MORTAL COILS (6 page)

Grandmother
stared into the partially reconstructed cup with the same look Eliot had seen
before . . . sharp. As if you had asked her what she was doing and she looked
up—the intensity of her gaze would have cut the question out of your throat.

Eliot’s
hand involuntarily rose to his neck.

Outside
the sun set and the clouds blazed orange and scarlet. The light in the dining
room tinged red. The white shards in Grandmother’s hand looked as if they were
dipped in blood.

She
drew in a long breath and let it out in a sigh. Grandmother then closed her
hand over the broken cup. She stood and looked at Cee, then Fiona and Eliot.
Her eyes were their normal iron gray.

“Drink
your tea,” she murmured.

Eliot
and Fiona obeyed.

“Cecilia,
clean the rest of this up.”

“Of
course.” Cee hurried into the kitchen for a broom and dustpan.

“I
can help,” Fiona offered.

“No.”
Grandmother’s face warmed a bit, and a slight smile struggled to life on her
lips. “You two get ready for bed.”

“We
need to finish our homework,” Eliot protested. “There’s the Newton essay and
the rewrite of the 1812 paper.”

“Homework
is canceled tonight,” Grandmother said. “. . . For your birthdays.”

Eliot
looked to his sister, and she looked to him.

He
wasn’t going to argue, but homework had never before been canceled. Rain, snow,
sickness, or exhaustion, you always turned it in.

Grandmother
gave Fiona a hug and kiss, then knelt and beckoned to Eliot.

He
embraced her. She barely touched him, though, as if she were afraid she might
hurt him if she squeezed too hard. He kissed her cheek, and she his.

Eliot
and Fiona marched down the hallway.

“Even,”
Fiona whispered.

“Fine,”
he whispered back.

She
said, “One, two, three . . .”

They
simultaneously blurted out numbers. Eliot’s was seven. Fiona had three. Add
them together and you got ten, an even number.

She
smiled and tromped into the bathroom.

Somehow
she always won that game. Eliot hadn’t figured out her trick yet, but there had
to be one.

He
waited in the hallway as it filled with shadows. He snuck a sideways glance
into the dining room. Grandmother had her back to him, but he could make out
Cecilia as Grandmother spoke to her in murmurs. Cee nodded vigorously, and her
hands had stopped their usual shaking. The old woman looked pale.

He
caught a few hushed words in their conversation—in hard German consonants.
Fiona was good at languages; he wished she were out here.

He
made out one word: versteckt.

Maybe
all the mystery was about their birthdays tomorrow. Maybe they were planning
something different. A surprise.

The
bathroom door opened and light spilled into the hall.

“All
yours, stinky,” Fiona said, and marched into her bedroom.

Eliot
entered the bathroom and closed the door. It smelled of Cecilia’s strong
homemade soap. The stuff left his skin tingling, part cleaned, part caustic
burn.

His
attention riveted to a spot of red in the sink: a circle of reflective crumpled
crimson foil.

He
carefully picked it up and saw it was a wrapped chocolate. He glanced at the
mirror over the sink. There were smudges. He leaned closer and breathed on the
glass.

Words
appeared in Fiona’s looping cursive:

Eat
it quick! Happy B-Day.

He
peeled back the foil. Inside was half a chocolate morsel with bite marks on one
side. Eliot smiled—popped it into his mouth and munched.

It
was good . . . but before he could even taste it, it was gone.

He
wasn’t sure where Fiona had gotten it, but chocolate was a rare treat—especially
chocolate that Cecilia hadn’t ruined with her cooking. He loved the old woman,
but honestly, one day she was going to poison them all.

He
carefully wiped the mirror with his towel.

Eliot
then wadded the foil, wrapped it inside toilet paper, and flushed it away.

There
was no rule about chocolate, but that didn’t mean there couldn’t be a new one
created if Grandmother started finding wrappers.

He
searched for more surprises, but found none, so he got out the tooth powder and
brushed his teeth.

From
the heater vent in the floor he heard, “Psst.”

Eliot
rinsed and crouched by the vent. “Hey—thanks.”

“It
was nothing,” Fiona whispered back.

This
was how they talked after lights out. The vent in the bathroom was best, but
they could listen to each other from their bedroom vents, too, if they put
their heads to them and covered themselves with a blanket to muffle the noise.

“What
do you think is going on tonight?” Fiona asked. “I get chills when I think
about how Grandmother’s acting.”

“Yeah
. . .” Eliot remembered the intensity of her eyes, and gooseflesh crawled up
his arms. “I heard them talking in German. What’s versteckt mean?”

“Um
. . . to hide. Or hidden, concealed.”

“Maybe
they’re talking about birthday presents?”

“Maybe.”
Eliot could tell from her flat tone that she didn’t think so, either.

They
were both quiet a moment, then Fiona finally said, “At work today . . . I
appreciate what you did.”

“It’s
okay. I think it’s going to be better at Ringo’s from now on.”

“.
. . Sure. We better go before they hear us.”

“Hey,
one more thing.”

“What?”

Eliot
wanted to say a lot of things. Such as, if he had to get saddled with a creepy
sister, he was glad it was her. That none of his homework would be half as good
if not for her help. That—it even hurt to think about this— he kind of somehow
almost liked her.

But
instead he just said, “Happy tomorrow birthday.”

“You,
too.”

The
other side of the vent suddenly felt empty.

Eliot
stood and washed his face, then glanced at the mirror. He still looked like a
species of dorkus maximus. Maybe that would all change tomorrow. Fifteen.

He
sighed and turned off the light.

4

DRIVER’S
EDUCATION

Robert
Farmington watched his boss, Marcus Welmann, pick the lock on the frosted-glass
door.

Technically
this was illegal, but it was a lawyer’s office, and those guys mutilated the
law all the time anyway.

Robert
worked for Welmann and Associates Investigations, though there were no
“associates,” and neither he nor Welmann were licensed investigators. Tonight
they were here to find some confidential files on a missing old lady. No big
deal.

He
glanced down the deserted hallway, then out the window to the street two floors
below. This burb was a graveyard at three in the morning. Del Sombra it was
called. “Of the shadows” in Spanish. Weird name for a town.

He
looked back at Welmann as the man levered the tiny lock with his massive arms.

Marcus
Welmann wore baggy camo pants, a black T-shirt, and running sneakers with the
reflective stripes ripped off. Not exactly a male model. He was sixty years old
and two hundred and fifty pounds of grizzled muscle. His large hands would be
the envy of any NBA forward. Great for clobbering. Not so good for delicate
work.

Robert
inched closer and whispered, “You want me to pop it? I can do it in ten seconds
flat.”

Welmann
turned to Robert. His eyes narrowed—a warning that his protégé better shut his
trap or he’d be waiting outside in the car.

Welmann
hated saying more than a dozen words a day; it was part of his Neanderthal act.
He had a Harvard MBA and had been a navy med tech, but he always played it
dumb, which made people underestimate him.

Robert
crossed his arms and did his best James Dean back at Welmann—not a stretch
because Robert wore the black leather jacket, jeans, and biker boots that was
the uniform of any teenage rebel.

Welmann
returned to the stubborn lock and ran one finger over the scratched keyhole.

His
face brightened. He grabbed the knob, twisted, and it turned.

“Already
opened,” Welmann muttered.

Within
the office a beam of light bisected the shadows. Someone was inside . . . and
from Robert’s experience it was rarely the janitor.

Welmann
let go of the knob and slid to the side of the door so whoever was inside
wouldn’t see his silhouette out here.

Robert
flattened himself against the outer hall wall, as well.

Welmann
waved to get Robert’s attention and pointed back the way they had come,
indicating that he hightail it.

Robert
wasn’t going anywhere. Eight months of training, he could handle this.

Welmann
reached for the holster in the small of his back and drew a weighty revolver of
polished steel, his Colt Python Elite .357 Magnum.

Robert
pointed at Welmann’s sneaker and made a “give me” gesture.

Welmann
unthinkingly grabbed for the Taurus PT-145 in his ankle holster, a tiny polymer
gun with a barrel no longer than its slight grip . . . but he stopped, pointed
emphatically back at Robert, then jabbed at the floor, indicating that he stay
put.

Robert
nodded. With one meaty fist Welmann could easily make him stay put.

Welmann
gripped the doorknob and burst into the office.

Robert
peeked inside, spotting the source of the light: a penlight on a desk. It
rolled over empty file folders.

Welmann
snatched up the flashlight and crossed it over his opposite wrist, sweeping his
aim over the office. The place was the size of a two-car garage, but it was
crammed with six desks, a wall of filing cabinets, and posters of mountains and
white-water rafters with the titles PERSISTENCE and INTEGRITY. Light from the
sodium-vapor streetlamps outside filtered through the windows and tinged it all
unnatural orange.

Welmann
checked behind every desk. “No one here,” he whispered. “Damned weird.”

Robert
eased inside and double-checked behind the door. Just shadows there. So who had
used that flashlight?

Welmann
saw Robert and glared, chewing over words that didn’t make it out of his mouth.
What could he say? The place was deserted.

Robert
was about to tell Welmann where he could stuff his “I’m trying to teach you
something” shtick—when something appeared behind Robert . . . a creeping
presence, big and breathing. It cleared its throat.

Robert
wheeled around.

The
shadows behind the door parted like a curtain. A glowing cigarette ember
revealed a smile that would have made the Cheshire cat blush.