American Quest (18 page)

The library carried as comprehensive a selection as Gloria could imagine. She found the classics of course, and all her favorites, but she discovered a few indulgences, too. The types of things she read just for fun. She pored through them all, and found herself curled on the couch, lost in an illustrated vintage copy of
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
when Aaron Vance entered.

She caught her breath, suddenly self-conscious, and started for the bedroom.

“You don’t need to leave,” he said. “I would welcome your company this evening.”

She paused at her bedroom archway. A grand carved door framed him in the foyer, a door that did not exist until moments ago.

She gave a rueful laugh. “Exactly what is it you want of me? How long do you plan to keep me here?”

Vance inclined his head. “I would like to apologize. I realize the way I have handled this must seem a little extreme. You have to understand, things unfold differently in my universe.”

He gestured toward the couch where she’d been sitting. “Please, I owe you an explanation at the very least.”

Gloria’s chin pointed downward, but she allowed her eyes to lift to him. Yes, he did owe her an explanation at the very least. She stepped to the couch and sat down.

“Thank you.” Vance bowed slightly, and then walked to a panel in the wall that opened when he pushed it. A backlit selection of wine bottles formed the inner lining. He took two glasses and ran his fingers over the bottles, extracting one. He sat opposite Gloria.

“This is difficult to explain. As you might have surmised, I live in a different world.”

She allowed for a bitter laugh. “A world where doors vanish and then materialize later?”

“Something like that. I have lived long beyond what most people think is a normal lifespan. When you exist as I do, you tend not to consider minor details. What I think of as deceits of the now. In my world, I see only what is meant to be, true destiny. And in you, I feel an unusual connection. Something that occurs once in a lifetime. In a lifetime such as mine, that is saying quite a lot.”

He opened the bottle, a twenty-year-old Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, and poured two glasses.

Gloria shook her head. “No, thank you.”

He shrugged, having already poured, and lifted his own crystal to his lips. “I realize in retrospect that I may have come off as abrupt in seizing upon what I saw as destiny.”

“In other words, you’re still asserting that the end justifies the means.”

“But it does, my dear. It is like pulling a bandage from a healing wound—a necessary step in the process. Better to do it quickly.”

“Perhaps. Except for one thing. My destiny is with Bruce.” She lifted her hand and showed him her engagement ring.

Vance set his glass on the table. “I understand that you believe that to be true. I only wish you could see the world from my vantage point. What you thought was your destiny is simply a deceit of the now. You will come to understand your new path. You were always meant to be with me, Gloria.”

“If you truly believe that, then let me go.”

He stared at her, silent.

She gave a rueful shake of her head. “That’s what I thought. How can you possibly pretend to know my destiny? I have created my life exactly how I want it, Aaron. I’ve worked hard to get a job at Woven Hillside that gives me both professional and personal satisfaction and gives something meaningful to the world. I am in charge of my own destiny.”

Before she realized what she was doing, she put the glass to her lips and sipped. The wine felt like velvet and tasted of cherries and Asian spices. And the scent of it! A perfumed bouquet that imparted a beautiful swimming sensation.

She would not take another sip. Absolutely not.

She looked at him. “My destiny is my own. And I am in love with Bruce. We’re going to be married.”

Vance set his glass down on the table. A smile—or was that a smirk—played at his eyes. He seemed confident in some cache of knowledge that lay beyond her grasp.

He evened out his expression and looked at her. “You will find soon enough, my Gloria, that Bruce is no longer an option.”

“SO WHAT, YOU JUST RIDE around the US collecting people? You’re like human flypaper or something? Never thought I’d be so excited to be a fly. Mama always said my bug-eyes would come in handy some day.”

Bruce smiled at Shannon. The DJ was nervous, and why shouldn’t she be? She’d just agreed to help track down a love-killing monster. They were crunching through the moonlit gravel parking lot to the van to make a grocery run for the next day while Forte packed up his equipment.

Jamie clicked the unlock button on the keychain and they climbed inside.

Bruce nodded at Shannon. “You were great up there tonight. We couldn’t stop laughing.”

She sparkled. “Thanks. Wasn’t expecting that little impromptu sesh. Thought I was just gonna introduce my boyfriend and that would be that. But they had some kind of technical problem and I just had to wing it.”

Bruce laughed. “The kitty tic-tac-toe thing? You didn’t plan that?”

She put her hands up. “It really just happened yesterday! Not quite that way, but I hammed it up a bit. Just kind of let go and said the first thing that popped into my mind.”

“You must have done stand-up before.”

“I’ve done a bunch of local gigs. The cats out here in Michigan are
so good. They’re real loyal, so I usually have an audience. But life happens. My world changed. I couldn’t do the stand-up thing anymore, so I stick with the radio station. It’s nice and steady.”

“Why couldn’t you do stand-up?” Jamie said.

Shannon inclined her head. “Ah . . .” She looked away. “My mama got sick. I was the only one who could look after . . . she . . . she . . . got real sick.”

Jamie’s eyes softened. “I’m sorry. Is she okay now?”

Shannon looked back at her with a pain that brightened her eyes as if it were fresh. “I lost her. She’s gone. Couple of months ago.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay. It was good. She’s not suffering anymore. Anyway, Mama was the real theatrical one. She was brilliant! She taught me the thing about how to open up your mind and just improv the funny. Just let the funny roar! So when things go down and I gotta tap dance a little onstage, I don’t sweat it. That’s what happened tonight.”

Jamie gave her a sidelong look. “The injurious aspect, the evil eye?”

“Oh, that!” Shannon put a hand over her mouth. “Don’t know where that came from. That’s Mama’s trick I use with improv. You just kind of open your mind and let whatever comes flow through you. Usually, it comes out funny! But that thing about the evil eye—I don’t know, I guess the method kind of backfired.”

Bruce looked at Jamie, then back at Shannon. “Did you hear it somewhere before?”

She shook her head. “Just automatic talking. No compass, no map.”

They pulled into the parking lot of the twenty-four-hour grocer and hopped out.

“Well I’m so glad you’re coming with us,” Jamie said. “How long have you and Charles been seeing each other?”

Shannon looked up at the stars. “We met at a Cinco de Mayo fiesta last year. He was doing a gig up here and I was totally blown away. I see a lot of artists in this business, but he’s a legend in the making. Anyway, the night I met him after that first show, he was having a hard time. Nothing real serious, just something happened that upset him. Something about Led Zeppelin that he doesn’t like to talk about. I guess I was just the only one around that he could decompress with. For whatever reason, he and I connected.”

She closed her lips over a smile that became suddenly shy. “He comes up here to Ann Arbor whenever he can. We talk on the phone a lot and, you know, it’s nice to have someone to text at night.”

Bruce watched her curiously.
Cinco de Mayo a year ago, Gloria and I found each other for the first time
. “What exactly happened that night you met?”

“I don’t know. He never really wanted to talk about it. But I’ve been opening my show with ‘Stairway to Heaven’ ever since.”

“Must be hard,” Jamie said. “Being apart all the time.”

Shannon nodded. “Yeah. But he’s a road warrior and I . . . I just couldn’t do that. Not with Mama. But now . . . I just haven’t pulled it together after that, not yet. The morning radio show’s good for me. And emceeing at the clubs. Keeps me swingin’. I just wish Charlie weren’t gone so much.”

Shannon breathed deeply and clapped her hands together. “And apparently he can talk me into anything, because here I am! Hope you guys don’t mind another backseat driver on your road trip.”

“I need you to contact someone for me.”

Sileny backed away from her, shaking her head.

“Please, Sileny, you’re my only hope!”

Sileny moved her hands rapidly. She made a V with her two fingers at Gloria’s eyes and then pointed forward.

Gloria felt tears welling and her voice caught. “You don’t understand. My fiancé is worried about me. I have been missing for days and he’s probably frantic. I have to tell him where I am so he can come for me!”

Sileny shook her head vigorously, closing her eyes.

“You have to help me! I’ve tried everything, but I can’t get out of here!”

Sileny grabbed Gloria’s hands and pulled her to the settee. She
smoothed Gloria’s hair, and once again her hands advised her to keep looking forward, to never look back.

“I can’t,” Gloria wept. “You don’t understand. Bruce is my life. If you could just tell him—”

Sileny’s hands flew. Gloria did not understand.

Sileny sighed, looking away. She sat still for a moment, and then used slow, deliberate gestures.

Gloria watched. “You never leave here, either?”

Sileny pointed to her own face.

Of course she didn’t leave. She didn’t have a mouth. Here, where the unusual prevailed, Gloria no longer thought anything of it. But out in the world, Sileny would not be able to function.

“No e-mail, or even snail mail?”

Sileny shook her head. She pointed at herself, and then down at the floor, and Gloria understood. Whether by choice or by dictum, Sileny wandered no farther than Gloria did. Gloria wondered if the poor soul even had a friend on this Earth.

She turned from her, feeling tears come to her eyes. She stared into nothingness. “If only I could see him. Just for a moment. Just look at him. I think it would give me the strength I need.”

Sileny breathed deeply, and then nervously tapped her knuckles to her head.

She breathed in sharply as if making a decision, and bent to rest her forehead for a moment on Gloria’s. She raised a finger to tell her to wait.

Gloria blinked tears at her. “Sileny?”

Sileny strode to the door and opened it, slipping through. Before the door closed behind her, Gloria could hear voices. One of them sounded like Vance’s. But the moment the door shut, all sound outside her room disappeared.

The strangeness of it unsettled her. They occupied a penthouse flat, yet it seemed in another dimension. Closed doors meant more than a barrier to the next room, and beyond the outer walls lay something much more distant than neighbors. The structure rested at the topmost floor, but Gloria would have expected to hear something of the outside. Music, or structural sounds at least, like plumbing or an elevator chime.

But no, nothing.

Sileny opened the door and again came the sound of voices, this time agitated.

How many times would Gloria wonder about Vance’s daily life? Before, her life had been simple: go to work, come home. Now her routine moved with even greater simplicity: read; wait for Sileny or, if she felt she could brave it, Vance.

The door closed and the voices vanished. Sileny sat down next to Gloria on the settee. She slipped her hands under her apron and withdrew a dagger.

Gloria gasped.

She looked up at Sileny and saw her watching her intently, face angled in smooth lines but for her enormous eyes and the mole at her cheek.

Sileny placed the dagger in Gloria’s hands. Her fingers made the V at Gloria’s eyes, but instead of pointing forward, she pointed back. She then raised the dagger before Gloria’s face.

Gloria understood. She breathed deeply, thinking of her life before she met Aaron Vance. How she went to work every day at Woven Hillside, met with clients, and raised funding for projects that gave her a great deal of satisfaction.

The dagger gleamed silver, a ruby-eyed dragon with emerald scales snaking the hilt.

Sileny’s fingers brushed Gloria’s lids and she closed them. Gloria thought of Bruce. Bruce walking her to work. Making her laugh. Holding her hand.

She opened her eyes.

The dagger gleamed before her. And in the shining surface of the blade, she saw no reflection of the room. Instead, she saw Bruce.