Liquid Lies Page 10

  She suspected the answer, and it terrified her.

  Xavier glared. “My room is next door, through the bathroom. I’m the only one with access to these rooms.”

  The thought of Xavier sleeping not twenty feet away, and having to share a bathroom with him, creeped Gwen out.

  He started to pull shut the door, then stopped. “And Gwen, I want to make one thing clear. You’re here because Nora wants it. If it were up to me, I’d tie a weight around your ankles and throw you into the lake, along with every other Ofarian.”

  His silver-steel eyes held hers until the moment the door slammed closed. No door handle on her side. Not even one of those metal boxes.

  The white armoire tucked diagonally in the corner matched the dresser but not the bed. Both pieces of furniture looked worn, their corners chipped. The armoire door squealed as she opened it. She fingered the stiff, new jeans shoved inside. Piles of T-shirts and zippered sweaters in a menagerie of colors lay in the drawers, the price tags all from a big box store. A pair of hiking boots sat on the bottom. All her size but nothing her style. But then, she’d never heard of an inmate who got to choose her wardrobe.

  She snatched a random sweater and a pair of jeans, and stomped into the bathroom. Every fixture was white and plain and available at any chain home repair warehouse. Anonymous. Utilitarian. Not fixed up for anyone who’d be staying here for any length of time.

  The box next to the door leading into Xavier’s room blinked red. She slapped on the nozzle in the walk-in shower, turning it up to full blast and steaming hot.

  The last twenty-four hours slammed into her with the force of a meteor hitting Earth.

  She sank to the bathroom floor amid her new, crappy clothes. Great, wracking sobs tore through her body. Steam swirled around, thickening by the moment. She wanted to get lost in it. She wanted it to erase her surroundings.

  Wishing had never been her thing. The only success she’d ever achieved had been through planning and hard work. Both seemed unreachable now.

  When the tears eased up, she summoned the strength to stand and undress. The tall boots and pencil skirt lay crumpled in a heap. Reed’s compliments about them rang in her ears, taunting her, and she cringed at her foolishness.

  Using a towel, she swiped at the mirror, clearing a small hole. She barely recognized the woman looking back at her. Yesterday’s makeup poured down her cheeks and made black trails toward her ears and mouth. The layers of her hair tangled together. The heavy slope of her shoulders and the curve of her spine displayed her defeat. She turned away in disgust.

  In the shower she scrubbed her hair three times, her face twice. She lathered up and shaved. If she could peel off her entire top layer of skin, contaminated by Reed and Xavier and Nora’s odious stare, she would.

  She longed to transform into droplets, swirl down the drain, and flow far, far away. Bracing her hands on the white plastic shower stall, she just stood there under the pounding water. Concentrating. Reaching. Calling out.

  The water didn’t answer.

  The nelicoda shoved her power into a cage and threw away the key, but she refused to give up. Focusing all her energy, she probed every millimeter of that cage. Eventually she found some hairline cracks in the chemically created bars, but they were only that—too thin to completely bust through in her weakened state.

  How long would the dosage last? Would it fade out? Or would its effects just end? She vowed to keep testing it. If she could just widen one hairline crack, stretch through to the other side, even a sliver of her power would allow her to touch water…

  The effort exhausted her and she was forced to abandon it. A weak and pitiful showing that left her breathless and hugging the wall.

  “Who is Nora?” Gwen asked Xavier as they wove around the living room furniture toward the door in the glass wall. The tiny old woman stood on the terrace, looking out at the lake. “I mean, who is she to you?”

  “Your people have Chairman Ian Carroway,” he grunted. “We have Nora.”

  As Gwen stepped out onto the terrace, a fierce blast of sweet-smelling freedom smacked her in the face. The cool air made her still-damp scalp tingle. The wind picked up, tearing turned leaves from the trees and tossing them about the stone. She dragged her stiff new boots through the crunch and wondered how far she’d get if she ran.

  Not very far, by the looks of the fence encircling the property. Down the hill, a private dock stretched out into the water. An armed guard sat in a small hut on the rocky shore, his rifle trained on her.

  Gwen went right for Nora, Xavier having to pick up his feet to keep pace with her.

  “Where the hell am I?” she demanded.

  Nora turned from the wall. Slowly, casually. “Do you feel better?”

  “Skip the pleasantries.”

  Xavier finally caught up and grabbed her arm before she could reach Nora, the pinch of his fingers birthing bruises. “Sorry,” he muttered to Nora.

  Gwen squirmed out of Xavier’s hold. “Where am I? If you didn’t want me to know, you would’ve kept me locked up in the dark.”

  Nora raised her silver eyebrows and looked vaguely amused. “You don’t recognize it? You’ve never been here before?”

  “Where exactly is here?”

  Nora laced her fingers before her. “Lake Tahoe.”

  Less than four hours’ drive from San Francisco. Gwen held back a gasp of hope.

  “Why?” Gwen demanded. “Why me? Why here?”

  The small Tedran woman gazed back at her with an expression made of granite. Then she turned to Xavier. “You can go.”

  “But…” he stammered.

  “We’ll be fine. There’s been a change of plans. Go back inside and you’ll find out more.”

  Xavier scowled at Gwen, then turned on his heel and stalked back through the door, leaving her with Nora on the wide-open terrace. Alone.

  With a sharp pang, she realized Reed was the only person outside this house who knew she was still alive. And he’d grabbed his gigantic paycheck and was probably already halfway back to Washington, or wherever the hell he was from.

  She should be glad to be rid of him, to not be continually reminded of his duplicity and her stupidity. So why wasn’t she?

  Nora went to a wrought-iron table and pulled out a heavy chair with a screech of metal over stone. “Sit,” she ordered, as if Gwen had a choice. Gwen settled on the very edge of the hard chair. She’d never be comfortable. She just wanted to be ready.

  Nora tilted her head and regarded Gwen with an inscrutable expression.

  “What?” Gwen snapped.

  Without words, Nora reached into the billowy folds of the cape she’d draped over her shoulders and produced a small vial of silvery, viscous liquid. As she set it in the middle of the black table, the sun struck the vial in an explosion of rainbows.

  A strangled sound erupted from Gwen’s throat. She snatched the vial off the table and cradled it in her lap, shielding it from unseen eyes. She could barely breathe. “Where did you get this? How did you get this?”

  Nora eased back in her chair, looking disgustingly satisfied at Gwen’s fear and bewilderment. “It’s not that hard. For us.”

  So Gwen’s intuition about the van had been right, and Reed’s assumption had been wrong. When the policeman had walked up, she’d felt the subtle shift in atmosphere, the familiar tingle. She’d been around it since she was old enough to understand the nature of her family’s business. It had its own signature, one she could recognize as strong as any Secondary’s.

  She didn’t want to believe it then, and she sure as hell didn’t want to acknowledge it now. Looked like she had no other choice.

  Xavier hadn’t paid off those cops. He’d used Mendacia to disguise the van.

  It’s not that hard. For us.

  Gwen put two and two together. If the language used to control Mendacia was Tedran, they could likely shape it into any illusion they wanted, not just physical glamour. They would know far more command word
s than the Ofarians. The Tedrans must have used it to fake her death. But how? Would her dad be able to see through it? Would any other Ofarian?

  She fingered the bottle under the table, following its hexagonal shape by memory. It didn’t have a label. Strange.

  “Mendacia is extremely rare and extremely valuable. We know where every bottle is and how it’s being used. How did you get this one?”

  “Yes, I heard that’s what you call it. Mendacia.” Nora breathed stiffly through her nose. For a moment her icy veneer cracked and Gwen glimpsed a heavy sadness underneath. Then the chill swept back over. “It means ‘lies’ in Latin. Did you know that? You’re selling liquid lies. And there’s more than one lie in that bottle, other than how it’s made.”

  Gwen was so enraged, and so utterly confused, that she couldn’t dig her voice out of the hole it had fallen into.

  “Tell me”—Nora’s fingers drummed on the table top—“what do Ofarians teach their children about the war on Tedra?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “What do you believe happened on Tedra, all those generations ago?” She enunciated each word like Gwen was a slow first-grader, making Gwen want to lunge across the table. “What story is passed from Ofarian mother to child about your ancestors?”

  What sort of trap was she trying to set? “You should know the story as well as I do.”

  Her dark eyes flashed with a hatred that mirrored Gwen’s. “You know a story. You don’t know the story. Tell me what you know.”

  “Why?”

  As she spread her arms, the cape fell to her elbows, exposing her translucent skin, peppered with age spots and striped with blue veins. “Because you, my dear, are the one sitting in that chair, with nelicoda numbing your magic and with your own personal guard watching from behind that glass wall, making sure you’ll do exactly as I say. Now tell me what you know.”

  A shiver crawled through Gwen that had nothing to do with the autumn wind.

  She couldn’t look at Nora, so she stared at the vial of Mendacia, since it seemed to be creating the shadow falling over her predicament. There, on the sun-drenched terrace of her kidnapper’s home, the smoky tones of her mom’s voice came back to Gwen so strongly she might have sworn her mom was sitting right next to her. Nora was right; Gwen’s mom had told her the story many times. But she wasn’t going to just hand it to Nora. The snide Tedran would have to work for it by asking Gwen for specifics.

  “Why did your people leave Ofaria?” Nora prompted in the silence.

  Gwen fidgeted, delaying her response as long as possible. “Ofaria’s atmosphere had turned poisonous, the ground no longer supported life. The survivors fled.”

  “And behold! They found Tedra,” Nora added, with the sarcastic, exaggerated flare of a nasty children’s storyteller, “a world of mostly water. A world practically made for a race connected to that element.”

  “But you didn’t want to share your world, even with ailing refugees. Whatever Ofarians you didn’t kill outright, you took as slaves. You separated families, destroyed the settlements. You stole our freedom.”

  Nora’s nostrils flared and her fingertips twitched, but otherwise she sat maddeningly still. At least she’d gone quiet. Gwen barreled on.

  “You created nelicoda, pumped us with it, and forced us to serve you.”

  Nora only stared back. “Go on.”

  Gwen was on a roll now. She liked throwing the past in Nora’s face. “We revolted even though we were outnumbered and knew we would lose. A few Ofarians stole a ship and fled to find a new home. A hundred and fifty years ago they found Earth. We’ve been hiding ever since.” Gwen slapped the table, making it jump. “That’s the story I know.”

  She wanted to punch Nora’s awful little smile.

  “Now,” said the old Tedran, “tell me about Mendacia.”

  “No.” Gwen leaned forward. “Tell me how you found us. How you got here without the Primaries noticing.”

  Secrets and bitterness tugged at Nora’s lips. She steepled her fingers. “I will. But I want to hear what you know first. How do you think it’s made?”

  By the smug look on Nora’s face, she thought she knew more than Gwen, and Gwen hated that.

  “If you’re looking for insider information, you’re barking up the wrong tree. I don’t know much.” Nora waved an impatient hand and Gwen bit the inside of her cheek. “Very few Ofarians are chosen to learn how to make it. Those who are picked leave everything behind and devote their lives to creating it in secrecy. Its rarity explains the price. That’s all I know. If you want more, you’ve got the wrong woman.”

  Somewhere in the distance a leaf-blower revved up. She was jailed in the middle of suburbia.

  “Is that what you wanted to hear?” Gwen demanded.

  “No.” For the first time, Nora looked at her lap. “No, I didn’t want to hear that. But I knew I had to.”

  Nora stood abruptly and started to walk away.

  Gwen jumped into her path. “Where are you going?”

  Nora snapped her fingers at the glass wall and the door to the terrace opened and shut behind Gwen. Gwen assumed she knew who Nora had summoned, but when she glanced over her shoulder and saw who actually approached, her mouth dropped open.

  Nora snatched the Mendacia from Gwen’s grasp and stuffed it back into a hidden pocket. “Everything you just told me,” she whispered, “is a lie.”

  THIRTEEN

  Nora snapped for him, so, like a dog, Reed heeled, even though it made him cringe.

  He felt better that it was he going to Gwen and not Xavier. Better, but still not good.

  He fingered the strange device Adine had fit onto his wrist. It sported a tiny screen and a camera, and closed-loop, two-way communication with Nora. Futuristic and sleek. It was his key, so to speak, to his new job of protecting Gwen.

  Let Nora think he just wanted the fatter paycheck. Let her think he was a panting, desperate dog. Hell, let Gwen think that. All Reed knew was that he didn’t trust Nora or Xavier, or even Adine. Contract or no, Retriever or Reed Scott, he’d make sure Gwen got out of this alive.

  As he moved to stand next to Nora, Gwen gaped at him in disgust. He gave her his coolest disregard.

  “Reed is your shadow now,” Nora told Gwen. “He’ll make sure you go where I say, do what I ask.”

  There. He saw it in Gwen’s eyes. It was gone now, but it had peeked its head out and shown its face, however briefly: relief. He didn’t scare her half as much as Nora, which bothered him all the more.

  She looked different now, scrubbed of all that makeup and out of those fancy clothes. Some might say she looked like any other suburban woman, but to Reed she looked like no one else. She never would.

  He felt the sweep of her gaze as she took him in. Showered, shaved, changed—everything to indicate he was staying. Then her eyes fell on the odd watch and narrowed, plotting. The watch only made her situation worse. The GPS inside always told Nora where Reed and Gwen would be, and he was required to provide photographic proof of Gwen’s location at specific intervals.

  “You know what to do,” Nora said to him. He nodded and Nora doddered toward the door.

  “Wait.” Gwen lunged for Nora, but the old woman didn’t turn around.

  Reed took Gwen’s arm and pulled her back.

  “Hey!”

  “Stay right here,” he growled.

  Gwen shouted around his body, “We’re not finished, Nora!”

  He stepped into her line of sight. “She’s done with you.”

  Pure hatred darkened Gwen’s face and she tried to skirt around him. He danced to one side, then the other, blocking her way.

  “She owes me answers.”

  “You’re not getting around me.”

  They stood there, several feet apart, the space between them filling with silent challenge. “You are soulless,” she said.

  Good thing she turned away because he didn’t know if he succeeded in disguising his hurt. Targets had called him many things b
efore, but never that.

  She went to the terrace wall, arms spread out wide on its top. He granted her a moment then approached, giving her generous space.

  “I suppose you know everything I don’t,” she snapped.

  “Not true.” He shrugged. “I’m paid to know nothing.”

  “Oh, that’s right. I hope I’m worth every penny.”

  He bent to rest on his elbows. “I couldn’t tell you anything, even if I did know.”

  Couldn’t? Or wouldn’t? Even he didn’t know.

  “When I find out,” she said, staring out at the lake, “I won’t tell you. Even if you beg.”

  “I won’t beg. It’s not my business to know.”

  “What if they plan to kill me?”

  He ran a hand over his newly shaven head. “I already told you. They won’t.”

  “If you don’t even know why I’m here, how could you possibly say that?”

  “Jesus, how many times do I have to say it? I don’t do murders, Gwen. Retrieve and deliver, that’s it.”

  “How can you be sure? Once you’re done and gone, they can do whatever they want with me.”

  That’s why I’m staying this time.

  He glanced back at the house, discreetly enough that their cameras wouldn’t be able to tell. “I make it a point to know a bit or two about my clients. Bits they don’t want out in the open. Let’s just say I usually don’t deal with the straightest of arrows. If they renege on the no-killing part of our contract, I expose their dirty little secrets.”

  He expected some relief, or maybe even a little bit of gratitude on her part. Instead her face paled. Her voice dipped low. “What do you know about Nora?”

  Not Nora. Adine. He shook his head. “Can’t say. We’ve already crossed a line.”

  She snorted. “And whose line is that?”

  His head dropped between his arms. “Mine.” He breathed deeply, looked at her sideways. “This is different from what I normally do.”

  “Not your typical kidnapping?” The bitterness in her tone tore at him.

  “No. It’s not. I’ve already broken my first rule.”