Chapter Thirty-Two
A rush of certainty and satisfaction stirred Owen’s senses. They were finally getting somewhere. Rose Ash had cracked. She was falling apart, dissolving in tears. The answers were pouring out.
He glanced at Alice and was startled to see that she had just put a hand ever so gently on Rose’s shoulder. He picked up a faint pulse of energy. Good. Ash deserved a little trip through a nightmare, and Alice deserved a taste of revenge.
But Rose was sobbing into the napkin—not traumatized by some inner vision. She wasn’t locked in a bad dream. Alice was comforting her. He suppressed a groan. You can take the teacher out of the Ballantine Academy, but you can’t take the Ballantine Academy out of the teacher.
For a time the only sounds in the kitchen were Rose’s sobs and the intensifying wind. He glanced at his watch and checked the weather. He and Alice and Sebastian needed to leave soon if they were going to beat the incoming storm.
“We don’t have a lot of time,” he said in an effort to move things along.
Rose hiccupped and wiped her nose. She sat back and looked at Alice.
“They used him,” she said. “Just like they used you. When they didn’t need him anymore, they murdered him.”
“It must have been a shock seeing him in the video.”
Rose crushed the napkin in her fingers. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw the watch.
I gave it to him, you see. I knew there would come a time when Travis wanted to know about his father.
I made up a story of star-crossed lovers.
I told him his dad was a brilliant chemist and that he and I had been involved in a passionate affair.
I said we were planning a full Covenant Marriage but that his father had been killed in a lab disaster.
I gave Travis the watch and told him that his father would have been very proud of him. ”
“But it was all a lie, wasn’t it?” Owen said. He ignored the sharp glare from Alice. “Well, not all of it. You did have an affair with Dunstan Kelbrook. When he got bored with the arrangement, he dismissed you from his life like any other employee who was no longer useful.”
“Stop it, Owen,” Alice said, her voice low and tight.
He kept his attention on Rose because he knew there were more answers locked inside the woman. “How in green hell did you get the watch? It’s worth a fortune. I can’t imagine Kelbrook giving it to you as a souvenir.”
Rose sighed. “When I told him that I was pregnant, he was furious and ordered me to get rid of the baby. I refused, but I gave him my word that if he paid my price, I would never contact him again.”
“What was your price?” Alice asked.
“He agreed to buy the hotel for me and give me the watch. I wanted something personal of his that I would someday be able to give to my child. The timepiece was nothing to Dunstan. He took it off and threw it at me as if it were a cheap trinket.”
“You kept your end of the bargain,” Alice said gently.
“Yes.” Rose clenched both hands very tightly in her lap. “When Travis turned thirteen, I realized that he had not only inherited my apothecary talent, he had developed a second one from his father.”
More tears trickled down her cheeks. Alice silently handed her a fresh napkin.
“Poole was a double?” Owen pressed.
Rose sniffed and used the napkin to blot her eyes. “He was a high-rez mirror as well as a mid-level apothecary. Dunstan is also a double. A strat and a mirror.”
“Did you know Kelbrook was a double?” Owen asked.
Rose sniffed. “Not at first. Like all mirrors, he’s very good at making sure you only see what he wants you to see, but when you get to know a mirror well, it becomes difficult for them to hide the truth.
Eventually he admitted that he was a double, but like most doubles, he preferred to keep a low profile. ”
“Especially,” Owen said, “if the second talent is one that is closely associated with liars, con artists, and leaders of cults. People are nervous around strong talents of any kind, but nobody trusts mirrors.”
“Because you can’t,” Rose said. “Kelbrook was so good that even after he admitted he was a mirror he managed to convince me that he loved me. To tell you the truth, it broke my heart to realize that Travis had inherited that aspect of his father’s talent.
I did my best to make him understand that he shouldn’t use it to manipulate people.
I pushed him to develop his apothecary talent instead.
I was so happy when he went into the academic world.
I told myself he had matured and become a decent young man.
I wanted to believe that was due to my influence. ”
“How did you and Kelbrook reconnect after all the years apart?” Alice asked.
“About a year ago he contacted me out of the blue and said he wanted to acknowledge Travis as a Kelbrook and give him a stake in the company. I knew there would be a catch, but as I said, Dunstan is a very powerful mirror.”
“And you wanted to believe him,” Alice said.
“I told myself that I could not turn down the offer and deprive Travis of his rightful inheritance. For his part, Travis was thrilled to learn the truth about his father. Dunstan invited him to the Kelbrook family compound. My son was dazzled.”
“All Travis had to do to be acknowledged as a true Kelbrook was convince me to marry him and spend one night here at the hotel,” Alice said.
Rose got a desperate expression. “I swear, I believed every word Dunstan said about you—that his brother had left the shares to you in an act of revenge. He said the shares belonged in the family and he would see to it that they went to Travis because Travis was family. A blood relative. Dunstan claimed he couldn’t acknowledge him as a son, but he promised to add him to the family tree as a cousin. ”
“All you and Travis had to do was agree to the plan,” Owen said.
Rose nodded. “Ten months ago, when I got that call from Dunstan telling me that you had murdered Travis, I think I went mad. For a while I fantasized about killing you, Ms. Radstone. But Dunstan and Twitchell convinced me that being locked up indefinitely in a para-psych hospital for the criminally insane was a harsher punishment than death.”
“So when Kelbrook or Twitchell called to tell you that I had escaped, you were willing to help them grab me again,” Alice said.
“When I found out that you were not suffering in a locked ward as I had believed all these months, I was furious. I jumped at the chance to help Kelbrook and Twitchell catch you and put you back where you belonged. They set up a scheme to lure you here and make sure you disappeared back into Serenity Gardens. All I had to do was get out of the way. Again.”
“Let’s talk about the first kidnapping,” Owen said. “You must have been told that they would need a body to make it look like Alice had gone insane on her wedding night. Who did you think would get killed?”
Rose looked shocked. “No one. I mean, no one who wasn’t already dead. They said the body would be that of a drifter from the county morgue. I believed them because I knew Dunstan had the power and the connections to arrange that sort of thing.”
“But they murdered Travis instead, because they assumed he would be a problem after the wedding,” Owen said.
“He would have been in the ideal position to make endless demands on Kelbrook. As Alice’s husband, he not only controlled her inheritance, he also knew about the plot to keep her locked away at Serenity Gardens. ”
“When I saw the video it all became clear,” Rose whispered.
“You set up your own revenge scheme,” Alice said. “You needed me as bait to lure Kelbrook out of his fortress. You hired Sykes Security to grab me.”
“Sykes had people watching you inside the Amber Palace.” Rose looked at the snoozing Sebastian.
“After the dust bunny hit the jackpot on a machine, Sykes came up with the idea of buying an inexpensive necklace with a locator crystal on it and making sure that it got to you with the message that it was for the dust bunny.”
“Everyone knows dust bunnies love sparkly things,” Alice said.
“How did you put it all together?” Rose asked.
“The sedative,” Owen said. “It was the one element that appeared in all three kidnapping incidents.”
“Yes, of course,” Rose said. “I should have thought of that. I formulated the drug. I’m a very good chemist. Obviously I haven’t had much experience hiring criminals.
You get what you pay for, I suppose. But I was afraid that if I didn’t act quickly, I would lose my window of opportunity.
I was terrified that Dunstan’s people would grab you first.”
“What were you going to do if and when you did manage to get Kelbrook and Twitchell here to the hotel?” Alice asked quietly. “Were you going to lock them in one of the rooms and try to drive them insane with the dream vapors?”
A feverish energy flashed in Rose’s eyes. “Something along those lines, yes.”
Alice touched Rose’s shoulder again. She barely made contact, Owen thought. Again, Rose did not appear to notice, but she visibly calmed.
He gave it a beat and then said, “I understand your desire for revenge. But our goal is to get Kelbrook to leave Alice alone. According to Twitchell, they are going to make her an offer for the shares. She plans to accept but with one stipulation. She will sign the papers that will transfer the shares to Kelbrook if he will agree to meet with her face-to-face at the Amber Palace and answer her questions about her mother. The media will be there. Once it’s all out in the open and Kelbrook has the shares, he won’t have any reason to try to lock her up again. ”
Rose looked at Alice. “I know your mother was his first wife. I never met her, but I felt sorry for her. I hope you get the answers you’re looking for, but never forget that Kelbrook is a mirror talent. He lies as easily as he breathes.”
“I know,” Alice said.
Owen got the touched-by-a-ghost sensation on the back of his neck that warned him it was past time to leave. Unfortunately. He had a lot more questions, and he knew Alice did, too. He glanced out the window. The sky was darkening rapidly. He stood.
Sebastian stirred awake. He shook himself and then, abruptly, all four eyes snapped open. He growled softly.
“We need to get on the road,” Owen said. “Now.”
Alice did not argue. She was already on her feet. She plopped Sebastian on her shoulder. He muttered and wobbled a little.
“Sebastian?” Alice reached up, took him down, and tucked him securely under her arm. “Are you all right?”
Sebastian growled.
Owen didn’t know how you could judge a dust bunny’s expression—unless he was sleeked out and showing a lot of teeth—but he could have sworn that Sebastian looked a little hungover.
The bunny mint, he thought. He met Alice’s worried eyes and knew she was thinking the same thing. Rose had lied about the effects of the herb.
“I’ll see you to the door,” Rose said.
She stood and led the way out of the cheerful kitchen and into a gloom-drenched hall. Owen and Alice and Sebastian followed her across the shadowed lobby. The dark, heavy drapes were drawn across the few windows, shutting out the storm light. Two dim lamps glowed on end tables.
Alice patted Sebastian’s head. Owen detected a small whisper of energy and knew she had used a little talent on the dust bunny.
Sebastian perked up immediately, sleeked out, and growled. He scrambled back up onto Alice’s shoulder.
“I hate this hotel,” Alice whispered to Owen.
“That’s too bad,” Rose said. “I’m afraid it’s too late to check out.”
The ghostly fingers on the back of Owen’s neck were downright skeletal now, but he was pretty sure the warning was coming too late.
Rose opened the door with a flourish. Dunstan Kelbrook loomed on the threshold, a mag-rez in one hand. He looked at Alice and smiled a cold smile.
“You’re a lot like your mother,” he said. “She was nothing but trouble, too.”