The Deception Dance (22 page)

Maybe he honestly thinks Chauncey slinking away in the night was for
the best. I could understand if he told her she should leave because
he thought her a deceitful, double-crossing psycho, I didn’t
exactly want to snuggle up to her either. But, what if his
motivations weren’t that innocent? Andras’s words
wouldn’t leave my mind and I had shivered away from Nicholas’s
gaze.

The moment Nicholas retreated from the room, Linnie shook her head
and grumbled, “I bet they didn’t even look.”

So, now the plan is Linnie will drive the Vespa to Malmo early
tomorrow morning to search, while I stay at “home-base”
in case Chauncey returns.

Probably more from exhaustion than any argument on my part, Linnie
submits to waiting until the morning and eating dinner. She passes
out before nine, fully-clothed and mid-sentence.

I lie down, intending on waking to see my sister off at dawn. I
shift, then shift again, then mouth the word ‘lucky’ over
and over into the dark. Rolling onto my stomach and grumbling into my
pillow gets me no closer to sleep.

Incomplete thoughts and memories dance through my mind in a chaotic,
not choreographed, disjointed mess.
I’m slipping Linnie,
slipping through the stone... There is a very bad man looking for you
and if you leave the protections that are around you now, he will
find you...
Y
ou’re so lucky Raven. I hate you. A good
looking boy except for a scar that ran across his entire face…
The infernos closing in...

His nose touches mine; it’s crooked on his face, it’s
been broken, a couple times. Unkempt blond hair falls past his ears.
He’s lying on me, weight unfelt by my dream body. The face is
so familiar, though I’ve never seen it with my waking eyes. But
his blazing green eyes mark him as unquestionably, undeniably Andras.

“Say it again,” He whispers into my neck.

I laugh, “I love you, Andras.” As in my other dreams, we
again speak Swedish.

“For how long?”

“Forever,” my response is automatic.

He pulls up to look at me. I’ve never seen a more attractive
face, it’s not quite symmetrical, not in the way that the
waking Andras is, but faultless. He smiles revealing a little gap in
his front two teeth, “What about when we die?”

“Then we will be together forever in heaven...”

“Sinners like us? What if I go to Hell?” He smiles and
kisses the tip of my nose.

“I’ll follow you and challenge the Devil...”

“You would follow me to Hell?”

“Yes, I’d drag you out.”

“Do you promise?” He asks.

“Yes,” I say.

His smile broadens before he kisses me deeply. Even in sleep the kiss
ignites my entire body and leaves me gasping for air. His fingers
wrap around the back of my neck and I feel a sudden pulse of heat,
but it’s only for an instant; I blink and the heat is replaced
by his fingers’ soft caress. His lips brush against mine as he
says, “I will keep you, forever.”

My eyes snap open as the cogs of my mind click into place.

Nicholas, his brothers, their grandfather, this house, our invite
here, Chauncey, her madness, her tattoo, they’re all connected
somehow. And Andras, he’s part of it too; he’s against
it. Mrs. Trandle was warning me, trying to keep me from someone in
this castle. And my mind fixes, my thoughts fix on Tobias
Leijonskjöld with a cold dread.

What did they do to Mrs. Trandle?

Andras knows something, he must know. And, he is convinced they’d
go to any length to keep us here, he was afraid that they’d
even harm us.

Stephen wouldn’t tell us about the security system. What if
they trapped us in here? It would be as easy as denying our thumb
prints to open the doors...I could probably climb over a wall but not
without people noticing me.

Thinking about Stephen going after Mrs. Trandle is the worst,
creepiest part of this. For some reason, I trusted him above anyone
else here, felt as if somehow we were the same. Ha, teaches me.

I need to talk to Andras. There are too many questions and only one
source where I’m going to get any honesty.

The room is still dim but when I turn my head I can see my sisters
open eyes. She whispers in a raspy voice, “You’re awake?”

The question needs no answer but I say, “Yeah... Linnie, I’m
going with you, when you leave for Malmo.”

She furrows her brow. “You’re going to Malmo?”

I shake my head ever so slightly then sweep the room with my gaze and
land my attention back on her. I hope she understands what I’m
trying to say with my gesture: that they might be listening to us.
Okay, so I’m getting a little paranoid.

But, obviously she is too because she says a little louder than
necessary, “of course you may come with me to Malmo, two is
better than one for searching.” She bobs her brows and narrows
her eyelids into a ‘what’s going on?’ look.

I choose my words with care, “there are questions we need
answered, and the only way I’m getting answers, is if I leave
with you.”

Day Twenty-Nine

“Run away with me.”

I smile and ask, “Where would we go?” I roll over so my
cheek rests on the soft material separating me from Andras’s
stomach. The sun lights a white line from his chin to black hair
falling over his forehead as he faces the calm fragrant ocean. In
this position the uneven surface of the rock digs into my shoulder so
I sit up but turn away from the sea to face him.

“Burma, Cambodia, Thailand. We’ll discover ancient jungle
temples and live among the macaque monkeys.”

I huff out a breath and shake my head. “I thought you wanted to
be windsurfers in South Africa?”

“That was yesterday.”

“Grizzly hunters in Canada...”

“The day before.” He sits up, his shoulder brushes
against mine as he leans in and nips at my lower lip. “You are
tempting me to just take you, no matter what you say.”

“No… I still can’t run away with you, I have
college, and my family. Anyway, we’re supposed to be talking
about what Nicholas and his brothers are up to.” I nudge his
shoulder with mine. “It’s been seven days; you said you
would tell me.”

He slings his arm around my shoulder squeezing me into him. I inhale
his familiar musky scent as he whispers into my hair, “I do not
want to talk about them. Not when you refuse to leave their
castle
.”

I bite my lip. This morning I promised myself that today he would
tell me everything, I would
make
him. Linnie has snuck me out
to meet Andras every morning of this week, and always I tell myself
‘
today’;
but each time I dismount from his sleek
black motorcycle at the Kullenberg nature reserve and look into his
blazing green eyes, my resolve melts.

Even though there is little space on our stone outcropping I force
myself to scoot out of his embrace. “You already know that it's
Linnie, not me, who refuses to go. And anyway, I can't convince her
to leave unless you tell me what they're up to. Please, tell me, what
do they want?”

The side of his mouth turns up and his jewel eyes twinkle as he
answers, “To kill me.”

I cough to clear my throat. “Kill...
kill
you? They kill
people?” I wrap my arms around my stomach. “Nicholas told
me they did some kind of security...”

“Killing, maiming, torturing, training others to kill, it’s
all part of their work. I promise you this is the truth.”

“That’s their secret; they’re what, like, contract
killers?”

“That they are killers is, I am sure, only part of what they
hide from you.”

"Oh my god, they killed Mrs. Trandle, my neighbor." I fold
up my legs. “Oh, god.”

Andras embraces me around the shoulders again. “Do you see,”
he whispers, “Why I didn’t want to talk about them?
Discussing these terrible things will only make you unhappy.”

I turn my head so our noses almost touch. My voice sounds anxious,
“But why do they want Linnie and me? What purpose does keeping
us there serve? Are we in danger? Would they hurt us?”

“Hmm,” Andras’s hum is a low rumble from the back
of his throat. “You care about your sister, Linnie, most?”

I shrug; qualifying quantities of love is difficult, messy and
unnecessary. “I’m close to my dad, too.”

“I would like to get to know your sister.”

I kiss Andras so I don’t have to respond. He’s not the
only one who can be evasive. Our light kiss turns deep and urgent and
soon Andras has rolled on top of me and our bodies are twining
together. He breaks away and I raise my head not wanting our kiss to
end.

“How about tonight?”

I lie back with a fuzzy mind. “Tonight?”

“Your sister and you driving out to dine at my friend’s
house in Hoganas?”

“Oh,”
that.
“I’m not sure that would
work. The brothers have probably already planned out dinner, I don’t
know.” Nighttime is when I do damage control with Nicholas and
his brothers. Thankfully, Nicholas, Albert and Tobias have been holed
up every day this week with their grandfather on ‘business’,
but I still need the evening hours to convince Nicholas that I’ve
been searching with Linnie at her various destinations. And even
though I’ve been acting out a pretty spectacular performance,
his questions have turned from probing to downright suspicious.

“Your sister does not want to leave the mansion, yes?” He
punctuates each word with a soft kiss on my neck sending tingles
throughout my body.

“Yes,” I breathe as I tilt my head back exposing my neck.

“I can try to convince her. Is that not what you want? If you
are in their house, their grounds, they can easily control you.”

I close my eyes. “Yes, that’s what I want.”

“Then you will persuade your sister to dine out with you in
Hoganas tonight, to relieve her stress over her missing friend. You
will drive her to the Hotell Trädgård Visa at seven, where
I’ll meet you and take you to my friend’s house. And I
promise that I will attempt with all my powers of persuasion to
convince your sister to leave Leijonskjöld castle and all the
dangers it holds.”

I brainstorm a few objections but he’s right, that’s
exactly what I want; to get Linnie ‘
the heck out of dodge’
(as my father would say). “Okay, I’ll bring her. But...”
I glance at my watch, “We have to go now; we’re late,
again.”

The descent off the boulder is easier this seventh time, though still
tricky and I jump the last few feet. Andras lands next to me an
instant later. Thankfully, we’re the only people in this part
of the nature reserve, because of the embarrassing amount of ‘public
displays of affection’ (PDAs) we were having on the rock.

PDAs don’t seem to bother Andras; he winds his fingers through
mine and pushes me against the boulder.

“Late... we’re late,” I laugh and slide out, but I
don’t release his hand, I use it to drag him behind me.

By the time I tow Andras to his motorcycle and we zoom to the
rendezvous spot, Linnie’s waiting with her helmet in her hands.
I take off Andras’s helmet as he drives up beside her. She’s
slumped forward on the bike and doesn't look up as she raises her
fingers to half-heartedly return Andras’s wave while he takes
off.

Why didn’t I get more information from Andras? Now I’m
late to meet her with nothing I can report about Chauncey. A queasy
mass of snakes writhe in my stomach as I walk toward her.

She looks more dejected than yesterday, and yesterday she was
miserable.

“Hey,” My voice comes out small. “How was
Copenhagen?”

She exhales before saying, “Not any better than Malmo, or
Helsingborg, or Lund, or anywhere that I can drive to in a day.”
I can’t see her eyes but I bet she’s blinking back tears.
“People either don’t understand me or don’t care.”

“Hey,” I say, sitting on the seat behind her and wrapping
my arms around her waist, “Maybe Nicholas will have news.
Stephen is still out there, looking.”

I can feel her sniff through my hands on her stomach. “Maybe, I
doubt it,” she mumbles. “How about you? Did you find out
anything?”

My chest constricts, pushing the air from my lungs. I squeak out,
“Not about Chauncey. He told me...”

“It’s okay.” She pivots in her seat. “No
seriously, Raven, it’s okay. Even if you don’t learn a
thing that helps me find her, I won’t be mad.”

I squish my face into her back. “Really?”

“Yeah,” she doesn’t sound pleased but she’s
being sincere. “I thought it a long-shot this Andras, would
know anything. And, I’m dubious of your whole conspiracy theory
about everyone plotting against us.”

I correct a little self-deprecatingly, “Incomplete conspiracy
theory, but...”

“You don’t need excuses with me to see this guy. When he
drops you off, there’s a glow in your cheeks I’ve never
seen you have before. So, it’s okay.” She lifts her
helmet then pauses. “And besides, Chauncey was awful to you.”
Understatement of the year
.

“I’m still trying to find her,” I say into Linnie’s
jean jacket as the scooter purrs to life. Our rendezvous point is
only a three minute drive to the front gate and enclosing wall of
Leijonskjöld castle; too short to really tell Linnie about what
Andras told me. The constricting feeling returns as I flatten my
thumb on the scanner and the gate swings open.

Killers.
Killers?
Why didn’t I ask for more details? Who
do they kill? What kind of killers are they? Contract killers?
Espionage killers of the double-O 7 variety? Cold-blooded murderers?
Well, they would have to be organized murderers …

Jeez, what’s wrong with me? Does it matter? They
kill
people.

I tremble and not from the wind whistling past my light sweater.
There is one thing I need to do and that is: get Linnie out of this
compound and away from these dangerous (possibly homicidal) men. As
we drive up to the house I’m surprised to find Nicholas waiting
for us on the front step.