Among the Barons (14 page)

But Luke wasn’t sure that he believed that How could he believe anything Oscar had told him?

“People try to kill my parents all the time,” Smits said. “Lee and me, we weren’t supposed to know, but—remember when the flaming dessert exploded? That was one time. And there was a bomb once, in my dad’s office.... But Mom and Dad, they always survived. Somehow. Maybe”—his face lit up, and he sat forward—”maybe they aren’t dead now. Maybe they’re just hurt really bad, and if we have the servants take them to the hospital..

Luke thought about the pile of broken glass, of the way that Mr. and Mrs. Grant’s bodies hadn’t even been visible beneath the wreckage.

“No,” he said gently “They’re dead.”

Smits slumped back in his seat, back into stony silence.

“How did Oscar do it?” Nina asked. “How did he get the chandelier to fall when he was standing practically underneath it? If there’d been someone up there cutting the wires, someone Oscar was commanding we would have seen him.”

Luke hadn’t even thought about that. The chandelier’s falling had seemed like a tornado or an earthquake— something so sudden and cataclysmic that it didn’t make sense to look for explanations.

“It was some sort of remote-control hookup,” Trey said. “I bet if we looked, we’d find a release on the wires that went off when Oscar gave a signal. Or maybe he pressed the button himself. Maybe nobody except Oscar knew what was going to happen.”

Luke remembered Oscar’s warning: “Watch out for chandeliers.” Oscar apparently hadn’t given Smits the same warning. Even after Luke had refused to take sides, even after the chandelier had fallen, Oscar still seemed to have held on to some hope that Luke might join his cause. “You’re a good kid, even if you aren’t ready to work with me yet,” Oscar had said. The “yet” kept ringing in Luke’s ears.

Especially now Luke couldn’t imagine ever joining forces with Oscar. Had he made a mistake, letting Oscar slip off into the darkness? Luke buried his face in his hands. His mind raced. How could he ever sort out the truth from Oscar’s lies? Oscar had tried to get both Smits and Luke to help him. But it was Luke he’d given the warning to, Luke he’d hugged, Luke he’d left with the key.... Luke could almost feel certain: Oscar probably had been poor. He probably had blown up mailboxes. He probably did hate Barons—including the Grants.

“Smits?” Luke said gently looking up again. “How did Oscar act around your parents?”

Smits blinked.

“Act?” he repeated, as though he’d misunderstood the question. “Yeah, it was all an act. Everything he did. He’d be all nice to them—all, ‘Yes, Mrs. Grant. No, Mr. Grant.’ But he was—was blackmailing them. The whole time.”

“What?” Luke exploded. “It was Oscar doing that?” He’d

never suspected such a thing, but somehow it fit.

Smits didn’t even seem to hear Luke. He kept talking, as if in a trance.

“They didn’t know it was him,” Smits said. “But I found... I found a check in his wallet. From them. Not his bodyguard pay He was writing them letters, saying he knew that Lee was dead and how he had died. And he was going to tell the Government if they didn’t pay up....

“Didn’t you tell your parents what he was doing?” They asked.

“No,” Smits said. His expression twisted with guilt. “I thought
. . .
I thought they were getting what they deserved.” He was silent for a minute, then went on angrily “They didn’t even want to tell
me
that Lee was dead. ‘Oh, he’s too busy to answer your E-mail,’ they said. ‘Oh, he’s just out when you call.’ ‘Oh, he’s having too much fun to come and see his pesky little brother.”’

Luke could understand why Smits had been so upset

“But you did find out about Lee,” Nina said gently

Smits nodded. “Lee wasn’t like that He didn’t think I was pesky He took care of me.
He
loved me. So I knew something was wrong. I started spying on Mom and Dad. And I caught Mom in here, crying. And then I made her tell me, and she made me promise to keep everything secret, but... I couldn’t, you know? And I kept thinking, Mom was crying over Lee. And I didn’t think she would cry if I died. But then tonight, when that chandelier started to fall—Mom pushed me out of the way She saved my life. And she didn’t have time to save her own. She— she must have loved me after all. And now—now I don’t have any parents at all...

Smits began crying then, really hard. Awkwardly Luke patted his shoulders. Nina bent down and hugged him. They who clearly wasn’t any good around emotional outbursts, drifted over toward Mr. Grant’s desk He began rifling through the drawers. After a few moments Luke joined him.

“It’d be nice if we could find some papers—some proof,” Trey muttered. “We can’t believe what Smits tells us, can we?”

Luke glanced back at the sobbing boy

“Yeah,” he said. “He’s too sad to lie.”

Luke was convinced: Smits definitely believed everything he’d told them was true. He’d mostly told the truth all along—until Oscar had begun pressuring him to betray Luke, as a way to betray his parents. Smits’s only lies were the ones that had come from other people.

Luke was willing to stand there and try to figure everything out, but Trey elbowed him in the ribs.

“Where’d you get the key to this room?” he asked.

“Oscar gave it to me,” Luke said absentmindedly

“How do we know he hasn’t bugged the whole place?” They asked. “How do we know he isn’t still planning to kill you and Smits?”

Luke stared at his friend. Luke’s vision was starting to go fuzzy around the edges. It was so tempting to give in to that fuzziness, to slump down in a heap and let someone else figure out what to do. But he blinked hard, blinking They and the secret room back into focus. And Nina and Smits.

Most of all Smits.

“Think one of us can figure out how to drive?” Luke asked.

CHAPTER 30

In the end they decided to trust the chauffeur. Joel and John sat in the front with him, ready to overpower him if he tried anything suspicious.

Trey and Luke sat in the first seat in the back, all the papers from Mr. Grant’s desk spread out between them. They had insisted on bringing them. He was methodically reading one paper after the other with a penlight. Occasionally he’d mutter, “This is incredible!” or “Listen to this!” but Luke barely heard him. It was always something financial, something about Mr. Grant’s business. Nothing Luke cared about. Luke just stared straight ahead, thinking.

Nina and Smits sat across from Luke and Trey. Or lay, in Smits’s case. He’d fallen asleep leaning against Nina, but he still whimpered and thrashed about. Several times she had to grab him to keep him from falling off the seat

Every time that happened, Luke knew he was doing the right thing.

It had been the middle of the night when they started out, so their entire trip had been in darkness. There seemed to be no light at all in the world except in their car. But by the time They finally gave up on the papers and turned off his penlight, the first gleam of dawn had begun creeping over the horizon. Luke stopped staring at Smits and began pressing his face against the window, trying to see something familiar outside. He couldn’t get enough of staring at the landscape around him.

When the car passed a crossroads with nothing but three mailboxes in the midst of a clump of weeds, he suddenly screamed out, “Stop!”

The chauffeur hit the brakes so hard that Smits finally rolled completely off his seat

“Sorry, sir,” the chauffeur said.

“That’s all right,” Luke said. “You can let Smits and me out here.”

“Here?” The man sounded incredulous. Luke saw him looking around at rutted fields stretching all the way to the horizon. To the chauffeur and almost anyone else who might see this scene, it would look like a vast wasteland. The middle of nowhere.

But that wasn’t what Luke saw.

“You can take the others on to Mr. Talbot’s house,” Luke said. “Thanks.”

Luke didn’t wait for the chauffeur to open the door for him. He pushed his way out on his own.

“Come on, Smits,” he said gently, holding the door.

Nina handed the younger boy over as if he were a mere parcel. Still, Smits stood up straight once he was out of the car. Luke saw him glance down at the dried mud streaked across the road, but he didn’t say anything.

“You won’t change your mind?” Trey asked. “You can still come with the rest of us.”

“No,” Luke said. “I’ve got to do it this way”

He had a feeling Mr. Talbot would disapprove. He was probably being a coward, not going to Mr. Talbot’s house first. Or foolhardy for not discussing everything with Mr. Talbot before making up his mind. But Luke knew now that Mr. Talbot didn’t know everything, either. Mr. Talbot was going to be stunned to learn what Oscar had done. Luke was perfectly willing to let They and Nina break the news.

“Okay,” Trey said hesitantly.

Luke shoved the door shut and turned to Smits.

“Up ahead,” Luke said. “That house. That’s where we’re going.”

They waited until the car drove out of sight, then they began walking. Luke barely managed to keep himself from breaking into a run—he was that eager. But he had the younger boy to think about, and Smits didn’t seem capable of running right now.

Finally they reached the driveway, and Luke could restrain himself no longer. He raced up to the door and pounded.

“Mother! Dad! I’m home!”

The door flew open and Mother stood there, her jaw dropped in astonishment.

“Oh, Lu—,” she began, then swallowed the rest of his name and just buried him in a hug. Then she stopped and held him out from her by the shoulders, much as Mrs. Grant had held him when she was planning all the ways to change him. But Mrs. Grant had been looking for his faults, and Mother was beaming as though everything about him was wonderful.

“You’ve gotten taller and more muscular, and your hair’s darker and—are those braces?” she asked in amazement. She didn’t wait for an answer. Her face clouded suddenly, as though she’d just remembered why he’d had to leave home in the first place. “Is it safe for you to be here?” she asked.

“As safe as anywhere else,” Luke replied steadily. For that, finally, was what he’d concluded. Oscar knew about Hendricks School and Mr. Talbot, the Grants’ house was a Byzantine mess of mixed loyalties—if Luke was going to be in danger, he might as well get to see his family. And he wasn’t going to be staying long enough to endanger them.

“Everything’s different now, Mother,” he said. But he couldn’t say to her, “I just saw two people killed, right before my eyes. I was almost killed myself. And then the murderer hugged me.... How can anything stay the same after that?”

Mother gave him a searching look and opened her mouth as if she was going to ask more. But Smits reached

the front door just then, a sad, slow little boy who seemed to have barely enough energy to climb the steps. Luke saw the sympathy playing over his mother’s face. She didn’t even know what had happened to Smits, and she already felt sorry for him.

Good.

“Mother, remember how you always wanted to have four boys?” Luke asked. “Well, I brought you another son. This is Smits. Smits Grant. He is—was—well, he’s my brother now. His parents are dead.”

Automatically Smits held out a hand, and for a single second Luke felt a stab of doubt Mother and Smits looked so wrong together—like pictures cut from two different magazines and haphazardly glued together. Smits, in his fine woolen suit and leather shoes, did not belong with Mother, with her faded housedress and haggard face, her graying hair scooped back into a bun. And what had Luke been thinking, bringing Smits from his mansion to Luke’s family’s house, with its peeling paint and weathered wood? What must Smits think?

Mother ignored Smits’s outstretched hand and drew him into a hug that was every bit as genuine as the one she’d given Luke.

“You’re always welcome here,” she told him.

Then Luke’s dad and older brothers, Matthew and Mark, came out to see what the fuss was about. They weren’t the type to give hugs, but Luke could see the joy and relief in their eyes, even as Matthew punched his arm and Mark

joked, “Luke? You couldn’t be Luke. I could always whomp Luke with one hand tied behind my back And you—with you I might have to use both fists.”

That was how Luke knew that Mark was happier than anyone to see him.

They all shook hands politely with Smits. Luke could tell they were shy around him.

“Have you had breakfast? We were just getting ready to sit down,” Mother said.

“I could eat,” Smits said in a small voice.

Matthew and Mark brought in extra chairs from the other rooms, and they all sat around the kitchen table. Such a change, Luke thought, from when he’d had to eat on the stairs while the rest of the family ate at the table. Breakfast was just oatmeal and cooked apples, but it tasted heavenly to Luke, better than the fanciest meal he’d had at the Grants~

He wondered what Smits thought.

After breakfast everyone sat around talking, until Mother had to scurry off to work, and Matthew and Mark had to rush off to school.

“Are we going to have to put up with you when we get home, too?” Mark asked, just as the school bus pulled up.

“Probably,” Luke said. “Today, at least.”

“Too bad,” Mark said, but Luke could tell he was secretly glad.

With the others out the door, Luke’s dad asked them, “Mind if I turn on the radio? I have to check the grain reporL”

It was so odd that Dad would ask Luke permission for anything. Luke watched Dad twist the radio dial, and the familiar voice of the news announcer crackled out of the speaker.

“Government spokesmen report record harvests this year,” the announcer said.

Luke remembered the empty fields he’d seen going from school to the Grants’ house, from the Grants’ house to home. He remembered all the lies he’d witnessed since leaving home in the first place. Even if the news announcer’s voice was the same as ever, Luke couldn’t listen unquestioningly, the way he once had. He wondered suddenly if anything the Government told the people was true.

Beside him Smits sniffled.

“They aren’t.
. .
they aren’t saying anything about Mom and Dad,” he said.

“No,” Luke said gently “They wouldn’t.” He remembered how he’d longed to hear news on the radio about Jen, Mr. Talbot’s daughter, after her rally but before he knew what had really happened. “It’s better for you if they don’t announce it,” he told Smits.

“But I can talk about it, can’t I?” Smits asked.

“Yes,” Luke said. “Here you can say anything you want.”

Smits fell silent then. Luke understood. But Dad glanced from Smits to Luke, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“Is there something I ought to know?” Dad asked.

“Later,” Luke mouthed, cutting his eyes toward Smits in