Beastly Beautiful (22 page)

There was a desk too. The heavy oak monstrosity sat in the center of the room, a lone, sturdy island surrounded by chaos. The once smooth wood had been chewed and clawed, the drawers ripped out and dashed into splinters, but the strong frame remained standing, impervious to the abuse. Atop this desk rested the room’s one light source, a cracked lamp with a missing shade. Teagan could imagine him coming into this room recently and digging it carefully out of the rubble, to set out for her. She didn’t know how she knew that the light had been left for her. Somehow she just did.

Approaching the bald lamp, her gaze fell to what lay beneath the pool of its light. A single sheet of clean, white paper. She had become familiar enough with Sir’s handwriting over the past weeks to recognize his writing scrawled across the page. With trembling hands, she lifted the note and brought it up to the light.

Dear Teagan,

If you are reading this, then you have come, as I knew you would. You have more questions, to which you hope to find the answers for here. Once you arrived, of course, you were unable to resist the chance to look in on the forbidden
.

She sensed the humor in the words. He wasn’t angry, but amused by her prying.

She read on.

I want you to see this room. I want one person in this world to know the truth, and I have chosen you as that person. From the beginning I’ve trusted you above all others, have risked more to your care. Now, daily it grows more and more important to me to show you who I really am. I need you to see the results of my curse with your own eyes, so you can fully understand, perhaps for the first time, what you have involved yourself in.

Why so urgent, this sudden need to reveal my secret
?
I’ve asked myself that many times. Maybe it’s a test. Maybe I want to see if you can accept me for who I am, or if you’ll run screaming away like any sane woman would. If that’s the object, then my test becomes a punishment for us both
.

Teagan struggled to follow his meaning. …
a punishment for us both
. Was he implying to lose her would pain him? Surely not. She tried to silence her hopes. Sir wasn’t the sort of man capable of returning feelings like hers. She mustn’t allow herself that assumption. The note continued.

My desperation to learn your response, unfortunately, will have to wait. I have pressing business that must be completed if I’m ever to harbor any hopes toward a normal life…with you. Don’t try to follow me. You mustn’t interfere in any way. I will succeed or fail alone.

Her eyes dropped to the signature, which was signed simply:
Sir
.

Teagan’s mind reeled as she dropped the scrap of paper. He spoke of learning her response, of living a life with her. Did that mean what her trembling hopes whispered it could? Or was she somehow reading too much into it? No.
A normal life…with you
. There was no way to misread that.-

She looked around the room with its tattered furniture and clawmarked walls. Could she accept him for what he was? She didn’t have to think about it. She had already, almost from the moment she learned the truth. Nothing could make her draw back from Sir.

With shaking hands, she switched off the lamp and stumbled from the room, drawing the door closed behind her. What urgent business did Sir have that had taken him away—both his absence from the apartment and his warning against following him suggested a journey of some sort. Where had he gone? Where could he possibly hope to find a cure for his transformations? If, indeed, a cure was what he had hinted at. Why else would he drop everything and disappear so quickly?

It seemed clear something had happened last night that had persuaded him he could no longer live in this state. Maybe it was the attack of that crazy man. Maybe it was his own feelings—if she dared believe it—for her that had inspired him to seek help. Either way, he was gone now and with him any opportunity of learning where or why he went. Was this it then? Was she expected to simply sit back and wait for whatever length of time to pass before she could hope to know the truth?

Then it struck her. She scrambled to Sir’s bedroom, dropped to her knees before the dresser, and dragged out the bottom drawer. Rummaging through the garments, it only took her a few seconds to dig out that fateful letter, a scribbled warning from a crazy man, a scientist who was being forced to give up his studies…one who hovered on the edge of a unique discovery.

She quickly found the letter wasn’t there. Not surprising. Where Sir was going he would need the return address on the envelope.

She left the apartment.

Don’t follow me.
Sir’s instructions tugged at her during the elevator ride down to the lobby, but she refused to pay them heed. She couldn’t let him go to face that lunatic alone. This wasn’t a question of choice, but a matter of what must be done.

Unreasonable as she knew it was, she couldn’t shake the feeling her secret betrayal with Dr. Green left her at least partially responsible for whatever confrontation might take place between them. At this point, she hardly knew which man was more in need of her protection. Already, Sir had a long head start on her, if he had left last night. The thought urged her to haste. There was no time for anything, save one important errand…

She hopped in a cab, which she rode to the local branch of NationBank. In the car, she wrote on the back of a paper receipt from her purse, scribbling a hasty note she then dropped off with the red-haired Kat at the bank. She hadn’t time for long explanations. Sir’s shrewd grandfather would put it together for himself. At least, she hoped he would.

Settled back in the seat of the taxi again, Teagan closed her eyes a moment and wished she had gotten a little more sleep the night before. She had a long journey ahead of her and no idea what lay waiting at the other end of it. She was going to the bus station and then to Vermont.

Chapter 31

Teagan leaned her forehead against the cold windowpane and looked out at the gray scenery whizzing by. She had always imagined the countryside outside the city to be a fresh and colorful world full of wildlife and greenery. Instead, the passing landscape was drab and unwelcoming, gripped in winter’s fist just as tightly as the city had been. Sleet beat a steady drumming against the glass. The cars passing in the other lane drove with yellow headlights beaming in the middle of the day and moved at a dismal crawl.

Still, watching the passing traffic and scenery was a pleasanter pastime than studying the interior of the dirty bus, or meeting the shifty eyed glances of her fellow passengers. She kept her purse clasped firmly in her lap and tried to make it clear by her expression she wanted no communication with the strangers around her. She didn’t care that many of them might be perfectly nice people, or that she was probably coming off as rude and unfriendly. She had more pressing matters on her mind and these consumed her thoughts.

Six hours since she had left the city. How much of a head start on her did Sir have? Doubtless, he’d chosen a faster mode of transportation. But maybe he would make stops along the way. Maybe he would sleep in a hotel somewhere overnight? Surely if she traveled throughout the night, she would eventually catch up to or even pass him. She wanted, no, needed to arrive before him. Yet he seemed to have every advantage. An earlier start, faster conveyance… And he knew where he was going. She didn’t have anything more to go on in the way of directions than the name of the business she sought and the town and state in which it was located. She regretted not having had the foresight to stop by her apartment for the envelope containing the full address.

She bit back an overwhelming sense of hopelessness. She hadn’t come this far to give up. Sir needed her, whether he knew it or not, and she wouldn’t fail him. Who knew what sort of dangers his enemy was capable of? Anyone unhinged enough to plant a needle tipped with experimental serum in the way of an innocent man was crazy enough to do anything. No, one way or another, she would be there to stop things from going too far. She would make her destination in time.

Holding firm to that determination, she leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes. It would be wise to catch up on her sleep now while she had the opportunity. She had a hunch she was going to need her strength.

* * * *

Late-afternoon of the next day found her seated on a lonely bench at a rundown bus stop. A rust covered sign nearby read
Welcome to River Falls
. It didn’t add a population number, but looking around her now, Teagan estimated it at about five hundred. Maybe that was a slight exaggeration on her part. Maybe it was coming so newly from the city that made this rural town seem like nothing more than a tiny dot on the map.

Yet the place was big enough somebody had thought it merited its own bus stop, and she could see that just a little ways farther down the road, it also boasted a diner. The rumbling ache in her empty stomach suggested that would be a likely stop in the near future. She hadn’t seen a sandwich—or a clean restroom either for that matter—all day.

Still, she hesitated. Glintwood Options had been the name of the place Dr. Green had spoken of in the letter to Sir. Would anyone here know how she could find this place or the man who ran it?

Momentarily, the enormity of her task rose up to smother her in a sense of hopeless panic, but she quickly squelched the feelings. Right now, she needed a clear head and a fixed plan.

* * * *

An hour later, she sat huddled over a small table, enjoying the comforting warmth of Donna’s Diner, as she bit into a mouthwatering pastry. In truth, it was late in the day for doughnuts and this one might have been considered slightly stale at any other time. But it had been a day and a half since her last real meal and at this point, her stomach would have thought banana peels were the tastiest morsels it had ever encountered. Besides, she’d eaten out of enough garbage cans in her day to appreciate anything that was served up on a clean plate.

She shoved the last bite into her mouth and dusted the crumbs from her hands. Hunger abated at last, she glanced around at her fellow diners: an ancient man with a small dog at his feet and a newspaper spread across his table, and a pair of middle-aged fishermen with their poles propped between their table and the wall.

“Excuse me,” she hailed the passing waitress. “Could I get a little more coffee?”

The gray-haired woman obligingly paused to fill Teagan’s cup from the coffeepot in her hand. Her name tag read
Betta
. Maybe there really was no Donna.

“Um, I was wondering,” Teagan hurried, as the waitress was about to leave, “if you could give me some directions. I’m new around here, and I’m looking for a friend who came here looking for a different friend…” She was making a mess of it. She started over. “I need to find this place, Glintwood Options. I think it’s some sort of business or—”

“Sure, sure, I know it,” the waitress interrupted with an impatient glance toward her other customers. “Dr. Mortimer Green,” she put a sarcastic inflection on the doctor part, “owns the Glintwood property, and he’s a legendary nut job in these parts. Grab a pen, though, honey, ’cause this ain’t gonna be short.”

Teagan dug a pen from her purse and snatched up one of the napkins scattered across the table. “Go ahead, please.”

* * * *

The diner had a payphone in the back and a battered old phone book Teagan used to look up the small town’s single taxi service. A car of her own would’ve made things so much simpler. After making the call, she returned to her table and sat a few more minutes sipping coffee from her steaming mug. For a short while, she allowed her mind to wander to Sir and exactly what he planned to do to make this Dr. Mortimer Green right his wrong. Could the man provide a cure for Sir’s condition? Would he be willing to? And most worrisome of all, what would Sir do if he refused?

With thoughts like these, it was a relief when her ride arrived. She had to get to Glintwood Options and find Dr. Green before Sir did.

Chapter 32

Long before the taxi dropped her off in front of the tall chain link fence surrounding the Glintwood property, Teagan began to question her resolve. The road here had been a long and rutted dirt path, twisting snakelike, through a thick forest of pines. It was a wild, lonely looking place, abounding in wildlife, but with little sign of human habitation save in the crude, endless road that wound through its heart.

Now her last link with civilization was driving off in a trail of exhaust, leaving her standing alone with the looming forest at her back. The prospect before her looked no more inviting. There was something formidable about the sprawling eight foot fence she faced and the multitude of padlocks all over its closed entrance. It was far from impassible. In fact, with only one or two attempts, she managed to leap up and grab the edge of the fence. After that, it was simple enough to clamber over the top and drop to the ground on the other side. Nevertheless, the idea that whoever owned this property was very eager to keep visitors out wasn’t lost on her.

Now that the barrier of the fence was behind her, Teagan looked around to see what she had gotten herself into. Before her spread a vast, empty space, dotted with more pines. The long fence didn’t end the forest, but merely interrupted it, cutting straight through the trees, so that the area encircled by the chain link appeared nearly as wild as that outside. The dirt driveway led up to the only manmade structure in sight: a large warehouse-like building made of sheet metal and random scraps of construction material. Not quite what she’d expected of Glintwood Options.

A careful survey of the premises revealed no sign of anyone stirring in the open. If Dr. Mortimer Green was around, he was keeping to himself inside the building. Then again, who was to say he lived here? Just because he ran his laboratory, or whatever it was, from in there, didn’t mean he hung out here all the time. She wished she’d thought to ask that waitress about his home address. Ah well, it was no use worrying about it now. Surely if she poked around a little on the property she could find something of use.