She took in a breath, turned toward the city, and rested her forearms gently on the railing. "Why do you want to know this?"
"You don't have to tell me," he said. "I get it."
"No," she said, looking over her shoulder at him, coyly. "I want to tell you."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes." She looked again at the city sprawling out before them. "Maddalena, but most call me Maddy."
"Maddalena," he said, playing with the sound of it. "It’s very beautiful."
"It was my grandmother's name." She leaned against him and laid her head on his shoulder. The warmth of her cheek sunk through his shirt and into his skin. A third smell caught his attention. It was either body lotion or shampoo, he was uncertain which. Whatever it was, it filled his head with a sweetness that set his soul at rest. For a moment he was no longer the sad little poor boy from the rat infested house in East Milford. Here on this balcony, he was a high roller with the most beautiful woman in the room fawning over him.
"This is what you are—with us," whispered a sultry female voice in his head. He tried to imagine where the voice had come from. Were there ghosts here with him on the balcony? Were they crowding in, waiting for their chance to talk?
How many of you are there?
"Many," said another voice.
Have you come from all over the world, or did you all die in this city?
The voices were silent.
Why don’t you...
Another voice interrupted. "We are not from your world, Jon."
He felt his body jolt. What? What do you mean?
His date gave him a curious look. "Is there something wrong?"
"No," he said, guarding his tone. "No. It's nothing."
She tilted her head. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah. Must be nerves." He looked out across the night sky where a distant light caught his attention. It was moving faster than an airplane, but the glow seemed brighter. He pointed. "What's that?"
Maddy squinted. "I don't know. A meteor?"
The glowing object came to a stop.
"That's no meteor," said Jon stunned.
She gripped his arm as the one light split into three. Slowly they started a tight circular path as though they were connected to the first by invisible strings. It turned like a pinwheel, silently, in the night sky, and emitted a slow pulse.
"Jon," said the voices from the depths of his consciousness. "This is who we are. We have been watching your planet from the beginning of time."
I don't understand? But what about the dead girl? What about the card shark?
"All things will be revealed. You are not ready yet."
He felt a tightening on his arm again. "It stopped." She looked back over her shoulder. "We should go tell the others."
"No," he said, holding her in place with his arm.
She looked back out at it with wide eyes.
Suddenly the lights shot off in three directions, one streaking across the sky high above their heads and disappearing behind the hotel.
Maddy pulled from his arm. "Did you see that?!" Her face glowed with excitement.
He stood, frozen in shock.
"We have come to help you, Jon. We have come to help you all."
This is crazy...
"Do you doubt your own eyes?"
Why would you come all the way across the universe to help me win money at poker?
"We need you to grow strong. This is only the first step."
Wh- why me?
"Would you rather we chose someone else?"
His gut tightened. I'm just trying to wrap my brain around this.
Maddy gripped his forearm, taking note of his distress again, "Are you okay?"
He shook from his introspection. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. That was weird."
"What do you think it was?"
"Probably a weather balloon," he said, attempting to make light of the situation.
Her face puckered. "Seriously. Have you ever seen anything like that in your life?"
"No. That was... No, I haven’t."
"Wow," she said, looking back out at the night sky. "You think it means something?"
"I don't know," he said, drawing her closer, "but I'm pretty sure it means this is a night we won't soon forget."
Chapter 6
David Chance wasn't sure what brought him to consciousness—but suddenly he was aware of his warm, heavy eyelids and shallow breathing. He attempted to rise, but his body would not respond. Through closed eyes he sensed the contours of his bedroom, the ceiling, the wall behind him, the nightstand inches to his side. And something else. Something sinister. Moving in the shadows. It seemed to crawl across the ceiling and down the wall like a spider, but it was not a spider. It was humanoid, yet, alien. He sensed its dark form in its entirety, creeping down the wall behind the headboard, inching toward his face.
But he was not afraid.
Its venom was in his veins, removing his fight-or-flight instinct, gripping him in a peaceful state of acceptance and paralysis. Reaching him, it came to a fluid stop, its alien face tilting to study him. The room filled with activity as dozens of tiny hands grabbed at his arms and legs, grabbing, but unable to take hold. The creature on the wall became enraged, pulled back on its haunches, and lunged forward.
David’s body jarred to life. Covers went flying as he leaped from the bed. He twisted around with savage eyes. The room was filled with a blinding white light, but there was nothing on the wall or around the bed. He turned to the window where a light was coming from, but without a sound it was gone, leaving only a dense haze outside the window, as if a stadium light had switched off and his eyes were adjusting to the dark.
"Sharon!" he screamed in a hoarse whisper.
His wife did not respond.
"Sharon, wake up!" He ran to the window and looked out. The night sky was empty, save for the stars. There was no spacecraft. No space men. Only stars.
He turned back to his wife, sleeping soundly on the bed, her chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. How could she not have heard him? Was she locked in the same immobilizing force that had held him?
"Sharon!"
She awoke with a start. "David?"
The tension in his gut released. She was awake. She was okay.
"What are you doing?" she said, rubbing her eyes.
He jerked back around to the window. "I saw something."
Her legs slid out from under the covers and she sat on the edge of the bed. "You're out of breath. Did you have a bad dream?"
Was it a dream? It felt so real. "The kids!" he blurted.
Before Sharon could respond, he ran from the room and down the hall. He pushed Ben's door open first. Ben was laying peacefully in his bed. Had they not come for his family? Was he the only target? He continued down the hall and pushed Emily's door open. His heart stopped. Her covers were pulled halfway down. The bed was empty!
"EM!" He vaulted over the bed to the window. A high-pitched squeal came up from the floor which caused him to recoil and throw himself into the full-length mirror leaning against the wall. The sound of shattering merged with the high-pitched sound as the squeal doubled in volume and pitch. Light filled the room as David's eyes darted frantically, trying to piece together what was happening. Emily's terrified, screeching face, caught his attention first. She was sitting in a ball on the floor beneath the window with her knees to her chest.
"Honey, honey, honey, it's okay!" He said crawling toward her. "It's me. It's me."
The ear-splitting noise was replaced by heavy panting.
"It's okay. It's me," he said, putting his arms around her. She trembled as he pulled her onto his lap. "I'm sorry I scared you. It's okay. You're safe."
"David!" said Sharon, exasperated. "What is going on!"
"I thought she was gone. I thought they took her."
Ben came running into the room with round eyes. "What happened? I heard a crash."
What could he tell him? If it was true, if aliens had t
ried to abduct him, what possible good would it do to scare his children with that knowledge? If it wasn't true, it was best to not have them thinking he had lost his mind.
He gripped Emily tighter in his arms. "I've been through a lot lately, and- and when I saw your sister was gone, I..." He let the sentence trail off. There was really no way to explain the desperation that had overtaken him. The thought of losing either of his children was a pain beyond description.
Sharon sat on the floor next to them. "Did you roll out of bed again, honey?"
Emily gave a pouty nod and wiped at the tears streaming down the side of her nose.
David gritted his teeth. "I'm sorry, Sharon. I overreacted."
She offered a compassionate smile. "It's better than not reacting at all."
"I just don't know what I was thinking. I'm not myself."
"It’s okay, David. Really. You've been dealing with a lot."
"I just want life to get back to what it was before all this. It was pathetic, but at least I had some idea of what to expect."
"I know, sweetheart. But it will be easier to deal with if we all get a good night's rest. Let's get the kids back in their beds."
A good night's rest?
He was reasonably confident he would never have one of those again.
Chapter 7
A large man with a sheen of perspiration on his forehead approached Jon and Maddy as they returned from the balcony. On each finger was a gold ring, and on his fat neck a gold chain disappeared into the curly hair poking out from the V of his dress shirt. "Hey," he said, in an accent Jon didn't recognize. "Aren't you that kid from the news?"
Jon's eye fluttered as he leaned an ear forward. "I'm sorry, what?"
"Wasn't you one of them three who survived underground for ten days?"
A shiver ran down the small of Jon’s back. Here we go. I'm caught.
"It's okay, Jon," said a calming voice in his head. "You can tell them who you are."
Jon's eyes snapped to the woman on his arm and back at the man. "Ah, yeah. That's me."
Maddy's head tilted quickly, as if blinders had been removed. "You're Jon Blake?" There was no accusation in her voice or eyes, only an enticing interest, as though she had just discovered her date was a famous celebrity.
He gave a sheepish look.
"I knew you looked familiar," she said, softly in his ear. "Keeping a low profile?"
He let a short laugh escape. "Yeah. Something like that."
"What was it like?" said the sweaty man with dark enthusiasm. "You know, being down there with David Chance?"
That was always the question, wasn't it? If anyone even recognized him as one of the survivors of the most mysterious event in recent history, they weren't interested in him, only David Chance.
It was his own fault. He could see that now. If he had confronted the voices instead of pushing them away, instead of hiding the amazing things they had led him to do, things would have been different. He could have shown the news people that David Chance wasn't the only one with abilities.
As the thought formed, a question formed with it. Are you sending David Chance messages too?
"No," said a firm male voice. "His messages do not come from us."
Where do they come from?
"We don't know."
That was unsettling.
"You in there, kid?" said the sweaty man with the bling.
He brought the man's face into focus. "I'm sorry, what?"
"What was it like being down there with David Chance?"
"I don't really like to talk about it," said Jon, turning his shoulder to him.
"But what's he like? Did you talk? Did he tell you about the future?"
"Excuse me," said Jon, pushing by him. "I have a game to play."
"Can he see next week’s lottery picks?"
"Please," said Jon, over his shoulder, "I really don't like to talk about it."
His conversation had not gone unnoticed. Others were looking at him now, realizing that he wasn't just another card player. Would that help or hurt, he wondered? These were a superstitious bunch. If they equated his miraculous escape from the grave as luck, would they start jumping ship like the rats they were?
Maddy warmed up to his arm again. "Did he really save all those people in that bank?" Great. Now even his date was under the spell of David Chance, and he wasn't even in the room.
"I don't want to talk about him," he said, brusquely.
She sensed his change of mood. Her pretty eyes studied his face. "You don't like him very much, do you?" she said with blunt assurance. "Why? Did he do something to you?"
How could he explain it when he didn't fully understand it himself? He had always been a nobody and finally when something amazing began to happen in his life, David Chance was there to swoop in and take all of the glory. There were no phone calls from CNN or Fox News hounding Jonathan Blake for an interview. He was still a nobody.
"He didn't do anything to me," he said, attempting to hide his conflicting emotions. "I owe the man my life."
"But you don't look happy about it."
"It's complicated," he said, pulling away, "Look. I really don’t want to talk about this, okay?"
"All right," she said, taking note of his withdrawal. "I’m sorry. I didn't mean to pry."
He left her and took a seat at the big table with the six waiting players, which included Jackson from the first game. Every eye was looking his way. He gave them all a weak smile and a tip of his head as he surveyed the stacks of chips in front of him. In two short hours he had gone from twenty-eight thousand dollars to nearly two hundred thousand. A winning streak he hoped to keep running.
"The table recognizes Jon Blake," said the dealer.
That's an understatement, thought Jon wryly. Over the last few weeks he would have given anything to be recognized, and now, when it was most detrimental, fame came as an unwelcome guest. There was no end to the irony of his pathetic life, but that was about to change.
The music lowered and the players settled in to some friendly banter. There was a small attempt to steer the conversation toward one of the other player’s recent exploits on the poker circuit, but it was short lived. Jon was the new and shiny in the room. All attention found its way back to him.
"So, you were in the tragedy of flight 304?" said a lean man with sunglasses across the table from him.
"Yeah," said Jon, barely looking up at him. "I was in it."
"What was it like to be buried alive?" said a man in a cowboy hat, next to the lean man.
Jon's mind resisted the impulse to go back to that dark, hot place and offered up a trite and rehearsed answer. "It was like being in hell, only it smelled like a Porta Potty."
Reserved laughter rippled through the small crowd of spectators. A few players chuckled as well.
"And here you are, playing high stakes poker ten days later. That’s quite a thing," said the cowboy.
"Yes," he said bluntly, "quite a thing."
The old man sitting to Jon's left ruffled his chips with his fingers and looked up. "How long you been playing poker, son?"
Jon felt the voices urging to take over, he was all too willing to allow it. "My whole life," he said.
"Odd," said the old man with an indifferent expression. "I know everyone at this table, but I've never seen you on a poker table before."
"That's because I don't generally play for money, because I don't have any." Jon attempted to hide his own shock at the response. His impoverished past was never a topic he willingly brought up.
"You seem to have found some," said the man, gesturing to the chips in front of Jon. "It's interesting that you should be buried in a bank vault for ten days and miraculously come into some money."
"Are you implying something?" said Jon, attempting to lock eyes.
The man was looking everywhere but at Jon. "I'm not implying anything," said the old poker pro, playing with his chips in a skilled fashion. "I'm simply trying to determine what kind of m
an I'm playing against."
"All right. You want to know what kind of man I am?" Jon felt a wave of familiar emotion take hold of him, uninhibited. "I've never had two dimes to my name. I've lived in a shack of a house in Milford my whole life. My dad is a drunk, and my mom abandoned me when I was nine. The first stroke of luck I've had in my whole miserable life was when some random guy, who heard about me being buried underground, gave me $30,000. When he handed it to me he told me to change my luck. So here I am, changing my luck. I'm either going to walk away a winner, or I'm going to confirm that I am destined to be a loser. So are we going to play cards or continue with the shrink session?" Jon couldn't believe what his own mouth was saying. He screamed into his mind. Why! Why would you tell them that stuff about me? Those things are private!
"Because it is your story and it will make the world take notice of you."
You want the world to see me as a penniless loser?
"A loser is what you were. We will turn you into something extraordinary, raise you up out of your squalor to prove to the world that you are uniquely gifted. They will love you for this."
The players at the table seemed satisfied with the answer he had given, and the dealer began sliding cards gracefully to each. So Jon decided to let the internal matter drop. The voices were right. That was what he used to be. If he walked away from this table tonight with over a million dollars, no one would be seeing who he was, but who he had become. He could live with that.
The game picked up steam quickly, and Jon watched as the voices laid out the bait for his competitors, a tactic they had executed with great precision on the first table. Game after game went to other players, and he watched as his stack of chips dwindled. There was one hand where he held superior cards, but the voices had told him to fold to another player who was running a bluff.
He wondered when they would turn it around. As the thought entered his mind, he found himself sliding a large sum toward the dealer during the phase he had come to learn as the "flop." Three cards were now in front of the dealer. One of them was a king. This went nicely with the two kings sitting in Jon's hand, giving him a three of a kind with an ace high. That was a strong position.
Lies (The David Chance Series Book 3) Page 5
