Go Hunt Me, page 11
My heart fluttered, and I wondered what adults did in this situation. Okay. We’d be spending the week in this room. Should I let Jax see me change my clothes? Would he want to do it right away? The room suddenly was warm and stuffy. I approached the large window and searched for a way to open it.
This window didn’t open either.
Outside, the storm clouds were nearly black. Down below, I saw more of the stone terrace, a few more chairs, and what were probably some small citrus trees in pots. The mist covered the railing, creating the impression that the world beyond the castle had vanished.
Returning to the center of the room, I tried to relax.
Everything would be fine. Jax wouldn’t let anything happen to me.
He took slow steps in my direction, and as he moved, he slipped his T-shirt over his head, revealing a near perfect set of abs, toned from lacrosse and tanned from all the afternoons by the Flannigans’ pool.
My insides jiggled. I managed to come closer. I let my fingertips find his chest and ignored their trembling as I traced the ridges and valleys of his muscles. Jax leaned in closer, his breath warming my ear. He peppered light kisses along my jawline, and his hands fiddled with the frayed hem of my shirt.
Forgetting that I had been in another time zone and on another continent the last time I had a shower, I arched my back up and pressed into him, my hands sinking lower toward the waistband of his sweats.
Jax’s tongue lightly brushed my top lip, and he murmured my name.
It was gonna happen. Here, in a castle.
“Oh, Jax,” I moaned as his hands traveled up my shirt.
It was so right.
But he froze. His hands fell away from my body.
And I understood why.
A terrible scream echoed up the hall.
And then another. And another.
General Directorate for Criminal Investigations
Pending report—EXHIBIT 22
Rush, Alexandra. Dead Boys Don’t Bite. Theatrical script.
Revised March 14
Scene 3; page 3
Lucy Westenra [presses the keys of a piano]: I’m the valedictorian, you know. And also Miss Corona Teen. I think my parents are more proud of that second thing. They want me to go to a good college. But not to learn anything. It’s so I could meet a boy. Maybe a nice dentist. Or a stockbroker. My dad keeps saying that I need someone to take care of me. So that I can spend all my days in yoga pants. Driving around in my minivan.
Masked Man [whispers]: What’s wrong with a minivan?
Lucy Westenra: I suppose you think it’s selfish not to want one. This world acts like it’s sickness or a weakness for us to want to decide for ourselves what we want.
Masked Man: Maybe what you want is dangerous.
Four days ago
INT. MUSIC ROOM—NIGHT
Jax quickly tugged his shirt back over his head, and together we ran down the hall, following the direction of the screams. My heart pounded as we moved.
We found ourselves in the music room. It was easy to imagine this room full of ornate chairs, Count Dracula occupying one, watching his next victim play the piano. The filmmaker in me marveled at the setup. The grand piano. The carved harp pushed up against the wall, casting an abstract shadow on the wallpaper.
On the wall to my right, long, dust-covered draperies hung over what I assumed were windows overlooking the terrace. Rain pounded against the thick glass.
I almost ran into Maddie, who had set up a makeup station on top of a few of the boxes we’d shipped in. Kenna sat, hunched over, on a small stool, panting and crying. I couldn’t get a sense of what was happening. While the music room was creepy, it was also the same as when we had come up the stairs a few minutes earlier. Empty, dusty, and still.
Putting my hand on her back, I helped Kenna sit up straight. Mascara ran down her face. “What’s wrong?” I asked her.
She extended her elegant arm. “There. There.” She pointed toward one of the corners.
Heavy footsteps sounded in the hall. Carter burst into the room. “What? What’s happening?” he asked. He too was out of breath.
Jax was already headed in the direction that Kenna pointed. Something fluttered behind one of the curtains in the far corner of the room. Jax’s feet were quiet on the room’s old patterned rug. He quickly yanked the red fabric back, revealing a tall, narrow window that opened to the stormy night outside.
Something small flew in his direction and almost brushed against his face. It squeaked and chirped as Jax flailed his arms all around, trying to get the thing off himself. When he had gotten it away, he took a deep breath.
“It’s just a bat,” Jax said in a relieved voice.
We all looked up to see the creature, and Kenna screamed again.
Hazel ran into the room. She now wore a pair of green yoga pants and a beige hoodie that looked like they’d been ripped off a mannequin in the window of a Lululemon store. “What? What’s happening?” she called out from the doorway.
The bat’s little wings flapped as it circled the chandelier a few times before whizzing in the direction of another oversize wood-and-marble fireplace very similar to the one on the first floor. It disappeared into the wide, dark opening, leaving the room quiet again.
“It’s probably a vampire bat!” Kenna shrieked.
“No. No. It’s not,” Jax said. “We’re very close to a forest, and these old chimneys probably don’t get used a lot. A tree bat just found its way in.”
“What’s a tree bat?” Hazel asked.
Kenna sobbed while Maddie rolled her eyes.
Carter patted Kenna’s back a few times. “Whatever it was, it’s gone now.”
While the boys tried to calm Kenna down, I approached Maddie. She had changed into a T-shirt dress and wore her makeup apron.
“What are you guys doing?” I asked.
Maddie led me to a box where she’d set up a makeup station. She had a bunch of lip colors and blushes fanned out and organized by tone. She also had the white Dracula masks out. They were polished and in a neat stack.
I wasn’t exactly thrilled to see those things again, but we needed them for the scene.
“I thought I’d get Kenna ready for scene three,” she said. “Hopefully, we can get something shot before dinner.”
This was assuming that Raul would make it back with the cook. Given the storm outside, that seemed optimistic.
She paused to let her green eyes find mine. “I do want to make the movie, Alex. This thing with the money has thrown me. But I love your script. I hope you know that.”
I nodded. “Where’s Reagan?” He was supposed to be the masked man in the scene.
Carter glanced up from trying to comfort a still-crying Kenna. “He was looking for the one place in the castle with cell service. He should be back in a sec.”
Kenna sat up and wiped away her tears. “Good. Hopefully he’ll have some information.” The color began to return to her face.
“So, do you feel up to shooting something?” I asked. Part of me hoped she would say no, because part of me wanted to go back to my room with Jax.
But Kenna nodded. “We don’t know how much time we’ll have to film,” she said. “I’ll be fine. I mean, once Maddie fixes my makeup.”
Maddie rolled her eyes again.
“Okay. Let’s get set up,” I said. It sounded more like a question than a statement. There was something a little undermining about Kenna’s attitude. I got the sense that she didn’t plan on working on the movie if we didn’t figure out what happened to the missing money.
No one moved until Jax said, “Let’s do it.”
There was yet another reminder of how much I relied on Jax. I was supposed to be the director, but somehow he always ended up in charge.
Hazel got to work unpacking the boxes, and Maddie fixed Kenna’s makeup.
I explored the rest of the room to determine the best place to shoot.
Near the fireplace, I found a teeny yet elaborate piano. It was like the twins from The Shining should have been sitting there. Two silver candleholders rested on its top. As I came closer, I recognized the candleholders. They had Vyrzhikovsky’s maker’s mark on their bases. They were Russian and probably sterling silver, with a pear-shaped design and intricately carved leaves climbing up their sides. Unlike the set we had sold at Silver Rush, these were perfectly polished and extremely valuable.
They held two unlit white taper candles that had wax dripping down their sides.
With a sigh, I pressed down on a couple of keys on the tiny piano. They sounded like a music box playing the Nutcracker theme.
“It’s a Celesta,” Carter said, coming my way. “It sounds kind of like a glockenspiel. It goes along pretty well with the nineteenth-century vibe they’ve got going on around here.”
“I like it,” I said. “It’s weird and creepy.”
Carter smiled. “Yeah, I think it would be cool to play the Dead Boys theme I wrote on it.” He really loved music, and his excitement began to build. “I can record some effects and some music in here and mix it in later with the audio track.”
I noticed that Carter didn’t ask me what I thought of this plan.
He, instead, wanted approval from Jax.
We agreed that we’d start scene three with Kenna sitting at the Celesta and then have her move around the room holding one of the candlesticks. While Hazel got the lights set up and Carter positioned the audio equipment, I started looking through the gilded gold cabinets that were in the corners of the room. I opened each one carefully, hoping not to find any more bats or other creepy creatures.
Most of the cabinets were full of small instruments and sheet music. But in the last one, the one in the corner near the Celesta, on the center shelf, between a couple of violins, I found stacks of newsprint. They were old, yellowing, and dusty. Gazeta de Transilvania. My gaze landed on a date.
1890.
Underneath a headline written in Romanian that I couldn’t read, I found a black-and-white photo of the castle. Prahova was in slightly better shape. The grand first-floor entrance appeared to be intact, and the courtyard wasn’t filled with roof tiles and piles of fallen stone. The statue of Vlad Dracul still had its head. But it wasn’t exactly nice back then either. The trees and plants were overgrown; paint splotches covered the walls. There were gouges in the stone. Menacing dark shadows. Even back then.
In the article underneath the picture, I spotted the name Bram Stoker several times. And I found another term I recognized from the research I did for my script.
Strigoi mort.
Ghost of death.
Vampire.
“This can’t be right,” I said. We knew Stoker never came to Romania. That he had never been in Prahova. My friends crowded around me. We passed the article and photos around.
Kenna was oddly excited. “Maybe this place really is haunted. Maybe Bram really did travel here. You should take some notes, Alex. We could use this for the movie—”
Not only was this a very weird thing to say. The way she said it. Like an actress doing a really bad table read. Like she was thrilled that we were trapped and alone in a haunted castle.
Hazel’s face contorted in a mixture of annoyance and confusion. “What are you talking about? This doesn’t make any sense. And what does it have to do with the movie?”
Kenna made a frown with her newly redone red lips. “I’m just saying—”
Another clap of thunder cut her off.
Reagan entered the music room just as it fell quiet.
Apparently having forgotten about the newspaper article, Kenna turned the full force of her attention to Reagan. “Well? Did you figure it out?” she said in the same voice that she might use to demand to see the manager.
I tucked the newspaper clipping into the pocket of my jeans.
Reagan returned her annoyed look. “Well, I walked through most of this wing. It’s enormous, by the way. And I did find the one spot that seems to get a cell signal. If you take the stairs down, you get to a bunch more bedrooms, like the ones up here. If you go into the room at the very end of the hall and press your body into the corner, and hold your hand high above your head, you can get one bar.” When no one immediately said anything, he added, “You’re welcome.”
Maddie put down a large makeup brush. “But did you find out—”
Reagan bit his lower lip. “I haven’t found out anything new. The money was transferred to an account at a web-based bank. Did . . . did anyone give out our username and password?”
The question mainly seemed to be addressed to Kenna.
“No,” she said.
“Well. Then. We’ve been hacked,” Reagan said with a grim finality.
I thought for a second. “We never figured out who the donor was in the first place. Maybe whoever it was took the money back.”
“That’s not what happened,” Kenna snapped.
“How do you know?” Carter asked.
“GoFundMe doesn’t really work like that,” Reagan said.
“We should call the police,” Maddie said.
Carter stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “What police? The Paradise Valley police? What good would that do?”
“We should call our parents,” Maddie said.
Reagan shrugged. “I sent a request for help to GoFundMe, and I disputed the transfer. I think that’s all we can really do right now.”
“We have to do something,” Kenna said, wringing her hands. She was in full makeup and a red crushed-velvet dress that Maddie had made for the scene. She looked like she was rehearsing for a goth soap opera.
“What can we do?” I asked her. “It’s pouring rain outside. The caretaker still isn’t back. There’s next to no cell phone service here. We can’t leave right now, and it would be hard to contact anyone. Reagan’s already done everything we can about the money. Let’s at least try to film the scene.”
As I spoke, an uneasy feeling settled in the pit of my stomach. I sounded so uncaring. Like I didn’t care if she was upset. I wanted to take my words back.
But Jax said, “Alex is right. Let’s get a couple of shots in tonight. In the morning, we’ll take another vote. If everyone still wants to call our parents, we will.”
That settled the matter, and we got back to work. Maddie helped Reagan get dressed in the black cloak and white mask. We were able to run through the scene several times. Something about Kenna’s frayed nerves actually improved her performance.
On the fourth take, just as Reagan whispered, “Maybe what you want is dangerous,” a series of doors slammed downstairs.
At first, I froze, but cheerful, indistinct chatter traveled up the staircase, and I realized that Raul Stoica must have returned with the housekeeper and the cook. I could tell that we all felt better with adults in the castle.
“I hope we’ll get some food soon,” Carter said.
“You’re always thinking with your stomach,” Maddie murmured.
Everyone else hustled down the stairs to see what was going on, but Maddie and I remained in the music room. I helped her put away her makeup kit and clean her brushes.
“What’s up with Kenna?” I asked. Both Kenna and Maddie were weirdly interested in what had become of the GoFundMe money. And Kenna was almost thrilled to find out that locals believed there were real vampires hanging around the castle.
“Kenna always takes care of herself.” Maddie hesitated before continuing on slowly. “You remember what we talked about before, right? Well. You know what I think? Alex, I think Kenna is a swan.”
She left her kit stacked neatly on the box.
Together, we headed toward the wide doors of the music room.
I paused at the small statue of Vlad Dracul. The small kilij it had been holding was gone. “Wasn’t that thing holding a sword earlier?” I asked.
Maddie ignored my question. She stopped to look over her shoulder, her gaze lingering on the chandelier for a moment, and she said, “Alex? What if . . . what if the worst monsters are the ones we brought along with us?”
The large music room windows showed a black abyss outside.
I stared out the window for a minute before returning my attention to Maddie’s face.
“We’re stuck here for tonight,” Maddie said. “But in the morning, we need to make decisions. We should try to figure out how to use our phones. To call our parents. Or maybe try to call that rehab place where Catrinel is. I don’t think we should be here, Alex.”
Maddie stood very close to me.
The little hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
“I don’t think we’re meant to be here,” she said.
General Directorate for Criminal Investigations
Alexandra Elaine Rush—Transcript—Tape 1 [CONT.]
Inspector Skutnik: What do you think Maddie meant by that?
Alex: I . . . [cough] [inaudible] she . . . Maddie was kind of an . . . intuitive person . . . Like she believed in psychics and tarot cards and stuff.
Inspector Skutnik: And Reagan Wozniak? We couldn’t find any record of him, or anyone, contacting GoFundMe.
Alex: Well . . . I only know what he told us.
Inspector Skutnik: Do you think he lied?
Alex: I don’t know. And at the time, I was more concerned about Kenna.
Inspector Skutnik: But Maddie was very interested in the missing money as well.
Alex: Yeah. And I found out why. And then the storm came.
