There was no attempt to shake hands or hug. His father knew better than to try.
“Do you know why I love this house so much?” his father continued without waiting to hear Will’s greeting. “Frank Lloyd Wright was in his sixties. Forgotten and supposedly a has-been. Nobody wanted his creations, not after the arrival of the Great Depression. Oh, but he still had more to show the world. And that he did.”
Jackson spoke slowly and deliberately like a man who never worried about being interrupted.
“I bet you agonize that he isn’t alive to design a house personally for you,” Will said.
“I do. But at least I get to wake up and go to sleep in the best he ever offered this world. His desire was to marry his architecture with people and nature in a perfect way.”
Will walked toward the windows, peering out into the darkness. The furniture was all black and white and modern, nothing from the original house.
“You had to construct this hill in order to put the house on it, didn’t you?” Will said.
“Yes. And in the daytime you have a remarkable view of the lake from where we’re standing. I would give you a tour, but it’s late, and it takes so long.”
“That’s okay,” Will said. “I’ve developed an aversion to anything related to Frank Lloyd Wright.” He turned away from the windows and faced Jackson. His father was more fit and trim than Will and wore jeans paired with a tailored but casual button-up shirt.
“Can I get you anything to drink?” his father asked.
Everything inside Will wanted a drink, a very strong drink that would make him relax a little and perhaps stop the sweat from coursing down his back.
“No, thanks,” he said instead.
“Have you seen James?” Heyford asked.
“No.”
“I knew you were lying about your brother, and I’ve been trying to figure out the real reason you wanted to meet. There is the obvious one, of course, and I really want to rule it out, but I can’t think of anything else.”
“I heard you had a job opening for a groundskeeper.”
His father laughed at the unexpected joke. “You have your mother’s sense of humor.”
There were many things about this reunion that Will refused to endure, and talking about his mother was one of those. “I’m just here to talk about me,” Will said. “And, no, I’m not here to ask you for anything.”
“You refused to take gifts from me when you were sixteen. I doubt you’ve changed since then.”
His father called out for a scotch, and a minute later a square, floating gray device the size of a thick hardcover book appeared next to him, balancing the drink on top of it.
“I’ve seen that in the news. What’s it called again?”
“A Circumvent,” Jackson said as he took the short glass. “I like calling it a magic tray.”
The hovering gizmo silently retreated out of the room.
“Only five of those have been made, right?” Will asked.
“Yes, but only four have survived. I had an issue with my first one.”
“An issue?”
“Yes. It no longer could fly after I swatted it with a baseball bat.” Heyford smiled that dynamic smile the world knew and loved.
If only they knew the searing madness behind it.
“Are you by yourself tonight, or is Miss Mississippi somewhere polishing her crown?”
Jackson ignored his open contempt. “Tiffany is in Park City. My wife’s younger and loves to play in the snow.”
“Thirty-three years isn’t merely younger. It’s creepy.”
“She would like to meet you.”
Will grunted as he walked to the base of the fireplace and stared down at it. He needed to prolong his time here so Hutchence had plenty of his own. “So far all I’ve seen on your property is a bunch of houses a century old and a flying food tray,” Will said, hoping he’d take the bait. It wasn’t just anybody saying these words. No matter who Jackson Heyford was, this was his second-born child uttering the mocking statement.
“I didn’t want to show off,” Jackson said. “Mol, create a party.”
All the lights shut off except for the flickering fireplace, swallowing everything in darkness until strobe lights began to pulse over the walls, ceilings, and floor. “Stayin’ Alive” burst through the air and sounded as if the band were singing all around Will. He felt the deep bass and beat as each radiating blip seemed to dance in perfect timing.
“Congratulations!” Will’s shout made his father stop the circus. “Seriously. Good job.”
Jackson Heyford appeared to be waiting to see what Will would say next.
“Buying the Bee Gees catalog wasn’t enough, was it? You had to turn a Frank Lloyd Wright house into a disco? Brilliant, Pops. Totally brilliant.”
Jackson’s curse wasn’t subtle or even slightly amused. As the normal lights returned, Will could see the indignation on his father’s face.
“Sometimes I wonder which of you boys is worse. The estranged son, the missing one, or the degenerate who’s going to get my inheritance.”
“Parenting’s hard work,” Will said. “I guess that’s why you never bothered to try.”
Will looked out the window and noticed another illuminated structure the size of a shack perched on what appeared to be a pyramid of pine beams.
“What is that?” he couldn’t help asking Heyford.
“Ah yes. The cottage. A lot more impressive than the Bee Gees.”
Will thought of Hutchence. “As much as I hate to say this, I’m curious what that one looks like.”
“It’s my newest piece.” Heyford’s eyes seemed to glow behind the spectacles. “How about I show it off before you say or do what you need to say or do and ruin this reunion.”
3.
The Seth Peterson Cottage had been built near Mirror Lake in Wisconsin, Will’s father told him as they moved up the pine stairs to the tiny house. Frank Lloyd Wright was ninety years old and broke, so when a passionate young fan, Seth Peterson, sent him a thousand-dollar retainer, he immediately spent the money and was forced to accept the commission. The eight-hundred-eighty-square-foot cottage contained a single bedroom and a sloping roof. When Will finally reached the top of several stories’ worth of steps, he stood on the wide deck catching his breath while his father continued to share the story about this cottage.
“There’s a haunting saga about this house,” Jackson Heyford said. “During the building Frank Lloyd Wright passed away in 1959 at age 91. The young man building the house was struggling with money himself, and a year after Wright passed away, Seth Peterson committed suicide.”
Wiping the sweat off his forehead while feeling the frigid air against his neck and cheeks, Will looked at the sandstone walls and then back at his father.
“The house was finished but sat abandoned, and after the Department of Natural Resources in Wisconsin took over ownership, they boarded it up and left it to ruin,” his father said. “Nearly twenty-three years later a woman canoeing on the lake below saw the cottage, and soon the cabin was saved by local volunteers and underwent major renovations.”
“And years later tech god and world philanthropist Jackson Heyford gobbles up the renovated cottage and sticks it on a set of wood blocks in the middle of his Frank Lloyd Wright museum.”
“That’s right, William.”
“Please don’t call me that. I haven’t been called that for twenty years.”
“We’ve spoken since your mother’s death,” Jackson said.
“I’ve tried to forget those instances.”
Will looked across at the panorama of his father’s estate, noticing all the Wright houses arranged in a creative way and connected to each other. He hadn’t heard any alarms or gunshots or explosions, so he figured Hutchence hadn’t been caught.
“Inside the cottage you will find my latest invention,” Jackson told him as he opened the front door. “Please. Take a peek inside.”
For the first time since arriving, Will felt scared. His body tensed, sensing danger beyond that doorway.
“Don’t worry. There are no boogeymen in there.”
His father had the gall to mock those constant nightmares he’d had as a child. Will smiled and walked into the cottage without another doubt.
4.
He waited for the lights to come on in this large room, but instead, all he found was darkness. The door behind him closed, yet he could see his father standing outside. Soon the glow of the night through the windows disappeared, as if all the glass had turned to black. Feeling a bit disoriented, Will reached out to find the handle to the door, but then he saw a face out of nowhere in the murkiness.
It was Bella looking up at him, angry and hurt. “You’re mean, and you don’t care about us. You told us that.” She was there in front of him, lifelike, real. Younger than she was now, but as vivid as she would be in her own bedroom.
Without mouthing a word Will could hear his yell. “Don’t you lie to try to convince Mommy! I never told you I don’t care about you!”
As Bella disappeared, at his side appeared Callie. He could feel her tugging at him, pulling him, repeating “Daddy, Daddy” over and over again. She mostly did that in public when she was anxious and uncertain but also sometimes when she was bored and a few times when she simply wanted to be irritating. Then, once again, he could hear his voice, mean and threatening and terrible, yelling at her.
“Would you stop it and leave Daddy alone!”
When she slipped back into the dark, Will imagined what might be next.
What exactly is happening here? Did I lose consciousness?
It felt colder inside this cottage than it did outside. Another voice came booming from all sides around him.
“Why are you being so mean? I didn’t do anything!”
This time it was Shaye screaming at him. He watched her looking so distraught and confused and then saw her disappear and slam a door somewhere in this underground corridor of his imagination.
“You come back here right now! We’re not done!”
He wasn’t imagining a made-up scene. These exchanges had happened in the past and were reminders of why Will was never going to write a parenting book. He shook his head as if the thoughts were water that had collected in his ears.
Then Amy appeared across from him, a vision that stunned him because for a second he almost believed she was there. Yet she didn’t look like herself. She looked empty and hostile at the same time.
“I wish I’d never married you,” Amy told him.
This time Will didn’t hear a response, but that’s because he had never responded. The conversation had ended like that, with a lukewarm apology from Amy coming later. Not apologizing for the words but for her overall anger.
I’m just dreaming or remembering this. That’s all. The really, really bad parts of the family journey.
These weren’t just parts, however. They weren’t simple dents in the car. They were the accidents on the road, the ones that had sent the vehicle into the shop for repairs.
Some things were never repaired.
He wanted to get out of here. Not only this cottage but this property and this space belonging to his father. As lights burst apart the darkness around him, Will found himself in an empty room with sandstone walls, wood floors, and a fireplace for a centerpiece. Without hesitating he rushed to the door and stepped back outside.
“What just happened in there?” Will asked, once again out of breath.
“Did you stroll down memory lane?” his father asked, his tone sounding more and more fiendish.
“Where’d that come from? What was that?”
Heyford walked closer to Will, stroking his chin as if he were a creative maestro. “There are many, many things a SYNAPSYS is capable of doing, things that people have no idea about,” Heyford said. “It used to be that people were scared about Facebook keeping their data on the recipes and cat pictures they liked. They have no idea. In wanting life to be easier and faster and better all around, people have allowed themselves to be monitored. And even worse, manipulated.”
“You have that information on file somewhere?” Will asked. “Are you serious? You just pulled up those little things?”
“I didn’t have to pull up anything. My LC simply asked yours for a few memorable scenes.”
“You’re stockpiling people’s lives? For what? Why?”
“I’m not collecting anything or monitoring anybody. It’s your LC, your wonderfully creative Tolkien matched with your SYNAPSYS. Dangerous tools. When you know how to control and work them, they can be quite deadly.”
Will knew it had to be close to midnight now. He had to get out of this place. But first he wanted his father to answer one question. “Tell me something. Did you in any way have something to do with my bookstore closing? Even some indirect way?”
Heyford laughed, a sound that made Will nauseous.
“There was nothing indirect about it. I specifically got involved. I made those calls and visits to the people in your town personally. I’m the sole—the only reason—your business shut down.”
Will let out a long, seething sigh. “You have everything in the world. Does it anger you that much that I don’t want to be in your world? Or are you just getting back at me?”
“I have no great sense of loss at what’s become of you. Or James. With him I simply want to know what happened and where he disappeared to. But what angers me—what truly incenses me—is what you claim to believe in. Your God and your Jesus. This world has long forgotten them. There’s no room and no place for Christ anymore.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Am I?” his father asked. “So tell me, William or Will. Tell me, great man of faith. What kind of father acts that way toward his children? What kind of husband makes his wife detest him? Is that what a Christian union looks like?”
Will wanted to curse his father or, better yet, to reach out and clutch his neck and begin to squeeze and never stop. He stood still, however, and felt his body shudder from both fear and anger as snow began to fall on them.
His father walked closer to him, staring at him and emphasizing his words. “Soon there won’t be any strong believers out there leading their flocks. There will only be followers like you, too weak and wounded to do anything. With a faith as fleeting as one of these flakes.”
5.
Back in his car, waiting for it to warm up, Will sat and watched and listened. Wanting any sight of Hutchence. Any sign. Anything. But fifteen minutes after midnight Will drove back down the long driveway and began his trek off this property. Somewhere back there in the darkness was Hutchence. Will didn’t know if he was safe or if he had accomplished his mission or even if he was alive.
NINETEEN
Emorithms
1.
Cheyenne could see four armed soldiers standing in the entrance hall to the Incen Tower, and that was just from where she stood. The wide and open lobby welcomed guests with its legendary 240-foot glass atrium that spiraled more than seventy-two stories above them, one of its many record-setting feats of architecture. In a wash of piercing sunlight on the Monday midmorning, the sprawling space crawled with all kinds of people, from businesspeople to tourists. She had never spent much time in the atrium simply because she always stayed in the sky, working and living and breathing away from all the curious. Away from all the commoners, as many residing in the building felt deep down, even if they never said it out loud.
The security guards in their official Incen Tower uniforms with handguns at their sides were visible, as were the stationary police monitors and the cameras set in various areas in this hallway. But seeing the military armed with assault rifles
made her heart beat faster. Malek noticed it too.
“Appears people are trying to protect their important interests,” he told her as they wove through the crowd to get to their designated meeting space.
As he led the way, Cheyenne wondered if she’d ever seen Malek in a suit before. They’d made a stop at a high-end outlet mall that morning, paying cash for brand-name clothes. For a few moments Cheyenne felt like someone out of a romantic movie, commenting on the clothes Malek picked out and then hearing him review hers. She liked the classic blue pin-striped suit with the blue-and-yellow tie, so he went with that. Seeing him wearing shiny dress shoes instead of the same faded Keds he liked to wear, Cheyenne had to admit that he looked handsome.
Like a typical guy, he had told her to buy a skirt and also suggested she go with the high heels even though that meant she towered over him. It felt nice for a moment in her imaginary world to pretend they were going out for a night on the town, heading up to a restaurant in Incen Tower all dressed up—until she almost fell over while trying on the four-inch heels. She told Malek she didn’t want to be hobbling around, especially if they needed to leave quickly. She looked classy enough to have her outfit pass for business attire, with her skirt ending above her knees and modest pumps.
In addition to their dressy attire, Malek wore glasses, and Cheyenne had her hair in a new style with it tied to one side, making them look different enough for the cameras monitoring everything not to instantly pick up on them if people were, in fact, looking for them. When they reached the set of welcome kiosks for those visiting the tower, they looked for Lucia until she approached them out of the crowd.
“Looking very fashionable today,” Lucia said as she handed each a gold card the size and shape of an eye. “Ready for your meeting today?”
Malek looked at the item in his hand. “I’ve always wanted one of these.”
The gold card was security clearance for important guests who didn’t want to be bothered with background checks and who wanted their visit and stay at Incen Tower to be discreet. It would be not only discreet but also unknown, since this card didn’t connect with a SYNAPSYS.
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