As he turned to look at the end of the hallway his blood ran cold. There was a man entering apartment 7C. He was wearing a USPS uniform and although Max only caught a glimpse of him from behind, he knew immediately who it was. And Kensy was in there. He heard Curtis whistling from downstairs and bolted.
The boy was facing the letterboxes with his cap pulled low over his face.
‘Where’s Kensy?’ Max demanded.
‘I don’t know,’ Curtis swallowed hard.
‘Why didn’t you whistle before now?’ Max asked.
Curtis looked shamefaced. ‘I found a mintie in my pocket and had just put it in my mouth when the guy came in. I tried to whistle, but my gums were stuck together.’
‘Well, you won’t do that again,’ Max said and peered out into the street as his sister launched herself from the bottom rung of the fire escape ladder and onto the ground. He grabbed Curtis’s arm and the pair raced out into the street.
‘We need to go,’ Kensy yelled. The children ran across the road and hurtled down into the subway.
It was a pity no one looked back. Or they would have seen the man who called himself Nick Thomas staring down into the street, his eyes following them as he contemplated his next move.
It was almost midday when the children arrived back at the townhouse, their minds reeling about what Kensy had found. They’d tried to call their grandmother, but her phone went straight to voicemail. When they couldn’t get hold of her the twins agreed that it was time to talk to their father and Fitz, but they couldn’t be reached either. And it was unfortunate, but Song and Uncle Rupert were both currently on their not-to-be-trusted list – so no telling them.
Song was singing loudly in the kitchen when they tiptoed through the front foyer.
‘Come on, we need to get changed and make out as if we’ve been here the whole time,’ Kensy said as they sped up the main stairs.
But Max had other ideas. What if Song went to look for them in the basement and realised they weren’t there. He left the others and strolled out into the kitchen.
Song had just taken a cake out of the oven and placed it on a rack to cool.
‘That smells good,’ the boy said.
The butler looked around at the pantry. ‘When did you come up?’
‘Ages ago. I’ve been in my room reading,’ Max said nonchalantly. ‘Is Granny home from her work trip?’
Song shook his head. ‘No.’ Then he raised his left eyebrow. ‘Mmm, you haven’t been spying on me, have you?’
‘Now why would I do that, Song? Have you got something to hide?’ Max frowned. There was a note of challenge in the boy’s voice.
‘Absolutely not,’ Song said and closed the oven door a lot harder than he’d intended. ‘You had better tell your sister and Master Curtis to come up and change. We need to get to lunch and it is very hot outside. I do not want to rush in this awful sticky weather.’
‘Yeah, it’s boiling,’ Max said, then instantly regretted his words.
Song narrowed his eyes. ‘Have you been out?’
‘Just on the terrace and it was blazing,’ Max said. He was looking for a way to get Song out of the room to give Kensy and Curtis enough time to enter the butler’s pantry when he realised that there was a phone buzzing somewhere. Max walked into the dining room. The vibration was a little louder but he couldn’t find its source. He hurried to the sitting room next door and spotted the phone on a side table. The boy picked it up and looked at the screen, but almost dropped it when he saw the name. Why was someone named Huang calling Song? He was one of the criminals on their list of potential killers.
Max hadn’t noticed that Song was right behind him.
‘Are you serious?’ the boy murmured under his breath, his heart racing. What did this mean? Had they been right about Song all along?
‘Hand over the phone, Master Maxim,’ the man said, the colour draining from his face. ‘I can explain everything, but you must promise you won’t tell a soul, not even your sister or Curtis, and especially not your grandmother. This must be our secret.’
Cordelia Spencer brushed her hair and smacked her lips together before snapping the compact shut. At least Dash had the decency to deliver her some fresh clothes although she was feeling anything but.
‘So I can go home?’ she said. It was not so much a question as a request.
‘Yes, a deal is a deal,’ Dash said. ‘And I don’t imagine you’re going to renege. You’re too smart for that, Cordelia. Besides you know what I’m capable of. Give me my children and we’ll forget that any of this silly business ever happened.’
Cordelia took a deep breath. ‘Silly business – is that what you think it was? All those lives at risk – all those people you killed, for what? For money? As if you didn’t have enough of it already.’
‘Heck, no,’ the man replied. He was standing on the other side of the glass, his arms folded. ‘It was actually excellent business. Just a pity those nosey brat grandchildren of yours got involved or Hector and Marisol would still be working for me and life would have gone on the way I’d planned. And as for the money, Cordelia, it was never about that. It was about being number one – the biggest and the best and if we happened to be the richest too then why not? Mum and Dad worked hard to make something of The Chalmers Corporation; I simply took it to a new stratosphere. They’re so proud. You should hear Dad bragging to his friends at the club about me. It’s almost embarrassing. Anyway, I think we’re all set and I will eagerly await your final instructions – I know you’ll make sure that the way is clear for our departure at the appropriate time.’
Bile rose in the back of Cordelia’s throat. The man had the worst case of narcissistic personality disorder she’d ever come across – and she’d dealt with some nutcases over the years. There wasn’t an ounce of remorse in him, as if someone had hit a switch and all of the empathy, or capacity for it, had departed the man’s body. At least he had no idea of her life beyond the Beacon. She would do as he asked, but only because she had a watertight plan of her own.
Hector, Marisol and Mim were already seated on the terrace at the restaurant overlooking the lake in Central Park when the children and Song arrived.
‘How was the Met?’ Curtis asked. He was still hoping they’d get there, but there were other more pressing issues to deal with than playing tourist at the moment.
‘We ’ad a lovely time,’ Marisol said with a smile. ‘So much beautiful art. It ’as made me feel alive again.’
‘Please sit down, everyone. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving,’ Mim said. ‘We’ve walked for miles.’
Song hovered but didn’t take his place.
‘I will not stay,’ the man said. ‘I am afraid that there is something urgent I must attend to.’
‘Oh, that’s a pity, Song,’ Mim said. ‘You work far too hard, looking after all of us. I should have a word to that sister-in-law of mine.’
The man gave a bow and dashed away.
Max bit his lip. He’d made a promise to Song and he wouldn’t break it – for now.
‘What did you get up to this morning?’ Marisol asked as the waitress placed warm crusty rolls onto the bread and butter plates.
‘Not much,’ Max said. ‘Just a bit of reading and tinkering.’
‘You need to see more of the city,’ Hector said. ‘Your grandmother and I ’aven’t been ’ere in so long – it ’as been fantastic to feel the buzz of New York.’
Curtis nodded. He glanced across the lake and wondered if maybe after lunch they could hire a row boat and join the people who were splashing about and mostly turning circles. His eyes scanned the bank when something or rather someone caught his attention. Curtis nudged Kensy as the waitress began to take the family’s orders.
‘What’s up?’ she asked, leaning in close.
‘See that girl over there,’ Curtis said. ‘The one in the cargo pants and white T-shirt sitting on the bench, reading.’ She was partially hidden by a branch.
‘Th
at’s the girl from the train – the one I was talking to this morning,’ Kensy said, immediately recognising her.
‘Strange coincidence, don’t you think?’ Curtis said. ‘Didn’t she get off the train in East Harlem too?’
‘Yes,’ Kensy replied with a gulp. ‘She said she was visiting a friend.’ Kensy guessed she might be a couple of years older than them – not your obvious assassin type, but then again what was an assassin supposed to look like?
The waitress asked Kensy what she wanted to eat. ‘Oh, sorry,’ she glanced at the menu. ‘May I please have a cheeseburger and spies . . . I mean, fries?’ she corrected herself.
When Kensy looked back across the lake the girl was gone.
After lunch Kensy and Max were eager to get home. They wanted to tell their grandmother about Javier, and maybe Alex could reveal more about him too now that they had a name. They needed to stop him before anyone else was hurt or worse. Curtis’s sightseeing would have to wait until later.
‘Are you going to get a taxi?’ Max asked his grandparents.
‘No, we will walk,’ Hector said. ‘It is lovely to be in the fresh air, even if it is a little on the warm side. We will take it slowly.’ The man dabbed at his forehead with his handkerchief.
Max had already calculated that it would take about twenty minutes at a clip to get home.
‘Would you mind if we go ahead?’ the boy asked. ‘We have a couple of experiments set up and we should check on them.’
Mim eyeballed the lad. ‘And you’re going straight home?’
The children nodded. ‘We know the way,’ Kensy said. ‘We’ve got Max – our personal GPS.’
Mim looked at Hector and Marisol who smiled. ‘If anyone can take care of themselves, it’s these three. We will see you soon.’
With the adults’ blessing, the children took off through the park, running past monuments and playgrounds, past groups of vacationing kids who were playing and having fun – the sort of things the three of them should have been doing right now, but instead they were on the trail of the Postal Assassin and Dash Chalmers. Life was never going to be ordinary again, that’s for sure.
‘Hey, wait a sec, I’ve got a stitch,’ Curtis puffed as they reached 5th Avenue. He wished he hadn’t eaten all of the fries at lunch. The children walked until the boy caught his breath and the pain subsided.
‘Do you think that girl is following us?’ he asked, looking around.
Max had no idea what he was talking about, but Kensy quickly filled him in.
‘I doubt it,’ Max replied.
Kensy looked across the street ‘Really. Well, that’s strange because there she is,’ the girl said. ‘Don’t look. We don’t want her to know she’s been spotted.’
‘What do we do now?’ Curtis asked.
‘Keep moving and act like there’s nothing different to ten seconds ago,’ the girl replied.
The children walked down the tree-lined avenue until they reached East 63rd where they crossed at the pedestrian crossing. The girl was on the other side and had stopped somewhere. Kensy couldn’t see her any more and wondered if she’d dropped off. It wasn’t until they were halfway down the first block that Max spun around and spotted her again. She was walking in the shadows on the other side of the street with her head down.
‘Still with us,’ the boy said as he turned back to face the direction they were heading.
‘We could confront her and ask what she wants,’ Kensy said. ‘I mean, she’s a kid.’
Max shook his head. ‘Let’s see if she follows us all the way.’
The children continued towards home and were a block away when they noticed a USPS van pull up in front of an apartment building with a green awning on the other side of the road.
‘It won’t be him, Kensy.’ Max felt his sister tense up beside him. ‘Thousands of people must work for the postal service.’
Someone hopped out of the passenger seat and the van drove away.
Kensy grabbed her brother’s arm.
‘It’s him! Javier,’ she breathed. The children ducked into the driveway of an underground car park and out of sight.
Curtis spotted the girl. She’d stopped at the entrance to the building Javier stood in front of. There was another man too. They all spoke and the girl didn’t look happy when the three of them entered the building together.
‘So she’s just a kid, hey?’ Max said.
‘Come on, we need to talk to Granny and if not her, seeing that Dad and Fitz are AWOL, we’d better tell Uncle Rupert – even if we know he’s been lying to us and he’s still on my dubious character list,’ Kensy said as the three of them charged back up to the street.
Max would have loved to involve Song, but he’d made a promise and the man had enough problems of his own right now.
The children burst through the front doors of the house to the sound of raised voices. Max pressed his finger to his lips and the trio crept inside.
At least they knew their grandmother was home, but she didn’t sound happy.
‘She is not to leave the apartment again until I say so,’ she shouted.
‘But, Mother, I told her that they’d be able to have a life here,’ Rupert countered. ‘How would you like being held captive for days on end?’
The twins and Curtis had snuck into the hallway and could see the pair’s reflection in the mirror on the wall opposite the open study doors.
Cordelia rolled her eyes. The irony of Rupert’s question almost made her laugh. She couldn’t risk sharing her plan with him. At least not yet. There was far too much at stake and if Rupert said anything to Tinsley, the whole thing could go pear-shaped. Her accomplice would be Song. He was the most reliable person she knew.
‘Please tell her that it won’t be much longer,’ Cordelia said.
‘What are you up to, Mother?’ Rupert asked, but before she had time to answer Cordelia spotted a movement.
‘Maxim, you do know that I can see you,’ she said loudly. ‘And your sister and Curtis.’
The children looked at one another, shamefaced for eavesdropping and walked along the hall to the doorway.
‘We’re so glad you’re here, Granny!’ Kensy exclaimed, racing into the room where she threw her arms around the woman and hugged her tightly. ‘We need to talk to you urgently.’
‘Hello Uncle Rupert,’ Max said and introduced him to Curtis as this was their first official meeting. Kensy gave the man a nod.
‘What? No hugs for your favourite uncle?’ Rupert pouted.
Kensy remedied the situation and Max did too but Curtis hung back.
‘I have to go,’ Rupert declared.
‘You might want . . .’ Kensy began, but Max glared at her. ‘Never mind. Will we see you soon?’
‘Yes, of course. Look after my mother, will you? She’s in an odd mood,’ Rupert said and with that he turned and left.
Cordelia stood up and walked to the window. She watched her son exit the front gate and head west. But she wasn’t thinking about him. It was Dash and his words that were playing on a loop inside her mind – but she wouldn’t let that man get the better of her.
‘Granny,’ Max said, jolting the woman back to the present.
‘Yes, darling,’ she said, turning around.
‘We do need to talk to you. It’s really important,’ the boy said.
‘Take a seat,’ she motioned towards the twin couches either side of the fireplace.
Cordelia pulled the pocket doors closed and sat down opposite the children who told her everything, starting with the man at the carousel yesterday.
‘And I saw Dash there too,’ Kensy said, leaning forward. ‘I’m certain it was him.’
‘Will you send some agents to get this guy, Javier or whatever his name is?’ Max asked.
Cordelia listened intently to the children’s stories before standing up and walking to her desk where she pulled out a notepad and pen. She scribbled something down then returned to the children and sat on the arm of the sett
ee.
‘Granny?’ Max said, wondering why she was so quiet.
‘Who else knows about this?’ Cordelia asked.
‘No one,’ Max shook his head. ‘We tried to call Dad and Fitz, but they weren’t answering and we decided not to tell Mum because she would worry.’
‘We didn’t tell Song because he’s been acting really weird and he’s never around when we need him,’ Kensy said.
‘Good,’ the woman replied.
The children looked at one another. That seemed like a strange response.
‘And in answer to your question, I’m not going to do anything and neither are you. You will not leave this house again without my express permission and you will not mention any of this to your parents or uncle or Fitz or Song or anyone in the family – or outside of it. Do you understand?’
‘What?’ Kensy spat. She was incredulous.
Curtis’s eyes were wide. He wasn’t expecting this.
‘Why? That’s stupid.’ The girl wasn’t about to give up. Not when there were lives at stake.
‘Kensington, are we clear?’ Cordelia said, arching her left eyebrow.
‘But, Granny, Javier is killing people and we could stop him right now,’ Kensy said. Her grandmother was making no sense.
‘This is not your decision to make,’ Cordelia said. She looked at the children. ‘Are . . . we . . . clear?’ She repeated, eyeballing the three of them one by one and waiting for their responses.
‘Yes, Dame Spencer,’ Curtis’s head jiggled up and down at pace.
Kensy whispered the word ‘yes’, folding her arms tightly in front of her. Max agreed too, though he didn’t want to.
‘Sometimes you have to trust me – and this is one of those times,’ Cordelia said.
‘What about the gala?’ Max asked. ‘Will it be safe?’
‘Of course. The place will be crawling with security. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do,’ Cordelia stood up and walked to her desk. ‘And might I suggest you stop worrying about things that are none of your concern and go and enjoy yourselves. Within the confines of the house of course.’
Kensy & Max: Freefall Page 15
