First Daughter - Eric van Lustbader [46]
Jack nods. "The room with the ovens should've been hot."
"Course it wasn't hot," Gus says. "It's hugely air-conditioned."
"Still," Jack persists, "no heat came from inside when they opened the oven doors. The loaves were too thin to be bread. That wasn't dough they were putting in, it was something that needed drying."
"How the hell—?"
"Also, that guy Cyril is scared of you."
"Huh, you betta believe he is."
"No," Jack says, "I mean he's scared enough to do something about it."
Gus frowns. "You mean he actually wants to move against me?" He shook his head. "No way you could know that, kid."
"But I do."
"Cyril an' I have a treaty—an understanding. Between us now it's live an' let live."
"No, it's not."
Something in Jack's voice—some surety—gives Gus pause. "What are you, kid, a oracle?"
"What's an oracle?" Jack says.
Gus stares out the side window. "You like fried pork chops an' grits?"
"I never had grits."
"Shit, that figures." Gus makes a disgusted face. "White folk."
He puts the car in gear.
THIRTEEN
ALLI CARSON saw the handsome man smile, remove himself from the doorway, pull a folding chair from the shadows. He straddled it, arms folded across the metal-tube back. He radiated a kind of magnetism, strong as her father's, but entirely different: steely, opaque. All she saw when she looked into his face was her own reflection.
"They tied you up, poor girl," he said gently. "I asked them not to do that, but do they listen to me?"
"Who—?" Alli's tongue felt thick and gluey. "I'm so thirsty," she managed to choke out.
The man stepped into the shadows, returned with a glass of water. Alli stared at it, desire flooding her, but fear, too, because there was an unknown world all around her. What horrors lurked there, waiting?
Leaning over her, he tipped the glass against her lower lip. "Slowly," he said as she gulped. "Sip slowly."
Despite her aching thirst, Alli obeyed him. When at last the glass was drained, she ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth. "I don't understand," she said. "Who are 'they,' who are you? Why have you brought me here, what do you want?"
He had soft eyes and such a large masculine presence, it seemed to fill the entire lit space.
"Be patient," he said. "In time, all your questions will be answered."
She wanted to believe him. That way lay hope. Hope that she'd soon be freed. "Then can't you at least untie me?"
He shook his head sadly. "That would be most unwise."
"Please. I won't run away, I swear."
"I'd like to believe you, Alli, really I would."
She began to cry. "Why won't you?"
"The others might come in at any time, you see, and then who would be punished? Me. You wouldn't want that, would you?"
She felt desperation fluttering in her breast like a caged bird. "For God's sake, before they come!"
"Are you kidding me?" He said in a voice that lashed her like a whip, "You can't be trusted. You're a liar—and a cheat."
Alli, confused as well as disoriented, said, "I—I don't understand. What are you talking about?"
He produced a thick manila folder, which he opened on his lap. With a shiver, she saw a snapshot of herself stapled to the top sheet of paper. Wasn't this a scene from a film she had seen? And then with an internal shriek she realized that her mind and body had parted company, that she was looking at herself from a distance, or another dimension, where she was safe, would always be safe because nothing could touch her.
She heard someone with her voice say, "What are you holding?"
"Your life." He looked up. "You see, Alli, I know everything about you."
The schism inside her deepened—or widened, whichever. "You don't . . . You couldn't."
His eyes flicked down, skimming information with which she could see he was clearly familiar. "You were born Allison Amanda Carson—Amanda was your maternal grandmother's name—on January twenty-third, daughter of Edward Harrison Carson and Lyn Margaret Carson, nee Hayes, married thirty-seven years this past September fourteenth. You were born in Georgetown University Hospital,