Part 27 (1/2)
In a moment like this Ash knew there were two options: She could feign ignorance, play like she didn't know what the woman was talking about; or, since the former wasn't likely to work, she could play the dangerous you-don't-want-to-mess-with-me role.
She chose the latter.
”I'll give you five seconds to explain yourself.” She spread her fingers. ”Before I send you running for a fire extinguisher. Five, four-”
”Whoa, slow down there, Smoky-”
Ash lifted her eyes to the ceiling. ”Three. I'd be surprised if this sprinkler system even functions. Two . . .”
”I sent the mercenaries after you,” the woman blurted out.
”Aren't you supposed to be making a case for why I shouldn't burn you alive?”
”I promise I'm not here to hurt you. I'll tell you what.”
She gestured to the street. ”I'm going to go stand out on the curb. I'll let you pay for your dress-it really is quite beautiful-and if you want to talk, I'll be outside. At this point I wouldn't blame you if you decided to sneak out the back.”
Ash nodded. ”I guess that's fair. But if there's a horde of guerillas out on the street waiting to tranquilize me . . .”
”As if you and your friends left me with any guerillas,” she said. ”I'll see you in five.”
Ash changed back into her jeans and T-s.h.i.+rt, and 329 she approached the cash register with the little red dress.
As she reached into her handbag for her credit card, the young cas.h.i.+er waved her hand. ”No need, miss. That dress is already paid for.”
”Who . . . ?” Ash started to say, but her answer was standing outside next to a fire hydrant.
”Thank you?” Ash said as the bell hanging over the door jingled, announcing her exit.
”The least I could do,” the woman said. ”And I certainly can't let you go to a masquerade ball in that lovely orange jumpsuit you were wearing on Sunday. I'm Lesley Vanderbilt.” She offered her hand.
Ash took it hesitantly, and they started walking in the direction of the water.
”You'll forgive me if I'm a little disturbed that, over the course of four days, you've gone from attempting to capture me and my friends for some sort of science experiment, to buying me a dress and walking with me to the beach.”
”Science experiment? Capture you?” Lesley made an amused sound. ”I knew those mercenaries would never make it out of that canyon.”
”Why the h.e.l.l would you pay a group of ex-soldiers to . . .” But the answer dawned on Ashline even as she asked the question. ”You just wanted to see what we could do.”
”Your people are very shy about your abilities, and with good reason. The only way to get you to show what you're really made of is to back you into a corner, 330 so to speak. The caged and cornered animal will eventually bear its claws. So I staged a kidnapping of a girl that my team has identified as a siren, and when that didn't coax you out of your sh.e.l.ls, I had to bring in the firepower.”
”You did this so you could spectate from the trees?”
She regarded the woman's blazer with no small touch of derision. ”I guess the Roman aristocrats who had season tickets to the gladiator fights were always the well-dressed ones.”
”I instigated that firefight in the canyon because for the last eight months I've thought that you were the person I was looking for. I needed to be sure, and I was hoping you would reveal yourself. But it's recently come to my attention that the one I'm looking for is actually somebody else.”
”Who, then?”
They had finally reached the ocean, where the road culminated in a small parking lot that overlooked the jagged rocks and, beyond that, the Pacific. In the distance the sun was going down behind Battery Point lighthouse and the small island it sat upon. With the orange sunset as its backdrop, it looked as though the lighthouse were burning.
”The woman I'm looking for,” Lesley said at last, ”is Evelyn Wilde.”
Out on the sh.o.r.eline the waves crashed onto the rocks, sending a plume of water high into the air.
331.
”Why are you looking for my sister?”
Lesley clasped her hands behind her back. ”I've been keeping tabs on news stories about lightning strikes, electrocutions, and other weather phenomena for some time now. About eight months ago I hit the treasure chest I'd been looking for-a soph.o.m.ore at Scarsdale High School, Elizabeth Jacobs, struck by lightning in an accident on the roof of somebody's house-your house-and you were the only witness. Further digging revealed reports of strange weather patterns that same day. Snow in September?
Unlikely.”
”I can suggest a few less morbid and more productive hobbies than researching weather anomalies and freak accidents,” Ash suggested.
”Accidents?” Lesley barked. Her calm facade evaporated violently. ”Let me spell it out for you. In 1929 my grandfather was murdered by a Polynesian storm G.o.ddess.”
Ash opened her mouth to argue, but Lesley plowed on. ”I inherited all of his journals and captain's logs, so I know all about you people and your rebirth. During the prohibition of the 1920s, my grandfather was a rumrunner. To make his living he smuggled liquor between the Bahamas and Miami. With the coast guard on watch, it was a nearly impossible task . . . until he met your sister. She teamed up with him in exchange for a sizable take of the profits. Every time my grandfather's boat would come to port with a new s.h.i.+pment, 332 a fog would conveniently roll over Biscayne Bay, and fierce waves would batter away any curious boats. They partnered like this for three years.
”Then,” she continued, ”one night shortly after my grandmother gave birth to her only child-my father- my grandfather didn't come home. They found him tied to the hull of his s.h.i.+p, fully frostbitten at his extremities and his body still cooling from where the lightning had struck him.”
Ashline's stomach ached. She could still remember the smell of Lizzie Jacob's burned flesh under the falling rain as she lay beside her in the gra.s.s. ”Why would Eve do that?”
”I don't know.” Lesley sneered. ”He was too dead to write another journal entry about it.”
”Listen.” Ash took Lesley by the elbow. ”Even if my sister did do that to your grandfather, if his journals were as thorough as you say they are, you'd know that Eve has no recollection of her former lives. Why bother? All for a grandfather you never met?”
”Especially because I never met my grandfather.”
Lesley jerked her arm free from Ashline's hold. ”My grandmother made Dad promise not to hunt your sister down. He vowed to anyway, for the father he never knew, but Evelyn died before he could get to her. Now my father is in a nursing home and doesn't even remember who he is. So it's my responsibility to find your sister.
I don't give a d.a.m.n if she doesn't remember murdering 333 my grandfather. Judging from what happened to your friend Lizzie, your sister is programmed to kill.”
Eve's words from yesterday echoed in Ashline's ears.
Do you think it happens this way every time?
Do you think, maybe in the other times, I wasn't the bad girl?
”So you sent a squad of mercenaries to their death just in the hopes that I would shoot lightning bolts from my hands, or make it snow?”
”It didn't occur to me until after watching your tennis match yesterday that I had the wrong sister all along.”
”And what will you do if you capture her?”
”I'm hoping to find a way to dig into that brain of hers. Unlock her past memories. Find out what really happened with my grandfather.” Lesley looked to the horizon; two tall rocks offsh.o.r.e framed the sun between them like fingers holding a burning marble. ”And then I'm going to take a gun and find out if she's bulletproof.”
”Don't expect me to help you with that.” Ash started to walk away. ”I've heard enough.”
It was Lesley's turn to catch her by the elbow. ”You have an obligation-to my grandfather, to Elizabeth Jacobs, to every family your sister has yet to ruin in this lifetime-to bring her to me. I've seen the way she is with you; whatever violence moves the soul of Evelyn Wilde, there's something magnetic that binds the two of you.