The Festival of the Moon (Girls Wearing Black: Book Two) (36 page)

She grabbed another paper, this one for a slave named Giordano. Black hair, blue eyes, six foot three… Giordano was the prize kill who stood tall in the back.

Hansel, the German with the big nose. Beatrice, the beautiful blonde. Vernon, the heavy Samoan with long, curly hair. One by one, Jill identified all of them, looking at their papers and matching them to a statue in the room until she knew every one of them by name. This was Merv’s great secret. A listing of slaves he had bought from Melissa and killed, every slave named at the top of the paper, every paper stamped at the bottom with the number 3.

The code
.

Galen was 2, Merv was 3, Walter was 11.

They used the code in their emails to keep their activities secret, and their activities were right here in this room. Merv had a stack of papers that corresponded to every dead human in here, and each paper had the number 3 stamped at the bottom of it.

Each paper except for one.

Beedledeedeep.

Things were coming fast for her now. Jill saw twenty years of emails in one uninterrupted view, and she understood. She cracked their code, as she had once cracked Annika and Shannon’s secret emails, as her mother had once decrypted the scrambled data from TPM.

11 is going to the henhouse tomorrow to get chick 57. Will be a pet rather than a turkey.

She saw three teenage boys who were friends once, the passage of time allowing them to get deeper and deeper in the Washington muck. She saw all of them playing with fire, their money and social status making them cocky. These boys felt like nothing could touch them, and when one of the vampires offered them the chance to play like they were immortals, they took it, knowing it was forbidden.

They
all
took it. This was the discovery to be found in the emails between Merv, Galen, and Walter. They all obtained phony IDs for a quick escape, they all spoke in code, and they all identified themselves with a number.

Merv’s number 3 was plastered all over the documents in his desk drawer, signifying his ownership of the human statues he collected. But there was one document in the drawer that didn’t match up to any statue, and that document didn’t have Merv’s number at the bottom.

Jill saw it now in her mind and everything was clear. The extra paper in Merv’s desk, the document that Galen wanted hand-delivered to Kim Renwick three years ago, had the number eleven stamped at the bottom. And on the top, in the box where the slave was given a name, was written a single word that explained everything.

Jill spoke the word as she saw it, allowing its power to wake her up.

“Carolyn.”

She jumped out of bed, her heart racing, her hands shaking from the surge of energy her dream had brought to her.

“W’oh, w’oh, what’s happening?” Zack murmured.

“I need to go,” Jill said. “I need to go right now.”

Zack rolled over and opened his eyes.

“You have to go?” he said.

“I’ll need to take your car,” said Jill. “I’ll bring it back later today.”

Zack pushed himself up on one elbow.

“Are the vampires here?” he said.

“No, we’re safe,” said Jill.

She grabbed his car keys off the dresser.

“I won’t be gone long,” she said. “Two hours or less.”

“I don’t know, Jill. Are you sure it’s safe?”

“The sun is up, Zack. I promise I’ll be careful, and I’ll be back soon.”

Zack rubbed his eyes.

“I don’t want to find you fighting off weird, skeezy skaters with hypodermic needles again.”

Jill kissed him on the cheek.

“Trust me,” she said.

“Alright, but there’s something you should know about my car. She’s a good girl, but she can be a bit of a bitch if you aren’t nice to her. Take it slow, okay?”

“I will. Thank you Zack.”

She kissed him on the head.

“You’re welcome,” he said.

Chapter 34

Driving the Corvair was less like operating a car and more like riding a horse. Jill gave it instructions about what she wanted to do, it responded, and she adjusted to its response. She arrived at her destination feeling like she hadn’t yet mastered the car, but at least had reached some sort of understanding with it.

Her destination was a mansion that overlooked the river. Rolling the Corvair to the entrance, she used the crank to roll down the window and reached out to push the call button on the front gate.

She looked at the small speaker, waiting for a familiar voice to answer.

“Jenson residence,” announced a deep voice with a hint of an Irish accent. Shamus, the Jenson’s long-time butler—it was a voice Jill hadn’t heard in three years.

“Jill Wentworth here to see Ryan,” she said.

A long, agonizing silence followed. More than a minute passed with nothing said. Had she been somewhere else, Jill would have pushed the button again. But she knew this silence was necessary. The ex-girlfriend had shown up at the front door in a strange red machine and demanded to see Ryan. Shamus would have to find Ryan and discuss it before the gate could open.

Finally, the speaker crackled to life, and Shamus returned. “Please come back,” he said.

The gate swung open. Jill tapped the gas and the engine sputtered, as if hesitant to go inside.

“It’s okay,” she said, giving a bit more gas. With a lurch, the Corvair got started, and she entered the Jenson estate.

The thick canopy from the maple trees, the sound of the river, the smell of the grass—it all threatened to carry Jill back on a wave of nostalgia, but she ignored it. She was here with a purpose. She had work to do, and she couldn’t let her emotions knock her off course. She rolled across the long path that led to the driveway, then around the fountain and into the carport.

Ryan was waiting for her. He was wearing sweat pants and a T-shirt. His hair ran out in all directions. He looked like he’d just woken up.

Jill stretched across the bench seat and grabbed hold of the passenger door handle. She yanked it down and pushed the door open.

“Get in,” she said.

Ryan did as she asked, pulling the door shut behind him.

“Where did you get this car?” he said.

“Never mind that,” said Jill. “I need to talk to you. We’re going for a drive.”

“Jill, is this about Coronation, because--”

“Listen to me,” Jill said as she stepped on the gas. “There are things you don’t understand. Things you’ve never understood, and you need to understand them now. I have a lot to say and I need you to hear me out.”

Ahead of her, the gate opened automatically.

“Where are we going?” Ryan said.

“For a drive. I’ll take you home when we’re done.”

Ryan reached for the seat belt. “Well then,” he said. “I guess I’m all yours. What do you want to tell me?”

“I want to tell you that Kim has nothing,” Jill said. “This secret she’s holding over your head is harmless to you. No matter what you do tonight at the Date Auction, no matter what you do at all, neither Kim nor her dad will ever say a word about what they know.”

“Jill, I don’t think you understand. This secret--”

“I know all about the secret Ryan. I know everything they told you, and I understand what you did. Everything between us for the past three years--I get it now.”

Chapter 35

For Art Tremblay, the week after Brawl in the Fall was painful and weird.

He woke up in the woods outside Sutter’s Field on Sunday morning with a black eye and a swollen lip. He didn’t know who had fought with him or why, and when he got to school on Monday, he learned that he might never know.

Half the boys in school had black eyes. Apparently, late in the night, long past the point where Art could remember, Brawl in the Fall had turned into a riot. Art’s injuries were no more mysterious than Sam’s or Lonnie’s or any of the other boys who woke up on Sunday morning with no idea what the hell happened the night before.

He couldn’t remember who he fought with, but he did remember Nicky. He remembered following Nicky into Winthrop’s camper, getting into a spat with her, and landing hard in the kitchen. From there, the memory went black, but words remained that described what happened.

You wanted to have sex with her, she resisted, you fought, and she died.

There were no scenes in his memory to match the words. Why were they in his brain? What had he done?

Three times in two weeks, Art had awakened in the morning with barely any memory of the night before. He got blitzed at Nicky’s after-party, blitzed and high the night Nicky came to his house, and wasted beyond all recognition at Brawl in the Fall.

You’ve had this coming for a long time, Art Tremblay. You knew you were out of control but you did nothing to stop it. You knew something horrible was going to happen if you didn’t get hold yourself. Now a girl is dead and you’ll be spending the rest of your life in prison.

But then she showed up on Monday morning. She smiled and waved at him when she stepped out of her car in the senior lot. She went to Annika and laughed about some joke. She gave Vince a big hug. She went to class.

On Tuesday morning he watched in fascination as she arrived again, as alive as ever. Same on Wednesday. The weird words about killing Nicky Bloom still floating in his brain, he avoided her in the halls, but he looked forward to seeing her in the morning. Every time she arrived she confirmed that he wasn’t a killer. With each passing day, he felt incredibly lucky that he escaped the Brawl with minor injuries. It could have been so much worse.

By Friday morning, the bruises on Art’s face were mostly healed and his brain had become acclimated to the idea of a living, breathing Nicky Bloom. He was ready to be himself again. Ready to be happy. This return to normal couldn’t have come at a better time, for Friday was his eighteenth birthday, and after school got out, Art’s father invited him to a meeting where he was certain they would discuss Art’s transition onto the TPM board of directors and his ascendance into the world of billionaires.

Happy birthday to me!

As he and his father rode into downtown DC for their meeting, Art thought of all the things he had to be grateful for.

Thank you Mom for giving me a truckload of cash and stocks as part of the divorce settlement. I know it was part of some crazy game you and the lawyers are playing to keep dad from getting your share of the company but whatever. Thank you!

Thank you Nicky Bloom for showing up at the Masquerade wearing black and shaking things up a bit.

Thank you Kim for bitching me out so severely during the intermission of the Masquerade that you drove me to Nicky’s after-party instead of yours.

Thank you Dad for understanding that I made the right choice in backing Nicky and for treating me with the respect I deserve for once in your life.

Thank you self for not killing Nicky Bloom and leaving her corpse in the woods like you thought you did.

Thank you life for scheduling my eighteenth birthday the day before the Date Auction. Now I get to step into the Penbrook Theater as the richest dude in school.

Yep…it was looking good. He would do this meeting, finalize his transition onto the board, sign some papers, and have a net worth that was ten figures long. Maybe when the meeting was done he’d go and buy himself a new car, something that would really turn heads when he showed up at the Penbrook tomorrow night.

The driver dropped them off at the front door to the Tumbler, a restaurant his dad liked but Art had never been to before. Art and his dad stepped inside together. A flabby dude in a tight black vest greeted them at the door.

“We’re with the group in the Yellow Room,” Merv said.

Flabby dude gave one nod of the head and led them to the back.

“It appears you are the first ones to arrive,” he said as he opened the door to an empty, and exceedingly yellow, room. “Your server will be with you soon.”

Art and his dad took adjacent seats at the empty table. They sat in silence for a few minutes before Art said, “Who else is coming?”

“You’ll see,” was Merv’s response.

Indeed he would. Less than a minute later, the door opened, and Flabby Dude led Kim and Galen Renwick inside.

“What the hell are they doing here?” Art said.

“Hi Art,” said Galen as he pulled out a chair for Kim. “Good to see you. We’ll get right to the point and try to keep this brief.”

“Dad, what’s the deal? They’re not on the board, are they?”

“I never told you this was a meeting of the board,” said Merv.

“What? Yes you did. You said--”

“I said we were going to discuss some business,” said Merv. “And that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

Galen had a briefcase out on the table and was retrieving a file of papers. “Your father has hired my firm to do some legal work regarding your transition,” he said.