Alchemy of secrets, p.5
Alchemy of Secrets, page 5
During undergrad, Eileen Cheng had been a business major, and she’d taken Folklore 517 to round out her educational experience. Now, she was an overworked personal assistant for someone she refused to name. Cat and Holland both imagined Eileen’s employer was a celebrity, but an NDA prevented Eileen from revealing which one.
Every week, Cat tried to guess who Eileen worked for—she believed NDAs should really be FrienDAs. But Eileen was a vault. She was the friend whom everyone agreed they would call if they ever needed to hide a dead body. In fact, her name was in Holland’s phone under the words In Case of Lethal Emergency.
“How do you always do that?” Cat asked. “You just appear like magic.”
“Magic is mostly misdirection,” Eileen said coolly. “Both of you were busy staring at Chance and his newest fan club.”
“Should we rescue him?” Holland asked.
Cat and Eileen both made a show of checking out the giggling girls to see if any were pretty. Chance had repeatedly told them never to rescue him if the fans were pretty.
Chance really was a solid friend. He was the guy to call if you wanted to go out for drinks at a new bar, go for a jog along the beach, or move furniture that was too heavy. But he could be a little shallow.
“I think we should leave him tonight,” Cat said. “He seems to be smiling at the blonde who looks a little like you, Holland.”
Holland wrinkled her nose. “I don’t think she looks like me.”
“I agree.” Eileen took a second to eye the blonde. “She looks like the sort of person who has never had anything bad happen to her.” Eileen’s eyes narrowed. “I would bet she only buys books to use as props in photos, and her version of news is celebrity gossip.”
“I enjoy celebrity gossip,” said Cat.
Holland’s phone chimed. She glanced down quickly, hoping the Professor or Jake had finally texted (because despite what she kept telling herself, she hadn’t completely given up hope that there would be more than cats in her future).
Still nothing from either of them.
Instead, she had a missed call from a number that came up as FIRST BANK OF CENTENNIAL CITY.
Holland’s skin went cold.
The bank had left a voice message. But all her phone said was Unable to transcribe.
“What’s wrong?” Eileen asked.
“I’m sorry, guys. There’s a message I just need to check—” Holland quickly shoved up from her seat. “I’ll be right back.”
The lobby was too loud. Holland made her way up to the mezzanine, where the sound of the crowd below was dimmed enough that she could hear her footsteps on the old Spanish tile.
She tried not to pace, but Holland couldn’t help it as she hit Play on the message.
“Good evening. I’m Padme Davani, assistant to the Manager of the First Bank of Centennial City. I’m calling to inform you that I’ve been able to secure you a fifteen-minute slot on the calendar tomorrow at 9:45 a.m. As I believe this is your first appointment at the Bank, I suggest you arrive five minutes early, and do not be late or you may not have enough time to open up your father’s box.”
Folklore 517: the Bank
It’s the morning. You wake up, bleary-eyed and hangover-lethargic, although you don’t recall drinking. You rub your eyes as the walls stop spinning.
Now you remember, you had class last night, or you think you had class. Trying to play it all back is like attempting to hold on to a vanishing dream.
You can hear the Professor’s raspy voice, but you can’t remember anything she said. And you don’t remember leaving.
You text a friend.
Hey! Were you in class last night?
Dots appear as your friend begins to type. They stop. Then they start again.
The dots follow this pattern several times until, finally, three words appear:
I don’t remember
You open your notebook, the one you take to class every week. There are scribbled notes from the week before. But after that there’s … nothing.
You’re about to close the book when you see it. It looks like erased pencil marks—more of an impression than actual writing, but you make out a string of lines that give you the impression of a story you tried to erase.
THE BANK.
Impenetrable.
Most secure vaults in the world.
No one has ever stolen from it. No one ever dares break into it.
By appointment only.
CHAPTER FIVE
It was real.
Holland had been afraid to get her hopes up. But she hadn’t mentioned her father when she’d left her message, she’d just said she’d been left a box.
She could practically hear her father’s voice now, telling her, Good job, Hollybells, keep following the clues. Because this felt like a clue.
Holland wondered what her father could have left her. She hoped it was maybe the start of another treasure hunt. But even if it wasn’t, she’d be happy to have anything from her dad.
Holland needed to call her sister. She knew it was past midnight in Spain, and Mr. Vargas had warned her not to tell anyone about the box. But everyone knew the rules were that if you had a secret, you got to tell your person, and January was Holland’s person.
She pressed her sister’s name, but the call went straight to her all-too-familiar voicemail.
“Hey JJ, it’s me. Something has happened. I was just contacted by a bank. I think Dad left us something in a—”
Her phone rang halfway through the message. Jake’s name flashed across the screen. Finally. Holland wanted to answer. But this was the worst possible time. She sent Jake to voicemail with a text that said Can I call you later?
No, he replied immediately. The Watch Man called.
Her heart skipped a beat.
Jake called again. This time, Holland answered on the first ring.
“Tell me this is all a joke,” Jake demanded, before she could even say hello.
“What ha—”
“He called,” Jake cut in. “The Watch Man. He—” Jake stammered and swallowed loudly enough for Holland to hear through the phone. “He told me that I would die tonight. Unless—” Jake broke off. For a second, all Holland could hear was a ragged sound that might have been a sob.
Holland wanted to tell him it was going to be okay, that it couldn’t be real. But the message she’d just received from the bank made her feel that the Professor’s stories were more real than ever.
Then she thought about Adam Bishop. She heard his voice saying, I know you look up to her, but you really shouldn’t. That woman is a liar and a fraud. And suddenly Holland hoped he was right.
It physically hurt to imagine being so wrong about the Professor, to think that the Watch Man was a scam, which would mean the bank was definitely a scam as well, and there was no box from her father.
But if the Professor was everything Holland believed, then that meant Jake was going to die.
“What did the Watch Man tell you?” Holland asked.
“He said that I would die at 6:47 p.m. unless—” Jake cut off again. Then, so soft she almost didn’t hear it over the laughter and the footsteps and the tourists talking too loudly in the lobby below: “I can’t do what he says, Holland.”
“What does he want you to do?”
“I don’t want to say. I just—I don’t want to be alone right now. Can you come over?”
“I…” Holland trailed off. Something in Jake’s voice made her nervous. But what kind of person said no to someone’s dying wish? No—she corrected herself. Jake wasn’t going to die tonight. Only, Holland wasn’t sure she actually believed that.
All she knew was that she’d had a bad feeling since she’d stepped into the Roosevelt, and she wondered if this was why.
“Please,” Jake begged softly. “I only filled out that paper last night because I was trying to impress you.”
Holland felt a stab of guilt. He was right about this basically being her fault, and if the situation was reversed, she wouldn’t want to be alone, either. “All right,” she said. “Just tell me where you are.”
Her phone pinged with a text showing an apartment complex address that was ten minutes away. “Hurry,” Jake said. “If this guy is right, I only have about an hour left.”
Holland jogged down the stairs back to the lobby. She might have gone without saying a proper goodbye, but she’d left her messenger bag at the table, and she knew her friends would worry if she just abandoned them.
“Please tell me you bought that man a drink before running away like Cinderella,” said Cat as soon as Holland approached.
“What are you talking about?” Holland asked.
Cat slyly inclined her head toward the mezzanine.
When Holland had been upstairs, the mezzanine level had been empty. But someone was there now. Standing in the grainy hotel light, leaning against the low wall, was a man in a white dinner jacket with an undone bow tie hanging around his neck.
Holland knew the stories about the different spirits who haunted the hotel, including a man in a white tuxedo. But the man she saw now wasn’t wearing a full-on tux. He also looked real, and just like Adam Bishop.
Something like ice crept up her spine. What the hell was going on? Had Adam followed her? But on second glance, it was clear he wasn’t actually Adam. There was definitely a resemblance, but this guy looked a little older, harder, and colder. His skin was a little lighter and his hair was a little darker. He was the looking-glass version of Adam.
Immediately, the stranger turned his head. His eyes locked onto Holland’s and the atmosphere charged, as if a bolt of electricity had escaped its bulb and now crackled through the air.
He didn’t stare at her the way a stranger might. This look was intimate. As if he knew her, as if he’d known her for a very long time. But Holland would have remembered a face like his.
Cat whistled through her teeth. “If you didn’t buy that man a drink, then I will.”
“No—” Holland said, although it came out a little like a shout. And for a second, she couldn’t say why. Earlier that night all she’d wanted to do was buy a stranger a drink, to prove the devil was real. And this guy definitely seemed as if he could fit the job description.
But for the first time in Holland’s life, she didn’t feel as if following the clues was a good idea. She thought about Adam’s earlier warning: The Professor is very convincing. But I think chasing after any of her stories is a very dangerous idea.
If Jake’s call wasn’t proof of this, Holland didn’t know what was.
Both Cat and Eileen stared at her with slightly bewildered expressions. “What’s wrong?” they asked at the same time.
“Don’t buy him a drink,” Holland said.
“Don’t buy who a drink?” asked Eileen.
“The white dinner jacket guy on the mezzanine.”
Cat’s eyes lit up. “What white dinner jacket guy?”
“The one we were just talking about!” Holland turned and pointed, but he was already gone.
Holland felt it then.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Her nose was bleeding. Again.
“Holland, are you all right?” Eileen quickly handed her a napkin.
Holland brought the cloth to her face, dizzy. Although she didn’t know if she was dizzy from the blood or because she was seeing and hearing things that no one else was. This was her second nosebleed today. She almost never got them, so she wasn’t an expert, but she didn’t think they usually came with a side of hallucinations.
“Sweetie, why don’t you sit down,” said Cat.
“I can’t.” Holland swiped her nose once more with the napkin. Thankfully it wasn’t much blood. She was still feeling wobbly, but she tried to act as if she was fine for her friends. “I hate this, but I actually have to run. I’m so sorry—I love you both.”
Her friends both said they loved her too.
“And don’t forget about the party tomorrow!” Cat held up one of the flyers on the table for the Hollywood Roosevelt’s Halloween Ball. “If you need a costume, I can still hook you up—and I can get one for Clark Kent, too, if he comes to his senses!”
Holland tried to smile at her friend’s eternal optimism. Then she spun around and immediately crashed into something solid.
“Whoa, Holly—” Chance put one of his hands on each of her shoulders. “Please tell me you’re not running away from me.” He flashed his irresistible smile. And Holland knew he wasn’t even trying to dazzle her. Chance was one of those very lucky child actors who grew up to be an even more beautiful adult.
“I’d never run from you,” Holland said. Normally she would add a teasing line about how she knew he was the one who liked to be chased. But she didn’t have it in her tonight.
Chance twisted his mouth. He might not have known her secrets, but he knew her well enough to know when something was wrong. “Is everything all right?”
I don’t know, she wanted to say. I feel like I made a mistake, or like I’m about to make a mistake. Then she thought again that if there was one person in her life who could possibly understand everything she was feeling and help make sense of what was going on, it would be Chance.
They had met after the class where the Professor had told everyone the myth about the devil and the sidecar. That night, in the parking lot, Holland had been talking to a small group about checking out various hotel bars, and suddenly Chance Garcia was there.
Can I join? he’d asked, and then he’d smiled as if he were just the boy next door—if the boy next door was a former child actor, with a face that had never stopped being cute. He had dimples, big eyes, and a smile made of pure charm.
Holland remembered being skeptical at first.
Sammy Sanchez had been her childhood crush, but this wasn’t Sammy Sanchez, she’d told herself. That was just the role Chance had played on television. Chance wasn’t an orphan with a heart of gold and undying loyalty to his friends. He was a former child actor with a very dark past. And yet, it was the dark past that had eventually drawn her toward him.
One night, after too many drinks at a hotel bar, after everyone else had left, Chance had confessed that he believed in all the Professor’s myths. His smile had vanished, his eyes had lost their spark, and she had seen that the demons that had ruined Chance’s childhood still haunted him.
Now Holland was almost tempted to tell him that the guy she was dating thought he was going to die in an hour because the Watch Man had given him a call.
But she feared that if she did tell Chance, he wasn’t going to let her leave. Even now, as he looked at the bloody napkin in her hand, she felt him gripping her shoulders tighter. “What happened?”
“Just a nosebleed.”
Her phone chimed with a text from Jake: Get here soon.
Chance’s eyes cut toward the screen. He dropped one hand from her shoulder, but for a second he kept the other one there.
“Chance, I need to go.”
“I know. But—” He squeezed her shoulder, and the last remnants of his dazzling smile disappeared. “Ever since I walked in here tonight, I’ve had a bad feeling. I don’t know what’s going on, but do me a favor and just be careful.”
CHAPTER SIX
Ten minutes.
Holland was nearly out of time when she arrived at an apartment complex made of Hollywood dreams that hadn’t turned into reality, full of actors and musicians masquerading as fitness instructors and baristas.
The sun was on the edge of setting, but the shade from the trees lining the walkway made the complex darker. Lights flickered, blinking in and out before coming to life and coloring her steps an unnatural shade of yellow.
Holland had always been someone who felt certain about what she believed. But all she felt now was scared. Her heart pounded as she climbed the steps to the apartment number Jake had texted.
Ten minutes from now, Jake was either going to be alive—and Holland would know for certain that the Professor’s stories were lies—or he was going to be dead—and Holland would regret ever hearing the stories.
She knocked on the door.
Jake opened it immediately.
He looked awful. His eyes were shot with blood, his Clark Kent hair was flat and a little greasy. Behind him, the only light came from a television in the corner. He looked smaller than he did in her memories, dressed in a washed-out red USC shirt that made him look faded as well.
“Do you want to come in?” He smiled, but it wasn’t the superhero grin from the night before. Even if it had been, Holland didn’t think she’d want to step inside. This version of Jake didn’t feel like the guy she’d been dating.
“I think I’m good out here,” she said, and she tried to make her voice sound light. The last thing he needed was to think she was feeling uncomfortable. “This way I can stand between you and anyone who wants to hurt you.”
“Please.” He looked at her with the saddest pair of eyes she’d ever seen.
Holland felt another stab of guilt. Then she felt as shallow as Chance for judging Jake when someone had just told him he was going to die. “Yeah, of course.” She took a cautious step inside.
“Wait—don’t—” Jake put a hand out as if to stop her. “Don’t come in.”
“You just asked me to…” Holland looked at him questioningly.
He cursed under his breath and ran a nervous hand through his hair. “Holland—I—I think you’re a really good person. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I—”
“Jake … you’re making me nervous.”
His bloodshot eyes met hers. “Jake isn’t my real name.”
“What?” Her heart pounded.
His expression changed from scared to guilty as hell. “I’m so sorry, Holland. They made it sound like a simple job.”
So many alarm bells went off in her head. She shouldn’t have come here. She had no idea what he was saying, but she knew this was when she needed to leave. She backed away.
“Wait—” He grabbed her arm.
“Let me go or I’ll scream.”
“Just let me explain,” he said quickly. “I know I lied to you—but you’re not safe out there.”
