Relentless (18 page)

‘‘Of course I am.’’

‘‘You wish that you could be with him, to help him,’’ Morgan stated.

‘‘Yeah!’’ Julie cried, realizing it herself for the first time.

‘‘But this is not the reason you tremble.’’

Julie blinked, staring wide-eyed at Morgan.

‘‘Tell me,’’ Morgan went on, lowering her voice yet full of compassion, ‘‘how long has it been since you were diagnosed?’’

Julie was taken aback, though she regrouped fast. ‘‘I don’t know what you’re—’’

‘‘My dear, you’ve been demonstrating minor uncontrollable shakes since you and your brother arrived. I’m no diagnostician, but I
am
well-read, and I recognize the symptoms of Parkinson’s when I see them.’’

Julie was flabbergasted. Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them back.

‘‘It was about a month ago,’’ she whispered in reply, struggling to keep her composure. ‘‘Only a few weeks before my brother and I reunited.’’

Morgan sighed in sympathy. ‘‘Grant doesn’t know?’’

Julie shook her head, tears spilling out. ‘‘
Please
don’t tell him. He has enough to worry about, and he
needs
me . . . Frankly, I’m afraid for him.
All the time
. He’s been through so much. I feel like I’m desperately holding on to him, trying to pull him back all by myself . . .’’

Morgan smiled sensitively. ‘‘I won’t tell him, dear, you have my word. But if I may offer an unsolicited word of advice: show
confidence
in him. Make him
see
that you have faith he will overcome his obstacles.
That’s
what he needs from you now.’’

‘‘I just don’t know what to think about any of this,’’ Julie replied, sniffling. ‘‘All this stuff about him and you and the others and those rings. . . . I just don’t believe it.’’

Morgan tilted her head, the faintest hint of a smile forming at the edge of her lips. ‘‘Sometimes
belief
is all you really need.’’

‘‘What am I supposed to believe
in
?’’ Julie asked, flustered, looking away. She turned back to face Morgan when she felt the elder woman’s hand rest on top of hers, quieting its trembling with a gentle, steady grip.

Morgan leaned forward in her chair just slightly. Her eyes twinkled in the firelight.

‘‘Believe,’’ she said softly, ‘‘that all that is happening to your brother—
and
to you—is not random.’’

21

Hannah stopped the convertible three blocks from their destination. All she and Grant could see in every direction were darkened homes in a modest residential development. It was after one; the entire neighborhood should be asleep.

Grant glanced at Hannah, who was behind the wheel.

This is the part where I’m supposed to get out . . .

Hannah took his hand in hers. ‘‘It’s gonna be okay. You’re
way
more capable than ya think you are.’’

He smiled weakly, insincerely.

‘‘And I don’t care
what
Morgan says,’’ Hannah added, ‘‘I ain’t leaving you here, big boy. I’ll be waiting—and
watching
—right here, in case anything goes wrong.’’

Grant nodded appreciatively and took a deep breath. Hannah handed him a large flashlight, and he got out of the car.

He imagined—or rather
hoped
—that he looked catlike as he crept up the dark sidewalk. The black shirt and pants he’d put on at the asylum helped him blend in with the night—even though the shirt was two sizes too big—but he still felt like he had no idea what he was doing.

How am I supposed to do this? I’m no good at this stuff
.

Who is Morgan, anyway?

His thoughts drifted back to that afternoon, when he’d finally emerged from his ‘‘cell’’ at the asylum. Sleep had come only because he was wholly exhausted, but even so, the nightmares remained. After a shower and a little food, he’d found Morgan in the Common Room, chatting with a dozen of the others. Hannah was there, scowling, as was Julie, sitting in one corner alone and fidgeting.

Morgan had spotted him first as he walked in and motioned him forward.

Before she could speak, he blurted out, ‘‘Let’s just get this over with.’’

‘‘Of course,’’ she replied. ‘‘The task is a simple one. Go to this address’’—she handed him a folded-up piece of paper—‘‘and retrieve a small, brown cardboard box, wrapped in brown packing paper and tied with twine. You’ll know it when you see it. It will be fairly heavy for its size. Its ‘owner’ will be occupied this evening.’’

Grant frowned. ‘‘What’s in the box?’’

‘‘A fragment,’’ she replied. When he was unimpressed, she continued, ‘‘You want to know what all of this is about? Why we experienced the Shift and what these rings are doing on our fingers? This little brown box holds the key to answering every one of your questions.’’

‘‘And this address? What’s there?’’

‘‘It’s a residence out in Van Nuys,’’ she replied calmly, ‘‘Beyond that. . . .’’

He was nonplussed. ‘‘So that’s it,’’ he motioned wide with his hands, in desperation. ‘‘Go to this mystery address and pick up some nondescript brown box. It’ll be that simple?’’

‘‘Of course it won’t,’’ Morgan said casually. ‘‘Nothing ever is. But I need you to understand something, Grant, and it’s very important that you hear me clearly on this: What I want to show you is something I have never shown
anyone
. I hate the idea of testing you as much as you do, but I can’t show you what I have to show you until I
know
you are indeed the one meant to see it. And if you can’t complete this task, then you are not that person.’’

Grant swallowed. ‘‘That your idea of a pep talk?’’

‘‘As a matter of fact, it is,’’ Morgan replied.

Grant opened the paper and read the address; he didn’t recognize it. Morgan said it was near the Van Nuys airport.

Grant’s head dropped and shook back and forth, his mind swimming.

‘‘Why can’t anything ever be simple? Why does everything have to be complicated?’’ he muttered.

‘‘I think you know why,’’ she replied, unmoved. ‘‘And if you don’t, you soon will.’’

He turned to go.

‘‘You can do this, Grant,’’ Morgan said. ‘‘I believe in you.’’

She sounded completely convinced.

Now, in the dead of night, he ducked behind a patch of bushes near the street after spotting the address in question. There was nothing remarkable about it. It was a simple two-story house. A garage on the far end of the house was closed, which meant he couldn’t tell if anybody was home. The place wasn’t especially large. White siding with charcoal shutters and highlights. Windows all around, on both floors.

It was no different from the many other homes in the neighborhood.

Grant’s new instincts offered nothing about break-in techniques, so he focused on the windows. The solid front door didn’t look like it would budge anyway.

He tiptoed to the right side of the house, feeling a bit silly, and pushed up on the first window he came to.

Locked.

He tried the next one.

Also locked.

He stole a few quick looks around to make sure there was no activity, and prayed for silence as he punched a fist through the windowpane. The gloves Hannah had given him during their drive protected his skin.

The glass tinkled loudly, and he crouched under the window, waiting a full minute to make sure no one reacted. No lights came on inside the house. No activity from any of the neighboring homes. No alarm went off.

Grant took a deep breath and stood. Reaching in, he unlocked the window, pushed up, and climbed through.

He pulled out the flashlight and flicked it on, sweeping the downstairs area with the tiny light. He was in the dining room. He scanned the table in the middle of the room and then moved on.

The next room looked like it should have been the living room or den, but whoever lived here was using it as some sort of personal space. A large oak desk sat against the far wall, with various disheveled items on top, including a computer buried underneath some of the others. A punching bag hung from the ceiling in the corner to his right. To his left were several bookcases full of books.

He walked to the desk and quietly opened each drawer, shifting things aside and looking for the small cardboard box. Nothing.

He surveyed the floor, the walls. No sign of a safe. The shelves next to the door held dozens of books. One book on the top shelf was enormous, over a foot tall and easily five inches thick.

Grant walked closer. It appeared to be some sort of exhaustive dictionary, but . . .

No one would be that obvious, would they?

He pulled down the oversized book. It was lighter than he’d expected. He opened it.

The book was hollow. A small, brown box tied with twine rested in its cavity, and Grant pulled it out. He held his flashlight up to the box; it was about five inches square, and about an inch thick.

Click
.

Grant froze.

He felt the pistol’s cool steel on his right ear.

‘‘You don’t belong here,’’ a voice growled. The man with the gun reached to the wall beside him with his free hand and turned on the light.

Grant glanced sideways and the two of them locked eyes.

‘‘But then,’’ the man said, ‘‘you must hear that a lot.’’

It was Detective Drexel.

Grant’s memory rushed back to Julie’s description of him from her encounter at UCLA. Grant had only seen the man once, staring down the barrel of a gun. And here they were again, history repeating itself.

Drexel stepped back and motioned for Grant to turn around fully.

Grant complied and they faced one another.

Grant felt the panic begin to rise in his throat, but he closed his eyes and forced himself to be calm. After what had happened at the Inveo security office, he was determined not to let it out again until he could find a way to control it.

‘‘Mr. Borrows,’’ Drexel began with a smug grin, the gun still trained on Grant. ‘‘You wouldn’t
believe
all the trouble I’ve gone through to find you. And where do you turn up? Right in my own home.’’

Grant’s thoughts were elsewhere. Having nothing to lose, he held up the box between them. ‘‘Did
you
steal this?’’

‘‘I’m a
policeman
,’’ Drexel snarled, snatching the box out of Grant’s hand. ‘‘I don’t steal, I
recover evidence
. Who sent you after this?’’

Drexel’s eyes focused on the box for a split second, and in that second, Grant reacted. He darted left through the open doorway that he’d come in.

Drexel fired but missed.

Grant tore through the house in a straight line for the front door, but just as he reached it, Drexel fired another shot, and this one punched a hole in the front door only inches above Grant’s shoulder. He stopped.

‘‘Move and I’ll kill you,’’ Drexel’s intimidating voice called. ‘‘Hands up.’’

Grant complied. Drexel approached him from behind, taking the box and setting it on a small lamp stand in the hall.

‘‘Breaking and entering is a misdemeanor,’’ he said as he stopped a few feet away. ‘‘That’ll do for a start.’’ He pulled a pair of handcuffs out of his pants pocket with his free hand. He snapped one cuff into place, and then brought that arm down behind Grant. He grabbed the other arm.

Grant brought a leg up to kick Drexel between the legs; Drexel cried out in pain, and Grant turned and opened the front door, reaching for the latch to the glass outer door.

But before he touched it, an alarm sounded. Floodlights flashed on, both inside and out.

‘‘Don’t go,’’ Drexel said lightly. ‘‘We’re about to have company.’’

Grant turned to see Drexel holding some kind of panic button in his free hand. The gun was still extended in his other. He had tears in his eyes from the pain, but he was smiling again.

Grant wanted to cover his ears because of the loud blaring of the security sirens, but he was afraid to move. Drexel’s entire appearance had suddenly become crazed.

‘‘On your knees, hands behind your head!’’ he screamed.

Grant dropped to the floor and couldn’t keep his hands from shaking as he laced them behind his neck. Instincts he couldn’t control were flooding his mind with techniques to take Drexel down, how to sweep the other man’s feet out from under him and pin him to the ground, or how to quickly snatch the gun away. But Drexel had a tight grip on the pistol and his finger was steady on the trigger.

Grant watched as Drexel snatched a radio off of his belt clip and began whispering into it.

‘‘This is Detective Drexel—there’s somebody in my house and I think he’s armed! I need
backup
!’’ He threw the radio aside and stepped forward, grinning. ‘‘No need to bother with an arrest now. It was only self-defense.’’

Drexel extended the gun and touched it to the top of Grant’s down-turned head.

And Grant panicked.

The entire neighborhood awoke to the sound of a concussive blast, as every window in Drexel’s house exploded outward.

NO! STOP!!

Grant came to moments later, curled up on the ground in agony. The pain this time was more intense than anything he’d ever imagined possible, and it had lasted longer.

His eyes gaped wide, his heart racing again. His eyes burned as he blinked them back and stumbled to his feet, taking in the impossible sight before him.

It looked as if a bomb had gone off, only nothing was charred. Every object around him had been overturned or broken. The house still stood, but all of the windows and doors had exploded.

Grant took a few unsteady steps and heard breathing.

He found Drexel lying on his back, over ten feet away down the hall. The gun was nowhere in sight. Drexel was awake, breathing fast, an entirely new look on his face. One Grant hadn’t seen on him before.

Terror.

He saw Grant coming and his breathing rate increased. The man had a few cuts on his face but didn’t look seriously injured.

Grant wasn’t faring much better. He was in shock, cold and wobbly, his eyes darting everywhere. It was all he could do not to panic again at the sight of what he had somehow just done.

‘‘I left the-the box on the table . . . r-right there!’’ the other man stammered, raising an arm to point. ‘‘Just take it and get out!’’