Mr. Mysterious: A Mister Standalone (The Mister Series Book 4) (33 page)

“I need a gun,” Oliver says, staring at the few strands of his sister’s golden hair I placed on the table. “Like, right the fuck
now
.”

“Just relax,” I say, pulling out my phone and tabbing a contact.

“Who are you calling?”

“Five,” I say, when he picks up. “We have a problem. Get Nolan and meet us in the catering kitchen. If you see Ariel out by the bar, tell her Oliver and I want her to go back to the private area immediately and everyone else should stay together in Perfect’s cabana. And Five,” I say, looking at Oliver as he tries not to freak out. “Bring the guns I know you have. One for each of us.” I end the call and shove the phone in my back pocket. Oliver is still staring at the hair.

“It’s gonna be fine.”

“How the hell can you say that?” Oliver asks, his anger replacing his shock. “Someone drugged her and then took her away, Pax.”

“I realize that, Oli. But it’s not going to do any good if we freak the fuck out, OK? Now, look. I do this shit for a living. We need to stay calm. We need to look at everything in here and try to figure out where they took her. Nolan knows this place. Every inch of it. He built it, right? He’s got the plans. He’s got security cameras. We’re gonna find out who did this, where they went, and we’re going to get Cindy back.”

“How long do you think she’s been gone?”

“It can’t be more than twenty minutes. Thirty tops. Let’s look around while we wait. There has to be some kind of clue. People always leave something behind.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven - Cindy

By the time I can finally lift my head and focus my eyes enough to see her face with some sort of clarity, I know one thing for certain. “You’re not Mariel,” I say, coughing like my lungs are full of fluid.

The woman laughs and pulls the silver hood off her head, revealing short blonde hair that curls along her shoulders. “I never said I was, Cynthia.”

“But you’re calling me Cynthia. Like she does.”

“Like…” The woman tilts her head, like a dog who’s heard an unfamiliar sound. “You spoke to Mariel Hawthorne?”

Oh,
I think, taking a deep breath to try to clear my mind of the grip the drug had on me. So she’s not as well informed as she wants me to believe. “Several times,” I choke out, still feeling the pressure in my lungs. What the hell did she give me? I turn my head to look around, figure out where the fuck I am, but everything spins and I have to fight down nausea.

“Don’t move too fast,” she cautions me. “The side effects of that are particularly uncomfortable. Just relax a little longer. You’re going to be here for a little while.”

I straighten my head again, look her straight on. I’m sitting at a small round table with a silver tablecloth, table set with fine china. There’s a small silver dome, like the kind you see on a room service table that conceals a few small pads of butter underneath. And a bottle of champagne sits next to it.

She notices me staring at the bottle. “You’re not ready for that just yet. Try the ice water first. If you’re satisfied with my offer, then we’ll have plenty of time to celebrate later. After we’re all done ironing out the details.”

“Details?” I ask, reaching for the cold glass that woke me up and taking a sip. My mouth is so dry; I feel like I’ve been lost in the desert for days. The table is lit up by a small chandelier hanging over the center. Just enough light to see and not enough to reveal what’s hiding in the darkness surrounding me.

“All the things you’re going to do for us, Cynthia. And all the things we’re going to do for you in return.”

She reaches into her robe and takes out a silver envelope. The one I dropped in the kitchen earlier, from the address label on the front. “You should be more careful with this,” she says, placing it on the table between us. “I saved you this time. But if anyone gets a hold of this, Cynthia, the ramifications will be unpleasant.”

“Define… unpleasant.”

“Oh, I’ll explain our bylaws, don’t worry. I’m just trying to warn you. If anyone finds out that you’re now a member of the Silver Society, well…” She chuckles and looks away, shaking her head, like this is so funny. She gives me a sidelong glance as the laugh dies. “You will forfeit your family.” She holds both hands out, like it’s just this simple.

“I’m not a part of your little secret group,” I spit, furious at this whole situation. “And I won’t join. So sorry, lady. You’re gonna have to find yourself another little puppet. I don’t play games like this.”

“You know,” she says, placing a perfectly manicured fingernail up to her mouth like she’s trying to be cute, “your sister said the same thing.”

I cannot hide the gasp of shock that comes bursting out of my heavy lungs. “What?” I whisper.

“Aurora Shrike had her chance. Don’t make the same mistake she did, Cinderella. Or your parents might find another one of their daughters has gone missing.”

Chapter Thirty-Eight - Paxton

We find eight more clues, including a few more strands of Cindy’s hair and a long gash on the floor of the catering kitchen, probably made by her boots, and most likely indicating she was dragged.

“She didn’t leave the kitchen,” Nolan says, phone in hand, showing us the security footage. “Look,” he says. “She went in here, through that door there”—Nolan points to the large double doors that lead to the hallway—“and she didn’t come out.”

“Then where the fuck did she go?” Oliver asks.

“Well.” Nolan sighs. “I don’t know. But she didn’t leave by the connecting kitchen either—it was still being cleaned up for the night.”

“I already asked them if they saw her,” Five says. “They said no.”

“So you’re telling me,” I say, “she never left the kitchen.”

“Yes,” Nolan says. “We have no cameras in this kitchen, but we do in the regular one. And they don’t show her in there either.”

“Why no cameras in this kitchen?” I ask.

“I dunno,” Nolan says. “Claudette designed it as spillover for catering and large parties. It wasn’t meant to be used every day.”

“Claudette?” Five asks.

We all look at each other. Then Nolan.

He sighs, then nods. “She was in charge of the construction out here while I was working in San Diego.

“So there’s a hidden room,” Oliver says. And he’s not joking. Most people would think that’s a little too Scooby-Doo to be taken seriously. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from being Oliver Shrike’s best friend, and by extension, inside Five’s outer inner circle, it’s that the weirder shit gets, the easier it is for them to accept it to be true.

Some might call that paranoia.

They call it the “real world”.

“And all we need to do is find it.” Five starts walking the perimeter, eyes searching the walls for any indication that something is hidden behind them.

“You think there’s a hidden room?” Nolan is still in Scooby-Doo land.

But I have learned to trust Five and Oliver over the years, so I don’t waste my time asking questions.

“Guys,” Nolan says. “Come on. There’s no hidden room. I have the plans right—”

“Found it,” Five says, standing in front of an open electrical panel. “Stand back.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine - Cindy

“Don’t look so horrified, Cynthia,” the woman says. “It’s very easy to prevent another family crisis.”

“Just join your little
cult
,” I say, sarcasm practically dripping off my tongue.

“We’re not a cult. Did Mariel tell you that?”

I say nothing.

“Well, she’s lying. We are the most prominent citizens of this country. We are the leaders, the innovators. We are doctors, lawyers, judges, mayors, governors, and many, many other things, Cynthia. But we are not a cult. We are a sororal society.”

“A secret society, you mean,” I manage to say. “I have to be honest Ms.—” I let the title hang there to see if she volunteers a name.

“You may call me Claudette.”

Her name rings in the air like the lingering tone of a bell after being struck.

“Our sisters run this country, Cynthia. And you will be one of them.” She looks me up and down for a second, tsking her tongue. “Of course, we will need to clean you up and make you presentable. And you won’t be wasting your time as a private detective anymore.” She smiles. “We will lift you up, Cynthia. You will run a city, then a state, and then, perhaps, if you spend a decade or two as a loyal and hardworking sister, we will reward you with the ultimate prize.”

She’s talking about the presidency. Overkill much? Like I’d ever be the one they’d put in the highest office on the planet. She must think I’m the most naïve girl ever.

And why not? It’s the blonde hair. I’m the palomino racehorse on the track that day.

The only thing people see when they look at me is my looks.

Well, that’s fine with me. I like being underestimated.

I want to say so many things. Like,
Lady, you are bat-shit crazy
. Or,
I’m going to rip your head off if you don’t tell me what happened to my sister
. Or,
Just wait till my boyfriend gets here, you stupid cunt. And then we’ll see
—

“What do you think of that?” She smiles at me. Calmly. Coolly. Certain she is in control.

“I think,” I say, really,
really
wanting to give her a proper Bombshell response that would make my mother proud, but thinking better of it at the last second. “I think I’d like to know where I am.”