Gray's Domain: Purgatorium Series, Book Two (13 page)

Several minutes into the woods, her father stopped to catch his breath. They sat on the ground gasping for air.

“Do you think they made it out okay?” she asked him. She cringed at the thought of what might have been actors killed in an exercise gone wrong.

“Hope not. Just glad you’re alive.”

“Why didn’t you land farther out to sea, like he said?” she asked.

Her father shook his head. “They would have killed us, honey.”

Daphne doubted that’s how it would have played out. She imagined somehow Dr. Gray’s staff would have “rescued” them, and they’d be back at the complex by nightfall.

“What do we do now?” She looked around. She knew these woods. They were east of the resort, not far from the naval tower.

“Hide.”

“You think they’ll come after us?”

“I don’t want to take any chances. Do you?” Her father’s heavy breathing hadn’t let up. She had recovered, but he continued to gasp.

“I don’t think they’d want anything to do with us now,” she said. “Besides…” she started to tell him about the possibility that this whole event had been a game, but she stopped herself. If she admitted to her father that those gunmen were actors and that he might have killed one or more of them, how would he take it?

“Besides what?” he asked.

“Do you think that might have been another one of Dr. Gray’s crazy exercises?”

He looked at her with horror. “Those weren’t kids wearing white powder, Daph. Those were armed men.”

“I know, but…”

“That idiot had his gun right up in your face.” Her father struggled against the tears. “I thought I was going to lose you.”

She threw her arms around him. He pressed his hands against her back and let the floodgates open. She held onto him, her own eyes welling.

Finally he added, “I couldn’t bear to lose another child. I just couldn’t bear it.”

The memories of her attempts on her life flooded through her—the pills, the knives, the near-drowning at Central Valley—and made her shiver as tears poured down her cheeks. But before she could tell her father how sorry she was for everything, the sound of someone approaching made her hold her breath and freeze. Her father did the same, and they looked at one another, her anxiety mirrored in his face.

“What do we do?” she whispered.

He put his finger to his lips and pointed up. She lifted her face, but didn’t see anything but the canopy of the tree.

He took her hand and, slowly and quietly, helped her to her feet. Then he linked his hands together to make a boost. He wanted her to climb the tree?

Not having a better plan, she put her boot on his hands and allowed him to lift her into the branches. The fluffy white dress made it next to impossible for her to find her footing, but, scared for her father’s life lest he get stuck below, she made it happen. She could feel him shaking the tree behind her as she made her way as far up into the branches as she could go. The approaching person sounded closer now, maybe directly below them. She held her breath and didn’t move.

From the corner of her eye, she could see one of the men she had at first thought was in a bank robber’s costume. He no longer had his gun or the nylon over his head. She wondered if he was just a lost actor looking for help or an actual threat to their lives.

Her father looked about to pounce on the man. Daphne bit her lip. The man below was shorter, but he was stronger than her father. She willed her father to stay put.

Joe looked up at her, as though sensing her anxiety. He frowned and sighed, apparently unsure of himself. The man below moved on, deeper into the woods, in the direction of Scorpion Anchorage. He walked like a man who knew where he was and where he was going. The thought of asking for his help, now that the exercise was ruined, crossed her mind. She opened her mouth, about to speak, but her father gave her a warning look, so she clamped her mouth shut.

They waited, still as statues, for many more minutes before her father whispered, “We need to get back to your mother. Those clowns might be headed there to do more harm.”

“I doubt it.”

“Do you want to take any chances?”

Daphne shook her head and then followed her father to the ground.

“We need to go west,” he said as he looked up, searching for the sun. “We’ll have to go back to the beach.”

“I know where we are,” Daphne said. “Follow me.” She thought of leading him to the naval tower, but after realizing she had never learned whether the officers were affiliated with Dr. Gray, she decided to head toward the resort instead.

“Keep quiet,” her father warned. “We saw one, but there may be two more out here somewhere.”

As she gathered up the skirt of her gown and trudged on, she hoped her father was right, because the alternative—actors injured or dead because her father refused to land in the sea—was too much to bear.

But it wasn’t her dad’s fault. Hortense Gray couldn’t predict how her patients would react in certain scenarios, and that’s why things like horses and helicopters should never be used in her therapy. If any of those men were dead, it was the doctor’s fault. Her father was innocent.

She led Joe through the woods back to the coastline. The bright sun nearly blinded her, and the difference in temperature was immediate. The hot sun covered her body like a heating blanket. Once her eyes adjusted, she could see the propellers of the helicopter sticking out of the sea, maybe a hundred yards from the bank. A seagull perched on it, like it was the most natural thing in the world. Miles away were a
ton of boats. Had none of them seen the crash? Weren’t any of them on their way to investigate?

Daphne wondered about the men again. One was alive, but what of the others? Had they submerged with the chopper?

She scrambled along the sand, keeping as far from the shore as possible. Over an hour must have passed before they came upon the huge, ancient oak tree where Brock had helped her realize how her feelings of helplessness had been replaced by feelings of blame and ownership for Kara’s death.

Beneath the oak, he had told her, “Maybe one day you’ll see how typical that was, fighting with your sister over a borrowed shirt, and how impossible it was to know it would set Joey off, if it even did.”

“Wait a minute.” She had searched his eyes. “Are you still saying it wasn’t my fault, even after what I just said to you?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

Daphne had become rather fond of this oak and wanted now, more than anything, to take a rest beneath it.

As if reading her mind, her father collapsed at the base of the tree.

“I need just a minute,” he said.

“Me, too.”

“Maybe we could slow down. Without water, we need to take it easy.”

She nodded, feeling the heat on her scalp. The top of her head was sunburnt, and now that she was finally in the shade, she could feel it. She took the
hem of her costume between her hands and tried to rip it, but the material didn’t budge. Her father leaned over and helped her. Together, they tore a three-by-three-foot square of cloth, which she then tied like a bandana onto her head. The lace of the material scratched against her sensitive scalp, but she had to endure it to protect herself from a worse burn. The sun should be setting soon, but until then, it blazed down on her relentlessly.

“You haven’t been this sunburned since the time we went to Santa Barbara,” her dad said.

Images flashed through Daphne’s mind. She and Kara played in the sand while Joey splashed water on them. This was long before he had ever said anything about spies.

“I have dreams of that all the time,” Daphne said. “Kara sings to me.”

Her dad’s eyes widened. “Wow.”

“What?”

“You said Kara’s name. That’s the first I’ve heard you say it since…”

“Really?”

“Really.” Tears formed in his eyes.

“I guess it was too painful,” she said.

“Maybe this doctor knows what she’s doing.”

Daphne kept her mouth shut to that comment.

“Listen, Daphne. I want to tell you again how sorry I am that I checked out on. I should have been there for you. It was like all the air had been sucked out of my lungs. My family was falling apart, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. Like a chopper without fuel…that’s how it felt. Like a goddam chopper dropping from the sky and me having no way to stop it.”

“Is that what happened in the war?” she asked.

He nodded. “I lost a lot of men. We were leaking fuel. Could have been worse, I guess. But it doesn’t matter now. What matters is how sorry I am, little girl.”

“Dad,
it’s okay…”

“Your mom and I had just been discussing getting more help for Joey, that very night. That very night, we had agreed he needed a new doctor.” He took a ragged breath. “If only we had acted sooner, your sister would be alive.”

Daphne’s heart twisted in her chest. Her father was outright sobbing before her very eyes, and she wasn’t sure what to do. “It’s okay. It wasn’t your fault.”

He gritted his teeth, fighting back the sobs, but the sobs won out, and he shuddered. Daphne moved closer to him.

“I love you, Daddy. I’m so sorry that happened. You’re right to call it an accident. Things just happen. Shit just happens. We gotta move on.”

He wiped his eyes. “Did my little girl just say ‘shit’?”

The corners of her mouth tugged upward. “Yes, sorry.”

He didn’t scold her. She supposed under these circumstances he would let her get away with it. There were more important things on his mind.

They sat for a few more minutes, when they were startled by the sound of her name.

“Daphne?”

They both looked around. They could neither see nor hear anyone.

“Daphne, is that you?”

“Stan?” She could swear that’s who it sounded like.

“Thank God you’re alright!” he said.

“Where are you?” Daphne climbed to her feet.

“I’m at the complex. I have you on live stream and am using the speaker system.”

“Speaker system?” her father stood now, too. They both stared up into the branches.

She’d forgotten about Prospero’s surveillance cameras.

“Stay put,” Stan said in a louder voice. “Help is on the way.”

“What about the gunmen?” Joe asked.

“The police have been notified and are on their way to the island.”

Daphne narrowed her eyes. “Stan, they weren’t actually…”

“Listen, Daph,” Stan said. “I know this is hard to believe, especially after all we’ve put you through, but these pirates have nothing to do with us. We had something else planned. Something similar, but not this. You have to believe me.”

“That’s impossible,” she said, searching the branches for the camera. When she spotted it, she jumped into the tree and kicked it over and over with her boot until it dropped like a dead animal with a thump on the sand.

“Daphne?” Stan’s voice came over the speaker. “Don’t do this. Trust me, kiddo. You could languish out there. We need to find you and get you back to safety.”

Daphne found the intercom and kicked it the same way she had the camera. Stan’s voice cut in and out until the device went dead. The whole time, her father was shouting from the ground below.

“Are you crazy? What are you doing?”

She jumped from the tree and landed in front of her father. She ripped the silver bracelet from her wrist and
tossed it on the ground. “We can’t trust them. They orchestrated that whole incident with the supposed pirates.” Daphne wasn’t one hundred percent positive, but she was close enough.

“There’s no way…”

“It’s how they operate, here, Dad. You have no idea what kind of hell I’ve been through.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” He took her by the shoulders and studied her face.

“We don’t have time. We have to get out of here. Follow me.”

Chapter Eleven: Relinquished

The Victorian-style dress made it difficult for Daphne to scale the bluffs along the coastline toward the resort, so she ripped the skirt. The remaining fabric fell just above her knees. Conscious of the possibility of surveillance cameras every step of the way, she encouraged her father to move quickly. Plus, the sun was setting, and soon they would be surrounded by darkness.

Once they had put a couple of miles between themselves and the ancient oak, Daphne wondered if they shouldn’t hide until the middle of the night and then infiltrate the resort and rescue her mother and Brock—maybe even Cam—but when she mentioned this idea to her father, he didn’t like it. He didn’t want to chance getting lost in the dark. Daphne had a feeling he wasn’t convinced that the helicopter incident had been an exercise. He didn’t believe Dr. Gray would go to such lengths as to put their lives in danger. Even after Daphne described Giovanni’s exercise at Christy Ranch and told her dad about the set up on the bird trail and the sunset cruise, he seemed unconvinced that the gunmen were actors. Daphne wanted to sneak in and rescue her mother and Brock, but her father wanted to confront the doctor.