In The Flesh

In The Flesh Part 25

"What the hell do you mean Annie's gone?" I said, practically catapulting from the sofa. "She can't be gone."

"I'm sorry," Cook addressed Alonso rather than me. "I brought her tea, and I was surprised to see she wasn't in her bed. I had hoped perhaps she was improving. But she must have hidden behind the door. She hit me with the candlestick." He touched his bleeding head once more as though he couldn't quite believe it had happened. "When I came back to myself, she was gone. I can't have been out for more than a few seconds."

I turned on Magda. "You said your rock magic would keep her asleep, out of harms way, you said."

"Clearly I was mistaken." She didn't seem to be the least bit rattled by the fact my crazy, half-starved friend was wandering around somewhere at High View.

Alonso was on his feet and through the door almost before I realized he'd moved. He called over his shoulder as he headed down the hall, 'I've got the whole place monitored with cameras so I can enjoy the property in daytime and protect my perimeters. The control room is just down the hall. If she's outside we should be able to find her." We all scrambled to follow.

I fell into step beside Magda. "I'll never forgive you if something happens to her."

She raised an eyebrow from behind the dark glasses. "The responsibility for your friend's desperate situation does not lay at my feet, little girl, in case you've forgotten."

If she had gut-punched me, I would have felt the impact no more. Michael moved next to me, clearly overhearing the exchange and slid an arm around my shoulder, but I jerked away. "The blame may lay at my feet, but it was rather convenient for the little act of thievery you two were planning at Chapel House, wasn't it?"

Now it was Michael who had the freshly gut-punched look.

I shoved past both of them and fell into step next to Talia, who offered me a sympathetic nod. "Alonso always tells me that when comrades are reduced to placing blame, then the enemy has already won." Seemed it was the day for gut-punches.

We all crowded into a room not much bigger than a closet, which was crammed with monitors and keyboards. Alonso sat down in a captain's chair and began systematically pulling up the cameras around the property, all of which had the capability of zoom and, in some places, the places where the property was most vulnerable; there were multiple cameras for multiple angles.

"Nothing so far," he said. "The mist is making it difficult to see anything. I've checked the vehicles in the drive and those in the garages, but none are missing. I would assume it's her plan to go back to Chapel House. In her weakened condition, if she tries to go on foot or hitchhike, it would have to be almost entirely under the Guardian's power. The woman is little more than a skeleton."

"He could do that," I said. "When she attacked me, I couldn't believe how strong she was."

"But that was more fear of losing him than it was any aid of his," Magda said. "The ability to get back to him from here, I would think, would depend entirely on his strength."

"And on him wanting her back," Michael added, eyes locked on me rather than on the monitors which, so far had revealed nothing but a very soggy red squirrel, hunkering down in a fir tree to avoid the rain, otherwise the place was deserted. Alonso had sent the builders away when Magda and team had arrived, not wanting to put them in any danger or raise any suspicions.

It was then that it hit me with such import that I grabbed onto the back of Alonso's chair to keep my knees from buckling. "He doesn't want her back. He's deserted her totally, and she has to know that by now. And if she knows it ..." As the implications hit home like a an exploding bomb I raced for the door, in a burst of adrenaline, yelling back at Michael, "The tower, where your room is, does it lead to the roof?"