27. Everett
27
EVERETT
T hen.
“Everett Hollow.”
There is a small fleck of lint on my trousers. I pinch it off and let it fall to his very nice rug.
My job as a Wolfpack Special Forces Operative is to be invisible.
But like Hansel, I itch to leave little breadcrumbs of myself everywhere I go, as though I’m daring someone to find me.
I pry my gaze away to turn my attention to the man behind the desk.
Mr. Preacher is an impeccable man tucked in a tailored gray suit. The curve of his white mustache is impressive.
His polite smile twists. I sense he’s irritated with me.
“Yes?” I ask.
He mimes plucking something invisible out of his ear— a gesture encouraging me to remove my earbuds. “Do you think you can remove those so we can talk?”
Currently, my earbuds are filtering in a soft, rhythmic low-fi. If I disconnect it, I’ll be forced to withstand the irritating click of the ancient grandfather clock in Mr. Preacher’s office.
I inform him, “No.”
His expression goes slack. I gather he’s unaccustomed to the word.
What would Mr. Schilling say? You get more bees with honey than vinegar.
“Mr. Hollow—” he protests again.
Mr. Preacher has a syrupy, old-world, Deep South accent. An accent reserved for Civil War reenactments.
I’ve trained myself into a neutral accent, but when my vocal cords relax, there is a Kentucky grit that I can’t get out. Like sand.
But I have an ear for accents. I pay attention to the way he accentuates the consonants in my name.
Huh-AL- oh .
I try to smooth the ground with, “Call me Everett.”
Mr. Preacher fixes his expression and presses on a waxen smile. “Everett, then. Are you listening?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Because this is important. This is my daughter, after all. We haven’t spoken in…some time…but she is my only child, and if anything were to happen to her, well…”
He runs his hand over his mouth.
He is composed. A powerful figure. But his hands are trembling.
“That’s why you hired Wolfpack,” I tell him. “We’re the best at what we do. As long as Claire is under my protection, she’ll be safe. You have my word. ”
His mustache relaxes.
“They’re after me,” he says. “They want my fortune and my legacy. When I’m done for, they’ll turn to Claire next.”
“They ?”
He pets his mustache again. His irises go unfocused. There is an edge of madness to this man, and I feel I’m losing him to it. “The society,” he says. “They’ve been trying to kill me for years.”
“Why?”
He looks out the window. Searching. “I put myself in debt to them,” he says. “A long time ago. Now, they want to collect. They don’t want my money. They want my flesh. Claire’s flesh. And they won’t stop until they find her.”
Okay. Let’s redirect.
“What does she like?” I ask.
“Who?”
“Your daughter.”
He thinks. “Horses.”
“ Horses ?”
I’m no good at regulating my tone. I can’t control the bite. He shifts uncomfortably. “Yes. Horses.”
He’s proven himself useless, so I move on to a different tactic. “Does she have a room here?”
He nods. “Yes.”
“I need to see it.”
He stands. I take his cue and get to my feet as well. He glances up at me, and I don’t miss the downturn in his mouth. I have an uncanny ability to annoy people simply by getting to my feet. The height difference between us is staggering. The crown of his head reaches my chest.
I’ve learned to keep pace a couple of feet away so I don’t crowd him.
Before we exit his office, my feet stop at the doorway .
I cast one last glare at the grandfather clock. “You need to dismantle that clock.”
His eyebrows furrow. “I’ll take it under advisement.”
He leads me out of the office and down the hall. We come to a locked door. He opens it but then steps back.
Like a vampire, he can’t seem to cross the threshold.
I give him an out. “I’ll find you if I have any questions.”
He nods tightly, but before he leaves, he makes sure to tell me, “Don’t move anything.”
I step inside. The air is stale, as though the room has been kept like a museum.
The room is bathed in a soft, purple hue. I close the door behind me. I open the blinds. The light catches on dust, and I crack open a window.
It’s quiet in here. I take a breath. I pull out my phone, turn off the music, and turn on the mic.
I touch my glasses. “Do you have eyes?”
“Yes. Eyes and ears.”
The smooth voice in my ear is Aaron Schilling—my handler.
The frames of my glasses are fitted with two small, invisible cameras in the screws.
Likewise, my headphones are connected to Schilling’s device.
What I hear, Schilling hears. What I see, Schilling sees.
It doesn’t always connect directly to Schilling. He’s made a point to join me for the preliminary exam of this operation in order to make sure it’s a legitimate request. Most of the time, I’ll get wired through to one of the remote intelligence agents. While I’m in the field, they’re behind a desk, researching my findings, geo-tracking faces, and occasionally quickly searching things like how to land a helicopter.
My job is a lot of things. Boring isn’t one of them .
“Sweep the room,” Schilling instructs.
I make a grid around the room, careful to aim the lenses in every corner so I make sure I’m not missing anything.
People are not unlike puzzles. There are pieces of Claire Preacher scattered all around this room, begging for someone to pick them up and put them together.
On her bedside table sits two photographs in hand-painted wooden frames. One is a picture of a chestnut horse. The second is a picture of small child with straw-colored hair cuddled up to her stern, unsmiling father.
She has posters on the wall. Rows of beautiful women in striking poses.
According to Mr. Preacher, he hasn’t seen Claire in three years.
Which makes her twenty-four when she left.
This isn’t the room of a twenty-four-year-old. This is the room of a sixteen-year-old.
Which begs the question:
Who, or what, was she hiding?
“Do you really think Oculus is involved in this?” I ask.
“It’s a thin lead,” Schilling admits, “but right now, it’s the only lead we’ve got to work with.”
We’ve been hunting down whispers of Oculus for years now. Oculus is an organization responsible for, primarily, the black-market trade of stolen goods, drugs, and, occasionally, trafficking people. The deeply secretive organization has fingers spread all across the world.
But why would they put roots in small-town Kentucky?
It doesn’t add up.
“What’s your read on Preacher?” Schilling asks.
“He has too much money, no friends, and his isolation has made him paranoid. But you know what they say about insanity. The only thing worse than being paranoid…is to be paranoid and actually have someone after you.”
“We’ll keep eyes on him. I’m forwarding you a plane ticket to Paris now. Leaves in the morning. I need you to watch the daughter. If even a sliver of what he’s saying is true, she might be the lead to draw out Oculus.”
“The bait, you mean.”
“You’ll be there to protect her. She’ll lead us to Oculus. It’s a win-win.”
I touch her sheets. The soft, pink fabric is squared into pillowed puffs. I lean in close. Her pillow smells like lavender.
I stand. I go to her bookshelf.
Nancy Drew—both the modernized version and the old, yellow-edged hardback covers. Willkie Collins. Mary Shelley. This is a woman who escapes her life by diving into darkness. But how dark will she go?
I draw a single fingertip over the tops of the books but come to a stop at a familiar one.
I tilt the spine.
“ The Sacred Stallion . Volume one. I used to love these books.”
“Focus, Everett.”
When I pull the book out, my knuckle hits the side of the shelf, and the board shifts. It’s loose. I press the board aside and find a secret compartment inside. There’s a small stash of journals in here. I pull one out and open it. Her diary . All her secret, private thoughts jotted down for my eyes only.
I pocket the book. “I have all I need.”