Mr. Real (Code of Shadows #1) (23 page)

The people began to leave around eleven, and Sir Kendall insisted on helping clean up, though Paul got the distinct feeling he just wanted to put his nose everywhere.

Which is exactly what the “real” Sir Kendall would do.

He shook the idea out of his head.

After the guests left, Mrs. Gordon showed the three of them to their rooms. Alix seemed to think it was all quite humorous, fake Sir Kendall and Paul each getting rooms that had walls plastered with girlhood posters. Sir Kendall got the
New Kids on the Block
room. Alix got her old room, with
Green Day
and Leonardo DiCaprio. Paul was the last to get assigned a room; Johnny Depp and the cast of 90210 were to watch over his bed.

“Thank you, Mrs. Gordon,” Paul said. “I’m sorry to have crashed in. I know I wasn’t the most entertaining guest.”

“You were a very polite guest who thought to wish us a happy anniversary,” she said, and then she squinted at him. “Oh, honey, have you had that looked at?”

The cut above his eye; that’s what she meant. It had begun to throb. “I’m a fighter. This is normal.”

“It’s not. That is not a nice scrape. You meet me in the kitchen.”

“It’s your anniversary.”

Alix’s mother pursed her lips. “Then you’ll indulge me, won’t you?” And then she simply pointed a finger toward the kitchen, as if her finger had the power to guide him. Which, as it turned out, it did.

Paul marched obediently to the kitchen, feeling a mixture of emotions he couldn’t name. Grief. Want. He sat in the wooden chair as she came in, still wearing her festive green jacket over her green polka-dot top and matching green skirt.

“It looks like it’s getting infected.” She set her first aid kit on the table and took out cotton balls and hydrogen peroxide.

“I can do it.”

“But you’ll let me do it, all the same.”

As a fighter, he always had lots of guys swabbing and smearing things onto his face, especially in the ring. But this was different.

Gently—
so gently
—she dabbed his cut with the cotton ball. He could feel it fizz, but most all, he could feel her care. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this kind of care. No—he could. It would’ve been his mother, so long ago. Before all the trouble. He missed her bitterly.

And here was this woman he didn’t know, caring for him with a kind of naked goodness that made him want to sob. Sometimes, he worried he felt too much. Too much need. Too much rage. Too much shame.

“Thank you,” he whispered. Lord, he was tired. From where he sat, he had a perfect view of the refrigerator, which was plastered with photos of Alix and her sisters. “You have a nice place. You can feel the love here.” Was that a stupid thing to say?

“Thank you, Paul. We’ve all been very happy here,” she said.

She worked in silence. He soaked up the feeling of her kind attention.

“Tell me, how did you come to be in Malcolmsberg?” She asked after a bit. “You’re visiting your brother, then?”

“I drove with a buddy. We drove out from Los Angeles. Taking a break from the fighting circuit. That was mostly the thought.” Christ! All these lies of Sir Kendall’s and Alix’s. He hated lies.

“You drove.” This seemed to please her, that they’d driven. “So you’re there temporarily. On a break.”

“Yeah.”

“And did you win?”

“What?” he asked.

“This last fight? The one that’s got you looking like this.”

“It wasn’t professional,” he said sheepishly.

“Aha.” She regarded him with a scolding look.

He looked down. “Sometimes you have to.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

The question shattered him a little. “All I can say is, I would do it again.”

She dabbed silently. “You felt strongly about something.”

“Yes. It was one of those things where you look wrong, but you know you’re right. I knew in my heart I was right. I know I’m right in what I’m doing.”

He soaked up more of her care in the silence that followed. The kitchen felt silent and restful, like a cocoon.

“Let me ask you,” she said, “did this fight have anything to do with Alix? She’s not in some kind of trouble, is she?”

Things clicked into place suddenly. This fierce, good mother was interrogating him. She was a mother to Alix first and foremost. He didn’t mind. He understood.

“Nah. More like unfinished business on my end. Alix is fine,” he said. Not quite a lie—she was, and he planned to make sure she continued to be. “She’s pretty excited about her bed and breakfast. Quite a place there.”

Mrs. Gordon opened a tube of antibacterial gel, seeming to consider this. He wondered if she sensed what he’d left out. “This is going to sting, Paul.”

“It’s okay.”

She dabbed it on. “So you’re lending a hand out there?”

“That’s my thought, as long as I’m passing through. To be of help. Though Alix likes to do her own thing. She has a firm vision of things.”

Mrs. Gordon smiled. Her smile was pretty, like Alix’s. “I find it always better to seek common ground,” she said finally. “To work
with
a person rather than against her. Especially Alix.”

Paul nodded.

“There’s always common ground.” Mrs. Gordon pulled out the tape.

Why had she repeated this? Was she delivering a message? Paul thought guiltily about the scene by the door, with Karen and him opposing Alix—even treating her like a child. Playfully, Alix had flipped them both off.

“People want the same thing in the end, don’t you think?” she said.

“I suppose,” he said. This was advice about Alix, he felt sure of it, disguised as life advice. What did people want in the end? He wanted to ask her, but he didn’t want to appear totally clueless. He was just trying to
survive
half the time.

“So you’re staying there? At the house?”

“For the moment,” Paul said.

The kitchen clock ticked away the seconds of silence. After a spell, Mrs. Gordon said, “There’s something unholy about that house.”

“Ah-nay-moo! Ah-nay-moo! Ah-nay-moo!” Alix grinned in the doorway, looking pleased with what was actually a pretty good parody of the song from
The Omen
. She tightened the ties of her fuzzy pink robe. “Such a bummer. The unholiness and all. I mean, do you know how hard it is to get any sleep when your head is constantly rotating three-hundred-and-sixty degrees?”

Mrs. Gordon stared levelly at Alix. “There is no call for that.”

Alix had removed her jewelry and lipstick and black eyeliner, and she looked stunning. Like a fresh-faced, rosy-cheeked, pink-haired model. How long had she stood there? Surely not more than a few seconds. She walked to the cupboard and pulled out a glass. “What were you guys saying about me?”

“Your guest needs medical attention,” Mrs. Gordon scolded.

“You should see the other guy,” Alix joked.

“I don’t find it amusing,” Mrs. Gordon said. “This poor, polite boy, a guest in your house—”

“He
is
polite. The minute he came through my door, I said to myself, this is such a polite boy!” She grinned at Paul. “Such a polite boy.”

“It’s okay, Mrs. Gordon,” he said. “She’s been a very good hostess. Very thoughtful. I wanted to handle my injuries myself.”

Alix squeezed her face into a look of mock suspicion. It was brilliant, really, what Mrs. Gordon said. Paul would find common ground with Alix. He would show Alix he was on her side. He
was
on her side.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

At precisely 11:47 a.m., Paul sat down on Alix’s front porch. By Alix’s calculations, the miraculous event was to take place within minutes. Paul peeled flecks of white paint off the wood rail and stared out at the gravel drive. It completed a loose loop in front of the house and led down through a thick growth of trees and saplings, whose tender buds and leaves looked neon green in the noontime sun. It would be a hot one.

That morning, Alix’s mother had cooked breakfast for Alix, Sir Kendall, Mr. Gordon, and Paul—a delicious and endless breakfast of sausage, pancakes, and eggs. Paul had told her he didn’t know when he’d tasted a better breakfast, and he’d meant it. He’d helped her wash dishes afterwards. He’d felt good in that peaceful kitchen, away from Sir Kendall, who’d been holding court out at the table.

Paul couldn’t think straight around Sir Kendall. It was so crazy. Sir Kendall really was a kind of kryptonite to him.

The three of them had caravanned back from Minneapolis, Paul in Tonio’s Honda with its patched tire, and Alix and fake Sir Kendall in that ridiculous red sports car.

Alix, Tonio, and Sir Kendall were out back in the carriage house with Lindy. Tonio and Alix were working together to occupy Sir Kendall during the time when the stuff was to appear, due to Alix’s big thing about keeping “the magic” a secret from Sir Kendall.

He’d sit out there an hour, he’d decided. After that, he would find a way to get Alix to deal with this Sir Kendall pretender as the delusional man he was. Would she go along with it? She’d given her word.

Paul was folding a peeled-off bit of paint from the porch into a stiff little square, when a spot of black appeared just over the driveway. He thought it was a bird, until it snapped out into a door, then morphed and widened into an enormous black truck.

Paul straightened, aghast.

It was the monster truck from the image, complete with monster faces painted on the sides, mammoth black tires kissing the ground, and chrome accents winking brightly.

He stood as if drawn up by a string. “No way.”

He walked down the steps and headed down the driveway, dazed. This big thing, appearing out of nowhere. It certainly
seemed
to have appeared out of nowhere. A trick? Mirrors?

The metal felt cool to the touch. He climbed up onto the rear bumper and saw the money in a kind of bale, fifties bundled up in twine and clear plastic strips, flush against a case of Rolling Rock beer.

And beyond that lay the old heavy bag, like a giant sausage next to the weights bench. He clambered over and sat on the bag, ran his hands over the familiar weathered leather. It was the old bag from the school; he’d know it anywhere. An old friend. The bench had its same old scratches and scuffs, and he knew before he tipped it what he’d find scratched underneath, but he tipped it anyway, and there it was, the inscription he’d made and crossed out so many years ago:
Kill G+G.

It couldn’t be.

Pulse racing, he pulled out his phone and called the old school, got hold of Leo Vasquez, who ran the place now.

“Puma Reinhardt!” Vasquez was always happy to hear from Paul. “When are you coming up here next? We’re due for a workshop!”

“I’m on the road at the moment,” Paul told him. “And I just have a weird request. Where are you right now? Are you in the dojo?”

Vasquez was in the dojo, and yes, the weights bench and heavy bag were there like they always were. Same old stuff, Vasquez assured him.

“You sure?” Paul asked.

“Why would I lie?” Vasquez sounded annoyed. “I’m looking at them.”

“Dumb question. Never mind.” Paul thanked him, got off the phone, and ran his hands over the heavy bag, which was at once familiar and disturbing now. How could it be? Weirder still, the truck had been an
illustration
. A realistic, computer-generated illustration, but an illustration, nevertheless.

Magic.

It was crazy. He touched the side of the truck, his mind reeling.
Something unholy about that house
, her mother had said.

No freaking doubt.

He looked up just then and saw Alix standing at the front door he’d crashed through just yesterday. She waved, a sarcastic little toggle of the hand, like a princess on a parade float, then she turned and strolled all the way down to the end of the porch, looking every inch the hot country girl in jean shorts and a white short-sleeved shirt. She sat down on the porch swing and began to rock it forward and backward. Smiling out at him.

Not crazy. She’d been honest with him. A kind of joy filled his chest.

And then Sir Kendall came out. He didn’t go to the end of the porch; he simply stepped forward and leaned on one of the pillars at the top of the porch steps, leaned there with that confident, debonair Sir Kendall attitude.

No.

Paul jumped out of the truck and moved across the gravelly expanse, as if in a dream. He climbed the porch steps to face Sir Kendall, whose blue eyes danced with cool amusement.

This man was not a lunatic. Not a plastic surgery victim. He was
actually
Sir Kendall: the embodiment of Paul’s childhood pain and terror, lovechild of Gene and Gary’s sadism brought to life.

Ice filled Paul’s veins.

“She told me your vehicle was being delivered.” Sir Kendall’s lip quirked in a half-smile. “I daresay it suits you.”

Paul just stared. Sir Kendall.
In the flesh.

“And I’ll want my Beretta back before you leave, old chap.”

It took every shred of his will to keep from lunging at the man and…
what
? Punch him? Kill him? What did you do with a black hole of darkness?

“Like hell,” Paul grated out.

Casually, Sir Kendall said, “I
will
have it back. You can’t win, you know.” And then he turned his head and smiled.

At Alix.

He wished she could’ve heard that. How did she not see what he was?

Alix smiled at Sir Kendall. She had her heels planted on the painted planks and was pushing the swing back and forth, hair mussed, one pink bra strap loose over her shoulder. She flicked her gaze to Paul, smugly savoring the moment, as though it was all a great joke. Her smile contained a note of triumph, but it was sunny and conspiratorial, too—a smile that said,
Can you even believe it? Can you EVEN?
As though she and Paul were in on a grand secret together. As though the world itself was some magnificent game, and they had just witnessed a doozy of a play.

Lord, she was beautiful. His dread increased ten-fold.

He turned to Sir Kendall. “You hurt her, you hurt one hair on her head, and I will end you. Understand?”