CHAPTER 19
Sera
I am in that glazed place between sleep and awake when Hudson’s whole body goes tense next to me. I fumble to sit up and see what’s caused his reaction, and then my heart smacks sickeningly against my ribs because I realize an agent is bearing down on us. I don’t want to know what he wants because whatever it is, I don’t think I can deal with it. Where are the police? Shouldn’t they be here by now?
But when the agent comes close I realize that it’s Nico. He sits down on the coffee table in front of us, hands on his knees, and leans in close. “There’s a problem,” he says softly. “I need you to come with me. Look scared and move fast because I have no idea what I’m going to say if someone stops us.”
A problem and no excuse if we’re stopped means looking scared is not exactly going to be a stretch. Hudson’s mouth is taut, his hands tightened into fists, and I’m sure I don’t look much calmer as we follow Nico briskly out into the hall.
We are silent as we go up the stairs at a near run, but luck is with us and we don’t pass any agents on our way to Ariel’s room. Nico goes in first, then Hudson, who pauses for a moment just inside the doorway. When I walk in I see why. Ariel is sitting on the ruined sofa, her face red and blotchy, her eyes hopeless.
“The phone doesn’t work,” Hudson guesses flatly.
“It works fine,” Ariel says, her voice gravelly, like her throat is sore. “I just can’t crack the code.”
A rush of sympathy takes me by surprise. It’s been a long time since I felt bad for Ariel but there it is. I know how much it crushed her that her dad never spent time with her and I know she thinks that’s why she can’t crack his password.
“You know, my mom tried for days to guess my dad’s password,” I say. “And she couldn’t do it until he gave her all these hints.”
Her eyes well with tears at my words and I glance at Nico, worried. Ariel is never this vulnerable. But he is looking at her, his face tender.
“So what do we do now?” Hudson asks. He is standing by the mantel over the fireplace drumming his fingers on the wood, his features dark.
That’s when it hits me that we are completely screwed. I was so surprised by Ariel that I lost track of the fact that we can’t call 911. I stagger over to the desk chair next to the sofa and fall into it. This is a disaster.
Ariel leans back as one of the tears spills over and slips down her cheek. “I don’t know,” she says. “But I do know who’s behind this. My uncle Marc.”
Her face is blank but I hear in her voice how much this hurts her. I think back to the few times I’ve met her fun-loving uncle. He bought Ariel a cotton candy machine for her tenth birthday and we got sick on a weekly basis ’til it finally broke. Do guys who buy cotton candy machines really take people hostage and commit murder?
“Are you sure?” I ask.
“As sure as I can be.” Her shoulders slumped defeatedly. “I heard him saying some stuff in the hall.”
“What stuff?” Hudson asks intently.
“What does it matter?’ Ariel sighs. “Nothing that can help us, just enough to know that my own uncle is willing to kill me for money.”
She sounds utterly beaten down but Hudson doesn’t seem to notice. “The agents downstairs are going to kill a lot of us, not just you, if we don’t figure out something to stop them.”
Ariel looks at him, a tiny flicker of fire in her eyes. “Yeah, I know. And one of those people is going to be my six-year-old sister because I can’t do anything to warn my ex-stepmother not to bring her here.”
“Oh, no,” I say.
“Yes,” she says, and this time the pain is carved across her face.
“It gets worse,” Nico says.
It’s the first time he’s spoken and we all turn toward where he is standing near the doorway, though I don’t want to hear what he is going to say. Really, how much worse could this get?
“I got word from someone in the office suite,” he says slowly. “They’ve managed to liquidate all the funds they can, but they can’t leave until they have Ariel.”
“You mean until they kill me,” she says flatly.
“That I am not sure,” Nico says. “But it is safe to assume.”
“So what are they going to do if they don’t find me?”
“They are starting the money transfer into a Swiss bank account. They think it will be done around six A.M. and that is when they are going to kill everyone.”
The words crackle like an electric shock through the air.
“Wait, so they’re just going to kill us all?” I ask in a voice that doesn’t sound like me.
“Yes,” Nico says. “They’re going to burn the house down with everyone trapped inside.”
Ariel closes her eyes. “I’ll just turn myself in now. It’s really the only thing to do.”
We all start to speak at once until Hudson raises a hand. “That’s not the answer. After all that’s gone wrong they’d probably burn the house down no matter what, to erase as much of their trail as they can.”
“He’s right,” Nico agrees. “Really that may have been the plan the whole time, to kill everyone in a fire.”
The horror of this seeps into me. We are not going to get out of here alive.
“So, what, we just sit here and wait to be killed?” Ariel asks.
“Obviously not,” Hudson says irritably. “We have to fight back.”
“Are you carrying a stash of machine guns I wasn’t aware of?” Ariel asks bitingly. “Because short of that, I’m not sure how we fight back.”
“I don’t mean we start some kind of epic battle,” Hudson says. “I just mean we put up enough of fight that we can escape.”
I try to find my voice but it’s stuck inside my chest. I can’t get past the thought of being burned alive before the sun rises.
“That sounds easy,” Ariel says sarcastically, starting to sound more and more like herself, or at least herself when she is annoyed.
“So you want to just give up?” Hudson is close to yelling and Nico glances out the door, then gives Hudson a “shut up” look.
Hudson nods, acknowledging but still looking pissed at Ariel.
“Obviously that’s not what I’m saying,” Ariel says with a signature eye roll. “I want to take Marc down more than anyone. I’m just saying we need a plan.”
“Agreed,” Hudson says shortly. “So who has ideas?”
The room is silent. I can’t seem to get my mind to work right, I just keep going over the things we’ve already said, like how Abby is coming and Marc is behind this and we’re all going to be killed. That last part especially.
I look at Ariel. Her blond hair is tangled and even though she has a bit of her spark back she still looks tired and beaten, a lot like she did when she first came back from Mexico. And then something connects.
“In Mexico,” I say. “Those guys who attacked you, do you think maybe it wasn’t just a random attack or rape attempt or whatever?”
Ariel sits up, her body moving slowly. “You mean, is it possible they were trying to kidnap me and hold me hostage?”
“Yeah.”
She is quiet, thinking. I see Hudson and Nico exchange a look but we all wait for Ariel.
“Yeah, I think that is possible,” she says finally. “I bet that was Marc’s first attempt to get my dad to give him everything. After that my dad tightened security for both of us so Marc had to wait for just the right opportunity to try again.”
“And this was it,” I say.
Hudson is looking at Ariel intently. “I know it sucks to think about it but is there anything, anything at all that you remember from it that might help us now?”
She pauses, then shakes her head. “Nothing comes to mind but I’ll think about it.”
It somehow changes things to know that Marc tried this before. I am guessing it makes him all the more determined to see it through this time.
“Okay, so now we need a plan,” Nico says. “I say we keep
it simple. We gather any weapons we can, Ariel leaves them somewhere you guys can get them, and we all fight our way out.”
“We fight our way out against a bunch of armed agents?” Hudson asks skeptically.
“Honestly most of these guys would be reluctant to actually kill a bunch of kids,” Nico says. “It’s just the leader who’s kind of trigger happy. Everyone else just wants to get paid and move on.”
“So you think if we catch them by surprise we have a chance?” Hudson asks.
Nico nods. “They’ll hesitate to do real damage and if we have some makeshift weapons, it could be enough to buy us the time we need to escape.”
“What kind of weapons?” Ariel asks.
At the same time Hudson says, “Where will she leave them?”
Clearly they’re sold on the plan and it makes sense to me too.
“There’s a grate in the downstairs bathroom that’s a door to the tunnel,” Ariel says, answering Hudson’s question. “I’ll put stuff there, though I’m not sure what kind of weapons we have just lying around.”
“Get creative,” I say. “Like there’s tons of beauty stuff that’s lethal—hair spray and nail polish remover.”
Ariel grins the tiniest bit. “I’d definitely run from a spray bottle with nail polish remover in it.”
Hudson is starting to pace a little. “Those are really good ideas,” he says. I can’t help but grin at the compliment. “And anything sharp.”
“We have an antique letter opener that’s like a dagger,” Ariel says. “And my dad has a Swiss Army knife. I’ll get those.”
“I have a Swiss Army knife too,” I say, remembering.
“If it’s with your overnight bag they brought those to the office suite,” Nico says regretfully.
I smile, thinking of how sorry I felt for myself when I hung onto my overnight bag, knowing that someone in the class might dump it in a bathtub full of beer or something if they found it. Now it turns out my pariah status worked in my favor.
“No, it’s behind the couch in the living room. I have a travel bottle of hair spray in there too.”
“Excellent,” Hudson says, so gleefully we all laugh until Nico gestures to be quiet.
“Okay, gather all the stuff you can and leave it in the tunnel inside the bathroom grate,” Hudson says. “We’ll figure out a way to get everything right before we start. In the meantime we need to convince everyone to go along with this.”
Any last scraps of laughter fade with that remark, at least for me. Getting my classmates to just talk to me, let alone believe me, is not going to be easy. It’s possible they’ll listen to Hudson but he’s been hanging out with me so much that he might be contaminated now too.
“And I’ll organize everyone I can too,” Nico says. “We’ll time it so we all start at once.”
“They’re planning to start the fire at six so let’s start at five,” Hudson says.
“Okay,” Nico agrees, looking at the clock. “That gives us two and a half hours to get ready.”
Hudson looks at the clock too. “Two hours and thirty-seven minutes. We need to be exact.”
“Right,” Nico says, though Ariel is rolling her eyes.
Under other circumstances I might agree that he’s being uptight but not now, not with all that hangs in the balance.
“We’ll have to figure out the details of what we’ll do, how we’ll start our side of the fight,” Hudson says to me. “But I think we have an overall plan.”
“Yes, and now I need to get you both back,” Nico says.
“I’ll start collecting weapons,” Ariel says as we head for the hall. She is walking toward the entrance to the tunnels. “I’ll have them waiting for you within the hour.”
“Sounds good,” I say, and for a moment our eyes lock. There’s probably a lot to say but there’s no time, so I turn and follow Hudson and Nico.
As I go I wonder if I will ever see her again.
CHAPTER 20
Ariel
It turns out it’s fun to scavenge for weapons. I am looking at the stuff in my house in this whole new, totally insane way, wondering what kind of damage it can inflict. Like the chunky marble bookends from my dad’s bedroom. When thrown with force they could do real damage. And I’m all about doing damage right now.
The best part is there’s no room to think. I am too busy analyzing the tray in the guest room that has razor sharp edges and gathering up the scissors from the den utility drawer. With my mind full of things like this I can’t speculate on what has happened and what might happen next.
I haul the bookends, scissors, and my dad’s vintage golf clubs (I decided against the tray—it’s square and awkward to hold). It’s a small load but heavy because of the marble and golf clubs. I’m stocking up everything I find upstairs, then I’ll take it downstairs and start scavenging the rooms there. I already have a bounty of spray bottles filled with toxic beauty and cleaning supplies from my bathroom as well as the razor blades from my dad’s. I also include a can of shaving cream—it’s not dangerous to breathe but it would be blinding and that could be useful in a tight spot.
My last upstairs stops are my bedroom and the back guest suite. I head for my bedroom first and pause at the fireplace to make sure no one’s in there. When I see it’s empty I feel the tiniest sting of disappointment. I tamp it down fast but really it’s too late and I have to admit it, at least to myself, I was hoping Nico would be here.
I know my weird reaction to him these past hours is probably just some kind of backlash from the stress but I can’t deny that I feel safer when he’s around. Actually that makes sense because he’s probably a pretty good bodyguard. It’s the sweet, fizzy feeling I get when I think about how his eyes crinkle when he smiles at me, his eyes like honey in the sun, that is just ridiculous. So I do what I can to shove it aside and force my mind back to weapons and slide soundlessly into my bedroom. Of course a lot of my stuff was destroyed in the room itself so I head to the closet. Clothes have been thrown to the floor but most of the other things, including my endless racks of shoes, are untouched. I look at the shoes, analyzing, then grab two pairs of strappy, pointy stilettos. You could easily take out someone’s eye with the heel of one of these.
I get out the step stool and climb up to look at the shelves above my clothes. It’s mostly books and boxes of old papers, pictures from when I was little and stuff. I generally avoid looking at it because it’s depressing to think neither of my parents saved it so I had to save it myself, but now I look it over, just in case there’s anything in there that could cause damage. But books aren’t dangerous enough, not unless you sit down and read some of them, so I am about to climb back down when I notice a book I don’t recognize. It’s at the other end of the closet so I have to get down, move the step stool, and then climb back up.
When I do, I expect to pick it up and then remember what it is, but that doesn’t happen. It’s a big book with a red leather cover and I’d swear I’ve never seen it before. I am just about to open it when I hear footsteps in the hall. I freeze, but after a moment they pass. I climb down quickly, the red book tucked under my arm, and head back for the tunnels. I’ll look at it there, where I can’t be discovered.
I replace the grate behind me, then walk until I am near a grate in the hall where enough light spills in that I can see what the book is. I can also overhear something if anyone passes by. I sit down and lean against the wall, realizing how tired I am. It’s the kind of exhaustion that seeps into my bones, heavy and numbing. It’s not just that it’s late because plenty of weekends I am at parties ’til after three A.M. It’s what the creepy shrink I saw would call “emotional fatigue.” I rub my eyes trying to brush it off. Then I open the book.
It’s a photo album and the first page is baby pictures. It takes me a second to realize that the baby in them is me. Me on a yellow blanket wearing a onesie with a duck on it, me on the beach in a big green sunhat, me asleep on my mom’s shoulder, my little bald head tucked snug against
her. On the next page I am sitting up, then crawling, in every picture a big smile on my face for the person holding the camera. In most of the shots it must be my mom, but in the ones where we are together I realize it’s possible that my dad is the one shooting the pictures.
Why haven’t I ever seen these before?
I am on the page with my kindergarten graduation (NCCD does it big so I am decked out in a one-of-a-kind designer dress) when I hear voices in the hall. I kneel by the grate to see who it is and if I can catch any scraps of conversation but the two men walking by are silent when they pass. One is an agent, the other is Owen Davis, John’s assistant. I didn’t even know he was here tonight. He must have been up in the office suite working, which is not at all unusual for a Saturday night. What bad luck for Owen to be here on this Saturday night.
After they pass I go back to the photo album, flipping through pages of me growing older, on the beach at St. John’s when I was seven, skiing in the Alps at ten, the trip to the Cannes film festival when I was thirteen. The older I get, the less I am smiling in the pictures. I get to the last page, which is a few shots from our last family vacation before my mom died, when we went to New Zealand and I wouldn’t even look at the camera. I vaguely remember my parents trying to get me to pose (during the few moments my dad looked up from his computer or wasn’t on the phone) but I had just started going out with Leo Chan, a junior and the center on the basketball team, and I was angry to be so far away from him over break. In fairness rightly so because he dumped me when I got back to go out with another junior whose family stayed home over break, whom he probably made out with at all the parties while I was gone. But now I kind of regret that I spent that whole trip in such a bad mood.
I am about to close the album and get on with my weapons search when I notice the back cover has a panel in it, almost like a folder, and there is something in there. It’s a thick document and when I take it out I am shocked to see it’s a copy of my dad’s will. What is it doing in here? Did my dad leave it in my closet for me to find? Honestly, that is the only explanation I can think of but it makes no sense because there’s no reason for him to want me to have a copy of it. And if he did want me to have it, why not just give it to me, why hide it?
The Girl in the Wall Page 10