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Jessica does not turn at the call of the receptionist as she walks across the foyer toward her room, because she is not Miss Allan, but when the name is called a second time, she remembers.
“Sorry!” she says, turning to the front desk. “Yes!”
“I have a note for you!”
“Oh, thank you.”
She takes the note into the lounge at the back of the building and opens it next to a lit fire in a soft armchair. It’s a stiff card with the words S. T. Randall, Barton Manor printed at the top in a swirly cursive. Underneath in scruffy handwriting it says:
Hi Jessica. My name is Sebastian Randall. I hear you’re in town researching a novel and I’d love to have a chat about that as I am a budding novelist also! Could you come for drinks tonight at 6 p.m.?
Jessica exhales forcefully and swallows back a wide smile of triumph.
Only twenty-four hours in Barton Wallop and she’s already crossing the drawbridge.
SIXTEEN
FIVE MINUTES AFTER she gets back to her hotel room, Jessica’s phone rings.
“Yo! Jessica!”
Jessica closes her eyes and breathes in against the onslaught of Malcolm Powder energy swooping down the phone line from New York.
“Yo yourself. What’s happening?”
“Last night is what’s happening.”
“So tell me?”
“Do you have coffee?”
“I have coffee, Malcolm. Talk to me.”
“Okay, so, we meet up outside Fox’s building. He wants me to take him to my place, I’m like, ‘Nah, my dad’s there, I don’t want to see him.’ He didn’t ask questions. He says, ‘Let’s take a walk.’ He says he doesn’t want to be in the house, because his mom is on his case. I ask him what about. He says his mom’s been ‘acting weird’ ever since they got back from the UK. I’m like, ‘Weird, in what way?’ He says she’s always looking at him funny and asking him if he’s okay. I say, ‘And are you? Are you okay?’ and he says, ‘Sure, I’m perfect.’ And I went in. BAM!”
Jessica jumps slightly and recoils from her phone.
Malcolm continues, oblivious. “I say, ‘You use that word a lot. You and your sister.’ I say, ‘What’s the deal with “perfect”?’ He says, ‘I dunno. I guess it’s just another way of saying “good,” y’know? But better. Like, anyone can be good, but being perfect, isn’t that the goal?’ So I say, ‘I guess. What’s your secret?’ He’s like, ‘My secret?’ I say, ‘Yeah. You’re, like, sixteen. Yet you’re so slick, so suave, so manly.’”
Jessica grimaces. “You told him he was manly?”
“Yeah. Why not? Sly’s secure. And he says, ‘Good genes, I guess.’ And then he stops, right there on the sidewalk, got people cussing at him, he stops and stares up into the sky, just stares and stares, and I say, ‘What’s up there?’ And he says, ‘Just…Miranda.’”
“Wait, what? Who’s Miranda?”
“I have no clue. I ask him, he says, ‘Oh, nothing. Nobody. Just thinking about someone.’ ‘Your girl?’ I ask, and he laughs and says, ‘No. Not my girl.’ I say, ‘Oh, yeah, your girl is named Belle. Unless you got two girls.’ He laughs. ‘No,’ he says. ‘No. Miranda is not a girl. Miranda is not anyone.’ And then he changes the subject, and we start walking again and we’re walking and walking and walking and it’s starting to get dark, and I say, ‘Where are we going?’ But he says, ‘Nowhere,’ so I say, ‘I’m cold, man. Let’s get inside somewhere.’ So we go into this Starbucks, I get us some coffees—hey, I kept the receipt, I can put these through on expenses, right?”
“Right,” Jessica replies.
“Anyway, I sit down and he’s staring again, through the window, up at the sky. I’m wondering what the hell is this. Why did he want to meet up? Why am I here? What does he want with me? I say, ‘You sure you’re okay?’ and he says, ‘Listen. You wanna see something cool?’ and I say, ‘Sure.’ He gets us an Uber and we end up in Harlem, down this shitty dead-end street around the back of Broadway, and he takes us into this, like, abandoned bar, all boarded up, all dead and empty. He opens the door with a key, so I’m like, ‘Where’d you get a key from for this place, bro?’ He touches his nose. I say, ‘Okay then, sure, whatever. What even is this place?’ He says, ‘It belongs to Belle’s family.’ I’m all, ‘Belle in the UK?’ and he says, ‘Yeah,’ so I say, ‘How come?’ He says, ‘I don’t know. But she told me there’s a secret basement here. I keep coming back to find it, but I can’t see it. Wanna help me find it?’
“So we spent like half an hour just searching this bar, the backyard, the front sidewalk. We’re looking for hidden entrances, secret trapdoors, like, where is this secret basement. I say, ‘Listen, dude, there is no basement here, I think Belle was playing you.’ He says, ‘I swear, it’s here. She wasn’t lying. And it’s meant to—’ and then he kind of cuts off, y’know? Just stops talking. Then he says, ‘Let’s get out of here.’
“He gets a car. I get the subway. I’m in bed an hour later thinking, What the hell just happened? I tell you, it was the weirdest night of my life, Jessica. Something is not right with that kid, and whatever it is, that freaky abandoned bar has got something to do with it.”
Twelve years ago
Portsmouth, Hampshire, UK
