It was electrically uncomfortable to hold on, even only to his jacket, but she did. They stood together in the empty bell tower while the storm lasted, with the Lynburns dancing in the garden below.
Chapter Sixteen
Underwater Light
The Surer Guest was out in the countryside, north of Aurimere as the woods were west and the town was south. Kami had never noticed before how much of Sorry-in-the-Vale was constructed with the manor as its center, and now she could not stop noticing. The guesthouse was made of Cotswold stone and looked pale as butter in the dying evening light, at the top of the long, curving gravel driveway.
The Surer Guest had hosted a wedding earlier that day. The parking lot at the bottom of the driveway was crammed. The door was ajar and much bustling was still going on inside: carts of laundry, food, and cleaning products were being wheeled through the hall from the kitchen area to the offices and storerooms. Still, there was not quite so much bustling that five teenagers could troop in undetected.
“Technically, it’s older than the manor. It’s built around a twelfth-century hall,” Kami said, peeping in through the door. “You’ll see that when we get in.”
“If we get in,” said Ash.
Kami gave Ash an uncertain glance. She had gone home yesterday without telling him goodbye, and she still wasn’t sure how to frame a question about his weirdo family running out into rainstorms. She kept turning and looking at him, as if his handsome face might at any moment slide away like a mask.
“Oh, how could we fail to get in?” Angela asked, rolling her eyes. “After all, people love to see teenagers loitering around. Especially when they’re dressed like ninjas.”
As Kami had made the calls earlier today directing wardrobe choice, she was aware Angela’s eye roll was aimed at her. “Don’t worry,” she told them all.
“Why?” Jared asked. “Because everyone loves a ninja?”
“Because I have a plan,” said Kami, and looked brightly around at her team.
Everyone was dressed in black as she’d asked. Angela was even wearing a hat, possibly so she could roll it down like a ski mask over her face. Jared and Ash looked more alike than ever, though Jared’s T-shirt was short-sleeved and worn, straining at the shoulders. Holly was wearing a black cocktail dress.
Kami said, “I want you to go in there and vamp that receptionist.”
“What?” Ash said blankly.
“You know,” Kami said. “Dazzle her with your charms. Rock her world. Go on.”
They turned to gaze at the receptionist, a bored-looking woman with a magazine tucked not-terribly-surreptitiously under her mouse pad. She looked back at them, over the counter and through the open door, with a stare of utter apathy.
“What,” Ash said, “all of us?”
“Do you want to stand around trying to guess if she likes pretty boys or rough trade?” Jared asked, gesturing lazily from Ash to himself.
“Excuse me, what did you just call yourself?” Ash demanded. “No, wait a second, I don’t care. What did you just call me?”
“Why are you doing this to me?” Angela moaned. “I knew getting out of bed today was even more of a mistake than it usually is.”
“Vamping,” Holly said with conviction, “I can do.”
“Thank you, Holly,” Kami said. “All I want is unquestioning obedience, you people, is that so much to ask? I come up with the plans! I buy all the staples! I need you to do this one little thing for me.”
“Oh, well,” said Jared, “if it’s for the staples, should I take off my shirt?”
Holly laughed and grabbed Angela’s elbow. Somewhat surprisingly, Angela let Holly drag her and even answered Holly’s laugh with a smile, though she seemed conflicted about it. Jared gave Ash a challenging glance and set off, while Kami made a shooing gesture as if they were geese. The whole party stumbled through the door and up to the counter where the receptionist sat.
Kami sidled out the door a few minutes later, unnoticed since every eye was drawn to the mass vamp in progress. The others followed her out soon enough.
Holly was laughing. “Jared told her he used to be an exotic dancer in San Francisco.”
“My body is a gift from God,” Jared said gravely. “Except for my hips, which are clearly a gift from the devil.”
“I’m surprised she didn’t call the police,” Ash muttered. “I would have.”
Angela looked traumatized, but not so traumatized that she failed to notice something was different. Her eyes went straight to the pile in Kami’s arms. “What have you got there?”
“Aprons I took from one of the laundry carts while the guy pushing it was distracted by the sight of four people making epic fools of themselves,” Kami told her.
“And you couldn’t just tell us to make fools of ourselves?” Ash asked.
“I didn’t want you to get stiff and self-conscious,” said Kami. “I wanted you to act natural. And you were all brilliant!”
“I’m concerned about your vamping skills,” Holly told Angela. “You’re gorgeous. You can do better. Actually, almost anyone can do better than ‘Don’t look at me.’ ”
Angela shrugged.
“We were brilliant, natural fools?” Jared asked. He was grinning, but then, of course, he was the only one apart from Kami who had known exactly what was going on. They didn’t have secrets from each other.
Well. She didn’t have any secrets from him.
Kami pushed the thought aside and grinned back at him, feeling his delight curl around her heart. “Especially you, tiny dancer. The Surer Guest ordered a pile of baked goods for today from my mother, so I learned they hired on a lot of staff for the weekend wedding. Staff they would not expect to recognize on sight. And the uniform,” Kami said with modest pride, “is black clothes with this apron over it.”
“You’re a genius,” Holly said as Kami passed around the aprons.
Kami preened.
The Surer Guest was like a maze. This evening the maze was crowded with people either clearing up the wedding dinner or continuing the wedding party. There was the reception hall, where the receptionist sat, still looking a bit stunned. One big door led to the ballroom; the other door opened into a corridor that led to the kitchens. The offices were on either side. Across the hall, two broad staircases led to a balcony, and from there to the guest rooms.
Kami had told everyone to spread out in different directions as soon as they were in the door, so when she headed purposefully for the offices, she was startled to find Jared at her heels. Go investigate somewhere else! she ordered.
No, said Jared. Someone’s still after you. I’m not leaving you to be pushed into another well.
How many wells are you expecting to find in a guesthouse? Kami inquired.
Well, I’m not leaving you to be smashed on the head with a candlestick in the billiard room either.
Kami could tell Jared was serious, so she didn’t waste her time arguing with him. She approached a door, beckoning Jared toward it, and then flung it open on a room full of cleaning supplies. A mop tipped over with a bang. Kami tried not to jump at the noise.
Next one, Jared said. He opened the next door, which led to a room full of washing machines and dryers. And a couple, the woman sitting on the washing machine, pulling the guy’s shirt open and tie aside while her legs wrapped around his waist.
Kami squeaked.
Jared coughed, said “Sorry,” and shut the door fast.
It was okay that she’d squeaked, Kami told herself. It wasn’t that she didn’t have nerves of steel. She went ahead and tried the next door. It slid open to reveal an empty desk with filing cabinets arranged around it. “I’ll take the computer; you take the cabinets,” Kami said.
There was a purple Post-it under the stapler with CASSIE41 written on it. When Kami turned the computer on and tried to access the Guests file, a box popped up asking for a password. Kami typed “CASSIE41” and it let her through.
Unfortunately, along with the lack
of security was a lack of organization. Kami spent a while finding a lot of entries for this year’s guests in last year’s file. She resisted the urge to reorganize it. As the light in the windows died, she squinted at the glowing surface of the computer screen and cursed the fact that she could not turn on the lights.
Then she found the records for the night of September 10. She heard Jared turn and walk to the computer.
“Stop,” Kami said. “Let me have the satisfaction of saying ‘Jackpot’ so you can be both startled and impressed.”
“Okay.”
“Jackpot,” said Kami. “You can look now.”
Jared leaned on the back of her chair and looked over her shoulder. Kami used the cursor to point out the names of the guests to him. “Slow night,” Kami commented. “Only three guests. Jocelyn and Chris Fairchild, looking to get a romantic night without the kids. And Terry Cholmondeley—”
“With his wife,” Jared said. “Madeline.”
“Well, he’s not actually married,” Kami said. “He’s from Sorry-in-the-Vale, though. So that leaves us Henry Thornton from London. Who came down alone for one night.” Kami pressed PRINT on the page with Henry Thornton’s details on it. The printer obliged her with a soft whirring sound.
The sound of steps down the corridor made Kami freeze, then she reached out with shaky hands to flip up the edge of the warm paper emerging from the printer. She could see half of Henry Thornton’s address—she just needed one more minute.…
Jared spun her chair around. She glanced up into his eyes.
Someone’s coming, he thought at her. You’d better kiss me.
“Because someone’s coming? That’s so clichéd,” Kami said. She stood, grabbing the printed page in one hand. They both heard a step outside the door. Jared leaned down and hesitated.
He wasn’t going to do it. He always tried to avoid actually touching her.
The door opened.
The woman standing in the doorway wore a Surer Guest apron. Kami was uneasily aware of the stains on theirs. She also hoped the woman hadn’t heard the sound of a computer being turned off.
“What are you two doing?”
“Dusting!” Kami exclaimed.
The woman snorted. “As if I didn’t know.”
“I assure you, we weren’t canoodling,” Kami said.
“Really,” the woman said. “Then may I ask what you were doing?”
“You caught us,” Jared announced. “Totally—uh—canoodling. The laundry room was occupied by fellow canoodlers, so we took a chance.”
“The laundry …” The woman glanced down the hall. “You two stay right there. I’m going to have a word with your supervisor!” She set off.
Jared and Kami exchanged a look. Then they both dashed for the door, into the hall, and in the other direction from the woman as fast as they could run, and through the door at the end of the corridor. They blundered into darkness and then into several other things.
Jared cursed. “What is that?”
Kami patted the object in an investigatory fashion. “I think it’s an exercise bike. My other theory, that it’s a giant whisk, seems unlikely.”
“Okay,” Jared said in a whisper, breathless from running, and sounding like he wanted to laugh. “Just a little gym. That’s okay. Let’s just go through here. Take my—” He cut himself off before he said “hand.”
Kami didn’t take his hand. It wouldn’t help; it would put them more off balance, and it wasn’t like they could lose each other.
They were both silent, pretending they couldn’t feel the other’s discomfort, until they went through into another room and Jared fell over what Kami thought was a massage chair.
His amusement flared through her. After a moment, she said, “Lucky that door was open.”
“If it hadn’t been,” Jared said, close by her ear, “I could have got it open.”
Kami negotiated past a massage table and into what seemed to be a cupboard full of bottles, which rocked ominously for a minute. She made for the next door, visible by the dim glow in the next room, not like there was a light on but as if there was a fish tank in there.
“No, you could not have,” she told Jared, smiling at him in the dark. “Not by breaking anything or jimmying any locks or indeed performing any acts of delinquency at all. Because you’ve reformed.”
“Oh yeah,” Jared said. “Obviously.”
Kami fumbled for the door handle, grasped it, and turned it. “This is different. As was the lawyer’s office. We’re in pursuit of justice.” She peered warily into the next room.
Jared came to lean against the doorframe beside her. “I just get confused,” he claimed, laughing low. “Being good’s only fun when it’s with you.”
Light reflected on the wall in the next room, a moving shimmer against the white tiles.
Kami advanced cautiously.
The room was circular, lined with pale tiles. At Kami’s feet lay a square of dark water. There was a skylight above the pool. The night sky turned the pool into a mirror, dusting the water with stars.
Kami heard Jared laugh again and turned. He was taking off his shirt: the apron was on the floor. She caught sight of a slice of stomach and looked hastily back at the pool. “Jared,” she said, mouth dry. “This is not being good!” She felt the inviting thrill course through her, the idea of abandoning just a little control.
“But it might be fun.”
“I’m not doing it and you’re not doing it either,” Kami told him.
Jared dived. His body cut through the water, disappearing in the dark with only a ripple. Kami could feel Jared’s thoughts chasing through her brain: his adrenaline, the pleasure of getting away with something, something as harmless as this.
Jared’s head broke the surface, his hair dark with water, the faint shimmer of light pale on his skin. “Come on,” he said.
Kami hesitated for a moment and ordered, “Turn around.”
Jared smiled, the little smile that went all the way through her, and did. Kami studied his shoulder blades with suspicion as she took off her apron and then the black T-shirt, being careful of the page tucked in the apron. She wished she’d worn underwear that matched, though that happened approximately three days of the year. But she wished she’d at least worn discreet black instead of a bright orange bra.
“Orange?” Jared asked. He answered her wave of indignation with a quick “Not peeking! Reading your mind!”
“I wonder what privacy would be like. Guess I’ll never know,” said Kami, and jumped into the water. It was a cool, lovely shock, her limbs floating in the new element. Her soft laughter echoed off the tiles and was swallowed by Jared’s light splash at her face.
Kami splashed him back, shivering in the cool water. Jared was thinking of grabbing and dunking her, thinking about it mostly just to tease her. Only, it would be weird if he did, and he was a lot bigger than she was.
“Hey,” said Jared, turning. The ripples in the pool as he moved washed against Kami’s skin. The hair on her arms rose, her skin tingling. “I would never hurt you.”
“I know you wouldn’t,” Kami said quickly. “It isn’t that.” It wasn’t that. It was the fact that he was here, which kept being disturbing, and that she was so terribly aware of him being there, all the time. She was thinking hundreds of things at once, like that they were going to get caught, and noticing the muscles in Jared’s chest and shoulders without knowing what to do about the fact that she was noticing.
In spite of all that, this was fun.
Kami’s eye was caught by the glint of the thin chain she’d noticed around Jared’s neck at the bell tower. She saw what had been hidden by his T-shirt now: an old penny, like the one she had sent him years ago.
Kami looked up at his face.
“I told you I got it,” Jared said. “I found it on the floor in our apartment.”
Kami looked away from him, feeling the weight of his gaze on her. And she didn’t want Jared seeing any of her thoughts, so
she splashed at him and said, “Two laps. Race you.”
A noise in one of the exercise rooms beyond made Kami lunge for the side of the pool. She pulled herself out and grabbed their clothes, feeling in her apron pocket for the paper. Then she ran to join Jared. He was out of the pool, trying to pull open the glass door that led to a patio outside.
It was locked.
Kami could hear footsteps by now, coming closer. She shoved Jared’s clothes at his chest. I knew this was a bad idea. Pursuing justice is good karma! Pursuing illicit fun leads to being apprehended while unclothed!
The steps rang out, echoing clearly off the tiles and the skylighted roof.
Jared took a deep breath and said, “Kami, I’m sorry.”
The glitter of stars on the pool water caught Kami’s eye. She looked at it, even with the echoing steps, even while a man’s voice called out: “Who’s there?”
The light in the pool was so bright it seemed like there was something under the water, light radiating like underwater treasure.
What the hell is that? Jared asked.
I have no idea.
The beam wasn’t a trick of the night. It wasn’t their panic. Luminescence was coalescing in the air, like a curtain of crystal, stretching from the pool water beside them and reaching to the skylight. Through that gleaming curtain Kami saw a security guy, his uniform dark and his expression the same.
The guard looked around the room. He did not seem fazed by the shimmer of light in the air, or the two wet teenagers in their underwear shivering behind it. He frowned, nodded, and turned around. He hadn’t seen them. He hadn’t seen anything.
As soon as the man left, the lights faded, like dust motes glittering for an instant and then quenched by a sudden shadow.
Kami leaned weakly back against the glass door. “Not to steal your line,” she murmured. “But what the hell was that?”
“I have no idea,” said Jared.
Chapter Seventeen
Alone upon the Threshold
When they went back through the guesthouse and found the others outside, Kami was too dazed to do more than mumble something about it being good work, team, and go home. She went to bed in a state of shock.