"There," said Jon. "You'll be safe now."
She felt as if she might throw up, but it was not from the serum running through her veins. Jakson was the monster she had guessed him to be. This was undeniable proof. How could she have been so stupid? How did he convince her to buy into the lies again?
Jon reached out and gripped her face tenderly. "We will get through this, Jillian. And, when it's over, we will be together."
Her eyes rested on his lips as he brought them in and kissed her deeply. In the equation of her life, he was the only constant. The variables could not be trusted. They were always in flux. They would always fail. But not Jon Blake. He was a known quantity.
Chapter 38
Once he had gotten out of sight, Jon came to a stop and rested a hand on the wall. He hated lying to Canary. But what he hated more was the voice of David Chance inside his head, convicting him with his antiquated morals. His lie was not evil. It was for her good. He did it to protect her. It was necessary.
"Jon?" said a voice to his side. It came from a lean man in his thirties.
"Yes? Can I help you?"
The man brought a device to his lips. "I found him. We're on our way." He turned to indicate that he wanted Jon to join him. "If you would follow me please."
"What's going on?"
"Shane Cotz sent me to find you."
"Who?"
"He is the conference coordinator."
It was the man Jon had met in the greenroom.
"If you'll follow me, sir."
It took a moment to get his legs working, but Jon followed. The man led him through some smaller halls, back out into the large rear hall, and then around the corner to the greenroom. Shane Cotz met them inside the door.
"Hello again, Mr. Blake," He flashed a bright smile. "We tried to reach you on your phone, but it seems to be out of order."
Jon looked down at his pocket.
"I was hoping to have more time with you, but time has gotten away from us. You're up next."
Jon couldn't find his voice.
"One minute and thirty," called a man from the other side of the room.
Shane Cotz gave Jon a once over brush with his eyes, then led him to the back of the room where an open doorway gave way to a dimly lit staging area. Beyond a curtain to the right of the staging area, Jon could see a man at the podium speaking. And, beyond the man, a room filled with people.
Fear gripped his chest and sucked his breath out through his constricting throat. "Can you get someone else to go next. I need a minute."
The man slapped him on the back. "You'll be okay. Just breathe."
Jon swallowed and sucked air into his lungs. It was more than simple stage fright gripping him in a cold embrace. He feared to look into their eyes, knowing what he was about to do. I can't. I can't do this if I have to look at them.
"You are doing this for their good," said a soothing voice. "When they wake, it will be a new world. A world you made possible."
"Ten seconds," said a man behind him.
"You're gonna do fine," said the smiley Mr. Cotz. "Just stare at the teleprompter and read the words."
Muted applause filled the air, and the man who had been speaking at the platform turned and looked his way.
"Go ahead, Jon. That was your cue."
He walked slowly toward the glaring lights and the hushed crowd, his skin on fire with adrenaline. The man at the podium waited patiently with a warm smile. Jon climbed a short set of stairs and joined him.
"It is a sincere pleasure to meet you, young man," said the stately old gentleman. Jon knew him. He had seen him on television many times, standing before crowds of people in large stadiums. Some of them raising their hands, some of them crying. He was a good speaker, good at manipulating the masses with his promises of heaven.
A broad smile crossed the man's face and a tear formed in his eye as he said with a gentleness Jon had never heard come out of a man, "It's been a long journey, son. But you're at the finish line."
What was that supposed to mean? Did he know what was about to happen? Don't be stupid, Jon. If he knew he would have been screaming bloody murder. His words were probably a generic greeting he had trained himself to say, to elicit a response. That was, after all, what these people were good at.
The man gave Jon a friendly tap on the shoulder. "God gives the greatest burden to the strongest of us." The tear broke free from the corner of his eye. "And you son, are the strongest of us." He gave a humble smile and slowly departed from the podium area, leaving Jon alone in front of a thousand prying eyes.
What was that supposed to mean?
"Do you see what power they hold? This is why we fear them. This is why you must silence them."
Jon looked out through the bright lights at the crowd of faces. Was this a religious gathering? He recognized some religious personalities from television, but in the second row on the right was the senator from his state and next to him was the governor. He also recognized the governor from Texas in the front row on the right, because he had run for president a few years back. What were senators and governors doing at a religious summit?
His eyes came back to center and rested on the words waiting for him on the teleprompter, words they had used his hand to write. Every word was a lie—a trap- to get him into the conference. But it was a necessary evil. Wasn't it?
David's words burned in the back of his mind. "They're lying to you. That much I know for sure." There was such certainty in the voice, as though it was impossible for these creatures to not lie.
He saw Jillian's face in his mind. The way she reacted when he told her that Jakson had a device that could kill everyone here, it was as if Jakson's morality wasn't even a factor for her. She was so focused on her mission, it was all that mattered. She should have been horrified that the person she was working with was capable of such a thing, but she was too far gone. His lies had seared her conscience.
"It is time, Jon."
He felt his phone buzz in his pocket and he pulled it out. The timer had reached zero. The device was fully charged and ready to go. With a single click of his speed dial it would begin its deadly task, and by the time his speech was finished, it would already be in their lungs and in their bellies. But how could he trust these creatures to do as they promised when the truth was something so easily discarded?
His head lifted and his eyes locked onto the crowd.
Chapter 39
A straight set of stairs led Canary up to a hallway. The hallway opened up on the right side and gave way to an open air room filled with audio/visual equipment. Circular staircases spiraled down on both sides of the media room, giving access to the auditorium. Far below, behind a large podium, stood a man, addressing the gathered assembly.
Jane was seated in front of a computer screen on the far side of the room intently reading a stream of scrolling text. No one paid any attention to Canary as she moved through the room to take a seat next to her.
"You came!" she said excitedly.
Canary brushed a wary eye over the other four people working in the room.
"I don't know what you're looking for, but I was giving it a go. You know, seeing if I could see it—though I don't know what it is." Her face turned down. "I didn't see it."
"What are you looking at right now," said Canary, with a cursory glance at the screen.
"There was a speech on a USB drive, just like you thought there would be, and I was all like, spy stuff!" Her hands waxed demonstrative.
Canary put a hand on her arm and encouraged her to be more discreet.
"Sorry. I'm a code cruncher. I'm not used to field work. They never put me in the field," she said, leveling her eyes, "It's probably a good call. I'm just saying. Because me—field—" she made an explosion motion with her hands, and possibly the sound with her mouth. Canary wasn't sure.
"Okay, Jane. I get it. Let me get in there and take a peek."
Jane slid over and Canary brought up a search box. She typed in a p
ortion of the speech and hit enter. The screen sat motionless. No! This has to be it! This has to be the speech. She scrolled to the beginning and started reading down through it. Nothing stuck out, not one word. This wasn't the speech. How could it not be the speech? She felt a tap on her arm and looked back at Jane, who was looking at her expectantly. "What?"
Jane's face stretched. "Whoa. Time warp. You're like a focuser, aren't you. Like when you're looking at something, you block the whole world out. Right? I'm right."
She really didn't have the patience to deal with this right now. "Jane. I'm deaf."
"What? Like completely?"
"Yes."
"You can't hear anything?"
"No, and I really need to find this speech."
"Seriously? Like not even when you're crunching Doritos and, like, that sound fills your whole head?"
"Jane! Please!"
She sank down in her chair. "Sorry. I've never met a deaf person before."
"Is there any other place this speech could be?"
Jane thought for a second, then her eyes lit. "It could be with the production director. He might have a thumb drive in his pocket or something."
"Where is he? This is really important."
"I'll go look." She jumped up from her seat and scurried out of the room.
Canary put her head in her hands. It has to be here. If she didn't find it she would be responsible for killing all these people. The speakers had already begun to speak. Any one of them could be the unifier—and Jakson's intentions were no longer a mystery. He would kill everyone to stop that speech.
It felt like an eternity before Jane's head finally appeared coming up from the auditorium. She crossed over and took a seat. "I'm sorry. He said he doesn't have another speech."
Canary had already gathered that from Jane's expression, but it didn't make her words sting any less. It was over. She had failed. And Jakson would have no choice but to follow through with plan B.
NO. There had to be another solution. She wasn’t going to sit around and let Jakson gas these people. "Where is your fire alarm system?"
Jane's eyes rounded.
"Come on, you're a hacker. Where's the fire alarm system? That should have been one of your first targets when you cased this place."
"Cased? You mean like, surveillance? Oh, you got it wrong. I actually do work here. You know, day job. That sort of thing. No surveillance of any kind, I'm afraid, not even a bit of cursory gum shoeing."
"Well where do you think it might be? Best guess."
"Well," she said, thrilled to explore the question. "If I were a fire alarm system, where would I be?"
Canary immediately regretted the question. As she moved to get up, her eyes caught text scrolling up a screen behind Jane's right shoulder. To her horror she recognized it—the first sentence from the unifier's speech! "What is that?" she said, stabbing her finger at it.
Jane looked over her shoulder and then back. "That's closed captioning. The next guys up. Didn't you hear the applause?" She shrunk back. "Sorry. Totally lost track of the whole deaf thing."
Canary stood and looked out across the auditorium—and her knees almost gave. The man standing behind the podium was Jon Blake.
Jon was the unifier Jakson was trying to stop?!
Chapter 40
Jon cleared his throat again as he searched for more words to explain the revelation that had come to him. How could he ever explain it to them when he didn't understand it himself? They had fully and utterly beguiled him with their lies and promises. How could he have been so deceived? How could he let them convince him that anything pure could ever come out of lies and deceit?
He leaned in to the mic. "Truth is all that matters ..." The room filled with his voice and reflected it back at him. Every soul sat staring. "Because truth is the foundation on which everything else stands."
An angry voice filled his head, its tone held a fierce warning. "What are you doing?!" The question was rhetorical. His unseen masters knew exactly what he was doing.
He set his jaw. "If we give in to even one lie, if we say that truth doesn't matter, or that a lie can be used for the greater good, we are lost."
"Jon. Stop this. Now." There was an unmistakable venom leaking from every word. There would be consequences if he continued, dire consequences. But how could he stop? After all he had done, how could he not warn these people?
"I have a confession."
A voice unlike the others resonated in his head. "STOP THIS NOW!" His skull felt like it was splitting in two. He pushed the voice back with every ounce of strength.
You will NOT control me anymore! He gripped the podium. "I had a speech prepared for tonight. Well, prepared for me, by forces I don't quite understand, but two things I know for sure, they are infinitely more powerful than us, and they HATE you."
The room erupted into gasps and murmurs.
"Everything I have done and said, all the wonders I performed before you all, were lies. I am not a prophet sent from God. I am a tool of his enemy, but I refuse to swallow one more lie."
A loud voice boomed from behind him. "JON!" He spun around. Jakson stood on the stage, gun in hand. Explosions filled the air and pain shot into Jon's shoulder, neck, and rib cage, driving him backward off the stage. The room spun around and something hard hit his hip and back. In the midst of screams and chaos, two more explosions cut through the air. He turned his head and, through the scurrying of legs, saw a man in a suit with his handgun pointing at the stage.
Jon clutched the wet spot on his shirt and groaned in agony. He tried to draw in a full breath but couldn't. Did the bullet pierce his lung?
This was it. Blood was filling the back of his throat.
Would they be there, waiting for him in the darkness? Would they drag him down into the depths of the hell he deserved? A fear like nothing he had ever known snaked through his ribs and bit at his heart. He was lost. Utterly lost. Darkness began to cover him like a blanket, he could not resist it. It pulled him down deeper and deeper into a waiting abyss.
A voice pulled him back to consciousness. Jillian! He blinked up at her beautiful panicked face as she pulled his head into her lap, tears washing over her face. "What have you done?" Her head shook with desperation.
He struggled for a breath.
"You've killed us all." There was accusation in her voice, but not in her eyes. In her eyes there was no condemnation. She rubbed his forehead with her palm and ran her fingers through his hair. "How could you do this to us?"
His voice gurgled as he struggled to get the words out. "He lied to you, Jillian."
Her expression was tortured.
Though it took great effort he sucked in a half breath. "Jakson," he said, pulling in another, "lied to us both."
Tears ran down over her cheeks. She wanted to ask him more, but her eyes kept examining his wounds. "Don't talk, Jon. Just stay still."
"I'm so sorry we won't be together," he said weakly.
Jillian saw his eyelids growing heavier, and her voice took on an urgent note. "You stay with me, Jon Blake! Don't you dare leave me! Don't you dare!"
"I'm sorry..."
"You're going to be okay. Just don't leave. I can't live without you." The last part was a squeak.
He focused on her beautiful face, like an angel looking down from heaven. "I will love you—forever."
Her desperate screams grew fainter and fainter as the room grew dimmer, until there was only silence. And darkness.
Chapter 41
Jillian Mack sat and stared out the picture window of her new home. But she wasn't admiring the flowerbeds which encircled the ornate in-ground pool or the way the sunlight bloomed amber on the stone archway leading to the garage. She was thinking of him again. Though it had been more than a week, thoughts of him continued to haunt her. She couldn't believe he was gone. For years he had been such a big part of her life, and now, he wasn't. How would she live without him? Even with all that had happened—even after all he had
done—she still needed him.
Would he find redemption beyond the veil of death or was his fate sealed by the deeds of his misguided life? Would he alone take the blame for all that the demons had caused him to do? There was no way of knowing—not until she too joined him on the other side of that veil. Until then, she was left to wonder if there had ever been anything real between them. But even if she could determine if her memories of him were true, how would she reconcile the man from the monster?
A warm hand rubbed against her shoulder. She looked up at Jon's handsome face, silently floating above her.
"Are you thinking about him again?"
"It's hard knowing he is gone. Forever."
Jon crouched next to her. His beautiful eyes shimmered in the light of the setting sun. "I wish there was something I could say that would help."
"It was easier when I thought he betrayed me. At least he was alive. But this..." She allowed the edges of her mouth to lilt. "I wonder if there is any hope for his soul."
"I know," he said, "No one wonders that more than me."
Her chin tightened. "I don't know what I would have done if I had lost you both."
He squeezed her leg. "You didn't."
She ran her fingers down his jaw line and into his hair. "Don't ever listen to those voices again, you hear me?"
"You don't have to worry about that; they're not interested in talking to me anymore." His head turned quickly.
"What is it?"
"I think our guests are here."
As he said it, she noticed the flutter of the strobe light in the kitchen, alerting her to the doorbell.
They went to the front door together and opened it, smiling.
The entire Chance family smiled back. "We brought you a housewarming gift," said David, holding out a brightly wrapped package.
Jillian looked behind them. "Where are Karen and Brad?"
"They said they'd be along shortly."
Jillian smiled graciously and accepted the outstretched gift. "You guys are so sweet."
Lies (The David Chance Series Book 3) Page 21
