Tim looked up from his book and nearly dropped it. She stood in front of him, clad in an olive green tank top and camouflage pants. On another woman these might have looked butch, but her long hair and soft facial features added just the right amount of femininity. In what he came to realize were her typical social graces, she said, “Are you deaf? I need to get over there and look for something.”
“What? Oh, sure.” He slid to the opposite end of the aisle, where she had been. She scanned the books as he had; she took down one on how to start a small business. She seemed far too young to be starting a business. What was she, twenty-two? It wasn’t later until she revealed she was twenty-seven and her parents had left her a large sum of money as her inheritance.
She looked over at him and grimaced with irritation. “If you want me to move, just ask,” she said. She didn’t look up from her book.
“No, it’s fine.”
“Then could you stop gawking at me?”
Before he could stop himself, he said, “I’m sorry. I’ve never seen anyone so beautiful in a bookstore before.”
She snapped the book shut and turned her head to glare at him. Another woman might have been coy, but she just asked bluntly, “Are you fucking with me?”
“No. Of course not.” He held up the book he had been reading. “It’s not like I go to bookstores to pick up girls. I thought you were really beautiful and maybe if you aren’t too busy, we could go have a cup of coffee or something.”
Her face softened and her cheeks turned red. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve been ‘out of circulation’ for a long time.”
“It can’t have been too long.”
“Long enough.” She cleared her throat and then shifted the book to one arm so she could hold out her hand. It was then he realized she only had one hand, a metal hook in place of her left. “I’m Sylvia. Sylvia Joubert.”
“Tim Cooper.”
“Well, Tim, if you’re ready to check out, how about that cup of coffee?”
The barrel of a weapon poked into his ribs to stir him out of his pleasant memory. One of the guards took hold of his arm and shoved him through the elevator door, into Ward’s secret office. “Get moving,” the guard snarled.
Immediately Tim noticed that it was not the same place he remembered. At the opposite end from Ward’s desk was now a huge silver cube that resembled a bank vault. Even stranger than this was the purple portal along the wall to his right. He didn’t get much of a chance to study this before the guard shoved him again, this time over to Ward’s desk.
Ward sat at the desk in the same Goldfinger position. He looked up from something to grin at Tim in a way that now struck him as pure evil. “Welcome back, Timothy. I assume you’ve finished your work. The first phase of it, anyway.”
Tim dumped the cardboard tube and stack of discs onto the desk. “It’s done. Now what about Sylvia? I want your reassurance that you’re going to let her go.”
“Don’t be so rash, Timothy. First, I have to make sure you’re not trying to cheat me.” Ward motioned to Ms. Fielding, who scooped up the tube and discs. “Take those down to Dr. Stone to make sure they’re legitimate.”
“Dr. Stone? What’s he got to do with this?” Tim asked. He had seen Dr. Enrique Stone around TriTech a few times, but their respective programs didn’t give them any reason to interact. From what he’d heard, Dr. Stone worked on something called an “energy stabilizer,” which to Tim sounded like something from a bad science fiction novel.
“Let’s just say that Dr. Stone has been very valuable in helping to bring some of your ideas to life.”
Part of Tim wanted to press for details on this subject. The majority of him only wanted to make sure Sylvia was safe. That part won out in the end. “What about Sylvia?”
Ward came around the desk again to pat Tim’s arm; Tim bristled at his touch. “I really would like to reunite you and your lady love, but you’re too important for me to risk losing at this point.”
“You said if I did this, you’d call off the sniper and leave her alone.”
“Yes, but this is only the first part of the operation. You still have to build the machine for me.”
“Build it? That could take years.”
“You have two days.”
“Two days? I can’t. Most of this is just theoretical. I can’t be sure it will work at all!”
“That shouldn’t matter, should it? You have the plans. And I’ll give you all the money and manpower you need.”
“But two days? For something this complicated? Something that’s never been done before? It can’t be done.”
“It had better be done, Timothy, or else Sylvia is going to die.”
“What? No. You said—”
“Maybe I should let her explain the situation to you.”
Tim expected Ward to hit a button on his desk to activate a monitor as before. Instead, he motioned to the vault on the other side of the room. “I’d suggest you hurry,” Ward said. “I can’t say how much time she has left.”
***
Tim banged on the door of the vault, though he knew it wouldn’t do any good. “Let her out of there!” He whirled around to glare at Ward. “You let her out of there or I’m not going to build a damned thing for you.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that. Not until your project is finished.”
“How do I know she’s even still alive in there?”
“She’s alive. For now. How long she remains that way I can’t say.”
“Damn it, at least let me talk to her. Let me know she’s still alive.”
“Very well. But I’m warning you that you won’t like what you see.”
A video monitor came to life on the vault’s door. In this monitor he saw a duffel bag and an old woman beside it. The old woman had wavy gray hair that she flipped over her shoulder the same way Sylvia did. She wore the same tank top and camouflage pants Sylvia had the first time they met in the bookstore. But it wasn’t until she looked directly into the camera and he saw her eyes that he knew for sure. “Sylvia?” he said.
“Tim?” Sylvia slapped the inside door of the vault. “Ward, you shit, what have you done with him?” Her voice sounded almost the way he remembered, perhaps a little deeper. There could be no doubt it really was her.
Tim jumped when he heard Ward’s voice from beside him say, “I haven’t done anything to your dear boyfriend—yet.”
He grabbed Ward by the front of his shirt; he didn’t care if the guards shot him or not. He slammed Ward’s back against the vault, but the evil man only smiled at him. “What did you do to her? Did you have Stone or one of your other goons drug her with something?”
“I haven’t done anything but allow nature to take its course—finally.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Why don’t you ask her? She can tell you all about it, about how she’s lied to you all along. Isn’t that right, Sylvia?”
The old woman looked down at her boots; tears sparkled in her eyes. “Tim, I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t.”
Tim let Ward go and put a hand to the monitor. He pressed his face so close he could imagine being close enough to kiss her. “Tell me what?”
“I’m not twenty-eight years old. I’m actually five hundred ten years old.” He stared at the screen in disbelief. “It’s true. I was born back when Columbus was sailing the ocean blue.”
“But…how? How is that possible?” A number of ways popped into his mind: she was an alien, she was a robot, or maybe she had found the fabled Fountain of Youth. The real answer did not occur to him.
“I’m a witch,” she said. “My mother was a witch. My sisters were witches.”
“A witch? You mean like in the fairy tales? With the boiling cauldron and pointy hat and all that?”
When she smiled, he could see how the wrinkles had deepened on her face. Still, he had to admit that even for someone in her sixties she looked beautiful. But he doubted he would ever get a cha
nce to grow old gracefully with her, not now. “Sort of like that,” she said. “But Agnes and I never cared much for pointy hats.”
“God, Sylvia, it really is you. But what’s happened? Why do you look like that?”
She shrugged her liver-spotted shoulders. “I can’t use my magic in this box to look young anymore. It’s all unraveling.”
It might have been his imagination, but Tim thought he could see her hair start to turn from gray to white. Ward put a hand on his shoulder. “Every minute you spend here, she’s getting closer to death. So I’d suggest you get moving on your project.”
“Project? What’s he talking about, Tim?”
“He wants me to build something for him.” He turned to Ward. “If I do that, you’ll let her go, won’t you?”
“Yes, of course. What’s left of her. It may only be a pile of dust.”
“Tim, whatever he’s telling you is a lie. He’s not going to let either of us go. He can’t afford for us to go to the police.” She wiped the tears from her eyes and then said, “Just let me die, Tim. It’s what I deserve.”
“No, Sylvia—”
“I’m not a good person, Tim. I lied to you this past year. And there are so many other things I’ve done—” She broke down into sobs. “Don’t give that bastard what he wants, Tim. If you really love me, let me turn to dust.”
“I can’t. I do love you. I love you more than anything else in this world.” He turned back to Ward. “Get me the materials and workers I’ll need and then we’ll get started.”
“Tim, no!”
He turned back to the screen; he planted his lips against the monitor in a jailhouse kiss. “Just hold on, honey. I’ll get you out of there. I promise.”
To return his kiss, she put her lips up to the camera. Then the monitor snapped off. He didn’t need the guards to lead him to the elevator; he had already gotten into the car before they caught up. He didn’t know how much longer Sylvia had, how long before her internal organs would begin to fail. What he did know was Sylvia was the toughest woman he knew; if anyone could survive, she could.
It wasn’t until he got started in the lab that he noted all his materials for the RAT project had disappeared.
Chapter 21
After the strange trip to Joanna’s backyard, Megan didn’t want to sleep. She tried to explain her dream to Amanda, but her friend didn’t show much interest in it. Amanda seemed more concerned with keeping Megan calm, so there wasn’t another attack like in the cafeteria. “Just stay here and rest,” she said. “I’ll go out and get anything you need.”
“What about my classes? I’ve already missed a week.”
“Then another day or two won’t matter.”
Megan thought about this for a moment and decided her roommate was right. With all the time she’d missed already, it wouldn’t make any sense at all to rush back. Better that she wait until she was 100% healthy—or as healthy as she ever got. Megan didn’t imagine there were any magic cures for her asthma.
The problem then became that she didn’t have anything to do. Amanda refused to give her any textbooks or homework assignments. “I don’t think you’re up to that kind of stress yet.”
“Well, what am I supposed to do?”
“Take a nap.”
“I don’t want to sleep.” Megan shivered at the thought of what might happen to her if she did. She might wind up trapped there forever. Not that Joanna’s house had turned out to be such a bad place, but the girl and her mother weren’t exactly normal. If Joanna really had the kind of power her mother seemed to think she had, what if she decided to use it against Megan?
“Well, draw something then.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know.” Amanda reached beneath Megan’s pillow to take out a pink diary with stickers of horses on it. “Here you go.”
“But it’s locked. Where’s the key?”
With a sigh, Amanda opened a drawer on the desk. She emptied out a pencil box and then held up a tiny gold key. “Now you can open it.”
Megan took the key and found it did indeed unlock the diary. Her hands trembled with excitement at the thought that she might learn some things about herself. These hopes were quickly dashed when she saw only sketches of buildings in the diary. Page after page of buildings, from houses to skyscrapers to a shopping mall. At the bottom of each illustration were her initials and a date. The earliest sketch came from nine years ago, which explained the shaky lines and why it was done in crayon.
She belatedly thought of how easily Amanda had found both the diary and its key. “Amanda, do you look at my diary?”
“Me look at it? You never stop showing it to me. ‘What do you think of this one?’ or ‘Do you think this arch is Romanesque enough?’ As if I’d know.” Amanda plopped onto her bed and took out a copy of The Catcher in the Rye. “I’m a freaking Lit major.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you mad.”
“You never mean to make me mad. Or anyone else for that matter.”
“Did I do something wrong?”
“No, damn it, you didn’t do anything.” Amanda threw the book against the door and then rolled over to face Megan. “It’s what I did wrong. I treated you like shit, OK?”
“I’m sure you didn’t. You’ve been so nice to me since I woke up here.”
“Guilty conscience, I guess.” Amanda sighed and then rolled onto her back to stare up at the ceiling. “I knew Bret was a creep. I knew he’d treat you like shit.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I was jealous because you’re so nice and sweet and innocent and my life’s so fucked up. Maybe I wanted your life to get a little fucked up. I just never wanted it to get that fucked up.”
Megan could only stare blankly at Amanda for a moment. Since she’d woke up, Megan had thought of Amanda as her only friend, but from the sound of it, Amanda might not have been her friend at all. “You weren’t my friend? You aren’t my friend?”
“No, I wasn’t your friend. Not really. I think you thought I was. Or maybe because we lived together you decided to trust me. I don’t really know.”
“Amanda—”
“Look, could we drop it? I don’t want to have a Lifetime moment with you right now. Lie down and draw something.” Amanda jumped off the bed and stomped out of the room. Whatever she was hiding, Megan hoped she would find the courage to reveal it in time so Megan’s memory might come back.
In the meantime, she decided to turn back to the book of drawings; she studied each one as if she could learn valuable clues from it. The drawings became more sophisticated as she’d gotten older, and she used pen instead of crayon to make them. She stopped at one near the back, labeled “Plaine Museum—North Campus.” Instead of a traditional façade and columns, she had drawn a structure of glass and steel. It was a vaguely cylindrical tower, but with scalloped edges so from the side it resembled the inside of a nautilus shell. She had even gone so far as to draw the interior of the building, with different galleries of everything from dinosaurs to Egyptian culture to Native American artifacts. Her chest tightened a little when she saw a floor devoted to geology, with space for an exhibit on meteors.
Something about this seemed familiar in the same way that the buildings around campus seemed familiar. But why? Before she could think any more about this, she heard a knock at the door.
Megan went to the door; she thought maybe Amanda had forgotten a key. Instead, she saw a woman in a black leather jacket and white T-shirt, who held up a gold badge. “Police,” the woman said. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
***
Missing persons cases were Lottie Donovan’s least favorite ones. In Rampart City few of them ended well. Most of the time it would have been quicker to simply look at the bottom of the harbor right at the start.
They couldn’t do that. They had to give the poor family hope that their missing spouse or sibling or whoever would be found alive and in one pi
ece. The need to offer false comfort was one of the reasons Donovan had preferred the homicide division. At least there the family knew the victim was dead, though some still found this hard to accept.
The case of Megan Putnam hadn’t gone well right from the start. The moment the Scarlet Knight had begged her to take on the case, Donovan knew it would be nothing but trouble. For one thing, the family had yet to report the girl missing. From what Donovan gathered, the girl’s only family was her father and he was out of the country more than he was in it.
Once she got hold of the father, she asked him about the last time he had talked to his daughter. “A few days ago. She sounded fine,” he said.
“She’s missed a few days of school and no one seems to have seen her,” Donovan said.
Nothing happened officially for another day, in which time she imagined Mr. Putnam had made calls to find the girl. Apparently unsuccessful, he flew back to Rampart City in order to file an official missing persons report. At which time the circus came to town.
One of Donovan’s rules was never to take a case to the media if she could help it. As soon as the word hit the news outlets, tips flooded in. People claimed to have seen her at some bar on the waterfront, at the Plaine Musuem, and even outside police headquarters. Crank callers suggested they search the Bermuda Triangle or Area 51 or Roswell, where she would hang out with Elvis, Kennedy, and Hoffa. Then came those whackos who claimed to be Megan Putnam. Some were convincing enough, but in the end none turned out to be the genuine article.
Donovan had wanted to call another meeting with the Scarlet Knight, but she couldn’t get away from her desk. She knew the Anti-Vigilante Task Force had turned her aide, Lieutenant Cielo, with promises of promotion if he got the goods on his boss. She had not actually confronted him yet; the way he watched her from his desk told her all she needed to know. It wouldn’t surprise her if Cielo had planted a bug on her phone and in her computer to pass information along to the task force.
So she had sifted through the bogus reports, interviewed the various people who claimed to be Megan, and generally wished she could wring the Scarlet Knight’s scrawny neck. She already had the girl’s address on campus and decided to warn Megan’s roommate that she might be the next target. In her wildest dreams, Donovan never expected Megan herself to answer the door. At least it certainly looked like Megan; if it was another impostor it was a damned good one.
Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Wrath of Isis Page 51
