Chapter 2
A rustle in the brush snapped Layla
Mathews’s attention from the quiet hulk of The Segue Institute’s
main building to the dense trees on her right. Wraith. She held her breath, willing her heartbeat to
silence, lowered her camera, and put a hand to the gun ready on the
earth in front of her. Steady . .
.
She waited for movement. Strained for
the telltale screech that meant trouble.
Keep it calm. . .
.
But heard only the kat-a-kat-a-kat-a-kat of the now chronic tinnitus in her
head.
Nothing. Her gulping heartbeat
slowed.
Seconds passed. A breeze hit the
November trees, and the leaves chattered in the wind.
Still nothing.
Okay. Back to work. She was going to
get a photo of Talia Kathleen Thorne if it killed her. A clear
shot, in high-res. The follow-up segment to her wraith series
wouldn’t be complete without it.
Thick trees and tangled thatches of
undergrowth concealed Layla’s crouch. Adrenaline still flashed
through her veins now and then, but her tush and toes had long
since gone numb. She hoped the adrenaline would make up for her
stiffening body if trouble found her, and she tried not to think
about how she was meeting it halfway.
The Segue Institute, located deep in
the West Virginia Appalachians, might seem too peaceful for a war
zone. But she knew better. The wraith war was one of long silences,
broken with sudden, violent terror, but she was going to get the
photo she’d come for, frigid wraith-infested mountain or
not.
kat-a-kat-a-kat-a-kat
Layla shook her head. The metallic,
rattling sound in her ears had been driving her crazy for a while.
Had to be a side effect from the blow to the head she’d taken in
Tampa, trying to get some video inside what she thought was an
empty wraith nest. The nest was not so empty.
kat-a-kat-a-kat-a-kat
She focused on her target. Shadows
pooled around the renovated turn-of-the-century hotel that now
housed Segue, though the ineffectual sun was directly overhead. It
kind of reminded her of an Escher drawing of a castle: The veranda
stairs plunged into a bent twist of darkness, the darkness giving
way to whitewashed, starkly delineated walls, which took a sharp
turn into darkness again. It was an upside-down kind of building.
Tugged at her mind. Tugged hard.
“You’re seeing things, Layla,” she said
to herself. The cold wait had to be getting to her. She squeezed
her eyes shut to clear her vision. Now, of all times, she needed to
stay alert and grounded. No trips to la-la land.
An early, three-hour hike from
Middleton, a climb over an unguarded section of Segue’s surrounding
wall, four hours kneeling in the scraping underbrush, and still no
sighting of anyone, specifically Talia or her well-known husband,
Adam Thorne. The Global Insight, the online
journal Layla worked for, had many photos of Mr. Thorne on file, as
Thorne Industries maintained a high-profile presence at events and
charities. But it had only one of Talia, a blurry screen capture of
an Arizona alley fight with a wraith. A faint tilt to her eyes was
discernable, as well as the woman’s ultrafair coloring, but that
was about it. Talia Kathleen Thorne was an enigma, a ghost, and
Layla’s obsession. She would stay all night if she had
to.
She needed one crisp photo to accompany
Adam’s when she broke her story: These were the people at the heart
of the wraith war. Wraiths, the monsters of the modern age, had
mutated from normal Homo sapiens to some
superstrong, fast-healing new breed. Violent and predatory by
nature, they attacked their human counterparts, even those they
once called friends and family. The spread seemed to have stopped,
but the terror continued. All indicators pointed to Segue, yet the
government had granted the institute what seemed like unlimited
support and power. Was Segue the world’s salvation, or the source
of the modern plague?
A flicker in the distance had her
raising her camera again. Screwing the telephoto lens in place.
Focusing.
Someone exited the building and
strolled to the high white railing that edged the wide
patio.
No. Two someones. One, dark and
masculine, had to be Adam Thorne. The other was so pale as to be
barely visible against the white of the building.
Yes! Layla knelt
up, waiting for the moment when the profile of the woman would
shift, when Talia would face the trees.
Layla needed only a second, and she’d
have the shot.
kat-a-kat-a-kat-a-kat
The noise jangled in her head, but she
ignored it. Any . . . second . . . now . .
.
kat-a-kat-a-kat-a-kat
She squinted into the viewfinder, as if
sharpening her vision would reduce the annoying
rattle.
And nearly jumped out of her skin when
a branch snapped behind her. She whipped her head around, dropping
the camera to the safety of the strap around her neck.
Behind her stood a man and a woman,
both with buzzed hair and lots of muscles defining what appeared to
be some kind of body-skimming black combat gear. They both had an
automatic rifle strapped to their torso. Their steely gazes were
set on their quarry: her.
“Uh. Hi.” Oh,
shit was more accurate. At least they weren’t wraiths. She
nudged her own gun under the leaves, out of sight. How could she
have missed their approach? She was seriously going to have to get
her ears checked.
Layla scrambled up from her kneeling
position, brushing earth and twigs off her knees. The camera
bounced hard on her chest. Time to put her cover story into effect:
lost hiker, now found. Pray they’d go for it. She put an innocent
and bewildered expression on her face.
“Ma’am,” the female security
guard/soldier/scary lady said, “are you aware you’re trespassing on
private property?”
Yep. Layla gave
what she hoped was a disarming shrug and said, “I’m sorry. I had no
idea. I was hiking and got kinda turned around.”
The woman’s lids dropped a fraction.
“There are no public trails within twenty miles. And this facility
is bordered by a wall.”
“I—I don’t like to stick to trails. Too
confining. I’m more of a free spirit. And the wall just made me
curious.” Layla’s laugh came out shaky. Please
don’t feed me to the wraiths. “Gets me in trouble sometimes.
But point me in the right direction, and I’ll be out of
here.”
“Afraid we can’t, ma’am,” the man said,
his tone final.
“I promise I won’t come this way
again.” Her blood surged, and her bladder cramped. Here was the
moment to fight or flee, and she suddenly needed to
pee.
Not
good.
The man ignored her. “You’ll have to
come with us.”
“Are you going to call the police?”
Actually, calling the police wouldn’t be too bad. Law enforcement
would be much better than whatever Segue could do with
her.
“We’re going to need your camera, too.”
The man stretched out his hand, ignoring her question.
Damn. The time
stamps on the digital shots would quickly prove she’d been there
for hours, not the MO of a lost hiker. To come so close . .
.
She held on to the camera and switched
to grit. “So I snapped a few shots of the building. It looked cool.
Is that a crime?”
“Now,” the man said. “Or I will take it
from you.”
Double damn. No
time to pull out the memory card. Layla removed the strap from
around her neck and handed over the camera. Wasn’t like she could
refuse He-man and She-ra. “Will I get the camera back? It was
expensive.”
“This way,” the woman said, turning
back into the woods as she took up the lead. The man maneuvered to
take up the rear.
“Where are you taking me?”
Neither answered. Crap.
Layla swallowed hard and
followed.
Agitation bounced like a bright ball in
Layla’s stomach as she followed the male soldier through the ground
floor of what used to be the Fulton Holiday Hotel and was now The
Segue Institute. She hadn’t counted on getting inside the castle.
Inside was a scary place to be, but the
soldier didn’t know that she knew it, so she kept her expression
modulated to suit her cover story—anxiety mixed with
I-want-to-see-the-man-in-charge self-righteousness. And she had in
fact requested to see him.
They passed through several sparsely
furnished connected rooms. Afternoon sun fell through tall, arched
windows. The effect was lovely, elegant. Her imagination flashed
with a scene of fancied-up, turn-of-the-century hotel patrons
chatting, strolling, taking tea, a ghostly twist of time. She could
almost hear violins, the murmur of voices.
When they reached a set of beautiful,
paneled doors, she asked for the twentieth time, “Where are you
taking me?”
The guard kept his square jaw shut, his
ruddy face neutral and composed.
Great. She could see the headline:
JOURNALIST DISAPPEARS IN THE APPALACHIAN
MOUNTAINS. The last piece with her name on it would be an
obituary.
The guard tapped a code into a panel at
the door, and she kept an eyeball on the pattern of his fingers. He
typed fast—six digits, the first two a five and a three, the rest
obscured by a sudden shift of his body.
He was definitely not buying her story,
though she had the sweaty, bedraggled ponytail to prove it. She
couldn’t help it if she got “lost.” If she “wandered” onto the
property of a private research facility. If she “happened” to shoot
a photo that would’ve accompanied an article that revealed Segue
for what it was.
She attempted to peek around the door
before entering, but the guard none too gently nudged her inside.
As expected, he closed the door on her plaintive “But, sir, I . .
.” and locked her in.
No luck (or pity) there.
Layla turned and surveyed her prison.
The room was large and solely furnished with a long table of some
dark, varnished wood, surrounded by sleek office chairs. The table
probably cost a mint, but then, Adam Thorne had a mint to spend.
The rest of the room was similarly Thorne-fabulous, moldings edging
the walls, as well as ornately framing the flat expanses all the
way to the high ceiling. The floor was made up of glossy wood
squares, diagonally arranged in alternating deep and lighter tones.
A ballroom with a conference table. Okeydokey.
She shrugged off her backpack, dropping
it onto the floor, swiveled the nearest chair out from the table,
and collapsed into it. Chairs were lovely things. The long-dry film
of sweat that coated her skin cracked with the movement and she
caught a whiff of herself. Wow. But very lost
hiker–ish.
Now a wait while they decided what to
do with her.
kat-a-kat-a-kat-a-kat
Layla leaned forward, her elbows
propped on her knees, and massaged her temples. If this kept up,
she was going to have a raging migraine.
She lowered her hands and noticed the
pale pink band of skin where her engagement ring used to be. A pang
of sharp regret hit her hard. She never should have said yes. Sure,
she cared for Ty, but . . . But she couldn’t help who she was, and
she couldn’t change either. Calling it off had been the decent
thing to do. She had the engagement ring reminder to show for it,
and this one she couldn’t take off.
The only thing left was work. Work kept
her focused, her mind from wandering, which was becoming a problem.
Work was important. She raised her gaze to the ballroom door. She
had no patience for waiting. Too long, and she’d begin to
see things.
On cue, the door clicked and opened.
Thank goodness.
Layla was startled to recognize Adam
Thorne, the man himself, as he strode in.
She started to rise, but he waved her
down, dragged a chair out from the table, and lowered himself into
it. He was tall, a little too lean, and had a handsome face lined
with stress and worry. Exactly how the man who bioengineered the
wraith disease should look—except for the handsome
part.
Still playing lost hiker, she sat
slowly back into her chair, twitched a smile on her face, and
innocently asked, “Can you please tell me where I am? The man who
escorted me to this room wouldn’t answer any of my
questions.”
Thorne lifted a brow. Not buying her
story either.
In the spirit of plausible deniability,
she forged on. “Though, naturally I am very grateful to have been
found. I’d been lost for hours. . . .”
Thorne shook his head slightly, raising
a hand. “Ms. Mathews, save your breath.”
Layla closed her mouth, heart stalling.
He knew her name, which she hadn’t yet given. The jig was
officially up.
“What would possess you to wander
unescorted on private property you know very well is dedicated to
wraith research?”
Layla straightened to cover the sudden
tremor that ran over her body and lifted her own sarcastic brow in
spite of the rapid pounding in her chest. “You let them out to roam
the woods?”
“I don’t need this today,” Adam
muttered. He cocked his jaw while he regarded her. “For the
record”—he gestured to her backpack—“do you need a little notepad
to write this down?”
“I think I can remember,” Layla
answered, narrowing her gaze as the zaps in her brain got faster.
If he wanted her to take notes, he wasn’t likely to feed her to the
wraiths today. Just give her the official line and then the
boot.
Right. She
wasn’t about to let him off that easy. Not the man who’d released a
pandemic on the world. How to pin
him?
“As our press release clearly states,”
Thorne began, “Segue researches wraiths and other paranormal
phenomena. We have the cooperation and backing of the United States
government, as well as formal agreements with seven other
countries. We are a target for wraith attacks, as any intelligent
person in the know might surmise.” He smiled slightly. “Now, once
again, why would you roam the private property—in a wild, wooded
area, no less—of an institution dedicated to eradicating
wraiths?”
“I was drawn by the building’s
beautiful architecture and fascinating history,” she answered as
the wheels turned in her head. Where to
start?
“I’m trying to save your life
here.”
Layla gave Thorne another smile. “I can
take care of myself, thank you.”
“All evidence to the con—”
Ah! “What was
The Segue Institute’s original mission?” she
interrupted. She didn’t expect him to fess up to the calamity of
the wraith disease and give her the data to show the world, but
maybe she could make a little headway, a small dent in his smug
reserve.
Thorne blinked his confusion. “I’m
sorry?”
“When you paid a whopping ninety-six
million to found Segue nearly eight years ago, what did you plan to
do with the place? Do you have a mission statement from that
period?”
He frowned. “What are you getting
at?”
“The time line established by the World
Health Organization places the first cases of the wraith disease at
seven, not eight, years ago.” Layla watched
Thorne’s face subtly harden. Hit a nerve there. She pinched.
“Segue’s formation predates the WHO’s wraith disease time line. So
what were the good scientists at Segue up to during the year before
the outbreak?”
Thorne shook his head. “The WHO’s time
line is off by several years. The wraiths were already firmly
entrenched by the time I started Segue. Segue’s primary mission has
always been to research wraiths.”
Layla cleared her voice delicately.
This part was fun. “But you just said that you are working in
cooperation with the U.S. and international
governments. Why wouldn’t you give the WHO the most accurate
information? Presumably others are doing their own research, and
identifying ground zero for the wraith outbreak would be critical
to those efforts. Why would you, in fact, hamper
them?”
Thorne’s lips parted but no sound came
out.
Gotcha. And so easy. Damn, she was
good.
“What you don’t know is a lot,” Thorne
said, standing. “I hope you don’t publish that nonsense and feed
public hysteria. People are scared enough.” To the closed door he
called, “Kev!”
As if she didn’t know the mood of the
people, with monsters on their doorsteps, their children at risk.
Her story was for them. “I’m here to learn.”
“I have neither the time nor the
patience to educate you,” he returned.
The guard was back. Interview over. She
could sit there like a dumb rock or meet Thorne at eye
level.
“This way, ma’am,” Kev
said.
Thorne’s eyes were cold gray. Last
chance. “When you experiment on wraiths, do you consider them to be
human test subjects or something else? What protocols do you
follow? I’d like to see the wraiths you have here in
captivity.”
“If you want to see a wraith, Ms.
Mathews, you will surely meet one, up close and personal. One last
time: I advise you to stop looking.”
Which was how Layla found herself on a
small Segue plane headed back to New York. They must have known
she’d been hunkered down in the woods for a while. Someone from
Segue had had the time to go to the inn in Middleton, pack her bag,
and have it by her seat when she boarded. With her
camera.
How thoughtful.
Layla pressed the power button and
queued the saved images. Of which there were none.
Not so thoughtful. She turned the
camera off and stuffed it in her backpack.
Seated across from her was a young
woman in a mood more foul than her own. The woman was in her
midtwenties and was very pretty in spite of dull black hair with
too long blunt bangs over hazel eyes. Her gaze was heavy and
angry.
The woman responded to no verbal
overtures—How are you connected to Segue? Do you
know the Thornes? Have there been local wraith attacks?—so
Layla finally rested her head back to enjoy the incessant,
teeth-grating kat-a-kat between her
ears.
At dusk they landed at a private
airstrip somewhere in Jersey. A cab was waiting to take Layla into
the city. Thoughtful again. Segue’s heavy boot would take her all
the way back to her apartment.
She was just getting in the vehicle,
shivering in the gusty, frigid November evening air, when she felt
a poke on her shoulder. She turned to find the creepy-moody woman
from the plane, her features stark, eyes vivid in the diffused
evening light. The contrast punched the woman out of reality, made
her gleam with some kind of strange soul aura.
Either this woman was not normal, or Layla needed to go back on her meds. No
more putting it off.
The visions had plagued Layla all her
life, usually occurring at the worst moments when she’d have to
strain to ignore whatever hallucinations popped up in order to look
normal herself. They seemed so real. Ultrareal. Like now. This
weird woman was surrounded by pulsing black light. The aura was
part of the impression, but Layla could feel it as well, as a
pressure on her chest.
Layla squeezed her eyes shut. Two times
in one day. This was really bad.
“You pissed off Adam, right?” the woman
asked.
Layla opened her eyes. The soul-glow
was gone, thank God, so she answered, “I sure did.”
“And you want to find out how the
wraiths got started, right?” The woman had been on the Segue
Express; it followed that she knew about Segue’s work.
Layla straightened fully.
“Yes.”
The woman glanced over her shoulder,
back toward the small airport, nervous. “The public doesn’t know
anything. I mean anything. And why the fuck
not? Because Adam-fucking-Thorne says so.”
“What doesn’t the public know?” Layla
wasn’t cold at all now.
“And what burns me is that I actually
helped that man once. Him and his wife. And now he’s got my sister
under lock and key.”
This got better and better. “Is she a
wraith?”
“Abigail?” The woman looked at her,
hesitating as if Layla were stupid or crazy. “No. She’s sick.
Adam’s got doctors all over her. And last week some Navajo medicine
man.”
Layla tried to get her back on track.
“What doesn’t he want the public to know?”
But the woman ignored her question.
“Try the docks. I think he’s there.”
“Adam?” He was in landlocked West
Virginia. “Which docks? Where?”
The woman smiled bitterly. “No. The one
who started everything.”
“Started what? How?”
“And if you live long enough to break
this story, you put my name in your article. I want that
controlling bastard to know.”
The bastard had to be Adam. “Which
docks? Who started it?”
“I want him to see my name in
black-and-white. Zoe Maldano. If you survive”—Zoe laughed
there—“you tell the world how this happened, and you put my name in
your article.”
“Yeah, sure, but . . .” Zoe was already
striding toward another car, sleek with Thorne money. She slammed
the shiny door shut and was taillights before Layla came out of her
surprise.
Docks. Adam or someone else was there.
And they had information on how all this—the wraith
disease?—started.
Layla’s head was spinning. She had to
get home. Get on her computer. Find out who Zoe Maldano and her
sister were, and if there were any links between Thorne or Segue to
some docks. The vague reference docks would
probably need a whiteboard of its own.
The taxi dropped her at her walk-up in
the East Village. She tried not to look at Tyler’s boxes as she
entered her apartment. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt so bad if he’d pick
up the last of his stuff. Three weeks and the boxes still blocked
the door. He hadn’t wanted his ring back either. Hadn’t even tried
to understand what she herself couldn’t explain. Three weeks, and
she was still so sorry.
Layla dropped her backpack on a box and
shuffled into the living room. If she recalled correctly, there was
no food in the fridge—Tyler had done the grocery thing—and she was
too tired to wait for delivery.
The dining table–cum–desk was covered
with her notes, the adjacent wall tagged with photos of possible
wraith sightings. At the center was the blurry image of Talia
Thorne. Talia, whom she’d give anything to interview up close and
in person.
Talia.
Still, two leads in one day: a
several-year shift in the wraith disease time line and a motivated
informant. Layla smiled. She’d do her research and connect the
dots. Then Adam Thorne wouldn’t be able to boot her anywhere. Nope.
He’d be forced to answer some real questions, and his wife, Talia,
would finally have to come out of her shadows and face the
light.
kat-a-kat-a-kat-a-kat
Layla gripped her head. Phantom sounds.
Visions. She just hoped she could keep her head on straight long
enough to tell the story.