Crystal Whisperer (Spotless Series #3)

by Camilla Monk

  “You’re not a good man, but you’re better than him.”

  We all turned to look where that soft voice and its Italian accent had come from. Sabina stood in the bathroom’s doorway, regal, wrapped in an oversized white terry robe I suspected to be Dries’s. Her long black tresses had been chopped and the remaining bob dyed a caramel blond. Even so, she was beautiful, on top of holding a PhD in chemistry. I hoped Dries at least understood how lucky he was that this woman clearly picked her dates wrong.

  He crossed the room and pulled Sabina to him. “I appreciate the thought, but stay out of my business,” he drawled, his lips inches from hers.

  Before she could react, he silenced her with a scorching kiss, complete with a halfhearted struggle and a little moaning on her side. Dries let her go with a slap to her butt that made me cringe and wish some things could be unseen. Meanwhile, March and Ilan had the presence of mind to avert their eyes from this regrettable display of Cold War–era machismo.

  Coming to her senses, Sabina pushed him away with a huff. “I am your business.”

  “True,” I chimed in. “You’re going to need her tonight.”

  Dries flashed me a disdainful look. “Am I?”

  “Well, you want to find Gerone and Alex, right?” I shrugged. “Stop looking. You have her; you have me. The three of us are like giant bait: just let the birds come to you.”

  He crossed his arms. “Are you suggesting we go see a bit of opera tonight?”

  “Pretty much. Once Gerone figures Sabina is here, and she hooked up with you, there’s gonna be a whole lot of crazy under that mask.” I saw her flinch, and I did feel bad for stating things so crudely, but I went on anyway. “You? Alex will”—my voice faltered when I thought of Poppy. Of what Dries had done—“Alex won’t miss an opportunity to kill you. As for me, well, you’ll be pleased to learn that Anies holds me in such high regard that he sent his minions to kidnap me in Croatia because he wanted me safely out of the way while he killed you and March. I’m sure he’ll be delighted to learn I’m inside the dome he’s planning to blow up,” I concluded.

  Next to me, Ilan moved to plop himself into a chair with a puzzled grimace, while March crossed the room and towered over me with a cool glare. “Brilliant idea. I was thinking we could lower you into the middle of the opera hall in a harness, and perhaps wait for Anies’s men to come up and catch you. Do you believe we should wound you first? How about a little blood to attract them faster?”

  I held his gaze and squared my shoulders. “Actually, that’s exactly what I had in mind. Do you think you can get us a well-exposed booth, somewhere everyone can see us?”

  March’s chest heaved, and I sensed I was seconds away from being flung over his shoulder caveman-style. Dries too picked up on the imminent burst; he stepped between us and placed a hand on my shoulder. “What if Anies decides he can live without you and gives his go to Gerone to blow up the dome?”

  For once it was my turn to smirk like a James Bond villain. “Oh, the Crystal Whisperer isn’t going to sink this dome. We are.”

  32

  The Elevator

  “I thought like, you can’t, like, get pregnant if you do it in an elevator. Because it’s made of metal.”

  —Broke Teen Moms, Reality Broadcasting Channel, 17 Sept. 2013.

  I had been, of course, expecting to produce some effect on my audience with that dramatic statement, but the results were far beyond my expectations. Sabina’s jaw went slack, Ilan’s eyebrows hit his hairline, and even March’s poker face fell, despite years of practice. Dries rubbed his hands gleefully. “I like that. You’re going to tell me more about it, but first, I need to show you something.” He winked at Sabina. “Darling, show them the drawings you did for me.”

  Sabina walked to the bed, and from the drawer of one of the nightstands, she retrieved a pen and a notepad bearing the logo of the Poseidon. “Come here, please,” she said, padding to a couch and a pair of armchairs disposed around a coffee table at the other end of the room. Dries and I joined her on the couch, while Ilan and March claimed each armchair.

  One of Dries’s hands moved to rest on the nape of Sabina’s neck, tangling in her hair. I would have been hard pressed to tell whether the gesture was a tender or menacing one, and perhaps that was his true skill with women . . .

  She leaned into his touch nonetheless before she started flipping through a series of doodles. She paused at a particular one and placed the notepad on the table for all of us to see. Albeit represented with questionable skill, the dome was recognizable. At its extremity, a stage had been drawn crudely and on it stickmen wearing dresses. Like her old flame, Sabina liked to express herself with a pen. “The concert hall is here, close to the dome’s transparent walls so that they serve as background for the stage. When the dome is immersed”—she pointed to snakes, or rather waves, she had sketched all around the structure—“it will be like a huge fishbowl, and the top of the bubble will still peek out from the water.

  “Now, I saw something on Lucca’s computer, the night after he . . . took me.” I could tell she had been about to say “saved,” and she seemed upset, but she composed herself and continued. “It was like an LRAD, and I think that’s what he placed somewhere in the opera hall.” On the stage she doodled something that was more reminiscent of a large frying pan than an actual Long Range Acoustic Device, which she hastily colored in black. She then added red lines coming from the pan, to figure ultrasound waves hitting the Ceraglass bubble. “It’s probably very powerful, but even so, at this frequency, it needs to be close to the glass, a few meters at most.”

  I leaned over the sketch. “So that sound cannon would need to be either onstage or in the wings.”

  Sabina nodded. “That’s what I think. At this distance, if the weapon is powerful enough, it will take less than a minute for the chain reaction to start, and when it does”—she proceeded to add a waterfall coming from a hole in the dome, right above the scene, and tiny stickmen drowning in the water. Sweet Jesus, that was dark—“once the dome has been breached and the superstructure is weakened, the weight of the water does the rest, and it destroys everything.”

  March studied the schema with slanted eyes. “What’s the actual size of this thing?”

  “Fifty to sixty inches wide,” Dries said.

  March frowned. “And why in the concert hall and not anywhere else? Did Gerone say anything about that?”

  “Not really,” Sabina said. “But before he killed him, Lucca told Pio that when he destroyed the Poseidon, it would be poetic, special. When I saw the opera, I knew that’s where he would want to do it. I also think that in the concert hall, the cannon would be closer to one side of the dome.” She pointed at the extremity of the dome that was supposed to act as an aquarium-like background for the stage. “That wall won’t resist long.”

  Meaning that the stage and audience would get instantly crushed by several thousand tons of water moments before the dome collapsed on itself and turned the Board’s supersecret sublevel four to a concrete-and-steel pancake.

  Having listened to the whole thing with a stony face, Ilan asked Dries, “Did you search the concert hall already?”

  “Yes,” Dries confirmed. “I did a little reconnaissance last night, but I found nothing like what Sabina described. The Queen’s security is fairly tight, rooms are searched regularly, and there are quite a few hidden scanners throughout the resort. If Gerone managed to get that cannon inside the dome, I’m thinking he disassembled it and hid the parts somewhere else, ready to be moved at the last minute.”

  I sprang to life. “That’s why I told you we should sink the resort ourselves.”

  Again, my evil plan garnered me the attention of every pair of eyes in the room, including March’s, for once. “I was thinking that if we want to derail Gerone’s plans, we need to pull the rug under his feet. Dries, do you have a laptop in here?”

  “Of course.”

  Dries rose from the couch to search a stack of met
allic cases. I caught glimpses of enough weapons to start a war, but I chose not to comment—No wonder he worried about hidden scanners. He came back with a small black laptop that I greedily took from his hands as soon as he’d logged into his account.

  “Check this.” I opened one of the many articles and videos I’d binged on back in the plane. It was a short documentary about how engineers handled the challenge of supplying millions of gallons of clean, filtered water for the dome’s seven swimming pools and three hotels. On-screen, a bearded Frenchman explained how under the dome, giant water pumps drew seawater into tanks, where it underwent several desalination and purification treatments before being distributed all over the resort.

  When he was finished talking, I paused the video. “We could use those. It’s a lot of water, but not nearly enough to sink the resort or cause any major damage. If we’re able to drain those tanks into the first floor, it will create the impression that the dome has been breached, even if the whole thing is actually harmless: there would only be a few inches of water, just enough to cause a panic and have security evacuate the resort. If Gerone hasn’t tried to make his move by then, not only will the guests be safe, but it could force him to move the cannon, or even give up altogether.”

  Also it would be a while before anyone dared to vacation again at the Poseidon, but I didn’t say that.

  March was the last person I expected to comment on this plan, but he did—and never looked at me as he spoke. “Erwin dispatched seven agents in the resort, six of which are Delta ops, and he has a second team ready in Rangiroa. Supposing that we consider this option, they might be the most qualified to sabotage the water pumps.”

  “What about Stiles?” I asked. “Is there any news from him?”

  He pretended to answer the wall behind me. “No. He hasn’t reported yet. That could become a problem.”

  Dries waved a dismissive hand. “Forget about that clown; he’s asking to be burned.”

  The idea that Stiles could have been captured—or worse, killed—even if he was the Canadian devil, that didn’t sit well with me. “Is there any way we can access the dome’s security cameras and see where he went? Just to be sure he’s okay?” I asked.

  “There’s a control room,” Dries said. “But I won’t take you there. Now that March has warned the Board there’s a situation developing inside the dome, it’s probably a matter of hours before Guita discovers I’m here too. Let us not tempt fate.”

  Oh. That was a tiny detail I’d overlooked. Guita—that was the Queen’s name, or the one she had given me and Dries anyway—was a charming lady with a lot of power in her hands, and she had sworn to kill Dries following the Lions’ betrayal in the Cullinan affair. Long story short: Dries had tried to steal her diamond, and because these people evolved in a giant kindergarten playground, revenge was high on the list of her priorities. There was a fair chance that once Guita figured out that Dries was sitting right under her nose, she’d choke him with a swing chain.

  March got up on his feet. “I’d like to know where he is too. Ilan, can you use your contacts and tell us if the French have agents in the dome, and if they’ve noticed anything out of the ordinary? Meanwhile, I’ll try to negotiate access to the security recordings, and I’ll also contact Erwin to see whether he might be willing to help us plunge the entire resort into chaos,” he concluded, raising a haughty eyebrow at me.

  Dries agreed with a nod. “Be quick.”

  As he was about to leave the suite, March paused in the doorway. “Island.”

  Well, well . . . not only did Mr. Clean see me after all, but he even remembered my name. Ignoring the tiny spark of hope crackling inside me, I crossed my arms and pretended to count the dust specks on the coffee table. “Yes?”

  He turned to look at me, the poker face letting nothing through. “I know you said that you didn’t want to talk. But I would very much like a word with you . . . in private.”

  I mimicked his blank expression. “Where?”

  “You could come with me, and we’ll talk on our way.”

  To be honest, it sounded too good to be true. I half expected him to knock me out and shove me into a helicopter back to the atoll just to win the war, but I decided to trust him. Love is very complicated, I guess. Dries watched us leave the suite with a scowl but contented himself with petting Sabina to soothe his ulcer.

  I followed March to the elevator. I figured he’d eventually talk—I hoped he would anyway, because I was drained, fricking sad, and I had no idea where to start. He remained silent as the doors closed and trapped us between walls made of cool brushed steel. The car started going down. We went down one, two floors, and I saw his hand move. Without warning, he pressed the emergency stop button, and the elevator jolted to a stop. He was looking at me, so intensely I feared I’d drown in those hypnotic blue pools.

  His tongue darted at his lips as if they were too dry. He swallowed. “Are you leaving me? I need to know.”

  It hadn’t seemed so real when I had suggested it earlier. I’d spoken out of anger but also out of fear. And now my anger was gone, but the fear, the doubts still simmered in my chest. Now it was real. He’d said the words, and he expected an answer.

  I couldn’t voice one. My eyes felt hot, and my heart was about to burst out of my chest. I panted, in a desperate effort to compose myself. “I know you won’t believe me, but I actually almost never cried until I met you. I didn’t even cry when Mufasa dies. Well, maybe a little, but—”

  “Island.” March’s face was a little blurry, and his voice sounded strangled. “I need to know.”

  On the elevator panel, a red light blinked and a series of bipping sounds announced the connection to a hotline. Without looking, March pressed a button to interrupt the call. Those damn tears wouldn’t stop, but this time he was making no attempt to come closer, to dry them. He just waited, his features taut, like he was in pain.

  I gasped several times and wrestled a string of mildly coherent words out of my throat. “I don’t know. With you, it’s like a roller coaster . . . the highs feel so good it’s like I’m on drugs, and the lows . . . the lows are so, so bad, and it doesn’t help that everything we touch blows up.” I sniffed a few times, knowing I was seconds away from releasing a torrent of snot. “I’m so scared we can never learn to function with each other, that it’s always going to be like that until I’m like . . . a chalk outline of myself.”

  Through the haze of my tears, I noticed he’d pulled out a tissue pack from his pocket. I reached for it blindly with my right hand.

  He waited until I was through blowing my nose to ask again: “Does it mean you don’t want to try?”

  “And you, do you still want to try?” I said in a broken sob.

  He drew a shaky breath. “I fired Phyllis. I have no idea what took over me.” For the first time in hours, March touched me. His fingertips trailed down the synthetic sleeve covering the cast around my forearm, butterfly-like, as he forced the words out. “All I could think was that she’d brought you here, put you in danger, and I was . . . I wasn’t thinking straight.”

  I nodded, wiping more tears. “Tell me about it . . . I’m never thinking straight around you.”

  Several seconds of silence followed, our mutual breathing the only sound in the still air. The alert button was still blinking steadily.

  When March spoke, the words were so low, so tentative that I almost didn’t hear them. “That’s what it’s like . . . when you’re in love with someone.”

  Imagine munching a dozen Fisherman’s Friends, and suddenly it’s like there’s an ice storm blowing inside you, clearing your sinuses, your head, your entire body, something so strong that you’re coming apart and together over and over again right here, on the spot, like you’re molecular food in liquid nitrogen. I’m aware that I’m not making any sense, but my point is that this is not even remotely close to how I felt in that elevator.

  I wiped my nose with my sleeve. This time my vision was clear enough that I saw
him wince. “Sorry about that.” As soon I said this, the gravity of the moment hit me. March was waiting, his eyes wide, his mouth slightly parted. This was not about my snot. Or even clear sinuses. In the cradle of my ribs, my heart drummed fast.

  “I love you.”

  I wasn’t sure the voice was mine, and if it was, it was too brittle. I gave it another try. “I really, really love you. And I want to try to be with you. I’m so sorry I said . . .”

  March brought me against him carefully, caressed my hair, my cheeks with his palms. They were so warm that I forgot what I wanted to say. Behind us, a series of bips announced another call. He punched the same button again to end this new attempt to rescue us. His mouth brushed mine, captured my upper lip. God, yes, the highs were . . . divine. It seemed almost absurd that something so simple as the mineral taste of saliva, the gliding of your tongue against a tongue you happen to love unconditionally, that those could be so powerful.

  The lesson here is: pay attention to the guy’s Cupid’s bow next time you’re on a date—once you’re hooked, that tiny strip of skin will become the most important thing in your life.

  March was slowly driving me against the elevator’s wall, his body pressing into mine. My brain shut down, and so did March’s, as evidenced by the LEGO piece poking me insistently through our respective clothes. He was doing that thing again where he suckled on my neck to leave a hickey there and make Dries suffer. I let out a long moan, which seemed to bring him back to reality.