“Why wouldn’t you have come out?” Jenny Seville, the teacher, asked in a small voice. Mack hated the fear he saw in her eyes, but at the same time he was glad she’d voiced the question. He’d expected her to wait for someone else to take the initiative.
“Because it felt like something had taken control of my mind. I was seeing all kinds of weird things that couldn’t be real.” Before anyone could press him, he went on to explain, “I felt a compulsion to go in there. And then a bunch of strange stuff started happening. Like I was attacked by three-feet-tall men carrying spears—and a large animal like a prehistoric beast chased us to the exit.”
“Oh come on. Do you have a bottle hidden in the lobby or something?”
For the first time, Lily spoke up. “He’s not making it up. I saw it too, and I assure you I haven’t been drinking.”
She looked like she was about to say something else but changed her mind.
“What?” Mack asked.
She dragged in a breath and let it out. “Okay, I was thinking that from here the forest looks normal. But when you get in there, the foliage can be any color. And all of the trees were shaking—except that one was staying still, and there was a man standing on a branch looking down at us—like he was the cause of it all.”
“What did he look like?” Roper demanded.
“He had a shaved head, and he was dressed like a biker. He was telling us that we’d be killed if we tried to leave the woods, only I was pretty sure it was the other way around. If we stayed there, we’d end up dead.”
She stopped talking abruptly, looking like she was astonished at how much she’d revealed about the incident. Or maybe she was finally coming to grips with what had happened to them in the forest.
“Thank you. We needed to know that,” Paula Rendell said in a reassuring voice.
Chris Morgan gave her a sharp look. “Why, exactly?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Ben Todd asked, sounding like he was badgering a witness in court. “So we can avoid the same thing happening to us.”
“Can we?” George Roper demanded. “I mean, if shit like that can pop up out of nowhere, what’s to stop any old thing from happening?”
“So far there’s been nothing like that in the hotel,” Mack said.
“Doesn’t mean it can’t,” Roper countered.
“Let’s hope not,” Ben Todd, interjected. “I’d like to know there’s somewhere we can count on being safe.”
Although Mack understood the sentiment, he wasn’t willing to count on it. Still, he nodded in agreement. Nothing wrong with hoping.
“How did you get out of the woods?” Paula asked.
“We fought our way out.”
When someone winced, he modified the observation. “Well, not exactly fought,” he said, thinking about the pitched battle with the spear carriers, which he didn’t mention. “An elephant-sized animal with scales and horns charged us, and we made it through the door in the wall. He was too big to get through.”
When Mack stopped talking, there were several moments of silence as that last piece of information sank in. Ben Todd finally said, “That’s quite a story.”
Mack shrugged. “I know it sounds fantastic, but it’s what happened. I’m not making it up.”
“I wish we were,” Lily said in a barely audible voice.
“So stay away from the woods,” Mack repeated what he’d said earlier. He glanced around the room, hoping he was getting silent agreement from everyone.
“I’m staying right here,” Jenny Seville said, confirming his assumption about her as she looked around at the rest of the hotel guests like she hoped others were going to keep her company.
Paula and several of the men nodded in agreement. Mack noticed that Lily wasn’t signing up for the group sit-in.
Neither was Tom Wright, the car salesman. “I’ve had enough of other people telling me what to do. I think we’re okay if we stay in the hotel.”
“Based on what?” Mack asked.
“Maybe because that’s what I fucking well prefer to think,” Wright said, his voice rising as he spat out the words.
“Keep your comments civil,” Paula said.
“Why should I?”
Lily shook her head. “Because it’s better to be polite. Foul language can only make things worse.”
“How could they be worse?” he shot back.
Mack waited for her answer, but she didn’t offer any insights.
George Roper stood up, walked to the back of the bar and snatched a bottle of Dewar’s from the shelf. He poured himself a tumbler full and held it up to the light, looking at it like the secret to the “Hotel California” might reside in its amber depths.
“If I drink all the Scotch here, do you think there will be more in the morning?” he asked.
It was a very interesting question, but nobody had an answer.
“If we all just sit here, we’re going to get on each other’s nerves,” he said, shooting Jenny a look.
“What do you suggest?” Ben Todd asked.
“Each of us could write down what we’re feeling,” Lily suggested.
That drew several derisive laughs from the men in the room. “You want to turn this adventure into a therapy session?” Tom Wright asked, his tone mocking.
“I guess not.”
“Is it an adventure?” Todd asked.
Roper made a disparaging sound. “Like being dropped in the middle of Disney World with no cast members to tell you what to do.”
Again Mack watched Lily, trying to gauge her reaction. She didn’t seem to like the comparison.
“Nobody else reported what they found,” Jenny said, sounding hopeful.
“That’s right,” Lily quickly agreed. What was she expecting? Some revelation, or was she seeing the exchange as a way to pass some time? And then what?
“Well?” Mack asked. “Did you find anything we should know about—or anything particularly interesting?”
The other teams gave reports. Nobody had found anything besides a luxury hotel—with an abundance of upscale facilities. But no staff members in the place. The only unusual trip had been into the woods, and Mack was thinking they could have avoided it if they’d just stayed where they were supposed to be.
Supposed to be? He wondered what that meant exactly.
“I’ve got a question,” Paula said. “Was the—unpleasantness—in the woods designed by the management to keep us in the hotel? Or was it an outside influence?”
“Good question,” Mack said, looking at Lily. “Outside influence or part of the setup?”
“How would I know?” she shot back.
He shrugged. “Just trying to get your opinion. Do you have one?”
“Outside influence,” she finally said.
“Why do you think so?”
She was ready with a quick answer. “Because there’s nothing to be afraid of in here.”
“Except the guy who tried to choke you,” Mack reminded her.
“But he’s disappeared.”
“Has he?”
“I hope so,” she answered quickly, and again he couldn’t help thinking that she knew more than anybody else.
When she didn’t volunteer anything else, Mack looked at Roper, who had made the comment about the liquor to the group in general. “Anybody sleepy?” he asked.
They all considered the question. Nobody answered in the affirmative.
“Here’s another one. Anybody have to go to the bathroom?”
Again nobody was feeling a full bladder.
“And we’re all in tip top physical condition?” Mack asked.
He watched the people in the room taking inventory. Some stood up and stretched. Others raised their hands above their heads or bent over and reached down toward their toes. Jenny turned her head from side to side.
“I had a stiff shoulder,” Todd said. “It’s better now.”
“Yeah, and my knee isn’t giving me any problems,” Paula reported.
�
��That’s all good, isn’t it?” Lily said.
“Hopefully,” Mack answered.
“You don’t want to feel good?”
“Sure I do. But the last thing I remember is ejecting from a fighter jet. You’d think I’d have some aftereffects? At least some muscle pulls or something? Do you have a medical opinion about that?”
“A medical opinion?”
“You’re a nurse, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
He thought he saw a shadow cross her face, but it was gone before he could be sure it was really there.
“So let me ask the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question,” Mack said. “Now that we’ve been here awhile and thought about our physical condition, where do you think we are?”
He saw various reactions around the room.
“A prison?” Chris Morgan muttered.
“Why do you think so?” Ben Todd asked him.
“Because we can’t get out.”
“If it’s a prison, it’s pretty plush.”
“How about a mind-control experiment?” Todd asked.
Jenny winced. “Do you really think so?”
“It’s as good a guess as any.”
At the side of the room, Tom Wright stood up, and Mack looked toward him.
“You have a theory?”
“Not that I want to discuss.”
“But you’re thinking something,” Mack pressed.
“I’m thinking I’ve had enough cheerful togetherness,” the man clipped out. He headed for the door, then stalked out of the room. Mack waited for several moments, then stepped into the hall, seeing the defector striding toward the lobby. He followed, staying near the wall and several yards back as he watched the man stalk across the expanse of marble floor and turn right into the main hallway. Wright marched into the business center and closed the door behind him.
Mack walked quietly to the door, pausing at the side of a potted palm, and waited several seconds to let Wright think he was alone. Finally he eased the door open a crack and looked in. The car salesman was seated at one of the computers. He turned it on and waited. Mack held his breath. Did this guy know something that the rest of them didn’t? Like did he have a way to communicate with the outside world? Long seconds passed, and then a message flashed on the screen, “Unable to load mail.”
“The fuck you say. I mean, what is this?”
Wright slapped the desk next to the machine, then began pressing buttons. The tactic didn’t produce a mail program, but the screen flashed with an announcement of games and movies.
“Oh right,” Wright muttered. “Canned stuff. Just what we need to keep us occupied.”
Mack might have stepped into the business center, but movement at the corner of his eye caught his attention. He stayed still, facing the door, but he swiveled his eyes in time to see Lily climbing the stairs. She looked like she was in a hurry—with a known destination in mind. Maybe following her was more productive than trying to figure out what Wright was up to.
oOo
Mack eased farther behind the palm, watching Lily pause at the top of the stairs and scan the lobby. She had gotten out of the bar pretty quickly. He’d like to know what excuse she’d made to the others, since they’d already established that nobody had to go to the bathroom or were tired.
As he watched, she headed down the hall. He waited again, then made a dash up the stairs, noting that he could run up the flight without feeling winded.
When he turned in the direction she’d gone, the hall was empty, and he clenched his fists in frustration. Then he remembered she’d said she was in room 250. It could be a lie, but the way she’d said it argued for its being the truth.
He moved along the carpet, stopping at room 250. He could have knocked. Instead he tried the knob. It was locked, and he felt a surge of disappointment. And also surprise at his own actions. Since when did he walk into a woman’s bedroom unannounced? And without an invitation.
He could have turned and gone back to the bar, but he had the conviction that finding out what Lily was up to was more important than anything else he could think of.
Why? He couldn’t answer. Yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that everything in here was speeding up and that if he didn’t find out what was going on, time would whiz by so fast that it would smack him in the ass on the way past.
Not even sure what that meant, he stared at the lock. Then, on a hunch, he slipped the keycard out of his pocket and inserted it in the door slot. As he’d half expected, the light turned green. And why not? It was kind of like the computers not giving access to personal mail but providing a selection of games and movies.
Fake. Or not designed to function the way you had a right to expect.
A right?
He was pretty sure his rights had been summarily snatched away from him before he’d woken up in this artificial environment. Because he knew it was only a cunning shadow of reality. And maybe it would have taken longer to figure that out if the sky hadn’t turned wonky and the guy in the woods hadn’t tried to take over his mind. His only consolation there was that the same thing had happened to Lily, too. She hadn’t been faking her fear and confusion. In fact, maybe it was worse than his, because she expected something from this place—and wasn’t getting it—and he had no expectations.
Quietly he pushed the door open and stepped across the dark polished wood floor onto the plush Oriental rug, feeling the thumping of his heart. Because he was doing something he knew was wrong? Or because he thought he was finally going to get some information?
He spared the chamber a quick glance. Like his digs, this was a suite with a living room furnished in English period pieces and presumably a bedroom down a short hall.
He might have moved slowly and quietly, but he was in a hurry now. Good thing. As he strode down the hall, he saw Lily reaching for the closet door. When she realized she wasn’t alone, she pushed the door shut, her eyes wide as she stared at the man who had dared to follow her into what should be personal space.
“What are you doing here? You don’t just walk into a woman’s bedroom,” she said in a voice it seemed she couldn’t quite hold steady.
He’d had the same thought before he’d decided to follow through on the forced entry. Well, not exactly forced.
“How did you get in?”
He held up the plastic rectangle. “With my keycard.”
“Your card? Why would it work in my door?”
“Because the locking system is fake, just like the entertainment system is all old, prerecorded stuff.”
Before she could grapple with that, he shot another question at her. “Why did you rush up here?”
“I didn’t rush.”
“You looked like you were in pretty much of a hurry when I saw you race up the stairs.”
“But I checked . . .” Her voice trailed off as she must have realized what she was admitting. She started again. “What were you doing, following me?”
He lifted one shoulder. “To be clear, I was following Wright, not you. I was at the door to the business center when you flew past. What was so important that you left the rest of those wretched souls to fend for themselves?”
“I’m not their keeper.”
“What are you?”
She hesitated for a moment. “A person who ended up in this weird place.”
“I think you know more about it than the rest of us.”
“No.”
The denial lacked conviction.
Chapter Twelve
Lily didn’t like the accusatory tone of Mack’s voice. It was one of the many things she hated about this whole miserable charade. Not just that he’d asked the question but that she had to keep him from finding out what she’d been going to do.
She might have screamed in frustration, if that had been an option. When she’d agreed to put herself in this situation, she hadn’t understood all the implications. Not by a long shot. Before she’d woken up in her bedroom in the Mirador Hotel, she’d thought
of most of the other people who were here in the abstract. With the exception of a few, like Mack Bradley. Now she could see that they were real individuals with real problems and real fears.
But her change of perception wasn’t just having to do with the people she’d met here. It was the black bird that had landed in the woods, the clouds that had taken over the sky, turning the bright blue into a preview of horrors to come.
And then going into the woods with Mack and almost losing her mind. If he hadn’t been with her, she was pretty sure she would have ended up like someone who’d had a prefrontal lobotomy.
Now he had invaded her bedroom with an aggressive defiance that would have frightened her if he’d been one of the other men in the hotel.
But this was Mack, the only guy here she thought she understood. In the short time they’d been in this place, she’d seen him as a born leader, a protector of the weak, and also a man who was determined to figure out why he had ended up with a bunch of strangers in this hotel.
And when he’d decided she was acting suspiciously, he’d wanted to know what was up.
As he moved purposefully toward the closet, she knew she had to keep him from going in there. And the only way she could think of was to make him change the focus of his thoughts to something a lot more personal than Lily Wardman’s suspect motivations.
Without giving herself time to reconsider, she reached for him.
The move was so out of character that she could hardly believe what she was doing. She hadn’t been with a man in years. She certainly shouldn’t be with this one. But something about this place and the man made it seem like the right thing to do, at least at this moment.
And she had a good reason, she told herself. She had to stop his blatant snooping.
Of course it was a lot more than that. She’d been drawn to him, not just when she’d encountered him in this weird environment. Before . . . .
Well, she’d better not think about that. As far as this reality was concerned, there was no “before.” There was only now.
As she folded him into her arms, she felt him go very still, probably trying to decide how to react to her sudden invitation.
Rx Missing (Decorah Security Series, Book #10): A Paranormal Romantic Suspense Novel Page 7