Except I didn’t really function like that. Never had. I was a look things in the eyes kind of a girl. I couldn’t deal with this tomorrow. I had to… I didn’t even know. What did I have to do?
Finally dressed in my jeans and a long sleeve-shirt, plus the addition of my socks and sneakers, I made my way down the stairs. The house was quiet, which was just what I wanted. I could snoop. Maybe find the basement.
I wanted to at least know how to get down there, so when the time came that I could sneak down, I’d know how. I found my way into the kitchen where Constance was busy working over the stove. I smelled eggs and my stomach grumbled. I hadn’t eaten much of my dinner. Still, food was the least of my concerns.
She turned toward me and raised her wooden spoon in my direction. “If you are here for food or coffee you are in the right place. If you are here to ask me to help you can shove it down your throat before you even get started.”
Well… that was certainly telling me. She wasn’t going to be my ally. At least not right off the bat. I nodded to her, ready to speak, but she continued.
“And, don’t ask me to explain things to you. I’m not going to. My job is to feed you and keep your room clean. The whole house. Marco and I run things here. You want answers, well there are five young men out there who can give them to you. Not me. And you don’t pester Marco either.”
I nodded. Young men? They were older than me, that much I knew. Maybe next to her they were youthful. I didn’t want to blow this moment, not when things could change. I was a stranger right now. Whatever had happened to lead her into working for these… monsters… she could alter her viewpoint. What I needed to do was make her my best friend.
“Yes, ma’am.” I thickened my southern accent just a little so that it might sound more charming. “I understand. Is there coffee?”
She raised an eyebrow at me. I could see the wheels turning in her head. She had expected me to argue with her. When I hadn’t done that, she wasn’t sure what to do with me. Or at least that was what I was guessing, since I couldn’t read minds.
Constance pointed to the table behind them. “Coffee brews all day. J…” Her voice trailed off. “J drinks it all day.”
She’d almost used his name. I moved past her to pour myself some. As I stood sipping it for a second, I could believe all would be well. Caffeine had that effect on me. Every morning it reset my whole mood.
I leaned on the counter. “Can I help you with anything?”
She waved her hand in the air. “Never.”
I blinked. “Never?”
That had to be a new answer for me. No, thank you was something I was more accustomed to. Or sure you can do… Never?
She shot me a side-eyed look. “This is my job. It’s not yours. You aren’t getting in my way.” She scooped some eggs onto a plate and handed them to me. “Now get out of my kitchen. If you want more coffee you can come back in.”
Just then Marco came in from the back door. His movement caught my attention, and it was a second before I realized he was signing. I knew ASL. My next door neighbor growing up was deaf. I wouldn’t call myself fluent, but I could understand a lot. Right then, he asked Constance what she wanted him to do with the extra water. She answered him silently with her hands telling him to put them in the basement.
Well now, that was interesting. I looked away like I didn’t understand, trying to keep my gaze and expression vague. If he didn’t know I could understand, that might be better. I sipped my coffee and left the kitchen, making my way quickly to the window so I could observe where Marco went. He walked a distance next to the house before vanishing out of sight. Now, I knew. The entrance to the basement was on the outside of the house.
I would just make my way out there as soon as everyone was busy. Holding my plate and my coffee, I walked to the dining room table. For a few minutes, all I did was eat. I didn’t think about anything else. Sip. Chew. Swallow. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
The eggs were delicious. Whatever else Constance would prove to be, she was a wonderful cook. I’d have to tell her. Unless saying so was going to make her tell me off again. I didn’t have the slightest idea how to handle this.
A noise caught my attention a second before the front door opened and then closed. K walked in. He was in sweat pants and a long sleeve t-shirt. They were both gray and his sneakers were black. Sweat glistened on his brow. He must have been exercising.
He turned toward me. “Oh good, you’re up.”
“Why is it good?” Maybe I hadn’t had enough coffee yet. They’d kidnapped me. Maybe there was no such thing as enough coffee for managing that.
“Because I need you to speak to your father. Stupid asshole is going to get his daughter killed.”
My body went cold with his words. “Do you think you might be willing to treat me with the smallest amount of humanity and not speak about my death as if it’s no big deal to you?”
K shook his head. “I’m not sure. You’re more human to me than most because you are your father’s daughter, and even though he’s a scumbag, he is Alliance. That makes you, sort of, part of the group. But you really don’t register to me as all that important.”
I sighed. Ask a question, get an answer.
Chapter 4
It turned out the no cell phones rule was just for me. There were cell phones. K had one, and as he lifted it up to call my father, there was a moment where I thought about grabbing his and running for it. Then I remembered D was somewhere in the house with a gun. Being that blatantly defiant to the rules would likely land me in a body bag.
K looked at the phone after he dialed. A second later my father’s voice sounded. As K held the phone, staring at it, I had to presume he was on video and not just the phone. Not unless K’s superiority to the rest of the human race meant he didn’t know how to talk on the fucking phone.
“Remember what we talked about, Jeb. We’re not using names here. You blow that and this is over.”
There was a long pause and then my father spoke, his voice tight. “Let me see her.”
“By all means.” K passed me the phone, and I took it from him.
My father’s face stared at me through the phone. He’d been my only parent, my only caregiver. When I’d been sick, he’d seen to my needs. Other people had their mothers to talk to. I had my stiff, sometimes unyielding father. But he’d been there. My grandmother had cleaned the house and scolded me. My father raised me. He’d never let me down.
Tears flooded my eyes. We weren’t very mushy-gushy with each other. He tended to be stiff upper lipped, and I tried never to be in a situation where I had to feel much of anything to begin with. But this was different.
“Dad.”
He nodded at me for a second before he spoke. “You’re alive.”
“For now. They keep threatening to kill me. But yes, for now, I’m alive.” I sniffed, wiping at the tears coming down my face.
“They have you in that hideaway in Vermont.” He sighed, looking away for a second. “They won’t kill you as long as I do what they want and you don’t cause trouble. You’re my family and that makes you Alliance. As a rule, we don’t kill each other except in extreme circumstances.”
And right there was my answer. Any doubt I’d had that this whole experience could be a mix up or that I could be just surrounded by lunatics fled. This. Was. Happening. I steeled my back and stopped my tears. They wouldn’t help now. The cavalry wasn’t going to ride in to save me and deus ex machina didn’t seem likely. I had to deal with this and that meant I needed answers. And I needed them fast before K took the phone away from me.
“Start talking, Dad.” People weren’t perfect. I could be furious with him when I was off this island in Vermont. I’d already learned something I didn’t know before. Lake Champlain was in Vermont.
“You were never supposed to know this. Women aren’t in this world.”
I cleared my throat. “That much I’ve garnered. More please.”
“Careful, Jeb,”
K warned from next to me. My father couldn’t see him but he could hear him.
“What you need to know, Everly, is that I will do whatever I can to make this go away. You will be returned to me and you can get back to your life. In the meantime, you don’t need to know the details of what has happened here. It’s better if you don’t. Minimally, there is a power shuffle in The Alliance and you are in the hands of five men who think they should be in charge. They won’t be. Certainly, not after this. But they’ll get what they want in the meantime. Don’t trust them. This will take some time. Some of the things they want date back from before there were… computers. Please be patient and know I am working hard on getting you back.”
There was still something I had to ask. “Did you kill Mom?”
He winced when I asked that. “I see they’ve been talking.”
That wasn’t a no. That wasn’t a horrified look that told me this couldn’t possibly be true. No, that was pretty much a yes. My hand shook.
K grabbed the phone from me. “We’re aware that what we’re asking is next to impossible to get, but that’s what you do, right Jeb? You make the impossible possible. You can talk to her again when you come pick her up and not before. I’d let you kiss her goodbye, but that is obviously impossible. I’m not doing daily proof of life. This was your one time. You’ll have to wonder if she pissed us off enough to lose her life. I guess that’s the price you pay for doing what you did. Wondering if you’re working like a dog to save a person who is already dead.”
He shut off the phone. “Any device in here with communication capabilities is coded to only respond to the owner’s fingerprints.”
“You really seem to have gone out of your way to assume that I’m capable of devious thinking. Of planning. I suppose I should be flattered, considering how little you think of women.”
I turned on my heel and headed back to the table and my coffee. I didn’t expect him to follow me, so when he did, I had to force myself not to react. I sipped my now lukewarm coffee slowly.
“I don’t have a low opinion of women.”
I set down my drink. “Yes you do. All five of you made that abundantly clear yesterday. Your whole Alliance that is running things is apparently stuck in the Dark Ages and you five along with it.”
His smile was slow. “You’re not the least bit afraid of me, are you?”
“I actually am. Terrified. I tried to move my dresser into the way of the door last night to see if I could keep you guys out, and it’s nailed to the wall. I’m getting dressed behind shower curtains. And D is firing bullets into the lake while black helicopters arrive in the middle of the night. I’m stuck here. You’re not all crazy. I’m scared. Yes, feel better?”
He was silent for a moment. “Your dresser is nailed to the wall?”
That was the part that he focused on? “Yes.”
K shook his head. “That’s not something we did purposefully. I can promise you that.”
Well, that was… interesting. “The dresser didn’t nail itself to the wall.”
“No, it didn’t. Hey, J.” He called over his shoulder, and a second later J sauntered out of the living room.
He leaned against the door. “You bellowed?”
K rolled his eyes. “Our guest says her furniture is nailed to the wall. Did you do that?”
“Absolutely not.” J shook his head. “Out of curiosity, how did you notice that?”
“I thought it might be wonderful to block you guys out of the room. Bar the door.”
J tilted his head to the side. “Smart thinking. We are pretty awful people.” His smile was slow. “You never do know what we might do. It might even make sense to give you a lock that only you have the key to.”
They were being… really nice about this. Or at least not terrible. My internal alarms were sounding. They were clearly about to say something shitty. Except J walked toward the kitchen door and opened it. “Hey, Constance, send Marco here, please.”
Did he say please to her? Big bad run-the-world people apparently spoke politely to the ticked off lady in the kitchen. I really had to get on a handle on these guys, and fast. I also couldn’t help but admire his ass as he walked. Internally, I groaned. It was bound to happen. I’d always admired men’s physiques. Ever since I woke up sexually, I’d been hard pressed to keep my eyes to myself. I was good at pretending that wasn’t the case, and that would be a good thing, since the last thing I needed were these five noticing.
Marco came out of the kitchen and J started to sign to him. I looked at K. If I was going to lie about this then I’d start now. “Do you know what they’re saying?”
He shook his head. “I don’t speak ASL but J is fluent.”
He really was. Most hearing people like me, if they signed, they flummoxed through the experience or mouthed the words while they did it. J didn’t speak aloud. He and Marco communicated in utter silence, the movements of their hands fluid and practiced.
I watched as though I was just interested and tried to keep a blank look on my face. I missed some words, but the gist of it was that Marco had nailed the furniture to the walls because he had been told that Jeb Marrs’ daughter was coming, and he’d assumed I was a child. Nailing or bolting furniture to the walls was a childproofing measure.
I almost smiled, but I didn’t. At least it made sense now. Marco went on to say he would unbolt the furniture, but J stopped him. Rather than that, he should go ahead and install a lock I could use on the door.
And just like that it was settled.
K crossed his arms over his chest. “Settled?”
“Just a mistake. All fixed. Lock going on the door.” J raised his eyebrows, his gaze meeting my own. “You can keep any of us out.”
“Thank you.”
“What were the other concerns? Oh, you’re getting dressed behind your shower curtain and D with the gun.”
J shook his head. “There aren’t video cameras in your room. Or anywhere in the house. We’re not that interested in what you’re doing.”
With that remark, J left. I guessed he didn’t have anything to say about D with the gun.
What did I know now? K didn’t like to be argued with, he was the one communicating with my father, and he took offense at being accused of being a misogynist.
J solved problems. He signed with his deaf employee.
K sighed. “D is complicated. We all are, but he’s the most overtly off. Stay away from him when he has the gun. He’s not coming in your room. That’s the last thing on his mind. I’m going to go shower.” He nodded at me. “You’ll be okay if you don’t fuck this up.”
What did this mean if K thought I should stay away from D? How fucked up was D?
If I didn’t fuck this up. I nodded. He didn’t have to know I was getting out of here as soon as I fucking could. Before I turned away, I saw Marco. He stood in the doorway, watching me. With a nod in my direction, he left. That was odd. But then again, this whole experience ranked among the strangest I could imagine. Why should he be any different?
I wasn’t used to having nothing to do. With no agenda for the first time ever, I took the stairs to the top of the house and did what W had suggested the night before. I could look at where I was from the top. Of course, if I’d done this instead of darting out of the house I could have spared the bottom of my feet the ordeal they’d been through.
If I let myself notice, they really, really hurt. But I was good at pretending I didn’t have pain. My father had been busy. Unless a Chihuahua mauled me, I didn’t bother him with small stuff. I walked into one of the empty bedrooms. It didn’t have furniture. The space was empty except for the black window treatments. They drifted slightly from moving air in the room. The vents were still on, pushing heat into this part of the house despite its lack of occupants.
I could hear my feet on the wood floors, making creaking sounds with each step I took toward the balcony. My room didn’t have a balcony or the view this room had. I looked straight down at the lake. This
side of the house showed the rest of the island. I opened the door and stepped onto the balcony. A cold wind hit me, and I shivered. March was obviously still a very cold time in Vermont. I could see the other side of the island and the lake there, too. In daylight, it was obvious the water was frozen. In the far distance I could see another island. Even if it were summer, it would be too far to swim.
I wasn’t much of a swimmer. I knew how. I could certainly make my way across a pool, but I wasn’t going to count on my ability to go miles. But maybe I could get a boat. Maybe there were some, somewhere, I could find them. I knew how to row. I’d done it with a boy I was dating because he liked to go out on a river on the weekend. I’d wanted to fuck him, and he’d wanted to paddle around in a lake. I’d paddled, and when he’d gotten his fill, we’d had at it—sometimes in the boat, which had been a challenge since I’d insisted on wearing a lifejacket the whole time.
Maybe I could row my way out of here. I chewed on my lip. Maybe they were in the basement.
Still, that wasn’t going to be a fast exit. I had to wait for the ice to melt and who knew when that would be. Unless I could just walk out onto the ice. That was a thought. I’d read in a book once where people drove onto the ice. Was this thick enough to do that?
I was going to find out. Immediately.
I left the balcony, closing the door and then locking it behind me. A strong wind would blow it open if it wasn’t closed, and I’d bet we got lots of strong winds here. I made my way back to my room. I hadn’t heard anyone the night before coming or going, but they said all the bedrooms upstairs were empty which meant the Letters had to be sleeping on the same floor as me. Or the first floor. Or the basement. While I was at it, I was going to officially find that door to the basement.
I stopped in my room to grab my coat. The door was open, and the door handle was different. I bent over to look at it. I could now lock it by pushing in a button on the knob. Next to the bed was a key. There might be another key, but for the moment I was going to believe they had no desire to come in my room at night.
Hard Truths (Kiss Her Goodbye Book 1) Page 4
