The Glass Wall (Return of the Ancients Book 1) (20 page)

Returning to my bed, I read my notes again, but paused when I came across the entry about Melody. Instantly, I recalled where I’d seen the neon pink lap quilt before. Reese’s Aunt Melody, the odd woman who had touched my arm at the soccer game had dropped it.

I sat bolt upright.

The woman had
touched
me. Her name was Melody. It was her wheelchair in Rafael’s house. Jareth had told me they were down here looking for their mentor. It must be Melody! It had been their mission to find her and that had been the reason Rafael had spent time with Reese. It made complete sense. Melody must also be the reason Harmony had shown up at school— to figure out when and where I had encountered her.

If finding Melody had been their mission, then they had certainly completed it. They probably
would
be leaving now.

I was so depressed I could hardly sleep.

Chapter Fifteen - More Hints

Samantha asked me to work a few hours the next day, but first I had to listen to her “Keep Your Grades Up” speech.

“The instant your grades go downhill is the instant you lose this job!” she threatened, frowning at me. “So, do you promise to make your schoolwork a priority? You can’t get far in this world without a proper education.”

“I know,” I said. “I promise.” I wondered if she gave that speech to everyone, or if she’d been talking to Betty. But I felt guilty even thinking that. Betty would never betray me. Samantha probably just said that to everyone.

“Ok, then.” She nodded, apparently satisfied. “I have several appointments for custom orders tonight that I need you to take. I’ve got to run and inspect the new kitchen that I had to rent to fill Jareth’s orders.” She pointed to the order sheets pinned onto the bulletin board and walked away.

I went to the bulletin board and looked at the orders that I’d written down for Jareth. I saw the words “Paid in Full” stamped across the top and noticed everything had come to a total of $78,300.23. I also noticed Samantha’s writing on the margin. She’d crossed out “Jareth Sucks” and had replaced it with just “Jareth”. I smiled, knowing he’d be disappointed with her change.

I sighed. The entire day I had experienced a sense of loss every time I thought of either Rafael or Jareth. It was kind of funny. I was going to miss them when they were gone.

I gathered the catering binder and order pad and headed to the front of the store. A quick glance around revealed neither Jareth nor Rafael. I sighed again. My life was teetering toward boredom already.

My first customer turned out to be Reese. She flagged me down as I headed toward the back table to set up my temporary station.

“I need to change my order, Sydney. Get over here and write it down,” she snapped rudely.

I walked to her table, wondering why she was here when Jareth and Rafael were not. It was then that I noticed she looked decidedly peeved. So did her friends.

“I have to move my party out a few days.” Reese pouted.

“I really don’t see why,” one of her friends inserted. “She was just an old lady.”

“I know! I mean, it wasn’t like it wasn’t expected.” Reese rolled her eyes. “And, I’ve been planning this party for so long.”

“What happened?” I asked curiously.

“My Aunt Melody died.” Reese appeared extremely put out.

I caught my breath. Dead? Surely, Jareth and Rafael hadn’t killed her. I shook my head. No, that couldn’t be. I’d only seen the empty wheelchair, though. I couldn’t suppress a shiver. Maybe they were more dangerous than I thought.

“You’re so weird, Sydney.” Reese looked at me in disgust. “You’re always spacing out. Don’t you pay attention to anything going on around you?”

I looked at her and she suddenly reminded me of one of Betty’s clueless chickens. She wasn’t even worth getting upset over. “What date did you want to change your party to, Reese?” I asked sweetly.

“The Saturday after Thanksgiving.” She glared at me with growing frustration.

“All changed.” I scrawled the modifications on the page, smiled, and then moved away.

The rest of the evening passed quickly. I took down several big orders, but nothing as big as Jareth’s, of course. Still, I knew Samantha would be pleased.

Betty and Grace picked me up and Betty insisted I drive home. Grace waved at me absent-mindedly and spent the trip home texting Ellison and laughing. Betty had me drop her off at the neighbor’s house down the street, and I drove Grace the few remaining feet home.

I pulled up, parked in our driveway, and turned off the keys to the ignition. I looked at Rafael’s house through the rear view mirror, wondering if Melody were alive or not. The thought was a somber one. It reminded me that Jung was dead and that someone had been responsible for that. Surely, they hadn’t killed an old lady? I just couldn’t believe they were capable of that.

“You like him, don’t you?” Grace asked suddenly.

I jumped. “Huh?”

“Rafael.” Grace pointed to the Bentley in his driveway.

“He’s engaged,” I said, frowning.

“Really?” Grace seemed surprised. “I could have sworn he liked you. You know … something in the way he looks at you.”

“What do you mean?” I asked curiously.

“I dunno. Guess I was wrong.” She shrugged and hopped out of the truck.

I followed her into the house.

“Come here, kiddo!” Al called me from the kitchen.

He was sitting at the table, poking around with a clear plastic tube and some wires. “Jack sent us a high-priority package.” As I joined him, he dropped his voice conspiratorially. “You know, in response to the matter I told you that I’d bring to his attention.”

I looked closer at the tube. It had some kind of electronics board in it, a panel of lights, and a metal disk on top that reminded me of a food processor blade. It was definitely the kind of thing that a friend of Al’s would send. “This is an alien detection kit,” Al explained. His voice held a note of awe. “It’s designed to detect magnetic and electromagnetic disturbances.”

“Really,” I murmured, hoping I didn’t sound as skeptical as I felt. He’d been so kind to me that I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

“You just take this with you, kiddo.” Al handed it to me gingerly. “If you come across one of your aliens, then we’ll all hear this thing shriek. The alarm can be heard a mile away.”

I looked at it closely. The little lights on the front panel were blinking. “So, it’s already running?” I asked.

“Yes,” Al nodded. “It hasn’t detected anything unusual so far.”

He walked away, vastly pleased with himself. I set the contraption on the counter next to the microwave. I looked at the little green lights blinking on and off and snorted. It was obviously a piece of junk if it couldn’t detect the aliens right across the street.

I rummaged in Al’s spy drawer, briefly looked at his portable bionic ear, but decided to use the night vision goggles. It was time to do a little spying of my own. I was going to figure out what had happened to Melody. Honestly, I couldn’t imagine either Jareth or Rafael killing anyone, but at this point, I reluctantly admitted that anything was possible.

Tigger followed me outside to do his nightly business as I hid behind the pine trees and focused my night vision goggles on Rafael’s house. All the lights were off, except for the hall light downstairs. Both cars were in the driveway, but there was no movement in the house. Surely they hadn’t all gone to bed this early.

Behind me, Tigger returned to the porch and turned in three laborious circles before settling down to snooze.

I peered through the goggles for several minutes. Maybe they weren’t even there. Then the thought struck me, maybe they had left for good already.

That bothered me enough that I decided it was worthwhile to cross the street for a closer look. I marched up their sidewalk to the front door. Peering through the window, I could see the hall light was still on. The furniture was still there, but the wheelchair was gone. I squinted closer when all of a sudden Ajax leapt into my face from the other side of the window.

Screeching, I fell back. I hated that dog. I was positive he had waited until he was sure I’d have a heart attack before letting me know he was there. I could see him on the other side of the window, his lips split in an evil grin.

Now that I was sprawled on the porch, he decided to bark. I scrambled to my feet and gritted my teeth. I had banged my knee. As I limped down the first step, cursing Ajax, the door opened. Wincing, I turned around expecting to see Rafael but was surprised to find Marquis instead, watching me with his beady eyes.

“Sydney,” he greeted me politely and stepped out onto the porch, closing the door behind him.

“Sorry to bother you.” I licked my suddenly dry lips. Unnerved, I blurted, “I was just looking for Rafael.”

“My son?” Marquis folded his arms and nodded thoughtfully. “He’s with his fiancée.”

“Oh!” I shrugged, blinking a little. “Well, sorry to bother you then.” I began to limp down the remaining steps.

“He’ll be returning to Sweden soon,” Marquis continued, following me to the edge of the porch. “It would be best if you don’t contact him.”

“Ok.” I frowned a little. I hadn’t done anything wrong. I wondered why he made me feel like I had. “Well, good night, then.”

He didn’t say anything. He watched me cross the street before slowly returning inside his house.

Feeling a little raw, I limped across our front yard. My knee throbbed.

I glanced back at Rafael’s house. What was Marquis implying? That I was pursuing Rafael? I snorted. The thought was ludicrous. I sat down on the porch step and absently reached back to pet Tigger. He lazily lifted his head to look at me with his droopy eyes before settling back to sleep.

I’d never liked Marquis from the beginning, and I liked him less now. In all of the excitement the past few days, I’d forgotten about the red tendrils. He’d been up to no good, of that I was certain.

I tossed the night vision goggles aside and blew my hair out of my face. Too bad Jareth hadn’t been hanging around. Even though he was kind of intimidating, and had been in a rather nasty mood the last time I’d seen him, he’d leaked more information than anyone else. I still had his phone number in my pocket.

On a whim, I took it out and looked at the numbers in the dim porch light. I rolled my eyes and tossed it aside. It probably wasn’t even his real cell phone number.

“You called?” I heard Jareth’s voice whisper next to me.

Startled, I jumped to my feet and would have screamed if he hadn’t clamped his hand over my mouth. Grabbing me by the arm, he pushed me toward the trees. I panicked. I didn’t know where he was taking me. I struggled, grabbed the fork in my pocket, and stabbed him viciously.

Immediately, his grip loosened and let me go.

Whirling, I expected to find him on his knees, writhing in pain, like Harmony had, but instead he was towering over me, appearing immensely annoyed. Swearing under his breath, he plucked the fork protruding from his hand and tossed it away.

My eyes widened and my mouth opened, but I couldn’t make a squeak.

“That’s hardly fair, Sydney.” Jareth grimaced. “I only came because you called.”

“I didn’t call you!” I gasped. I looked at the porch where I had tossed the paper. I had just glanced at it. I hadn’t even reached for my cell phone.

“You read the numbers, didn’t you?” he replied scathingly. He grabbed my shoulder and pushed me a few feet closer to the trees with the rough explanation, “Marquis is watching you. I don’t want him to see me.”

Safely out of view from Rafael’s house, he leaned against the side of ours and shoved his hands in his pockets. He seemed unusually irritated, but then, I had just stabbed him with a fork. Apparently I had been wrong about stainless steel.

“Hey,” I said, suddenly recalling his words from before, “I thought you said you couldn’t come to the house.”

“I obviously can now!” he retorted with no further explanation.

“Sorry to have bothered you!” I snapped. “I didn’t realize I was even calling you, so you can go back to doing whatever it was …” My words trailed off as I noticed his outfit for the first time. With difficulty, I finished the sentence, “… you were doing.”

In the dim light of the streetlights, I could see he was wearing the same type of outfit that Rafael had worn on Halloween, but with the addition of chains. Feathers, chains, and scarves all twisted around a form-fitting suit. His arms were bare, revealing finely sculpted muscles, and his face bedecked with glitter and half covered in makeup. The white pigeon, from before, sat on his shoulder, preening its feathers.

Jareth caught my gaze and sent me an amused smile. “Ah yes, I suppose my everyday dress would seem strange to a human.”

I swallowed. “Well, you
are
a rock star.”

“You know quite well that I’m not.” Jareth tossed his head in an impatient gesture. “Though of all the human careers available, it was the only one I could tolerate. Barely.”

“Then what are you?” I asked, annoyed at his belittling tone.