taking a stitch off. Whoever finds this body is going to find it fully clothed, thank you very much."

  "Oh, I am sorry," he said. He actually sounded apologetic. "Of course you'd like a little privacy while you change. You'll have to forgive me. It's been a long time since I've been in the company of such a modest young lady." His gaze flickered disparagingly down toward my miniskirt.

  More than ever, I wanted to plunge one of my thumbs into his eyes. But I was getting the impression that there was a chance he might actually leave me alone for a minute. And that was too tempting to resist. So I just stood there, trying to summon up a blush.

  "I suppose," he said with a sigh, "that I can spare you five minutes." He strolled back toward the elevator. "Just remember, Miss Simon, that I will get you into that bathing suit one way or another. You see, of course, what poor Tad chose." He nodded toward the couch. "It would be simpler – and less painful for you in the long run – if you'd put it on yourself and spare me the trouble."

  He pulled the elevator door shut behind him.

  There really was something wrong with him, I decided. I mean, he'd just given up a chance to see a babe like me in the buff. The guy clearly had a nacho platter where his brains should have been.

  Well, that's what I told myself, anyway.

  Alone in Mr. Beaumont's office – except for Tad and the fish, neither of whom were particularly communicative at the moment – I immediately began trying to figure out a way to escape. The windows, I knew, were hopeless. But there was a phone on Mr. Beaumont's desk. I picked it up and began dialing.

  "Miss Simon." Marcus's voice, coming through the receiver, sounded amused. "It's a house phone. You don't imagine we'd let Tad's father make any outgoing calls in his condition, do you? Please hurry up and change. We haven't much time."

  He hung up. So did I.

  Half a minute wasted.

  The door to the elevator was locked. So was the door on the opposite side of the room. I tried kicking it, but it was made of some kind of really thick, solid wood, and didn't budge.

  I decided to turn my attention to the windows. Wrapping the end of one of the velvet curtains around my fist, I punched out a few panes of glass, then tried slamming my foot against the wooden shutters.

  No good. They appeared to have been nailed permanently shut.

  Three minutes left.

  I looked around for a weapon. My plan, I decided, since escape appeared to be impossible, was to climb the bookshelf behind the back of the elevator door. When Marcus came though that door, I'd leap down upon him, and point a sharp object at his throat. Then I'd use him as a hostage to make my way past the two thugs.

  Okay, so it was a little Xena, Warrior Princess. Hey, it was a plan, all right? I never said it was a good one. It was just the best one I could come up with under the circumstances. I mean, it wasn't as if anybody was going to come bursting in to rescue me. I didn't see how anybody could – except for maybe Jesse, who was pretty slick at walking through walls and stuff.

  Only Jesse didn't know I needed him. He didn't know I was in trouble. He didn't even know where I was.

  And I had no way of letting him know, either.

  A shard of glass, I decided, would make an excellent, very threatening weapon, and so I looked for a particularly lethal-looking one amid the rubble I'd made of a few of Mr. Beaumont's windows.

  Two minutes.

  Holding my shard of glass in my hand – wishing I had my ghost-busting gloves with me so I'd be sure not to cut myself – I scrambled up the bookshelf, no easy feat in three-inch heels.

  One and half minutes.

  I glanced over at Tad. He lay limp as a rag doll, his bare chest rising and falling in a gentle, rhythmic motion. It was quite a nice-looking chest, actually. Not as nice looking, maybe, as Jesse's. But still, in spite of his uncle being a murderer, and his dad being foreman at the cracker factory – not to mention the whole basketball thing – I wouldn't have minded resting my head against it. His chest, I mean. You know, under other circumstances, Tad actually being conscious being one of them.

  But I'd never have the chance if I didn't get us out of this alive.

  There was no sound in the room, save Tad's steady breathing and the burbling of the aquarium.

  The aquarium.

  I looked at the aquarium. It made up most of one whole wall of the office. How, I wondered, did those fish get fed? The tank was built into the wall. I could detect no convenient trapdoor through which someone might sprinkle food. The tank had to be accessed through the room next door.

  The room I couldn't get to because the door to it was locked.

  Unless.

  Thirty seconds.

  I dropped down from the bookshelf and began striding toward the aquarium.

  I could hear the elevator begin to hum. Marcus, right on time, was on his way back. Needless to say, I had not put on my swimsuit like a good little girl. Although I did grab it – along with the wheeled swivel chair that had been behind Mr. Beaumont's desk – as I walked toward the fish tank.

  The humming of the elevator stopped. I heard the doorknob turn. I kept walking. The chairs' wheels were noisy on the parquet floor.

&n
bsp; The door to the elevator opened. Marcus, seeing that I had not done as he asked, shook his head.

  "Miss Simon," he said, in a disappointed tone. "Are we being difficult?"

  I positioned the swivel chair in front of the aquarium. Then I lifted a foot and balanced it on top of the seat. From one finger, I dangled the bathing suit.

  "Sorry," I said, apologetically. "But dead's never been my color."

  Then I grabbed that chair, and flung it with all my might at the glass of that giant fish tank.

  C H A P T E R

  20

  The next thing I knew there was a tremendous crash.

  Then a wall of water, glass, and exotic marine life was coming at me.

  It knocked me flat onto my back. A tidal wave hit me with the weight of a freight train, pushing me to the floor, then flattening me against the far wall of the room. The wind knocked out of me, I lay there a second, soaked, coughing up briny water, some of which I accidentally swallowed.

  When I opened my eyes, all I could see were fish. Big fish, little fish, trying to swim through the three inches of water that lay upon the wood floor, opening and closing their mouths in a pathetic attempt to snatch a few more seconds of life. One fish in particular had washed up next to me, and it stared at me with eyes almost as glassy and lifeless as Marcus's had been when he'd been explaining how he intended to kill me.

  Then a very familiar voice cut through my dazed musings on the paradoxes of life and death.

  "Susannah?"

  I lifted my head, and was extremely surprised to see Jesse standing over me, a very worried look on his face.

  "Oh," I said. "Hi. How did you get here?"

  "You called me," Jesse said.

  How could I ever have thought, I wondered as I lay there gazing up at him, that any guy, even Tad, could ever be quite as hot as Jesse? Everything, from the tiny scar in his eyebrow, to the way his dark hair curled against the back of his neck, was perfect, as if Jesse were the original mold for the archetypal hottie.