47. Luna

47

This…was not good.

"He's delirious," Michelle said. "It's only a matter of time now."

"I think that maybe we should call an ambulance," Kacie said.

"No signal," I reminded her.

"He has Wi-Fi. I've seen him using the internet, so we could try WhatsApp?"

Michelle huffed a bit. "We don't know where his phone is, remember? And if we did know, then I'm calling my cousin Tito, not the EMTs."

"Why would you call your cousin Tito?"

"Because he has a truck, and he can give me a damn ride."

Mark Antony was lying on my bed in the Egyptian wing, sweating profusely and mumbling about Osiris and divine judges. His ankle was the size of a watermelon and the colour of a ripe tomato, and there was yellow goo leaking through the bandage. So much for the honey.

Kacie wiped the sweat off his forehead with a paper towel. The faint aroma of sour milk still lingered. "We should have told him he was sick."

"I tried," I said softly. "He didn't want to go to the hospital."

"You what?" Michelle was incredulous. "Damn, girl. Whose side are you on?"

"Look, I want to get out of here as much as you do, but I don't want his death on my conscience." Yes, he'd kidnapped me, and yes, he'd bored me half to death with his dinner conversations, but on a scale of zero to Julius, he rated maybe a three. And it wasn't all bad—if I was stuck here, at least I'd miss Julius's funeral. "He needs therapy, not a casket. And what about his family? His mom? His dad? His siblings?"

What was my mom doing right now? Either she hadn't yet noticed I was missing, or she was milking my disappearance for all it was worth. The chances were fifty-fifty. Sometimes, Mom went on digital detox retreats because it was okay for her to avoid social media for a few days as long as I kept hitting those numbers. Anyhow… Back to the matter at hand.

Mark Antony thought the end was near. Before he lapsed into complete nonsense, he'd asked me to bring him a scarab amulet from a cabinet in the great room, and now he was clutching it in one hand as he prepared to meet his maker.

Michelle looked down at our captor who, quite frankly, was doing a terrible job. The front door had a knob you turned, and then it just opened, no problem. We could walk right out. And get eaten by wild animals, which wasn't ideal. Although he'd warned me to be careful if I went outside, so it wasn't as if he wanted me to be torn to shreds.

"Okay, fine. Fine," Michelle said. "Look for the damn phone and call the damn ambulance. And while you're at it, find the key for this damn padlock."

Mark Antony had carried the keys for Kacie and me with him, but when we rooted through his pockets, there was no key for Michelle. Probably because he had no intention of letting her loose. The phone wasn't there either, and I had a horrible feeling I knew where it was. Through the door by the bookshelves. With the reptiles. Before he more-or-less passed out, he'd been in there checking the heat settings, and he'd fed one of the snakes a dead rat, which nearly made me puke when I saw him carrying it across the room by its tail. His laptop was in there too. I'd caught sight of it when he opened the door. The study was big, bigger than I'd thought it would be, with a desk and more books and a wall full of glass snake houses. I shuddered at the memory. Now that door was locked too, with one of those keypads where you had to type the number in, but even if we could get him to tell us what that was, I didn't want to go inside. If it wasn't for the fact that Mark Antony was dying and corpses smelled really, really bad, I'd just pour myself a drink and wait for Ryder. Surely he must be on his way by now?

"Okay, we'll find the key."

We didn't find the key, and nor could we get the door code from Mark Antony. He just kept mumbling gibberish in Latin or Greek or whatever. But we knew for sure that the phone was in the study because five minutes after midnight, we heard it ringing for twenty seconds or so.

"Go outside and smash the damn window," Michelle instructed.

Michelle told us to go outside and smash the damn window, but she failed to mention the prickly bush growing in front of the glass. There was no way we could climb through without tearing ourselves to shreds, but when Kacie and I delivered the news, Michelle glared as if it were our fault. At around three a.m., we tried to batter the door down, and now I had a bruised shoulder. On the plus side, we had plenty of firewood from the six chairs we'd busted up, and we also hadn't been forced into a showdown with a loose snake. Michelle stayed there for half the night, sitting outside the study, typing in number after number, starting at one and working upward, but still the light stayed red. We didn't even know how many digits were in the combination.

If she did manage to get the door open, then she was the one going inside. Was Hedera venomous? The last thing we needed was two people at death's door, and I hadn't survived two and a half decades of Mom just to get bit by a freaking snake. Getting kidnapped sucked.

There were nooks and crannies everywhere in the giant cabin. Old pots and drawers and boxes and knick-knacks, dusty books and even a freaking skull. I was eighty percent sure it was human, and I hoped to heck it was super old and hadn't come from Kacie's predecessor.

No padlock key.

But we did find a key to something else. At four a.m., out of desperation, Kacie and I had begun rooting around in the garage and spotted the key to Mark Antony's Chevrolet Tahoe in the freaking ignition. For a security guard, Mark Antony wasn't so good at the whole security thing, was he? Although he did have coyotes patrolling the fence line, so maybe he figured that was enough?

"Then it's simple," Michelle said when we got back to the Egyptian wing and told her about the Tahoe key. She'd given up on the keypad in favour of making herself a coffee. "One of you two has to go for help."

Kacie raised a hand. "I don't know how to drive."

Michelle rolled her eyes. "So it'll have to be Little Miss Cleopatra."

"I can't really drive either."

"Are you serious? You're, like, a millionaire, and you've never taken driving lessons?"

"I didn't need to. I got my first chauffeur when I was nine." When Mom couldn't be bothered with taking me to dance classes and singing lessons and costume fittings and salon appointments and dental check-ups herself anymore. Sometimes Jubilee came with me, but mostly I went all those places on my own while Mom raked in cash teaching other pageant moms how to manage their little darlings. "And I have taken lessons. Two of them."

Michelle blinked slowly. "Two driving lessons?"

"I didn't realise it was going to be important, okay? My boyfriend always drives me places."

"This mysterious boyfriend who's supposed to be rescuing us?"

"You think finding people in the middle of nowhere is easy? Where's your boyfriend, huh?"

"I ditched him after he slept with my cousin."

"Yikes, I'm sorry. Wait, do you mean Tito?"

"No, my other cousin. Get in the damn car and drive, girl. It's not as if you have to parallel park."

"Are you kidding?"

"Just put the car in gear and steer it to the nearest police station."

"No, no, no, no, no. Have you seen the size of that Tahoe? I'll crash."

Michelle folded her arms, and why was she smiling like that? All smug?

"Suit yourself. We'll just wait here until your boyfriend shows up."

I looked behind her to the bed. Mark Antony wasn't mumbling anymore. He wasn't even moving. Was he still breathing? I watched for a long moment, seeing the faint rise and fall of his chest and the twitch of his jaw. I should be furious with him, logically I understood that. But what I felt was pity. He needed help, not punishment.

Or death.

How hard could driving the Tahoe be? Okay, so it was bigger than the BMW, but it was basically the same. Engine, windshield, steering wheel, seat belts. Don't forget the seat belts. And the sooner I got out of here, the sooner I could see Ryder. I might not know his number by heart, but if I could find someplace with internet, Blackwood's number would be on their website. All I had to do was call and ask them to put me through.

"Maybe in daylight. And Kacie comes with me. So does Rocky."

Michelle's turn to backpedal. "You're not leaving me here by myself with him."

"You're the nursing assistant. I'll go for help, but only if you keep him alive."

"No guarantees on that."

"Are you doubting your abilities?"

"Girl, he's in the Lord's hands now."

"Whatever. Just keep him hydrated."

And try not to put a pillow over his face.