Relentless (40 page)

‘‘Stay in contact with Sarah and the others,’’ Daniel said, readjusting himself on his crutches. ‘‘Be reachable, and be ready to move. It’ll happen fast.’’

Will nodded then hopped up onto his skateboard and rolled past Daniel and down the sidewalk.

Daniel watched him go in silence, sighing long and hard at his young friend and the innocence he had just thrown away.

Morning came, and Grant got up early to visit Julie before his big road trip to the old house.

Under different circumstances, it might have pained him to see his car in the condition he found it—the damage Payton had caused prevented him from putting the top up or using the windows. The passenger-side glass was entirely gone.

But then, today was not a normal day.

If such a thing existed anymore.

He needed to fill Morgan and the others in on all that Payton had told him last night, but he didn’t want to put off this trip home any longer. It was a six-hour drive in normal traffic. Time to get it over with.

Grant revved the engine and spiraled downward to the exit. As he turned the final corner, a familiar tingle crossed the back of his neck . . .

A tingle that told him he was about to see someone he didn’t want to see.

He drove up to the exit—which still sported a broken barrier from when he had crashed through it ahead of Payton—and suddenly he slammed on the brakes.

Hannah stood right in front of the car, blocking his way with her hands on the hood. The first day he’d met her at Inveo, she’d been so in-control. So strong. Confident. Now she looked like a teenager who’d run away from home. Her blond hair was matted down as if it hadn’t been washed in days, her makeup had worn off long ago, and her clothes were filthy.

‘‘Move or I’ll move you,’’ he shouted from the car. ‘‘I mean it.’’

‘‘I need to talk to you,’’ she said in a sad voice, ‘‘but I don’t know what to say.’’

‘‘Let me guess. You have information to share with me? Everyone I meet seems to have just the right information at just the right time.’’

Hannah looked down and shook her head. She slowly walked around to stand beside his car door. ‘‘I’ve only got one piece of information to offer you, big boy, and that’s
why
.’’

‘‘You know,’’ he said, the car shaking slightly, ‘‘if I concentrated hard enough, I really think I could grind your bones into powder.’’ He raised an arm in her direction.

‘‘I don’t believe you’d do that,’’ she said softly, but took a step back all the same.

He looked into her eyes. ‘‘You’ve given me
so
many reasons to. Don’t give me another.’’

She looked away, unable to maintain eye contact with him. ‘‘You won’t let me explain myself?’’

‘‘Explain it to my sister,’’ he growled, turning back to the steering wheel. The car shook violently.

Grant was about to drive off, but Hannah stepped closer, close enough to touch him. ‘‘Drexel tried to kill me,’’ she said.

He paused, but wouldn’t look at her.

‘‘He blamed me for everything that happened. He was furious. I managed to get away, but he’s still out there, and I think he’s going to try and finish the job.’’

Grant’s eyes swiveled to meet hers. ‘‘Come near me again, and he won’t have to.’’

A squeal of tires and a cloud of blackened smoke punctuated his exit.

50

DANGER
, the sign read in red block letters.
This structure is declared
unsafe . . .

He sighed. The grass and brush were severely overgrown to the point that it was difficult to see much of the house beyond. What he could see appeared to be suffering from heavy termite damage.

Condemned. They condemned my childhood home
.

Grant made his way across the yard—feeling as though he needed a jungle knife to cut through the foliage—and approached the front door. Yellow tape was stretched across it twice, forming a large ‘‘X’’.

Grant took a step back, glanced over his shoulder to ensure no one was watching, and raised his arm. Focusing on the door, he shoved his hand forward, and the door was swallowed by the gloomy shadows of the house’s interior.

He whipped out a flashlight and entered. The stench of rotted wood was overpowering. The interior of the house looked nothing like the vague images he retained of the few years he lived here as a child. The carpet was ragged and barely clinging to the floor. Many of the walls had holes that went all the way through. The kitchen was inaccessible, the wooden framework and ceiling over the room having buckled and collapsed inward.

He was almost glad Julie wasn’t there to see it.

Making his way into the master bedroom, he found the attic door in the ceiling where he remembered it and pulled down on the small piece of cord that still dangled from it. A ladder that seemed sturdy enough, though it creaked with every careful step he took, folded down from the door.

In the musty, moth-infested attic, he had no real idea of where to begin looking for his father’s safe.

Where do you hide something in a big, hollow, empty space?

At the far end of the room, his eyes landed on a small canoe, mounted from the ceiling via a set of rope pulleys.

In plain sight, maybe?

In early afternoon, Morgan walked out of the hidden basement and stopped in place.

Across the Common Room one of her residents—the teenage boy, Thomas, who had been held at gunpoint by Drexel—was in one corner, waving a sword through the air. A crowd was gathered around him, watching with interest.

‘‘Better, but there’s more power in your wrist than you realize,’’ a familiar voice was saying. ‘‘Less elbow, more wrist. No, don’t lead with your shoulder.’’

Morgan marched straight into the gathering.

‘‘What are you
doing
!’’ she shouted. ‘‘We have no use for such things here.’’ She snatched the sword out of Thomas’ hand and tossed the sword at Payton’s feet.

‘‘You’d prefer a blanket to cower under? Your little fort here has already been invaded once. Drexel knows where you are. You really think he won’t try again? If the others choose to fight, you won’t be able to stand in the way.’’

‘‘You have no authority in this place,’’ she said with a forced calm, staring him down, unblinking.

‘‘I knew you were a control freak, love,’’ Payton replied, polishing the sword between folds of his shirt, ‘‘but I had no idea you considered yourself so lofty. If these people really are your ‘friends,’ then you owe them the right to choose their own fate.’’

‘‘Get out,’’ she said.

No one moved.

She turned to the others. ‘‘Not him! The rest of you! OUT!’’

Everyone filed out except Payton and Morgan, who never took their eyes off of one another.

When the room was empty and the door closed, Morgan spoke again. ‘‘Let’s get one thing straight. You said you’ve changed over the last nine years. Well, guess what? You’re not the only one. So you’ve faced danger. So you’ve been brought back from the edge of death. So you’ve learned how to poke at things with a big piece of steel. You think that makes you special?

‘‘You have
no idea
what most of these people have been through before they came here. I do. I know them. I know their stories, their fears, what makes them laugh, what makes them hurt. Because that’s what I do. I take care of them.’’ She stepped closer until she was inches from his face. ‘‘Don’t you
ever
come in here and tell these people how to live their lives!’’

Payton stared at her for a long moment, unperturbed. She was almost red in the face now. He still appeared unmoved.

‘‘You’re right, you
have
changed,’’ he said slowly, not breaking eye contact.

Morgan let out a breath. She looked as though she wanted to slug him, but she merely clenched her fists.

‘‘But not nearly enough.’’

If it was possible, her face became even redder.

‘‘Your ‘friends’ were just telling me,’’ he went on, ‘‘about how much they respect you. How they look up to you and rely on you. They seem to see you as some noble figure who’s always collected and in control.

That
persona
you project—it’s so practiced and measured. But I see the truth below.’’

He walked around her as she stood unmoving. ‘‘You’re holding it in,’’ he said. ‘‘You keep it buried all neat and tidy, and you’d be mortified if they ever saw the
real
you. But it’s making its way to the surface now. After all these years.’’

Her features remained red and angry, but took on the slightest hint of uncertainty.

‘‘Feed that rage, love,’’ Payton said, deadly serious. ‘‘You’re going to need it. We all are.’’

He turned and began walking away, but Morgan remained rooted to her spot, breathing hard and fast.

‘‘I won’t become an animal. Violence solves nothing,’’ Morgan said quietly.

He cast a glance over his shoulder. ‘‘You’d be surprised how many things it will solve.’’

The pulleys holding the canoe in place were rusted and didn’t want to turn. Grant finally gave up and made it break loose with his mind.

The old wooden boat shattered on the floor.

In the remains of what used to be the front section of the canoe lay a small, hard plastic, store-bought safe on its side, no more than a foot wide and tall. Grant hoisted it from the debris, found a secure place to sit and opened it.

He didn’t toy with guessing the safe’s combination. He merely focused his thoughts on the small front door and
lifted
it from its hinges. Inside were five Army file folders marked ‘‘Classified.’’ Each had its own label. The first four, in turn, were ‘‘Frank Boyd,’’ ‘‘Cynthia Boyd,’’ ‘‘Julie Boyd,’’ and ‘‘Collin Boyd.’’

His entire family.

Why would the Army keep top secret files on my family?

He flipped to the last file.

‘‘The Secretum of Six.’’

Grant’s heart fluttered. His father had known about the Secretum?

He began by opening his father’s file. The first paper was an official commendation on his service record, signed by ‘‘Gen. Harlan Bernard Evers.’’ Grant scanned the page. One paragraph jumped out at him:

Frank is the finest officer to ever serve under my command, representing the best of what the United States Army has to offer. He has earned my full confidence and absolute trust. Major Boyd has become the leading intelligence gatherer in our entire department. His experience has proven vital to unraveling the mysteries of the Secretum.

So. Payton was wrong. The U.S. government
did
know of the Secretum, after all.

But what did Evers mean by ‘‘his experience’’?

The next page was a photocopy of a large black-and-white photograph of his parents. Smiling both, his mother was sitting at a desk which his father was leaning over from the opposite side. It looked like the photographer had caught them in a candid moment, but they both turned to look into the lens and smile before the shutter was triggered.

Grant saw the indentations of handwriting through the paper; he turned it over to read what it said.

A scribbled note read, ‘‘Frank and Cynthia. X marks the spot.’’

X?

He flipped the page again and examined it closer. He gasped when he spotted it: a tiny ‘‘x’’ had been marked on the photo with a black pen; just above it, a miniature tattoo was visible on his father’s left wrist. And . . .
There!
His mother had one too, in the same spot.

The tattoos looked remarkably like one of the symbols found on Grant’s ring.

‘‘Mom and Dad . . .’’ he breathed, unbelieving. ‘‘They knew all about the Secretum.’’

Grant leaned back, putting an arm behind him for support.

It couldn’t be true.

He discarded the other folders for now and skipped to the one with ‘‘Collin Boyd’’ written on it.

The first document he came upon inside was a birth certificate.

A birth certificate for . . .

He shuddered.

The certificate was for ‘‘Grant Borrows.’’

There’s a real Grant Borrows? I thought that name was just made
up and given to me!

But this paper he held was no copy. It was an original; he could see the pen’s indentations, though it bore no notary watermark.

He thumbed through the remainder of his file, the contents of which included photos from his early childhood, the results of his father’s test on his mental acuity, and little else. No other birth certificate was enclosed.

Grant couldn’t figure out what this meant. Why would his father have a birth certificate with ‘‘Grant Borrows’’ on it?

His thoughts started coming faster and faster, reeling back to past conversations, remembering things he had been told.

‘‘So you’re me, now,’’
he heard his own voice saying to Collin that first day.
‘‘Does that mean I’m
you
?’’

‘‘It doesn’t work that way,’’
Collin had replied.
‘‘I’m just a volunteer.

I’m no one important
. You’re different.’’

Then the moment between moments where the hazy outline of his mother had spoken to him.

‘‘Stay true to yourself. Nothing is as it seems,’’
she said in that silky, dreamy voice.

And Harlan Evers had said before his death,
‘‘If you go and find
your father’s files, you’re going to learn things that will be hard to
accept. Things about your parents
and
about yourself . . . Once this corner
is turned, once you know this truth, there will be no going back.’’

Finally, he thought of Morgan, quoting something that the old woman Marta had told her . . .

‘‘She said you’ve
always
been
who
you are now.’’

And the truth dawned on him.

He didn’t know how it was true, but he could feel in his bones that it was.

This couldn’t be.

It just couldn’t.

It was madness.

Grant could only shake his head.

‘‘I wasn’t changed
into
this person,’’ he whispered. ‘‘Grant Borrows is the real name I was given at birth . . .’’

51

‘‘Bike won’t start,’’ Payton said to someone from the front hall. ‘‘Been knacked since I crashed it into Grant’s car.’’