Velocity (13 page)

“Hi-hi, Mr. Laylon,” Phillip stammered, for once intimidated. He tossed the knife casually to the side while the others were too busy looking at the surroundings.

I peered over my shoulder at Stephanie. Cheryl and Deana were struggling to get the leather straps off of her.

“What’s going on here?” Mr. Laylon’s voice boomed, filling the cave with sound.

“Just fun and games. You know, kid stuff.”

“Not fun and games. Life or death,” Hughie said firmly.

“Stephanie!” Mr. Laylon rushed to his daughter’s side, helping her up. Stephanie was bruised and bleeding, and seemed disoriented. “What were you doing to my daughter.”

“I’ll get you back for this,” Phillip hissed at my father.

“I can’t believe you actually thought you’d get away with this!” Laylon shouted. He came rushing back towards Phillip, and cocked his fist back.

“I’d reconsider that if I were you,” Phillip said. “My father will have you put in jail in an instant if you so much as touch a hair on my head. We’ll ruin you.”

Laylon’s large frame was shaking with restraint. His face was so red I wondered if he would have a heart attack right there. He lowered his fist, not without difficulty. “If you weren’t a Rhodes kid, I would see you arrested. You kids need to find your heathen asses in church.”

“You can’t let him get away with this,” Hughie said. “Look at Stephanie, she’s
bleeding
.”

“I’m so sorry,” Phillip said, and he burst into tears, his face contorting almost worse than his goblin grimace. It was so sudden and unexpected, so different than the snotty persona that he had adopted a few moments ago, that everyone in the basement was taken aback. “I don’t know what came over me. I was a man possessed, sir.” He fell to his knees in front of Stephanie. “I’m so sorry. I’m done with this. I just wanted to see if it would work.”

“You’re disgusting,” Stephanie muttered. Laylon and his friends helped her off of the seal and towards the exit.

“Let’s get you to the hospital,” another of the men said. “All of you need to get out of here, now. Playtime’s over.”

Phillip remained on his knees staring off at the seal, which now just looked like a bad Dungeons and Dragons prop. A few candles still flickered, although most of the tapers had fallen to the dirt and gone out. The others shuffled out, looking back for Phillip. When he didn’t follow, they left.

It was just Claire and a hesitant Hughie standing and waiting. Claire stared down at Phillip like he was merely a pest, with none of her earlier reverence or love for him.

“Look at all the shadows,” Hughie said, looking around him in awe. I couldn’t see any of them, but I knew that they must be moving all over.

“They’ll settle down now,” Claire whispered back to him.

“You forgive me, don’t you Claire?” Phillip asked, looking up at her with his brown eyes pleading. Never had he reminded me so much of Henry as in that moment. That was Henry’s look, when he’d asked me to forgive him. My goosebumps hardened.

“No, I don’t forgive you,” Claire said evenly. “I don’t ever want to see you again. We’re finished.”

“But Claire!” Phillip protested, walking forward on his knees

“You’re only a puppet. You’ll never be the man you wish you were,” Claire said. She spun around, clasping Hughie’s hand, much to his evident surprise as he grinned, and they walked out of the tunnel.

CHAPTER 11

I’D RESTED UP
enough that I felt surprisingly in control. I hadn’t even felt the tug in my stomach signifying that I was going to head back yet. I had to struggle a little, like being tied to a rubber band, but I envisioned Eleanor standing in the hedge maze, the woman in red before her. I could almost see it, but I didn’t know enough. And because of the influence of Dark on what she had seen, the memory was distorted.

Instead, I pictured Eleanor in her room at the asylum, getting her package. And then I was there, watching Eleanor smile and say thank you as she stepped back with a small, flat package. She looked healthier than the shade in my visions, although her hair was now cut in the familiar short bob.

Eleanor ripped the brown paper off the package, revealing a stack of paper. She sat down on the bed and, resigning herself, began to read.

I read over her shoulder as she sat there. I was so close I was absolutely positive she would feel me, considering all the times I’d seen her spirit, but this was definitely a memory and I could discern more of the difference between them. There wasn’t the vibrancy to her that I’d detected in my visions.

I frowned in surprise when I saw John Dexter’s name on the page. How could he possibly be involved again? Eleanor blew upwards, making her bangs flutter, and kept reading.

I scanned the paper. It was a letter from a friend back at the orphanage where Eleanor had lived before being adopted.

“
You came to us as a new foal, and as a personal favor to a man whom I personally despised but had done good by my own family,”
the man had written
.
“He did not want to keep you at his own orphanage because people would have asked questions. He swore me to secrecy that day, to take the utmost care of this baby girl, and never tell about her parentage.”

Eleanor became increasingly more pale and withdrawn as she kept reading and flipping pages.

“
John had a romantic relationship with one of his own charges. She was a sixteen year old, nearly too old to be there. John has always been, if you’ll pardon, a bit of an oddity.

“
He said it wasn’t possible when I asked him why he didn’t just marry the girl. That too many in town would talk and he’d lose his reputation, even though everyone is aware of his wealthy eccentricity. But that union resulted in a baby.

You.”

Eleanor dropped the papers to the floor, where they scattered into a mess of white rectangles.

Wait. Wait one freaking moment.

Dexter was my great-grandfather? I jumped off of the bed, turning around. How was that even possible? I felt all the blood drain from my head and the room swayed in front of me.

Eleanor seemed to have the same reaction as me. She burst to her feet. “That awful man! It can’t be! Is that why I’m seeing that place in my dreams?”

She grabbed her hair with both hands, pacing her tiny room.

Then I felt a tap on my shoulder, and my blood ran cold. I turned.

“What are you doing in my memories?” Eleanor’s ghost purred. Her grip on my skin was vice-like. We were face to face, and her black eyes burned into me. I opened my mouth to shout or scream, and felt myself jet up into blackness and Eleanor’s room became a small dot below me.

As soon as I came to, I sat up. It wasn’t possible. That evil man, responsible for the torture and deaths of children, could not be my relative. I never, ever would have thought it was possible. I hadn’t even known my grandma was adopted before all of this, but I guessed it was just another thing we never talked about.

I was shaking and I could hear my own heart rate beeping a staccato on the monitor. Sweat dripped off my forehead and stung my eyes.

“Ariel, what’s wrong?” Callie asked, putting her hand on my arm.

“You were under for such a long time,” Hugh said. “What did you see? Are you okay?”

I opened my mouth to speak, then shut it. How could I explain?

Before I could figure it out, there was a banging on the front door. I was given a reprieve. Everyone in the room looked in that direction and Hugh and Callie rushed out. I disconnected myself from the monitors abruptly and followed.

Phillip Rhodes was standing in the doorway. My breath caught painfully in my chest and the dizzy, faint feeling returned. I had a very bad feeling.

“What are you doing here?” Hugh demanded coldly.

Phillip held up a packet of paper. “This is a deed of sale. I just bought out the entire building, including this gallery. I plan on converting them all to offices for Thornhill.”

He handed the packet over to Callie, as though he didn’t want to risk touching my father. Then he held up another missive, this one looking very legal.

“This is an eviction notice. You have ten days to vacate the premises, or I sue you out. I assure you, it’s all perfectly legal.”

Hugh hadn’t spoken, just looking shocked and sickened. “So, it wasn’t enough to destroy my wife? You have to destroy my business, too?”

Phillip looked a little taken aback, but recovered. “I told you I’d get you back.”

“How is this possible?” Callie said, flipping through the papers.

“Anything is possible when you know the right people,” Phillip said. “I’ll leave you be so you can start packing.”

He turned around and began to walk away. That was his first mistake.

Hugh ran right behind him, grabbing him by the neck. Phillip was a tall man, but so was my father. Hugh, his face going red, punched Phillip straight in the side of his head. Mr. Rhodes wriggled away, pushing Hugh backwards and grabbing the side of his own head like he suddenly had a splitting headache.

“Your wife worshiped me until you came along and filled her head with lies,” Phillip roared. “It didn’t take much for her to come back to me.”

Coming forward, Phillip tried to punch Hugh back, but stumbled as Hugh dodged out of the way, his fist screaming through the air. He wobbled and almost fell over, holding his hands out for balance. They were in the middle of the street now. I put my hands over my shocked mouth. Theo stood by my side, equally flummoxed.

Rearing back, Hugh swung again and jacked Phillip in the lip. The pink skin split, blood spraying out. Phillip stumbled backward.

Men rushed into the street, pulling my father and Henry’s dad apart. I squeezed my sweaty hands together, not believing it was happening.

Callie wiggled her way in, putting her arm around Hugh and leading him away. Sensing the fight was over for now, the men who had helped stepped back. Phillip tugged his twisted suit jacket around, blood running in a shiny trail from his fat purple lip. I’d never seen him so visibly flustered.

“Yeah, take your dog,” Phillip shouted weakly at Callie. The gawkers on the street withdrew as Callie took Hugh back inside. Theo followed behind them. It was just me and Phillip. He glared at me, leaning in close enough for me to smell his strong, musky aftershave.

“You should have listened to me, girlie,” he warned in a soft, deadly voice. He was trying to hypnotize me with his eyes.

“Don’t talk about my mother, ever,” I said, glaring back.

“Your mother and I had something you’ll never understand.” He pointed one shaking finger in my face. “You stay away from my son. I know about you, and you won’t lure him away.”

“We’re not leaving, no matter what. You won’t scare us away,” I said evenly, pulling myself to my full height, keeping his gaze. “You’ll never be the man you wish you were.”

His eyes registered recognition and confusion, his lips pressing into a frown. I turned and stalked back to Erasmus.

Callie was comforting Hugh on the bench I’d just been using for the grounding stone vision. Her hand was on his back, his head was in his hands.

“Way to go, dad,” I said. “Nice punch. He’s gonna be bruised for weeks.”

Hugh looked up at me grimly. Tears of frustration stood out in his eyes. My heart sank.

“Ariel, violence is never the answer,” Callie admonished.

“You gotta admit, though, that was a good punch,” Theo said, boxing the air.

Callie couldn’t help but grin. Hugh looked at her, then grinned himself. Our group laughed together. Hugh looked at the paperwork in his hand, and the grin disappeared. He started reading through it in earnest.

“So, is there a loophole? Can we get out of it?” I asked after Callie had gone to make a pot of coffee.

Hugh tossed the paperwork on the floor and put his reading glasses back into his pocket. He webbed his fingers together and leaned back.

“No, it’s valid,” he sighed. “We only have ten days to get everything out of here. I don’t have enough money for an attorney, and I can go to court to ask for more time, but I don’t really have good cause. At the most I might get thirty, forty-five days.”

“You should definitely fight it,” I said.

“Let them have it,” Hugh said.

“Hugh?” Callie asked, surprised, as she returned with the coffee. “You can’t mean that.”

“I mean it.” I could tell by his tone that he was absolutely set.

“But why?”

“They’ll have it anyway sooner or later. Rhodes can have whatever he wants. It will just give me that much more time to figure out how we’re going to destroy him.”

“What are we going to do for money in the meantime?”

“Honey, Erasmus hasn’t been making me much money for a while. Ever since my advertising got dropped. I still have some savings, and Claire’s insurance should be figured out soon. She still had quite a bit of savings in our account, so all of her bills are paid for. It’s just the day to day stuff. If I have to, I’ll get a damn job at Dante’s.”