The Queen

by Skye Warren

  “Seven days.” My heart clenches hard as I say the words aloud. The reality of the situation sinks in more in that moment than before. I can no longer imagine this is a dream. No longer hope she’s pulling some extended surprise vacation. This is happening. “We talked to the police. To campus security. It’s like she vanished. Gabriel flew there that day and tore the place apart. He’s still there, looking.”

  And he isn’t sleeping or eating. He looks like a tornado hit him.

  For a while I stayed there, too, hoping we’d find her on campus or in the Emerald. Only when it became clear that she wasn’t anywhere did I have to leave. And I felt a pull toward Tanglewood, as if the answers would be here.

  Is it a coincidence that my father and Avery went missing so close together? They really have nothing in common, except for me. In that way they’re parts of the same puzzle. Variables in the same equation. I have to solve this. That’s the only way to bring them back. It’s the only way to find them both. The only way to make sure I don’t disappear as well.

  Chapter Ten

  Presidents run for office. Dictators steal it. Kings are born, and that’s why it’s the perfect way to describe Damon Scott. He commands any room he enters. He owns the very ground he walks on. And he wears that invisible crown with both pride and resignation, because it’s a bittersweet birthright.

  Jonathan Scott ruled the west side of Tanglewood through terror. Everyone knew not to cross him, even a six-year-old girl in elementary school. One with an uncommonly good mind for mathematics. He would have taken me from my sad trailer-park life. He would have turned me into… what? A monster? A whore?

  I never found out because Damon sacrificed himself for me.

  Does that excuse him for turning into a monster?

  For turning into a whore?

  He leads me up the stairs to the room I know is his bedroom. The room where he once cradled me in his arms after his father attacked me. Are there more half-naked people in that large bed? Are they dancing and having sex like the ones downstairs?

  The closed wooden door doesn’t provide any hints to what’s inside.

  Damon turns the latch. The silence is almost tangible, a wild relief after the chaos below. I suck in a deep breath from even the nearness to it—to calm and quiet.

  He nods his head, a small gesture of chivalry at odds with the party downstairs.

  I step into the room, dragging my little suitcase behind me. It suddenly feels unbearably intimate—the secondhand luggage with my clothes inside. My panties and my little bottles of shampoo that I took out in the airport security line. All of that in Damon Scott’s bedroom, as if I plan to stay with him. As if we’re lovers.

  “The chances of being found reduce at an exponential rate every day in the case of missing persons.”

  My words ring in the air, testament to my lack of social graces. Other women can swing their hips and smile in that seductive way. Other women are downstairs.

  Damon leans against the wall, looking unmoved by my words. “What makes you think she’s missing?”

  I blink. “Because she’s gone. She’s not in her apartment. Not on campus.”

  “I mean, what makes you think she left against her will? Were there signs of a struggle? A note written in blood? What makes you think she didn’t leave on her own?”

  I’m standing near the door, unable to move closer. Unable to leave. “Why would she do that?”

  “Why wouldn’t she?” he counters, as casual as if we’re debating whether it will rain today. The clouds are heavy. They might pass through. “Maybe everything wasn’t perfect with Gabriel Miller.”

  Goose bumps rise on my skin, because everything wasn’t perfect. She was worried about Gabriel, worried and too afraid to tell him. I can’t help but think one of these days he’s going to go away and not come back. Instead she was the one who went away.

  “Why wouldn’t Gabriel tell you about her?”

  “You’d have to ask him.”

  “I’m asking you. I thought you were friends.” Gabriel had been here, in the Den, the day that Damon brought my wet and shivering body here. The day he’d brought me back to life.

  Damon unfolds himself from the wall, standing taller than he did even five minutes ago. This man commands more than a room. He could move an army. And he approaches me like I’m his enemy. “Darling,” he says softly. “I let you leave this city. I let you leave me.”

  His desire is electric, a live current through my whole body, from my core spreading out to my fingertips. “You had nothing to do with it.”

  He ignores that. “And now here you are with your Bambi eyes, acting like you didn’t just walk into the dark fucking forest. What am I supposed to do with you?”

  I swallow. “You could help me find Avery.”

  A small smile. “I thought you wanted me to find your father.”

  “Can’t we do both?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. What if you could only pick one, baby genius? What’s the calculation you use to weigh a human life? Did they teach you that in college?”

  There’s lead in my stomach, a heavy weight full of worry and guilt. And a terrible fear that I’m somehow the cause of this. “It’s been seven days. That’s how long Avery’s been gone.”

  “And?”

  “She’s your sister. Don’t you care what happens to her?”

  “Ah, dear old dad. I’m not sure that his infidelity constitutes a family.”

  I stare at him, shocked. “He was married to your mother?”

  Jonathan Scott has always seemed more legend than man. I can’t imagine him doing something as mundane as getting married. Who could convince him to say vows? Who would want to?

  “How do you know she didn’t leave on her own?” he asks softly.

  My lips press together. I know it deep in my bones, which ignores everything I believe about numbers and symbols. This is some other kind of knowledge.

  “In fact,” he says, using a low version of that showman’s voice. “That puts those terrible statistics in a different light, doesn’t it? Realizing that some of the women that go missing do it on purpose. They do it to escape. And they don’t want to be found.”

  “Avery didn’t do that.”

  He speaks in slow challenge. “How do you know?”

  “Because I was there,” I burst out, my voice shaking. “I was sleeping when she disappeared. Right next to her. She asked me to spend the night because she was afraid, and I failed her.”

  Tears prick my eyes, and I turn away from him—from the warm yellow glow of the lamp, from the tall silhouette of a man who doesn’t want my grief. He doesn’t care about it. It’s an inconvenience to him, and even that’s my fault. Who would he be if he’d escaped instead of me?

  Damon Scott is too sharp, too strong. Too real in every way.

  I didn’t cry when Avery went missing, not when the police came and took my statement. Not when they escorted me to the station and made me wait in an interrogation room for three hours. Not even when Gabriel Miller arrived and looked at me with cold calculation, as if he was figuring out whether I had hurt Avery or had a hand in it. He must have decided against it, because I’m still alive.

  Damon destroys the walls I’ve kept around myself for years. Rips through the dreamlike state I’ve been in since I found myself alone in Avery’s bed, wishing every second to wake up. I’m awake now, but she’s still gone. There’s a piercing ache in my chest with no numbers to shield me.

  The air shifts. I don’t hear him move, but he doesn’t have to make a sound. He could leave me here, the scared little girl unworthy of his time. He could find one of the beautiful women downstairs. I already know they would do anything for him, when I can barely bring myself to breathe.

  Something appears in front of me. He’s holding out a sheet of paper. I blink to clear my vision. A single tear drops onto the page, leaving a large gray dot. There’s ink scribbled here.

  Two rows of jumbled letters. A row of random num
bers.

  “What is this?” I say, my voice thick with grief and confusion.

  “You tell me, baby genius. It arrived seven days ago. The same day Avery James disappeared.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “What is it?” I ask even though I already know. It’s a puzzle, and there’s a part of me that yearned for this. For a puzzle I can’t immediately solve. One without a textbook to explain it to me. I’ve been searching my whole life for something I can’t unscramble, for a riddle without an answer.

  Which makes me feel like a terrible person.

  “Maybe nothing. Gibberish. Or a message from Avery herself.”

  “Or a ransom note.”

  “Why would a kidnapper put his ransom note in code? Doesn’t he want to get paid?”

  Okay, that’s a good point. But this is still the best lead to where Avery has gone. The only one. “You think it’s related or you wouldn’t have shown me.”

  “I told you to leave.”

  “And you didn’t throw this away when it came.”

  “I have no interest in games.” His words are punctuated by a crash from downstairs.

  The thought of that beautiful foyer chandelier broken on the marble entry makes me wince. “Not interested in games? Then what do you call what’s happening downstairs?”

  “Boredom,” he says.

  I know my expression reflects my doubt at that. There was a full harem of beautiful women down there. Men, too. Does he sleep with both of them? “Aren’t you worried about what they’re breaking?”

  A dark look. “Does it matter?”

  “Yes,” I say even though the admission feels too personal. The Den may be a bed of crime and masculine power, but it’s also the only place I felt truly safe.

  He studies me as if he can see under my skin, beneath the college student and even the mathematician, all the way to the scared little girl who’s never trusted anyone but him.

  With a short nod he turns away and pulls out a shiny black phone. He murmurs something I can’t make out, slipping it back into his pocket a moment later. He stares at me with those dark, fathomless eyes.

  One, two, three seconds later. The beat stops.

  Silence rings in my ears. My bones feel unnaturally still without the heavy bass.

  “What happened?” I ask faintly.

  “I told them to leave.” He says it plainly, without guilt or grandeur. It’s in that matter-of-fact tone that he admits how much my words matter. How much I matter. All I had to do is say that I didn’t want them breaking his things, and they stop.

  “Does everyone listen to what you say?”

  “Usually,” he says, his expression wry. “You’re an exception to the rule.”

  It’s too unnerving, the way he looks at me. Taking me apart, uncovering every secret with methodical determination. That’s supposed to be my job. It would be better if he yelled at me. This subtle understanding is too much to take. “I’ll call Gabriel. Tell him about the message.”

  “No.”

  I pause, my hand halfway to my back pocket where my phone sits. “What?”

  “What’s the point of telling him? He has no chance of figuring it out. Not until you do.”

  The paper burns my fingers, everything it represents—both about Avery and about me. “This isn’t my area of study. Ciphers. Encryption. We should find someone else.”

  “Is there anyone else you would trust with Avery’s life?”

  Somehow I know the message is meant for me. Did Avery send this? Did she know that I would go to Damon Scott? We talked about him the night she disappeared. Could she have sent this to him knowing it would find its way to me?

  And why bother putting it into code? She could have written Dear Penny at the top of a regular note. For that matter she could have scribbled something on paper when she left the hotel room.

  “He has a right to know,” I say slowly. “He loves her. If she sent this—”

  “If she sent this. We don’t know. What’s the point of getting his hopes up when it might be unrelated? Furthermore, she sent this to me. What if she didn’t want him to see it?”

  My stomach clenches, because there are too many unknowns. “I don’t know what to do.”

  A look of sympathy passes over Damon’s handsome face. “Did I give you the impression you had a choice? My apologies. You don’t need to worry. There’s nothing for you to decide.”

  The certainty in his voice is a cold finger along my spine. “What does that mean?”

  “It means you’ll be staying here until you solve this.”

  It’s almost a relief, the pain. The end I’ve been waiting for. Waking up after a beautiful dream. “No.”

  There’s a catch in my voice proving I don’t mean it. He smiles a little. “You can fight if it makes you feel better. I’ll enjoy pinning you down.”

  And I realize how sometimes you end up in a web. Not through traps and trickery, but walking right through the front door. “So why don’t you?”

  “I don’t have to. You want to stay. You need to know what that message means. And what’s more, you’ll get off on figuring it out. We’ll both enjoy this.”

  “I won’t,” I say through clenched teeth.

  A low laugh fills the large room. “I suppose we’ll have to wait and find out.”

  The bed looms between us, once an innocuous piece of furniture, now a weapon. A wall. “I’m not sleeping in this bed with you.”

  “Of course not,” he says, gesturing to a side door. “You’ll be in there.”

  It’s too much to hope that there’s a hallway. A small little guest room with a lock I can turn on the doorknob. My feet are filled with lead as I find out.

  The doorknob turns easily, revealing a very dark room. It takes me a moment to figure out what I’m looking at—not a closet. Almost as small, though. There’s a bed so thin and flat it must be a cot. And a chest of drawers. The furniture here is solid but plain, in contrast to the ornate carvings and heavy brocade in Damon’s bedroom. No other door leading out, only this one, leading in.

  Beside the bed is a small bell attached to the wall. I stare at it, puzzled. And then turn to look over my shoulder. Beside Damon’s overlarge bed, there’s an old-fashioned switch.

  My stomach drops as I realize what this is. Servant’s quarters.

  Made for someone who serves the king.

  Chapter Twelve

  I spend the evening working at the plain desk, a stack of empty paper beside me where I can try out various ciphers. The Caeser cipher is a basic substitution of alphabet letters, really only child’s play. One displacement makes B mean A and C mean B. Two displacements, three. There are twenty-five distinct ciphers, assuming both sets of alphabets go in the proper order.

  If the letters are jumbled, there are over 400 trillion permutations to try. And that doesn’t even get into homophonic substitutions. Or the infinite number of other forms of codes.

  The only thing I know for sure is that we’re in big trouble.

  It’s like trying to crack a modern-day bank safe with a hammer and a pick. It’s technically possible but only if you have eternity. That’s how Dr. Stanhope has taught me to think—in abstract absolutes.

  Meanwhile there are two lines of text that have a very real application.

  I’m used to late nights with my head bent over my paper, but my neck aches by the time I turn off the light and climb into the cot. It’s surprisingly comfortable for what amounts to a pad of cotton—or maybe I’m too exhausted to care. It seems like a hundred years ago that I stepped into a cab at the Emerald’s staff driveway to head to the airport.

  My view isn’t so different from the one there. A small rectangular ceiling on top of a small rectangular room. That’s how I justify my decision to stay. I couldn’t go back to Daddy’s apartment, not with the lock busted. And I don’t have money to blow on even a cheap motel.

  That reasoning worked for me when I sat down to work, more focused on the code than my sleep
ing arrangements. It feels a little more sinister as I look at the door that leads to Damon’s bedroom—the only way out of here.

  He was a gentleman when I used the bathroom to change into a loose T-shirt and sweatpants. When I brushed my teeth. How long will that last? What if I have to get up in the middle of the night?

  There’s plenty of room in the bed with him. Would I have felt safer if he expected me to sleep beside him? No, I wouldn’t. But I would have felt more like his equal.

  With this move he’s making it clear that I’m not.

  The small silver dome of the bell barely glints in the darkness. What if he rings the bell? Am I supposed to answer it? I definitely couldn’t sleep through it if he tried. And what would he ask me to do? To get him a cup of water? What did rich people need at night that they can’t do themselves?

  My cheeks heat as I think of a darker purpose for that bell.

  He might want a different kind of service.

  I won’t do that. I won’t. But I can’t deny the way my body responds to the idea. It always seems to get warm when he’s around, my skin flushed, my clothes suddenly chafing.

  That’s how I fall asleep, imagining the bell ringing, thinking of Damon’s heavy-lidded look, pretending that he wants me for something more than solving a puzzle.

  I push out onto a rough-water dreamland, every wave a dark reminder of what’s underneath the surface. Memories mix with a dangerous future, until I’m not sure what really happened.

  I’m back in our old apartment, the one I share with Mama and whoever she’s seeing at the time. My small clock with the kitty whiskers says it’s morning, but my head is pounding. It’s hard for me to sleep over the music she plays. I push the sheets off my legs and cross the carpet.

  Her bedroom door is open, her sheets rumpled and empty. I want to check for her in the kitchen. Sometimes she makes French toast, if she’s feeling good. I hope there’s French toast.

  I start to walk that way, but the bathroom light is on, the door cracked open.

  And there’s a weird smell in the air. Not the sweet stuff she smokes or the heavy scent of alcohol. This is something metal, like the way my hands smell after going across the monkey bars.