Lies (The David Chance Series Book 3)

by Hileman, John Michael

  Jackson, who was normally silent, said, "Is that a hundred thousand?"

  The dealer confirmed the figure.

  A shock wave circled the table. One after another the players folded, until it got to the cowboy across the table. His eyes were fixed on Jon. The fingers of his right hand cut a stack of chips in half and re-stacked them in a compulsive loop. Was he seriously considering matching the bet? If Jon took the hand it would be an incredible win. But if the hand went to the cowboy, it would put him back to a mere twenty thousand.

  He sat, hardly breathing. Though he knew the game was rigged in his favor, he still felt the uncertainty weighing on his chest. Could these beings see the next turn of the cards or could they only see what had already been dealt? What was the extent of their power?

  Do you know the outcome of this game? he thought.

  "No," said his mind.

  Do you know the man's cards?

  "Yes."

  Do you know what card will be flipped next?

  "No."

  His pulse surged. Then HOW do you know I'll win this hand?

  "We don't."

  He wiped his sweating palms on his pants and looked across at the staring cowboy. Then, almost as though receiving a command, the cowboy pushed the chips to the center of the table.

  The dealer confirmed the matching bet, and the lean man to the right of the cowboy threw his cards in. "Too rich for me."

  Jon's eyes snapped to the dealer’s hand as it slid the next card out, swooped it across the table, and flipped it up by the first three. It was a jack of spades, to go with the ace, king, and jack of diamonds.

  Jon's hands pushed the last of his chips forward. "All in."

  What? That's everything.

  "We will win."

  But you said...

  The card shark's voice spoke with authority. "This hand is yours."

  He felt his fear begin to ebb at the sound of his calm reassurance.

  The cowboy matched the twenty thousand and flipped his cards over. Jon found himself doing the same. From what was revealed, Jon had a full house and the cowboy had a pair of aces and a pair of kings, with the potential for a flush.

  The lean man, who had a tendency to talk too much, said, "Whoa, full boat, kings over jacks."

  With a swipe, the last card was flipped. Two of clubs.

  Jon couldn't believe it. He’d won! He actually won! This pot brought him up to four hundred and twenty thousand dollars—almost half a million in under four hours! He dragged the chips back to his position, but there was no containing his excitement. This was, without contest, the absolute pinnacle of his life.

  Maddy's hands rubbed across his shoulders. Her minty voice whispered in his ear. "You're amazing!"

  For the first time in his life, he actually felt it to be true. With the help of the voices, he was able to be more than what he was born to be, just as they had promised. The thought pushed away the anxiety of the game. He drank in the moment.

  There was no fanfare for his triumph, however. The game continued on. The conversation moved to a discussion on what was the largest pot anyone had ever sat in on. It seemed to be an unspoken rule that the pot that had just been won was not to be mentioned, at least not at this table, out of respect for the loser, or maybe it was nothing more than a self defense mechanism. Jon had no idea, but he respected the unspoken code.

  The night wore on, but the numbers in the room didn't dwindle. In fact, they grew. This game was apparently more excitement than this room had seen in months, partly due to the wealth of the men sitting at the table. The lean man on the other side of the table turned out to be a billionaire resort financier, and the cowboy sitting next to him was an oil tycoon from Texas, both of whom were taking heavy losses after coming off of winning streaks.

  The professional gamblers at the table were the old guy sitting next to Jon, Jackson, and a French soccer star turned pro-poker player, all of whom were down several thousand.

  Only two clear winners sat at the table, Jon, and the man on the other side of the old poker pro, a media mogul named Brent Castle. He was up nearly five hundred thousand, based on what Jon could piece together from the conversations circling the table.

  Cards flew, and only three players stayed in with a raised pot of thirty thousand. Jon looked at his cards and repressed a smile. Two aces stared back at him. The cowboy called. The pot raised. And the first round of betting was complete. The dealer laid out three cards: a four of diamonds, a two of spades, and a queen of hearts. His position seemed ironclad.

  Brent Castle peeled a stack of chips off the top and laid them out in front of him.

  "Twenty-eight thousand, seven hundred," said the dealer.

  This drove the cowboy out of the hand, leaving Jon to face off against Mr. Castle.

  Jon's shaky hand reached out and slid a full stack of chips in.

  "One hundred thousand," said the dealer.

  It was a good play for a pair of aces as far as Jon could see.

  Castle quietly contemplated his position and ruffled his chips in his fingers. A hundred thousand dollars was a lot, probably even for him. Finally, he pushed a few stacks in, and the dealer said, "Two hundred forty-four thousand, six hundred."

  Jon's heart nearly stopped. Did Castle have the hand or was he throwing the big money in to make him back down? It would have worked if this were a normal poker game. Thankfully, it wasn't. He felt the familiar influence take control of his hands and watched as they pushed all of his chips toward the dealer. This was it! This was the big pot. If he took this, his winnings would be close to a million!

  Jon struggled to control his shallow breathing and waited to see what Castle would do. He had to give up another hundred and ten thousand in a chance to win the hand. But even if he had the better hand, a lot could happen with two more cards. Was he committed to finding out?

  Castle pushed the chips in and matched the bet, but it was clear he was not happy about it. "There you are," he said, "let's see ‘em."

  Jon's hand flipped his cards over, revealing the two aces. Castle showed his cards: a king and a queen of spades. He was sitting on a pair of queens and hoping for a flush. If the last two dealer’s cards were garbage, the hand was Jon's. Unbelievable. He would once again be a millionaire, with the help of the voices.

  The dealer flipped the next card and Jon stared in horror. It was a queen of clubs, giving Castle a three of a kind, beating Jon's pair of aces. Without another ace he was sunk. That meant, out of the entire remaining deck, there were only two cards that would win him the hand. The voices sure enjoyed cutting it to the wire.

  Slowly the dealer slid the card out. Every eye in the room was locked in anticipation. With one card, over six hundred thousand dollars would be won or lost. The card flipped, but it took Jon's brain several seconds to realize what he was looking at. It wasn't an ace, though it had a peak like an ace. Was it a four? How could it be a four?! He looked up with shell shock at the mix of expressions staring back at him. It was over. He’d lost. In one hand he had lost everything.

  Once again, there was no fanfare for the winner and only a moment of silence for the vanquished. The chips were slid away from him by the dealer, and Castle started stacking them.

  "Well played, Mr. Blake. Well played," said Castle, respectfully.

  Jon questioned the voices. What just happened?

  There was no answer.

  Did you just set me up for another crushing failure?

  Again. Silence.

  "So that's it," said Jon, out loud. "I guess I've established one immutable fact. I am a loser. There can be no question of that anymore." He got up from the table and passed his eyes over the assembled players one last time. "I guess it's not possible for a person to change their luck." He looked back at his date. Though it was not her intention, he could see rejection and revulsion in the way she stood slightly off center to his position, scanning him up and down with lifeless, hesitant eyes. It was a look he had seen before from t
he popular girls at his school. But this woman wasn't like those. She was a professional. He saw the mask fit itself back into place as she remembered what she was being paid to do.

  He turned his back to her and rolled his jaw. "Thank you for allowing me to join you this evening. I'll see myself out." Maddy caught him by the arm, but he pulled it diplomatically from her grip. "Why don't you stay here and enjoy a few more drinks."

  "Is that what you want?" she said, pretending to be hurt.

  "Yes," he said, aware of the listening ears. "I need to be alone. You stay and enjoy yourself."

  Before she could respond, he was already away from her and heading toward the door, anger boiling in his veins. What did these creatures want from him? Was he just a plaything?! Was this whole episode uniquely manufactured to torment him?! The precision with which it all came together to strike at his deepest need for respect and importance couldn’t be a coincidence. These extra terrestrials knew what they were doing, and it reeked of abductions and cow mutilations.

  A calm voice reverberated in his mind. "Everything we do is for a purpose. Nothing is coincidental."

  And what purpose did THAT serve?! I was humiliated! His walk slowed.

  "Only because you allowed yourself to be."

  Are you SERIOUS?!

  "You will learn to let go. You will learn to trust. Then there will be no discomfort."

  Their riddles threw his mind into a tailspin.

  "When you begin to obey without question, there will be nothing you cannot do, and nothing we cannot give you."

  And nothing you can't take away.

  He passed by the beefy security guard, swung the door open.

  And stopped dead in his tracks.

  Chapter 8

  Canary couldn’t believe her eyes. It was him, just as Jackson had said. His hair was shorter and he looked strange in the black dress shirt and slacks, but it was him. The same bronze skin, the same dark hair that swooped up in the front, the same piercing eyes—eyes that confirmed, beyond disputation, that he was the same tortured soul mate she had secretly fallen in love with.

  Was it true? Were Jon's voices leading him to the conference? Would he take her with him into the epicenter of her deepest nightmare? She struggled to find a breath.

  Jon's lips shaped her name. She stood fixed in place. He turned to pull the door closed, but did not take his eyes off her. Even a foot away, she could feel the heat of his body and the power of his eyes drawing her in.

  "Where have you been? I thought you were dead," he said, squaring his shoulders.

  "Hiding," she said, with a blink.

  "From who?"

  "Jakson."

  His face tightened. "Jakson turned against you?"

  "I thought he did, but I had things all wrong." She narrowed her eyes. "Your voices didn't tell you what happened?"

  "No," he said, with noticeable disdain in his features.

  "Stop joking around. You knew. They must have told you."

  He started to respond, but stopped.

  She studied him. "Are you okay, Jonny?"

  "Yes." His eyes scanned up and down the hall. "I'm just trying to figure some things out."

  She wished she could hear them speaking to him. She wished he could draw her into that secret place.

  His silver blue eyes rested on hers. "How did you find me?"

  "Jakson sent me."

  "Jakson?"

  "He wants me to help you."

  His brow scrunched.

  "He wants me to help you do what your voices are leading you to do."

  "Well, he's out of luck, I'm not following them anymore." His face soured. "Does Jakson even know what these things are? These voices?"

  She felt her breath leave her body as he spoke the words. It was really happening. Just as Jakson said it would.

  "Does he know who they are?"

  Yes. Jakson knew who they were—at least, who Jon believed them to be—because Sandman had seen this moment. This conversation had been recorded years ago. It was how Jakson knew about Jon's gift in the first place. It was how she knew. Jon was about to reveal it to them all. It had already happened. Yet she watched as if it was happening for the first time.

  Could she change history? What repercussion would one stray word have on the tapestry of time? She didn't dare find out. She followed the script precisely as it had been given to her by Jakson. "Yes," she said, mechanically, "He knows."

  Jon's countenance undulated as he sorted through a mix of emotions. "And what does he think about these aliens?"

  It's not aliens, Canary thought. Jon's gift was the same as Sandman's—he could see the future in all of its probability. Jakson's theory was that the fear of what was to come had shattered Jon's mind into two parts: one human and familiar, one strange and mysterious. Would he let her in close enough to help him realize the true nature of his incredible ability? She hoped with all her heart. But for now she needed to dodge. He wasn't ready to hear the truth. Not yet. "He believes they can be trusted."

  Jon's mouth curled down. His words were cold and distant. "Does he now..."

  She reached out and touched his cheeks with her palms and ran her fingers around the back of his strong neck into his thick brown hair. "I'm sorry you’re going through this," she said softly. His eyes settled on hers, his thick dark lashes blinked. She slid her hands over his shoulders and down the backs of his arms, resting on his triceps. If only she could stay here with him, locked forever in a timeless stasis. She would willingly allow the world to crumble if they were protected in each others arms.

  But there was no safe place to hide from the coming darkness. According to Sandman, the cataclysm about to befall them would be worldwide. No soul would be spared the all-consuming poverty and disease that would spread across the earth like a cancer. She needed to get into that conference and look at the teleprompter speeches. If Sandman's dreams didn't reveal the name of the unifier soon, it would fall to her to uncover his identity.

  The door behind Jon clicked open. Canary pulled away.

  "Am I interrupting?"

  Jon turned to face the man standing in the doorway. Canary was unable to see what he was saying.

  The man looked surprised. "I figured you’d be long gone, but Mr. Jackson said he saw you run into someone in the hall. It appears he was right."

  Jakson? Canary thought. How did Jakson get in the room? She had left him downstairs. Was it another of his operatives?

  Jon turned sideways so his lips came back into view. "This is my friend, Canary. She's staying in the hotel."

  "It’s nice to meet you, young lady."

  "Nice to meet you," she said, shaking his hand loosely.

  His eyes turned back to Jon. "Jackson made a good point. He said I shouldn't let you slip through my fingers. You have quite a story and it is a story people need to hear."

  Jon hesitated. "You- want to do a story on me?"

  "You are what we call an underdog, Jon. Everyone loves an underdog."

  "Thank you. I think."

  "If you're interested, I'd like to pay you to do some radio interviews. It would be a substantial amount. You can talk about your difficult childhood and about surviving the tragedy of flight 304. Our listeners will love it." The corners of his mouth lifted into a smile. "Maybe you can change your luck after all."

  There it is, thought Canary. Confirmation. This was why Jon's voices had brought him here. Jakson said fame would get Jon into the conference, and here was a man who could make it all happen.

  But apparently Jon wasn’t interested in following the script. "I appreciate the offer, Mr. Castle, but I’m really not interested in airing my screwed-up life publicly."

  Castle? Was this Brent Castle, owner of Castle Communications? It was even better than she thought. This guy owned half of the media companies on the east coast.

  "You could just talk about your ordeal. It's still fresh, and people want to know what it was like to have half a city block come crashing down on top
of you. David Chance isn't telling the story, so why not you?"

  Jon didn't respond. His face was frozen in introspection.

  "What do you say? You can earn back some of the money you lost tonight."

  "But you have the wrong story," said Jon, staring down at the floor.

  Castle's head cocked to the side. "Really? How so?"

  "Everyone thinks David Chance is the one with all the abilities, but he isn't." Jon looked up with a new air of confidence. "I told him to put that food in the bank, I told him to clear the building. I was the one who got David and the bank manager into the vault. I was sent to save Elliot James. That's why David isn't talking about it. He's not the one responsible for doing all that. I am."

  Canary felt like she had been kicked in the chest. Did he just say he saved Elliot James? How could he do that? Why would he? Her heart surged with anger and betrayal. Before she could stop it a question erupted from her mouth. "How could you? Why would you save Elliot James?" Her sudden outburst startled them both. "Why? After all he did to you and your family? Why? Why would you save him?"

  She could see the pain and apology in his expression. There was something he wanted to tell her, but couldn't. Did he really save Elliot, or was it just a ruse to manipulate Castle? A picture of Jakson flashed in her head. She remembered the curl of his lips as he spoke the name of David Chance. Jon didn't save Elliot, David did. Horror slid over her like a blanket. How stupid could she be? It was a bluff—and she was ruining everything! "I'm sorry," she said, quickly. "I- I'm sure you did what you had to do. I shouldn't have interrupted."

  She watched Jon regroup—as only she could—taking note of every muscle in his face and measuring the length of his silence. To anyone else it would have seemed strange that he gave her no response or that he stood motionless staring through her, but not to her watchful eye. She knew what he was doing. There was a conversation going on in his head—possibly a fight—judging by his tense demeanor.

  Finally, as if a hypnotist had snapped his fingers, Jon broke from his trance and looked at Castle. "Could I hold one of your rings?"