A Distant Echo: Book 1 (Grim's Labyrinth Series)
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A DISTANT ECHO
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
© 2014 by Grim’s Labyrinth Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any written, electronic, recording, or photocopying form without written permission of the publisher, Grim’s Labyrinth Publishing, LLC.
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Chapter 1
Paxton Chambers hit
“You have to put yourself out there,” her best friend Gillian insisted. “If you play it safe, you’ll never get anywhere.” But Paxton was reluctant to take the risk of screwing up and maybe losing the low-paying job she had instead of getting the promotion she wanted.
Out there was exactly where Paxton didn’t want to be. She was happy behind a desk, facing her computer screen and completing her tasks neatly and on time. Risking disapproval, even risking too much attention made her nervous. Her coworkers were mostly kind to her, they thought she was just shy, a backward blonde from a small town. What they’d never know was that she had taken too many chances once and been burned, that she wasn’t so much bashful as she was gun-shy.
Reviewing her list of potential donors for the spring funding drive, she sighed. Her heart went out to these kids, the foster children who were served by the Mobile Mentors program. This fund drive was special to Paxton because the proceeds were intended to pay for a field trip for the kids and their mentors. She looked at the proposal every night, a smile playing on her lips. She had helped set up the itinerary to give the kids a little holiday and some culture as well. If the drive was successful, eighty-three foster children, including her own mentee, six-year-old Pepper, would get to travel by bus to an amusement park and stay overnight in a hotel with a swimming pool and then go to an aquarium and a children’s museum the next day. It was their chance to really be a kid and she wanted it for them passionately. But the money just wasn’t there.
Lointaine was a small city in central California where the local businesses seemed more interested in the adulation that came from sponsoring a film festival than in pitching in to send some underprivileged kids to a museum. Two-thirds of the corporate and private donors on the list had already declined politely. The others had pledged considerably less than Mobile Mentors had anticipated. She needed big money, a heavy hitter to make up the difference for this trip. Paxton opened a file and sucked in her breath. It was the Do Not Call list she’d developed in her first few months—a collection of rich potential donors who were rude and flatly uninterested in philanthropic concerns. Not people whose charitable giving was allocated elsewhere but what Pax called the Stingy Misers, people who planned to take their money to the grave rather than use it to do good in the community. She might as well have called the list “People I Despise.”
She sorted the database by estimated net worth and shut her eyes. She knew whose name would be at the top of her hit list. Elias Townsend V. Eli Townsend owned a third of the largest pharmaceutical company in the nation, was a promising researcher in the field of neurological disorders and a contemptible jackass. When Paxton had cold-called him for a donation last year, his secretary put her on indefinite hold nine times. When she finally got through to the man himself, he produced a tirade about the importance of his work and his time and threatened to call her supervisor and have her fired if she didn’t stop harassing him while he was trying to cure Parkinson’s disease. She had gone and cried in the ladies restroom after that conversation. His name was the first and most indelible entry on her never-call-again database. Except now she was punching his number into her phone.
“Good morning. Elias Townsend’s office. How may I direct your call?” the chipper voice of a secretary recited. Paxton drew in a ragged breath and composed herself, defaulting to her most professional tone.
“Good morning. This is Paxton Chambers at Mobile Mentors. I’d like to schedule an appointment to meet with Mr. Townsend this week.”
“Mr. Townsend isn’t taking any appointments at this time. If you’d like to send me an e-mail, I’d be happy to take care of it for you, but if you’re soliciting a donation I’m afraid you’re wasting your time, miss.” The voice was unflaggingly cheerful despite the rebuff she delivered.
“Then there would be no reason to send an e-mail that he’ll just delete. I need to speak with him face-to-face. What are his office hours? If you can’t schedule a meeting, perhaps you could tell me when you expect him to be in.”
“It’s worth more than my job if I tell you when he can be ambushed in the office. I’m afraid I can’t help you. Good day.” With a perfunctory click, the receiver went dead.
Paxton wrapped a soft pink scarf around her neck and told her supervisor she was going to speak to a potential donor. Determined to see the elusive Mr. Townsend and drill some money out of the probably-tax-evading jerk, Paxton navigated two bus changes to reach his offices. She had rehearsed an impassioned speech to move him to open his wallet and possibly grovel with apologies. Paxton thought of red-headed Pepper with her freckles and how joyous she would be to ride a carousel on that trip that needed funding. Paxton quieted her nerves and began to think of herself as Joan of Arc. In the posh lobby, a well-coiffed woman of perhaps sixty years sat at a mahogany desk and received her politely.
“Hello, Janet. I’m Paxton Chambers from Mobile Mentors. We spoke on the phone,” she began, smiling her friendliest smile.
“Mr. Townsend is at work in his lab. He doesn’t keep regular office hours. I’m afraid, as I told you on the phone, I can’t help you.” Disappointed that her Joan of Arc speech would go unheard, Paxton thanked her and rode the elevator down to street level. It was a stupid idea. I’d have been fired for bothering Elias Townsend anyway. There’s bound to be someone else, less of a risk, I could beg for donations…her reverie was interrupted when the elevator doors opened only one floor down and admitted a tall blond man she recognized from the photos on his web site.
“Elias Townsend—” she broke off, drew in a ragged breath. This was the man who had shouted at her on the phone, who’d refused to help needy children. She had to remember that and not have her head turned by his handsomeness. His pale hair was overlong, falling across sharp cheekbones and framing eyes that were surprisingly warm and dark. Lean and spare, he would have been the perfect Aryan specimen if he had blue eyes, she thought bleakly. “I was just in your office. Your secretary informed me you didn’t keep office hours.”
“Good. That is what I pay her to do.
And you are?” He was standing beside her facing the elevator doors but his gaze slid sideways to glance at her and then he looked away dismissively.
“I’m Paxton Chambers from Mobile Mentors. We’re a local nonprofit serving foster children with educational tutoring, counseling services and cultural opportunities—”
“Spare me the promotional text. I’m a busy man. What do you want from me?”
“I—that is we want your sponsorship for our fund drive. We’re raising money for a field trip to take our mentees for a cultural experience—” He cut her off again.
“How I dread the uneducated masses, Miss Chambers. Poverty is a culture unto itself. It has been thus since before the days of Dickens. To offer them a ‘cultural experience’ is a waste of time and money since they are already possessed of a culture all their own.” Dumbfounded, she stared at him. Anger heating in her veins, she whipped out her phone and flicked through the image gallery until she located a particularly endearing photo of Pepper’s gap-toothed grin.
“It may be easy enough to reject me, Mr. Townsend, but we are not talking in generalities but about real children. Like this one. Pepper Murphy is six years old, she’s my mentee. She has already been in seven foster homes since her mother’s parental rights were terminated. It is not a waste of time to take this little child to a museum and an amusement park. It is completely worthwhile and I implore you to find some generosity in your heart to help us.” She finished by clutching the phone to her breast as though to show how much she loved the child.
“My heart went cold years ago, little girl.” He sniffed derisively. “I don’t owe you a dime. You would do well to get out of my sight before I call security and report that you are harassing me.”
“You’re threatening me? With, what, Janet coming after me with her handbag?” she snapped. To her astonishment, Elias Townsend laughed.
“No, only Ruben and Taio, my guards. Trust me, you would prefer not to be pursued by Janet. She is more fearsome than they are when she wishes to be. I confess that your barbed tongue impresses me.”
“Enough to inspire a donation?”
“Enough to give you ten minutes to convince me. Let’s take a walk.”
He stopped the elevator and rerouted it to the top floor. When the doors opened, instead of the lavish marble and mahogany lobby she expected, she stepped into a sterile concrete chamber, fluorescent lights nearly blindingly bright overhead and the air chill as a bleak November. Every surface was stainless steel—the counters, the table, the refrigerators and freezers, the vast open space existed in shades of silver from flat gray walls and concrete floors to the gleam of medical instruments and hulking microscopes and centrifuges and a long wall of flat-screen computer monitors.
“So this is the inner sanctum? Frankenstein’s laboratory? Where’s the monster?” she said flippantly to cover her nervousness.
“The only monster here is myself.” Elias bowed, an odd courtly gesture more at home in a costume drama than a medical lab. “Have a look at this, now.”
With a few clicks of the touch pad, the wall of screens illumined with a lurid, purple-tinged image, amoeba-like with ragged edges. “This is a brain cell ravaged by dementia.” More clicks. The screens came to life with a picture of a rounder, smoother, less cluttered cell. “This, however, is the goal. A healthy brain cell. Unscathed by neurological disease onset and progression. THIS is what I devote my life and my money to. Now you have, by my calculation, four minutes to convince me that THIS is less important than some child riding a roller coaster and getting sick on ice cream.”
Elias brought the purple image of the diseased cell back up on the huge screens and she took and involuntary step back from it, speechless.
“Do you really think that trifles like your little trip matter?” There was acid in his tone. “You’ll leave this room in a moment and by the time you and your charity cross my mind again in some idle moment, you’ll be long dead.” He shrugged expressively.
“Excuse me?” She was taken aback.
“Look at you. You’re dying right this very moment. You’re aging. You’re losing your ability to regenerate somatic matter, experiencing mitochondrial decay at the cellular level. You’re breaking down and dying as we speak. These individual cases, piteous though they may be to someone like you, have no sway over me. I am focused on a larger battle. These children, this small girl of yours, will wind up taking or selling street drugs or in prison or dead in the wink of an eye. And it won’ t make much difference whether they live or die, a dozen or so kids in the grand scheme of things.”
Paxton caught herself on the edge of the counter as she swayed, lightheaded from holding her breath to keep from slapping his insolent face, yearning to leave a livid handprint on that high proud cheekbone and jaw. Gripping the edge of the cold table, her knuckles showed white.
“For someone who’s devoted his life to curing a disease, I find you surprisingly heartless,” she said as acidly as she could, choking on the words. I hate him, but I need him, Paxton thought, steadying herself.
“My dear, that’s the most sensible thing I’ve heard you say yet. However, your time is up and my time is valuable. I have results to replicate.” He ushered her toward the elevator. “I am, of course, not making any donation to your petty cause, but I’d be happy to buy you a new pair of shoes. Those are really appalling.” He gestured to her cheap, scuffed-up black flats.
“No thank you,” she managed politely, staring dejectedly at her abused footwear as she stepped into the elevator. She was surprised when he followed her in. “I’ll leave the building. You needn’t escort me out.”
“Nonsense. A gentleman always sees a lady safely to the door.”
“I’m afraid I wouldn’t consider you much of a gentleman.”
“And a lady wouldn’t be caught dead in those shoes. So let us call it a truce and I’ll ride downstairs with you.”
Paxton shifted uncomfortably away from him, aware again of the sharp citrusy tang of his skin, the kinetic gestures of his hands as he spoke, the low urgency of his voice. She found herself drinking his presence in, the sight of this hateful man was an elixir, intriguing and strange, its savor slightly bitter on the tongue. She gasped as his cool hand slid along her jaw and brought her lips to meet his. Her lips parted and she found herself clutching a handful of his immaculately ironed shirt, her pulse hammering as his mouth and tongue teased her breathless.
“You’ll come back here tonight, midnight, ride the elevator to my lab,” he said, releasing her. “You would not believe how long it has been since I’ve had the impulse to do anything like that.” His laugh was ragged, sharp, but he seemed composed, matter-of-fact about commanding her. Though she felt the flush on her cheeks, no answering color animated his pallor. Only the flash of his dark eyes hinted at any emotion.
“I don’t meet strange men at night,” she said, unsettled but trying to keep her voice light. “I came to speak with you on philanthropic business. As you expressed a clear rejection of my proposal, I have no reason to speak with you further.” She kept her voice as level as possible.
“On the contrary, I’m making a proposal of my own. Return here this evening.” The elevator doors slipped open silently and she stepped dazedly into the lobby. When she turned to look back at him, the doors were already closed.
Chapter 2
Back at the apartment she shared with her friend Gillian, Paxton made some notes, checked her work e-mail and took a shower, all the while trying to ignore the fact that Elias Townsend’s image seemed burned into her eyelids. A shiver ran through her at the mere memory of his finger trailing along her jawline. Although she balanced her checkbook and accrued five hundred in donations from cold calls, Paxton was only biding her time until midnight. A backward Cinderella, a woman whose life began at the stroke of twelve.
Paxton chose her dress carefully, recalling his discernment, the meticulous precision of his own clothing, his laboratory where all was in order. A white eyelet
sundress, perfect for a lamb going to slaughter, she thought wryly as she hooked silver hoops through her earlobes and slicked on lip gloss, trying not to imagine him smearing it with his own mouth. Paxton twisted her long, pale hair and pinned it loosely. Her reflection showed a flush along her cheeks, her lips parted in anticipation as a blond tendril escaped from its pins to curl around her neck. She stepped into the scuffed flats he had derided and made her way uptown.
A doorman admitted her to the building with a nod. The elevator whooshed silently to the top floor and the doors slid open. She blinked in the fierce overhead lights of that gray, cavernous space, her eyes fixed on the tall, lean figure bent over a microscope. Cold air blasted from vents, rippling the hem of his white lab coat. She faltered, approached, wondering if she should clear her throat to let him know she was there. With a flick of his hand he both acknowledged and dismissed her. She subsided, half annoyed, staring at her bitten-off nails as she leaned against the counter, noting the absence of chairs. He looked up, not at her but at the tablet beside him. He touched the screen, a few keystrokes, and turned his attention to her. The dark, crackling gaze seemed to strike her forcefully.
“Why did you come?”
“To find out how long you’ve been a vampire?” She felt a jolt of triumph when she saw him flinch, the widening of those fathomless eyes as though she had shocked him.
“I find that allegation absurd.”
“Allow me to enumerate the evidence. You smell strongly of lemon. Your skin is cool to the touch. You sequester yourself in this laboratory which has no evidence of anything to sit on or sleep on or a microwave or even a bathroom. After you kissed me, you weren’t breathing hard...or in fact breathing at all. And you bitched about my shoes.” She crossed her arms smugly and waited for his rebuttal.