The Rose Ransom (Girls Wearing Black: Book Three) (2 page)

BOOK: The Rose Ransom (Girls Wearing Black: Book Three)
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“Melissa, this treachery you’re
talking about, you don’t think someone from the clan--”

“I most certainly do think
someone from the clan is involved,” Melissa snapped. “There’s no way this girl
could have gotten so close without help from an insider.”

“So close to what?”

“I’ll tell you when you get
here! No more questions. Just come to Bethesda right now!”

“I don’t know that I’ve ever
been to the Bloom mansion before,” Bernadette said.

“I’ll text you the address.”

Bernadette looked down at the
line of limos parked along the street. Mark was standing next to one of them,
holding open the door and smiling at her.

“I’ll need to drop Mark off at
home first,” Bernadette said. “We came to the Date Auction together.”

“Whatever. Just don’t tell him
anything.”

“You’re not suggesting that Mark
is somehow involved in this.”

“Of course not. But the more
people who know, the more chances for error. We begin with just you, me, and
Lena. The three of us will figure out how to proceed once I’ve told you
everything.”

Should I tell her that Lena
is talking to Renata right now?
Bernadette thought.
Should I tell her
that at this very moment the two of them are ambling away from the crowd and
look like they’re sharing secrets?

She decided not to say anything.
Only a few weeks before, Melissa and Renata had nearly come to blows at the
ceremonial hunt. No need to stoke whatever tensions were flaring between them.
That was the last thing the clan needed right now.

“I’ll be there as soon as I
can.”

She ended the call and went down
to the limo.

“Who was on the phone?” Mark
asked.

“It was Melissa. I have to go
see her later.”

“Is everything alright?”

“I don’t know.”

Mark didn’t ask any more
questions. They were quiet on the drive to Arlington, and when Bernadette
dropped him off, he kissed her softly and whispered, “Be careful.”

It was close to three in the
morning when Bernadette arrived at the Bloom mansion. She found two black vans
parked at the top of the driveway and a line of servants carrying all manner of
things out of the house. One of the servants had a big box of papers in his
arms. Two others came out holding onto computers.

Bernadette wasn’t certain why
she felt like something was wrong, but she did. Perhaps it was Mark’s final
words when she dropped him off, or maybe it was the memory of how manic Melissa
had sounded on the phone. Rather than approach the mansion, Bernadette hid in
the shadow of a juniper bush and called Melissa for further instructions.

She could hear the distinctive
chimes of Melissa’s phone ringing in the open air. It sounded like Melissa was
outside, somewhere near the vans. Bernadette raised her head for a better look,
but then the call went to voicemail.

“That’s strange,” she muttered.
She dialed Melissa again, this time holding the phone away from her ear and
following the chimes of Melissa’s ring tone. As she got closer to the vans, she
realized the sound was even farther away. It seemed to be coming from the back
yard.

The call went to voicemail and
the phone stopped ringing. Bernadette dialed the number a third time. The
ringing was louder now. She moved in silence as she circled around behind the
mansion.

She found another black van
parked behind the house. Its back doors were open. Melissa’s ring tone was
coming from inside the van.

“Melissa?” Bernadette said,
speaking quietly enough that the servants wouldn’t hear, but still loud enough
for an immortal’s sensitive ears.

No response. Where was she? Why
was her phone in that van?

Bernadette darted across the
yard. As she approached the van, the smell whipped her in the face. Blood.
Guts. Meat. She ran up to the van and looked inside. She saw a pile of bloody
corpses stacked in the back. There was a giant of a man whose chest had been
completely dismembered. There was a young woman whose mouth was covered in foam
and whose face had yellowed, as if she was rotting prematurely. There was a
skinny man piled in the middle whose body was riddled with bullet holes. And
was there…yes, there was a fourth. A woman’s body, with a gaping hole in her
chest. Her head was buried underneath the other corpses.

Something intense had happened
here tonight. Melissa must have killed these people and brought her servants
here to clean up the mess.

Bernadette ran to the back door
of the mansion, eager to get inside and talk to Melissa. Her finger was about
to press the doorbell when she paused to think about how strange it was that
Melissa’s phone was in that van.

Why would she have left it in
there? Why would Melissa be anywhere near that mess of dead bodies when she had
servants here to take care of it?

Bernadette was standing on the
stoop, pondering this, when one of the servants opened the back door.

“Oh, hello Ms. Paiz,” he said.
“What may I do for you this evening?”

He was a big boy, his wide chest
and shoulders blocking most of the doorframe. His white polyester shirt was
covered in blood.

“I…um…I’m here to see Melissa,”
Bernadette said.

The servant stood still, his
face blank. Bernadette had seen this look before. Melissa programmed these kids
on the Farm so thoroughly they never made a mistake, but they also had a tough
time making a decision.

“Melissa called me,” Bernadette
added. “She asked me to come here.”

Again the servant said nothing,
his mind in some sort of endless loop.

“Where is Melissa?” Bernadette
asked, thinking a direct question was what this boy needed.

But now he was completely
baffled. Bernadette’s words made him turn his head to one side. His eyes were
open wide; his mouth agape.

Then, without warning, he
slammed the door in her face and locked it.

“What the hell?” Bernadette
whispered.

She rang the doorbell again.
Nobody came. She banged on the door with her fist.

“Melissa!” she cried. “Melissa,
are you in there?”

No response. Bernadette threw
her shoulder against the door, expecting it to give way with ease. It didn’t.
It was as if a panel of solid steel was hidden inside the wood.

She took a step back and kicked
at it. The wood splintered, but the door didn’t break. This wasn’t a normal
door. Something very strange was going on here.

She kicked at the door knob and
found it to be rock solid. It was as if this door was designed to keep an
immortal out, or at least to slow one down.

She kicked at the lock and felt
it give. Another kick, and another, five of them in a row and it finally
snapped loose. The door swung open and Bernadette rushed inside. She found the
boy holding a phone to his ear. She grabbed it from his hands.

“Hello, who is this?” she
snapped into the phone.

The phone rang in response.
Whoever the boy was calling hadn’t picked up. Bernadette pulled it away from
her ear and looked for a name on the screen. There wasn’t one. Of course there
wasn’t one. Servants didn’t have a list of contacts in their phone. They called
one person and one person only. If Bernadette stayed on the line, in a second
she would be speaking with this boy’s master.

She pressed the end button to
terminate the call. It was safer to remain anonymous, at least for now. She had
to be clever about this. Melissa had brought her to this mansion speaking of
treachery and betrayal. Now Melissa was missing, her cell phone separated from
her person, and another vampire’s slaves were cleaning out the house.

She grabbed the boy by the ear
and dragged him outside. Probably expecting that she would kill him, he made no
effort to resist. They were conditioned for that. At some point, all of them
were meant to die at the hands of an immortal.

Not this time
, Bernadette
thought. Taking him across the yard and behind the juniper bush, she looked in
his eyes and latched onto his brain.

“Who is your master?” she said.

His teeth started to chatter and
his eyes threatened to roll up into his head. Melissa conditioned the kids at
the Farm to respond to their masters only and resist everyone else, even other
immortals.

Bernadette slapped him across
the face and his eyes opened wide. She looked in them again and latched on.
This time she waited for a second before she spoke.

“It’s okay,” she said quietly.
“I’m Ms. Paiz, remember? You recognized me when I arrived.”

“Ye-ye-ye-….yes…m-m-m-ma’am,”
the boy said.

“I’m one of the clan. You can
trust me.”

“Yes, but…you were asking
about…”

“Forget what I was asking
about,” Bernadette said. “I’m a friend, right?”

There was a slight delay as he
processed this statement. Bernadette didn’t have a firm grasp on his mind, but
she had enough control to guide him to the right answer.

You can trust me. I am your
friend.

“Yes, we are friends,” the boy
said.

“What’s your name, friend?”

“My name is Frankie.”

“Hello Frankie. Since I’m your
friend, it’s okay for you to tell me who your master is, don’t you think?”

“Yes. I am proud to serve my
master.”

“And who is your master?”

“My master is Renata Sullivan.”

Bernadette felt her heart leap.

“Where is Renata right now,
Frankie?”

“I do not know.”

“So she isn’t here.”

“No, ma’am.”

“Then why are you here?”

Again his eyes began to roll,
but this time Bernadette was able to keep hold of him.

“No, Frankie. We’re friends,
remember?” she said. She had her pupils locked onto his. Through those pupils,
she reached deeper into his brain.

Come on, Frankie
, she
thought.
Let me inside.

“You can trust me,” she said.

A brief pause while his old
programming conflicted with this new message.

“I said, you can trust me Frankie.”

His mind was a maze, all
twisting turns and dark alleys. Still, she sensed light in there somewhere. She
called for it, begging the part of him that wasn’t Renata’s slave to come
forward.

Talk to me, Frankie. You can
trust me.

“I can trust you,” he whispered.

“Yes, that’s it. I want you to
tell me what’s going on here.”

“We are preparing this house per
our master’s instructions.”

“Who’s we? Who else is here?”

“Renata sent a team of six to
clean this place up.”

“You and five other servants?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And she sent you here to take
away the dead bodies, those ones you’ve loaded in the van.”

“Yes, ma’am. And to remove all
the computers and any paperwork from the home. The others are at work on that
as we speak. They have found a space in the attic that is full of equipment my
master will want.”

“Did Renata say why you’re
removing all the computers and files?”

“No ma’am.”

“What happened here? Who are
those people in the van?”

“I do not know what happened
here. There are three humans in the van, and also Ms. Mayhew.”

Bernadette felt her body go
weak. Her knees buckled. Her throat tightened. It was all she could do to hang
on to Frankie’s mind.

“Melissa Mayhew is in that van?”
she whispered.

“Yes, ma’am,” Frankie said. “Are
we done speaking? If so I will return to work.”

Bernadette took a deep breath.

“Why is Ms. Mayhew in the van,
Frankie?”

“All dead bodies go into the
van,” Frankie said. “Master’s orders.”

The woman
. Bernadette had
seen four bodies in that van. One of them was a woman with a hole in her chest.
She hadn’t seen the woman’s head.

“You will forget we ever had
this conversation,” Bernadette commanded.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You will forget you ever saw
me.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I am going to look in that van
now. You won’t see me doing it, even if you’re looking right at me.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Goodbye Frankie.”

Frankie turned away and walked
back to the house. Bernadette went to the van. Along the way, she dialed
Melissa’s phone number one more time.

She heard the chimes as she
moved. The sound was muted. There was a pile of bodies in that van. Melissa’s
phone was at the bottom.

She jumped inside. The corpse of
a giant man was on top. She lifted it with one hand, pressing it up against the
wall so she could get a better look underneath.

She saw the slim man with fuzzy
hair, his body full of bullets. She saw the woman with dark stains around her
lips.

She saw Melissa, lying dead at
the bottom of the pile, her heart having been ripped out of her chest.

The chimes of Melissa’s cell
phone were practically screaming at her now, yelling at her to run away, to get
out of here before Renata showed up and killed her too.

Bernadette jumped out of the van
and ran back to her car, leaving the chimes of Melissa’s cell phone to fade
into silence.

 

Chapter 2

 

Mattie Dupree came up to Jill
and handed her a flute of champagne.

“Can you believe what happened
in there?” Mattie said. “I mean…who would have thought, right? First Nicky goes
below the minimum bid, then--”

“Oh, I know, I was totally
freaking out when nobody bid on her,” said Jenny Young. “I was like, come on,
somebody bid on Nicky!”

Jill, Mattie, Jenny, and
eighty-nine other members of the Thorndike senior class were gathered for a
post-Date Auction party in the bar atop the Hamilton Hotel. The only students
not in attendance were the girls wearing black and the boys who won dates with
them. Those eight students were already on their way to whatever fabulous
week-long getaways they had planned.

BOOK: The Rose Ransom (Girls Wearing Black: Book Three)
6.4Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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