Momentum (4 page)

“Like I said,
that
mansion should be mine. But it isn’t. Care to tell me why?” he yelled.

I looked around; there was no one else on the beach. I shrugged.

“Well, let
me
tell
you
! When I asked the bank to transfer the money to the sellers, they said there was no money in my account! What do you have to say about that?”

Nothing? I was stunned. What the heck was going on? “I’m really sorry to hear that, but what’s that got to do with me?”

“What’s it got to do with you?” He practically spat the words. “Everything!
Your
mother sent me fake blueprints, and now my buyers won’t pay up! So, I’m stuck staying at a crummy motel when I should be living over there.” He pointed to the mansion again.

“I haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about, but let me call Mom, I’m sure she’ll sort it out.”
And haul your butt off to the police
, I thought.

“I’ve already emailed her,” he said, looking very smug. “So, as soon as she emails the authentic prints, I’ll send you back.” He paused, his smirk turning wider. “Or maybe I’ll send you back to your dad. I just have to decide
which one
,” he mused, looking decidedly evil.

Which dad
? The man had obviously gone completely nuts.

His cell phone suddenly bleeped, making him jump. He looked down at it, and then smiled at me. “In fact, this is one of them now.”

Dad? Awesome! “Can I talk to him?”

“Shush!” He put his finger over his lips. Then he walked forward toward the water, pointing for me to stay where I was. I was happy to. He was seriously scaring me. I watched him talk animatedly into the phone, gesturing generously with his free hand. It must have been good news; he smiled as he talked. Hopefully, that was Dad sorting out whatever mix-up had led me to be standing here on this beautiful sandy beach with a madman.

The call didn’t last long and, when he started walking back toward me, I felt queasy.

“He’s on his way,” Dr. Sen declared. “He’ll be here tomorrow morning.”

I immediately felt comforted, but tomorrow wasn’t soon enough. “Can’t he send whatever it is you want so I can go home now?”

“Only your mother can do that. Let’s head to my room so I can check my email.”

Not. “I’m not going to your room with you. If you try to make me, I’ll scream!”

“Suit yourself. I’m going back. Stay on the beach if you want. Look over there.” He pointed to a tree in the distance.

I shrugged. “Yeah, it’s a tree.”

“Look more carefully,” he said, sounding annoyed.

I squinted, looking at it again. There were a couple of dark shapes next to it. Two people. I couldn’t make out if they were male or female from that distance.

“They’re here to make sure that you don’t try anything stupid. Like trying to escape. There is no escape. I’m the only one who can get you back home. Stay here if you want; those two will keep an eye on you. I’m going to go back to the motel to check my email. I’ll be back later.” He turned and walked away.

I slumped down on the sand, my eyes welling up. What was I supposed to do now? What was going on? How did I even get here? One minute, I had been at the school gym with Ali and Maria and then,
swoosh
, I was in the Bahamas. Beautiful as it was, I had to find a way to get back home. Who were those two in the distance? What would they do if I tried to run away?

There was only one way to find out. I stood up and ran.

T
here were over six hundred unread emails waiting for Olivia to get through before her lunchtime meeting with Larry. It had been a dramatic week; dealing with emails had not been a priority. Even now, she felt no rush to hurry through them, feeling instead the need to reflect on the events that had turned her life upside down in the last few weeks. Not only had she been forced to accept the existence of paranormal entities, but she had also been faced with the fact that both her husband and son were not fully human. She shook her head as she absentmindedly scrolled down the messages, flagging those that needed to be dealt with. Her fingers came to an abrupt halt, the mouse arrow hovering over one particular message.

It was a message from Raj Sen. She hadn’t expected to hear from him again, not for a long time. The fake blueprints she had pawned him off with were so similar to the authentic prints that it would take him months, even years, to figure it out. What could he want now? Clenching her teeth, she clicked on the message.

I’m not an idiot. Did you really think this would work?

Send me the authentic ones. Now.
 

I have Arizona, and Dillard is on his way.

                                 
-Raj Sen

Her heart stopped. She stared at the screen. The words were simple enough, but strung together like that, they made no sense. There was no way he could have determined that the blueprints were fake, not so quickly. The alterations she had made to them were subtle, so subtle that it required actually building the portal to figure out that it wouldn’t work with those dimensions. That would have taken years. How on earth could he possibly have figured it out? However, that was irrelevant for the moment.

She picked up her cell. “Rupe, Raj has Arizona!”

There was silence at the other end.

“Rupert, are you there?”

“Ollie, I know she’s missing. I’ve been trying to find out what happened before calling you. How did you find out Raj has her?”

“You knew? How?”

“Mom’s here. She told me.”

“Amadea? What does she know about it?”

“Not a lot, so tell me how you found out first. Maybe it will help us figure out what happened.”

Olivia was frustrated. She read Raj’s email to Rupert. “That’s all I know. Now tell me what you and Amadea know.”

“Ah. So he has her,” Rupert murmured. “She disappeared from the gym at school. She was
wandered
. We didn’t know by whom, we still don’t, but now we know Raj is behind it.”

Olivia shook her head. “Are you telling me that Raj had Wanderers abduct Arizona?”

“Yes. We don’t know which Wanderers, though,” Rupert admitted. “We’re trying to figure out how Raj could get any Wanderer to do his bidding.”

“Could it have been Simla?” Although they had been assured that Simla didn’t have any wandering ability, how did they know for sure?

“We don’t think so. We’ve had her under constant surveillance, though that’s not foolproof. She’s been at school all day. She still could have done it, if she has the ability. We don’t know exactly how much she learned during her stint with Potomal.”

“Could Raj be working with Potomal?”

“Ollie, we don’t know. Come home. Kellan and David are here, so is Amadea. The Elders are on their way.”

This couldn’t be happening again. Olivia felt a sense of desperation wash over her, her stomach twisting. They had just rescued Arizona from Potomal.

Eyes blurred with tears, she could barely see the road in front of her as she tore down the highway. Why hadn’t she just sent Raj the blueprints? What was she doing driving home? She almost went into a skid as she slammed on the brakes and made a U-turn to head back to her office at Ames. A black SUV came out of nowhere and slammed into her car.

~

As Rupert put the cell phone on the coffee table, it rang again. He picked it up while motioning Kellan to answer the knock on the door. He was relieved to hear Harry’s voice.

“Dad, what’s going on?” Harry sounded distant and strained.

“Arizona has disappeared.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me. How? When?”

“Harry, I’ll explain when you get here. I need you home now. Gramadea will be over to collect you, so be ready.”

“Yeah, of course. Can you tell me anything at all? I feel sick about this.”

“I’d rather wait. It will just be a few minutes before you get here. The Elders have just arrived, so I’m going to get off the phone. See you soon.”

“Right. Bye, Dad.”

Kellan led the Wanderer Elders into the Darley living room where Ali and Maria were waiting with Rupert and David. The large wood-paneled room suddenly seemed much smaller as the group of five–Inez, Constance, Lars, Javier, and Morgana–entered.

“Rupert? What’s going on?” Constance inquired. “You said it was urgent.” She was the current Wanderer leader.

“Constance, I’m waiting for Amadea to bring Harry back and for Larry to arrive. They’ll be here soon. Shall we start without them?”

“Where is Olivia?” Inez asked. “And Ella?”

“Ollie is on her way, and I’ve arranged for Ella to go home with her friend, Sally, after school.”

Kellan got up to answer the door again. “I think that’s Dad.”

Kellan brought Larry in, and they sat down next to each other. Rupert looked around the room at the concerned faces. He would have liked to wait for Olivia and Harry to arrive, but they’d be a while, so he decided to begin without them. He took a deep breath, running his fingers through his dark hair. “Ali, Maria, please tell us exactly what happened.”

Maria, Harry’s girlfriend, sat next to him holding his hand. “We were in the gym talking, when she just disappeared. One moment she was there, and then she just faded away. There was nothing we could do. We were on our way to the school office to report it when we bumped into Kellan and David. They insisted we go with them, and they brought us over here. I’m glad we didn’t report it. When we described it to Kellan and David, it seemed exactly like what Harry had told me happened to Arizona before with the Sigma-W-Pi wandering.”

Rupert nodded. “Thanks, girls. You’re right, of course.
 
This does sound like a Sigma-W phenomenon. I know you are really worried, but I promise, we’ll take care of it. If you don’t know anything more, then you should probably go back to school. We’ll call you as soon as we hear anything.”

“Do you think we should call the cops?” Ali asked. “Surely we should if Raj is in–”