Leon motions me to silence as he shuts the door. I listen for voices, but they’ve gone quiet. Or gone back to normal tones, their voices lost in this huge house.
“This way,” Leon whispers.
I have to force myself to follow. I need to allow him to lead me until I can figure out where exactly Connolly is. Then I can decide my next move.
We’re moving along a dark hallway when Marion’s voice rings clear. “I need you to calm down, Aiden. I don’t know how many times I can tell you she isn’t here.”
“And I’m telling you I know she is. Did you really think I gave you my actual security code? I’m not that stupid. I gave you a visitor code, and you’re the only one who has it. I check my logs daily. I know when you’ve sent someone into my house. As soon as I found Kennedy gone, I checked. You used your code.”
“Yes, I’ve already admitted that. I invited her here for a talk. Which we had, and then she left. You’ve spoken to Davey. He says he dropped her off at your house.”
“I wouldn’t trust Davey to tell me the sky is blue. You did not ‘invite’ Kennedy. You took her. Her phone turned off minutes after my alarm did.”
“Seems I’m not the only one keeping tabs on her.”
“I had a tech contact check it after Kennedy disappeared from my house and wasn’t reading my messages. She would understand that.”
I have no problem with what he did, but I also no longer feel the compulsion to march in there and tell Marion so. Hearing Connolly has calmed my fears. I shouldn’t interfere. Just let Leon take me to Connolly’s car. Wait there. It’ll be safe.
Marion continues to insist she has no idea where I am and that, yes, perhaps Travis got a little overzealous and confiscated my phone, but I have that back now. Just ask Davey.
“Is Davey the blond guy?” I ask.
Leon only rolls his eyes, which I guess means yes. I presume that Cullan had Davey take the fall here for two reasons. One, he didn’t trust Leon—rightly, it seems. Two, if he had Travis lie about returning me, Connolly would be even more suspicious, given the history between them.
Marion and Connolly are somewhere to my left. We pass near enough to the room that I can hear them even when Connolly lowers his voice. Then we keep going. Leon’s gesturing to a door ahead when there’s a tremendous boom, the entire house shaking with it. Someone screams and an alarm shrieks, drowning out the screams.
Leon grabs my arm.
“Hey!” I say, yanking away.
His grip only tightens. The alarm stops, voices rushing in to fill the void, people shouting.
“Why the devil isn’t the generator turning on?” Marion says.
“Come on,” Leon whispers.
“Did you do this?” I whisper, tugging against his grip.
“No, but I’m sure as hell taking advantage of it.”
He pulls at me. I pull back. The power’s out, and the generators aren’t coming on, and something is wrong. I didn’t imagine those screams.
“I’ll check the utility room,” Connolly says from the other room. “Go see who was screaming. I think it came from the staff quarters.”
When Leon tries to drag me, I dig in my heels.
“They’re separated,” I say. “Let me talk to Aiden.”
“I’ll do that.”
“No, I can—”
He yanks my arm.
“Hey!” I say.
He starts to drag me, and when he throws open a door, it’s pitch black inside, and all I can think of is Cullan opening that door downstairs, forcing me through into that terrible empty room with the painting.
“No!” I say. “Let me go!”
“Kennedy?” Connolly’s voice echoes through the halls.
“Just get in here, and I’ll—” Leon starts.
I yank harder. “Let me go!” I kick at him, and he swears, but doesn’t release his grip.
Running footsteps, and a figure rounds the corner we just passed. Connolly sees me and stops short. Then he sees Leon and charges.
“Wait!” Leon says, backing up fast. “It’s not what you think. I rescued her. I’m on your side, buddy.”
“On my side?” Connolly says between his teeth. “Do you think I don’t realize you’re the O’Toole family spy?”
“Fine, yes, but—”
“Let her go.”
Leon blinks down at my arm, as if he’d forgotten he’s holding it. He drops it fast and backs up, hands rising.
“I rescued her.” He waves at the door. “I was putting her in your car.”
Connolly doesn’t seem to hear him. He holds both my arms gingerly as he looks down at me.
“Are you—?” He sees my cut arms and sucks in a breath. “What did they do?”
“I’m fine,” I say. “I just want to go. Please. Let’s get out of here.”
Connolly’s gaze rises to Leon’s. “If you did this to her—”
“He didn’t,” I say. “He got me out of where I was being held. Maybe he was rescuing me. Maybe he was taking me to the O’Tooles.”
“What?” Leon says. “No.”
“Don’t know. Don’t care. I just want to leave. Please, Aiden.”
Connolly glowers at Leon one last time, and then bustles me into the garage.
* * *
As Leon said, Connolly’s car is in the garage. So maybe he was telling the truth about the rest, but I only care that my ordeal has ended, and I am with Connolly. His parents won’t harm me while he’s here.
He doesn’t say a word as we get into the car. Just starts it up and drives to the door . . . only to realize the automatic opener doesn’t work during a blackout. He murmurs, “Just a moment,” and it’s a testament to how unsettled I am that I nearly scamper out after him, just to stay close. He heaves open the door. Then he’s back, and it’s a silent drive to the gate, where he needs to do the same thing.
It’s still storming, a driving rain that has him soaking wet when he climbs back in. I reach into the back seat where there’s a folded blanket from our last picnic. I hand it to him, and he wipes off his face as the car rolls through the gates.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I know that sounds like a ridiculously weak thing to say. My parents kidnapped you.”
“You mother kidnapped me. Your dad’s the one who held me captive.”
The words barely leave my lips before I’m wincing. “That came out wrong. I mean, I, uh . . .”
“You wanted to find a gentler way to break it to me? Let me know that my father is an absolute bastard who set my mother up while he went off golfing? Probably seeing a girlfriend while he’s at it?”
“Uh . . .”
A soft, bitter chuckle. “Yes, Kennedy, I know what my father is. The problem is always that I can never quite tell how much my mother knows. It’s too easy a trap to fall into. If I know one of my parents is . . .”
“A super-villain?”
The chuckle lightens. “Don’t say that to his face. He’d take it as a compliment. Well, no, he’d grimace and sigh and say you’re misunderstanding, but at heart, he’d be pleased. Yes, if I know one parent is villainous, I cannot help but raise up the other one, even when they are hardly a superhero. It’s easy to see our father as the root of all evil, and our mother as a saint, which she is not and does not pretend to be.”