Forbidden

by Caroline B. Cooney

  Death did not terrify Annabel as much as dying alone. Alone and in utter darkness, with no clue. No warning. Somebody somewhere would flick the switch. Electricity would course through those wires. Plastic explosives would be set off. In milliseconds the building would come down.

  Nobody would hold her hand. Nobody would share her fear.

  Would it hurt? Or would it happen so quickly she would not have time to feel or think or grieve?

  Another demand took over. Sleep. Her exhausted body wanted to be unconscious. Perhaps that was better. Perhaps she should be asleep when the building went up, not even wake as it came down around her.

  But if she slept, she lost the only time left to her on earth.

  I have to go backstage again, she thought. Find those doors, explore those rooms.

  She was afraid to.

  How ridiculous. Death was seconds or minutes or hours away and she was still afraid to put one foot ahead of another. What could be out there worse than death?

  Sleep owned her. She could fight it no longer. Her back against a row of auditorium seats, she faded away, fingers wrapped around the water bottle. She hugged it like a teddy bear. When she woke, with a scream of her own, she could not tell if she had slept ten seconds or an hour. Her own scream terrified her. She lay panting and shivering against the filthy floor. It was the first sound the auditorium had heard in how long? Years? What had made her scream out of sleep?

  Hands.

  She remembered hands.

  Hands that had jerked the mask down over her face.

  She knew those hands. Ten thousand times she had felt them helping her in and out of cars. Those were Tommy’s hands.

  Daddy had ordered this.

  Right on Theodora’s desk, open and accessible, was a Rolodex of telephone numbers. Jade flipped through and found the producers of the other networks’ news shows.

  Banks of telephones were everywhere. Voices blended into a cacophony of human speech, and nobody listened to anybody else, or even was aware of anybody else.

  Jade called each of the other networks. If Theodora wanted the “kidnapping” suppressed, Jade would see that she failed. Everybody here could give in to Theodora’s bullying, but Jade would not. She had power, and if Theodora expected to stay in charge of Jade’s actions, Theodora was wrong. You want to call this a kidnapping? thought Jade. Fine, I’ll call it a kidnapping, too.

  She could guarantee the attention of the news-people when she spoke the four names she had.

  “Theodora Jayquith’s niece,” Jade said to three more networks, “Annabel Jayquith was kidnapped this afternoon. Daniel Madison Ransom is involved. Hollings Jayquith is about to make a statement from his Connecticut house.”

  She grinned to herself. Whatever anybody had had in mind—Annabel, the chauffeur, Daniel, Hollings, Theodora—it would be done now in the public eye. It would be monitored and filmed and preserved and analyzed. Their precious white-walled, white-floored privacy was about to be invaded.

  I bet I’m not the only one who can break onto those grounds, she thought. I bet every reporter in America is going to give it a try now.

  None of this was real.

  Just a video in the dark.

  Annabel stood up. She edged toward the stage once more, still afraid of the floor she could not see and the dark her eyes could not penetrate. She carried the liter of water like a baby’s bottle.

  Tommy, who had driven Annabel all these years, had put her in this building to die.

  Who did love her, then? Did anybody? If her own father could do this to her, who existed on earth to love Annabel Hope Jayquith?

  The worst thing was not, as it turned out, to die without having found true love.

  The worst was to die without love at all.

  Seventeen

  A PILE OF DEBRIS had been pushed up against the door that led off the stage. Annabel had to stick her foot into the stuff to kick it away. Even though she knew by the smell and the way it crumbled that it was plaster, she hated touching it. What detonates the explosion? she thought. I could accidentally set it off myself.

  Only that morning she and Snowstorm had ridden the trails to escape being closed up in her own house. What fun it had been in the sunlight looking up at the ink-blue sky and ducking beneath the thick green leaves of the sugar maples. In her imagination, they had done far more than canter down a leafy path. They’d leaped ravines and fled hordes of pursuers.

  How romantic imagination was.

  How filthy and dusty and frightening was the reality of prison.

  In the end, she had to kneel in the blackness and use her hands. She wrapped her hands in the pieces of clothing from the bag and it was much easier to touch unknown objects once her bare flesh was covered.

  A long length of pipe had obstructed the door.

  She shifted it, trying to figure out where to point it, and get it out of her way, all the while wondering if it was itself some sort of bomb, some sort of explosive. She didn’t want her hands blown off. She whose hands could have been used in lotion or nail polish advertisements.

  Stop worrying, Annabel told herself. It’ll kill you as well as take your hands off so you won’t know.

  At last the pipe came free. She shoved the rest of the junk away from the door’s swing space and came upon a small cylinder, smooth and instantly recognizable. A disposable lighter.

  Annabel opened the door. Please let this be a way out. Please let me find a window I can pry open. Please let there be an outside door I can kick through!

  How courteous she was being to the unknown god of prisons. Please don’t blow me up.

  She tried the lighter. A precious tiny yellow and blue flame danced between her palms. Annabel nearly wept. She had light. She could see.

  Holding it low, she found three stairs going down. How easy to use them when she could see bottom. A black and dead space stretched beyond the steps, but what could be there to hurt her? With fire, with light, she had safety and knowledge.

  Keeping the lighter as far from her face as her arm would reach, Annabel tried to illuminate the silent night of what was ahead.

  It was full of people.

  Theodora was giving orders. She had to get back to Litchfield and every route they offered her was too slow. She wanted to be beamed through time, like somebody on Star Trek.

  Hah! thought Jade. Time and miles have you trapped, too, Theodora Jayquith!

  It was arranged that the helicopter should get them to a small, private airport and a small plane should take them to northern Connecticut and a car with sirens should take them the rest of the way to the estate. Everybody at the television station loved this. This was action. This was the way life should be led. Nobody except Theodora was emotionally involved. Everybody else was just excited. They wanted Theodora on the scene, where it was happening.

  The horde of TV employees and professionals were staring at Theodora as if the real Theodora were just a TV screen herself. Their eyes were glued to her. Nobody was looking at Jade.

  Nobody had ever looked at her. This was no different from sitting in the tacky living room in Ohio, staring at the tapes. She was still a watcher. She was still unnecessary. Uninteresting. Unwanted.

  On Theodora’s desk lay a virtual phone store: a red phone, a yellow phone, a piano-key phone, a Snoopy phone, a view-the-insides phone. Jade wrapped a Kleenex around her hand and used the plainest phone on the desk. Black and utilitarian. She phoned the Jayquiths’ country place.

  Jade had barged into a family who already had a beautiful much-loved eighteen-year-old. They were not in need of another one. They might tolerate Jade, but they would keep her at a distance.

  Don’t let that Mrs. Donavan answer, thought Jade.

  Mrs. Donavan didn’t. Mr. Jayquith said, in a shaky, taut voice, “Yes? Hollings Jayquith here! Yes?”

  Jade loved the panic in his voice. She was only sorry that she could not be telephoning Theodora to panic her.

  Okay. What was a nice round
figure? One million dollars? Five million? How should she have the cash delivered? Where? What should she do with it after she had it? There were more details to demanding a ransom than Jade had realized. She had telephoned first and was forced to do her planning while Hollings was waiting. She tried desperately to think up strategies for delivering money. Her own loud breathing filled the telephone lines.

  She had not realized that mere breathing could be terrifying.

  Hollings Jayquith begged. He begged for orders. He begged for instructions. He begged for information about Annabel.

  Very interesting, thought Jade, He’s taking this seriously. So he didn’t have Tommy gather the clothes. He didn’t lock her up. He doesn’t know where she is. The only other person who could be giving Tommy orders is Annabel herself. Am I right? Does that mean Annabel and Daniel planned this? The wonderful Annabel Jayquith is putting her family through this on purpose? Annabel wants revenge, too? For what? Being told she couldn’t drive the Jaguar?

  Jade liked to think that a layer of scum covered Annabel’s sweet beauty. That Annabel would make her own father and aunt pay a ransom. What a spoiled brat!

  I should be so lucky, to be spoiled like that, thought Jade.

  But perhaps she could be so lucky. If Annabel was really doing this herself (and what else could be the explanation?) once Theodora and Hollings figured it out, they’d never forgive Annabel. And then they would need another eighteen-year-old girl to take Annabel’s place.

  It seemed to Jade that no matter what happened, she would be a winner. She need only terrify these people with phone call after threatening phone call.

  Around her bustled people so full of their own importance they heard nothing except themselves. “It will cost you, Jayquith,” whispered Jade, her scratchy hoarse voice unidentifiable. “Be ready.”

  She hung up and dropped the Kleenex into a wastepaper basket. No beige plastic Rubbermaid trash can for Theodora Hollings. It was thick glass, an exuberant glowing tulip growing out of the floor, and it contained not one other piece of garbage. Some little minion must constantly empty it. Jade rather enjoyed seeing a crumpled Kleenex down there.

  The office emptied of human beings, leaving Jade sitting alone in the large room with the silent television screens. These people moved like water, tides rising and falling, waves hitting first one office and then another.

  “Theodora!” shouted one of the men in suits.

  Theodora Jayquith neither turned nor slowed down. “Yes?” she snapped, striding away.

  “What about the girl?”

  Theodora had forgotten Jade’s existence. “Oh,” she said, blank and confused, trying to fit Jade into her calculations. “She’ll have to come back with me. Get in, Jade.” Jade might have been an annoying old pet dog, for whom allowances must always be made.

  She climbed into the helicopter, her mind too occupied for fear. She latched the web of seat belts easily and paid no attention to liftoff. Inside the isolating earmuffs of music she connived. But she could think of no way to collect ransom money without being caught.

  Okay. Forget that. Instead of actually trying to get the money, she would just stick it to them. Sneak out, find a phone, and terrify them. Rock their world a little.

  Then she would come back into the room, all innocence, and comfort them. Jade would be the good girl.

  Yes. That was better. Fewer loopholes, less danger. Better clothes, richer future.

  Annabel’s scream turned her lungs inside out. The scream alone should have brought the walls down. Instead it brought down one of the dead people lined up against the walls. The body fell straight, like a wooden frame, and brushed against Annabel before it hit the floor.

  The little light in her hand flickered and went out.

  Annabel was trembling so badly she had no knees left, no ankles, no muscles. She sank to the floor and knelt quivering. The thing that lay against her did not have enough weight for bones and body. It was only cloth.

  She was in the costume room.

  They weren’t people. They were ball gowns, Pilgrim costumes, robes on hangers, leaning suits of armor, and masks stacked on shelves.

  She removed the costume from her lap as if it had been a dead thing.

  Again she lit the lighter. The costume room had another exit and she followed that door into a hall. This was relatively bare. Over the other three doors in the hall were signs: BASEMENT STORAGE, THEATRE OFFICE, MUSIC PRACTICE ROOM.

  It was like a quiz show: Behind which door is the prize?

  She went into the office, because her life had been built around offices; her father had so many of them, including the portable ones, the duplicates, so that he could work on plane or yacht or car or country place or island home. Aunt Theodora not only had her portable offices, she had her mobile research teams and her myriad phone lines. Theodora’s and Hollings’ worlds were lived by wire: Their lives, to say the least, were telephone intensive.

  The office window was boarded up on the outside. The telephones still sat on the abandoned desk, but when she lifted the receiver there was only silence.

  She must not use up her flame.

  The little lighter could not go on for much longer.

  She jerked open desk drawers as if she thought a flashlight with new batteries would be waiting for her.

  Nothing remained but a few paper clips, a single blank envelope, and one pencil.

  The fear had lessened. Annabel felt a sort of pride. She, Annabel Hope, who could have been only a poor copy of Theodora Jayquith or the heir of Hollings Jayquith, had faced this horror and taken action. Neither her father nor her aunt had ever faced real horror themselves. They knew about horror: Aunt Theodora had seen everything from war zones to famine camps, to volcanic explosions and inner-city riots. But she only talked about it. She only pointed to pictures of it. She herself had never experienced any.

  For the first time in her life Annabel did not envy her famous aunt. If I get through this, thought Annabel, I will have done more than Theodora. I will have toughed it out alone. No team, no backup, no employer, no plane, no bank of phones, no rank and file.

  Just me.

  And if I don’t get through, I tried. I didn’t lie down and give up. Well, actually I did, momentarily, but then I conquered my fear and went on.

  She wanted to talk to Daniel again, tell him he had to be Daniel, not his mother’s master plan for a dead senator. Live your life, Daniel, she thought, not hers.

  Briefly she thought of the life plan she had had. If she were to live, she, too, would live differently. Different college, different major, different friends, even, different future. She had a momentary vision of the campus she had expected to be part of in September. She thought of the college catalog she had memorized, the courses she had signed up for, the campus wardrobe she had begun to plan.

  It was not necessary now.

  Annabel took the pencil, the envelope, and the paper clips. When they found her body, they would find information. She would make a diary of her death. She would include a letter to Daniel and questions for her father. She would include—

  But her body would not be found.

  That was the point.

  “This is a family matter, Alex,” said Emmie. She put her hands on his. He was barely able to keep from jerking his hand away, hers was so cold. It felt like an ice pack. He managed to smile.

  “I’m just going in for a second,” said Emmie, “to see if there’s any news about Annabel or if I can contribute anything. I think they’ll just want me to leave. If this is for real, I’m sure they’re waiting on the police. So I’ll probably be back in a minute and you can drive me home, okay, Alex?”

  It was not okay. He had to go in with Emmie.

  Alex fidgeted with the keys. Annabel having taken Venice’s old Jeep, he and Emmie had taken Venice’s new one—a huge, high, loaded Bronco, for bigger and better wilderness driving. Alex was in love with the Bronco. He liked Venice much more for having such excellent taste i
n vehicles. How easily he’d been sidetracked by the feel of a new car.

  Annabel kidnapped … I know so much, thought Alex, but I don’t know enough. I have to talk to Daniel. His brown Buick is here. I should have cornered him last night but I didn’t know how. It threw me, to be with celebrities.

  Along with the old Buick, the cars parked around the brick-paved frontage included yet another dark-windowed limousine, a big black van with dark windows, an extremely heavy silver Mercedes, a bright red stunningly gorgeous Porsche.

  His eyes fixed on the Mercedes. He knew its owner. He knew every car and every license of that owner.

  I left my gun in my own car, he thought. I’m here to kill, and I don’t have anything to do it with. I could improvise, I guess. But I’ll have only one chance and if I don’t pull it off …

  Emmie reached past his arm resting on the steering wheel and yanked the keys out of the ignition. She didn’t meet his eyes but jumped out of the Bronco, throwing a good-bye over her shoulder.

  She didn’t trust him with the keys? What was she thinking? What did it mean for him?

  With fluid grace she ran up the steps and into the Jayquith mansion.

  I should get out of here, he thought. I’m in trouble now. Whatever it is I said wrong back during the tennis game, she’s thinking of it now.

  Emmie had used a sort of credit card to open the gate. The card was clipped beneath the visor. Did he need it to exit or did a movement sensor swing the gate for departure? There was a locking mechanism—Mr. Jayquith had had them closed against his own daughter.

  Alex had no keys to start the engine, but the brick drive was downhill. If he put the Bronco in neutral, he could shove from the pavement on the driver’s side, leap into the seat as it coasted, and pop-start the engine.

  But if he fled, everything ended. He’d never have another chance at his own revenge. Did he want the chance? Did he really and truly intend to follow through on this?

  Warm, soft red brick led to safety.

  Cold, hard dark marble led to danger.

  He was a teenage boy. Danger was infinitely more appealing than safety.