The Rose Ransom (Girls Wearing Black: Book Three) Read online

  Nicky ran to the window. The van was twenty feet away from the plane.

  “What’s got you so spooked out there?” Heather said as she approached the window. Unlike Ryan, this woman seemed to recognize the danger. As soon as Heather saw the van, she backed away from the window, her eyes wide with fear.

  “That van is exactly what you think it is,” said Nicky.

  “I don’t think it’s anything,” Heather said, her voice trembling.

  “I’m in trouble with the clan back home,” Nicky said. “That van is here to take us away. They’ll take all of us.”

  Heather was shaking her head. “No, it must be something else,” she said.

  “Hi again folks,” came the captain’s voice over the speakers. “The airport has kindly provided transportation to the terminal. Cabin, please prepare the doors.”

  Heather let out a nervous laugh.

  “Hear that? The van is going to take us to the terminal. That’s all it is. Oh my God, you really had me spooked there for a minute.”

  Nicky brushed past her, went to the front of the plane, and pulled the phone off the wall. There was a brush of static, a quick beep, then the pilot’s voice came on.

  “What can I do you for, Heather?” he said.

  “That van isn’t here to take us to the terminal.”

  “Heather?”

  “This isn’t Heather. This is your passenger, Nicky Bloom. When you open that door, men in gas masks are going to rush the plane with canisters of Addonox.”

  A few seconds of silence on the other end of the line, then, “Why do you think that?”

  “Because I’m an agent of the resistance. I am in the Network. I posed as a Thorndike student to get close enough to a vampire to kill him. I just got a message from my colleagues that I’ve been found out and there will be people waiting at the airport to take me away.”

  More silence. Nicky turned back to the cabin to see Ryan and Heather staring at her, dumbfounded. When the captain came back on he said, “Please give the phone to Heather.”

  “I need you to understand that you’re in danger too,” Nicky said. “I can help you, but only if you get us out of here. There’s still a chance, but the longer we wait, the worse it becomes. If you start rolling now, if you take off now, we can go someplace safe. I have friends all over the world. We can--”

  “Hang on, the tower’s buzzing me,” the captain said.

  A click, some static, and then the other side went blank. Nicky pulled the phone away from her ear and looked at it.

  “He cut me off,” she muttered. “How do I get him back on?”

  Heather and Ryan were standing in the aisle, staring at her.

  “Is that true, Nicky?” Ryan said. “Are you in the Network?”

  The look on his face was equal parts fascination and anger. It wasn’t that different than the look he wore when Nicky arrived at the Masquerade in a black dress.

  “What have you done?” Heather whispered. “You’ve killed us all.”

  “Only if we stay on the ground,” Nicky said. “We all need to work together to get through this. Listen to me. Under no circumstances can we open the doors. We must convince the pilot to take off again.”

  “But where would we go?” Heather demanded, her voice breaking like she was about to cry. “What would we do?”

  “All we need to do is get to another airport. The plane will outfly any attempts to get another van there to meet us. Once we land somewhere else, anywhere else, I can get all of us someplace safe. The Network is active in every country in the world. I can get help for us.”

  “But then what? Do we run for the rest of our lives?”

  Heather was about to flip out on them. Who could blame her? The vision Nicky was presenting was one where everybody on this plane had their identities wiped by the Network. It was a brutal, unreasonable proposition.

  In truth, it wasn’t necessary for someone like Heather. The pilots and flight attendant would be kidnapped with the rest of them, but once the vampires had a look in their minds, they would wipe their memories clean of all of this and send them on their way.

  Nicky was hoping that neither Heather nor the pilot would understand this. She was hoping that fear would cloud their judgment and they’d get the plane in the air before they thought it through.

  The alert bell chimed and the pilot’s voice came over the speakers, filling the cabin.

  “Okay everyone, the tower’s getting antsy for us to open the doors,” he said. “However, they said some things to me that have us convinced up here that our passenger is…well, that she’s telling the truth. We’ve decided to take off. We don’t have any clearance so we’ll need to move quickly before the runway gets blocked.”

  “Dear God,” Heather whispered.

  “I’ll need for both our passengers to take a seat in the back and fasten their belts. Expect this takeoff to be rough.”

  “Takeoff. No, this is a bad idea,” Heather said.

  Nicky put the phone back in the cradle and approached Heather.

  “It’s the only way,” she said. “We’re all dead otherwise. This is the right decision.”

  A mascara stained tear streaked down Heather’s face.

  “Just go get in your seat,” she whimpered. “I want to talk to the captain.”

  “I don’t think there’s time for that,” Nicky said. “You need to get strapped in too.”

  As if the captain were eavesdropping on their conversation, he said over the speakers, “Heather, please pick up the com.”

  Heather pushed Nicky aside and ran to the phone.

  “Please Roddy, don’t do this yet,” she said. “We can talk to them. We can tell them we’re innocent. We can--”

  She stopped talking and started listening. Nicky really wanted to know what the captain was saying to her. Heather pushed the air with her hand, waving Nicky off and mouthing the words, “Get back. Get in your seat.”

  Nicky had already decided she wasn’t getting in her seat until the plane was actually moving.

  “Okay,” Heather said between sobs. “Okay. Yes, I understand. I’ll….okay.”

  She tried to hang up the phone but her body was shivering violently and she couldn’t do it. The receiver dropped against the wall, hanging by its cord. Heather left it and started pulling down a seat from the wall.

  “Get buckled!” she yelled at Nicky. “He’s going to take off!”

  Nicky stood in place, watching.

  “Nicky come on, let’s sit,” said Ryan.

  She felt like none of this was right, that the pilot had acquiesced too easily. She didn’t want to sit down yet. She wanted to grab the phone and demand that the pilot come back and talk to her.

  But then the plane lurched and Nicky fell to the floor. They were moving.

  As the plane accelerated, Nicky pulled herself up and slid into the chair. Out the window she saw the runway rolling past. It was real. They were moving. They were getting out of here. The captain was doing the right thing. She grabbed both ends of the seatbelt and locked it around her waist.

  “Safety positions everyone,” came the captain’s voice.

  Nicky looked up the row to see the attendant crouched down in her seat, her hands over her head. From the seat next to her, Ryan put his arm over Nicky’s shoulders.

  “Let’s lean down,” he said quietly.

  The plane was still gathering speed. Nicky bent over at the waist, and found herself face to face with Ryan.

  “You have a lot of explaining to do,” he said.

  “I know,” said Nicky. “I will. I’ll tell you…”

  Amidst all the sounds around them, from the revving up of the aircraft engines to the many alert bells, Nicky heard a loud crank, and then a pop. She knew right away it wasn’t a sound she wanted to hear.

  She sat up and saw Heather pulling on the lever of the forward door.

  “No!” Nicky shouted. She tried to jump up but the seatbelt caught her, and she had to stop to
unbuckle it. By the time she got to the front of the plane, Heather had thrown the door open, letting the afternoon sun pour into the cabin.

  And the plane was slowing to a stop.

  “Heather, what did you do?”

  “Roddy told me to do it. And the tower told him,” Heather said.

  Nicky looked at Heather’s face, all streaked and smudged in wet makeup. Her eyes seemed more composed than before. Her body more relaxed.

  “I’m sorry Nicky. They said we’d be spared if we cooperated. We pretended to take off so you would get in your seat and I could open the door. We are innocent. It’s you they want.”

  An explosion happened somewhere outside the plane. Instinctively, Nicky and Heather both ducked. A steel cylinder soared over their heads, crashed into the back wall, and rolled to the floor.

  White gas came hissing out of the canister, and everyone inside the plane instantly fell asleep.

  Chapter 6

  To: Network Headquarters

  From: Jill Wentworth

  I am writing to report the demise of our mission at Thorndike Academy. As I type this email, we have declared Code Orange for all agents working on the mission.

  I cannot take the time for a thorough debriefing in this email, but will quickly report that Gia, Kendall, and Dante are dead, killed by Melissa Mayhew. Melissa is also dead, killed by Renata Sullivan. It is Renata who is the primary danger to our mission now. She has been in the Bloom mansion. Her servants have stolen all the computer servers and paperwork inside. We expect her to seek out Nicky Bloom and anyone close to her for information.

  Nicky is on a plane with Ryan Jenson. Their destination is unknown to us. I have sent Nicky a message warning her of the danger. I have not heard a response.

  Phillip, Helena, and I spent the night at the safe house in Arlington. Now that we have the cover of daylight, we are leaving Washington. Per the protocol, we will leave on separate routes and rendezvous at a secure location one week from now.

  With regret,

  Jill Wentworth

  Jill hit send, she hugged Phillip and Helena goodbye, and she watched them leave. Phillip and Helena both headed south, driving away from Washington and the danger that awaited them there. Jill, however, got into her car and drove north, back to her house in Potomac.

  It was hardly a safe place for her to go. If her enemies were looking for her, the house was the first place they would check.

  She didn’t care. She had to stay focused on the task at hand, and the task at hand was getting her mother out.

  Two days had passed since Jill learned the truth about her mother. Old emails between Walter, Merv, and Galen, threads of evidence connecting those emails to the paperwork Jill and Nicky found in Merv Tremblay’s house, memories of who her mother was and how she’d always behaved—it seemed so obvious now that Carolyn Wentworth wasn’t a normal person. It seemed absurd that Jill had spent so many years hoping her mother would come around and the two of them could have a relationship.

  But they couldn’t. Not until Carolyn’s mind was released from the spell a vampire had put on it many years ago.

  The moment Jill learned that her father had purchased a slave to make into his wife, Jill knew she wasn’t escaping alone. When I get out, my mother gets out too. That was the thought Jill used to set her mind at ease about the horrible truth she’d unearthed. Yes, my father is a monster and my mother is his victim, but I can set it right. I’ll have her ready to leave by the time the mission is over. We’ll get her to the Network’s best hypnotist. He’ll undo the commands that hold her mind hostage. She’ll learn who she really is and why she needs to go.

  Before Alvin called with news that changed everything, Jill thought she had months to make her mother well. Now she had hours. Now she needed to get her mother out of the house and in front of a hypnotist before dark, and hope for a miracle.

  She parked the car in the driveway, ran through the front door, up the stairs, and knocked on the door to her mother’s study.

  “Come in,” her mother called from the other side.

  Carolyn didn’t turn to greet Jill as she entered.

  “Hi Mom,” Jill said.

  “What do you need?” Carolyn asked, her fingers clattering on the keyboard.

  “I’ve come to take you somewhere. I need you to close up what you’re working on.”

  Carolyn continued typing. Jill waited.

  And waited.

  “Mom?”

  “Almost done,” Carolyn said. “I’ll stop when I’ve finished this block.”

  Ten minutes passed before Carolyn stopped typing and turned around.

  “Tell me again why you’re here,” Carolyn said.

  Jill felt an old resentment build up at the words. Her mother spoke in a direct, almost rude tone of voice. It was so easy for Jill to get irked at the woman. She had years of practice.

  But now you know better, Jill told herself. The proper emotion here is pity, not anger.

  “I am taking you to see someone,” Jill said.

  Already, Carolyn was turning back to the computer.

  “Dad asked me to take you to a hypnotist,” Jill said.

  Carolyn stopped moving.

  “When did you speak with your father?”

  Just as Jill expected. She didn’t know or understand the particulars of the mind control that governed her mother, but it had something to do with being an obedient wife. Carolyn worked at the computer all day because it was what her husband wanted. But if he wanted her to knit sweaters instead, that’s what she’d do.

  “Dad and I talked on the phone yesterday,” Jill said.

  Carolyn turned all the way around. For the first time since the conversation began, Jill had her mother’s full attention.

  “You never speak on the phone with your father,” she said.

  “I did yesterday,” said Jill. “He called me. He’s all worked up about this idea of having you see a hypnotist.”

  “A hypnotist?”

  Carolyn made no effort to hide her skepticism. Jill was ready for this. She’d started rehearsing this scene in her mind as soon as she left Arlington.

  “Dad’s been reading books about how the brain works,” Jill said. “He thinks you’ll be better at your job if you take time to relax your mind.”

  “I get enough sleep every night,” Carolyn said.

  “It’s more than sleep,” said Jill. “Dad’s excited about the power of hypnosis for high performers like you. He wants you to try it.”

  Carolyn sighed. “He thinks he wants me to try it,” she muttered.

  “What was that?” Jill said.

  “I just got started on my work for the day. Can we do this some other time?”

  “Dad was very clear,” said Jill. “He found the best hypnotist in the area and the appointment is this morning.”

  “Appointment? No, there will be no appointment. This hypnotist’s time is not more valuable than mine. Reschedule it. Put him on retainer. If I’m going to do this, we’ll do it when I’ve reached a lull in my work.”

  “Mom. This guy is the best in the world. And all the businesses are doing this now. Dad will be angry with me if I don’t get you to this appointment.”

  Carolyn sat still for a moment. Jill could see the conflict brewing behind her eyes.

  On the one hand, Carolyn thought this all sounded like a distraction from the work she was doing. On the other hand, Jill was telling her that Walter wanted it. Jill braced herself, hoping her mother was going to say something she wanted to hear.

  “I will bring my laptop and work while we drive,” Carolyn said. “And if I don’t notice any improvement after the session, we won’t do this again. I want nothing more than to please your father, but sometimes he is confused about what he really wants. I know your father. He wants me to be productive. He thinks this hypnotist thing will help. I think it won’t.”

  Jill smiled. “We can tell Dad all about it when it’s over. If you’re right, I’m sure he wo
n’t make you do it again.”

  *****

  Her mother in the passenger seat typing away furiously on her laptop, Jill set the GPS to take them to Landover, Maryland. When they got on the highway, Jill turned on the radio.

  Carolyn turned it off.

  “Please, could we listen to that?” Jill said. “I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”

  “That is your problem. I can’t focus with the music on.”

  “Alrighty then,” Jill muttered. She opened a window.

  “Close that,” her mom commanded. “It’s distracting me.”

  “I’m sorry Mom. I’m just so tired. I need to do something or I might fall asleep.”

  “You shouldn’t be tired at this time of day.”

  “Well, I am. I was up late.”

  “You shouldn’t stay up late.”

  “I’ll try to remember that for next time.”

  Carolyn let out a long, angry grunt and typed more vigorously. She was practically slamming her hands on the keys.

  “Easy there, Mom.”

  With a suddenness that startled Jill, Carolyn reached up and slammed her hands against the dashboard.

  “This is a waste of time!” she screamed. “I can’t focus in this car! I need to be in my study! I’ve got work to do! Roll up that window now, Jill! I can’t concentrate at all when it’s down! And look where you’re going!”

  Jill turned her attention to the road and realized she was drifting between two lanes. She yanked the steering wheel to the right. It was too sudden a movement for the speed they were going, and the car lurched in response. For half a second, Jill was convinced it was going to flip.

  Apparently her mom was too.

  “Are you trying to kill us?” Carolyn shouted.

  “I’m sorry,” Jill said. “It’s just, I’ve never seen you that angry before. It surprised me.”

  “Well stop being surprised. I need you to focus on the road. And I need you to roll up the god damned window!”