The Firstborn (18 page)
Hannah dialed her cell phone frantically. She had to see if it was true—if her grandfather really was dead.
She had to see it—
She jumped, and the sound came again—like a thunderclap against the door. Someone was knocking. Someone knew she was here.
Hannah held, saying nothing, the phone’s antenna quavering.
The knocking came again. “Hannah?” the voice called through the door. Whoever it was knew she was here.
“Hannah, I know you’re in there. Let me in. We need to talk.”
Her mind raced, eyes squinting through the low light. Against her better judgment she approached the door and released the bolt.
They stood in the dark behind the Alamo, surrounded by trees and water.
“What do you know about Henry Rice?” Devin demanded, studying John’s reactions.
“He’s dead,” John stammered.
“And?”
“That’s all I know.”
Devin glared. He didn’t buy it. “How do you know he’s dead?”
John looked confused, then answered the question. “I felt it as it happened.”
Devin nodded. It was an honest answer, he knew that much, and he needed a baseline for determining when John was telling the truth.
“What do you think is going to happen next?”
John frowned. “What?” he answered with an abrupt frustration.
“What do you think will happen now that Henry Rice, patriarch of the Prima, is dead?”
The other man considered for a moment, obviously confused.
Good, Devin thought. He needed to see John speculate, to come up with a creative answer—there was always a giveaway when you were making things up—and he needed to see that.
“I don’t know,” John said. “Maybe the Prima will fall into disorder?”
Devin nodded. “Why were you there?”
“I felt it,” John said again, without missing a beat.
Devin studied the other man’s face—it was different from his speculative answer. It wasn’t a guarantee, but it seemed truthful to him.
They stood in silence for a moment.
“What’s happening?” John asked.
“Morris Childs is missing and Henry Rice is dead—what do you think?”
“Is someone trying to take total control of the Firstborn?”
Devin shook his head. “I don’t know, but it doesn’t look good. In fact—”
John’s face went pale as he stared into Devin.
“What is it?” Devin demanded.
“Henry’s granddaughter.”
“What’s wrong?”
John shook his head. “I don’t know who attacked Henry Rice,” he said, turning to walk away, “but his granddaughter needs our help right now. I think she’s in trouble.”
B
LAKE!
” H
ANNAH STOOD ASIDE
as her grandfather’s bodyguard shoved his way into the room. “What’s going on? I got a phone call—what can you tell me?”
“You have to come with me,” Blake announced brusquely, pulling the door shut behind him. “We need to get out of here. You’re in danger.”
Hannah clutched at his arm. “Is it true? Grandpa—? Did something happen to him?”
His face turned stony. “Your grandfather has been in an accident,” Blake said.
“What kind of accident?” she demanded. “Is he OK? Where is he?”
“We have to go,” Blake said, looking her in the eye for the first time since he’d entered, his eyes pained, face determined. “We’re leaving the city.”
Hannah went for her suitcase, popping the latches. She began trying to stuff things in.
“You don’t need that. Leave it,” he said, pulling her from the bag.
“But my things. I need…”
“There’s no time for that. Every second you stay here is another second you’re in danger.”
“But,” she looked at his hands, confused, “you have your bag—?”
“Essentials,” he rebutted, hefting the bag over his shoulder. “Now let’s go.”
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“To meet your grandfather.”
“Where is he?”
“Just follow me.”
Devin and John cut through the lobby of the hotel. Even in dress shoes Devin could slice through the foot traffic, cutting to the left and the right, snapping through the spaces between people.
John slammed into someone—a middle-aged man—and the man went down. “Sorry,” John shouted in apology.
Devin grabbed his arm. “We don’t have time—take me to her.”
They ran through the hotel, stopping at the elevator bank.
“The stairs,” Devin announced, shoving his way into the stairwell. “They’ll be faster.”
They pounded up the stairwell. First floor. Second. Third.
Devin was the first into the hall. “Which way to Henry Rice’s room?”
John looked around, trying to get his bearings. “This way.”
He ran down the hallway, and Devin followed after. A moment later John stopped and pounded on the door.
No answer.
John tried the knob. Locked. He pounded again.
“She’s gone,” Devin said. “But where?”
John shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Then figure it out.”
“I—” John began, face white with panic, “I don’t know where!”
“That’s it,” Devin demanded, grabbing John by the wrist, shoving him into the wall. He didn’t believe John’s story anymore. The chances that John was responsible for Henry Rice’s death was as likely as anything, and just as likely that this was all a ploy to get away with it. “No more games,” Devin snarled.
“I’m not—”
“What is this, some kind of distraction so you can get away?”
“I—”
He shook John violently. “Is it?”
John’s face filled with red blotches as he tried to fight back, glaring back intensely. “Let me go!”
“Why?”
“Let me go or we’ll lose them.”
“Tell me where they are!”
“It doesn’t work like that!” John growled, trying to shove his way loose again. “You know it doesn’t work like that.”
Devin stopped, stepping back from the other man, and nodded.
It was a gift from God, not a magic wand. One did not simply request to know—one petitioned God for more than what He’d seen fit to give them in the first place.
And it wasn’t something you did while you were being slammed into a wall.
He backed away.
“Do what you have to.”
John stepped into the middle of the hallway and stood there. He closed his eyes, tilting his head back toward the ceiling. He turned his palms outward, lifting his arms away from his body, and breathed deep.
He began to murmur a prayer under his breath.
“Heavenly Father above—be with me in my hour of need. Build me and guide me. Hold me and lead me. Take me and break me—make me Your own—”
John’s eyes snapped open.
He looked into Devin’s eyes. “Follow me.”
“What’s going on?” Hannah asked again. “I don’t understand what’s happening, and you’re trying to scare me. Does this have to do with what happened during the meeting?”
Blake pressed the button for the elevator again.
“People are causing trouble, Hannah, telling lies to discredit members of the Firstborn.”
“Who?” she begged out of pain and confusion. “Who are they trying to discredit?”
“Members of the Prima.”
There were only so many possibilities of what he could possibly be saying. Only so many people that could—“You?” she asked suddenly, shocked by the possibility. “Someone wants to discredit you?”
He nodded.
She thought back to the meeting—to the images on the screen. “Do they think you’re guilty of killing—?”
The doors opened to the lobby.
“Come on,” he said again, and took her by the arm. “Now isn’t the time.”
Devin skipped the last two steps and burst through the stairwell door, following after John.
“There!” John shouted, pointing across the lobby.
There was Hannah, and with her was—
“Blake Jackson?” Devin said, confused as he watched Hannah disappear out the door with him.
Then he felt it—a tremor in his hands—
The blast scattered across the world.
Sirens. Ambulances. Police.
Mangled bodies being rushed from a ruined building.
Smoke rising like a plume.
Men. Women. Children—
—all dead.
Devin snapped back to the moment—and charged across the lobby.
He stopped on the sidewalk, scanning the crowded night street. They were nowhere to be seen.
John burst in front of him, charging into the busy street. A horn blasted. Devin followed, cutting through the street.
The convention center was ahead, tall and squatty—and there was Blake, nearly dragging Hannah, farther between the buildings.
