Confused, I waited for Holly to come up and meet me.
Jack was on his knees, hugging his son. Adam cried. Jack cried. We all hugged each other and let tears of relief flood through us.
Adam, my angel of light was safe.
‘What did you think – that we’d believe Orlando’s crappy message about your mom and drive the hell out of here?’ Holly demanded as she dragged me under the awning.
14
I kept in mind what Maia had said and held it close to my heart: ‘Prepare for anything to happen.’
The last thing I would have predicted was Holly and Grace staying on Carlsbad and being in the right place at the right time to rescue Adam.
But if you stop and think about it, no way would they have taken on board Orlando’s b.s. message without checking it out.
‘We drove down Carlsbad to where we could get a signal on our cell phones,’ Grace explained from the safety and warmth of the Carlsbad Lodge bar. Owen was serving drinks as usual while Macy perched on a stool chatting with him whenever business grew slack. ‘We had to drive almost into Mayfield Old Town. Holly called your dad from there and asked him was it true that your mom was sick again?’
‘I’d already wagered a million bucks he’d say no,’ Holly told me.
‘Which you don’t have,’ Grace pointed out sweetly.
‘So anyway, your dad said no, your mom was currently on a plane back from China. He wanted to jump in his car and drive up here to talk with you and Orlando, check you were both OK. But they already have thirty centimetres of snow in Bitterroot. They closed all the highways until the graders can clear them.’
‘We swore to him we’d hang around here in case we were needed,’ Grace went on. ‘Actually, we had no choice. The snow got worse; we’re trapped here. So Holly parked her car on the hotel parking lot and we set out on foot to find you.’
‘That’s when we ran into Adam.’ Holly gave a broad smile. ‘It turns out we saved the day. We’re the heroes!’
I smiled back warmly, remembering how we’d hugged and cried, how Jack had promised Adam that he would never let anything bad happen to him ever again. Adam had kept his arms locked tight around his dad’s neck as Jack had carried him down the mountain.
We’d reached the hotel in the heaviest snow of the winter so far. Total white-out.
Jack kept tight hold of Adam as Amber called from reception for the hotel medic and news of the rescue spread fast. Charlie ran in out of the snow and tried to share with Jack how relieved he was that everything had turned out OK, but it was obvious that Jack still blamed him. He’d blanked Charlie and carried Adam to the elevator.
I could only imagine the reunion between Natalia and her son as the lift door opened on the penthouse suite and she learned that he was safe.
‘We’re the heroes, so now they throw us out into the cold,’ Grace warned as two security guards appeared at the door of the bar. ‘We don’t have passes, remember.’
But the men stayed where they were and gave way to Rocky Seaton, still wearing his blue jacket and black hat. ‘I just heard what you girls did,’ he beamed as he strode to join us.
‘They’re not going to throw us out?’ Holly jerked her thumb towards the guys guarding the door.
‘Let them try.’ Rocky put on his best menacing-cop scowl then broke back into a grin. ‘Actually, no. I just spoke to Jack. He’s convinced you saved Adam’s life – five more minutes out on the mountain, hypothermia would have set in and it would have been too late.’
‘Is that what the doctor says?’ I asked.
Rocky nodded. ‘Jack wants to show his gratitude.’
‘Adam’s doing well?’ I checked as we left the bar and went up together in the elevator. It stopped before we reached the penthouse to let Charlie and Gwen step in.
‘Adam will be totally fine, thanks to you,’ Rocky assured us. The ‘thanks to you’ was delivered with one eye on Charlie, no doubt as a strong rebuke. ‘What the hell were you doing, letting a five-year-old kid out of your sight in the worst snowstorm of the year?’ Unspoken, but clearly understood.
Charlie didn’t react, and neither did Gwen. They stood facing the door with their backs to us, but I could see their reflection in a full-length mirror – their faces stern, their eyes unblinking. Half expecting Gwen to zap me with her dark angel eyes, I quickly looked down.
‘So did Orlando make it down the mountain in his old truck?’ Holly asked Gwen straight out, no beating about the bush.
I shot her a startled, guilty look. So much had happened lately that this was the first time in thirty minutes I’d spared a thought for Orlando.
When Gwen didn’t answer, Holly pushed harder. ‘He was up on the overlook when we last saw him. It was already snowing pretty bad.’
The lift whined then jerked to a halt at penthouse level. The door slid open.
‘I haven’t seen Orlando since midday,’ Gwen told us quietly but firmly as we all stepped out. ‘Right now I have no idea where he is.’
Adam was tucked up in bed. His favourite superhero DVD played on a big flat-screen TV on the facing wall. Phoebe played with trains on the floor while Charlie perched on Natalia’s knee and tugged at the silver beads on her bracelet. Jack was sitting on the side of Adam’s bed but as soon as Holly, Grace and I walked in, he stood up and came towards us.
For a while he couldn’t find the right words. ‘Thank you doesn’t cover it,’ he murmured, shaking us each by the hand. ‘If there’s anything – anything I can do …’
‘You can sign the back of my shirt,’ Holly quipped. ‘I’ll get it digitally copied on to a million Ts and make megabucks.’ Then she grinned at Adam and asked him how he was doing.
‘I’m good,’ Adam answered shyly. He glanced at me and gave me the brightest, most special smile.
‘Tania, you want a permanent position with Starlite?’ Jack offered in a recklessly upbeat surge of gratitude. ‘Natalia can fix it with Ryan James any time you like.’
‘Thanks, but no thanks. I’m just glad Adam’s OK.’
‘The job is yours anyway.’ Turning to Grace, he asked her full name then promised her VIP tickets to the red-carpet premiere of Siege 2. ‘You think I won’t remember?’ he challenged, tapping his head with his forefinger. ‘It’s stored in here: Grace Montrose, Holly Randle, Tania Ionescu – the three girls who saved my son’s life.’
‘This is in case he forgets.’ Natalia interrupted to show us she was typing a memo into her laptop. She seemed calm after the gut-wrenching experiences of the early afternoon. ‘Right now we’re all on a high with relief. Tomorrow something else will take the place of today’s big drama.’
‘I won’t forget,’ Jack argued, trying not to react to Natalia’s public put-down. ‘Just like I won’t forget who caused this whole thing in the first place.’
Natalia shook her head and lowered Charlie on to the floor to play with Phoebe’s trains.
‘I’m serious. Charlie Speke – that’s the guy.’
‘He’s in the next room.’ Natalia warned Jack to keep his voice down.
‘I know it and I don’t give a crap. I’m only speaking the truth. I’ve already told Charlie point-blank – I don’t want him anywhere near my kids from now on.’
Watching Natalia’s face, I suspected she wanted to argue the point but had decided against it in front of Adam, Phoebe and Charlie. However, her silence spoke volumes.
‘I don’t care what you think,’ he told her, his voice rising as his anger ignited. ‘This isn’t about you and your blind spot over a guy who’s working to take over my life, Natalia. It’s about what’s safe for our kids.’
‘We’ll talk about it later,’ she insisted, as Jack stormed out of Adam’s bedroom. She gave me a resigned smile as we too said goodbye and left the recuperating patient.
‘Thanks from the bottom of my heart,’ Jack told us out in the lobby. He’d managed to regain control of his temper without a big explosion and now he seemed subdued. ‘Natalia doesn’t believe I can
stay sober,’ he confided. ‘Even though I told her from now on, no more alcohol.’
‘That’s good,’ I agreed after a couple of seconds’ hesitation. I had no direct experience but from everything you read about the behaviour of AA members, there’s a gap the width of the Grand Canyon between deciding to quit drinking and actually doing it.
‘It’s true,’ Jack insisted. ‘Today I had the biggest shock. It made me realize my kids are my whole world and that I need to get my life on track and be a good father. Nothing else matters.’
‘That’s really cool,’ I murmured, with Holly and Grace nodding beside me. They didn’t know about the divorce yet and seemed pretty convinced that Jack could turn over a new leaf. Holly especially was still suffering from a serious case of hero worship as far as Jack Kane was concerned.
‘No more partying,’ he promised as the elevator door slid open. ‘They say it can’t happen, but I swear to you that this particular leopard has totally changed his spots.’
‘So, where is Orlando?’ Grace was the one who refocused us when we got back to my room. She peered through the French windows, beyond the balcony out on to a dark, snow-covered night scene – pretty as a Christmas card so long as you didn’t have to be out in those sub-zero conditions. ‘Do we believe Gwen – that she has no idea?’
‘No way.’ Holly was ready to bet her non-existent million bucks for a second time. ‘You remember how she wouldn’t make eye contact in the elevator? I’m guessing she knows exactly where he is.’
This gave me the opening I needed to update them. ‘You’re going to hate me for dragging you back into the dark angel stuff,’ I warned. ‘You’re sure you want to hear it?’
Grace grimaced and drew back but Holly jumped right in. ‘Let me guess what you’re going to say,’ she insisted. ‘The dark angels have developed another new way of working. This time they’re not targeting any of us three. They know we’re not about to fall victim and be seduced a second time around. Instead they’ve got their claws into Orlando.’
‘Exactly that,’ I confirmed.
‘Oh, that’s clever,’ Grace said slowly. ‘Tania, they’re using the guy you love to destroy you.’
I felt my heart quake as Holly and Grace put into words my worst fears. ‘They know I’ll never leave him,’ I admitted. ‘I’m always going to be here for him.’
‘Even if he tells you he doesn’t love you any more,’ Holly predicted, ‘which he’s already done?’
I nodded and felt tears well up. ‘Sorry,’ I mumbled as they slid down my cheeks.
‘What are we saying?’ Grace checked with Holly, closing the curtain and slowly pacing the narrow space between the bed and a chest of drawers. ‘We can see that they’ll use Orlando – it’s obvious what they’re doing there. But do we believe that they’ll warp and twist his mind to the point when he’ll actually try to kill Tania?’
I shuddered, trying to deny it to myself, but remembering Orlando’s frenzied, reckless actions on the way down from the overlook.
‘They could do that.’ Holly insisted. ‘They can do any kind of mind control, can’t they? They sent Orlando up the mountain. What was that all about if it wasn’t for him to snatch her and drive her over a cliff, ditch her miles from anywhere and leave her to freeze to death?’
‘Oh, please,’ I gasped. ‘We’re wasting time. All I know is, the dark angels are gathered here and we have to find Orlando and save him.’
Holly nodded. ‘So we start in the obvious place,’ she decided, opening the door on to the long, dimly lit corridor and looking both ways.
‘Which is where?’ Grace asked.
‘In Gwen’s room – wherever that is,’ Holly said.
‘She’s currently up in the penthouse with Charlie,’ Grace recalled. ‘So if we’re going to search her place, we’d better find out where she’s staying, get in there, find what we’re looking for and make it out again fast.’
Gwen Speke. Grace typed the name into the current guest list on the computer in reception while Holly and I drew Amber from her station in the main hotel lobby.
‘We have a message from Natalia and Jack,’ Holly told her. Of the three of us, she is far and away the most convincing liar. ‘They’re stressed about the weather and how soon they’ll be able to fly their family out of here. They said, could you go up to their suite in person and help them log on to the Mayfield twenty-four-hour forecast?’
Amber wouldn’t have deserted her post in reception for anyone else, but this was Jack Kane and Natalia Linton. Besides, it was a quiet Thursday evening and no guests could check in or out because of the snow.
‘You’re so damned good,’ I muttered to Holly as Grace checked Gwen’s room number.
‘210,’ Grace announced. ‘That’s the room directly below you, Tania.’
‘Make sure you click off the guest list and go back to screensaver,’ Holly reminded her as she stole a master key card from its numbered slot beneath the desk and headed for the lift.
We were up to the second floor and stepping out into an identikit corridor before we could draw breath – miles of dark red carpet, dim wall lights, door after door after door. Holly led the way, following the room numbers until we came to 210. She used the master key and within five seconds we were inside Gwen’s room.
We’re talking a room of a hundred and twenty square feet including a small bathroom off. In the main room there was a bed, a chair, a table. A floor-to-ceiling closet lined one wall.
‘Check the bathroom,’ Holly told Grace, while she slid open the closet door. Meanwhile, I sifted through the books and papers on Gwen’s bedside table.
‘He’s obviously not hiding in here,’ Grace reported as I found Gwen’s bag and checked its contents.
‘Unless the dark angels miniaturized him and locked him in this room safe,’ Holly frowned, punching random numbers and failing to crack the code.
It didn’t matter because inside the bag I found a wallet with several twenty-dollar notes and a couple of credit cards. I slid out one of the cards and read an embossed name: ‘Carrie Hall’. A driving licence gave me the same information. With fumbling fingers I unzipped the bag’s front pocket and drew out a passport, which I flipped through until I came to the name and photo. ‘Carrie Hall’ The picture showed Gwen staring stonily at the camera in an automatic photo booth.
‘Look at this.’ I showed Holly and Grace the passport. ‘What does this look like to you?’
‘It looks like Gwen isn’t who she says she is,’ Grace murmured. ‘Maybe Charlie doesn’t have a sister after all.’
‘So let’s get out of here before Gwen or Carrie or whoever she is comes back,’ Holly decided.
I stored the precious piece of information in my memory and was about to follow them out of the room when I remembered that we hadn’t checked the French windows leading out on to the narrow balcony. ‘Wait!’ I called and drew back the curtain.
A face stared in at me through the glass. I gasped then tried to make out who it was. ‘Orlando?’ I whispered, more in hope than belief.
The face was half hidden by a dark hood that came low over the eyes and a scarf pulled up over the mouth. The eyes were brown with huge pupils. It wasn’t Orlando.
The guy on the balcony drew back his hood to reveal a shaven head. He raised a hand and pushed at the window. I shoved my shoulder against it to stop him coming in. ‘It’s Weller!’ I cried.
My heart beat so loud I was sure it filled the room. Holly ran to throw her own weight against the window, but even together we couldn’t stop the intruder from forcing his way into the room. He thrust the door open and sent us sprawling.
‘Get up!’ Grace yelled from the corridor. She dashed back into the room and pulled us to our feet while Weller stood guard by the window. We scrambled up and ran out, expecting him to follow, but when we turned to check, he was still standing, hands in his jacket pockets, watching us and smiling.
We ran, our footsteps soundless on the thick patterned carpet
. We turned a corner, headed for the elevator, Grace leading us. She pressed the button, a bell rang and the lift whirred. The door slid open. Jarrold stepped out.
‘Hey,’ he said, as if we were old friends with no violent history, no dark angel baggage. He was casually dressed in dark grey combats and white T, his thick blond hair pushed back behind his ears. ‘It’s been a while.’
Confused, I managed a feeble smile then straight away regretted it.
Ignoring Holly and Grace, he came closer. ‘You missed me?’ he mumbled. ‘I’ve sure missed you, Tania.’
‘Stay away from me,’ I warned.
‘Relax, don’t be like that. I promise not to hurt you.’
Jarrold moved in closer still and for a moment as I looked into his clear grey eyes, I felt the old magnetism. I pictured him at New Dawn – tall and lithe, moody and compelling.
‘I saved your life back there by Turner Lake,’ he reminded me. ‘Doesn’t that prove that I cared?’
‘Don’t do this!’ I cried, stepping back. ‘I won’t fall for it a second time – not now that I know who you really are!’
‘Come on, you can’t help yourself.’ He grinned and took my hand. ‘You and me, Tania – we were meant to be.’
‘No!’ Breaking free, I hurried on.
Jarrold overtook me and blocked my way. His hair fell across his forehead, his breathing was quick and shallow.
I tried but I couldn’t get past him, until Grace and Holly caught up and together we shoved him to one side …
Slam – the spirit world claims me.
Jarrold morphs. His broad face narrows and darkens, his man’s body becomes wolf. He falls on to all fours, his pelt thick and dense. He is sleek and strong, his jaws snap.
Smooth hotel walls melt and we’re in a dark forest of tall black trees with wolves all around. We smell their damp fur, their stench.
Jarrold crouches, ready to pounce.
We’re in the power of dark angels but for a while Holly manages to rise above the fear. She challenges Jarrold, who lifts her off her feet and effortlessly throws her back into the shadows.