The Hollows Series Books 1-4

“Thank you,” I sang merrily, sending the car lurching forward when the white bar rose. Through the rearview mirror I watched the guard go back inside. “Easy as pie,” I muttered.

“Getting out might be harder,” Jenks said dryly.

Up the drive was three miles through an eerie wood. My mood went subdued as the road wound between the close, silent sentinels. Despite the overpowering impression of age, I began to get the feeling that everything had been planned out, even to the surprises, like the waterfall I found around a bend in the road. Disappointed somehow, I continued on as the artificial woods thinned and turned into rolling pasture. A second road joined mine, well-traveled and busy. Apparently I had come in the back way. I followed the traffic, taking an offshoot labeled VISITORS PARKING. Rounding a turn in the road, I saw the Kalamack estate.

The huge fortress of a building was a curious mix of modern institution and traditional elegance, with glass doors and carved angels on the downspouts. Its gray rock was softened by old trees and bright flower beds. There were several low buildings attached to it, but the main one rose three stories up. I brought the car to a halt in one of the visitor parking spots. The sleek vehicle next to mine made Francis’s car look like a toy from the bottom of a cereal box.

Dropping Francis’s wad of keys into my bag, I eyed the gardener tending the bushes surrounding the lot. “Still want to split up?” I breathed as I primped in the rearview mirror, carefully picking out that knot I’d put in my hair. “I don’t like what happened at the front gate.”

Jenks flitted down onto the stick shift and stood with his hands on his hips in his Peter Pan pose. “Your interview runs the usual forty minutes?” he said. “I’ll be done in twenty. If I’m not here when you’re done, wait about a mile down from the gatehouse. I’ll catch up.”

“Sure,” I said as I tightened the string on my bag. The gardener was wearing shoes, not boots, and they were clean. What gardener has clean shoes? “Just be careful,” I said, nodding to the small man. “Something smells off.”

Jenks snickered. “The day I can’t elude a gardener is the day I become a baker.”

“Well, wish me luck.” I cracked the window for Jenks and got out. My heels clacked smartly as I went to take a peek at the back of Francis’s car. As Jenks had said, one of the taillights was broken. There was a nasty dent, too. I turned away with a flash of guilt. Taking a steadying breath, I strode up the shallow steps to the twin, double doors.

A man stepped from a recessed nook as I approached, and I jerked to a halt, startled. He was tall enough to need two looks to see all of him. And thin. He reminded me of a starving post-Turn refugee from Europe: prim, proper, and stuck-up. The man even had a hawklike nose and permanent frown cemented to his lightly wrinkled face. Gray brushed his temples, marring his otherwise coal black hair. His inconspicuous gray slacks and white business shirt fitted him perfectly, and I tugged my collar straight. “Ms. Francine Percy?” he said, his smile empty and his voice slightly sarcastic.

“Yes, hello,” I said, purposely giving the man a limp-wristed handshake. I could almost see him stiffen in aversion. “I have a noon meeting with Mr. Kalamack.”

“I’m Mr. Kalamack’s publicity adviser, Jonathan,” the man said. Apart from taking great care in his pronunciation, he had no accent. “If you would accompany me? Mr. Kalamack will meet with you in his back office.” He blinked, his eyes watering. I imagined it was from my perfume. Maybe I had overdone it, but I wasn’t going to risk triggering Ivy’s instincts.

Jonathan opened the door for me, motioning me to go before him. I stepped through, surprised to find the building brighter inside than out. I had expected a private residence, and this wasn’t it. The entryway looked like the headquarters of any Fortune-twenty business, with the familiar glass and marble motif. White pillars held up the distant ceiling. An impressive mahogany desk stretched before the twin staircases that rose to the second and third floors. Light streamed in. Either it was piped in from the roof or Trent was spending a fortune on natural-light bulbs. A soft, mottled green carpet muffled any echo. There was a buzz of muted conversations and a steady but sedate flow of people going about their business.

“This way, Ms. Percy,” my escort said softly.

I dragged my eyes from the man-sized pots of citrus trees and followed Jonathan’s measured pace past the front desk and through a series of hallways. The farther we went, the lower the ceilings, the darker the lighting, and the more comforting the colors and textures became. Almost unnoticed, the soothing sound of running water drifted into existence. We hadn’t met anyone since leaving the front entryway, and I felt a touch uneasy.

Clearly we had left the public face behind and entered the more private areas. What, I wondered, was going on? Adrenaline shook me as Jonathan paused and put a fingertip to his ear.

“Excuse me,” he murmured, stepping a few feet away. His wrist, I noticed as he raised his hand to his ear, had a microphone on his watchband. Alarmed, I strained to catch his words as he had turned to prevent me from reading his lips.

“Yes, Sa’han,” he whispered, his tone respectful.

I waited, holding my breath so I could hear.

“With me,” he said. “I was informed you had an interest, so I have taken the liberty of escorting her to your back porch.” Jonathan shifted uncomfortably. He gave me a long, sideways look of disbelief. “Her?”

I wasn’t sure to take that as a compliment or insult, and I pretended to be busy rearranging the back of my stockings and pulling another strand of hair from my topknot to dangle beside my earring. I wondered if someone had investigated the trunk. My pulse quickened as I realized how quickly this could come tumbling down about me.

His eyes widened. “Sa’han,” he said urgently, “accept my apologies. The gatehouse said—” His words cut off and I could see him stiffen under what must be a rebuke. “Yes, Sa’han,” he said, tilting his head in an unconscious show of deference. “Your front office.”

The tall man seemed to gather himself as he turned back to me. I shot him a dazzling smile. There was no expression in his blue eyes as he stared at me as if I was a puppy present on the new rug. “If you would return that way?” he said flatly, pointing.

Feeling more like a prisoner than a guest, I took Jonathan’s subtle directions and retraced our path to the front. I led the way. He kept himself behind me. I didn’t like this at all. It didn’t help that I felt short next to him or that my footsteps were the only ones I could hear. Slowly, the soft colors and textures returned to corporate walls and bustling efficiency.

Keeping those same three steps behind me, Jonathan directed me down a small hallway just off the lobby. Frosted-glass doors were set on either side. Most were propped open and had people working inside, but Jonathan indicated the end office. Its door was wood, and he almost seemed to hesitate before he reached in front of me to open it. “If you would wait here,” he said, a hint of a threat in his precise voice. “Mr. Kalamack will be with you shortly. I’ll be at his secretary’s desk if you need anything.”

He pointed to a conspicuously empty desk tucked in a recessed nook. I thought of Ms. Yolin Bates, clay-cold dead in the I.S. lockup three days ago. My smile grew forced. “Thank you, Jon,” I said brightly. “You’ve been a dear.”

“It’s Jonathan.” He shut the door firmly behind me. There was no click of a lock.

I turned, glancing over Kalamack’s front office. It looked normal enough—in a disgustingly wealthy executive sort of way. There was a bank of electronic equipment inlaid in the wall next to his desk that held so many buttons and switches it would put a recording studio to shame. The opposite wall had a huge window, the sun spilling in to set the soft carpet glowing. I knew I was too far into the building for the window and its accompanying sunbeam to be real, but it was good enough to warrant a severe going-over.

I set my bag beside the chair opposite the desk and went to the “window.” Hands on my hips, I eyed the shot of yearlings arguing over fallen apples. My eyebrows rose. The engineers were off. It was noon, and the sun wasn’t low enough to be casting beams that long.

Finding satisfaction in their error, I turned my attention to the freestanding fish tank against the back wall behind the desk. Starfish, blue damsels, yellow tangs, and even sea horses coexisted peacefully, seemingly unaware the ocean was five hundred miles east. My thoughts turned to my Mr. Fish, swimming contentedly in his little glass bowl. I frowned, not jealous, but annoyed at the fickleness of the luck of the world.

Trent’s desk had the usual stuff on top, complete with a small fountain of black rock for the water to chatter over. His computer’s screen saver was a scrolling line of three numbers: twenty, five, one. A rather enigmatic message. Stuck in the corner where the walls met the ceiling was a conspicuous camera, its red light winking at me. I was under surveillance.

My thoughts went back to Jonathan’s conversation with his mysterious Sa’han. Clearly my story of Francine had been breached. But if they wanted me arrested, they would have done it by now. It seemed I had something Mr. Kalamack wanted. My silence? I ought to find out.

Grinning, I waved at the camera and settled myself behind Trent’s desk. I imagined the stir I was causing as I began rummaging about. The datebook was first, laid invitingly open on the desktop. Francis’s appointment had a line through his name and a question mark penciled beside it. Wincing, I leafed back to the day where Trent’s secretary had been tagged with Brimstone. There was nothing out of the ordinary. The phrase “Huntingtons to Urlich” caught my eye. Was he smuggling people out of the country? Big whoop.

The top drawer held nothing unusual: pencils, pens, sticky notepads, and a gray touchstone. I wondered what Trent could possibly be concerned about to warrant that. The side drawers contained color-coded files concerning his off-estate interests. As I waited for someone to stop me, I browsed, learning his pecan groves had suffered from a late frost this year but that his strawberries on the coast made up the loss. I slammed the drawer shut, surprised no one had come in yet. Perhaps they were curious as to what I was looking for? I knew I was.

Trent had a thing for maple candy and pre-Turn whiskey, if the stash I found in a lower drawer meant anything. I was tempted to crack the near forty-year-old bottle and sample it but decided that would bring my watchers out faster than anything else would.

The next drawer was full of neatly arranged discs. Bingo! I thought, opening it farther.

“Alzheimer’s,” I whispered, running a finger across a handmade label. “Cystic fibrosis, cancer, cancer …” In all, there were eight labeled cancer. Depression, diabetes … I continued until I found Huntington. My gaze went to the datebook and I shut the drawer. Ahhhh …

Settling back into Trent’s plush chair, I pulled his appointment book onto my lap. I started at January, turning pages slowly. Every fifth day or so a shipment went out. My breath quickened as I noticed a pattern. Huntington went out the same day every month. I flipped back and forth. They all went out on the same day of the month, within a few days of each other. Taking a slow breath, I glanced at the drawer of discs. Sure I was on to something, I popped one into the computer and jiggled the mouse. Damn. Password protected.

There was a small click of a latch. Jumping to my feet, I jabbed the eject button.

“Good afternoon, Ms. Morgan.”

It was Trent Kalamack, and I tried not to flush as I slipped the small disc into a pocket. “Beg pardon?” I said, turning the ditzy charm on full. They knew who I was. Big surprise.

Trent adjusted the lowest button on his gray linen jacket as he shut the door behind him. A disarming smile curved over his clean-shaven features, giving him the air of someone my age.

His hair had a transparent whiteness to it that some children have, and he was comfortably tan, looking as if it wouldn’t take much to get him poolside. He looked far too pleasant to be as wealthy as he was rumored to be. It wasn’t fair to have money and good looks both.

“You’d rather be Francine Percy?” Trent said, eyeing me over his wire-rimmed glasses.

I tucked an escaped curl behind an ear, striving for an air of nonchalance. “Actually—no,” I admitted. I must still have a few cards to play or he wouldn’t be bothering with me.

Trent moved to the back of his desk with a preoccupied poise, forcing me to retreat to the other side. He held his dark blue tie to himself as he sat. Glancing up, he looked charmingly surprised as he noticed I was still standing. “Please sit,” he said, flashing me small, even teeth. He pointed a remote at the camera. The red light went out, and he tucked the remote away.

Still I stood. I didn’t trust his casual acceptance. Warning bells were going off in my head, making my stomach clench. Fortune magazine had put him on its cover as last year’s most eligible bachelor. It had been a head-to-knee shot, with him leaning casually against a door with his company name on it in gold letters. His smile had been a compelling mix of confidence and secrecy. Some women are drawn to a smile like that. Me, I get wary. He gave me the same smile now as he sat, his hand tucked under his chin as his elbow rested on the desktop.

I watched the short hair about his ears drift, and I thought his carefully styled hair had to be incredibly soft if just the draft from the vent could lift it like that.

Trent’s lips tightened as he saw my attention on his hair, then returned to that smile. “Let me apologize for the mistake at the front gate, and then with Jon,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting you for at least another week.”

I sat down as my knees went weak. He was expecting me? “I’m sure I don’t understand,” I said boldly, relieved my voice didn’t crack.