The Mediator #2: Ninth Key

by Jenny Carroll

  He was polite, too. Old-world manners were the only ones he knew. He leaned down and offered me his hand . . . his lean, brown, completely poison-oak-free hand.

  I reached up. He helped me to my feet.

  "Are you all right?" he asked, probably because I wasn't mouthing off as much as usual.

  "I'm fine," I said. Drenched, and smelling of fish, but fine. "But I didn't call you."

  From the opposite corner of the room came a very low snarl.

  Marcus was struggling to get to his feet, but he kept slipping on all the water and fish. "What the hell did you do that for?" he wanted to know.

  I couldn't actually remember. I think maybe when the water hit me, I'd banged my head against something. Wow, I thought. Amnesia. Cool. I'd get out of tomorrow's Geometry quiz for sure.

  Then my gaze fell on Tad – still sleeping peacefully on the couch, an exotic-looking fish flopping in death throes on his bare legs – and I remembered.

  Oh, yeah. Tad's uncle Marcus was trying to kill us. Would kill us, too, if I didn't stop him.

  I'm not sure I was really thinking straight. All I could remember from before the water hit was that it had been important, for some reason, for me to get onto the other side of that fish tank.

  And so I waded through all that water – thinking to myself, My boots are so ruined – and climbed up onto what was now just a raised platform, like a stage, looking out across a sea of slapping fishtails. The accent lights, still buried in the colored gravel at the bottom of the tank, shined up on me.

  "Susannah," I heard Jesse say. He'd followed me, and now stood looking up at me curiously. "What are you doing?"

  I ignored him – and Marcus, too, who was still swearing as he tried to get across the room without getting his Cole-Haans more wet than they already were.

  I stood inside the ruined aquarium and looked up. As I'd suspected, the fish were fed from a room behind the tank … a room in which there was nothing except aquarium maintenance equipment. The locked door from Mr. Beaumont's office led into this room. There was no other form of egress.

  Not that it mattered now, of course.

  "Get down from there." Marcus sounded really mad. "Get down there from there, by God, or I'll climb in and fish you out – "

  Fish me out. That struck me as kind of amusing under the circumstances. I started to laugh.

  "Susannah," Jesse said. "I think – "

  "We'll see how hard you're laughing," Marcus bellowed, "when I get through with you, you stupid bitch."

  I stopped laughing all of a sudden.

  "Susannah," Jesse said. Now he really sounded worried.

  "Don't worry, Jesse," I said, in a perfectly calm voice. "I've got this one under control."

  "Jesse?" Marcus looked around. Not seeing anyone else in the room, however, but Tad, he said, "It's Marcus. I'm Marcus, remember? Now, come on down here. We don't have any more time for these childish games...."

  I bent down and seized one of the accent lights that glowed, hidden in the sand at the bottom of the tank. Shaped like a small floodlight, it proved to be very hot in my hands when I touched it.

  Marcus, realizing I wasn't going to come with him on my own accord, sighed, and reached into his suit coat, which was wet and smelly now. He'd have to change before his lunch meeting.

  "Okay, you want to play games?" Marcus pulled something made of shiny metal from his breast pocket. It was, I realized, a tiny little gun. A twenty-two, from the looks of it. I knew from having watched so many episodes of Cops.

  "See this?" Marcus pointed the muzzle at me. "I don't want to have to shoot you. The coroner tends to be suspicious of drowning victims bearing gunshot wounds. But we can always let the propellers dismember you so no one will actually be able to tell. Maybe just your head will toss up onto shore. Wouldn't your mother love that? Now, put the light down and let's go."

  I straightened, but I didn't put the light down. It came up with me, along with the black, rubber-coated cord that had grounded it beneath the sand.

  "That's right," Marcus said, looking pleased. "Put the light down, and let's go."

  Jesse, standing in the water beside my would-be assassin, looked extremely interested in what was going on. "Susannah," he said. "That is a gun he is holding. Do you want me to – "

  "Don't worry, Jesse," I said, approaching the edge of the tank, where there'd once been a wall of glass – before I'd broken it, that is. "Everything's under control."

  "Who the hell is Jesse?" Marcus, I realized, was getting testy. "There is no Jesse here. Now put the light down and let's – "

  I did what he said. Well, sort of. That is, I wrapped the cord that was attached to the light around my left hand. Then with my other hand, I pulled the bulb so that the cord came popping right out of the back of the socket.

  Then I stood there holding the lamp in one hand, and the cord with frayed wires now sticking out of one end of it in the other.

  "That's great," Marcus said. "You broke the light. You really showed me. Now" – his voice rose – "get down here!"

  I stepped up to the edge of the tank.

  "I am not," I informed Marcus, "stupid."

  He gestured with the gun. "Whatever you say. Just – "

  "Nor," I added, "am I a bitch."

  Marcus's eyes widened. Suddenly, he realized what I was up to.

  "No!" he shrieked.

  But it was way too late. I had already thrown the cord into the murky water at Marcus's feet.

  There was a brilliant blue flash and a lot of popping noises. Marcus screamed.

  And then we were plunged into impenetrable darkness.

  C H A P T E R

  21

  Well, okay, not really impenetrable. I could still see Jesse, glowing the way he did.

  "That," he said, looking down at the moaning Marcus, "was very impressive, Susannah."

  "Thanks," I said, pleased to have won his approval. It happened so rarely. I was glad I'd listened to Doc during one of his recent electrical safety lectures.

  "Now, do you think you want to tell me," Jesse asked, moving to offer me a steadying hand as I climbed down from the aquarium, "just what is going on here? Is that your friend Tad on the couch there?"

  "Uh-huh." Before stepping down, I bent down, searching for the cord along the floor. "Step over here, will you, so I can – " Jesse's glow, subtle as it was, soon revealed what I was looking for. "Never mind." I pulled the cord back up into the aquarium. "Just in case," I said, straightening and climbing out of the aquarium, "they get the circuit breaker fixed before I'm out of here."

  "Who is they? Susannah, what is going on here?"

  "It's a long story," I said. "And I'm not sticking around to tell it. I want to be out of here when he" – I nodded toward Marcus, who was moaning more loudly now – "wakes up. He's got a couple of thick-necked compadres waiting for me, too, in case – " I broke off.

  Jesse looked at me questioningly. "What is it?"

  "Do you smell that?"

  Stupid question. I mean, after all, the guy's dead. Can ghosts smell?

  Apparently so, since he went, "Smoke."

  A single syllable, but it sent a chill down my spine. Either that, or a fish had found it's way inside my sweater.

  I glanced at the aquarium. Beyond it, I could see a rosy glow emanating from the room next door. Just as I had suspected, by giving Marcus a giant electric shock, I had managed to spark a fire in the circuit panel. It appeared to have spread to the walls around it. I could see the first tiny licks of orange leaping out from behind the wood paneling.

  "Great," I said. The elevator was useless without electricity. And as I knew only too well, there was no other way out of that room.

  Jesse wasn't quite the defeatist I was, however.

  "The windows," he said, and hurried toward them.

  "It's no good." I leaned against Mr. Beaumont's desk and picked up the house phone. Dead, just as I'd expected. "They're nailed shut."

  Jesse glanced
at me over his shoulder. He looked amused. "So?" he said.

  "So." I slammed the receiver down. "Nailed, Jesse. As in impossible to budge."

  "For you, maybe." Even as he said it, the wooden shutters over the window closest to me began to tremble ominously as if blown by some unseen gale. "But not for me."

  I watched, impressed. "Golly gee, mister," I said. "I forgot all about your superpowers."

  Jesse's look went from amused to confused. "My what?"

  "Oh." I dropped the imitation I'd been doing of a kid from an episode of Superman.

  "Never mind."

  I heard, above the sound of nails screaming as if caught in the suck zone of an F5 tornado, people shouting. I glanced toward the elevator. The thugs, apparently concerned for their employer's welfare, were calling his name up the shaft.

  I guess I didn't blame them. Smoke was steadily filling the room. I could hear small eruptions now as chemicals – most likely of the hazardous nature – used in the upkeep of Mr. Beaumont's fish tank burst into flames next door. If we didn't get out of there soon, I had a feeling we'd all be inhaling some pretty toxic fumes.

  Fortunately, at that moment the shutters burst off first one and then another of the windows, with all the force as if a hurricane had suddenly ripped them off. Blam! And then blam again. I'd never seen anything like it before, not even on the Discovery Channel.

  Gray light rushed in. It was, I realized, still raining out.

  I didn't care. I don't think I'd ever been so glad to see the sky, even as darkly overcast as it was. I rushed to the window closest to me and looked out, squinting against the rain.

  We were, I saw, in the upper story of the house. Below us lay the patio....

  And the pool.

  The shouting up the elevator shaft was growing louder. The thicker the smoke grew, apparently, the more frantic the thugs became. God forbid one of them should think to dial 911. Then again, considering the career choices they'd made, that number probably didn't hold much appeal for them.

  I measured the distance between myself and the deep end of the pool.

  "It can't be more than twenty feet." Jesse, observing my calculations, nodded to Marcus. "You go. I'll look after him." His dark-eyed gaze flicked toward the elevator shaft. "And them, if they make any progress."

  I didn't ask what he meant by "looking after." I didn't have to. The dangerous light in his eyes said it all.

  I glanced at Tad. Jesse followed my gaze, then rolled his eyes, the dangerous light extinguished. He muttered some stuff in Spanish.

  "Well, I can't just leave him here," I said.

  "No."

  Which was how, a few seconds later, Tad, supported by me, but transported via the Jesse-kinetic connection, ended up perched on the sill of one of those windows Jesse had blown open for me.

  The only way to get Tad into the pool – and to safety – was to drop him into it out the window. This was a risky enough endeavor without having an inferno blazing next door, and hired assassins bearing down on one. I had to concentrate. I didn't want to do it wrong. What if I missed and he smacked onto the patio, instead? Tad could break his poison-oaky neck.

  But I didn't have much choice in the matter. It was either turn him into a possible pancake, or let him be barbecued for true. I went with the possible pancake, thinking that he was likelier to heal in time for the prom from a cracked skull than third-degree burns, and, after aiming as best I could, I let go. He fell backward, like a scuba diver off the side of a boat, tumbling once through the sky and doing what Dopey would call a pretty sick inverted spin (Dopey is an avid, if untalented, snowboarder).

  Fortunately, Tad's sick inverted spin ended with him floating on his back in the deep end of his father's pool.

  Of course, to guarantee he didn't drown – unconscious people aren't the best swimmers — I jumped in after him . . . but not before one last look around.

  Marcus was finally starting to regain consciousness. He was coughing a little because of the smoke, and splashing around in the fishy water. Jesse stood over him, looking grim faced.

  "Go, Susannah," he said when he noticed I'd hesitated.

  I nodded. But there was still one thing I had to know.

  "You're not …" I didn't want to, but I had to ask it. "You're not going to kill him, are you?"

  Jesse looked as incredulous as if I'd asked him if he were going to serve Marcus a slice of cheesecake. He said, "Of course not. Go."

  I went.

  The water was warm. It was like jumping into a giant bathtub. When I'd swum up to the surface – not exactly easy in boots, by the way – I hurried to Tad's side....

  Only to find that the water had revived him. He was splashing around, looking confused and taking in great lungfuls of water. I smacked him on the back a couple of times, and steered him to the side of the pool, which he clung to gratefully.

  "S-Sue," he sputtered, bewilderedly. "What are you doing here?" Then he noticed my leather jacket. "And why aren't you wearing a bathing suit?"

  "It's a long story," I said.

  He looked even more confused after that, but that was all right. I figured with as much stuff as he was going to have to deal with – his dad being a Prozac candidate, his uncle a serial killer – he didn't need to have all the gory details spelled out for him right away. Instead, I guided him over toward the shallow end. We'd only been standing there a minute before Mr. Beaumont opened the sliding glass door and stepped outside.

  "Children," he said. He was wearing a silk dressing gown and his bedroom slippers. He looked very excited. "What are you doing in that pool? There's a fire! Get out of the house at once."

  Even as he said it, I could hear, off in the distance, the whine of a siren. The fire department was on its way. Someone, anyway, had dialed 911.

  "I warned Marcus," Mr. Beaumont said, as he held out a big fluffy towel for Tad to step into, "about the wiring in my office. I had a feeling it was faulty. My telephone absolutely would not make outgoing calls."

  Still standing in the waist-high water, I followed Mr. Beaumont's gaze, and found myself looking up at the window I'd just leaped from. Smoke was billowing out of it. The fire seemed to be contained in that section of the house, but still, it looked pretty bad. I wondered if Marcus and his thugs had gotten out in time.

  And then someone stepped up to the window and looked down at me.

  It wasn't Marcus. And it wasn't Jesse, either, though this person was giving off a tell-tale glow.

  It was someone who waved cheerfully down at me.

  Mrs. Deirdre Fiske.

  C H A P T E R

  22

  I never saw Marcus Beaumont again.

  Oh, stop worrying: he didn't croak. Of course, the firemen looked for him. I told them I thought there was at least one person trapped in that burning room, and they did their best to get in there in time to save him.

  But they didn't find anyone. And no human remains were discovered by the investigators who went in after the fire was finally put out. They found an awful lot of burned fish, but no Marcus Beaumont.

  Marcus Beaumont was officially missing.

  Much in the same way, I realized, that his victims had gone missing. He simply vanished, as if into thin air.

  A lot of people were puzzled by the disappearance of this prominent businessman. In later weeks, there would be articles about it in the local papers, and even a mention on one cable news network. Interestingly, the person who knew the most about Marcus Beaumont's last moments before he vanished was never interviewed, much less questioned, about what might have led up to his bizarre disappearance.

  Which is probably just as well, considering the fact that she had way more important things to worry about. For instance, being grounded.

  That's right. Grounded.

  If you think about it, the only thing I'd really done wrong on the day in question was dress a little less conservatively than I should have. Seriously. If I'd gone Banana Republic instead of Betsey Johnson, non
e of this might have happened. Because then I wouldn't have been sent home to change, and Marcus would never have gotten his mitts on me.

  On the other hand, then he'd still probably be going around, slipping environmentalists into cement booties and tossing them off the side of his brother's yacht … or however it was he got rid of all those people without ever being caught. I never really did get the full story on that one.

  In any case, I got grounded, completely unjustly, although I wasn't exactly in a position to defend myself . . . not without telling the truth, and I couldn't, of course, do that.

  I guess you could imagine how it must have looked to my mother and stepfather when the cop car pulled up in front of our house and Officer Green opened the back door to reveal . . . well, me.

  I looked like something out of a movie about post-apocalyptic America. Tank Girl, but without the awful haircut. Sister Ernestine wasn't going to have to worry about me showing up to school in Betsey Johnson ever again, either. The skirt was completely ruined, as was my cashmere sweater set. My fabulous leather motorcycle jacket might be all right, someday, if I can ever figure out a way to get the fishy smell out of it. The boots, however, are a lost cause.

  Boy, was my mom mad. And not because of my clothes, either.

  Interestingly, Andy was even madder. Interestingly because, of course, he's not even my real parent.

  But you should have seen the way he lit into me right there in the living room. Because of course I'd had to explain to them what it was I'd been doing at the Beaumonts' place when the fire broke out, instead of being where I was supposed to have been: school.

  And the only lie I could think of that seemed the least bit believable was my newspaper article story.

  So I told them that I'd skipped school in order to do some follow-up work on my interview with Mr. Beaumont.

  They didn't believe me, of course. It turned out they knew I'd been sent home from school to change clothes. Father Dominic, alarmed when I didn't return in a timely fashion, had immediately called my mother and stepfather at their respective places of work to alert them to the fact that I was missing.