“Now what are you doing?” I said.
I watched him take apart the metal frame of a stand-up curb sign advertising gas prices. He came back with two of the thicker poles and slid them through the bar of the men’s room door handle so they spanned across the door jamb. Art and Jim wouldn’t be able to pull it open from inside.
“It’s an old trick but it’s a good one,” Digby said.
“What are we doing?” I said even though I already knew.
“Come on,” he said. Digby walked back to the car, pulled out Art’s car keys, and unlocked the car.
“You pick pockets now?” I said.
“Felix taught me,” Digby said.
“But I really do need to pee,” I said.
“That’s not going to hold them for long.” Digby pointed at the bathroom doors.
And it was true. Art and Jim were already pulling on the door, trying to shake the poles loose. And so I got in the car and Digby drove off.
* * *
• • •
The winding road going up to de Groot’s Bird’s Hill estate was downright terrifying at night. Not only were there no streetlights, but spring had sprung and the newly leafy trees blocked the curves up ahead so all our headlights could illuminate was just the few feet in front of the car. But, of course, that didn’t stop Digby from stepping on it anyway.
I would’ve argued with him about going so fast but I was afraid of breaking his concentration. By the time we got to the final straightaway to the mansion’s main gate, my hands were sweaty and squeaky against the leather of the seat.
“Um, Digby . . .” I said. “Shouldn’t you slow down?”
The guard post was unmanned, none of the lights in the front of the main house were turned on, and the gate was a solid fifteen-foot wall of iron.
But Digby kept up our speed and said, “Make sure you have your seat belt on, Princeton. We’re going in hot.”
I braced myself but as I did, I glanced down and spotted an unmarked orange passkey sitting in the center console. I held it up and screamed, “Digby!”
He stood on the brakes and we stopped with our headlights dramatically close to the fence. The agony of the seat belt suddenly tightening across my ribs as I flew forward made me so damned grateful we hadn’t tried going head-on through the gate.
Beside me, Digby gasped and clutched his ribs. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I said. I handed him the card. “Try this first.”
We’d gotten so close to ramming the gate that Digby actually had to back up to get to the gate’s access control card reader.
When the gate whirred open, Digby turned to me and said, “Well, that turned out a lot easier than I thought it would.” When after a while I still hadn’t responded, he said, “What? That scared you so bad you’re not speaking to me?”
I shook my head and waved my hand. “I’m okay. Just . . . my chest hurts . . . and I still need to pee.”
We got to the top of the drive, pulled up to the main house, and Digby turned off the engine. The lights were on in some of the other auxiliary buildings but nothing was going on in the main residence.
“I thought Art said de Groot knew we were coming,” Digby said.
“What do you want to do?” I said.
“Well, I thought about leaning on the horn and waking these morons up,” he said.
“Maybe we should build up to that level of aggression,” I said.
Digby and I got out of the car and went up the steps to the door. After looking for a while, he said, “I guess why would they have a doorbell if there’s security out front during the day? Should we knock? It’s late but it’s not that late.”
The word late triggered my realization that I hadn’t told my mother I wasn’t coming straight home after I’d texted her from the diner. “Yeah, but who knows what time that guy goes to bed. He looked pretty sick.” I texted my mother “c u soon.” My mother texted right back: “Your father wants to talk about Prentiss tonight. What time will u b home?”
“Ugh, damn it, I’m not in the mood for this,” I said.
“What?” Digby said.
“My mother. Pretending she isn’t interfering by pretending she didn’t tell my dad about Prentiss so he can be the bad guy and make me go,” I said. “Don’t say it. It’s getting annoying.”
“Of course you’re going,” he said.
“So annoying,” I said. “Oh, my God. I just thought of something.”
“What?” he said.
“Silk and his father are still in the trunk,” I said. “You know, we probably would’ve killed them if we’d gone through that gate.”
Digby looked shocked. “It’s funny how one minute, those two guys were life-and-death problems and then the next minute, they’re potentially just bodies in a trunk,” he said. “I feel like that’s a metaphor for life or something.”
“Literally no normal person would ever benefit from that metaphor,” I said. “Do you think we should check on them?”
“Not unless you want to run around in the dark chasing down the two homicidal criminals who jumped us and escaped when we opened the trunk,” Digby said. “Remember what we did to the last guy who shoved us in the trunk and then made the mistake of opening it?”
“Fine,” I said. “Let’s find someone to let us in the house.”
Digby and I went back down the steps and started walking until we found a slightly open window on the other side of the building.
“Aha,” he said.
“Aha what? You’re probably going to set off the alarm,” I said.
“Well, officer, I would’ve rung the doorbell, but they didn’t have one,” Digby said. “I had to settle for the sweet ring of the security alarm.”
“Maybe leave the talking to me when they arrest us,” I said. “This time.”
I helped Digby move a concrete planter under the window so we could climb into what turned out to be the formal dining room we’d passed through the last time we were in the house. Digby took a bunch of grapes and two apples from the enormous dining table’s center display.
“Are those real?” I said.
“Classy place like this?” Digby bit off a grape but immediately shot it out of his mouth at the wall with such force I had to duck so it didn’t hit me in the head on the rebound. “They are not.”
We walked along the carpeted corridors and retraced our steps to the white spaceship hospital annex where we’d found de Groot the week before. When we got to de Groot’s bedroom antechamber, I stopped Digby and said, “Wait. I need the bathroom.”
“Seriously, Princeton? Now?” he said.
“Actually, I needed it an hour ago but you didn’t let me pee,” I said.
“This isn’t going to take long,” Digby said. “And, honestly, I don’t know what kind of mental trauma it would be for me if they caught us on a bathroom break and dragged us away before I got to talk to de Groot.”
“What exactly are you going to say?” I asked him.
When he gave me one of his looks, I said, “I just don’t think you should go in there and have a random freak-out, that’s all.”
Digby took a deep breath and said, “Okay. I’m going to say . . . here is what you’ve been after all these years . . .” He took out the magnetic tape copy Felix had made him from his suit pocket. “And what I want in return . . .” I honestly didn’t know if he had the strength to say the next bit. “I need you to give two people new IDs and money to get out of town,” Digby said.
“Are you okay with that?” I said. “For Henry? Instead of Sally?”
“I am,” Digby said.
I needed to make sure. “You’re telling me that you are a hundred percent okay getting this far and not finding out what happened to your sis—”
“You’re killing me, Princeton,” Digby said. “Wh
ose side are you on?”
TWENTY-TWO
Digby opened the door and as we walked into de Groot’s bedroom, it occurred to me again that it was marvelous what money could do. De Groot’s suite of machines were whiter than white in the glow of the various LED monitor panels in the room. Everything was curved and edge-less and designed to look like an egg. Eggs being the design aesthetic, I suppose, at the exact opposite of the spectrum from what’s happening to de Groot, which is death and decay.
But old de Groot’s body, lying propped up on a pile of pillows and sleeping with his mouth hanging open, did not look like it was fooled by his machines’ promises for a moment. The man was not looking very good.
“He . . . looks . . .” Digby said.
“Like a smushed raisin,” I said.
Digby nodded.
We watched de Groot sleep, only knowing he wasn’t dead because his machines told us so. But after a while, I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Sorry. I know this is kind of a big moment but I’m gonna pee my pants, man.” I pointed at the en suite bathroom. “Wait here.”
The bathroom’s decor was consistent with the bedroom’s aesthetic. White on white, grab bars and safety strips everywhere, and what can only be called a white marble throne in the middle of a shower stall the size of a normal American guestroom. Even the toilet went out of its way to be complicated but I’d seen that particular contraption before because, like much of America, I secretly keep up with the Kardashians.
I’d just used the bathroom and washed my hands when my phone rang. My father. Maybe I was feeling a little bulletproof after having had the day I’d had, or maybe the high from the awesome mirror selfie I’d just taken had formed a toxic combination with my exhaustion—I don’t know—but for some crazy reason, I decided to hit accept instead of reject.
“Hi,” I said.
“Zoe? Where are you?” my father said.
“Um . . .” By this time, I’d climbed onto de Groot’s marble shower throne and shut the stall door for some privacy. “I’m in a bathroom.”
“Why aren’t you home yet? It’s almost eleven o’clock.” But his belligerent tone changed right away. “Celebrating, I guess. Anyway. Congratulations.” He cleared his throat. “I suppose Shereene and I will be seeing a lot more of you next year.”
I didn’t need to do the I-haven’t-decided-of-course-you’re-going dance with him right then, so I just made a non-committal sound and let the moment pass.
“You’ll be living with us, of course,” he said.
Now that I couldn’t let pass.
“Actually, I think I’ll be boarding,” I said. I heard a weird gurgling noise. “Did you just . . . growl?”
“Growl? No,” my father said. “Why would I? Oh, you mean because you’re going to pour fifteen thousand dollars down the drain so you can sleep on a plastic mattress and . . .”
I didn’t actually hear much of the rest of my father’s angry speech because by this time, I’d opened the shower door and realized I could still hear the gurgling sound. It was coming from the bedroom. I put my phone on mute and opened the bathroom door to see . . .
Digby had his hands around the now-awake de Groot’s throat. De Groot was bug-eyed and gasping for breath.
“Digby!” I somehow had the presence of mind to take the phone off mute, stop hyperventilating, and, in a weirdly calm voice, say, “Let me call you back, Dad.”
And then I hung up and ran across to Digby to pry him off de Groot. “What are you doing? Digby, you don’t want to do this.” But then I noticed that the room was very dark because Digby had unplugged de Groot’s various life-supports. Digby absolutely did want to do this.
“He’s basically dead already. It’d only be half a murder,” Digby said. “What happened to my sister? What happened to my sister?”
“Digby.” I finally got Digby to let go after I said, “He’s trying to answer.”
De Groot’s mouth really did look like it was moving to form words and after he’d recovered enough from Digby’s assault, de Groot started to talk.
“I . . . I . . . I need . . .” de Groot said. He flailed in the direction of his wheelchair until I worked out that he needed to use the oxygen tank strapped to it.
I passed de Groot the mask and flipped on the switch. After he’d taken a few breaths, I took the mask from him and said, “Now tell him.”
“Bad cop, bad cop, I see,” de Groot said.
I’d pushed Digby to the back of the room to keep him from attacking de Groot again but some of the wax grapes he’d taken from the dining room sailed over my shoulder and peppered de Groot’s face.
“He has wax apples too,” I said. “Talk before he starts throwing those at you.”
“Do you have it?” de Groot said. “Your mother’s work?”
Digby held up the data tape.
“She’s dead. Your sister is dead.” De Groot looked so gleeful saying it that I wondered why we even had to coerce him into talking in the first place.
I didn’t dare look at Digby’s face but his voice was shockingly even when he followed up by asking, “Tell me how.” Digby approached the bed, took the oxygen mask from my hand, and turned it back on so de Groot could gulp down a few deep breaths. “Tell me everything.”
“I tried to get the research from your mother the legitimate way. But of course . . .” De Groot took another hit of oxygen and waved his hand to indicate I failed. “So, I had my men break into your house that night—”
“They did something to me,” Digby said. “I’ve never been a deep sleeper. Why didn’t I wake up?”
“Yes. All of you . . . your toothbrushes were dipped in a powerful tranquilizer . . . just enough for all of you to sleep deeply . . .” De Groot laughed. “They were meant to take you, do you know? But you were moving around and they panicked.”
Digby did know he was supposed to be the victim. Ezekiel had told him so months ago. But hearing it again was like a new blow to Digby and his voice was small and sounded younger than I’d ever heard it when he said, “How did she die?”
De Groot took more oxygen. “One of my men accidentally smothered her while he was trying to stop her screaming,” de Groot said.
“Where?” Digby said. De Groot looked confused, so Digby said, “Where did they put her body? There was a huge search. They never found anything.”
“She is here. On these grounds,” de Groot said. “Atop a beautiful grassy knoll overlooking the herb garden.” He said it like he was selling us a timeshare in Tuscany.
“Sounds great. Is that where they’re planting you when you kick it?” Digby said. “Which is fairly soon, by the look of it . . .”
De Groot’s skeleton hand reached toward the data tape in Digby’s. “That is what I want this for,” de Groot said. “What is in here will change our understanding of life and death . . .”
“Nothing in this tape can help you now,” Digby said. “It’s too late, old man.”
“They have been saying that to me for over a decade,” de Groot said. And then he gathered up his energy and pushed off the bed to make a lunge for the data tape.
And de Groot would’ve gotten it too, if I hadn’t snatched it out of Digby’s hand first.
“No,” I said. “To get this data, we’re going to need a few things from you.”
For the first time, I saw de Groot have a real emotion besides contempt and the enjoyment of cruelty. He looked at me, sputtering and outraged. He took two hits of oxygen and said, “You are a cheater. He and I had an agreement.”
“No, I’m not,” I said. “He got that information out of you by force. Gratis. For this . . .” I held up the data tape. “You will have to trade with me.”
And then suddenly, the sound of clattering metal scared the crap out of all three of us.
I was blinded by the lights coming on but I
assembled the series of snapshots my blinking eyes took and worked out that de Groot’s nurse had come in with his nighttime medication and found us.
“Oh, my God.” The nurse plugged de Groot’s machines back in and immediately, the screeching alarms of the monitors drowned out her screams of “Who are you?” She hit a button on the wall and a house-wide alarm sounded.
Digby grabbed me and led me to a window that he opened. We were climbing out when he stopped me and said, “Hey, Princeton, in case I forget later . . . I just want to say . . .”
At this point, I heard a bunch of yelling men coming down the hall toward us. Digby and I jumped down onto the lawn and took off running.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been more attracted to you than I am at this moment,” Digby said.
“Shut up. Not now,” I said. I made a note to maybe put in time at the gym because I’d only been running for a little bit and I was already out of breath. I stopped running when we got to the front of the house. “The gate’s this way. But Digby . . .”
Digby took out his phone and turned on his compass. “You heard him. Herb garden. Herb gardens need sunshine.” He pointed in the opposite direction from the gate and said, “Southern exposure.”
But Digby didn’t make a move until I said, “Okay. Let’s do it.”
And then we ran across the front lawn to the other side of the house, hiding behind bushes and trees to avoid de Groot’s security men as they ran from their living quarters into the main house.
Finally, we got to a cleared patch of the garden that looked as though it had recently been plowed and readied for planting.
Digby turned, checked out the location, and said, “Behind the kitchen. Makes sense.” He pointed at a shed and said, “Shovels.”
We ran over to the shed and finding it padlocked, I said, “Can you open it?”
I’d imagined him picking the lock open but after Digby said, “Yeah,” he simply backed up and kicked the door.
And then we took turns kicking at the door until the padlock broke apart.
Trouble Never Sleeps Page 17