The Wolf in His Arms (The Runes Trilogy) (20 page)

They
all had green eyes.
Just like the
teachers. Just like the guards.

Collin
felt an unnamable dread effervescing, like bubbles preceding a creature from
the ocean depths. He cut his eyes toward Tony, who had brown eyes and then to
Mark, who had eyes that were a deep, dark blue, so dark, you could easily
mistake them for black.

“Collin,
eyes on the front of the room.” Marjorie Ruhl startled him. With her arms
folded over her chest, she leaned against the desk in a self-assured pose.

“Sorry,
Miss Ruhl,” Collin apologized. He forced a frail smile.

Her
posture stiffened, and her lips tightened into a thin line. “This class is a
mandatory part of your rehabilitation. The most important part, I would argue.”

“Yes,
I’m sorry,” Collin repeated.

“Bo-shit,”
Mark coughed into his hand.

Marjorie
shot her eyes to Mark, the thin line of her mouth blossoming into a satisfied
smile. “You have something to say, Mark?”

“I
think this class is a pile of shit,” Mark challenged. Collin could feel tension
stretch tight across the room, like a metal band about to snap.

Unperturbed,
Marjorie kept her eyes locked on Mark. “The day you arrived, you received a
Rules and Regulations
booklet. The
booklet explains the code of conduct here at Cornerstone. We take any breach of
these rules very seriously.” She turned her eyes from Mark to the class. “Let
Mark serve as an example to all of you, an example of the very phrase that I
have just written.” She gestured to the phrase on the chalkboard and read aloud.
“
Dura lex sed lex.
The law is harsh,
but it is the law.” She turned her eyes to two of the green-eyed students.
“Will you escort Mark to Proctor Roth’s office?”

“Seriously?”
Mark scoffed. “I’m outa this place.” He stood, bumping his desk. It screeched
across the floor.

The two
students bolted upright and seized him by the arms. Mark struggled as they
grabbed him, and his desk toppled to the floor. Collin winced at the noise. The
newest students jumped out of their seats to avoid the scuffle. Tony stood,
“Hey, c’mon.”

Marjorie
turned her steely gaze to Tony. “Would you like to join him?”

Tony
hesitated, and looking away from Mark, he sat back in his seat. Collin shot
Tony a look out of the corner of his eye as Mark was dragged from the room.
They could hear his curses echoing down the hall.

Marjorie closed the door and clasped her hands together. “
Sunt pueri pueri, pueri puerilia tractant
.
Children are children, and children do childish things.”

Portland
transit was easier to navigate than Maxwell and Haley had anticipated, and they
navigated toward the address stored in Maxwell’s phone. He watched the screen as
the icon moved closer and closer to their destination as the bus chugged
through the city. Haley sat quietly next to him, her hands folded in her lap.
He looked out the window, past his reflection in the glass. The Portland
outside the bus window was not the one from brochures or
Portlandia
. Vincent did not live in the touristy Portland; he lived
in the poor white Portland. Small houses and dismal yards and streets without
curbs surrounded him. For rent signs dotted the yards in front of the small
bungalows.

The bus
stopped near a corner, and Maxwell nudged Haley. They made their way off the
bus and took in the neighborhood. The gray sky misted on them relentlessly,
making the mild day seem colder than it was. Dewey drops of rain sparkled on
the evergreen trees. Water collected in muddy, brackish puddles in the lawns.
“Let’s just find this guy,” Haley said, pulling her jacket tighter around her
neck. She tugged her hat down, and droplets of water rolled off onto her
shoulders.

Maxwell
tucked his phone in his pocket to keep it dry and led the way up the street to
the house. The houses were all similar: small, white, dingy. Halfway up the
block, he stopped. “It’s supposed to be here.” He pointed at an empty lot.

“Are
you sure?”

As
Haley asked, Maxwell pulled out his phone to confirm the address. “What do we
do now? We came all the way here and we have no other leads.”

“Did
you know them?” A frail, high-pitched voice tinkled to them from nearby.
Maxwell and Haley turned their heads to see an elderly woman sticking her head
out the front door of the neighboring house.

“Jennifer
is my aunt. My mom’s sister,” Maxwell lied.

“I’m so
sorry for your loss,” the woman consoled, shaking her head. She put her hand to
her cheek in condolence.

“Thank
you,” Maxwell replied. “I—may I ask that you tell me what happened, from your
point of view as a neighbor?” Maxwell offered a sad, frail smile as he walked
toward the woman. “I mean, of course I know the official story. But maybe you
can tell me something I don’t know.” He cast his eyes down. “I’m just trying to
make sense of it all.”

The
elderly woman opened the door, seemed to brighten at the prospect of company.
“Come in. I’ll put on tea.” On her way to the kitchen, she turned back to face
them. “Have a seat.” She pointed to the small living room. “I’m Gladys, by the
way.”

“Thank
you.” Her small, sparse home was like a time capsule from the 1970s, complete
with pristine furniture. Gold and red velvet flocked wallpaper with a Damascus
print encircled the room. Sun-age spots faded the print here and there. She
seated them on a harvest gold-colored couch as velvety as the wallpaper. The
cushions were still firm. The chunky wooden coffee table jutted out of the shag
carpeting like a Brutalist mid-rise building. Not a scratch or cup ring marred
the top. She returned after a short time with a tea pot on a tray. She set the
tray on the coffee table and, after setting out coasters, offered them each
tea. “I appreciate your hospitality,” Maxwell said as he accepted the tea.

“Jennifer,
your aunt, was a wonderful neighbor. So sweet, but you know that.”

Maxwell
nodded solemnly. “She was my favorite aunt.” He was beginning to feel not only
a bit guilty, but also a little insane. He looked at Haley out of the corner of
his eye. She furrowed her brow with mock sympathy and then placed her hand on
his knee reassuringly.

“She’d
had trouble with Vincent for years. He seemed born bad.” Gladys shook her head.
“I used to avoid him, once he was a teenager. He used to mow my lawn, things
like that for me, back after my husband first died. We never had children of
our own, and I had the extra money to pay him. But—” she swallowed the word, as
if fighting back the memory—“he was mean. I saw him use my lawn mower to run
over kittens. On purpose!”

Haley’s
hand inadvertently clenched on Maxwell’s knee. “I knew he had problems,”
Maxwell said and shook his head.

“Just
the week before—well, the night he—you know—”

No, actually I don’t know,
Maxwell thought. He leaned in
toward Gladys.

“Before
Vincent killed his sweet, sweet mother, a man came to visit Vincent. As you
know, Vincent didn’t have friends, so I found it strange.”

“Did
you get his name?” Haley asked.

Gladys
shook her head. “Dark haired fellow. Stern looking.” Maxwell and Haley looked
at each other, both thinking
Griffin
.
“They seemed to get on well. But, that man was bad, I could tell. I was just
getting home from a doctor’s visit, and I saw them and the way they looked—was
just cold.”

“You
think he had something to do with...” Maxwell’s eyes trailed toward the vacant
lot.

Gladys shrugged
her shoulders in genuine ignorance. “He just made me feel scared.” She looked
down at her tea. When she looked up, tears glistened in her eyes. “The next
week was the fire. I knew, right away that Vincent had killed her and set that
house on fire, because he shot himself in the front yard, like a confession.”
Gladys’s hand shook, making her tea ripple in her cup. “They found your aunt’s
body inside, as you know.”

Maxwell
nodded.

Maxwell
and Haley felt obligated to visit a while longer, sharing made-up stories of
Aunt Jennifer. By the time they left, Maxwell felt like a charlatan. “I’ve
never lied so much in my life,” he said, waiting for the bus. He pulled his hat
tighter, grimacing at the rain still trickling from the sky.

“You’re
good at it.” Haley ignored Maxwell’s sideway glance. “Why’d he kill himself?”

“Good
question. No answer.”

“Could
Griffin have said something to make him kill himself?”

“Still
no answer.” Maxwell slipped his phone from his pocket and searched the Internet
for Vincent Blackwell. The stories of the arson-murder-suicide populated the
search screen. Farther down, he noticed another story. He clicked the link and
skimmed the story. “Haley, Vincent’s body went missing from the morgue.”

Haley
cocked her head. “That shit’s weird. Even for Portland.” She looked down the
street for the bus, but it still wasn’t coming.

“The
assistant coroner was killed. Vincent’s body was never found.” He cupped his
hands around his phone to protect it from the persistent rain.

“Did Griffin
take it?”

“Stop
asking me questions I cannot answer.”

“It’s
called thinking out loud.”

“Actually,
it’s called being annoying.”

“Actually,
I’m about to put you in a headlock.” Haley shoved him playfully. “Any other
newsworthy notes?” She looked over his shoulder. “Click that one that says news
of the weird,” she urged, trying to push the link herself.

Maxwell
tugged the phone out of reach and clicked the link. “According to this
trustworthy
site, the door to the cooler
where Vincent was stored was kicked off its hinges.” He looked at Haley,
pausing for dramatic effect. “From the inside.”

“Shit.
This shit just got real.” Haley ruminated on the information for a moment, and
then her face drew tight. “How long did it take?”

“What?”

“Before
he went missing.”

Maxwell
searched for a date in the article. “Three days.”

“Today’s
Jared’s third day.”

“You
think—”

“Call
Lucy.”

Maxwell
took a step back. “No way. I’m not going to call Lucy and tell her Jared’s
going to wake up in the morgue off a hunch. That would be cruel.”

“What
if I’m right? What if they embalm him first?”

Maxwell’s
fingers twitched nervously on his phone. He punched the call button.

Lucy
realized she had been staring at the same line of runes for several minutes
when she blinked back tears and shook her head. Alec was sleeping, and she was
trying to busy her mind, fruitlessly. Her anguish and worry twirled in her mind
like an eddy, interrupting her concentration. With a short cry of frustration,
she smacked the desk, scattering the papers.
What’s the point?
Lucy thought.
We’re
going to fail. We’re going to die.

“Lucy,”
Ilene whispered, standing in the door. Lucy turned to face her mother. Ilene
asked, “Are you okay?”

“No,”
Lucy admitted. Ilene crossed the room and threw her arms around Lucy. Ilene
pulled Lucy against her chest. “Oh, Mom.”

Ilene
stroked Lucy’s hair. “We’ll get through this too.”

“I
can’t take any more heartache, any more loss.”

“I
know. I know.” Ilene rocked back and forth on her feet as she tried to calm
Lucy. “What are you working on?” She looked down at the papers.

“Nothing.
I can’t think.”

“Is it
important?”

Lucy
sniffed. “Yes, but I can’t.”

“Maybe
we can do it together.”

Lucy
considered. Her mother seemed to accept everything that happened, seemed to
understand more than she admitted. “They may not make sense to you.”

“You’d
be surprised.” Ilene took the seat next to Lucy—the one Jared always sat in—and
the small act made Lucy wince as if stung. “How can I help?”

“I
don’t know.”

Ilene
looked at the papers scattered across the desk and collected them. She looked
at the runes scrolled across the pages, recognizing them from the mobile. “This
is why Alec needed the mobile?” Ilene asked and Lucy nodded. Ilene shifted
through the papers. She read the translated headers. “Lucy, what is this one
called Resurrection?”

Lucy’s
eyes focused sharply and she reached for the paper, pulling it from her
mother’s hand. She pressed it to the table in front of her. She pulled the
translation sheet away from the page with the runes and began to scribble
furiously as she attempted to translate more of the page. Ilene watched her
work, her mind afraid to think too far ahead, but the image of Darius—his hand
healing—washed across her mind.

Lucy’s
phone rang. She turned her eyes to the phone, annoyed with the distraction.

Ilene
grabbed the phone. “You work,” she said to Lucy. The caller ID read Maxwell.
She answered the phone. “Hello?”