Soulmates
33
The Rescue
Emerson
IT HAD GONE ON long enough as far as Emerson was concerned. She really had no proof that Keira and Jaime were talking in each other’s head, reading her thoughts, or talking to her. It could all be something she just wanted to believe. It could all be coincidences. It was possible their ‘girlfriend’ wasn’t even real and wasn’t at this inn anyway.
It was her own foolish fantasy that got her involved with them. They certainly read that right. She hadn’t felt this way about anyone since she left Dom and Raquel. And that was a disaster. She was just a training wheel on their bicycle, not a tricycle at all. They’d gotten married the day before without her.
She knew in her heart that any involvement with Jaime and Keira would end the same way. She was a third wheel, no matter who she was with. When school started up in two days, she was going to come back a changed woman. The couple of outfits she’d worn so far were nothing compared to the other things she’d purchased in Paris. It was too cold for some of the skirts, but she had enough great form-fitting clothes to knock their backwater school on its ass.
But it probably wouldn’t be enough to win a long-term place with Keira and Jaime. They’d go off someplace together and she’d… She supposed she’d still go back to Paris. She’d made good contacts there over the summer and could pick up that part of her life, at least. If her software project worked even a little, she was sure she could interest one of the houses in bringing her on while she continued her studies at the Academe Internationale.
Keira had said she’d be out in ten minutes. That was nearly half an hour ago. Emerson got out of her car, locked the door, and headed toward the inn. Leave it to her to clean up the mess. She’d go find them herself.
The front door of the guesthouse was unlocked and she walked in to look around. No one was in the foyer and she couldn’t hear anything from the direction of the kitchen. She glanced at her phone and saw she’d lost service as soon as she entered the inn.
No sense calling attention to myself, she thought. I’ll just start looking for the stairway down.
The stairway leading up to the rooms was obvious, but she figured the most likely place for a staircase down was behind it, in the kitchen. She headed toward the kitchen and found a huge walk-in pantry behind the stairs. She supposed the original family had a ton of servants living in the building. She was pretty sure Oregon never had slaves. It was admitted to the Union just before the Civil War as a free state. But rich people always had a way of getting around that. If someone owed you money, for example, they could be bound to you to work off the debt.
This Schwartz character was a descendant of the shipping magnate who built the original house. She’d found a lot of information about him, including his published research on inner monologue and inner dialogue. He’d let a few things slip into it regarding the manipulation of weaker minds. If she accepted that Keira and Jaime had communicated with her telepathically, it seemed possible they could influence her thinking. They could exert outright power over another person’s mind if they didn’t let them know they were talking to her. It was confusing and made her head hurt.
She heard a noise from the pantry and quickly hid behind a door to the next room.
Schwartz and two others emerged from the pantry.
“Check up and down the street. Teenage boy. You know what he looks like from the photos I took. He’ll probably be trying to find a place where he can observe the inn. Clever kid. Sent his girlfriend in instead of coming himself. We don’t want him bringing cops. Find him and bring him in. I’m going up to the cupola and will monitor the cameras.”
“You got it. Shirley, go out the back. I’ll go out the front,” the other man said.
Emerson heard the back door close and footsteps retreat toward the front of the house. They faded quickly. She ducked around the pantry door and found the stairs downward she’d been looking for.
He’s so casual about leaving doors open and unlocked, she thought. It’s almost as if he’s inviting intruders. Shit!
She was only a step down the stairs when lights came on. She froze and listened, but nothing seemed to be approaching. She caught her breath and kept going. Acoustically, the passage was muted. She could barely hear her own breathing and footsteps. The door at the bottom of the stairs was a heavy-duty steel door, but it was unlocked. It had an old and faded sticker on the door that had three yellow triangles in a black circle. Under it were the words “Fallout Shelter.”
Handy if there’s a nuclear attack and they all have to get underground. I wonder if it’s still a fully stocked bomb shelter.
She went on into the hall and the heavy door closed behind her. The hall immediately branched into two and looking down each, she could see they branched again a little way on. She remembered Jaime saying the child services lady said the place down here was a maze.
Okay. So, you’re supposed to keep one hand on the wall and just keep following that wall until you get out or return to the start. I’ll use some lip gloss to mark this door so I know it’s the one I came in by. At least it’s not dark down here.
She marked the door, put her hand on the left wall, and started following the hall. Each time she came to a door, she opened it, looked, and then continued. She soon lost track of how many turns she’d taken in a quiet that even muffled her thoughts. She was getting tired, checking every door to see if it was the one she came in by.
Suddenly, she sensed a change in the atmosphere. It was as if her ears were unstopped and she could hear again. She hummed and could hear her own voice. When she walked in the hall, she could hear her footsteps on the carpet and the brush of her fingers against the wall. She took a deep breath, unaware that she’d been holding it.
And then she heard a voice.
Rose and Angus and Kate and Thursday
“What the fuck, Angus? Another girl just entered the front door,” Kate said into her cell phone. “Is the missing girl trying to track down her friends?”
“Another girl?” Angus said, looking at Rose. “No. We don’t know of any other girls. Rose, do you think they brought more people with them?”
“It’s possible. I told you they could command someone. Or it could be another of Kenton’s goonies,” Rose said.
“Speaking of goonies, the woman he had with him just came out the back door,” Angus told Kate on the phone.
“Shit! Here comes Tweedle-Dumbass,” Kate said. “He just bounced out the front door looking up and down the street.”
“He see you?”
“No. I don’t think so. We’re behind a car on the other side of the road. You want us to take him out?” Kate asked.
“Don’t. Wait.” «Did you get a read on her?» Angus asked Rose.
«Yes. They’re hunting for Jaime. They don’t know he’s inside.»
“Look, Kate. I think they’re out hunting for the boy. The farther afield they go the better we are. That means we let them go and get ready to enter the building.”
“Christ! Watch your ass!” Kate snarled. “The baddy is up in the cupola with a pair of binocs scanning around.”
“I see him. We’ve faded back to avoid the woman, so I don’t think he spotted us. Are you safe?”
“My bunny-tail is wet from the pavement. We don’t dare move, though. We’ll try to find a spot where we can see when he’s looking a different way and we’ll take a stroll farther down the hill.”
“I’ll make it my mission to dry your ass when we’re done,” Angus said. “Buzz me if you see anything else. And stay away from the guy. You know he’s packing.”
“Right-o, pops. Talk to you later.”
«What do we do now?» Rose asked Angus.
«Well, we’ve got the goonies in the street and Kenton’s on the roof. That means Keira, Jaime, and Miss X are inside, maybe being held and maybe on the loose. I think we should get ready for an assault.»
«If we go now, the lower level should be undefended,» Rose said.
«Watch for the woman. We’ll make for the back door when it looks clear.»
Jaime
Jaime investigated every doorway and passage in the annex as he came to it. He used a Sharpie to mark an ‘x’ on any door he couldn’t open and a ‘y’ on any door he could. The lights in the rooms came on automatically when the door opened. Jaime didn’t go into any of the rooms, but looked to see what was there.
That was how he found the stairway to the lower level. It was a heavier door than the others with a ‘Fallout Shelter’ sticker on it. It opened just fine and Jaime checked to be sure it wouldn’t lock when he walked through.
Schwartz apparently depended on secrecy and archaic stickers on blast doors to guard his facility instead of security. With the noise blocking acoustics, Jaime couldn’t even hear himself. He’d fought down his panic when he entered the annex, becoming mentally and physically deaf. He’d found nothing so far, but the next door proved to be a bonanza.
It was a small room and Jaime blocked the door open to keep from being locked in. The door had been labeled ‘Janitor,’ but inside was an array of electronic equipment. It was on the lowest level of the building, at least as far as the stairs were concerned. Jaime wondered what the effect of the dampening tech would have on those who were already head deaf.
The equipment was an elaborate sound panel. Jaime had studied sound engineering when he was developing his TTS and fine tuning it to the voice he wanted. One of the topics he’d looked at was noise-cancelling, and upon close examination, that seemed to be the major function of this system. The entire complex was divided into segments that could be dampened or not. He decided the most expedient course of action would be to simply turn the whole thing off.
He hit the master switch and the building came to life.
He left the sound room and closed the door again. While the atmosphere was more alive than it had been, it still seemed soft and muted. There was obviously a passive system in place as well as the active system, including the carpet and soft, spongy walls. Unfortunately, removing the noise dampening did nothing to unblock his mental hearing. That had to be something embedded in the walls.
I’m running out of time, he thought. How long have I been exploring? Keira will be angry and Emerson will be in a panic. This calls for desperate measures. Shit!
He couldn’t hope to keep from being discovered forever, but he hadn’t yet reached the stairs going up into the inn. He was sure they must be ahead, but he hadn’t found a door that revealed any captives. He needed to do something he’d sworn never to do. He wasn’t even sure he could, but he had to try.
“Keira!” he rasped out, forming the word in his mouth and letting his vocal cords vibrate. It hurt. He knew how to talk. The mechanics of it. He just prayed no one would die because he used his out-loud voice. The sound was weak and didn’t travel far. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.
“Keira! Trayce! Where are you? It’s Jaime. Where are you?” he called out. He winced and fought nausea. It wasn’t loud like he’d heard others yelling, but the sound seemed to carry.
Keira and Trayce
“Trayce, it’s really me. Keira,” Keira said as she moved slightly toward where Trayce was cowering.
Trayce held a finger to her lips. “Shh!”
She ran to the door and pounded on it.
“Let me out! Don’t trap me in here with her!”
“Please, Trayce. Don’t do this to me. To us!” Keira pled.
Trayce hushed her again and then turned to advance on Keira.
“Why can’t I hear you? If you were really her, I’d hear you and you’d hear me.”
“I don’t know what he’s done. The walls in this entire building prevent the penetration of sound, cell signals, and brainwaves, even in the same room. Walking in here is like becoming head deaf,” Keira explained.
“I don’t trust you,” Trayce said. “He’s using you to trick me into something. He tries all the time.”
“He’s been raping your head!” Keira cried. “I’m the one you cried to when Jaime was injured. You were there when we made love. We were going to the café to meet you for lunch last Friday. Then he kidnapped you. And yesterday morning… we heard you say you believed in us and to please help you. That’s why we’re here.”
“We? He’s here, too?”
“We split up. He’s looking for you, too.”
“You were making love.”
“Yes.”
“What day is it?”
“It’s Friday after New Year’s.”
“Mommy!”
“We went to see her yesterday. Schwartz went so far as to leave a runaway note in your car telling her she’d never see you again. That doesn’t mean she hasn’t tried to find you. The police just didn’t believe her. We convinced her to hold on while we came to find you.”
“Was she drunk and alone?” Trayce whispered.
“No. She’s resisting. Her AA sponsor, Susan, was with her.”
“Are you really Keira?”
“Yes, honey. And as soon as we get out of this building, you’ll be able to connect with us again.”
Trayce started crying.
“Don’t take me with you. Tell him you don’t know me. He’s done horrible things and I might… I don’t trust what I might do. He wants us all together. He wants to drug you and Jaime, too. He wants us to tell people to do things.”
“We won’t let him.”
“But I might. He’s been drugging me and hypnotizing me every mealtime. I might do something terrible! I might betray you! You have to run and leave me behind!”
Keira finally got close enough to catch Trayce by the shoulders and hold her facing her.
“We will never leave you behind, Trayce. We love you.”
Keira pressed her lips against Trayce’s. It wasn’t the world-opening jolt that they had experienced with Jaime, but it was still electric. Trayce collapsed against Keira.
“I always knew. I tried to deny it, but I always knew,” she whispered.
There was a shift in the atmosphere of the room and her whisper seemed suddenly loud. They still didn’t have head talk, but it felt like wads of cotton had just been pulled from their ears.
Then they heard the voice.
“Keira! Trayce! Where are you? It’s Jaime. Where are you?”
Keira rushed to the door and began pounding on it and yelling. Trayce backed away.
Emerson
Emerson froze. Jaime calling out loud? As far as she knew, Jaime had never spoken. And the voice was nothing like his voice on the computer—the voice she associated with him. This had to be a trick by Schwartz to flush them out of hiding. She backed around a corner and watched the passage ahead.
Of course, Jaime doesn’t have his computer with him, she thought. I locked it in the car when I decided to launch this stupid rescue. Now we’re all in here.
She could hear so much more now. Air vents circulated heat. There was even a low 60-cycle hum from the power. How amazing that she could hear her own breathing and heartbeat now that it was no longer being dampened. She looked around the hall and spotted speakers carefully concealed in the walls and ceiling, as well as what she thought were tiny microphones. Now that she had her hearing, her visual acuity seemed to increase and let her focus.
If it’s you, Jaime, I’m ahead around the corner. Emerson, I mean. I’m thinking at you. God, I feel like an idiot.
No answer came, either in her head or by voice. Now she really felt like an idiot.
“Keira! Trayce! It’s Jaime. Answer me or pound on your door or something. I don’t know where you are!”
That same squeaky voice. She wondered if it could be heard through the doors that were spaced about thirty feet apart. Then she heard pounding from the nearest door.
“Let us out! Jaime!”
Emerson rushed to the door and opened it from the outside. Immediately, she was face-to-face with Keira.
Rose and Angus
When Kenton disappeared from the cupola windows, Rose and Angus ran across the back yard to the door. They paused outside long enough for Angus to send a text to Kate.
“We’re going in the backdoor. One of you come around to the back and keep watch for the woman. Don’t let them re-enter the house.”
As soon as he pressed send, he and Rose darted inside.
Both were immediately affected by the deafness inside the building. Angus looked at his phone and then shoved it in his pocket. Rose glanced at her phone and did the same thing. There was no signal. The two walked through the kitchen and glanced out into the foyer.
Angus unlatched the sword from his cane so it was ready to draw and they moved into the living quarters on that level. They heard the change in acoustics when it shifted and Angus dug in his ear for a moment before he realized it wasn’t in his head.
“Someone shut off the noise dampening,” Rose said. “Something is happening.”
Angus looked out a bedroom window in the caretaker’s suite and across the yard toward the B&B.
“We need to move,” he said. “The woman just came cutting across a block over, moving fast. Thursday is in pursuit.”
Just then, they heard footsteps pounding down the main stairs. Four steps across the foyer and the front door crashed open. Angus and Rose headed for the kitchen door and out into the brisk air.
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
