The latest revelation gave Kalani the will she needed to turn the doorknob and walk inside and not turn on the light, to move through the darkness without any more churning of her gut.
21
Ethan
Matthias didn’t look quite the same after he’d heard the sound from the window above. One of the girls’ bedroom window. Finally, he interrupted Sam with, “Alright, let’s take a walk.”
“Why?” Ethan said.
Matthias pointed up to the window.
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” Ethan said quietly. “You don’t need to worry about her so much. I trust her. I really, truly—”
“And her sister?” Matthias interrupted.
“Well . . . Well, who trusts her?”
“But that’s her bedroom up there,” Matthias said. “That’s her window.”
“I guess the pills wore off?”
“Of course it could be Kalani,” Sam said. “If we think rationally for a minute, it could very well be Kalani.”
“No,” Ethan said, blurting out the word and not even really knowing why. “It’s not Kalani, guys.”
“What’s not Kalani?” Matthias said.
“Come on,” Ethan said, “just trust me on this.”
They’d already started moving away from the house, slowly but without any further prompting. Instinctual and connected, like a slow-motion flock of birds over a lake. They walked around to the driveway side of the house, Ethan feeling a little astonished that no one mentioned anything about the cellar when they walked by it.
“He should be here by now,” Matthias said.
Jackson.
Ethan felt like he’d been waiting for Jackson since the beginning. Certainly since Washington.
“He wouldn’t say where he was,” Matthias said. “No doubt hot on the trail for Tucker.”
“Think he found him?” Ethan asked.
“We would have heard about that.”
“God,” Sam said, “Why can’t the guy just pop up somewhere?” He stopped at the tail end of Kalani’s car. He was staring at the closed trunk lid, his gaze steady enough to pierce through the metal.
“Can you read the car’s mind, too?” Matthias said.
“What’s up, Sam?” Ethan asked.
Matthias shushed him. “Quiet, he’s accessing the trunk’s subconscious.”
“Do either of you know where they keep the key for this?” Sam said, still looking at the back of the car.
Matthias said, “Why don’t you just check?”
“Check where?”
“The fucking door handle,” He moved around and forward to the driver’s side door.
Ethan’s eyebrows rose. “You really think he’s in here?”
Sam kept quiet while Matthias lifted the door handle, the door popping open with a soft thunk. The sound was exhilarating, a little scary, as was the sight of the door swinging open all the way. Matthias leaned in, looking near the floor for the trunk-release latch.
“You think he’d be in the trunk?” Ethan said. “Without us hearing anything?”
Sam snorted. “You think he’d be quiet?”
“Get your head right, Ethan.” Matthias was bent over, running his hand along inside somewhere.
“Fine,” Ethan said, “So he’s in there, not making a sound for reason I won’t mention, and they’d just take him into town like that? To the car shop? Lying in the back like that?”
The soft sound of car tires over crushed stone brought Ethan’s attention away from whatever Matthias had been doing inside the car.
“Guys . . .” Sam’s voice was unusually nervous.
Ethan heard the low metal popping sound of the trunk release. The lid had raised several inches up, ready to be opened.
“Hold it,” Matthias said, stepping back out of the car.
“Hold what?” Ethan and Sam said in unison.
“Just hold it. Who is that?”
The sound grew louder.
“That’s us, right?” Sam said. “That’s our driveway?”
“That’s someone driving up our driveway,” Matthias said, drawing his gun and holding it low.
Ethan had already drawn his while he watched two bluish white beams of light moving through the trees. “That’s definitely us,” he said. “Should we . . . ?”
“Yes, we should,” Matthias said, already on the move. He met Sam behind the car, Ethan watching both of them as he slowly walked backward toward the house, his focus moving back to where the forest glowed brighter. The car tires, and the car’s purring, louder. Ethan felt a little better when he crouched behind a large generator.
He waited there, watching the full-fledged DARC Ops men waiting behind the car.
“Everyone just take it easy,” Matthias said over the growing noise. “Really think this through before you go hog wild with your trigger fingers.” His voice had begun to get clipped by the approach of the car now. One of the last words Ethan could hear from him was the word, “Jackson.”
It must have been Jackson.
He was early. Much earlier than they’d expected. But perhaps Ethan hadn’t known Jackson well enough to learn about those types of expectations. Assumptions about timing and limited possibilities.
“Yeah,” Matthias shouted. “It looks like him.”
It did?
An idea crossed Ethan’s mind: Why hadn’t Jackson called to update them? He thought the DARC leader was usually pretty good at keeping everyone in the loop.
And then Ethan thought about how long they’d left Lea home alone. Drugged-out Lea stumbling toward the phone, answering the call and painting a pretty bleak picture for Jackson back in Washington.
22
Kalani
After a few minutes in the chair, observing her sister, and after hearing the sound of a car coming to a stop in the rocky driveway, Kalani sprang up to turn on the lights.
Lea’s eyes had been open the whole time.
“What are you doing?” Kalani said. “You were just lying there watching me?”
“And how about you?”
“Who’s here?”
“What?” Lea’s voice was calm, flat.
“Who’s here?!”
“You’re here, in my room.”
“In the driveway,” Kalani said, well aware of screeching in her voice. “Someone just pulled up in a car. Can’t you—”
Lea interrupted her. “So what have you been doing this whole time? Why? Just creeping in here to watch me sleep?”
“They said you were sleeping.”
“Then what’s the mystery?” Lea said. “What are you doing?”
“They said you were on sleeping pills.”
Lea laughed.
“Are you?”
“Do I seem like it?” Lea said, sitting up a little with her head against the headboard. She folded her arms over her chest. “You tell me, was I sleeping?”
“They said you seemed . . . intoxicated. Like, medicated, somehow.”
“Awesome.”
“You fell asleep during the movie and they had to help you to bed.”
“I was tired.”
Kalani stared at her, listening to the car below, the sound of a parking brake. The sound of the engine cutting off, and then, nothing but crickets and frog songs.
“You look so surprised,” Lea said, “to find me in bed.”
Kalani was surprised—at how clear and sober her sister had seemed. How wide awake and almost calculatingly brilliant. The way she’d just sparred with her. It was something that came naturally to the sisters, but not usually under her medicated cloud. Those times, the sparring would turn real, physical, or just ugly screaming. But here she was razor sharp, and it scared the crap out of Kalani.
Had it all been a ploy? For years?
“So you were just tired,” Kalani said, walking over to her chair again. “That’s fine, totally fine.”
“Yes,” Lea said. “It is.”
“I was just worried about yo
u.”
Had Lea pretended to be medicated to get away from the movie? Or to get away from their questions and suspicions?
More likely it was to get away from Sam’s ongoing and very penetrating active analysis.
“What was it?” Kalani said, taking a seat in the rocking chair between the window and bed. “Was it Sam? Was he bothering you?”
“No,” Lea said, “of course not.”
“He made you feel tired, huh? I can see that. You know his type, the intellectual.”
“You mean, the neurotic?”
“Sure.”
“No, I was really just tired,” Lea said, unfolding her arms and stretching them out above her head. She yawned, big and long, and then brought them back down again before asking, “So, who’s here? Friends of yours?”
“Huh?”
“Friends of theirs?”
“I don’t know,” Kalani said. “I’m not expecting anyone. Are you?”
Lea smiled. “No.” She drew back the thin white sheet that had been covering her up to her chest, folding it back slowly. She sighed. “It’s too hot even for a single damn sheet. How much longer do you think we’ll have to stay here? How many more nights? Aren’t you absolutely losing your fucking mind, or am I just the only one?”
With the sheet peeled back, Kalani could see it. She saw it right away.
Lea continued. “Or are you just getting used to it? Are you? You are. I think you are.
“No,” Kalani said quietly, studying and staring at a little spot of gray on her sister’s nightshirt. That strange little spot.
“You are, Kalani.” Lea laughed and the spot moved with her. “What do they call that? That syndrome? China syndrome?”
“Stockholm,” Kalani said. “Stockholm Syndrome.”
“Yeah . . . Is that what this is?”
“What is that?” Kalani said, pointing to the little mark on Lea’s nightshirt. “What is that, Lea?”
23
Ethan
“Hold your fire, boys,” came Jackson’s cool, authoritative drawl. Despite the weapons pointed at him, his voice sounded lazy from the drive, his gaze looking highway hypnotized in the orange glow of the porch light. He’d strolled up, then casually shaken Ethan’s sweated palm last and hadn’t even made a single joke about it.
Ethan wiped his hand on his pants before holstering his weapon.
“My apologies for the scare,” Jackson said.
“How about yours?” Matthias said. “It’s not every day you’ve got your team looking at you down the barrel.”
“Some days it feels that way,” he said. “I’m used to it by now.”
“Who’s that in the car?” Matthias asked.
Jackson turned back and hollered, “Go on ahead and come out. It’s safe now, they put their toys away.”
“Jack, who is that?”
A bulky figure emerged from the car, standing bow-legged, leaning back against it. Whoever it was, he was in no hurry to meet the men who’d just been pointing guns at him.
“I believe you’ve already met,” Jackson said to Matthias.
“I have?”
“Yeah,” said the figure. “You flunked me out of the course.”
“I flunked a lot of people out,” Matthias said with a chuckle. “That’s the point, to trim the fat. Jackson, what are you doing bringing fat here?”
Jackson chuckled. “He might be fat, but he’s—”
The Fat interrupted with, “Hey,” sounding comically small and wounded for his size.
“But he’s fat I trust,” Jackson said. “In this case, that’s the most important thing. Plus he’s got some free time on his hands now since he . . . left your camp.”
Logan, a recently disqualified SWAT hopeful, had joined the men in the crescent of light near the porch. He mumbled to Matthias that there were no hard feelings before Jackson instructed everyone to grab a piece of equipment from the car. A trunk opened up to reveal a cache of armored vests and gun cases. A few loose shotguns were thrown in the mix.
“What else you got?” Sam said after coming back from the house on his second trip. “What are those? Explosives?”
“Laptops,” Jackson said.
“Oh.”
Ethan was a little relieved that he wasn’t the only less-than-genius one of the bunch when it came to technology. He helped the men carry the rest of the equipment into the house, laying everything out on the living room’s hardwood floor. When they had finished, the men stood around Jackson, eager to hear the news. Or at least the beginning of it: why he was there and how long he’d be staying.
But the sound of footsteps on the stairway, a slow jaunty descent, had everyone silent. After a moment of anticipation, Ethan took it upon himself to break the ice. “Logan . . . meet Kalani, one of our hosts.”
He called out hello as Kalani rounded the stairs, walking out to where everyone was gathered. She slowed at the sight of all the bulky equipment, a little wide-eyed at the recent additions to the otherwise rustic décor.
She finally spoke. “The Cavalry?”
“At least the beginning of it,” Jackson said. “We’ll work with this for now, and with the limited numbers we’ve got. But expect more soon. More numbers, more big black cases, food, and perhaps a little more direction. For now, I’m pretty tired.”
“How’s Lea?” Ethan asked Kalani, aware who was supposedly the most tired. Lea had been on his mind since their return from the woods. But by the looks of the rest of them, it might have been the furthest thing from theirs. Confusion. Unconcealed blankness. Everyone seemed to act like they’d had no idea who Lea was. Or at least feigning ignorance so they wouldn’t have to start discussing her.
Even before Kalani could answer, Ethan felt a little bad for bringing it up.
But he couldn’t help feeling for Kalani, feeling like he’d been upstairs with her the whole time. Through his short absence, he wanted to know exactly what had happened, what had crossed her mind, what she’d been feeling without him.
Finally, after Kalani’s face twitched almost imperceptibly, she answered. “Lea’s sleeping.”
While the guys eventually found some chairs among the newly piled junk in the living room, and while the preliminary bullshit flowed generously through the night, Ethan was keenly aware of Kalani’s absence. Rather, her quiet presence one room away, in the kitchen. She had made off as if to prepare something, tea perhaps, but she hadn’t come back. Ethan wanted to find her, and find out whatever else he could about what had happened upstairs with Lea. Already, after just an hour, he felt the gap return, the bridge between them almost as wide as their months-long detachment.
He found her sitting over a steaming mug of tea at the kitchen table.
“I was going to bring some out, but . . .” She trailed off, still looking down into it. She grabbed the tag of the tea bag and swung it around the mug.
“You okay?” Ethan asked.
“Are you? You’ve got your friends here now.”
“And you’ve got one upstairs. How is she?”
“She’s not my friend.” Kalani chuckled quietly, almost sadly. “I love her all the same, but she’s not my friend.”
“I know,” Ethan said. “I had a brother, too.”
She swung around, glancing at him. She looked tired. “Had?”
“He had a condition,” Ethan said, his gaze narrowing in on the steam rising from her mug. In his mind, he peeled back twenty years of memories, his brother again hunched over a pot of steaming water, struggling to breathe it in. His therapy.
“What happened? What kind of condition?”
“Can you tell me about Lea first? I think that’s more important.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s still alive,” Ethan said. “Was she sleeping?”
Kalani flinched a little at his words, turning back to her tea.
“Was she . . . medicated?” he asked quietly.
“I don’t know about medicated, but she was sleeping. Well,
at least, she was in bed. I don’t even know about sleeping. I sat in there for awhile, when I first got back in the house. When I turned the light on, her eyes were already opened.”
“Some people do that,” Ethan said, shrugging. “Light sleepers. I do that. You can read a book next to me and I’ll wake up at the sound of a turning page.”
“Yeah,” Kalani said, sounding forlorn again. “Tell me about your brother.”
“What’s wrong, Kalani?”
She blew into the mug, lifted it, and took a small and quiet slurp. “People don’t wake up like that if they’re medicated.”
“So then she wasn’t medicated,” Ethan said. “That’s a good thing. Right?”
“It’s not good if she was lying . . .”
“Lying?”
“Or pretending,” Kalani said. “Pretending she’d taken pills and got sleepy and . . .”
Ethan moved off the counter he was leaning back on and walked to the chair, taking a seat across from Kalani. “I think you lost me. What do you think’s going on?”
“I saw something . . . something on her nightshirt.” Kalani pushed the mug away as if she was sickened by the sight of it. She looked at Ethan, her eyes gleaming at his like they’d never look away. And for a long while, they didn’t. “I remember that I just did laundry this morning, washing her nightshirt, you know, the one she wears to bed all the time. It was perfectly clean. And then tonight, when she pulled the sheets back, I saw a stain on it. Like, a fingerprint.”
“A fingerprint?”
“Like from the clay.”
“What clay?”
“The pottery,” Kalani. “In the barn. You know how pottery is, right?”
“I’m afraid I don’t.”
“It’s a really messy habit. I mean, hobby. It’s real messy, the clay and everything. The dust gets everywhere, it gets on your hands. Wet clay on your hands, clay water dripping on your clothes and everything.”
Ethan leaned back in his chair. “And so . . .”
“And so she was obviously in there tonight, in the barn for some reason. Doing something near the pottery wheel. I asked her about it, and she got defensive. Claiming she was sleeping, of course. And think about it, Ethan.”
Dark Discovery (DARC Ops Book 8) Page 17
