Secrets of the Guardian (Waldgrave Book 3) (11 page)

“You don’t have to leave, Cheryl,” she began, “No one is going to make you leave or let him take you. And if you do decide to go, it’s not goodbye—I’ll come and visit you. Too much, even. Devin too, and Mrs. Ralston and Howard and Pete, and you can always come to see us. This is just an introduction.”

“What if he doesn’t like me?” She whispered. 
What if we hate each other?

At least
, Lena thought, 
I’ve lived that nightmare…

She hadn’t meant to think it where others could hear it, and didn’t think she had, but Cheryl was still watching her with interest. “I wasn’t what my mother and my grandfather wanted. I know I wasn’t. My mom still loved me, or God, how she tried to, anyway, but they didn’t want me the way I was. My grandfather was really disappointed—he told me, and mind you this was the first time I ever met him, that the only blessing I had to be thankful for was that I didn’t look anything like my dad. Believe that?”

To no one’s surprise, Cheryl nodded. Master Daray had been a terrible man, and always harshly and purposely forthright with his criticisms.

Devin came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel to get some clothes, and tried to seem as inconspicuous as possible when he noticed that Lena and Cheryl were having a serious talk. He took what he needed and headed back to the bathroom to change.

Lena carefully wiped the tears from Cheryl’s face with her fingers and then dried her hand on the pillowcase. “Well, my point here isn’t to scare you, Cheryl. It’s that I survived the worst case scenario as far as this stuff goes, and I turned out all right. I mean, I’ve wound up in some bad situations, but I’m still here. You’ll never have to go through any of that because I won’t let it happen. And you know what? You’re father isn’t a bad guy—“

“He tried to kill you once, I thought.” She said meekly, then quickly looked away.
 
That’s what they say about him. That he’s a murderer.

Lena sighed; she hadn’t told anyone, even Cheryl, about the details of this particular incident in her past, and how poor Warren Astley had become entangled in the elaborate mess that the Corbetts and Darays had propagated. The scandal had resulted in the murder of her brother, father, and presumably her grandmother and others as well, not to mention the enormous amounts of political sway that had resulted from so little being known about the culprits and situations surrounding their deaths—a huge gain for Daray, who had rallied support around the idea that Thomas had been killed by an uncaught New Faith zealot.

The Darays had been driven to extinction for creating so much trouble, and the Corbett household had come under fire and strict scrutiny for their suspected involvement in many of Daray’s schemes. Lena shuddered to think what would happen to the Astleys if anyone ever found out that Warren had not only known what was going on, but had effectively been helping. Even if Master Corbett had been threatening the life of Warren’s child, it wasn’t reason enough—the Silenti didn’t look favorably upon growing attached to anyone or anything; emotional attachment to a child one had never met bordered on ludicrous.

Lena gazed down at the comforter and nervously pulled at a loose stitch in the fabric, trying not to reveal too much. All Cheryl knew was that he had been blackmailed into doing it—Lena wasn’t of the mind that it was wise to share more than that. “For you! He did it all for you. He’s still doing it all for you, living the way he does to protect his loved ones from a Council investigation and whatever else…He’s given up his life for you, Cheryl, because it doesn’t matter who you are. He still loves you without even knowing you, enough that he was even blackmailed for it, and all he’s ever wanted to give you was what was best. He’s waited so many years just to meet you in person, and you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to, but I think it would mean a lot to him.”

Lena let herself fall quiet. Cheryl was looking up at the ceiling, thinking.

It wasn’t looking promising; she was going to feel terrible for Warren if Cheryl didn’t want to see him. All those years, waiting and hoping, only to have his own daughter turn him down. Lena decided to try one more time. “Really, you don’t have to go if you don’t want to. We can do this another time, when you’re ready. So just don’t worry about it now, and we’ll see how you’re feeling when the time comes, all right?”

Cheryl gave a slight nod, wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand, and then turned over to go to bed. Devin came back out of the bathroom and Lena went in to brush her teeth and change into her nightclothes. She turned out the lights on her way back to the bed, but none of the three fell asleep easily that night.

*****

It must have been early the next morning that Lena woke to find Cheryl missing and the sheets next to her cold. There was a chill on the air in the motel room, and it wasn’t until Lena got up to check the bathroom that she realized the motel door was wide open; cold, humid, gray morning air was ebbing through it. Lena stepped out into the not-quite-lit morning and crossed her arms against the chill, the concrete cool and gravelly with tiny pebbles beneath her feet. She turned her head right and left, and saw Cheryl, still in her nightclothes, leaning against the wrought iron railing at the far end of the walkway, staring off to the east with her back to Lena.

Lena walked toward her. The sun was just peeking over the far side of the Earth, sending multihued iridescent rays shooting off into the sky. As Lena neared her, a breeze picked up and threw Cheryl’s hair into a wide delta behind her, a few dissident beams catching in her light brown waves and making them glow.

“Cheryl?”

The girl didn’t move. “Kelsey. My name is Kelsey.”

Lena tilted her head. She looked around again, for a moment feeling that she might have stepped into another plane of existence—it felt like she was tracking Ben again; things just didn’t make sense. Cheryl wasn’t acting like herself. She looked behind her, at the motel walls and the floor beneath her feet, and finally back out at the sunrise. She stepped up next to Cheryl, and Cheryl turned her face to look Lena in the eye. Her skin was glowing with light from the rising sun.

“He’s out here, Lena.” She said with a small, hesitant smile. “He knows we’re out here, too.”

“Who?” Lena asked.

Cheryl turned back to the rising sun and took a slow, deep breath. “Rollin, and someone else. It’s better if we split up, because he’ll have more trouble finding all of us. I’m going with my father, and you’re going to South Carolina, and Devin, well…I’m not sure what’s going to happen to Devin. I think it depends what you do with the baby.”

Lena could only stare, dumbfounded, at Cheryl. She most definitely wasn’t herself; she was having an episode of some sort.

“It was a very bad idea for the three of us to come out here.” Cheryl continued. “A very, very bad idea.”

“What baby?” Lena asked.

Cheryl only smiled and shook her head. “I don’t know—the one you had in the dream. You’re a Collins as much as a Daray. You said that in the dream.”

Lena’s eyes stayed fixed on Cheryl for a moment. The knot in her stomach had eased, but only slightly; it was just a dream. Lena would have liked to believe there was nothing to it, but she had only rarely experienced real Silenti dreaming, and she knew it was powerful and revealing. If Cheryl was having Silenti dreams, there could be something to it.

“Who moved the party out here?”

Lena turned around to see Devin, bleary-eyed, messy-haired, and pulling a shirt on, walking toward them. He made an overly elaborate process out of clearing his throat, and when he got close enough, he landed both hands on Cheryl’s shoulders.

“I’m sorry, is she doing it again?” He asked, looking at Lena.

Lena was bewildered. “She’s done this before?”

“Sleepwalking outside? Sure. Rosaleen says it started when Marie left.” He gave a slight tug on Cheryl, trying to steer her back to the room.

“I’m not sleepwalking, Devin.” Cheryl peered over her shoulder at him. She suddenly became very confused. “I don’t sleepwalk.”

Devin only smiled. “Do you remember coming outside?”

Cheryl looked around, and then back up at Devin. She frowned. “No.”

“Cheryl,” Lena prompted, “Do you remember what we were just talking about? About the baby?”

Cheryl looked back at Lena. “Yes, of course I do. What am I, crazy? And I think I said I’m going by Kelsey now. It’ll make it harder for Rollin to find me after my father and I move up north. You were right, Lena. He’s a decent man.”

Their eyes met. Lena wasn’t quite sure what to do. She looked up at Devin, who was very clearly trying to keep a straight face. He sighed and looked away to keep from laughing.

“Oh, shut up! It doesn’t mean anything!” Lena said, turning on her heel to go back to the hotel room.

“You keep telling yourself that! We both know you don’t believe it!” He called after her, a small, ringing chuckle in his voice. 
I told you so!

Lena took a shower and laid back down on the bed to watch television for a while. Because they had arrived so late the night before, and Cheryl had woken her up so early, she inadvertently fell asleep and didn’t wake up again until that afternoon.

Smelling fast food, she rolled over and saw Devin and Cheryl eating fried chicken and coleslaw at the breakfast table. It took a moment for the situation to sink in. “Devin, where did that chicken come from?”

Cheryl looked over like a doe in the headlights as Devin casually answered. “From a chicken place, obviously. We’ve got mashed potatoes!”

He picked up a small, brightly colored container and waggled it at her gleefully.

“Devin, do you have permission to drive?”

He gave a moment’s mock thought. “Well, I guess not. It’s not last night anymore.”

“That’s right. It’s not.” Lena got up off the bed and started towards the pair.

Devin rolled his eyes. “You’re right Lena. Since I’m already in trouble, you should know I also put this on your credit card. And since it’s not last night anymore, how’s Griffin doing? Can we talk about revenge now?”

Lena froze in her tracks as the name escaped Devin’s lips. Devin smiled. Cheryl looked sheepish as she took another bite out of a drumstick. Lena looked from one to the other, sighed, and pulled one of the large wheeled suitcases over so that she could sit at the table with them. She picked up a piece of chicken and reached for the mashed potatoes.

“Sure. Shoot.” She said, settling for a talk that was most certainly engineered to cheer her up but probably wouldn’t.

Devin’s eyes lit up. “Okay. Okay, so here’s what we’ve got so far. We sneak into his place late some night and hog tie him with duct tape. Then we chuck him in the trunk, we get an enormous vat of cooking grease and an electric shaver—“

“Have you spoken with Howard lately?” Cheryl cut in. Devin stopped; he looked to Lena expectantly.

“No.” Lena mumbled, dunking a piece of chicken into the gravy dish and then stuffing it into her mouth. “Why?”

“I think he needs to talk to you.” Cheryl said, taking a large gulp from her soda and then staring with wide eyes. Lena shook her head slightly; it was no wonder Cheryl was awake so early and sleeping odd, cranky hours. She had hit the caffeine harder than either Lena or Devin since they had left, and she wasn’t used to it. Soda was a treat, and not a staple at Waldgrave.

A silence fell over the room as Devin glanced nervously over at Lena, waiting for the outburst. Too tired to fight it any longer, she merely grabbed her cell phone off the nightstand, found Howard’s number in the speed dial, and called it.

“This is Howard Collins.”

Lena sighed, rolling her eyes at Devin. “Hi Howard, how are you?”

He took a long time in answering. Lena was beginning to think the call had dropped when he finally spoke again.

“Have you gotten to your email yet?” He asked, his voice so low and deep that Lena wondered who was in the room with him.

“No.” Lena said, worried by the serious tone his voice was striking. “Who died?”

“I sent you some information and I’d like you to check it out if you can.” His voice dropped to a barely audible whisper. “Buy a laptop on the card if you have to. Switch hotels, and don’t keep to the itinerary. Your phone is for emergencies only.”