The Girl in the Wall (13 page)

“Get creative,” I say. “Like there’s tons of beauty stuff that’s lethal—hair spray and nail polish remover.”

Ariel grins the tiniest bit. “I’d definitely run from a spray bottle with nail polish remover in it.”

Hudson is starting to pace a little. “Those are really good ideas,” he says. I can’t help but grin at the compliment. “And anything sharp.”

“We have an antique letter opener that’s like a dagger,” Ariel says. “And my dad has a Swiss Army knife. I’ll get those.”

“I have a Swiss Army knife too,” I say, remembering.

“If it’s with your overnight bag they brought those to the office suite,” Nico says regretfully.

I smile, thinking of how sorry I felt for myself when I hung onto my overnight bag, knowing that someone in the class might dump it in a bathtub full of beer or something if they found it. Now it turns out my pariah status worked in my favor.

“No, it’s behind the couch in the living room. I have a travel bottle of hair spray in there too.”

“Excellent,” Hudson says, so gleefully we all laugh until Nico gestures to be quiet.

“Okay, gather all the stuff you can and leave it in the tunnel inside the bathroom grate,” Hudson says. “We’ll figure out a way to get everything right before we start. In the meantime we need to convince everyone to go along with this.”

Any last scraps of laughter fade with that remark, at least for me. Getting my classmates to just talk to me, let alone believe me, is not going to be easy. It’s possible they’ll listen to Hudson but he’s been hanging out with me so much that he might be contaminated now too.

“And I’ll organize everyone I can too,” Nico says. “We’ll time it so we all start at once.”

“They’re planning to start the fire at six so let’s start at five,” Hudson says.

“Okay,” Nico agrees, looking at the clock. “That gives us two and a half hours to get ready.”

Hudson looks at the clock too. “Two hours and thirty-seven minutes. We need to be exact.”

“Right,” Nico says, though Ariel is rolling her eyes.

Under other circumstances I might agree that he’s being uptight but not now, not with all that hangs in the balance.

“We’ll have to figure out the details of what we’ll do, how we’ll start our side of the fight,” Hudson says to me. “But I think we have an overall plan.”

“Yes, and now I need to get you both back,” Nico says.

“I’ll start collecting weapons,” Ariel says as we head for the hall. She is walking toward the entrance to the tunnels. “I’ll have them waiting for you within the hour.”

“Sounds good,” I say, and for a moment our eyes lock. There’s probably a lot to say but there’s no time, so I turn and follow Hudson and Nico.

As I go I wonder if I will ever see her again.

It turns out it’s fun to scavenge for weapons. I am looking at the stuff in my house in this whole new, totally insane way, wondering what kind of damage it can inflict. Like the chunky marble bookends from my dad’s bedroom. When thrown with force they could do real damage. And I’m all about doing damage right now.

The best part is there’s no room to think. I am too busy analyzing the tray in the guest room that has razor sharp edges and gathering up the scissors from the den utility drawer. With my mind full of things like this I can’t speculate on what has happened and what might happen next.

I haul the bookends, scissors, and my dad’s vintage golf clubs (I decided against the tray—it’s square and awkward to hold). It’s a small load but heavy because of the marble and golf clubs. I’m stocking up everything I find upstairs, then I’ll take it downstairs and start scavenging the rooms there. I already have a bounty of spray bottles filled with toxic beauty and cleaning supplies from my bathroom as well as the razor blades from my dad’s. I also include a can of shaving cream—it’s not dangerous to breathe but it would be blinding and that could be useful in a tight spot.

My last upstairs stops are my bedroom and the back guest suite. I head for my bedroom first and pause at the fireplace to make sure no one’s in there. When I see it’s empty I feel the tiniest sting of disappointment. I tamp it down fast but really it’s too late and I have to admit it, at least to myself, I was hoping Nico would be here.

I know my weird reaction to him these past hours is probably just some kind of backlash from the stress but I can’t deny that I feel safer when he’s around. Actually that makes sense because he’s probably a pretty good bodyguard. It’s the sweet, fizzy feeling I get when I think about how his eyes crinkle when he smiles at me, his eyes like honey in the sun, that is just ridiculous. So I do what I can to shove it aside and force my mind back to weapons and slide soundlessly into my bedroom. Of course a lot of my stuff was destroyed in the room itself so I head to the closet. Clothes have been thrown to the floor but most of the other things, including my endless racks of shoes, are untouched. I look at the shoes, analyzing, then grab two pairs of strappy, pointy stilettos. You could easily take out someone’s eye with the heel of one of these.

I get out the step stool and climb up to look at the shelves above my clothes. It’s mostly books and boxes of old papers, pictures from when I was little and stuff. I generally avoid looking at it because it’s depressing to think neither of my parents saved it so I had to save it myself, but now I look it over, just in case there’s anything in there that could cause damage. But books aren’t dangerous enough, not unless you sit down and read some of them, so I am about to climb back down when I notice a book I don’t recognize. It’s at the other end of the closet so I have to get down, move the step stool, and then climb back up.

When I do, I expect to pick it up and then remember what it is, but that doesn’t happen. It’s a big book with a red leather cover and I’d swear I’ve never seen it before. I am just about to open it when I hear footsteps in the hall. I freeze, but after a moment they pass. I climb down quickly, the red book tucked under my arm, and head back for the tunnels. I’ll look at it there, where I can’t be discovered.

I replace the grate behind me, then walk until I am near a grate in the hall where enough light spills in that I can see what the book is. I can also overhear something if anyone passes by. I sit down and lean against the wall, realizing how tired I am. It’s the kind of exhaustion that seeps into my bones, heavy and numbing. It’s not just that it’s late because plenty of weekends I am at parties ’til after three
A.M
. It’s what the creepy shrink I saw would call “emotional fatigue.” I rub my eyes trying to brush it off. Then I open the book.

It’s a photo album and the first page is baby pictures. It takes me a second to realize that the baby in them is me. Me on a yellow blanket wearing a onesie with a duck on it, me on the beach in a big green sunhat, me asleep on my mom’s shoulder, my little bald head tucked snug against her. On the next page I am sitting up, then crawling, in every picture a big smile on my face for the person holding the camera. In most of the shots it must be my mom, but in the ones where we are together I realize it’s possible that my dad is the one shooting the pictures.

Why haven’t I ever seen these before?

I am on the page with my kindergarten graduation (NCCD does it big so I am decked out in a one-of-a-kind designer dress) when I hear voices in the hall. I kneel by the grate to see who it is and if I can catch any scraps of conversation but the two men walking by are silent when they pass. One is an agent, the other is Owen Davis, John’s assistant. I didn’t even know he was here tonight. He must have been up in the office suite working, which is not at all unusual for a Saturday night. What bad luck for Owen to be here on
this
Saturday night.

After they pass I go back to the photo album, flipping through pages of me growing older, on the beach at St. John’s when I was seven, skiing in the Alps at ten, the trip to the Cannes film festival when I was thirteen. The older I get, the less I am smiling in the pictures. I get to the last page, which is a few shots from our last family vacation before my mom died, when we went to New Zealand and I wouldn’t even look at the camera. I vaguely remember my parents trying to get me to pose (during the few moments my dad looked up from his computer or wasn’t on the phone) but I had just started going out with Leo Chan, a junior and the center on the basketball team, and I was angry to be so far away from him over break. In fairness rightly so because he dumped me when I got back to go out with another junior whose family stayed home over break, whom he probably made out with at all the parties while I was gone. But now I kind of regret that I spent that whole trip in such a bad mood.

I am about to close the album and get on with my weapons search when I notice the back cover has a panel in it, almost like a folder, and there is something in there. It’s a thick document and when I take it out I am shocked to see it’s a copy of my dad’s will. What is it doing in here? Did my dad leave it in my closet for me to find? Honestly, that is the only explanation I can think of but it makes no sense because there’s no reason for him to want me to have a copy of it. And if he did want me to have it, why not just give it to me, why hide it?

I massage my temples, wishing my head didn’t feel like it was stuffed with cotton from my exhaustion. Every thought feels sluggish and hard to conjure up but I push myself because there has to be a reason that this album, with the will, was left in my closet.

My mind drifts back to what Sera asked me, about whether what happened in Mexico was a kidnapping attempt. As soon as she said it I knew she was right. I assumed attack and rape or whatever, but they never tried to take my clothes off and though they did beat me up, it was more to subdue me, not to inflict serious damage. Just the fact that I have no scars, at least the kind you can see, proves that. What I remember is that they came in, hit me ’til I stopped fighting, tied me up, and threw me down on the floor. I assumed that the rape would have come next if the police hadn’t barged in at that moment, but what if they were really getting ready to take me somewhere to hold me hostage? It makes a lot more sense and if I’d ever allowed myself to think about that day, I’d probably have realized it before. And my dad, who probably thought about it plenty, most likely realized it too.

After Mexico my dad got us both bodyguards around the clock and gave me a big lecture about being more careful. I assumed it was because he didn’t want his oldest daughter getting raped but it was more likely that he didn’t want to risk losing his fortune if I got kidnapped. It’s heartwarming to realize his concern was more for his money than me and I’m starting to get angry about that when I notice the album next to me, the whole reason I’m thinking about all of this in the first place. I settle myself down and focus.

If I am going to assume my dad thought Mexico was a kidnapping attempt and that he put this album in my closet for me to find, it must have been something he thought I’d need if something like Mexico happened again, but this time to him. After all, he beefed up his own security so he must have known we were both vulnerable. So even though there are copies of this will in his office and in his lawyer’s office—and that’s when I gasp.

Mr. Black died four weeks ago in a car crash and all of a sudden I realize it might not have been an accident after all. I remember my dad that night he came back from Mr. Black’s funeral, how remote he was until Marc cheered him up. Did he suspect that Mr. Black was murdered?

I’m probably going off the deep end but the more I think about it, the more I believe I’m onto something. My dad’s lawyer must have had documents that would make it hard for Marc to transfer the money to himself, so the lawyer had to go. And if my dad left me the will, then the will has to be one of those documents, something that could somehow impede Marc. I hunker down and read.

It’s on the second page. I always assumed my dad would leave the company to Marc or have it sold to the board members with the money going to Abby and me. My dad made decisions based on a business bottom line and that would be the best business choice, to pass the company on to someone who could run it in the most money-making way possible, carrying on my dad’s name and legacy while at the same time providing handsomely for his daughters. And really I never gave it much thought. I knew I’d have enough money that I could pursue whatever I felt like pursuing and what my dad did with his company was his call. Now, seeing the choice he made, has my eyes getting watery and my chest getting tight. Because my dad didn’t make the best business decision at all.

The person he named sole heir to Barett Pharmaceuticals is me.

“So how do we do this?” Hudson asks.

We’ve just gotten back to the game room and it’s time to get my classmates onboard with our plan, a task that seems even more daunting than escaping the agents. We are lurking by the sofa where no agents can overhear us, looking at my NCCD classmates who are in their spots on the sofas, a few people asleep, everyone else looking about halfway there. They are not going to welcome us into that circle.

“I’m not sure,” I say. My mouth is dry and chalky and my breath probably smells atrocious. I can’t convince anyone to believe me with breath like this. “I need some water and then we can figure it out.”

The agent who usually guards this doorway is out in the hall and he or she nods when we ask if it’s okay to go get a drink.

“I think we start by convincing one person,” Hudson says softly as I fill a glass from the big bottle of imported French water on the wooden stand by the sink.

“That makes sense but we have to wait for a chance to get someone alone,” I say, automatically checking that the agents in the doorway are too far away to hear. “Maybe we stake out the bathroom.”

I lift the glass to my lips and drink about half of it down in one gulp.

Hudson laughs, then wrinkles his nose. “You don’t want ice with that?”

“I hate cold water,” I tell him, refilling my glass.

“You’re weird,” he says in this affectionate tone that makes my heart a little fluttery. I take a long drink of water to focus firmly on reality.