Modern Wicked Fairy Tales: Complete Collection (49 page)

“Oh, I can teach you how to dive,” Andrew
assured her, his big hands smoothing lotion down Gretel’s slender
back and waist. She was leaning forward, looking back at him
through a curtain of long, red hair. “You can see so much more
wildlife—minke whales, sea turtles, unicorn fish, thresher
sharks—”

“Sharks!” Gretel exclaimed, her spine
straightening.

Andrew chuckled. “You’d be safe with
me.”

“The water is so warm.” Gretel began
lathering sunscreen over her long legs and Hans watched Andrew’s
hungry gaze follow his sister’s massaging hands. “It’s like bath
water. So amazing.”

“Wait until tonight,” Hans interrupted,
going over to his sister’s chaise and sitting down at the end by
her feet. “We’ll have a light show.”

Gretel frowned at him. “What do you
mean?”

“Noctiluca Scintillans,” he replied,
grinning at the way her nose wrinkled in confusion.

“The whatsis?” Andrew inquired, looking none
too happy about Hans’s intrusion.

“Noctiluca Scintillans,” he said again.
“They’re a bioluminescent species of dinoflagellate.”

Gretel sighed. “Can you speak English?”

“It’s also called sea sparkle,” Hans
explained. “They’re little organisms in the water that light up
whenever they sense a threat or a predator coming near. I saw them
last night—couldn’t sleep. A boat this size moving through the
water leaves a trail of light for miles.”

“Really?” Gretel perked up.

“Oh, sea sparkle.” Andrew rolled his eyes at
Hans’s technical explanation. “Yeah, you’ll like it, Gret.”

“Isn’t my grandson brilliant?” The sound of
his grandmother’s voice made Hans look up in her direction as she
came out onto the deck. She was an old woman, probably in her
late-seventies, but she moved with a grace he had recognized almost
immediately as his mother’s. She had the same warm smile and hands
and he couldn’t help softening toward her, in spite of his initial
wariness. She smiled down at him, ruffling his wet hair. “You’re
going to be a brilliant scientist.”

“He
is
a brilliant scientist,” Gretel
insisted, and Hans noticed that wary, speculative look in his
sister’s eyes. She hadn’t taken to their grandmother the way he
had, but he knew she would come around in time. How could resist
the woman’s sweet smiles and kindness?

“Aw, girls, don’t fight over me.” Hans
grinned, moving to pull a chair over for their grandmother before
her bodyguard could do it. She had two of them—Andrew was just one.
The other was an even bigger, broader fellow named, of all things,
Double, a nickname used in lieu of a real name everyone, including
Double, had probably forgotten. When Gretel had asked him, “Why
Double?” he’d rubbed a big hand over the top of his dark crew cut
thoughtfully before answering, “Probably because it rhymes with
trouble.”

Double stepped back and let Hans help his
grandmother into her chair, making sure she got settled before
taking one of his own.

“You kids look like you’re having fun,” his
grandmother noted, accepting the bottled water that Double brought
for her. Andrew seemed to have other duties, including more of the
day to day runnings of the big yacht, but Double stayed by his
grandmother’s side, always a step behind her, waiting, a lurking
shadow.

“It’s okay I guess.” Gretel leaned back in
her chaise, putting on a pair of sunglasses to hide her eyes. “But
I’m a little homesick.”

Hans gave her a pointed look, knowing
better, and Gretel backpedaled some, explaining, “I mean, I miss my
father.”

“But Andrew has been showing you around the
yacht, hasn’t he?” Their grandmother smiled, her gaze falling onto
her young assistant. “He’s a very entertaining gentleman.”

“Everyone’s been very sweet.” Gretel
shrugged, closing her eyes and leaning back, a way to excuse
herself from the conversation. Hans felt angry and a little
embarrassed at her attitude. Why was she being so ungrateful? That
wasn’t the sister he knew.

Hans tried to make up for it. “So
grandmother, Drew was telling us that you’re the largest candy
heiress in the world.”

The old woman nodded, sipping her water and
smoothing the seam on her dark slacks. “It’s true. There are a few
other candy conglomerates that have merged over the years and
threatened to surpass us, but it’s hard to compete with our
numbers. If Willy Wonka really existed, we’d crush him.”

Hans laughed at her vernacular, at the
thought of this sweet, old woman crushing anyone.

“We started mostly as a good, dark chocolate
company based here in Australia actually,” their grandmother went
on, shading her eyes and then accepting the small umbrella that
Double opened up and placed in her hands. “My father expanded the
market into Europe and even Asia, before taking on the biggest
prize of all—America.”

She leaned toward him, lowering her voice
conspiratorially. “Americans are candy whores, you know. It’s
true—much more gourmand than gourmet. They like it sweet and
simple. The sweeter the better. They turned their noses up at the
true delicacies we produced. We didn’t hit it big in America until
we started really selling sugar.”

“What do you mean?” Hans asked.

“Americans drown their sorrows in sweetness.
They numb their pain with it. They dissolve their sorrows in it.
People believe the world’s worst addictive substances are illegal,
but it isn’t true. The cigarette companies were sued for putting a
known addictive substance into their product, but no one touches
us.” She laughed, her eyes bright. “Sugar is the true white powder
of the masses.”

“And you’re profiting from it?” Gretel
frowned at her grandmother, inserting herself into the
conversation.

“Someone has to.” Their grandmother
shrugged. “We still make our delicacies, of course, but our largest
demand is for Big Sugar. Still, even as large as our empire is now,
I believe my father couldn’t have foreseen our biggest seller. In
the end, most of our profits will probably come from our actual
sugar cane crops.”

Hans looked at her, surprised. “You actually
grow the sugar cane you use?”

“Of course. We’ve genetically modified it
over the years to grow bigger—and, of course, sweeter.” She
laughed. “But now…well, we’re on the verge of something that will
make sugar cane so high in demand it will push our profits into the
stratosphere.”

Gretel lowered her sunglasses so their
grandmother could see the disapproval in her eyes. “This isn’t
enough for you?”

Their grandmother looked at her fondly. “I
just want to have something to leave my heirs, so they can pass the
family business on to their children, the way my father did to
me.”

“Too bad you couldn’t pass it on to our
mother first.” Gretel stood, grabbing her towel. “Drew, would you
like to get some lunch?”

“Sure.” He took her by the elbow and they
sailed by, Gretel ignoring the look Hans was giving her as she
passed.

“She’ll come around.” Their grandmother
sighed, looking hopefully after her granddaughter. “Hans, I have
something I’d like to show you. Would you come with me?”

He followed her, and Double followed both of
them. The main deck of the yacht, actually the middle deck,
contained all of their sleeping suites, a dining room where they
ate dinner together, a huge room with a bar and a dance floor that
Hans assumed was for parties, as well as the captain’s suite, just
behind the wheelhouse. His grandmother had invited him to the upper
deck where her private suite was planked in deep mahogany, the
floors a thick, white Italian marble. The whole suite looked out
onto the ocean with large bay windows, and it contained an office,
Jacuzzi and sauna, home-gym and even a private kitchen.

But Hans had yet to be below-deck, which is
where they were headed now. His grandmother was agile for her age,
her walk brisk down the narrow hallways. Down here was the main
kitchen and pantry, the crews’ quarters, the laundry room, the main
workings of the big boat. Hans was curious, looking around as they
passed and his grandmother pointed out the lower deck’s
features.

“I had this made especially for you, Hans.”
She stopped at a door with a small square window at the top, but he
couldn’t see anything through it, pulling out a key from her
slacks. Glancing over her shoulder at Double as she unlocked it,
she murmured to him, “Wait outside for us please.”

Hans followed her, surprised by her order,
because Double followed her everywhere, even sleeping in a small
cabin at the front of her private quarters. Andrew had his own
suite somewhere on the main deck down the hall from his own.

“What…is this?” Hans asked as his
grandmother flipped on a light overhead. The room was small but
adequate and outfitted with more scientific equipment than he could
have wished for in his wildest dreams.

“It’s your laboratory.” His grandmother
smiled at his jaw-dropping, eye-popping response. “Of course, it
isn’t come free, exactly.”

Hans surveyed the little lab, his mind
boggling at the cost invested. “What do you mean?”

“I have a project I’d like you to work on
for me,” his grandmother admitted. “If you’re interested.”

He looked at her, curious. “What’s
that?”

“Did you know that sugar cane can be used as
a renewable energy source?” she asked, watching him inspect the
microscope closest to him.

“Sure. It’s one of the cleanest burning
possibilities to create bioethanol, far above white rice or even
corn,” he replied, impressed by the microscope’s magnitude. It made
the one Gretel had gotten him look like a child’s toy. “It’s one of
the only truly renewable energy sources, because even the waste
from fermenting it makes its own biofuel. Potentially, it could
reduce gas emissions by seventy-five to ninety-five percent, at
least compared to fossil fuels.”

“That’s right. You are such a smart boy.”
She patted his cheek, her palm as soft as tissue against his skin.
“The only problem with sugar cane is the fermenting process…”

“Right.” He nodded. He’d taken several
environmental science courses already, as it was a particular
interest of his. “They use genetically engineered organisms, don’t
they? But they’ve only figured out how to ferment some of the
carbon sugars, not all of them. It slows things down a lot, I
imagine.”

“Exactly.” She looked so proud of him it
made him blush. “If we could genetically engineer an organism that
would ferment all, or nearly all, of the carbon sugar glucose in
sugar cane, we could increase production by 50% or more.”

Hans gave a low whistle. “That would push
sugar cane into the no-brainer category for use as the number one
biofuel worldwide.”

“Yes. Yes, it would,” his grandmother agreed
quietly. “Would you like to be the scientist who proved that to the
world?”

His mouth felt dry when he responded. “What
do you mean?”

“We have something close,” she admitted,
lowering her voice, although the door was closed behind them and
Double was waiting in the hallway. “Very close. But our scientists
have run into a wall. You’re such a smart boy… I was hoping maybe
you could take a look at our research for me?”

Hans stared as she pulled out a thick tome,
reams of paper, from under the lab counter. He was practically
salivating at the thought. How could he possibly resist such an
opportunity?

“Sure, I can take a look,” he said, trying
to sound casual but feeling far more eager than he was willing to
admit.

* * * *

Gretel ducked back into the laundry room,
hearing someone coming down the hallway. She knew Hans was down
here somewhere and she was determined to find him. He’d been coming
down to the lower level for over a week instead of staying topside
with her, snorkeling and swimming and sunning on the yacht’s deck.
He kept begging off, saying he was tired or didn’t feel well, but
she wasn’t buying it. He felt fine—he was just up to something.

She heard voices, a man and a woman talking.
“It’s up here, I think.”

Her grandmother had invited a
boatload—literally—of people on board for an informal party. They
were docked off the coast of Rockhampton somewhere, getting
supplies, according to Drew. Gretel smiled in the darkness, a slow
heat spreading through her at the thought of her grandmother’s
personal assistant and bodyguard.

After all, he was the biggest reason she’d
agreed to the trip in the first place, she admitted to herself. She
had found that talking to her “grandmother”—it was still hard to
call the woman by that name or even think of her in that
capacity—had brought her no answers and only more questions, but
her stepmother and even her father had insisted that the two of
them go on this little cruise with her, in spite of Gretel’s
misgivings.

Her intuition about the whole thing being a
very bad idea had been so strong, she was nearly ready to stand up
to them all, when Drew walked into the room and silenced her, at
least externally. The man who had rescued her from the cold had
turned out to be her grandmother’s right hand man, and he would be
going on the cruise with them to Australia. With that information
revealed, Gretel had then found herself in quite a quandary.

It was his quick smile and that damned
dimple that had done her in, she realized, waiting for the sound of
the drunk couple to fade down the hallway before pulling open the
laundry room door and slipping back into the corridor. There was
something about him that made her knees weak and her tummy tighten
every time they were in the same room. He’d been a fun companion,
amusing and knowledgeable and attentive. And he’d kept her safely
at arm’s length so far, in spite of her varied and many attempts to
get closer. Much closer.

She followed the curve of the hall to the
right, finding the door without a label. It had a small window at
the top but it was dark inside. This was where her brother had been
running off to, working on some “project.” But what, exactly, was
he working on? She tried the knob but the door was locked.
Damnit.
Gretel cupped her hands and peered through them into
the window.