Cooper (17 page)

For a long time after silence fell in the bedroom, Amy continued to stand at the door, stunned by what she'd heard. Then, suddenly realising that the guard would be passing this way on his rounds shortly, she hurried on down the hall to the stairs to the kitchen.

While she sought out Juanita, who was still following staff schedules that pre-dated Hays disappearance, her brain was in chaos. Sure enough, Juanita was sitting in the break room drinking coffee and watching some Spanish soap opera on cable.

As soon as she entered the room, Juanita's face went from pleased to concerned. "What is it, Miss Amy?"

Amy sat on the sofa across from the Mexican girl and began twisting her hands together in her lap. With part of her mind, she realised the gesture belonged to old Amy, not the new. But in this moment she didn't have the strength to stop.

"Gloria has arranged to have me killed. I just heard her talking to her father. I don't even know who he is. Have I ever met him? He's supposed to be my grandfather, after all."

"I…I do not know, Miss Amy. No one has ever mentioned him. I have heard your f…Mr Hays railing about Mrs Hays' bad blood, but I never understood what that meant. I thought there might be human in there. You know, more human. They try to keep their blood as pure as they can, but they cannot wipe out the fact that half of their blood was originally human. They were all male, those first alien colonists."

Amy knew that. She'd been educated about her heritage from an early age. NOT her heritage, she reminded herself. She shared no blood with those monsters. And never was anything more apparent than in this moment when her mother planned to have her killed, as if she was simply an impediment in her path to the wealth and power she considered hers by right.

"How can I find out?" Amy asked. Maybe the Sons would know. They seemed to be the hub of all information on the Guild. But after the way Cooper had reacted on the phone she was reluctant to tell him what she'd discovered. His cat would want to protect her even more.

"Your man might know. Or you could ask your…Mr Hays when you go to his trial."

She considered that for a moment. She had arranged to have a few moments with Hays before his trial. There were things she wanted to say to him. But what if she could get him to vent his rage about his wife's supposedly bad blood and give Amy the information she needed? Might she uncover for herself who was now hunting her? If she had money, could she not hire mercenaries to remove her hunter before he arranged for her death?

"Yes, Hays. I'll find out what he knows tomorrow. I should tell Cooper about Gloria's father. He seems to suspect someone is taking out members of the Guild. They'll know who he meant, if anyone does. I haven’t stepped over the line by telling you about all this have I?"

"No, I am glad to know. But if someone suspects? That is not good, Miss Amy. If someone finds out about us, we are all in deadly peril."

Amy nodded and stopped twisting her hands. "I won't let that happen, Juanita. I won't let anyone uncover the truth."

Seeing Cooper again after the long, lonely days of separation was bliss. But it was also more painful than she could have imagined. He looked as if he hadn't slept at all, just like her. And he was as jumpy as a cat, quite literally.

As soon as she was in his van, he sped away. He barely looked at her as he scanned the roads behind him, looking for tails.

"You left everything but my phone in the car, just in case someone has planted a tracker on you?"

She nodded and held up her cat-phone.

"You look tired, Amy. I hate seeing you looking so stressed. Getting rid of Hays was supposed to make your life safer, not more stressful," he grumbled as he drove.

"I hate what's happening to us. I hate that you're mad at me for the decisions I'm making." She voiced her deepest concerns, even though she knew it would do no good.

He sighed and rubbed at his brow as if his head hurt. "I'm not mad at you, Amy. I'm proud of you. And I want you to make your own choices for the first time. I don't want to replace Hays as the man telling you what to do. But it's hard. I'm having trouble with my cat, who doesn't get that you are your own person. He sees you as his. End of story. But I'm fighting back as best I can."

She reached over and rested her hand gently on his arm. It seemed odd seeing him driving the van from his wheelchair, now that he could walk. But it would take a while for the transition between his old lifestyle and new to occur. Just like it would take a while for them to transition into a couple, she imagined.

Against her better judgement, she decided to tell him what she'd discovered the night before. He'd been up-font with her; she was obligated to do the same.

"I overheard a phone conversation last night between Gloria and her father. I must have really upset her earlier in the day because she was calling in the big guns. I need to find out who this man is.
We
have to find out, because he knows more than he should about what the Sons have been doing."

Cooper swung his van off the road and pulled up sharply on the gravel. It was lucky there was no one close on his tail or there would have been an accident.

"Someone who knows? What are you talking about?" Coop yelled at her.

Despite her best intentions, Amy cringed away. A second later, Coop was groaning in regret and plucking her hand from her lap, squeezing it tightly in apology.

"Don't do that, Amy. I may get angry, or upset, but I'll never hurt you. You never have to flinch away from me like that."

"I know. It's habitual. I'll get better, I promise."

He kissed her hand tenderly. "Even now I'm criticising you, aren't I? Making it your fault. Making you give me assurances that you'll stop behaving a certain way, just to placate me. Instead, I should be taking the blame for yelling at you. I'm so sorry, Amy. I'm so damned sorry. I used to be the most easy-going bloke you'd ever meet. Now I don't know who I am anymore."

Her heart broke for him. Cooper was trying so hard. It wasn't his fault his cat was difficult to cage. Amy knew exactly how that felt. Hers had been taking control far too often lately. Sure, she enjoyed the power and confidence the cat gave her, but there was nothing 'nice' about the new part of her. And Amy valued 'nice'. She liked being 'nice', even if that meant getting stomped by less nice people.

Cooper was 'nice' too. And the nice side was now at war with his other side. They both had a lot to learn about control.

"Tell me again, please, what you heard last night," he said with painful politeness.

"Gloria had called her father because I was in the way and she wanted me gone. He was telling her how much women were undervalued by the Guild and maybe it was time for that to change. Then he said that Hays would never come back. That he was as dead as the other Guild members who'd disappeared over the last six years. He said there was something rotten in the Guild, or some
one
. That someone was removing high-ranking Guild. But until he could find proof he couldn't do anything about it. He seemed impressed by this unknown man. He said if Gloria was younger he'd have married her to him."

"He didn't mention any names?"

"No. And he assured Gloria I would be removed once the dust had settled over Hays' disappearance. I have to find out who he is so I can stop him. I thought I'd ask Hays today."

"Why would he tell you anything?" he asked, frowning thoughtfully.

"Because I'll play on his hatred of the man. In every tirade against me, it was as if he was really belittling Gloria's family. Him. This man. I didn't get that at the time because I was too wrapped up in my own guilt over not being good enough. But maybe it was never about me. I was a girl, strike one against me. I was sweet and weak and helpless as a baby. Maybe even Guild children are those things as babies. He took out his frustration over producing a girl and his hatred of Gloria's father, on me."

Cooper started up the engine again and got back on the road. "Okay, if you're to have your chance at getting information out of the bastard we better get there before the trial commences."

"If I can't find out anything useful from Hays, do you think Caleb could dig something up? Surely there would be something in the birth records. A name, at least."

"Yeah, Caleb is a whizz-kid. He'll find something. But if we can get info from Hays, all the better. There'll be stuff that isn't on record anywhere."

"Hmmm."

After a few long minutes of silence, Cooper took her hand, his eyes still on the road. "Amy, I'm sorry. I do love you. I'll do better, I promise."

She smiled at him. "I know you will. We both will. That's what people do when they're growing. Or so my therapist says. You try to be the best person you can be. Sometimes you'll succeed, sometimes you won't. But you keep trying. Because that's the only way to grow into the person you were meant to be."

He gave a laugh. "I like this therapist of yours. Maybe I should see him."

"Her. My therapist is a woman."

He grunted. "Figures."

The safe-house, on the outskirts of San Francisco, was an old farmhouse with a big barn at the back. Beneath the barn was a whole different world: a high-security prison with a courtroom and an execution chamber. Cooper had told her all about it, but that didn't prepare her for the awful heaviness in the air the moment she descended the metal-runged stairs to the concrete-walled prison below.

They must have come through several security checks along the way, but she didn't see them. Her mind was too focused on Cooper, striding along at her side. It must have been a real shift for him to be traversing these corridors on his own two feet. Easier, of course, yet disconcerting.

At the end of a dimly lit corridor he came to a stop. One of the brothers stood guard at the door and the two men nodded at one another.

"Amy needs to see Hays. I've got approval."

"Yeah, I got the memo. He's chained up in there, so she's safe enough to go in alone, if she wants to," the guard replied, his Hawaiian accent mildly discernible.

Cooper looked the question at her. She knew he wanted to come in too, but her chances of getting what she needed from the man, with Cooper there, were little to none. No, she had to do this alone.

But now that they were here; now that she had to face the monster who had made her life a living hell; the reality of it finally sank in. And with it came the old fear, rising like a noxious odour so strongly that it made her want to throw up.

Yet, unless she faced him, unless she took her power back, she would never fully become the woman she needed to be. Even after his death, his shadow would shroud her, leeching away her confidence in the moments she needed it most.

This
had
to be done. Not for the Résistance or the Sons; but for her.

A new strategy flashed into her mind. She looked at the Son who stood guard at the door. His shoulder-length hair had been dyed honey-blonde, making him look more like a surfer than a soldier.

“Can you kind of thrust me in there; like I’ve got the plague or something; and tell me I’ve only got a couple of minutes? He can’t be allowed to doubt what side I’m on.” She looked up at the frowning Son and tried not to let Coop’s sudden bristling get to her.

“Academy Award for Best Actor coming up,” Surfer Son said with brief smile, opening the door.

He grabbed her upper arm roughly and dragged her across the threshold. “You’ve got five minutes. Make it quick or I’ll leave you in here to rot with him.”

Amy nodded and whimpered, keeping her head down and shoulders hunched, just as she always did when dealing with Hays. She scrambled across the room as the now scarily intimating Son slammed the door on her and threw the bolt. If she hadn’t known it was an act she would have been truly worried he might make good on his threat.

Hays jumped to his feet. "Amy! My god, Amy! How did you find me? Is your mother here? Have you brought the police? These animals have kept me chained up like this for days."

She tried not to breathe in the fettered air as she sat down on a metal chair in front of a stained, single mattress on the floor. Hays, filthy and unkempt, crouched back down on the mattress, his back pressed against the wall, his heavy chains weighing down his arms. The conditions were so primitive that she half-expected to see bruises or wounds on the man. But he seemed unharmed. Maybe it was just primitive, not inhuman treatment he'd been receiving.

"No, no one is coming. I'm sorry father, but all this was done by mother's father. I didn't even know I had a living grandfather."

"Maurice Ackerman is responsible for me being here? Huh, that makes sense.” He seemed to be talking to himself, ignoring her presence as he had a hundred times before, as if she wasn’t worth acknowledging, even now when she was his only ally.

“Why didn't I see it before? That bastard has been out to get me ever since I couldn't produce a fucking male heir for his empire. But it's a bit late now, isn't it? Gloria's too old to start afresh with another mate. Tough luck, I say.
He
couldn't produce a male heir himself, so why condemn
me
for not doing it? Where's the justice in that!" Hays raged in his oddly quiet voice, shaking one manacled fist at her without really seeing her.

Instead of feeling afraid, Amy felt strangely elated. She was finally seeing behind the curtain. At last she was getting to understand the dynamic operating in her home-life. Her so-called mother had felt she'd failed her father. Amy's so-called father felt he hadn't been good enough, either. And because they couldn't accept that blame she had become their whipping boy. It was as sad and pathetic as it was cruel.

"Who is Maurice Ackerman? I've never heard of him."

At the intrusion into his thoughts, Hays looked annoyed. "Not many Guild have, why should
you
be any different?" He glanced around him in disgust. “What are you doing to get me out of here, girl?”

“I can’t help you until I understand what’s going on. I need you to explain what we’re up against,” she replied nervously, wringing her hands in a gesture that seemed to belong to some other girl.

For a moment, Hays studied at her with revulsion. “So it’s come to this has it? Having to allow someone like you to help me?” He sighed heavily, sitting down on the mattress. “I suppose I can tell you what you want to know, if it gets me out of this place sooner.”

Had he always been this easy to manipulate or was desperation driving him to seek alliances where he would not normally make them? She could tell he still saw her as a stupid, ugly female. But she was
his
stupid, ugly female, and he couldn’t contemplate her acting against him. Especially not now.

"We are a superior race, Amy
,
as I’ve told you many times. But this planet never accepted us as such. They tried to get rid of us. Refused to follow us. So we went underground, becoming the power behind the throne; the power brokers who really ruled and grew fat on this pathetic little world.

"However
,
we're as ready to take down one of our own as we are the pathetic humans. So over time an even more secret society built itself behind the secret society of the Guild. The Inner Sanctum
,
it was called
;
but
like so many secrets, it was eventually found out. The identity of the head of that secret hub of power was never known
,
though
.
They called him the Alpha because no one ever knew his name. No one even knew what he looked like because he kept his identity hidden from everyone." He fiddled with his chains, trying to get them out of the way so he could sit more comfortably.

"When I met your mother I was going places. I had the right family, the right connections, and I was good looking. Gloria fell for me and her father approved me. At the time I thought he was just a minor Guild member, not even a member of the Board. And I had aspirations to get on the Board. I could have chosen someone better-placed than Gloria, but her blood was pure and I wanted to succeed in my own right.

"Once we married the truth was revealed to me. My fatherin-law was the Alpha. Yes, that’s right, you idiot.
Your
grandfather is the Alpha. Hard to believe isn’t it?
”
Hays sneered at her like she was somehow responsible for her parentage.