by Ciana Stone
She ran her fingers through her hair and walked out into the hall. After exploring the left end of the hall and discovering three other bedrooms, all empty, she retraced her steps and continued past the room she had awakened in. She came to a staircase and descended into a bright and airy living area.
“Ah, you’re awake.” Emory Ashbrook was sitting in a chair next to a picture window that provided a lovely view of a sweeping lawn and a lake beyond. He put aside the book he was reading and stood.
“What did you do to me?” she asked. “How long have I been here and where’s Harlan?”
He walked over and took her hand in both of his. “I assure you that I didn’t harm you in any way. I merely administered a strong sedative. You have been here since yesterday afternoon. You slept through the afternoon and night.”
“And Harlan?”
“My poor, dear girl. There is simply no easy way to say this. I’m afraid Harlan is…dead.”
Senna didn’t realize her legs had given way until she found herself sitting on the deep-pile carpet looking up at Emory in shock. “Dead?” she croaked. “When? How?”
Emory knelt down beside her and took her arm to help her stand. He led her to a comfortable chair facing the one he had vacated. “Yesterday,” he told her.
“I don’t understand.” She rubbed her temples where a nagging headache was threatening to escalate into a pounding one. “If he was dead then why…”
“Perhaps it would be simpler if I explained,” he volunteered. “I was instructed to deliver you to the hotel. Once there, I was to administer a sedative and wait for Harlan to return. He had a meeting to attend. With whom, I do not know. At any rate, I did as he requested. I didn’t know until after you were unconscious that he had already returned and was dead. Not knowing what else to do, I took you to my car and brought you here. I’m sure Harlan would not want you implicated in his murder.”
“Murder? Are you sure?”
“Quite.” His face paled a bit. “He was…decapitated.”
That was too familiar. “Was there a note on him?” she asked. “One with strange markings, written in blood?”
“How do you know that?”
“Let’s just say that it’s becoming a pattern for people I care about to end up that way,” she said then fell silent and looked outside, trying to get a grip on her emotions.
Emory didn’t interrupt the silence but sat perfectly still, waiting. After several minutes she turned to him. “Why did he want to see me? What was so urgent? He said there was someone I needed to talk to but he wouldn’t say who. And why would he want me to be knocked out if—”
“He wanted you to meet me,” Emory interrupted
“You?” The remark surprised her. “But…but then why did he send you to pick me up? Why didn’t he come himself and—”
“Please.” He held up his hands. “One question at a time. To begin with he wanted us to meet because I requested it. I volunteered to pick you up because no one was looking for me. You see, my dear, of late it appears as if virtually everyone who has ever known you has experienced rather strange occurrences in their lives—sudden illnesses, inexplicable fires or auto accidents and the like. One by one, they have been isolated away from their normal surroundings and subjected to extensive and often painful interrogations concerning you and your father.”
The idea that she was the cause of such pain made Senna feel sick. What could Dad possibly have been into to make people so frantic? she wondered. And what makes them think I know something about it?”
“Harlan had been threatened?” she asked. “By whom?”
“It is difficult to say. You must understand there is more than one faction at work here. Many are desperate to attain the information and most of them would think little of the means they use to accomplish it.”
She sighed heavily and closed her eyes for a moment, leaning her head back against the chair. It was like a bad dream. “How do you know all this?” She was seized with sudden suspicion.
“Your father and I were very, very close. Before his death, I vowed that if the time came when there was a threat of the data being exposed, or you were put in jeopardy, I would do everything in my power to protect you and the data.”
“That’s twice you’ve told me that you and my father were close. And yet I know I never heard him mention you. So how exactly did you know him and why didn’t he ever mention you to me?”
“Oh, but he did.” Emory smiled. “A great many times.”
She shook her head. “No, he didn’t. I’m sure of it. I never heard your name until you picked me up today—excuse me, yesterday.”
Emory smiled at her. “Oh, of course you haven’t, at least not that you can remember. However, I have no doubt that once all of your memories are restored, not only will you remember me, you will have reason to trust me.”
“So now you’re not only my father’s friend but the one person I can trust?” she asked skeptically.
“Yes.”
“Well, excuse me for not taking your word for it, but in my current position, I find it very difficult to believe people. There’s no way I can know if you’re telling me the truth.”
“But there is,” he assured her.
“How?”
He reached over and touched his fingers gently to her forehead. “By unlocking what’s hidden in there.”
She looked into his eyes and held the gaze for a long time. She couldn’t explain it, and it certainly made no sense, but she wanted to believe him. “How?” she whispered.
“First, I must warn you. The more you know, the greater the danger. Once you know all, your life will be at even more risk, as will all the lives on this planet. The knowledge you hold is more frightening than you can imagine. Your father was killed because of it, as were many others. In all honesty, you would be better off if you never remembered.”
“I keep hearing about this secret information!” She jumped up from her chair. “How it’s something so important, so earth-shattering, and dangerous and I can’t believe that people are referring to me—or to my father. If you really are his friend then you know he was just an archaeologist, not a nuclear scientist or…or someone inventing biological weapons. An archaeologist! This whole thing is like some nightmare that makes no sense. I tried to tell Slater that but he wouldn’t listen. He even has my psychiatrist convinced that I know something that threatens the fate of humanity and—”
“And he’s right,” Emory interrupted. “But you should know that you cannot trust Bruce Slater. He was instrumental in your uncle’s and your father’s death and he will think nothing of terminating you, or worse. He will strip your mind from you, Senna, one slice at a time until there is nothing left and then he will toss your useless body aside. He is a completely amoral man without a shred of conscience.”
She agreed with his assessment of Slater, but still didn’t know if she could trust Emory any more than she could trust Slater. “How do I know that you’re not just some lunatic trying to trick me? How can I know you’re telling me the truth and you’re not just like Slater? And how can you know he was involved in my father’s death? Not only that, but what do you know about my Uncle Graham?”
“A great deal.”
“So you claim.”
He stood and reached out to her. She drew back from him. “Please.” He held out his hand, palm up. “I will not harm you.”
Hesitantly, she placed her hand in his. He looked at the ring on her finger. “How does this make you feel? Do you sense anything from it?”
The question surprised her. Why would he ask that, unless he knew there was something off about the ring?
She looked down at the ring then back up at him. He was smiling. “Let me venture a guess,” he said. “When you first put it on you felt a strange vibration or energy pulse.”
“How do you know that?”
“May I?” He started to remove the ring.
She allowed him to slide it from her finger. “I devis
ed this, many years ago,” he said. “It seemed the perfect hiding place.”
Senna was astonished to see the setting that held the gem swing open on an invisible hinge. Emory turned the ring over and something almost too small to be seen with the naked eye fell into the palm of his hand.
“What is that?” She stared at the speck in his hand.
“Get the glass from the desk,” he nodded across the room. “Top right drawer.”
She hurried across the room and jerked open the indicated drawer. Inside was a magnifying device similar to a jeweler’s loupe. Returning to him, she fitted the glass to her eye and peered at the speck in his hand.
“It looks…” She glanced up at him in amazement. “It looks like some kind of control chip.”
“Very good.” He smiled and crossed the room to take a sheet of white paper from the desk. “Let’s return this. There’s an eyedropper in the penholder. Help me.”
Senna assisted him in transferring the chip to the white paper then Emory returned it to the safety of the concealed storage compartment of the ring.
“What’s it for?” she asked as he slid the ring back on her finger.
“We will get to that,” he said and at a frown from her, added, “I promise. But first there are other things that require our attention.”
“Such as?”
“Such as a decision. Or more correctly, your decision.”
“You mean my memory. I’ve already decided. If there’s something up here,” she tapped her head, “then I want to know what it is. Two years of my life are missing and I want them back.”
“Despite the danger?”
“Yes.”
“And are you sure now that you can trust me?”
“Provisionally.”
“And those provisions?”
“There’s only one. Prove you’re who you say you are.”
“Actually, it’s you who holds the proof. And the way to get to it is very simple. It requires no drugs, no instruments, no hypnosis—you need only answer two simple questions. If you can, then your memory will return.”
“What are the questions?”
He said something in a language that at first she didn’t understand. “I don’t—” She stopped as the words suddenly registered in her mind.
“Has the request for reactivation been made?” she translated immediately as he asked the question again.
“Yes,” she said softly.
“Who requests initiation of the reactivation sequence?” he asked in the same alien tongue.
To which she replied without hesitation, in the same language, “The Keeper of the Gate.”
A pain more intense than anything she had ever experienced dropped her to her knees. Gripping her head in both hands she screamed in agony. Her last thought was that she had trusted the wrong person.
* * * * *
Downtown Charlotte
Ian Drake was wet with sweat and shaking with fear. He cringed as Slater leaned over and put his hands on either arm of Ian’s chair. “I’m going to ask you one more time, Doctor. Where is Senna Laserian?”
“How many times must I tell you that I don’t know?” Ian was close to tears. Slater and his men had shown up just as he was leaving for the afternoon. They’d forced him back into his office. He wished he had taken Kendal up on her offer to work late and catch up on the correspondence he had been putting off. At least there would have been a witness to Slater being there.
Slater sat down on the edge of the desk and leisurely lit a cigarette. After drawing deeply on it, he exhaled and looked at Ian. Before Ian knew what was happening, Slater had grabbed him under his chin and jerked his head back. He wanted to fight back but was too afraid.
Slater leaned down and stuck the glowing tip of his cigarette in front of Ian’s left eye. “Have you ever seen what happens to an eye when fire is put to it?”
“No!” Ian gasped. “Please, I swear, God as my witness, I don’t know where she is!”
“But you did go to see her, didn’t you?” Slater waved the cigarette back and forth in front of Ian’s eyes.
Ian knew it had been a mistake to lie about that, but he had never imagined that Slater would find out. He had been so careful and hadn’t thought that Slater would be watching one of his own men. Obviously, Slater didn’t trust Konnor any more than he did anyone else.
“Yes, I went to see her.”
“Why?” Slater withdrew the cigarette and stepped back.
“I wanted to assure her that the sessions were safe and she should continue to cooperate.”
“Really?” Slater arched one eyebrow then snapped his fingers and opened his hand, palm up in the direction of one of his men.
The man pulled a DVD case from his inside jacket pocket and placed it on Slater’s hand. “Are you sure that’s all it was?” Slater wiggled the DVD in front of Ian’s face.
Ian’s eyes were glued to the DVD. It had to be the one he had asked Konnor to keep for him. Either Konnor had betrayed him or Slater had searched Konnor’s house and found it. He should have found a safer place to hide it.
“No answer, Doctor?” Slater asked.
“I-I…” Ian couldn’t come up with a convincing lie fast enough. “I always tape my sessions. I thought…I thought there would be no harm and then later…later I thought—”
“You thought you’d use it as leverage,” Slater finished the sentence for Ian.
“No!” Ian protested, but when Slater looked at the man standing behind Ian’s chair and the man took a step closer, Ian changed his answer. “All right, yes. I…you have to understand. I was—I am afraid. I’m not accustomed to…well, to the type of things people like you do. I was only trying to protect myself.”
Slater chuckled in a cold way and tossed the DVD to one of his men. “Let the good doctor see this.”
The man put the disc into the player and started it. A garbled exclamation burst from Ian’s mouth when he saw the image on the television screen.
“I imagine your wife would be very interested in this, don’t you, Doctor?” Slater asked.
Ian couldn’t look. His face was red with humiliation. If his wife ever found out the type of sexual entertainment the women on the disc provided for him, she would leave him and take every dime he had. Not only would he be left penniless, his reputation would be ruined.
“Are all you shrinks such perverts?” Slater asked.
“Please,” Ian pleaded. “I beg you. I’ll do anything you ask, but please destroy that.”
“I think we’ve seen enough,” Slater directed. The television was turned off. “You stayed at Chase’s after he left,” Slater said to Ian. “What did you talk to her about? Did she say anything that would indicate where she was going?”
“No. Konnor had only been gone a few minutes when the phone rang. She answered and spoke briefly with someone. When she hung up she said she had to leave, an appointment she couldn’t miss. We left at the same time and she said she would see me later for the session.”
“Did she say what kind of appointment? Was it with a man or woman?”
“No, she only said an appointment.”
“And you can’t think of anything else?”
“No.”
“All right, Doctor.” Slater motioned to one of his men and the man stepped into the reception area with Slater. When they returned, Slater carried a length of nylon cord in his hand.
Ian bolted to his feet, intending to run. But the man behind his chair pulled a gun and stepped in front of Ian. Ian’s legs locked in place and he couldn’t move.
“It’s a sad thing,” Slater said as he handed the rope to the man beside him. “A man who has it all—a lovely home, loving wife, social standing, successful career. Who would think that beneath the façade hides a sick, twisted man? Really, such a shame. But it happens. After years of trying to live a lie, one day you just snap. Like that.” He snapped his fingers.
“No!” Ian couldn’t believe this was real. This could not be h
appening to him. “Please, I’ll do anything you say. I’ll never breathe a word of this to anyone. I swear. Please, please don’t.”
“Sorry, doc, but you’re what we call a loose end. And I’m the kind of guy who always ties up all the loose ends. Get on with it, boys. And make sure everything is as it should be for the police. We don’t want any questions raised about the good doctor’s tragic suicide.”
“No!” Ian screamed. “Please!”
Slater turned on his heel and left the room. For the first time in his life, Ian knew what it meant to be a spineless coward, because he could not even find the courage to fight as the man looped the noose around his neck.
* * * * *
Auston Woods Apartment Homes, Charlotte
Ryan had just taken off his jacket and holster when the doorbell rang. He opened the door to find Konnor Chase. “What can I do for you, Konnor?”
“Have you seen or heard from Senna?”
The question surprised Ryan. “I was under the impression that she was spending most of her time with you.”
“I don’t have time to get into that with you right now,” Konnor said. “Just answer the question.”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Okay, sorry to bother you.”
“Hey, hold up!” Ryan stepped outside as Konnor walked away.
Konnor stopped and turned around.
“Why do you ask?” Ryan wanted to know.
“She disappeared yesterday afternoon.”
“What do you mean disappeared?”
“I mean vanished.”
Visions of Harlan Pierce-Warner’s body made Ryan shudder. A background check had revealed that not only had Pierce-Warner been a close friend to Senna’s parents, he was close with Senna as well.
“Did you notify the police?”
“No.”
“For god sake’s man! With all that’s been going on don’t you think—”
“No, I don’t,” Konnor interrupted, taking a step closer to Ryan. “And I’d suggest that if you value her safety, you won’t shoot your mouth off about this to anyone.”
Ryan stared at Konnor in disbelief. “Just what’s going on?”
“You tell me, detective,” Konnor replied. “People are being murdered all around her and the only thing the police have to say about it is that maybe she should be considered a suspect. Did it ever occur to any of you that maybe she’s just another victim? One who’s being terrorized by some lunatic with an agenda that no one understands?”