Shadow Game (GhostWalkers) Page 7

  Who taught you?

  Lily shrugged. She couldn’t remember a time when she didn’t have to protect herself. She had learned at an early age. I think because I was born with it, my mind began to find ways to cope. You haven’t had it that long. Your brain is exposed to too much too fast. It can’t catch up and give you the barriers you need.

  “Unless the barriers are gone for good.” He said it grimly, uncaring of the cameras. He had a sudden desire to tear down the bars, rip something apart. He had to find a way to save his men. They were good men, every one of them, dedicated and loyal, men who had sacrificed for their country. Men who had trusted and followed him. “Damn it, Lily.”

  Raw sorrow shimmered through the storm in his eyes and nearly broke her heart. “I’m viewing the training tapes tonight. I’ll figure this out, Ryland,” she assured him. “I’ll find the information we need to help the others. You just have to give me a little time.”

  “I don’t honestly know how much time my men have, Lily. Any of them could break down. If I lose any of them…Don’t you see? They believed in me and they followed me. They put their faith and trust in me and I led them into a trap.”

  She could feel the shards of glass now, cutting and grinding in her head. He was a man of action and they had locked him up in a cage. His frustration and sorrow were wearing him down.

  “Ryland, look at me.” She touched him, slipping her hand through the bars to curl her fingers around his. “I’ll find the answers. Trust me. No matter what, I’ll find a way to help you and your men.”

  For one brief moment he stared into her eyes, searching, reading her mind, knowing what it cost her to open herself up even more to him. He nodded, believing her. “Thank you, Lily.”

  FOUR

  THE murmur of voices went on and on, an invasion buzzing in her head, driving her mad. Each time she drifted into sleep, the voices were there, filling her mind, yet she couldn’t catch the words. She knew there was more than one voice, more than one person, and yet she had no idea what was being said, only that it was the whisper of conspiracy. Only that there was great danger and an edge of violence in those voices.

  Lily lay in her huge bed, staring up at the ceiling, listening to the sound of her own heartbeat. The soft music she normally played to help mask sounds she couldn’t quite block out had been turned off long ago in frustration. She wasn’t going to be able to sleep again. She didn’t even want to sleep. It wasn’t safe. The voices claimed her, soft and persuasive, voices whispering of danger and tactics.

  She sat up amid the thick pillows scattered along the intricately carved headboard of her bed. Where had that come from? Tactics implied training, perhaps even military. Was she hearing Ryland and his men as they used their telepathic abilities to plot an escape? Was it possible? They were miles from her home, deep beneath the earth, with glass barriers guarding their cages. Her walls were thick. Were they so connected that she was in some way tuned to their frequency? Like a radio wave, a band of sound, the exact one? “What did you do, Dad?” she asked aloud.

  She could only sit there in the comfort of her familiar bedroom while her mind played back the facts of the training tapes she had viewed and the confidential reports she had read. How her father had gotten away with writing reports with such incomplete descriptions of what he had done was beyond her. Why in the world had he gone to all the trouble of filling his data bank in the computers at Donovans Corporation with utter gibberish? The file was marked confidential and only his password and security codes supposedly could access such a thing, yet Higgens had obviously done so.

  Her head was pounding, little white dots floating around in a black void that was pain. The aftermath of using telepathy. She wondered about Ryland. Did he still suffer the painful repercussions of prolonged use? He certainly had in earlier years. She had read the confidential reports on the training the men had endured. All of them had suffered terrible migraines, the backlash of using psychic talents.

  Lily threw back her comforter in resignation and dragged on her robe, tying the sash loosely around her waist. She opened the double doors to her balcony and wandered out into the cool night air. The wind immediately whipped the thick mass of her hair into a cloud that tumbled around her face and down her back. “I miss you, Dad,” she whispered softly. “I could use your advice.”

  Her hair was annoying her, blowing across her eyes, and she caught at the heavy mass, twisting it quickly and expertly into a loose braid. Her gaze followed the white tendrils of fog swirling through the trees a foot or two above the rolling lawns. Movement caught her eye on the far edge of the flower beds, a shadow sliding into deeper shadow.

  Startled, Lily drew back from the railing, shrinking into the safety and darkness of the interior of her room. The grounds were protected, yet the shadow had been no animal—it was creeping about on two legs. She stood perfectly still, straining to see through the dark and fog to the grounds below. Her senses were shrieking a warning at her, but she was on sensory overload and afraid her fears had more to do with the continual whispering of voices than an actual threat to her home. It was possible Arly had hired extra security and not told her. He might have done so after her father’s disappearance. He had wanted her to have a full-time bodyguard, but Lily had adamantly declined.

  Lily lifted the phone and pressed the button to reach Arly automatically. He answered at once, on the first ring, but his voice was sleepy. “Did you hire extra guards to sneak around my property, Arly?” she demanded without preamble.

  “Do you ever sleep, Lily?” Arly yawned heavily into the phone. “What’s wrong?”

  “I saw someone on the lawn. On the property. Did you hire extra guards, Arly?” There was accusation in her voice.

  “Of course I did. Your father disappeared, Lily, and your safety is my primary concern, not your squirrelly ideas about privacy. You have an eighty-room house, for God’s sake, and enough property for your own state. I think we can hire a few extra men without danger of bumping into them. Now go away and let me get some sleep.”

  “Not without authorization you can’t hire extra guards.”

  “Yes, I can, you little snip. I’ve been given absolute authority to guard your butt in any way I see fit and I’m going to do it. Stop bitching at me.”

  “There’s something to be said for ‘Miss Lily’ or ‘Dr. Whitney,’” she groused. “Who was stupid enough to put you in a position of power?”

  “Why, you were, Miss Lily,” Arly said. “You made it part of my job description and signed it and everything.”

  Lily sighed. “You sneaky geeky nerd. You stuck that paper in with all the other stuff I had to sign, didn’t you?”

  “Absolutely. That should teach you about signing things without looking at the contents. Now go back to bed and let me get some sleep.”

  “Don’t call me Miss Lily again, Arly, or I’m going to practice my karate on your shins.”

  “I was being respectful.”

  “You were being sarcastic. And when you’re lying in bed, right before you go to sleep and you’re feeling all proud of yourself for pulling one over on me, gloating at how smart you are, just remember who has the higher IQ.” With that pathetic parting shot, Lily hung up the phone. She sat on the edge of her bed and burst out laughing, partly from the exchange and partly from sheer relief. She had been far more frightened than she had acknowledged even to herself.

  She loved Arly. She loved everything about him. She even loved his atrocious manners and the way he growled at her like an old bear. A skinny bear, she amended with a little grin. He hated to be called skinny almost as much as he hated the reminder that she had the higher IQ. She used it only on rare occasions when he had totally bested her at something and was feeling particularly smug.

  She padded down the hall on bare feet, down the winding staircase, without turning on lights. She knew the way to her father’s office and she hoped his familiar scent, still lingering there, would bring her a measure of comfort. She
had instructed everyone to stay out of the office, including the cleaning staff, because she needed to be able to find his papers, but, truthfully, she didn’t want to part with the scent of his pipe that permeated the furniture and his jacket.

  She closed the heavy oak door, shutting out the rest of the world, and settled into his favorite armchair. Tears welled up, clogging her throat and burning her eyes, but Lily blinked them determinedly away. She leaned her head into the cushions where her father had leaned so many times while he talked with her. Her gaze drifted around his office. Her night vision was acute and she knew every inch of his office so it was easy to make out the details.

  His floor-to-ceiling bookshelves were symmetrical, the books perfectly aligned and arranged in order. His desk was at a precise angle to the window, his chair pushed in two inches from his desk. Everything was in order, so like her father. Lily stood up and wandered around the room, touching his things. His beloved collection of maps, neatly laid out to be easily accessed. His atlas. To her knowledge he had never touched it, but it was displayed prominently.

  An ancient sundial sat to the left of the window. A tall glass Galileo barometer stood on a shelf closest to the enormous grandfather clock with its swinging pendulum. Next to the barometer was a thick hourglass wrapped in lead spirals. Lily lifted it, turned it over to watch the grains of sand slip to the bottom. His most prized possession was the large world globe on the mahogany stand. Made of crystals and abalone shell, the perfect sphere had often been examined as he talked with her late at night.

  She touched the smooth surface, sliding her fingers over the highly polished shell. Sorrow washed over her. She sank into the armchair closest to the globe and slumped down, pressing her fingers against her temples.

  The ticking of the grandfather clock was overly loud in the silence of the office. The sound beat in her head, disturbing her solitude. She sighed, got restlessly to her feet, and wandered over to the clock, brushing the intricately carved wood with loving fingers. It was magnificent, fully seven feet tall and nearly two feet deep. Behind the beveled glass the mechanism worked with precision and the giant golden pendulum swung. On each hour, beside a distinctive gold Roman numeral, a different planet emerged from behind double doors of shooting stars, beautiful glittering gems spinning through a darkened sky, complete with moons revolving. Only at noon and midnight did all the planets emerge together in a spectacular display of the solar system. Three o’clock had the emergence of a brilliant spinning sun. And the nine o’clock position held the moon, filling the entire clock with wondrous delights.

  She had always loved the clock, but it belonged in a different room, where the loud ticking didn’t drive a person crazy while they tried to think. Lily turned away from the unique masterpiece and threw herself into a chair, stretching out her legs and glaring at her feet without seeing them. There were nine planets, the sun and moon and solar system display, but during the night, the moon display was empty. It came out faithfully at nine in the morning, but steadfastly refused to make an appearance at nine in the evening. Lily has always been vaguely irritated by the inconsistency of the moon’s appearance. A flaw in something so precise. It bothered her enough that she’d begged her father to have it fixed. It was the one thing he didn’t keep in perfect condition.

  Her head came up slowly, her eyes locking on the Roman numeral nine formed in gold. Images crept into her brain; the pattern lined up and she could see it so perfectly, just the way it always worked. She sat up straight, staring at the grandfather clock. A surge of adrenaline burst through her, carrying sudden elation. And sudden fear.

  Lily knew she had found the way to her father’s secret laboratory. She carefully locked the door to her father’s office, then went back to the clock, moving around it, studying it from every angle. Carefully, Lily opened the glass door. Very gently, she spun the hour hand in a complete rotation, nine times, ending on the gold Roman numeral nine. A soft snick told her she found something.

  The entire front of the clock moved aside, revealing the entrance into the wall. Her breath catching in her throat, she found and opened the door without much trouble, entering the narrow space to stand there staring at the walls. It didn’t really go anywhere. Lily frowned at the walls, ran her hands up and down the panels, feeling for something hidden. Nothing. “Of course not. The clock. It’s in the clock.” She turned back to look at the door of the clock. The solar system etched into the mirrored background. The golden sun, so radiant and in plain sight. She pressed the sun hard with her thumb.

  The floor in between the walls slid away to reveal the steep narrow stairway below the floor. Lily stared down into the utter darkness, her mouth suddenly dry, her heart pounding in alarm. “Don’t be a coward, Lily,” she whispered aloud. Peter Whitney was her beloved father and she was suddenly terrified of what hidden secrets lay in his secret laboratory.

  Taking a deep breath, she started down the stairs. To her horror, as she stepped on the fourth stair, the floor slid into place above her head with an eerie silence she found frightening. At once a faint light glowed along the edges of the stairs, illuminating the descent. She was instantly claustrophobic, the feeling of being buried alive overwhelming. The staircase was extremely steep and narrow, obviously to make it more difficult to find sandwiched between the basement walls.

  Lily? The voice swirled in her mind. Lily, talk to me. You’re afraid. I can feel it and I’m trapped in this damn cage. Are you in danger?

  She remained at the top of the stairs, startled at the clarity of Ryland Miller’s voice in her head. He was so strong. Lily could see why he would terrify Colonel Higgens. Ryland Miller just might be able to influence someone to kill. He might be able to influence someone to commit suicide.

  Ryland swore, a harsh, brutal string of words, venting his frustration. Damn it, Lily, I swear if you don’t answer me, I’m going to rip this cage apart. You’re killing me. Do you know that? You’re taking a knife and driving it through my heart. I need to get to you, to protect you. I don’t have any control over the feeling.

  The desperation in him penetrated her fear. She could feel the strength and wildness of his emotions. Captain Ryland Miller, so in control with everyone else, cool under pressure, so out of control with her, burning like a wildfire neither could hope to contain. Lily let her breath out slowly, made every effort to conquer her aversion to tight quarters.

  She stood on the stairs, awareness creeping in. The murmuring voices were gone abruptly, disappearing with the strength of Ryland’s voice. She gripped the banister, wondering what she was more afraid of, finding out what her father had been involved in, or the fact that the tie between Ryland and her was growing stronger with each passing hour. She couldn’t resist the hoarse plea in his voice. He sounded raw with tension, edgy with the need to know she was unharmed.

  Most people sleep in the middle of the night. Have you and your friends been playing together on the Ouija board? You’re coming in loud and clear. I wonder who else is hearing you?

  She sensed him letting out his breath. Felt the tension leave his knotted muscles. What frightened you?

  Voices. Your voices. They… She searched for some way to explain. It’s like a thousand bees…

  Stinging your brain, he finished for her.

  His voice gave her an added confidence. She looked up at the trapdoor and saw the same characters etched into the door. She wasn’t imprisoned. Unlike Ryland and his men, she had a way out. Lily started down the stairs. I know you’re planning an escape, Ryland. That’s what you’re doing at night. You’ve found a way to communicate with the others and somehow I’m in on the loop.

  I’m sorry, Lily, I had no idea we were hurting you. I’ll do my best to shield and ask the others to do so also.

  She hesitated only a moment. I think I’ve found it. My father’s secret laboratory. Don’t do anything crazy until I see what’s in there.

  We can’t take the chance of staying here, Lily. Higgens has some plan to get rid of
us. I need to get to General Ranier. I’m not certain he’ll believe you, because Higgens has to be lying to our people about what’s going on here. The colonel is a decorated officer and respected. It won’t be easy to convince anyone that he’s a traitor.

  She could believe that. Higgens had stayed away from her, preferring to have Phillip Thornton, president of the Donovans Corporation, ask her to take over her father’s work. But Colonel Higgens had been pushing for her father’s computer password and the codes to override his failsafe so his work would not self-destruct should they access it carelessly. She knew everything on the computer in her father’s office at Donovans was carefully planted gibberish. Codes and formulas that had nothing to do with a psychic experiment. I think my father became suspicious that Higgens was up to something and that someone at Donovans was helping Higgens. There is nothing in the computers at Donovans and Thornton sent over men to pick up Dad’s private office computer. I’d already checked it and there was nothing usable there either.

  Did you view the training tapes? There was pain in his voice.

  Her heart ached for him. She had viewed the earlier tapes and she had seen two of the original members of the team in the second year of training become increasingly unstable and violent. Ryland Miller had paid the high price right along with his two friends. It had been heartbreaking to watch; it must have been a terrible thing to have to endure.

  The experiment should have been stopped right then.

  The stairs continued downward, deep beneath the earth, sometimes squeezed so tightly between other rooms she felt she could barely breathe. But the air moved and the light glowed, guiding her beneath the basement level.