Monsters in the Halls (Castlehill University #2)

1

It was the longest journey of my life back to civilization.

I was being punished for something, yet my father refused to tell me what I had done wrong.

My eyes stayed fixed on the horizon, too alert and anxious for sleep to take hold.

After the train left Castlehill, I swore I heard motorbikes in the distance, but with no roads nearby, I figured it was a chainsaw hacking through trees in the woods.

When the train arrived at Morrisville Station, no one was there to pick me up and drive me home. I messaged my father but got no reply, then contacted his PA, who said Peter, my father’s driver, was stuck in traffic and would be there soon.

As dusk crept up, bringing with it a chill making my skin prickle, I sat on a bench in the station alone, hungry but unable to eat because my stomach was twisted into knots, with no relief until I found out what I had done wrong.

Peter finally turned up an hour later with a kind smile, “Back home already?” he stated, “It seems you have only been gone a few weeks.”

“Not even that,” I told him. “I don’t suppose you know why my father wants me home?”

He led me to the sleek, black limousine and opened the back door for me with my overnight bag on the seat beside me.

“I was only informed of you coming home earlier today, Adina,” he answered, shutting the door.

Then, once he climbed behind the wheel, he added, “I prefer to stay out of your family dramas.”

“Me too,” I chuckled under my breath, even though his words rang in my ears, noticing the steeliness in his tone, and I wondered if the evil stepmother had been on his back for no good reason. “How’s your family, Peter?”

“Happy, healthy. They’re good,” he paused to start the engine, “I’m going to be a grandfather,” his face lit up in the rearview mirror.

“Oh, that’s wonderful news. Congratulations, Peter. Have you told Dad?”

“Yes. He’s arranged for my daughter and son-in-law to go on a paid shopping spree at one of those stores that sell baby supplies,” he said proudly, and my heart lifted a little.

On the rare occasion, my father does things to remind me he’s human, which takes the edge off the cold, harsh character created in my mind.

“That’s wonderful,” I smiled in glee.

“Your father is a very good man, even though many do not agree with me,” he asserted, and I suspected he was referring to our enemies, most of all, the Warwicks.

“Yeah, I guess,” I sounded unenthused, then added, “Yes, he is a good man…when you don’t piss him off.”

We fell silent as night claimed the last of the daylight, and my eyelids grew heavy, staring out the window at the bright orange lights. I nodded off, and I don’t know how long I slept before I heard Peter state sternly, “Are you belted, Adina?”

My eyes flicked open just as the vehicle increased speed. “I’m belted,” I assured him.

“Good, because I think we’re being followed,” he said calmly. “Silver SUV trailing one vehicle behind has been on our tail not long after I picked you up. I’m going to turn off down a side street to see if they’ll follow.”

“Police? Feds?” I assumed, glancing briefly out the rear window, but I couldn’t see the suspicious vehicle as it was hidden behind the van that was directly behind us.

“I…am not sure,” he replied. Peter had been my father’s driver before I was born and was particularly good at identifying a cop a mile away.

Peter pulled up at a red light, and as soon as it turned green, he accelerated before changing lanes to make a right turn onto a street lined with boutique stores, most of which were closed. He didn’t speed up to alarm the vehicle behind him, but kept his speed steady.

“Is it following?” I asked as orange headlights flooded the inside of the vehicle.

“Yep,” he replied flatly, and I fell quiet, so he could focus on driving.

When we reached the end of the street, he turned left, in the wrong direction from our hometown, but he was testing the silver SUV.

Grabbing his phone, he told me, “I’m going to record their license plate number so we can scan it to ID them. ”

“Sure,” I held my breath as he drove down another back street before coming out onto the main road.

“They’ve pulled up on the side of the road,” he said sternly, “I lost sight of them. So, what I’m going to do is take you home as planned and see if he appears again.”

“Luckily, Dad spent thousands of dollars on home security,” I tried to lighten the moment, but this had happened before. We’re constantly aware that both the police and our enemies watch us daily, waiting for my father to make a mistake. One mistake was all they needed to arrest him.

The distant sounds of the dirt bikes that would fill the air at Castlehill, and I looked back, expecting to see them there, but I couldn’t see anything. If they were nearby, they were riding with the lights off.

“Do you ever feel that the Warwicks are planning something huge because Mr. Warwick was arrested, after he organized the hit on Dad?” I asked him dryly, reflecting on what was repeated to me by the Warwick boys, “You’re Maxwell Boleyn’s daughter,” in that bitter tone.

“Every single day,” he said flatly, “but that is something that doesn’t need to concern yourself over, Adina. You should be partying and having fun and focusing on your schooling.”

His comment slightly took me aback because I had told Dad that the Warwick sons were at Castlehill, the university, the evil stepmother wanted me to attend.

I could’ve had an easy life at the college I was originally enrolled at and attended for a while.

That bitch set me up. She wanted me to suffer and get hurt so she could inherit my father’s money.

Yet, Peter spoke as if he hadn’t told this.

I was baffled. Did my safety not matter?

“Yeah,” I said, unenthused, wiggling in my seat as I could still feel that vibrator that was shoved into me by Lev and Ezrah. Okay, yes, I enjoyed it until they wouldn’t let me finish. Assholes. “So, how is the evil stepmother, I mean,” I deliberately cleared my throat loudly, “How is Leslie?”

Peter sniggered, “I heard what you called your stepmother. You might be able to hide your contempt of her from your father, but you hide it from me.”

“You don’t like her either, do you?” I assumed, as he usually clammed up whenever I brought up that particular subject, and I knew it was because she yelled at him once when he loaded the wrong travel bag.

It was easy to fix—not a big deal for him to go back to her room and grab the correct bag—but she felt the need to put him in line.

After that episode, my father bought her a car and hired her a driver, which was what she wanted in the first place and probably why she threw a tantrum.

“My feelings about my bosses are irrelevant. I come to work, always on time, I do my job, and then I go home again,” he made clear.

“So, she hasn’t killed him yet?” I pressed, joking of course. “Slipped something into his food and drink or made him mysteriously disappear? Where she has to step up and take over the business out of the goodness of her heart.”

“He looked alive when I saw him earlier, Adina,” he hit back. “Stop making up scenarios. The real enemy is not her.”

I snorted in disbelief. “Statistically, the real enemy is right under your nose and living under the same roof. What’s that movie called? Oh yes, Sleeping with the Enemy.”

“What statistics are you talking about?” he was genuinely baffled, shrugging. “Besides, life is not a movie.”

“Stats on murderers. Most likely to be people you know,” I educated him, and his head nodded in the dark.

“Yes, that is true, but he is still alive, and even if she did kill him, she would be the most likely suspect,” he argued as we came to the open road that would eventually take us to Richmond, my hometown.

My heart thudded in my chest as the scenario was building in my mind, “Unless she set it up to make it look like you or me or Dad’s PA did it. It’s easy to get away with, Peter. She could book a vacation to eliminate her as a suspect, but hire a hitman to kill Dad while she was away.”

“Well…” he accelerated out on the open highway, “it seems you have thought long and hard about this.”

“Not that long and hard,” I argued as my mind stirred, “but I thought it was odd how she took me out of my chosen college and sent me to Castlehill, where I can’t watch over her.”

“But you can’t watch over her twenty-four-seven anyway, when you’re sleeping and attending class,” he stated the obvious.

“Yeah, when I was living back home, I’d visit the office often and check the books to ensure she wasn’t siphoning money,” I said, justifying my suspicion.

Peter shook his head in disbelief. “Really, Adina, you give your father little credit. Do you really think your father is so unwise that he wouldn’t vet her before dating her? That he wouldn’t do security checks before allowing her even into your home, let alone let her decide on his business?"

“No,” I sighed because that was a good argument, and it had crossed my mind several times.

“But…,” my chest hurt in emotional pain as I reflected on the worst time of my life, “but, Peter, he started dating Leslie while Mom was dying and made their relationship official like a week after she was buried.”

“That’s not true, Adina,” Peter snarled in a friendly manner, “Stop exaggerating.”

“Mom’s bed was still warm, and he basically made his new relationship official with Leslie,” I shrilled as hot tears filled my eyes, pleased that it was dark so Peter couldn’t see how upset I was getting.

“After the hell I’ve been through, I will not let that woman take my inheritance. I’m owed it. It’s mine.”

“Okay, okay, Adina, relax. I understand where you’re coming from,” he said coolly as I took deep breaths to calm my anger and hurt by what my father did.

“Sorry,” I apologized, composing myself, “I have low standards, so I expect the worst from my father and his new wife, Leslie.”

“I don’t blame you, but it’s important to remember that your father knows what he’s doing. He’s not a fool, Adina, and…” he stalled, whistled, “Looks like we’ve got company again.”

“Same number plate?” I questioned, glancing behind, but I was blinded by the headlights of the vehicle directly behind us.

“Silver SUV, and I can’t see the plate number, but it looks like the same one. I’ll change lanes up ahead to see if they follow,” he told me. “He’s trying to play it cool, laying low, pretending he’s cruising on a Sunday afternoon. He can’t hide from me, though.”

“No, he can’t,” I went along to lighten the mood, and I suspect he was pleased that the conversation had moved on from my cheating father. “You da boss of the road.”

“That’s right,” he enthused as he kept on the lane for the next five minutes until the turnoff. “The rate we’re going, you’ll be home by midnight.”

Great. No time to see Dad. I’ll go straight to bed,” I felt relieved, then I glanced through the rear window to check for the silver SUV, and I saw it following as I slouched into the seat.

Even though the blacked-out windows are made of bulletproof glass, it was still smart to stay alert—just another day in the life of the daughter of a wanted man with many enemies.

“You can catch up over breakfast,” he said as his gaze kept flicking from the rearview mirror to the wing mirror. “It’ll be Saturday, so he’ll go into work later than normal.”

“So great he can make time at all,” I said sarcastically.

“It’s obviously important if he wanted to speak to you in person,” Peter drove through the streets of this small city before coming to a crossroad, turning right to join a main road that would lead back onto the highway.

“Still following?” I pressed after several beats of intense silence, with Peter focusing on the road.

“Yep. Those jokers must think we’re blind,” he scoffed, narrowing his eyes to glare into the rearview mirror. “They’re stopping off at the seven-eleven.”

“Oh…so maybe they weren’t following us, maybe just heading in the same direction by coincidence,” I hoped aloud because I was tired and ready to head home to my bed.

“Or maybe they’ve stopped off for supplies because they’ve got a long night,” he raised a good point, but he was probably being overly cautious, which was one reason why my father kept him on. Vigilant, handy with a gun, and a good driver.

He didn’t mention the silver SUV for a few minutes, and when I looked back, I couldn’t see it behind us. So, I relaxed again, closed my tired eyes, and didn’t wake up until I saw the large Welcome to Richmond sign.

Peter’s prediction was right; we didn’t arrive at the mansion’s gates until after midnight, and once inside, I sleepily tread up the stairs to my bedroom and locked the door behind me, tumbling onto my comfortable, soft bed.