The Festival of the Moon (Girls Wearing Black: Book Two) (31 page)

“I’ll be there in about ten minutes,” Shannon said.

“Good,” said Melissa. “I can’t wait to see you. Now come straight home so we can get this all behind us.”

Shannon ended the call and got to her feet. She was almost at the end of the beach when Raquel started yelling at her. She was yelling in Portuguese. The slight mental strain required to hear and understand Raquel’s words shook Shannon from her stupor.

“Hey! Shannon hey! Where are you going?” was what Raquel was shouting.

Shannon stopped. Raquel was running up the beach now. Shannon spoke in English.

“I’m going….home,” she said.

Raquel responded in kind, her heavily accented and broken English forcing Shannon to pay close attention.

“Home already? Without saying goodbye?”

“I…just…”

I just what? I just want to go home? Why do I want to go home? What was I doing? I was talking to Melissa. Yes, and before that I was talking to Jill. And before that I was talking to Annika.

“What is it?” Raquel said.

Shannon was frozen in place. She felt her mind divided in two, a part of her wanting to go home and end the hiding once and for all, another part of her wanting to stay here, where she knew it was safe.

Raquel grabbed her by the back of the head and kissed her hard. Her lips were salty and moist. Shannon gave herself fully to the kiss, and when their lips detached, she fell into Raquel’s arms.

“I don’t want you to leave,” Raquel said. “You will stay. The night is young.”

Just then, Shannon’s phone started to ring. It was Annika.

“You take your call,” Raquel said. “Then you come join us at the fire.”

Shannon nodded. She waited until Raquel was a few steps away, then she answered the phone.

“Hello.”

“Sweetie what happened? Did you get hold of your parents?”

“No,” Shannon said. “Melissa Mayhew answered. She said that she had my parents, and if I came home she’d take a quick look in my mind and then let us all go.”

There was some shuffling and clicking noises on the other end, then Jill was on the line.

“Shannon, you know it’s a lie, right? You know that your parents are already gone, and if you go to your house Melissa will kill you,” Jill said.

“Yeah, I think I do,” Shannon said. It was a realization she was coming to as Jill said it. She had been in some sort of trance, some spell Melissa had cast on her over the phone, but now it was broken and she understood that she couldn’t go home.

“I can get you a fake ID and tickets out of Rio,” Jill said. “But it will take time. You have to lay low for a bit. Do you have some place you can hide?”

Shannon looked down the beach, to Raquel and the other surfers dancing around the fire. She licked her lips, tasted the sea salt Raquel had left there.

“Yes,” she said. “I have some friends here. I can hide for a while”

Chapter 28

“Such a shame,” Melissa said. “These people clearly had taste.”

She was in the courtyard of the villa where she found Shannon’s parents. Inside, both of them lay dead, as did two servants and a friend who was apparently over for a visit.

“Here, take a look,” she said. She pulled the phone away from her ear, set it to video, and held it out in front of her, moving it slowly, giving Dominic a panoramic view of the entire courtyard.

“It does have the look of a vacation paradise,” Dominic said. “Perhaps when all of this is over, we can claim it as our own.”

“Perhaps we can,” said Melissa. “I have to take care of Shannon first. She wasn’t at the house tonight, but I just spoke with her on the phone. I invited her to come home and see me.”

“How long until she arrives?”

“She said she was only a few minutes away.”

Melissa had heard ocean waves in the background when she spoke with Shannon. The beach was a short walk from here. She considered going there to find her, but decided it was much cleaner to bring Shannon back to the home instead.

“Why the rush to kill them, My Love?” said Dominic. “If Falkon wishes to partner with you--”

“I don’t know that he wishes to partner with me,” said Melissa. “I only know that his slave told me as much. What I do know is that the Evans family was important to his plans. Without them, his work will be slowed considerably.”

“What have you learned?” Dominic asked. “What are his plans?”

“Oh, Dominic, the answers we sought were here, and how huge and intense the answers are! These two were at work on a secret project for Falkon. He was paying them handsomely to carry out experiments at Ventigen’s facility in Maryland.”

“What kind of experiments?”

“Outrageous, ambitious, heinous experiments,” said Melissa. “The more I learned about the work these people were doing, the more impressed I became with Falkon Dillinger. He takes the long view. He has been at work on a single project for well over a century, and it appears he is getting close.”

“If you are so impressed, why not accept his offer of friendship?” said Dominic.

“I may well accept his offer,” said Melissa, “but not from a position of weakness. Last night, Nicky Bloom had the upper hand in our conversation. Falkon knows about our business and threatened to reveal us to the clan if we got in his way. I don’t like that he exercised that power over me. Tonight I turned the tables. If I decide to meet with him, I will be the one who speaks from a position of strength. Hank Evans had prepared a report for Falkon summarizing his latest research. Now, Hank Evans is dead and the report is mine. If Falkon wishes to see it, he will treat me with respect.”

“I cannot wait to learn more about what you’ve uncovered,” Dominic said. “It sounds so sinful.”

“The research Hank Evans was doing for Falkon is unprecedented,” said Melissa. “And you’ll get to read all about it. You and I will find a good place to hide his report on the Farm.”

“But I want to know about it now,” Dominic said. “Can you at least give me a hint? What is Falkon doing?”

The doorbell rang. Melissa smiled.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to wait,” she said. “My guest has arrived.”

“You cagey little cat. Call me back later.”

“If it suits me,” Melissa said in a voice to match the “cagey little cat” Dominic described.

She ended the call and went to the front door. She loved that Shannon had to ring the bell to her own house. It was the sort of delicious irony that made her happy to be immortal. Shannon was begging to come into her own home so her guest could kill her.

She opened the front door to find someone who was most definitely not Shannon Evans. It was a middle-aged man with chocolate skin and graying temples. He quickly tempered his own surprise at seeing Melissa at the door, and said something in Portuguese.

“Who are you?” Melissa asked.

He looked taken aback. Slowly, stumbling with the English, he said, “My wife is inside.”

Feeling angry that this man wasn’t Shannon, Melissa grabbed him by the throat, broke his neck, then threw his body into the corner where he promptly curled up and died.

She went back to the front room and took a seat in the leather chair. She waited another twenty minutes for Shannon before going out to look for her. Two hours later, the girl nowhere to be found, Melissa went back to the airport. She hated to leave a loose end behind, but daylight was near and she didn’t want to be stuck in Rio any longer. She had what she came for, and Shannon wasn’t a threat.

“Take me back to Florida,” she told the pilot. “I want to go home.”

Chapter 29

They arrived at a quarter after seven. Kim was wearing a black blouse with tiny diamonds sequined in a sunburst pattern across the front. Her father, Galen, surprisingly small in stature considering how large he loomed over DC, was wearing a navy blue suit.

“Kim, Mr. Renwick, this is my mother, Senator Lisa Beaumont,” Marshall said, his one scripted line of the night. His mother didn’t want to introduce herself.
Even though this gathering is about you and your money, the long-term relationship will be about me,
she had said. It kind of disgusted Marshall how much stake his mother put in the opinion of Galen Renwick.

“It’s lovely to finally meet you Senator,” said Galen, grasping Lisa’s tiny hand with both of his and blasting the room with a ridiculously white-toothed smile. “I’m sorry we haven’t met sooner, but, as you know--”

“I can only imagine,” Lisa said, following it up with a nervous laugh. “Congratulations Kim on your entry to the contest.”

“Thank you,” Kim said.

“I’m looking forward to seeing how we might be able to help you reach your goals,” Lisa continued. Marshall wanted to do a facepalm on that one. Over and over and over he’d explained: it’s the new girl who’s going to win, Mom. It’s the new girl who has everybody excited.

It didn’t matter. Washington was a city of habit, and for Marshall’s mother, the habit was to bow down before anyone who had money and influence. When Galen Renwick called and said he wanted to have dinner, she cleared the calendar.

Lisa led the guests inside. They had drinks. They made awkward small talk in the parlor. As he watched his mom fawn over Galen like some preteen at a boy band concert, he wondered how it was possible that he was related to her. Then he lost himself in a daydream about discovering he was actually adopted.

After spending far too much time in the parlor, the group made their way to the dining room and acted properly impressed when the butler rolled out the first dish.

“Scallops with asparagus and a white wine cream sauce,” the butler announced.

As they were served, Lisa began quizzing Kim about her life and her interests, with random oddball questions tossed in. Kim answered every question succinctly and with an air of disinterest.

A roasted foie gras with mustard seed and spiced honey was the next course, served with a 1973 Bordeaux. Marshall wolfed it down, foregoing any attempt to join the conversation, which was now all about Lisa’s initiatives in the Senate. The Renwicks sat quietly and listened as Lisa went on and on and on. Marshall sensed that he was being set up, that the Renwicks were waiting until Lisa was comfortable and drunk before they attacked. Sure enough, when dessert (white chocolate soufflé) rolled out, so did the big question.

“Have you decided how you’re going to spend the money you won at Brawl in the Fall?” Galen asked.

“I’ve certainly been giving it some thought,” Marshall responded, “but no, I haven’t decided yet.”

“You’ll have to forgive us,” Lisa said. “Marshall is being cautious. He doesn’t understand how these dinners work, and he’s probably a little nervous, aren’t you dear?”

“Nope,” Marshall said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“We’ll be putting together the best bid on Kim at the Date Auction that we can muster,” Lisa said.

“
We
won’t be doing anything,” Marshall said. “It’s my decision, and I haven’t decided yet.”

“A fair-minded young man who understands the gravity of this occasion,” said Galen. “I can respect that. It’s wise to get all the information you can before you make a decision.”

“He really wants to do this right,” said Lisa. “He always wants to do things right. But you may rest assured--”

“No, Mom. There is nothing about which they may rest assured,” Marshall said. “They came here to blackmail us. It’s what they do.” He looked straight at Kim. “Am I right? Is that why you’re here? Tell us, what have you got? Does my mom have some racist donor in the fundraiser base? Or maybe my dad did something that could send him to jail? Let’s hear it then.”

“Marshall, may I please speak with you in--”

“Mom, anything you want to say to me, you can say in front of our guests,” Marshall said. His heart was racing now. At that moment, he wished Kim were a dude so they could just throw down, then and there.

For a few seconds, it seemed he had misjudged the situation. Everyone at the table was silent. The servants had fled to the kitchen. Kim looked at him curiously, as if sizing him up, but said nothing. Maybe the Renwicks didn’t have any dirt on them. Maybe they really were here to try and charm their way into his support, to beg for his money.

Kim broke the silence. “Where did you say Marshall’s father was tonight?” she asked.

“It’s about him, isn’t it?” Marshall said. “You’ve got something on my dad and you’re disappointed you can’t deliver it to his face.”

“I am disappointed,” Kim said. “But not because we have anything on him. It’s you we came here to blackmail, Marshall. I just wanted to see the look on your dad’s face when he learned about you and Ms. Benchley.”

At this remark, the silence at the table became a perfect pallet for the word that was screaming in Marshall’s head:
FUCK
.

“Do you think he’d be angry?” Kim said. “Or would he be proud of his son, the little stud who shacked up with teacher.”

“What’s this?” Lisa said.