The Delphi Effect (The Delphi Trilogy Book 1)

by Rysa Walker

  We even watch some Netflix.

  And we wait.

  Just before nine, Taylor comes down with her sketch pad. And she’s smiling.

  “You’ve got something?”

  “Yeah,” she tells me. “I’m not done, but it’s definitely something.” She tosses the pad on the coffee table in front of us and heads straight for the kitchen.

  The drawing shows a tiny version of the Beaux-Arts ruin she showed us earlier, surrounded by green. Trees, grass . . . and sidewalks or paths of some sort running throughout the area. It’s near a river, which she’s shaded the way she did in the drawing last night. But there are other rectangular patches scattered about, shaded a lighter gray, and a vehicle of some sort.

  “What are the rectangles?” I ask. “And is that a . . . tractor?”

  She looks around the pantry door. “Maybe . . . maybe a bulldozer? And I don’t know what the rectangles are. They’re man-made, though. Parking lot? And I get a strong sense of people nearby. A lot of them, but . . . it’s like something is dampening the signal. Or someone. Deo’s there, and he might be in the building I drew earlier, the one near the top. But check out the bottom-right corner. Look familiar?”

  It does. It’s the same pear-shaped location from last night.

  “The quarry. Which means that’s the Susquehanna River.” Aaron grabs his tablet and starts to pull up the map, but Taylor takes it away.

  “This needs to wait. Food supplies are down to mustard, ketchup, and an expired can of green beans, and my blood sugar is so low I’m seeing spots.”

  Aaron calls for Chinese takeout. The place doesn’t deliver. Apparently there are no delivery options other than pizza, at least not during the off-season. And since Aaron won’t leave the house unless Taylor and I go too, we all head into Chesapeake Beach.

  We’re on the return trip, about two blocks from the beach house. Aaron reaches into the container for another egg roll, then suddenly slams on the brakes. I catch his expression in the mirror and I know, even before I see the car parked across from the beach house.

  He reverses and takes a left at the intersection we’ve just passed.

  “We’re going around the back way. Taylor, as soon as we’re out of the car, slide into the driver’s seat and head straight to Sam’s. I’ll call you when I can. Anna, follow my lead, okay?”

  “Sure.” I grab the file folder of Aaron and Taylor memories and shove them behind my second wall. Before Aaron can accelerate again, I fling open the door and take off. It’s not a graceful exit, and I twist my ankle in the process, but I don’t think I’ll need to run on it for long.

  “Anna!”

  His car squeals to a halt behind me. But I don’t have time to look back.

  The BMW meets me at the corner and someone flings open a rear door. I dive inside, and the other passenger reaches across me to slam the car door shut. Through the window, I see Aaron running after me. I wish he could read the thought I’m sending—I’m sorry, I’m so, so, sorry—but the only one who gets that message is Dacia Badea.

  She laughs and tosses me a sealed plastic bag. There’s a mask of some sort inside. “If you are ready to cooperate this time, take that out and put it on.”

  One last glance through the rear window. Aaron is standing in the middle of the street, growing smaller as we drive away. Then we turn the corner and I can’t see him at all.

  I’m sorry.

  My eyes shift to the front seat, and I catch a glimpse of the driver’s face in the rearview mirror. Bald, with a dinky half beard. The last time I saw that face clearly was in Molly’s memory. And even though Molly’s emotions are no longer part of the equation, I remember her fear vividly.

  But I need to focus. I pull my eyes away from Lucas and rip the plastic bag open with my teeth. Once the mask is out and the loops of elastic are over my ears, I turn to Dacia and say, “Now what?”

  She places the palm of her hand against the outside of the mask and pushes forward with a bit more force than seems necessary. The plastic edge of the mask digs into my chin and I suck in a mouthful of air. That seems to cause the mask to clutch my face even tighter.

  I don’t know if it’s the gas that’s released or the mask itself, but I catch a faint whiff of vanilla. Which makes me think of Kelsey.

  A memory I’d almost forgotten flutters through my mind—sitting on the banks of Rock Creek with an eight-year-old Deo, sharing a small box of vanilla wafers when we were on the run that first time.

  And then I’m thinking of someone else, who doesn’t smell of vanilla, but who smells warm and safe. But my mind can’t grab his name because it’s drifting away on a vanilla cloud and because I have that memory behind . . .

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The wall.

  It’s my very first thought, before my eyes open. Before I’m even aware of the queasy feeling in my stomach or of the bed beneath me.

  Although “bed” might be a bit too generous. It’s more like one of those narrow examination tables in a doctor’s office, with bars on the sides and a slightly elevated head. Except there are sheets instead of the crinkly paper strip down the middle.

  I’m in the hospital again. Why?

  I close my eyes and remain still and silent for several minutes, trying to get my bearings. Trying to remember why my first thought was the wall, even as I’m checking for gaps, for signs that anyone has been tinkering while I was unconscious.

  Kelsey. I need to ask for Kelsey before I talk to any other doctors.

  As my eyes adjust, I realize it’s not actually a hospital room. Aside from this bed, which appears to have been rolled into the room, the place looks more like a hotel suite or a tiny apartment. A small kitchen with no table, just a single stool at the raised counter. A desk. A second bed that actually looks like a bed instead of the gurney I’m on. A large monitor mounted on the wall across from the bed. No windows. Three doors, with only the one to the bathroom open. The only light coming from a fixture above the bathroom sink.

  I prop myself up, but that only makes the nausea worse, so I lean back into the pillow. Sitting upright will have to wait.

  When I pull my hand up to brush the hair out of my eyes a few minutes later, I see the scratches on my arm. That brings the past few days flooding back.

  Deo was taken. Hopefully Deo was taken here, wherever here is. Kelsey’s in Indianapolis. Molly is gone. Aaron and . . .

  The wall.

  Forcing myself to sit up, I look around the room more carefully. I don’t see Dacia, and more to the point, I don’t feel her mental probe tap, tap, tapping at my brain. But I’m sure she’ll be back.

  As I lower my feet to the floor, my right ankle throbs. Not too bad, though. I test it and it easily supports me. Just hope I don’t need to run a marathon any time soon.

  I’m surprised to feel the familiar weight of my phone in my back pocket. Someone turned it off, so I’m guessing they’ve already collected any information they found interesting. And, when I check, I see that I have zero bars, which means we’re either someplace remote, someplace underground, or (most likely) they’re blocking the signal.

  Once I check the time—12:22 a.m.—I power it down. Not a good idea to waste the battery, on the off chance, even if it’s probably a very, very off chance, that my lack of signal is temporary.

  I’m still a bit on the woozy side, and my head pounds each time I move. I initially thought maybe whatever Dacia doped me with was nitrous oxide. Arlene had bad teeth, along with her myriad other health problems. Somewhat ironically for a hypochondriac, she hated needles, so she always opted for dentists who offered laughing gas. The dentist she liked best had scented masks—orange, spearmint, and vanilla. But whatever Dacia used, I don’t think it was nitrous. That wears off within a matter of minutes, and you’re fine afterward. Arlene was able to drive herself home after dental appointments. My head, on the other hand, still feels very fuzzy.

  Dehydration, maybe? I go to the kitchen in search of a glass, which I f
ind after opening several of the cabinets. I find Tylenol as well, along with a standard first-aid kit and an unlabeled medicine bottle. When I open the bottle, I see dozens of the familiar pentagon-shaped sleeping pills that Kelsey prescribed for me.

  Finding my pills here gives me the feeling I’m being watched, although I probably should have assumed that already. I visually scan the room for cameras but stop after a few seconds. The tracking devices they hid in our backpacks were minuscule. There could be dozens of cameras in here and I’d never find them. Better to assume I’m being watched and act accordingly.

  I open the fridge in search of bottled water, and find a case of Dasani, along with string cheese, baby carrots, milk, apples. Butter pecan ice cream in the freezer.

  An icy finger that has nothing to do with the still-open freezer runs down my spine. The kitchen is stocked with my favorites. Oreos in the pantry. Deo once joked that I could eat my weight in Oreos. Walkers Shortbread, which I love but rarely buy because it’s so expensive. Jalapeño pretzels. Ritz Crackers. Peanut butter—extra crunchy, because otherwise, why bother? Cheetos. Honey Bunches of Oats. Dunkin’ Donuts Pumpkin Spice coffee, Sleepytime tea. Honey. Kit Kat Dark. Reese’s Cups, Hershey’s Kisses.

  I take two Tylenol and carry the bottle of water back into the main room. The clothes in the dresser and the closet aren’t my clothes—these appear to be new. But they’re about the right size and they’re the stuff I usually wear. Jeans, sweaters, T-shirts.

  Everything in this room makes me feel violated, like they’ve stolen things that make me me. But I know without a doubt that it’s Deo’s mind they raided for this information, not mine. He knows what I like almost as well as I do, but Hershey’s Kisses are way too sweet. Yes, I buy them occasionally, but only because Deo likes them.

  The door, which has a security panel on the left, is locked from the outside. I knew that would be the case, but, hey, gotta try. Not that I’d even think of leaving without finding Deo. But I’d like more information about where I am. Whether he’s even here.

  No phone. There’s a very basic-looking computer tablet on the desk, however. As I expected, there’s no internet, but there appears to be an intranet of sorts for entertainment. Books, games, music.

  The TV doesn’t connect to the outside, either. It only plays what’s on the intranet.

  Unlike the room, where everything seems tailored to my individual taste, the entertainment options are varied. There are even foreign-language books and movies. Not just a few languages, either—it’s a pretty large assortment. I scan for French, simply out of habit. My French isn’t the textbook variety and, like the hitcher who left it behind, it has a heavy African accent. I can understand the language pretty well, though—well enough that I’ve watched a few French movies online.

  But the only French movie I see is Amélie, dubbed not into English but Russian. Very few Spanish or German films either, which seems a bit odd to me. Mostly Eastern European.

  A tap on the door, and an almost imperceptible pause before it opens.

  “Oh, good. You’re awake. May I come in?” The woman sticking her head around the door looks to be in her mid- to late twenties. Blonde, short, a little on the plump side.

  I nod, mostly because I’m sure she’s coming in either way and at least she bothered to be polite about it. She’s wearing blue scrubs, has a stethoscope around her neck, and is lugging a navy-blue bag with a white caduceus on the front.

  “It’s Anna, right?”

  I nod again.

  “I’m Ashley-your-nurse,” she says, stringing the phrase together like it’s a single word. “Checking in to see how you’re doing. Any nausea or confusion?”

  “The nausea passed. Still confused. Perhaps you could tell me where I am and how I got here?”

  I have a pretty good idea on the latter question, but I ask anyway, just to see what her response will be.

  “I’m sorry,” Ashley-my-nurse says. “You’ll go through the full orientation process tomorrow, and I’m sure those questions will be answered. I’m here to make sure you’ve recovered from the anesthesia. And to get a blood sample.”

  We go through the usual battery of physical checks—pulse, blood pressure, temperature—then she pulls out a needle and vial. “Just a little pinch.”

  I look away as the needle goes in. My needle phobia is secondhand from Arlene, but I still don’t like watching when it breaks the skin.

  Once she has two rather large vials of my blood, she pops a piece of gauze and a bandage over the puncture in my arm.

  “If you’re still feeling queasy,” she says as she puts her equipment away, “I’d suggest a light snack of crackers, dry cereal, or something like that before bed. And you really should try to get to sleep soon. I would imagine they’ll be in to get you no later than nine, although given that it’s nearly one, I’m going to recommend they give you a bit longer. If you need medical attention, hit the button near the door and someone will contact me.”

  When Ashley stands to leave, I put a hand on her arm. “A boy was brought in several days ago. Taddeo Ramos, he’s—”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t give you any information about other—”

  “Just tell me if he’s okay. Please.”

  “I’m sorry.” Her voice is firm, but not unkind. “I really can’t.”

  Her eyes move toward the ceiling, very briefly, but it’s enough for me to be certain of what I assumed already. I’m being watched. She’s being watched.

  Ashley waves the band on her wrist in front of the security panel to open the door. As she wheels the empty gurney out, I get a brief glimpse of the empty, dimly lit hallway.

  “Try to get some sleep, Anna.” She gives me a fleeting look of sympathy. “You’ll need your rest.”

  Her emphasis on the last sentence is clear, and it only ratchets up my anxiety. I’d love to break something right now, just to hear it shatter. I settle for hurling my empty water bottle at the wall. It connects with a very unsatisfying thwack and falls to the carpet.

  I take two of my pills and eat a few of the Ritz Crackers, since dinner was the single egg roll I grabbed on the way back from the Chinese restaurant. When I’m finished, I crawl under the covers and change into one of the nightgowns from the dresser, tossing my clothes into a pile next to the bed. The idea of undressing in this place creeps me out. Are there cameras in the bathroom too, or only in here?

  Once the lights are out, I meditate and focus on my mental walls. Whenever a stray thought about Aaron, Taylor, or their relationship with Molly wanders into view, I push it into the folder near the back wall so that I can quickly shove them away from Dacia’s prying eyes. I visualize that inner wall as an impenetrable fortress, surrounded by a force field, encased in a Cone of Silence, and covered by a Cloak of Invisibility.

  The Aaron and Taylor memories are recent. I don’t think they’ll be that hard to hide. But the Molly memories are still unpacking, and I don’t know how to manage that process or speed it up. I usually spend weeks working with Kelsey after one of my tenants moves on, sorting through their memories and trying to get my head in order. It’s not something I control. The Molly memories keep piling up when I’m distracted. They’re disorganized, and way too many of them involve the Quinns.

  Half an hour later, I’ve done my best to sort through my incoming memory mail. But I’m still too wound up to sleep. So I browse through the audiobooks on the intranet, hoping I’ll find the one I’m looking for.

  It’s there. Order of the Phoenix. I skip to Chapter Twenty-One and forward to a section near the end. Hermione is accusing Ron of having the “emotional range of a teaspoon.”

  I wonder if Aaron is in the car now, listening to the same thing.

  And then I shove that thought into the folder with the others.

  I dream of garden shears and X-Acto knives. Cold, pitch-dark basements. A girl with ice-blue eyes. Light that feels like it’s burning straight through my retinas. And then the light turns into a snake, and
I turn into a snake, although I’m pretty sure those last two are due more to my choice of bedtime reading than to Molly’s memories.

  Twice, I wake up huddled in a ball, whimpering. But the pills give me just enough control that I don’t cry out. Just enough control that I can—eventually—fall back asleep. That part was so much easier when Aar—

  No.

  Back into the fortress with you.

  Raise shields.

  Lower the Cone of Silence.

  Sleep.

  “. . . get her to wake the hell up.”

  When I open my eyes, the television is on, even though I’m positive I didn’t turn it on. A guy of maybe twenty-five is staring at something on a computer screen. A newscaster, maybe? He seems a bit too average looking, though, and his khaki-colored shirt is more like a uniform. There’s a name tag, but I can only read the first four letters—Timm.

  “Finally,” he says, when he glances toward the camera. “I was about to send someone to knock on your door. Was beginning to wonder if you understand English.”

  It takes me a second to realize that he’s talking to me. I sit straight up, yanking the covers around me.

  “You do understand English, don’t you?” Timm-Whatever’s tone is snide, almost combative.

  “Y-yes.”

  “Good. That’s what my chart says, but I’ve been calling your name for the past ten minutes.”

  “The volume was low,” I tell him. “And I had a rough night.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s why they let you sleep two extra hours. Anyway, you’ve got twenty minutes to get showered and grab breakfast.”

  The screen goes dark again.

  After I shovel down some cereal, I force myself to shower. I lock the bathroom door and try to forget that the ceiling might have eyes. I’ll think of it as the school locker room. People might be watching, but so what?

  The water is blessedly hot and steam hangs in the air, fogging up the glass shower door and mirror. I feel a little more alive by the time I’m finished. I wrap the towel around me and then open the cabinet above the sink to search for a toothbrush.