“What was all that about?” Trey asks. “Isn’t she with Carrington Day?”
I nod, still a little baffled at this turn of events. When we met in the other timeline, Charlayne seemed to be under Eve’s thumb, but now I’m wondering if that was a misperception on my part. Or maybe it’s just because she was at the temple. Maybe my Charlayne is somewhere in there, dying to break out of her Cyrist shackles.
“We should go.” I put my empty glass on one of the small tables. “I’ll fill you in when we get to the car.”
“I totally agree. I think this party could get . . . interesting . . . once the Carrington Day folks encounter Tilson. That is, if the rest of the Briar Hill faculty lets them encounter Tilson.”
I give him a curious look, but he doesn’t respond, so I glance across the crowded patio, looking for the clearest path to the door. Mrs. Meyer is no longer at her post greeting newcomers, so hopefully we won’t have to make any sort of excuse for leaving early. We maneuver around a few groups of people and are nearly home free when I come face-to-face with the reason why Mrs. Meyer is not by the door.
Eve stands next to her father, grandmother, and an older man I haven’t met. I turn on my heel quickly and bump into Trey’s chest. He catches the hint and shifts us a few steps back, apparently hoping we can take cover behind the two rather large men who are a few feet to the left. One of them is Charlayne’s dad, who carries an extra forty pounds or so in this timeline.
But the movement catches Mrs. Meyer’s eye. “There you are! I found Evie—”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Meyer, but we have to leave,” Trey says. “Kate just received a call from her father, and her grandmother has taken a turn for the worse.”
It’s a good effort, but I feel eyes on me and reflexively glance up. Sure enough, it’s Eve. She’s wearing a wicked, little smile that tells me, beyond any doubt, that she remembers every little detail of our last encounter.
“Oh my.” Mrs. Meyer pats my arm. “I’m so sorry to hear that. I’ll have Patrick put her on the prayer list.”
I return her smile. Then Eve slides between us, and her grandmother says, “This is my granddaughter, Eve Conwell. Evie, this is”—she looks at Trey’s name tag—“Trey Coleman and Kate . . . Oh, I’ve forgotten your last name, sweetie.”
“Pierce-Keller.”
Eve’s blue eyes widen. “But we’ve met already, Gram. I never forget a face.” She pauses like she’s trying to remember. “I believe . . . we met at your aunt’s place. Yes, that’s it. But I could have sworn your name was Kelly.”
I flash her a tight-lipped smile. “No. It’s Kate.”
“That’s wonderful that you know each other!” Mrs. Meyer says absently, her eyes straying over toward the food tent. “I’ve got to go see why the hot appetizers aren’t circulating. Kate, I wish your grandmother a speedy recovery.” And then she’s off, flagging down one of the servers.
I take another step toward the door, with Trey following closely, but Eve steps in and grabs my left forearm with her right hand. “Just a quick word before you go, Kate?” Her pale pink nails are pressing ever so slightly into my skin, and her voice is light, almost chirpy. “I’m so glad that we’ll be together at Briar Hill. I know how concerned your aunt is that you stay focused on your education, rather than—um, extracurricular activities?” On the last two words, the smile widens and she digs her nails in hard.
I wince for a second, but then paste on a fake smile to match Eve’s, as several pairs of eyes are now watching us. Trey clearly realizes what she’s doing, because he exhales sharply from just behind me.
I decide to try out one of the pressure-point tricks that Sensei Barbie and I were working on. I reach over like I’m going to clasp Eve’s hand in both of mine and place my thumb inside the pressure point on her radial nerve, just above the wrist, where a nurse might take a pulse. Then I push downward with a rubbing motion. Eve is gripping my arm very tightly, and it works like a charm—her hand pops open, and she lets out a surprised yelp as she stumbles forward.
I’m pretty sure she would have fallen, just as I did when Barbie demonstrated that trigger point to me a few weeks back. It’s not one of the potentially lethal grips—she showed me a few of those as well—but it definitely hurts, even when you’re expecting it and have been warned to keep a light grip.
Eve doesn’t fall, however. Trey’s inner gentleman kicks in, and he catches her, propping her back up on her high heels.
“Oops,” he says in a low voice. “You should be more careful, Eve.”
She flashes him a smile that doesn’t go anywhere near her eyes as she rubs her injured arm. “Indeed I should,” she says. Then she leans toward him and whispers, “You should be careful, too. Kate’s aunt says she likes to keep a little something going on the side. You might want to ask her about that.”
I step forward, jaw clinched, but Trey slides his arm around my shoulders and steers me toward the door. “That was a neat trick. What exactly did you do to her?” he asks.
“Ninja secret. I’ll show you later.”
Patrick Conwell’s ice-blue eyes follow us as Trey opens the sliding glass door and we slip inside. The afternoon sun is now lower on the horizon, casting the cavernous living room into shadow and making the brightly lit art alcoves stand out even more starkly. My eyes drift over the artwork in the niches as we hurry toward the foyer, until the painting in the third alcove stops me dead in my tracks.
The canvas is about three feet wide and maybe five feet high, so it takes up most of the niche. Several recessed spotlights illuminate the painting—a bizarre cross between the Virgin Mary and a fertility goddess. Prudence sits on the grass, legs crossed in the half-lotus position, her face tilted toward the sky, eyes closed. A loosely draped white dress conceals her very pregnant body. Her hands rest on her bare abdomen, and long dark hair cascades over her shoulders. I suspect Sara would classify the work as hyperrealist, because every leaf, every curve, every curl is finely detailed, the colors seeming to pop off the canvas, like a photograph on steroids.
No wonder Mrs. Meyer thought I looked familiar. If you ignore the extended belly—something I’m having a very difficult time doing—the fertility goddess in her living room looks exactly like me.
∞10∞
We’re on a bench, waiting for the valet to bring Trey’s car, when the front door swings open. Mrs. Denning, the Briar Hill principal, leans out to say something to the second valet, who holds the door open as she backs through, pulling a wheelchair. When she turns the chair around, we see the passenger: a very old, very dignified, and very angry man in a light gray pin-striped suit, his hair and mustache a shade darker than his jacket. A pair of wire-rimmed glasses sits atop a nose that is just a little too large for his face, and his eyes stare straight out at the lawn.
Mrs. Denning spots us on the bench. “You’re Kate, right? Harry Keller’s daughter?”
“Hi, Mrs. Denning.”
She kneels down so that she can look Dr. Tilson in the eye, but he’s still staring straight ahead. “Harvey, I’m going to leave you here with Miss Keller and . . .” She’s clearly trying to remember Trey’s name and then decides not to bother. “And the young man you spoke with earlier. I’ll find Tony and have him take you home. He can come back for me later. I’m sorry you weren’t made aware of the location, but you just can’t say those things in public. We would have made other arrangements for your retirement party if I’d had any idea your . . . prejudice . . . against Cyrists was so strong.”
Tilson whips his head toward her, pinning her with a steely glare. “A prejudice is an irrational opinion based on faulty or incomplete information, Carol Ann. My views are fully rational, based upon an extensive, decades-long study of these charlatans.” He turns his gaze back toward the lawn, dismissing her.