Page 7

7

The Distasteful Business of Walking, Talking Lies

M agnum Chase’s latest round of revelations detonated like a bomb inside the limo. It took my friends and I several speechless minutes to process the settling mushroom cloud. Not only had our supposed parents lied to us, they were actual walking, talking lies themselves. Assuming we believed the megalomaniac who’d murdered every single one of us, of course. Strangely, his “the devil you know” argument was working on me. No doubt he was a Hollywood 101 classic villain, down to the obscene wealth, perfect good looks, dubious moral compass, and penchant for monologues.

When the five of us eventually stumbled from the limo, Chase was gone—along with one of the Escalades. A woman stood waiting for us while consulting a tablet. An eight-seater cart—so shiny and crisp it had to be new—idled quietly beside her, a fresh driver behind the wheel. The other remained with the limousine.

The woman appeared to be in her mid-sixties, with a face that was fresh and only lightly lined, and a lithe body that suggested a lifetime of exercise. Her hair was a soft, silky silver that feathered around her face and shoulders in the way only expensive haircuts could achieve. But unlike Chase, who could have walked off the cover of GQ with his crisp business-casual clothes and impeccable grooming, she wore a brightly-flowered maxi skirt that revealed Birkenstock sandals beneath the ankle-length hem—no socks, thank the gods of fashion blunders—and a tailored navy-blue blazer that accentuated her slim frame.

She held up a finger to us while her eyes finished skimming across whatever was on her screen. Then her no-nonsense expression softened as she took us in.

Usually, we weren’t prone to bunching together. Normally, no matter what the situation, despite our lifetime friendships, we usually stood apart as individuals. Thrived on it. But we’d never survived our deaths before having Chase go all kaboomy on us.

Griffin’s arm looped around my waist, pulling me close. And Layla looped her arm through mine on the other side, hooking her left arm through Brady’s. Hunt stood so close to Brady that their arms touched.

Stunned as we were, the message was clear: whatever we were about to face, whatever shit was going to keep coming at us, we were going to take it on together.

The woman tucked the tablet under her arm and frowned. “I see Magnum has had his usual effect on you. I’ll have to have a word with him about that.”

Moments before, I would have thought nothing else had the potential to surprise me this afternoon. But my eyebrows arched of their own will, and she chuffed.

“I’ve known Magnum since he was younger than you all,” she offered by way of explanation. “I’m Frances Leeman, but don’t you dare call me that, or worse”—she shuddered—“ ma’am . You can call me Fanny.” She smiled, and the sincerity of it lightened a weight that had been pressing on my chest without my awareness. I pulled in a deep breath, and Griffin tugged me even closer against his side.

“I’m Magnum’s executive assistant. I realize this is likely an unsettling time for you, and I’m here to help and guide you. Whatever you need, whenever you need it, you come to me. I’ll make sure you’re taken care of. Think of me as your cool, fun aunt, the one you trust to hear you out without judgment. Believe me, not even Magnum Chase himself has always been this put-together. We’re all allowed a few bumps in the road.”

She studied us. “From the look of you all, I’m thinking this is more than a bump. More like a huge pothole.”

“You can say that again,” Layla muttered.

“Well, don’t you worry yourselves any more than you need to. Everything’s going to get better from here on out.”

I chortled softly, resigned to the fact that our resistance wouldn’t do much to help us now. “Are you aware that your boss killed us all?”

Again, Fanny frowned. “I am, yes. Very regrettable, that. Distasteful business.”

As one, we all chuffed or snorted. Shaking his head, Griffin grumbled, “Distasteful business …”

“Yes, Griffin, distasteful . If it were up to me, none of that would have happened. But I don’t get to make the decisions around here, Magnum does. My job right now is to make things better for you, now that Magnum has set us on the course he’s chosen.”

Oh-kay . So Fanny wasn’t the enemy. Maybe she could even be an ally to a certain degree when Magnum was calling all the shots of any significance.

Fanny’s astute attention zeroed in on Hunt. “I hear you’re carrying. Do I need to be concerned about my safety or that of my team?”

Unblinking, Hunt stared back at her. “Not unless any of you plan on hurting my friends or me. In which case, I won’t hesitate to shoot to kill.”

She tsked . “Dear me, no. Think of me as your fairy godmother, one who hasn’t yet sprouted wings, and not for lack of trying, let me tell you.” She chuckled to herself, alone in her joke. The driver pretended not to hear a thing she said, his gaze pinned ahead down the winding road that appeared to lead farther onto the campus.

Oh-kay . So Fanny was a weird one. It only made me like her. Even my reaction to this disarming woman was probably part of Chase’s plan. I had to remember: we were in the alpha wolf’s den now. This campus, whatever it actually was, was Chase’s territory.

Fanny hopped onto the open bench seat directly behind the driver and patted the empty spot beside her. “Come. I’ll show you around. I think you’ll begin to relax once you see the lovely campus Magnum has built for you all. And then, when you’re ready, I’ll take you to your new home, where you can get cleaned up and into fresh clothes, then eat and rest.”

New home . The phrase knelled like a bell in my mind, its pitch not quite right. The Periwinkle Hill neighborhood still felt like home even though one fact had already become abundantly clear: neither I nor any of my crew had a true home to return to.

Whatever future we were going to have, and wherever we were going to have it, we’d be building it together.

The “school” consisted of seven buildings connected by a network of sidewalks. It was edged by dense forest on all sides. Manicured foliage accentuated every walkway, flowerbed, and hundreds of planters, though not even Chase’s seemingly limitless funds could urge the plants to grow any faster than the starters most of them still were. The cluster of structures squatted in a shallow valley, the typical hills and mountains of Ridgemore hiding it from view. Unless someone was positioned just right—doing a fly-by or atop the peak of a neighboring mountain—I doubted anyone would know the institute existed. I suspected that was part of the location’s appeal.

The three largest buildings were situated in the center. In the middle was the academic building, which put Ridgemore High to shame with its gleaming surfaces, elegant minimalist design, and state-of-the-art tech with half a dozen classrooms, two student labs, and an auditorium. A physical training center that had me all but drooling stood to one side of the academic building. It had enough exercise equipment to accommodate an entire football, soccer, and baseball team at the same time during peak training season. It boasted a pool that was half-Olympic-sized (which made it far larger than any other swimming pool in Ridgemore), and hot tubs and saunas in both the women’s and men’s locker rooms. Best of all, it had a vast open space with high ceilings, climbing ropes hanging from them, and vertical obstacle courses. The floors were lined with sparring mats, and one entire wall was adorned with weapons of all sorts, from practice wooden swords and staffs to actual lethal katanas and nunchucks, plus a bunch of tools the lot of us, as obsessed with “ninja” training as we were, had never seen. Once our bodies finished recovering from being shot and killed, I guessed we’d be spending most of our free time here. If Chase was planning to offer us true ninja training, complete with competent instructors, then we might just be getting cozy with the damn devil. He’d killed us all, but at a facility like this we could train to never be prey to his ilk again. We could actually learn to master whatever power immortality granted us.

On the other side of the academic building sat a co-ed dormitory with an amazing recreation center that took up most of the ground floor. There were nooks with cushy couches; pool, foosball, and ping-pong tables; giant TVs and game consoles. I had to keep my jaw from dropping yet again when I spotted a three-lane bowling alley along the back length of the rec center. It was a co-ed’s dream—assuming whoever was intended to use this room didn’t have to die to get here like we did. When we’d asked Fanny if we were going to be living in the dorms, she’d assured us that Magnum had built something special just for us.

I was all for being special, fuck yes. But despite all this luxury, I wasn’t sure I enjoyed being special to someone like Chase.

The laboratory facility for his scientists was almost as large as the training center, and I couldn’t help but note how Fanny’s tour of the structure was more superficial than any other campus building before it. Individual labs of all kinds and sizes lined multiple hallways, and when Fanny led us into the elevator, a sensor in the keypad required her key-pass to access any level beyond the ground floor. Above ground, the building appeared to have three levels. Of course, I couldn’t be sure, but my love of books and movies told me a baddy like Chase would totally have a few levels of underground secret labs. That’d be where all the really bad shit happened. If he’d had no problem openly gunning down a bunch of teenagers, at a busy high school no less, I didn’t want to begin to ponder what kind of activities he might deem worth hiding. I really didn’t.

Rounding out the campus was a dormitory for the scientists and other employees, who apparently wouldn’t be leaving the campus either (there was a dining hall and a store for snacks and small, miscellaneous items—no payment required for any of it), and an administration building. Chase’s office comprised the entire top floor of the three-story admin building, but Fanny didn’t take us up there.

Across all of it, the branding that was ubiquitous in every other educational or corporate building I’d ever been in was glaringly absent. If Chase hadn’t announced this was an institute for the advancement of immortals, we wouldn’t have known it. Evidently, huge amounts of money did succeed in buying quite a lot of secrecy, even in a town like Ridgemore, which was as fond of its gossip as any other standard small town.

Fanny had informed us that our tour was over and we were heading to our new “home” when her tablet pinged. Her mouth pinched when she glanced at it. Given that so far she was the closest thing to an ally we had here, I didn’t like her reaction.

While replying to the message, she told the driver, “Don, change of plans. One final stop before we head to the house: the office.”

Don, who was a middle-aged man with a military haircut and bearing, swerved into an immediate U-turn and then sped up, driving us back in the direction we’d come from.

When Fanny looked up at us, for the first time her smile was forced, and that was after she’d admitted to knowing Chase had murdered us.

“Where are we going now?” Hunt asked.

“To see Magnum. He has something he wants to show you before we call it a day.”

The sun was getting lower in the sky, and my empty stomach had been loudly reminding me I hadn’t eaten since I’d died—at the hands of this guy. As often as I could, I reminded myself of the kind of person we were dealing with here. We might not be prisoners, but he’d also admitted he wouldn’t let us go willingly.

“That sounds ominous,” Layla told Fanny.

Fanny shifted on her seat, crossing her ankles. “Yes, well, with Magnum, things often appear that way. You’ll get used to it.”

Would we, though? And if we did, how could that possibly be a good thing?

“Any more questions while we drive there?” Fanny asked, putting more effort into her smile.

“Yeah,” Griffin said. “Who else will be here with us?”

“The staff, obviously. But as to fellow students, you’re the first to arrive. You’re Magnum’s priority.”

She consulted her tablet again.

“And what kind of student does Magnum anticipate bringing here?” Griffin pressed.

She looked up. “Others like you, obviously.”

“How many others like us are there?” Brady asked.

“Not many. None exactly like you, anyhow. But Magnum is resourceful. I’m sure he’ll find what he needs. Eventually, anyway.”

“I’m just sure he will,” I muttered.

When she only returned to her tablet, far less forthcoming with this line of questioning, I said, “The campus looks pretty complete from what we saw. What’s missing?”

“Security, definitely the security.” She nodded for emphasis. “And then small details, lots of those too. But don’t you worry, Magnum won’t let anyone get to you.”

“Oh, we’re not worried about that,” I quipped. “He’s the one we’ve been trying to get away from.”

Fanny stared at me for a beat, blinked, then finally said, “A piece of advice?”

“Sure, why not?”

“It’s far easier to go along with him.”

“You do recall he killed us, right?” Layla asked.

“Yes, but you came back, and he knew you would. Heed my warning. Fight him and it won’t go well for you.”

“It’s already gone about as bad as it can for us,” Brady said.

“No, Brady, it hasn’t. Trust me on this. Go along with him and you’ll get something good out of it. Don’t, and … well, just go along with him.”

“Oh, we’re here! That was quick, Don,” she said in a high pitch I didn’t like.

“Don’t wanna keep the bossman waiting,” replied Don, his back ramrod straight behind the wheel.

“No, we certainly don’t,” Fanny said, hopping from the cart with an agility I was loving in the older woman. Her tablet once again tucked under her arm, she gestured with both hands for us to hurry.

It only made the five of us slow down to a crawl.

Fanny narrowed her eyes at us.

“What?” Layla said. “We’re all injured. Your boss fucking had us shot.”

“Five times each,” Brady emphasized.

Our steps slowed even further.

By the time we reached the top floor, the formerly self-proclaimed “cool, fun aunt” was impatiently tapping a foot, the heel of her Birk flapping. She used her key-pass to access the top floor, and the elevator doors whooshed open onto an “office” that was as much focused on luxury comforts as functionality.

Magnum was lounging in his own private hot tub, a waterproof computer console of some sort to one side of him, on the other a tray with a tumbler containing two fingers of amber and a one-person antipasto tray. His shoulders and chest were sculpted, tan, and smooth, free of any body hair. A woman behind him was hastily packing up a massage table.

“There you are,” he said by way of greeting.

“Their injuries prevented us from arriving sooner,” Fanny said, her voice terse.

Chase’s astute gaze alighted on us. “I can only imagine.”

I couldn’t decide what he meant by that, only that I probably wouldn’t like it. I scowled at him.

“How did you enjoy your tour of the campus?” he asked us as the masseuse exited through a side door. I caught sight of a stairwell before the door shut behind her.

“‘Enjoy’ isn’t the word I’d use,” Griffin said. “We reserve that for life situations we enter into willingly.”

“I understand. We still have much to discuss. I’ll uphold my end of the bargain and share what I can with you before you have to make your decision.”

“I didn’t realize it was a ‘bargain’ to be strongarmed with the choice of coming either willingly or by force,’” Hunt added.

Chase simply said, “I have someone I think you’ll be interested in meeting before you see your new home. I didn’t expect her to be in today, but she’s very dedicated to her work.

“Tracy,” he called out, raising his voice to carry. “Will you please come out here?”

Another door opened, and when I saw who emerged, I instinctively clutched Griffin’s arm.

Everything about “Tracy” was gut-wrenchingly familiar. On lean legs I’d admired in dozens of photos of Orson and his wife from before she abandoned them, Griffin’s deadbeat mom stalked across the open space between the hot tub and a large desk that bordered a wall of windows.

Griffin’s arm trembled beneath mine, and I clasped him all the harder. Layla shored up his other side, and Hunt and Brady bunched behind him, offering silent support.

“I believe you know Tracy as ‘Mitzi,’” Chase said, his intelligent stare eating up our reactions. “And as you can see, she’s very much accounted for.”