CHAPTER TEN

The Friday session with Quentin passed relatively smoothly. He was more focused than usual, so we got a fair amount of work done. Or maybe he was so attentive because neither Bram nor Dennis made an appearance, so he didn’t have anyone else to distract him. I confess I felt oddly deflated when I went home. I chalked it up to the little headache that had built up over the course of the day.

The weekend itself held only one highlight—meeting Jason and Domenic in Atlanta to go to an afternoon Braves game with Marika. The day was warm, and once the game was over, the row of teleport booths outside the stadium was swarmed with sweaty fans looking to go home.

“Come on,” Marika said. “Let’s find a different gate.”

She led us a few blocks away to a wide, paved plaza in front of a towering mirrored skyscraper where a single portal stood deserted in the afternoon sunlight. “Hardly anyone uses this one on the weekends,” she said with satisfaction.

Before she could open the door, we saw a grungy teenaged boy flicker into life behind the smoky glass, then disappear. Marika snatched her hand back with a yelp, but the guys were laughing.

“Oh, it’s been forever since I played round robin,” Jason said.

“Don’t even think about it,” Marika warned.

“I did it once in twenty jumps,” Domenic claimed.

“I don’t believe you,” Jason said.

Marika rolled her eyes at me, but I was grinning. In the big cities, all the teleport booths have big red NEXT buttons that fling commuters to the nearest available gate, which could be anywhere in the city. These were all installed after some poor young man was trapped in one of the gates as a sudden violent fire broke out and swept toward him. He was either unfamiliar with his destination code or paralyzed by fear—at any rate, he didn’t manage to punch in the numbers that would whisk him away, and he quickly burned to death.

Because the NEXT function is a safety feature, it’s free. You don’t need a transit pass or even a thumb chip to activate it; you just hit the button. Of course, you have no idea where you’ll end up, but the theory is you’ll be somewhere safe where you can gather your wits and proceed to your desired neighborhood.

Naturally, about five minutes after the NEXT buttons were installed, restless teenagers invented a new game. They would start out at one terminal and see how many jumps it took them to get back to their original spot. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve stood waiting for my turn at a gate and seen a ghostly face materialize behind the glass then vanish into darkness.

“Let’s try it,” Domenic said. “Twenty jumps each. See where we end up.”

“I’m ending up at home,” Marika said, stepping inside the booth. “I’ll see you when you get there.”

I wavered for a moment, half-ready to embrace the adventure. I’d played round robin once—with Jason and Domenic, of course—and I’d found it exhilarating but unnerving. Too many Chicago neighborhoods where I didn’t want to linger for even a few seconds, too much adrenaline spiking through my body. Too many times of feeling myself dissolve and reassemble in too short a time. I shook my head and followed Marika straight back to her place. A couple of hours later, I was home.

The rest of the weekend I spent cleaning the apartment, checking in with my mom, shopping online, and listening to Aspirations of Kudzu. I had five more days to prep, but I wasn’t sure what the first part of the week would hold, and I wanted to be prepared.

Monday afternoon, Devante Ross stayed after class and helped me prepare a quiz about Ticket to Terrazone . Thirty questions, about half of them obvious and half of them obscure, and I awarded Devante the extra ten points he needed to make an A-.

“You’re the bestest teacher ever,” he said solemnly.

“That would mean more if you were the bestest student,” I retorted.

His face lit with its customary grin, and he hoisted his books. “You’re going to miss me when school’s out for the summer,” he threatened as he left.

I sighed. Unfortunately, it was true.

Tuesday morning in Houston it rained so hard that they had to close some of the streets for flooding. Even in mid-April, the temperature had started to climb noticeably, and on short walks between campus buildings, the sultry humidity wrapped itself around you like a suffocating parasite, desperate and inescapable. Attendance on campus was sparse, so I spent my office hours guiltily reading fiction.

Tuesday afternoon, I met Duncan Phillips.

It had seemed strange to me that I had spent so much time in this man’s house, received payment deposits directly from his bank, and was having what seemed to be a marked effect on his son, and had never yet met him. Certainly, I would have been investigating anyone who walked across my threshold twice a week to mold the mind of my child. I would have asked for references before I had someone come in and water my plants in my absence. But Duncan Phillips didn’t seem to be that sort of father.

At any rate, the impression I had formed of him, both through observation of his household and the comments let fall by Dennis, Quentin, and Bram Cortez, had led me to think I wasn’t missing out on much by failing to make his acquaintance. So, after the first couple of weeks, I had started to come to the mansion without thinking much about its owner one way or the other.

My mistake, as it happened.

The time with Quentin had gone unexpectedly well. He was tired, which slowed down his capacity to think of diversions, and so it was with some docility that he listened to my explanation of subjective and objective pronouns. It was only toward the end of the hour that he started to get restless, and look out the window, and make quick, involuntary movements in the direction of his computer.

“And I’m assuming you’ve made some progress reading Ticket to Terrazone ?” I asked, raising my voice to catch his attention.

“Yeah, it’s great,” he said, with some of his usual liveliness. “Hey, I know where there’s lots of realbooks. My dad has a library, there’s got to be a million books in there.”

“Well, I’m sure it’s an impressive collection, though a million seems like a high number—”

“No, it is! It’s a million! You could ask Francis. Some of them are worth a lot of money, too. You want to ask Francis?”

“No, really, it doesn’t matter to me if—”

“I know! Let’s go look. You can count for yourself.”

“I hardly think, if your dad really has a million books, that I could count them in an afternoon.”

“Well, let’s go look anyway,” he said, pointing himself toward the door. “You like books, right? You’ll love this.”

“Quentin, I don’t know that I should keep exploring your dad’s house whenever you get bored,” I protested, though, I admit, somewhat weakly. Marika had been fascinated and delighted by my description of the hologallery—and not nearly as repelled as I had been, but then, she hadn’t actually seen it—and commanded me to make use of any such additional opportunities that arose. Surely she would encourage me to accept Quentin’s offer.

“Yeah, but anyone can go into the library!” he countered. “It’s not like we need to break in or anything. You’ll like it. Let’s go.”

No surprise that I followed him out the door, down the hall, into the elevator, and down to the main floor. I expected Francis to appear and guide me majestically to the teleport pad, but he was apparently busy elsewhere. Quentin and I proceeded with only a hint of stealthiness down the main hall, then through a ponderous double door that opened onto a vision of splendor.

Floor-to-ceiling bookcases in a room whose ceiling had to be twenty feet high. Each bookshelf was made of some rich rare wood, darkly lambent in the half-shuttered light, and each shelf was completely filled with hardbacks. I glanced from case to case, picking out the matching bindings of a dozen collections, though most of the volumes seemed to be singular, of varying heights and widths and covers. I wondered if there was some system to their organization—19th-century novels here, examinations of the Vietnam War there, travelogues in the middle aisles—and assumed there had to be. Otherwise, you could get lost for days, trying to hunt down Sociological Theory in Mid-Millennium Urban Centers but getting seduced by Ann Radcliffe and Anne Tyler and Anne Sexton along the way.

I didn’t think there were really a million books here, but there sure were a lot.

“See? You like it, don’t you?” Quentin demanded. “I knew you would. I bet you could find any book ever published in the world here.”

I didn’t bother trying to correct this truly outrageous claim. “Yes, I like it a lot,” I agreed. “I’ve always wanted my own library of physical books. With nice cozy chairs to sit on while I browsed through my collection. I’d probably walk in some days and not come out for a week.”

“You’d starve, though.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” I said loftily. “My soul would be nourished by literature.”

“Yeah, but you—hey, Taylor! I just thought of something.” He spun his chair in a circle and headed toward the door. “Wait here.”

“Where are you going?” I asked in alarm.

“I’ll be right back. Stay here!” he called and disappeared.

I was tempted to run after him, because I did not like the idea of being unchaperoned in Duncan Phillips’ house, but I was also tempted to stay and start reading. As is so often the case, my less virtuous nature triumphed. I strolled forward and began randomly scanning titles on one of the middle shelves.

This appeared to be the history section, because it contained massive books dedicated to dissecting the World Wars, as well as a few smaller volumes on Korea, the Ukraine war, and the recent Chinese Revolution. I stepped a few shelves over to find myself segueing into biography, which seemed to be heavily weighted toward warmongers and other predominantly male world leaders. Where were the cases holding Margaret Atwood, Maya Angelou, and May Sarton? I moved on.

Quentin had been gone maybe fifteen minutes and I had finally drifted into fiction when the door opened behind me. “Next time you complain about not liking a book I’ve assigned to you, we’ll come down here,” I said without looking at him. “You’d have to find something you liked on these shelves.”

“No doubt,” said a deep male voice that was definitely not Quentin’s. I spun around. “But I don’t believe you’re in a position to assign any task to me.”

I stared at him and could not think of a single thing to say.

The newcomer was medium-tall, dark-haired, and handsome in a polished way that made his perfectly cut hair and his exquisitely fitting suit seem part of a calculated presentation. His eyes, dark gray and unwaveringly fixed on me, gave no hint of emotion—irritation, amusement, fury, interest. I had seen his face a hundred times, a thousand, in online magazines and television newscasts, so I recognized him instantly. But the digital images never conveyed the sheer physical impact of his presence, wary, feral, and infinitely engaged.

He waited for me to speak.

“I’m—hello, I’m Taylor Kendall, I didn’t know—” I stammered. “I’m sorry.”

He didn’t move, just continued to survey me. “Taylor Kendall,” he repeated. “I don’t know anyone by that name.”

I was sure my cheeks were flushing; my whole body was flushing. I could feel the heat rise along my stomach and my armpits and my throat. “I’m teaching your son,” I said. “English. I’m from Sefton University.”

“Ah.” He took one step into the room, precise, almost robotic. He still watched me without appearing to blink. “And how long have you been on my payroll?”

I had to think quickly. “About—just over six weeks now.”

“How often are you in my house, looking about my rooms?”

Now I could feel the bright red color in my cheeks, and all I could think about was that illicit foray into his living erotica collection. “I come twice a week to tutor Quentin, but usually we’re just—I mean, I go to his suite and we stay there—”

“Until today.”

Until last week, actually. “He knows I love books. He thought I’d enjoy seeing your collection. He told me it was—he said anyone could come in here, I assumed it was a public room.”

He took another two steps forward, and I felt a moment’s mad panic. I mean, what could he do to me, what would he even consider doing to me, here in an accessible room of his own house with his servants and his son likely to burst in at any moment? But there was such an aura of danger in his unnerving stare, in his tense and coiled body, that I truly felt a stab of fear. Maybe it was just guilt, but I didn’t think so.

“Why are you so nervous, Taylor Kendall?” he asked softly.

“I’m—you caught me off-guard, walking in unexpectedly—and you don’t seem all that pleased to find me here, to tell the truth—”

My inane words caused him to smile, a lethal little smile, and I really did back up a pace, as unobtrusively as possible. “Of course I’m pleased,” he said, in the voice of a panther purring. Did panthers purr? More to the point, did they purr right before they pounced on dinner and devoured it? “It’s not every day I find attractive young women lurking among the 20th-century classics. It seems like something of a reward for enduring a rather troubling morning.”

I couldn’t say a word.

He came closer at a more relaxed, natural pace, walking toward me like a man and not a predator. “So what do you think of my collection, Taylor Kendall? If you’re a Sefton University English professor, I’d assume you’d have some love of literature.”

I gestured at the bookshelf behind me, using the movement to cover up two more steps away from him. “Well, I was mired in history for a while, so I’ve just made my way to fiction, but I have to say this is the most complete collection I’ve ever seen outside of a university,” I said. Talking about books gave me back a shadow of my usual coherence. “And you’ve got real depth in your early-20th-century female authors. I mean, I’d expect the whole Virginia Woolf canon, but you’ve also got the complete works of Elizabeth Bowen, and everything by Gertrude Stein, and Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poems and—”

“I’m not particularly interested in women’s writing,” he interrupted.

I fell silent.

“I’m more interested in women,” he said.

I stared at him as I imagine the mouse gapes at the hawk.

“So tell me a little about yourself, Taylor Kendall,” he said. He came closer, and this time I resisted the urge to back away. What would happen if I ran for the door? Would he chase me? Would he laugh? Would he forbid me to ever cross his threshold again? Did I want to cross it? Would I die of mortification and unease even as we spoke? “Where do you live? Are you married? What kinds of things do you like?”

“I live—here in Chicago,” I said, stammering again. Babbling, actually. “Teach in Houston, of course. I like to travel—I—um—I teleport almost every day, so I’m in lots of different cities, Atlanta, Denver, you know, places like that, sometimes I go over to London or Berlin, but not so often—”

“You’re nervous again.”

“Well, you know—I guess—a little.”

He smiled. I could tell that he thought it was a warm smile, the kind that attracted or maybe melted the women he usually talked to, but it didn’t reassure me at all. “So you like to travel,” he prompted. “Do you travel alone? With a friend? Somebody special?”

“I’m divorced,” I said baldly.

He nodded. “I’m sure the man’s a fool.”

“Most men are,” I said before I could stop myself.

His smile widened; he laughed softly. “I agree with you there,” he said. “For different reasons, I suspect. And you don’t have anyone else in your life right now? Boyfriend—steady guy—lover?”

The door blew open, and Bram Cortez stalked in.

“Mr. Phillips,” he said, not looking at me. “The Mercedes has been brought around.”

Duncan Phillips did not turn his head to regard his security chief. “Give me just a moment,” he said.

Bram looked at his watch. “I thought you were supposed to be there in twenty minutes. You could teleport, I suppose.”

Now Phillips pivoted on one very expensively shod foot, his face again set and emotionless. “No, I need to bring some delicate items with me,” he said. “The car is better.”

He turned toward the door without looking at me again. Any other man, having started even such a bizarre flirtation with any other woman, would have faced her again, smiled, apologized, intimated that he would like to see her in the future, the sooner the better. Not Duncan Phillips. I saw his perfectly set shoulders rise in a tiny shrug and his hands come up to touch his collar and his tie. Then he strode forward like a Buckingham Palace guard, not glancing at anything around him, nodded to Cortez as he passed, and left the room.

I found myself staring at the security chief, who was staring right back at me. Glaring, more like. His face looked stark with shock, and he appeared to be trying to force some reasonable expression back onto his features through an overlay of fury.

“What in God’s name are you doing here all by yourself?” he demanded at last.

I spread my hands. “I came here with Quentin. He wanted me to see the books. He said he’d be right back.”

“You’re not ever supposed to roam this house alone.”

“I know that. I know that visitors are always escorted from room to room, and you’re afraid I’ll get lost or steal something or take photographs to feed to the tabloids, but it just happened, it’s not my fault—”

“That’s not why you’re not allowed here unescorted,” he said deliberately. He jerked his head at the door through which Duncan Phillips had disappeared. “He’s why. And the rule only applies to women.”

I felt myself go cold bone by bone. “He—but—are you saying that a woman isn’t safe in—it’s daylight, it’s a public room, it’s—you mean, has something happened here?”

“Yes,” he said brusquely, and let it go at that.

I began shivering with an uncontrollable chill. I’d never fainted in my life, so I didn’t know what it felt like to have a swoon coming on, but at the moment, total unthinking unconsciousness had a certain broad appeal. “Then can I just say how glad I am that Duncan Phillips had an appointment somewhere else and that you came to find him?”

Cortez looked at me like I was the stupidest person on the planet, and I felt myself blushing again, for completely different reasons. Heat, cold, heat; my body was revolving too rapidly through its own seasons. “You were watching,” I said in a low voice. “On the camera. You saw him come in and find me.” A beat. “You rescued me.”

“I happened to look at the monitor when he walked in,” Cortez said curtly. “Some other day I might not have been paying attention.”

“I don’t know—what can I say?—this is—” I put my hands to my cheeks, and felt my fingers shaking. “Thank you, though.”

“You’d better leave,” he said.

I dropped my hands. So much for sympathy. “I’m on my way even as we speak.”

But before I could take a step forward, the door swung open again, this time to admit Quentin and Francis. “Hey, Bram!” the boy said happily. “I was showing Taylor the library.”

Cortez turned smoothly to face Quentin, though I thought I saw a quick, significant glance pass between the two men. “Hey, Quin. What were you showing her?”

“The books,” Quentin replied. “Well, I had to go up to my room because I thought I left one of my dad’s first editions there, but I couldn’t find it, and then my cousin called, but I knew Taylor would find anything she wanted by herself. Pretty jazz, huh, Taylor?”

“Spectacular,” I said as enthusiastically as I could.

Quentin came closer. “So what did you find? See something you’d like to take home? It’s okay, people borrow books from the library all the time. There’s no charge or anything.”

“Taylor needs to get going,” Cortez said.

Quentin was instantly dismayed. “Not yet! Just a few more minutes! You can help me pick out my next book—you always say everyone should always have their next book in mind—”

I smiled tightly. “I think you can find what you need on your own, buddy.”

“Well, okay,” he said grumpily. “But I’ll see you Friday.”

Involuntarily, I looked over at Bram Cortez. Because, you know, for a moment I wasn’t sure that I would be allowed back at the mansion, and I had not even remotely settled the question of whether or not I wanted to return. The guard had his eyes fixed on me; his face gave nothing away. But he gave one short, sharp nod.

“Of course you will,” I said. “Now, do you and Francis want to accompany me to the door?”

Because, the hell with it. If Cortez was going to be all tough and hostile, I wasn’t going to look to have a moment alone with him at the telepad, eager to express my thanks again and hoping he would tell me he’d raced down the hallways in a desperate attempt to save my life or my virtue.

“Sure,” said Quentin, and the three of us made an odd little party as we slipped out the door and down the hall. Quentin talked happily for our whole brief journey, and Francis from time to time nodded or smiled. He was the one who held the door for me as I stepped into the teleport chamber, and he gave me a look that seemed filled with knowledge and rue.

“Have a safe journey home, Ms. Kendall,” he said. “We look forward to seeing you again in a few days.”

But as the system whisked me away, I still was unsettled enough to think I might never return.

*

“Of course you can’t go back there,” was Marika’s pronouncement. “What a dog. You should call the cops.”

“Oh, I can just imagine how that conversation would go,” I said. I was feeling much better, having soaked in an ultra-hot bath, drunk a bottle and a half of beer, changed into my footie pajamas (still chilly enough at night to justify wearing them), and curled up on the couch to call Mareek. “‘Well, officer, he didn’t touch me, and he didn’t threaten me, and I have no reason at all to think he meant me harm except for a few ominous words let fall by the household staff, and my own sense of great unease.’”

“Okay, but you can’t go back there. You’re in danger.”

I was silent for a moment.

“Tay? You hear me? You can’t go back.”

“There’s Quentin,” I said at last.

“Right, but Quentin’s got a houseful of male bodyguards who will keep him company, and his rich supercreep daddy can afford to hire any number of other tutors, so it’s not like he exactly needs you.”

“He does need me. You haven’t spent any time with him, you don’t know how vulnerable he is. He’s so childlike. He’s so sweet. I want to sweep him up in my arms and rock him to sleep. I want to hold him like a little baby and just say over and over again, ‘It’s all right. It’s going to be all right.’ And, of course, it’s not going to be all right. Not for Quentin. I just have to be there for him as long as he needs me.” I took a deep breath, speaking out loud the decision I had made without even knowing it. “So I’m going back Friday.”

“You can’t ever be alone there. Not for a minute.”

“I know that. I’ll make sure Francis or Dennis or even Quentin is with me whenever I’m in the halls.”

“Or Bram Cortez,” Marika said.

There was a moment’s profound silence. Honestly, I’d said very little about the man. What was there to say? I’d told Marika about our drive home, and our conversation about ex-spouses, and she’d asked me a few questions and then seemed to lose interest. But that’s the thing about Marika. Bloodhound. Can’t throw her off a scent.

“Sure,” I said cautiously. “If he’s around.”

“So was he watching you?” she demanded. “On the monitor? Do you think he watches you while you’re tutoring Quentin?”

“Dennis says there aren’t cameras in the private rooms.”

“Bet he does.”

“Why would he?”

“He likes you.”

“Oh, you can’t possibly infer that from—”

“You like him.”

I was silent.

“What’s he look like again?” she asked.

“Ordinary.”

“Specifics, please.”

“You know. He’s tall. Dark hair, going a little gray, cut really short. A small mustache. That kind of skin that has a dark undertone even when it’s fairly pale. Muscular. And he has a sort of—readiness—about him. I can’t explain. As if you could burst through the door shooting double-barreled shotguns, and he wouldn’t be caught by surprise, and he’d knock you to the floor before you had time to turn your weapons his way.”

“Oh yeah,” she said dryly, “you like him.”

Well, okay, it was true, but I couldn’t figure it out. “Here’s the thing,” I said. “He’s not my type. He’s a loner. He’s an island. You couldn’t—I mean, even assuming it went that far and you wanted to pursue a relationship with the guy—you couldn’t have a relationship with the guy. He doesn’t connect.”

“That’s why he likes you,” she said softly. “’Cause you can connect with anybody.”