by Lis Wiehl
She checked her purse to make sure the .32 was still there. It was all she had—that, and her wits.
They would have to suffice.
“Are you there, Henry?” she asked her phone.
“I’m here, Cassandra,” Henry said. “How may I assist you?”
“Just checking in,” she said. “Feeling a little lonely. Nice to have someone to talk to. Besides myself, I mean.”
“I like talking to you as well,” Henry said. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.”
“How about a bedtime story?” she asked.
“Once upon a time—”
“I was kidding,” she said. “Maybe later.”
“I will remind you later.”
“What time zone am I in?”
“European Central Time. Or Heure Normale Europe Centrale in French. Would you like me to—”
“That’s good,” Cassandra said. “Just stand by. I might need you.”
“I will stand by.”
28.
December 23
1:00 p.m. EST
Dani had just started playing the Brandenburg Concerto Reese had chosen to rouse himself with when she heard the boy’s voice over the loudspeaker.
“Not yet,” he said.
She shut the music off immediately. She’d give him fifteen more minutes and then start it up again.
Reese had been in the sensory deprivation tank for an hour. She’d read in a book that tank users who’d entered their tanks without being told how long their sessions were going to last were often wildly incapable of estimating how long they’d been in, similar to the way that in a normal dream, days could seem to pass even though the dreamer had spent less than two or three minutes in REM sleep. While she was waiting, her phone chortled to tell her she’d received a text message from Quinn.
DANI—NEED TO KNOW IF EDA IS IN LAKE ATTICUS AND IN WHAT CONCENTRATION AT DEPTH—CAN YOU TEST IT?
I WILL FORWARD THAT TO TOMMY, she texted back. YOU HAVEN’T HEARD FROM CASSANDRA, I DON’T SUPPOSE?
NO. AND YOU JUST USED A DOUBLE NEGATIVE.
After fifteen minutes she started the music again. When it had been playing for a few minutes, she turned off the lights in the man cave and lifted the lid. Reese stepped out quickly, seeming both refreshed and less daunted than the last time he was in the tank.
After the boy had a chance to rinse off the saltwater in the shower and dress, he met Dani in the kitchen, where he wolfed down the peanut butter and jelly sandwich Ruth offered him. For some reason, he declared, his sessions in the tank made him hungry.
“Everything makes boys your age hungry,” Ruth said.
“Mrs. Carlyle makes us sandwiches with marmite,” he said. He made a face and shuddered. “Bleeah! It’s like drinking a smoothie made from a compost heap. This is quite good. Believe it or not, I’ve never had a jelly and peanut butter before.”
“Peanut butter and jelly,” Ruth corrected him. “I don’t know why, but jelly never comes first.”
“Did you have any luck contacting Edmond?” Dani asked. She’d wanted to ask but had given him time to reorient himself in the real world.
“Some,” he told her. “I tried to think of my brother, just to tell him I miss him. And to ask him if he misses me. I got a sense of how lonely he is, but … he doesn’t want anybody to help him. He’s built a wall around himself. He won’t talk to anybody. He’s not eating anything. Maybe that’s why I was so hungry.”
“Maybe,” Dani allowed.
“But then I started to get a really strong feeling,” Reese said. “My brother is usually one of the most confident people I know. To the point of arrogance, I suppose. But now … he’s not sure. I kept telling him not to put it in the water. That it’s the wrong thing to do.”
“Not to put what in the water?” Dani said. “This is the first time you’ve mentioned putting something in the water.”
“Weren’t you the one who told me that?” Reese asked. “Something about the water.”
“We think that’s what they’re targeting,” Dani said. “You think Edmond is putting something in the water directly?”
“That’s the impression I got from him. Most definitely. I told him it was dangerous. He started to worry. Not just about himself. About some of his friends from Honors House.”
“The Selected,” Dani said.
“Yes. They’re the ones … their mission is the same as his. Put whatever it is into the water.”
Provivilan, Dani thought. “What water, Reese?” she asked. “Where?”
“I don’t know. But as he was thinking of them, I got a very clear picture of their faces. Some of them, at least. I know who they are now. Do you have something to write with?”
Dani got him a piece of paper and a pen, and he wrote down five names.
“This is a good start,” she said.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t give you more,” Reese said.
“Is this what you were thinking of when you said ‘not yet’?”
“I said that?” Reese asked her. “I don’t remember saying that. It must have been when you turned on the lights inside the tank.”
“There aren’t any lights inside the tank,” Dani told him. “It only gets light inside when you lift the lid.”
“But …”
“But what?”
“Well, this is intriguing. Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” Dani said. “The whole point is to make it so dark and quiet that you have an absence of sensory input.”
“Well, that’s not what I felt. Tommy was telling me about praying,” Reese said, thinking. “He said sometimes it helps when you do it in a place that’s dark and quiet, so I thought I’d give it a try in the tank. And when I did, I felt …”
“What?” Dani asked.
“Well,” Reese said. “I’m not sure how to describe it. I felt really good. Really happy. Bliss or something quite like it. And then I thought you turned the lights on. It got really bright inside and warm, and the light was golden and everything seemed to slow down, as if the light were made out of honey. It was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever felt. Just pure joy. And then I heard the music.”
“I didn’t turn on any lights,” Dani said. “There aren’t any lights to turn on.”
“It was genuinely amazing,” Reese said. “Do you promise you’re not pulling my leg?”
“I promise,” Dani said. She’d read of phenomena where people experience being bathed in a golden light—an experience generally described as “spiritual.” She’d always regarded it as a psychological anomaly or abnormal event before. Not now.
“I wonder if your brother might have been feeling some of the same things.”
On the monitor she then noticed Tommy walking up the driveway toward the house; a man in a black overcoat was walking beside him. A stranger.
“Reese,” she said, “someone is coming and I don’t know who it is. Would you mind waiting in the study? I just don’t want to have to explain what you’re doing here.”
“Why don’t I just wait in the study so you don’t have to explain what I’m doing here?” he said.
She was getting used to his sassy sense of humor. It occurred to her in passing that Reese and Helen Trumble would probably hit it off.
When he’d left, Dani went to the back door and opened it.
“Dani,” Tommy said. “This is Agent Cooney from the FBI. Agent Cooney, this is Danielle Harris, my girlfriend, and that’s my Aunt Ruth.”
The FBI agent took his hat off but didn’t move from the doorway.
“I’m following up on a report we received about a missing person,” he said.
“Why is the FBI interested in a missing persons case?” Dani asked.
“We’re having trouble locating the headmaster from St. Adrian’s. The sons of seven world leaders are currently enrolled at St. Adrian’s Academy,” Agent Cooney said. “As well as boys from a number of royal Arab houses and multiple diplomats. The dis
appearance of the school’s headmaster could have international repercussions. That’s why we were asked to look into it. Did any of you see or hear anything unusual two nights ago?”
“Two nights ago?” Dani frowned. “No.”
“Agent Cooney says they got an anonymous tip that there was a dead body in the pond,” Tommy said, laughing it off. “I told him I couldn’t think of anybody who might have made such a claim, but he wanted to talk to you.”
“I was asleep by eleven,” Dani said.
“I was out by ten,” Ruth said. “Can you narrow it down a little?”
“I’m afraid I can’t,” Agent Cooney said. He looked at each of them, evaluating their responses. It was the same task Dani performed for the district attorney’s office. If she knew how to detect a lie, she’d also learned how to tell one.
“We didn’t notice anything,” Dani said.
“I’ll leave my card in case you think of anything.” Cooney looked at each of them one more time, then turned to Tommy. “Probably just a crank call. There’s a new trend called swatting, where people try to get S.W.A.T. teams to show up at celebrity houses. This may be nothing more than that. Thank you for your time. Shall we?”
“We’re just going to go out and have a look at the pond,” Tommy told the others.
Dani watched them walk to the edge of the pond. Ruth joined her at the window.
“Someone from the school must have called in the tip,” Ruth said. “They’re trying to get Tommy arrested. Maybe Mr. Stanley can call them off. Or at least stall them.”
“Maybe for a little while,” Dani said. “But not for long.”
29.
December 23
3:01 p.m. EST / 9:01 p.m. CET
At dinner, Udo Bauer talked at length about himself while Cassandra smiled and laughed and feigned interest. He spoke of world leaders he had met, and world leaders his father had known, and world leaders his grandfather had known, though she noted that he failed to mention Hitler or Stalin. All the while, Cassandra said nothing of her interests, or her past, or her dreams or desires.
After the meal, Bauer told her how much he was enjoying getting to know her.
She told him it was rare to meet a man who was charming, funny, and intelligent, and he assumed she was referring to him as the exception, though she was speaking generally. She declined his offer of brandy, just as she’d declined his offer of wine with dinner, even though he made a point of telling her how rare and expensive both the wine and the brandy were. She playfully accused him, once again, of trying to get her tipsy. He laughed, though clearly that was what he was trying to do. She apologized and said her stomach was bothering her, and that though she was enjoying his company, she needed more time to reacclimate to the sea.
“It’s so embarrassing,” she said. “I grew up on the ocean and now I can’t handle it. I’ll be better company in the morning—promise! Good night.”
The next morning she told Vito she wanted a light breakfast in her room. Again, simply being near the man made her feel a mixture of nausea and disgust. She had just finished eating when she heard the sound of gunfire. When she stepped out onto the deck, she saw Vito potting seagulls from the fantail with a shotgun.
“I try to tell them they are free to leave their waste products anywhere but on my boat, but they refuse to listen,” Bauer said from a balcony on the deck above her, his voice catching her by surprise.
“Flying rats,” Cassandra said. “That’s what my uncle used to call them.” As a girl, she once almost tamed a seagull that let her feed him out of her hand. She’d named him Jonathan, after the book Jonathan Livingston Seagull, which her mother had read to her.
“Do you have a fondness for guns, Miss Morton?” Bauer said. “I couldn’t help but notice you have a pistol in your purse.”
She looked up at him and smiled. “And how would you know that?” she asked him.
“Last night when I gave you the tour, I walked you through an X-ray scanner, similar to the ones they have at airports. Don’t be offended—I scan all my guests. No exceptions. But I’m wondering why you feel the need to arm yourself?”
“I arm myself,” she said, “on the off chance that someday I might run into my father.”
She’d rehearsed what she’d say if she were caught with the weapon. Now it was show time.
“You feel threatened by your father?”
“No,” she said, “but he should feel threatened by me. And if you want to know the rest of that story, you will have to be very, very nice to me.”
“I intend to be,” Bauer said, “but in the meantime, I can assure you that your father is not aboard this ship, and if he were, my crew is more than prepared to handle any situation that might arise. If you wouldn’t mind giving your weapon to the steward, I’ll see that it’s returned to you when you leave the ship.”
“Of course,” she said, taking the .32 from her purse and handing it to Vito, who appeared at her side. He received the weapon with a courteous nod. She hoped her apprehension didn’t show. “I intend to do nothing today but read a book and work on my tan. Would you care to join me?”
“Soon. I have a business meeting I must attend to first—a teleconference that will keep me occupied for most of the morning. The deck off my suite is the highest place on the ship and will put you closest to the sun. Vito will show you. And feel free to enjoy the sun in as much or as little as you care to wear, including nothing at all—my crew knows what would happen if any of them were to take a photograph. And if any aircraft dares to fly over us, it will meet the same fate as the seagulls.”
Charming, Cassandra thought.
But her role was that of temptress, so of the three bathing suits she had to choose from, she selected the skimpiest, though it was still nothing that would raise so much as an eyebrow on any of the better beaches in the States.
Vito led her to Bauer’s sun deck, which opened via a wall of sliding glass doors to the master suite, then left her with a pitcher of iced tea and a stack of large pristine white beach towels. When he was gone, she looked around for surveillance cameras pointed at her. There were none that she could see.
She stretched out on a deck chair and pretended to read from her GPhone, when in fact she was using the camera to look beyond the glass doors into the master suite. When she asked Henry to zoom in, he quietly complied. The master suite was appointed entirely in white and featured a king-sized bed with a large skylight above it, with an array of paddle fans to keep the air circulating. The glare from the sun made it hard to see.
“Still no satellite uplink, Henry?” she asked the phone.
“Satellite uplink is blocked. A Wi-Fi network is available.”
The network was labeled simply Freiheit1. When she tried to log in, she found the network was password protected.
“Rats,” she said.
“Would you like me to find a pest control company or exterminator?”
“It’s just an expression,” she said. “Although the company I’m in isn’t much higher. I don’t suppose you have any way to tell me what the password is?”
“I can only determine that it’s a twelve-letter word or combination of letters and numerals.”
“Try prachtvoller. I don’t know how to spell it. It’s the German word for ‘magnificent.’”
“Access is denied.”
“Well then,” she said, getting to her feet, “let’s see ’em try to deny America’s Sweetheart when she has to powder her nose.”
“Why would America’s Sweetheart want to put powder on her nose?”
“It’s another expression,” Cassandra said. “Hush now.”
She slid the glass door aside and entered the master suite and Bauer’s bedroom. The plush ivory carpeting felt like fur beneath her bare feet. The room was spotless. The painting on the wall behind the headboard was an original by Gustav Klimt, worth millions, she was certain. The bronze sculptures of ballerinas bracketing the bathroom door were both genuine Degas. Unsure what
she was looking for, she entered a large walk-in closet, where she found an array of expensive suits and sport coats and tuxedos arranged according to color. She pushed them aside, hoping to find something hidden behind them.
She did: a wall safe, the circular door about eighteen inches in diameter.
“I don’t suppose you know how to crack a safe, do you, Henry?”
“I can open safes made by Stack-On, Homak, Sky Enterprise USA, LockState, A1, IdeaWorks, HomCom, Strattec, Turn 10, Safecase Biometrics, Cannon, Paragon, Protec, Protex, Trademark, Mesa, Sentry, First Alert, Secure Logic, Honeywell, Embassy, Gardall, Alibaba, Hamilton, Schwab, Brown, Fireking, Liberty, American Security, Dean, Fort Knox, Onity, Esafe, Assa Abloy, BTV, Hayman, Battaglia & Cleland, Diebold, Yale …”
“Thank you. Can you identify this one?” she said, using the phone’s camera to capture the image.
“This is a Diebold Mini-122E Rotary Wedge Lock with stainless steel cladding and U.L. class-3 protection.”
“Can you open it?”
“I can open it tonight between eleven and midnight, assuming the Diebold Mini-122E’s time lock is still set at the factory default.”
“Tonight, then,” she said, closing her phone.
In the bathroom, a bathtub large enough to hold a pod of orcas sat beneath a large picture window with a view of the sea, the tub carved out of a solid piece of onyx, she guessed, as were the sinks, all with gold fixtures and handles. The shower was a stall with black slate walls and a dozen shower heads at varying heights. There appeared to be no medicine cabinet, which seemed ironic, given that the man owned a pharmaceutical company. The drawers contained nothing more than standard grooming products.
She was about to leave when she noticed someone standing by the stateroom door.
Without thinking, she closed the bathroom door.
She listened from behind the door, her heart pounding inside her chest. She’d only caught a glimpse before she reacted, but the someone had looked like a crew member, not Bauer himself.
