Alchemy of Secrets, page 9
Holland used to wonder what genre her life would be if it were a movie. Growing up on her aunt and uncle’s farm in Northern California made her childhood feel like one of those dramas that won lots of awards but were a little slow and boring. Holland had vowed that when she grew up, her life would be a television show with oversaturated colors, perky pop music, and lots of kissing.
That was the path she’d been on before she’d heard about the Professor’s class.
She wasn’t sure what genre she was in now, but the colors were grittier, there was no pop music soundtrack, and it didn’t have nearly enough kissing.
Her eyes drifted toward Gabe.
Just standing this close to him felt like going the wrong way down a one-way street. She definitely didn’t want to kiss him. But for a second it was all she could imagine. It wouldn’t be soft. His arms would hold tight. Painful tight. Keep her from breaking to pieces tight, until he let go, sudden and harsh, and pieces were all that was left. Guys like Gabe broke girls like Holland.
That wasn’t what she wanted at all. Cat was wrong when she’d said Holland wanted someone who scared her a little. Holland wanted someone who made her feel safe. Who made her feel like even if the world came crashing down around her, he wouldn’t stop holding her.
But that guy wasn’t Gabe. Minutes ago, he hadn’t been able to hold on to her wrist for more than a second. Holland quickened her steps to get ahead of him.
The Professor’s personal office was reachable by two antique French doors that led onto a brick patio surrounded by overgrown roses, hardy fuchsias, and Japanese maple trees strung up with tiny glass lights that kept clanging in the wind. The Professor hid her spare key under a grumpy garden gnome that glared at Holland as she picked it up.
“You don’t need that,” Gabe said, as Holland retrieved the key.
“I told you we’re not breaking in,” she argued.
“We’re also not the first ones here.” He pressed two fingers against one of the Professor’s French doors, easily pushing it open.
A second later, all the lights switched on.
And then, everything was chaos.
Folklore 517: Until Further Notice
It smells like urine.
You keep walking, kicking up dust from the dirt trails, but the scent only grows stronger. You think about leaving, about skipping this class, but everyone who’s taken the course before says this one is important.
The words are always followed by a hush.
You’re impressed by the loyalty the Professor’s old students all seem to have. But you understand it; you don’t share secrets of the class, either. These stories are things you feel you’ve earned, and you don’t want to give them away for free.
And so here you are at the Old LA Zoo in Griffith Park.
You’re not sure how long the zoo was open, but after passing by the tragically small cages, you can’t believe it was open at all. You’ve seen closets bigger than these pens. No wonder the animals who once lived here are said to still haunt it.
You think it was built in the early 1900s, but unlike other parts of LA that were constructed during that time, these small iron and stone enclosures don’t seem to hold any magic. If anything, they feel cursed.
This place has more ghosts than it does trees. You think about the poor couple who died on a picnic table while making love. Then you think about all the people over the years who’ve shown up here with amnesia. It happens about once a month. Sometimes they forget days, sometimes years, and no one has ever been able to figure out why. You wonder if maybe this is what the class will be about as you stop behind one of the cages, where the few remaining students are gathered.
“Ahem,” says someone behind you. Everyone slowly turns.
It’s not the Professor. But this young woman is clearly one of her protégés. Her posture is rigidly straight. Her eyes don’t blink quite as much as they should. And you immediately dislike her because you fear her presence means the Professor isn’t coming. She’s sent a proxy.
The proxy waits until all eyes are on her before she says, “I’m here to inform everyone that all the Professor’s classes have been suspended until further notice.”
She turns and leaves before you can ask any questions.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Framed newspapers had been torn from walls. Books had been ripped off shelves. Drawers had been ruthlessly pulled out of desks. Cushions had been yanked from chairs. The entire house was ransacked.
Gabe said something, but his voice sounded far away. Holland could barely hear it over the staticky buzzing of light bulbs—or maybe the sound was only in her head.
Holland had always loved the Professor’s office. It was one of those spaces, like the milk-glass room, that was full of the magic of simple, timeless things. Most of the Professor’s treasures were related to her myths. Her bookshelves were full of blueprints for haunted Hollywood hotels, elaborately framed recipes for sidecars, original ticket stubs to the Old LA Zoo, windup clocks from her collection. One of the clocks appeared to be broken. The minute hand was spinning like a second hand, and the hour hand was ticking like a minute hand and echoing through the battered room.
“We need to find the Professor,” Holland said. “We need to make sure she’s okay.” Holland couldn’t bring herself to say the word alive. She didn’t want to entertain the idea that the Professor might be dead, like Jake.
Holland didn’t know how much more she could handle tonight, but she definitely couldn’t handle losing the Professor.
Gabe pressed his lips into a tight line as his eyes landed on a trashed copy of Murder at San Simeon—one of the Professor’s favorite conspiracy novels. His expression seemed to say, If your Professor is here, then she’s not going to be okay.
“She might be injured,” Holland said. She started toward the door, which led to the rest of the house. She tried to avoid stepping on any books or shards of broken glass, but her legs were unsteady and her movements were sloppy.
Gabe grabbed her wrist and quickly pulled her back with a force that nearly made her trip. “I’ll look. You stay.”
“But—”
“No,” he said sharply. “We do it this way, or we leave.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“You think I can’t make you?” His fingers tightened, sending a line of heat up her arm. “Stay,” he ordered. Then he let her go.
The light seemed dimmer as soon as he was gone. Holland had thought the overhead chandelier was on, but now there was just the glow of the Professor’s tipped-over Tiffany lamp. It was on the desk, next to a shiny green rotary phone that was making the noise phones make when they’ve been taken off the hook.
Holland walked to the desk to put the phone back on the receiver, and that’s when she saw it, tucked under the handle: a pale cream business card with emerald-green lettering.
JANUARY ST. JAMES
Rare Book & Artifact Collections
Holland’s head began to spin. January and the Professor didn’t know each other. They had never met. And January had been in Spain for all of October, so she couldn’t have been here. Unless she’d stopped by last month. But then why hadn’t either January or the Professor mentioned it?
Holland wanted to tell herself that she was reading too much into this. The Professor loved rare books and artifacts. Maybe she’d gotten hold of January to track something down, and both of them had forgotten to mention it to Holland. Or there was a bigger connection Holland wasn’t seeing.
She thought about Gabe. He knew about the Watch Man and the Alchemical Heart. It made her wonder if January did as well. But then why wouldn’t she have mentioned any of it to Holland?
Before Jake, Holland had never shared the Professor’s myths and legends with anyone, except for January. After starting her thesis, Holland had shared a draft of it with her sister. Then she’d told her the Professor’s myth about the devil and the sidecar. Holland had tried to forget what her sister had said because her words hurt too much.
You need to grow up, Holland. They’re gone. They aren’t coming back, and making up stories about them won’t change that.
The fight about the thesis had turned into a fight about their parents. Holland had been mad at January for never talking about them, and January had been angry at Holland for refusing to let them go. Then somehow it had turned into January telling Holland she needed to scrap the thesis and end her relationship with the Professor, whom January had then called a crackpot.
It was the worst argument they’d ever had. They’d gone for a full month without speaking. Then, one night, January had come over to Holland’s house unannounced with an overnight backpack and a bottle of wine with a label that read, I’m sorry, I suck.
They didn’t revisit the topic of the thesis or the Professor. But knowing how stubborn January could be, Holland doubted that she had changed her mind on the subject. Which made Holland wonder once again: Where had the Professor gotten January’s business card? And why did she have it?
Holland had spent the last few years studying stories, and she knew that no matter how complicated something appeared, at the heart of every story was always one simple truth that tied everything together. So, either Holland still didn’t have all the pieces of this story, or she was putting them together incorrectly.
Holland shoved January’s business card into her messenger bag as she turned away from the desk. Maybe she’d ask Gabe about it when he came back. Holland literally didn’t have the time to figure it out now.
Every single book had been ripped from the Professor’s shelves, as though whoever had done this was looking for her journal. Holland felt her heart break as she took in the damage to the Professor’s most prized things. Very little of it looked salvageable, but Holland couldn’t stop herself from trying.
After putting a few books back up on the Professor’s shelf, she picked up a Price of Magic film poster that usually hung on the Professor’s wall. Holland had often wondered how the Professor had gotten her hands on it. Holland’s father had been very particular about replicas never being made of his original posters because he liked to hide Easter eggs in them.
At the top of this poster, the title blazed in fiery letters above a windswept picture of the film’s main couple, Red and Sophia Westcott. They were holding hands, but if you looked closely, you would see it was really Sophia holding on to Red.
Behind him, it looked as if the sun had finished setting, but again, upon closer inspection, Red was actually standing in front of a pair of shadowy black gates. Behind Sophia was a group of children. A more prominent child with perfect blond ringlets was holding on to a dog with a sprig of holly and a pair of bells attached to its collar along with a heart-shaped red name tag with the letters JJ.
The bells and the holly were for Holland, because of her nickname Hollybells, and the JJ was for January. Their dad had put little gifts for his daughters in both Price of Magic films, which had then led them on two of their favorite treasure hunts. As Holland held the poster now, she wondered if perhaps it contained another Easter egg she had never seen. She knew—
The house creaked.
Holland froze.
Then she heard footsteps.
Gabe was returning. At least she hoped it was Gabe. Maybe she was being paranoid, but she swore these footsteps sounded different, lighter. Someone was trying to be quiet. Holland wished there was something more substantial in her hands than an old movie poster.
The footsteps were outside the office.
Holland lunged for the rotary phone, just as Adam Bishop sauntered through the door.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Adam looked almost the same as when Holland had met him in his office: ripped jeans, plaid shirt, perfect arms, freckles across the bridge of his nose. He made her think of a grad student once again. Someone like her, someone she could trust. But there was no reason for Adam to be in the Professor’s ransacked house. Not any good one.
“I can explain.” Adam stopped just past the doorway, as if he didn’t want to frighten her. But it was too late for that.
“What are you doing here?” She tried to sound demanding, but the words came out breathless and scared.
Adam ran a hand through his golden hair, turning it more disheveled than tousled, no doubt trying to make himself look even more disarming. “January said you wouldn’t be able to let the Professor go.”
“Wait—what—” Holland stammered. “How do you know January?”
“She’s the reason I’m here.” He took another cautious step.
“No—no—no—no—no—” Holland backed farther away.
“She asked me to look out for you,” Adam said.
“No,” Holland repeated. January wouldn’t have sent two people into Holland’s life. Unless she was really scared for Holland, or …
One of them was lying. After the night she’d been having, that seemed like the more likely answer.
“January said that you were attached to your mentor, so she thought that might be a good role for me.”
“A role?” Holland repeated, her skepticism growing.
Adam looked half-apologetic, half-surprised she’d actually believed him, and Holland felt incredibly foolish. Of course he wasn’t a professor, he was just another guy trying to trick her.
“I didn’t want to lie to you.” Adam’s eyes were now entirely apologetic. “She asked me to protect you from a distance, so I tried. But”—he paused and took a look around the demolished office—“it doesn’t really seem to be working.” He took another step closer.
“No—” Holland put out her hand as she moved closer to the garden door. “Stop right there.”
“Holland, we don’t have time for this. We need to get out of here.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you. You already lied to me once today. If you want me to believe this story, I need proof. Let me see your wrist.” Holland’s eyes shot to the thick watch band covering the space where January and Gabe had matching tattoos.
“What will that prove?”
“Just do it.”
Adam took off his watch, and there it was. A tattoo just like Gabe’s and January’s. Adam watched her impatiently as she stared at it. “Is this proof enough?”
Holland shook her head. “It doesn’t make sense. Why would January send you and Gabe?”
Adam’s expression turned alarmed. “Your sister only sent me. Whoever Gabe is, you can’t trust him.”
“That’s funny, I was about to tell her the same thing.” Gabe stepped in from the open garden door and quickly pushed Holland behind his back. “Run,” he muttered.
“He’s the one you need to get away from,” Adam said.
“You need to run,” Gabe repeated.
“I don’t think she wants to listen to you.” Adam took another step toward her.
“Don’t move.” Gabe reached inside his coat and pulled out his gun.
Across from him, Adam moved incredibly fast, and then he was holding a weapon, too.
“No—no guns!” Holland yelled. “Nobody needs to get hurt.”
Both men looked as if they disagreed.
Gabe held his gun in a way that made Holland think he had probably slept in the cradle with one. And Adam looked alarmingly comfortable with his as well.
“I don’t know what he’s told you,” Adam said. “But you can’t believe a word.”
Gabe made a sound too angry to be called a laugh. “You could have at least worn different clothes when you tried to seduce this one.”
Seduce.
Holland froze.
Did this mean Adam was the one who had been dating her sister?
Adam vehemently shook his head. “You can’t listen to him, Holland. I came here to protect you.”
“He’s lying,” Gabe shot back.
“I swear I’m telling you the truth. I work with your sister, January. She is my partner. She sent me here to watch out for you.”
“You can’t believe him,” Gabe said. “He lied to January and now he’s lying to you. I’m the one your sister sent.”
Holland wanted to tell both of them to stop. Her head was spinning again, telling her to climb out of this rabbit hole, to get back to a life of champagne problems, to leave both of these men behind.
“Holland.” Adam softened his voice, as if he knew she was on the verge of breaking or running or both. “I swear, I’m telling you the truth,” he said. He looked at her as if his entire life depended on her, as if all that mattered was what she was thinking, as if he’d take a bullet if she’d just believe him. And for a split second she wanted to believe him.
Then everything seemed to happen at once.
Holland’s eyes were still on Adam’s pleading face when she heard the gunshot.
It sounded like the world ending. The earth splitting. Mountains shattering.
Then broad hands were grabbing hold of her arms, dragging her toward the door.
Gabe. He was dragging her.
She could see his lips moving but she couldn’t make out what he was saying. Her ears were ringing. The room was turning into one of those unfocused pictures where everything was blurry except for one thing. And the one thing in focus was Adam, slumped on the floor in the middle of the room.
“No!” Holland screamed, and the world suddenly snapped back into focus. She could feel the cold from the door behind her warring against the heat of Gabe’s murderous hands as he tried to drag her away. “Let me go!”
“We have to get out of here,” Gabe growled. Then he was picking Holland up.
“Put me down.” She kicked her legs. “You didn’t need to kill him!”
“Don’t worry, that bastard is a lot harder to kill than you think. And—” Gabe took a shuddering breath as he pulled her closer, cradling her to him. “He shot first.”
That’s when she felt the wet on his chest. The blood. She hadn’t seen Adam pull the trigger. She’d been too focused on his eyes, the same way she had been in the office, when just one look had made her flushed. He’d beguiled her again. Then, with a sick, sinking feeling, she wondered if it was the same thing he’d done to her sister.
