by JA Huss
Oliver looks around the room, frowning. This place is so busy tonight. Three hundred guests. The resort is totally full to capacity. Apparently Nolan’s sister, Claudette, booked this event months ago, long before all that shit with Nolan went down back east and she disappeared. “This whole thing gives me the creeps.”
“I agree.” It’s a Zeta Phi Beta sorority reunion and after everything my mother told Cindy and I out at Del Mar, it’s just… weird.
“Let’s go get her and get to the bottom of this silver envelope thing.”
We set our sticks back into the rack and then push our way through the people, out of the bar, then outside and have to practically fight our way through the people at the pool.
The quiet of the path that leads to the private family bungalows is a relief. And it’s a welcome sight to see everyone is still up so we can get all this shit out in the open and put our collective heads together.
The secrets need to be over now. Oliver is willing to talk about what happened to him That Night and I for one, cannot wait to hear it. Then we’re going to give everyone else a chance to come clean with any other secrets so we can put this bullshit behind us.
As a team.
Fuck this silence. There is a time and a place for that, but it’s long past now.
“Hey,” Ariel says, coming up to us as we come into view from the path. She stops talking, then squints her eyes, looking past us. “Where’s Cindy?”
“Still sleeping, I think.”
“No,” Ariel says. “She got up like ten minutes ago and left to look for you guys.”
“What the hell is wrong with you, Ariel? You don’t let her go off by herself at a time like this!”
“She was not friendly, Oliver. She basically told me to fuck off and mind my own business.”
“So?” Oliver grabs his hair with both hands and turns to look at me.
“It’s fine,” I say. “She’s fine. Come on, I think she probably went to get that envelope.”
“I knew that envelope meant something! That little shit lied to me!”
Oliver and I start walking, but Ariel jogs to catch up and says, “I’m coming too. I told her to go look for you guys in the bar.”
“Well, there were a shitload of people in the bar, but we didn’t see her. If she just left, we might’ve crossed paths in the crowd of people.” I say the words, but I have this really sick feeling in my gut. And when no one agrees with me, the feeling grows.
We push our way back into the crowd at the pool, then fight our way back to the bar. “You go check in there, Ariel,” Oliver says. “We’ll go look in the kitchen. We’ll meet right here in five minutes. Do not,” he says, stressing the words, “go anywhere else. Just wait for us. Even if she’s not in there.”
“Got it,” Ariel says. And takes off.
“Do you think she’ll listen?” I ask.
“No,” Oliver says. “Do you think my sisters ever do what they’re told?”
We have a small laugh at that. But we stop quick enough when we get to the dark kitchen and find it empty.
“Where’s the goddamned lights in here?” I ask.
“I don’t fucking know,” Oliver says. Probably some master switch. “But she’s not here, so let’s go back to find Ariel. Maybe she was in the bar after all.”
I don’t move.
“Come on,” Oliver says, grabbing my arm.
“You go meet Ariel.”
“What the fuck, Pax?”
“I just don’t want to miss her. What if—”
“What if what?” I can hear the fear in his voice all of a sudden. And I feel the same way.
“I think we need to search, that’s all.” I look at him in the glow of light flowing up from the outlets on the wall. “She could be here, right under our noses, and we’d miss it.” I know I’m implying she’s hurt, but I do this for a living. I fix shit. And when you’re fixing shit, you don’t skip the details. “We need to search.”
We spend whole minutes looking for the lights, and when Oliver finally finds the switch, hidden behind a rack of stainless steel bowls, and the whole room is illuminated, we have to concede, she is not here.
“That’s good,” Oliver says. “Now let’s go meet Ariel.”
But I stand in place, just looking around. “I can smell her,” I say. “She was here.”
“You cannot smell her, asshole.”
“No, listen. She smells like a bakery, Oliver. Some perfume or lotion she uses. She smells like a bakery. And I can smell it right now. She was in here. Very recently.”
“So maybe she left. And went to the bar. And she and Ariel are waiting for us in the lobby?”
“Go then,” I say. “Go meet them if you think that’s the case.” I stare at him, his blue eyes nearing panic. “But I don’t think she is. We need to look around.”
Oliver looks longingly at the door and I can practically read his mind.
He wants that possibility to be true.
But it isn’t.
And when he looks back at me, we both know it for sure.
“Footprints,” I say. “She has those cute boots on. Look for a scuff on the floor or—”
“What the fuck is this?”
“What?” I say, making my way around a table to where he’s bending down. He stands back up grasping something very small and thin in between his fingers. He holds it up and the light glints off the slender piece of silver.
“A needle?” I ask. “Give me that.” I hold out my hand and Oliver drops it into my palm. “There’s blood on the tip.”
“Dude—” Oliver says.
“Don’t,” I say sternly—I’ve found enough bad evidence in my day as a fixer to know what’s coming next from him—“panic.”
“Someone drugged her,” Oliver says, talking very fast. “She came in here looking for that envelope, bent down right here, where we’re standing, and then stood up, and someone fucking drugged her. And then she pulled it out, threw it down…”
“There’s a scuff mark,” I say, pointing to the floor. “Look. Her boots.”
“What’s that?” Oliver asks, pointing to the stove.
I bend down and see a piece of long, blonde hair stuck in a red stove knob. I pull it free and hold it up in the light.
“Jesus fuck,” Oliver says. “Someone fucking took her.”
Chapter Thirty-Five - Cindy
My eyes flutter uncontrollably, and all I can think about is how weird I feel. What the hell… A clinking of glass in ice, very close to my face—so close I can feel the coldness on my cheek.
“What?”
“I’m sorry,” a woman says. She’s very close too. “I do apologize for our methods. It’s always uncomfortable when you bring someone new into the fold. We can’t avoid it, or we would, I promise. This will pass in a few seconds. The drug is reversed very quickly.”
She’s right. From the start of her sentence to the final word, everything goes from slow and sluggish to crisp and clear.
I try to lift my head and see who is talking, but a shooting pain makes me cry out.
“The headache and muscle control takes a little longer. It’s just a precaution. So you can sit still and listen as your future is explained.”
“What… the fuck—”
“Oh, now.” The woman laughs. “We don’t use words like that in this organization, Cinderella. And that name of yours, I’m sorry, it’s going to have to be changed. You’re OK with Cynthia, though? Right?”
Chapter Thirty-Six - Paxton
“I need a gun,” Oliver says, staring at the few strands of his sister’s golden hair I placed on the table. “Like, right the fuck now.”
“Just relax,” I say, pulling out my phone and tabbing a contact.
“Who are you calling?”
“Five,” I say, when he picks up. “We have a problem. Get Nolan and meet us in the catering kitchen. If you see Ariel out by the bar, tell her Oliver and I want her to go back to the private area immediately and
everyone else should stay together in Perfect’s cabana. And Five,” I say, looking at Oliver as he tries not to freak out. “Bring the guns I know you have. One for each of us.” I end the call and shove the phone in my back pocket. Oliver is still staring at the hair.
“It’s gonna be fine.”
“How the hell can you say that?” Oliver asks, his anger replacing his shock. “Someone drugged her and then took her away, Pax.”
“I realize that, Oli. But it’s not going to do any good if we freak the fuck out, OK? Now, look. I do this shit for a living. We need to stay calm. We need to look at everything in here and try to figure out where they took her. Nolan knows this place. Every inch of it. He built it, right? He’s got the plans. He’s got security cameras. We’re gonna find out who did this, where they went, and we’re going to get Cindy back.”
“How long do you think she’s been gone?”
“It can’t be more than twenty minutes. Thirty tops. Let’s look around while we wait. There has to be some kind of clue. People always leave something behind.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven - Cindy
By the time I can finally lift my head and focus my eyes enough to see her face with some sort of clarity, I know one thing for certain. “You’re not Mariel,” I say, coughing like my lungs are full of fluid.
The woman laughs and pulls the silver hood off her head, revealing short blonde hair that curls along her shoulders. “I never said I was, Cynthia.”
“But you’re calling me Cynthia. Like she does.”
“Like…” The woman tilts her head, like a dog who’s heard an unfamiliar sound. “You spoke to Mariel Hawthorne?”
Oh, I think, taking a deep breath to try to clear my mind of the grip the drug had on me. So she’s not as well informed as she wants me to believe. “Several times,” I choke out, still feeling the pressure in my lungs. What the hell did she give me? I turn my head to look around, figure out where the fuck I am, but everything spins and I have to fight down nausea.
“Don’t move too fast,” she cautions me. “The side effects of that are particularly uncomfortable. Just relax a little longer. You’re going to be here for a little while.”
I straighten my head again, look her straight on. I’m sitting at a small round table with a silver tablecloth, table set with fine china. There’s a small silver dome, like the kind you see on a room service table that conceals a few small pads of butter underneath. And a bottle of champagne sits next to it.
She notices me staring at the bottle. “You’re not ready for that just yet. Try the ice water first. If you’re satisfied with my offer, then we’ll have plenty of time to celebrate later. After we’re all done ironing out the details.”
“Details?” I ask, reaching for the cold glass that woke me up and taking a sip. My mouth is so dry; I feel like I’ve been lost in the desert for days. The table is lit up by a small chandelier hanging over the center. Just enough light to see and not enough to reveal what’s hiding in the darkness surrounding me.
“All the things you’re going to do for us, Cynthia. And all the things we’re going to do for you in return.”
She reaches into her robe and takes out a silver envelope. The one I dropped in the kitchen earlier, from the address label on the front. “You should be more careful with this,” she says, placing it on the table between us. “I saved you this time. But if anyone gets a hold of this, Cynthia, the ramifications will be unpleasant.”
“Define… unpleasant.”
“Oh, I’ll explain our bylaws, don’t worry. I’m just trying to warn you. If anyone finds out that you’re now a member of the Silver Society, well…” She chuckles and looks away, shaking her head, like this is so funny. She gives me a sidelong glance as the laugh dies. “You will forfeit your family.” She holds both hands out, like it’s just this simple.
“I’m not a part of your little secret group,” I spit, furious at this whole situation. “And I won’t join. So sorry, lady. You’re gonna have to find yourself another little puppet. I don’t play games like this.”
“You know,” she says, placing a perfectly manicured fingernail up to her mouth like she’s trying to be cute, “your sister said the same thing.”
I cannot hide the gasp of shock that comes bursting out of my heavy lungs. “What?” I whisper.
“Aurora Shrike had her chance. Don’t make the same mistake she did, Cinderella. Or your parents might find another one of their daughters has gone missing.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight - Paxton
We find eight more clues, including a few more strands of Cindy’s hair and a long gash on the floor of the catering kitchen, probably made by her boots, and most likely indicating she was dragged.
“She didn’t leave the kitchen,” Nolan says, phone in hand, showing us the security footage. “Look,” he says. “She went in here, through that door there”—Nolan points to the large double doors that lead to the hallway—“and she didn’t come out.”
“Then where the fuck did she go?” Oliver asks.
“Well.” Nolan sighs. “I don’t know. But she didn’t leave by the connecting kitchen either—it was still being cleaned up for the night.”
“I already asked them if they saw her,” Five says. “They said no.”
“So you’re telling me,” I say, “she never left the kitchen.”
“Yes,” Nolan says. “We have no cameras in this kitchen, but we do in the regular one. And they don’t show her in there either.”
“Why no cameras in this kitchen?” I ask.
“I dunno,” Nolan says. “Claudette designed it as spillover for catering and large parties. It wasn’t meant to be used every day.”
“Claudette?” Five asks.
We all look at each other. Then Nolan.
He sighs, then nods. “She was in charge of the construction out here while I was working in San Diego.
“So there’s a hidden room,” Oliver says. And he’s not joking. Most people would think that’s a little too Scooby-Doo to be taken seriously. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from being Oliver Shrike’s best friend, and by extension, inside Five’s outer inner circle, it’s that the weirder shit gets, the easier it is for them to accept it to be true.
Some might call that paranoia.
They call it the “real world”.
“And all we need to do is find it.” Five starts walking the perimeter, eyes searching the walls for any indication that something is hidden behind them.
“You think there’s a hidden room?” Nolan is still in Scooby-Doo land.
But I have learned to trust Five and Oliver over the years, so I don’t waste my time asking questions.
“Guys,” Nolan says. “Come on. There’s no hidden room. I have the plans right—”
“Found it,” Five says, standing in front of an open electrical panel. “Stand back.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine - Cindy
“Don’t look so horrified, Cynthia,” the woman says. “It’s very easy to prevent another family crisis.”
“Just join your little cult,” I say, sarcasm practically dripping off my tongue.
“We’re not a cult. Did Mariel tell you that?”
I say nothing.
“Well, she’s lying. We are the most prominent citizens of this country. We are the leaders, the innovators. We are doctors, lawyers, judges, mayors, governors, and many, many other things, Cynthia. But we are not a cult. We are a sororal society.”
“A secret society, you mean,” I manage to say. “I have to be honest Ms.—” I let the title hang there to see if she volunteers a name.
“You may call me Claudette.”
Her name rings in the air like the lingering tone of a bell after being struck.
“Our sisters run this country, Cynthia. And you will be one of them.” She looks me up and down for a second, tsking her tongue. “Of course, we will need to clean you up and make you presentable. And you won’t be wasting your time as a private detective anymore.
” She smiles. “We will lift you up, Cynthia. You will run a city, then a state, and then, perhaps, if you spend a decade or two as a loyal and hardworking sister, we will reward you with the ultimate prize.”
She’s talking about the presidency. Overkill much? Like I’d ever be the one they’d put in the highest office on the planet. She must think I’m the most naïve girl ever.
And why not? It’s the blonde hair. I’m the palomino racehorse on the track that day.
The only thing people see when they look at me is my looks.
Well, that’s fine with me. I like being underestimated.
I want to say so many things. Like, Lady, you are bat-shit crazy. Or, I’m going to rip your head off if you don’t tell me what happened to my sister. Or, Just wait till my boyfriend gets here, you stupid cunt. And then we’ll see—
“What do you think of that?” She smiles at me. Calmly. Coolly. Certain she is in control.
“I think,” I say, really, really wanting to give her a proper Bombshell response that would make my mother proud, but thinking better of it at the last second. “I think I’d like to know where I am.”
Another indulgent smile. And then she snaps her fingers and lights begin flicking on, one by one, around the perimeter of the room.
Chapter Forty - Paxton
Five flips a switch and the lights go off, then come on again. But nothing else happens.
“Yeah,” Nolan says. “Nice hidden room.”
“You know what?” Oliver says. “You can just go back to your little fucking—”
“Oliver,” Five snaps. “Shut up. He hasn’t seen what we’ve seen over the years. Don’t blame him for thinking this is some crazy, fucked-up shit. OK?”
Oliver looks like he might punch Five. But Five stands his ground and meets his gaze and Oli turns away from Nolan.
Nolan sighs. “Look, you guys—”