Beauty and the Beast Page 18

  Father replied, “We want to hire you to be one of Cathy’s bodyguards.”

  Isaac stared at Father for a long moment, and then asked, “Why do you need help guarding a dead woman? Have there been vandalisms at the cemetery, or are grave robbers causing trouble?”

  Father shook his head. “No, Isaac, we need you because Cathy is not dead.” Isaac blinked at Father while trying to wrap his mind around what he was being told, and Father continued. “The man, who tried to kill her, Gabriel, is dead, but he has a brother, Adrian. If he knew that Cathy is alive, he would either kidnap her again, or try to finish the job Gabriel started. We have been hiding her for nearly four months now. She is still unconscious, but we believe that she will eventually recover. We have her in the hospital wing of Dr. Peter Wellington’s home, which is where you would be staying.”

  Isaac exclaimed, “Give me twenty minutes to shower, change clothes, and pack a bag! This is the time of year when I usually close up shop and take a month’s vacation anyway. Ill go ahead and put that message on my answering machine, and put my vacation sign on the door. No one will miss me.”

  When they arrived in Catherine’s room, it was Isaac’s turn to sit in the rocking chair holding Catherine’s hand. “Cathy is like a baby sister to me. I can’t tell you how

  happy it makes me to see that she is still alive.”

  Father smiled at Isaac. “I know exactly what you mean. I came to love her like a father even before she married my son, Vincent.”

  Isaac looked at Father. “She married Vincent, and you are his father?”

  Father explained, “I am his adoptive father. Before recently, we didn’t know who his real parents were. He and Catherine married almost a year-and-a-half ago. It was after Vincent rescued her from two young men who were slashing young women to death. They had tried to kill Catherine too for investigating them.”

  Isaac nodded his head. “I can’t say that I’m surprised that they married. There is no way to describe the depths of love I could see she had for Vincent. When he was injured and lost, and she came to me desperate for help finding him, it was clear that she would have done anything to save him. Cathy told me that she owed Vincent her life. When I saw them reunited in the tunnel as you were coming to meet them, their obvious love for each other brought tears to my eyes. I can only hope that a woman looks at me like that some day.”

  Father explained to Isaac, “Vincent was the one who found Cathy when she was left for dead by the men who slashed her face. He brought her below to our tunnel home and nursed her until she was strong enough to go back up top. She would have died if he hadn’t found her.” Isaac then told them about the first time he met

  Catherine. “It was after that attack that she came to me for lessons in self-defense. Cathy was one of my best students. She was so determined not to ever be a victim again.”

  Devin had entered the room and was listening. He broke in. “She must have been a good student. She sent me flying head-over-heels when I surprised her in her building once. I had gone to her to ask for her help making sure that Charles’ abusive brother, Eddie Mason, would never come after Charles again. Like an idiot, I didn’t announce myself to Cathy before I grabbed her arm. So, she promptly gave me an elbow to the ribs, and then she sent me flying over her shoulder into an elevator car. All I could do was look up at her and say, ‘I guess we’re going down?’ It is amazing what you taught that tiny little woman to do!”

  Isaac laughed, “Well, I told her when she first came to me that I didn’t teach any of that ‘kung-fu’ stuff. I teach good old New York City street-fighting, and I taught Cathy to use whatever she had on her and any convenient materials close at hand as weapons for self-defense.”

  Devin continued, “You taught her well, because her elbow and hip leverage were all she needed to flatten me!”

  They were all still laughing at the image of little Catherine sending big Devin flying through the air when Laura and Jerry Bookman arrived in the room. They were a cute young couple. Laura was a pretty little brunette with short wavy hair and big brown eyes. Jerry was tall

  and clean-shaven, with light-brown hair and eyes.

  Diana had met Laura at Little Jacob’s Naming Ceremony, and Laura had been delighted that Diana knew sign language. Diana approached Laura and hugged her, and then the two women began signing a conversation with one another. Meanwhile, Father sat down at the table in the room with Devin, Isaac, and Jerry. Peter and Charles came in and joined them at the table. Father then told Isaac the whole story of how they had found Catherine, of why they were keeping her condition a secret from Vincent, of their discovery of who Vincent’s people were, and of the new threat that Diana had uncovered.

  Peter’s wife, Susan, together with Rebecca then came in. Susan took the Bookmans and Isaac to see their guest rooms that she had prepared for them. Diana and Father took their leave to go home at that point, leaving Devin, Charles, and Rebecca taking a shift watching over Catherine.

  On Saturday morning, when Joe exited his tunnel access-way, he found Diana and Vincent waiting for him. He glared at Diana with an expression of pure exasperation, and she grinned. “What was I supposed to do? The big Monster called me a Brat, and then reminded me that I was sound asleep when he carried me from Gabriel’s mansion to Father’s world. He’s right! I don’t have a clue how to get there underground, and we can’t travel above ground without alerting Adrian’s people.”

  Vincent told Joe, “Don’t worry yourself over me, Joe.

  Ill stay in the tunnel and wait for you. I will feel much better, though, being close by just in case you run into trouble.”

  Joe was very serious when he replied. “Please do stay in the tunnel, Vincent! I would never forgive myself if Little Jacob lost his father. At least, since all three of us have backpacks, I guess we will be able to carry more. Well, lead on, Vincent.”

  Some time into their trek to Gabriel’s mansion, Diana interrupted the lively conversation they had been enjoying with a question to Vincent. “Is it my imagination, or are we going downhill?”

  Vincent answered her. “We are, indeed, going downhill. This tunnel is a real feat of engineering which must have taken my people a very long time to construct. We are actually traveling under the East River floor between Manhattan and Staten Island. Feel the walls here. It isn’t rough rock. It feels smooth, almost like the rock has been melted.”

  Diana and Joe had run their hands over the walls as Vincent spoke, and Joe shook his head in amazement. “The Tandins must have developed some pretty impressive technology!”

  Diana added, “This is what Dr. Vlas was talking about, when he mentioned the tunnel access from his home to the Tandin world. I wonder where their world is located. I guess theyll let us know when they think it’s necessary.”

  Vincent agreed with her. “Yes, that is the feeling I have been getting, now that I am aware of their existence. They are waiting for something. I don’t know what it is yet, but it must be important.”

  Diana and Joe exchanged expressions of sudden comprehension, as they realized what the Tandins were waiting for. The words of Dr. Vlas’journal entries returned with startling clarity to both Diana and Joe, and, once again, they recognized how compellingly important Vincent’s welfare was to the Tandins. The Tandins were waiting for Vincent to find Catherine.

  When they arrived at the access door under Gabriel’s mansion, Diana took her backpack and coat off, and told Joe, “You had better give Vincent your coat. The mansion is pretty warm, so you won’t need it in there. We can move more quickly without them.”

  Diana gave Vincent her coat, after taking the small flashlight and the remote control for the secret panel out of the pocket and putting them into the pockets of her blouse. Vincent exchanged his backpack for Joe’s coat. Then Joe and Diana went through the tunnel access-door into the mansion, leaving Vincent alone in the tunnel.

  Diana led Joe into the office under the stairs and turned on the light. She took the remote co
ntrol out of her pocket, pointed it at the picture of Alice and the white rabbit, and pushed the button. The panel swung open, and the light inside turned on.

  When Joe saw the picture of Alice and realized that it held the remote sensor, he laughed. “You have got to be kidding me! You told me that wise-crack of mine was on target. It really was, wasn’t it?”

  Diana giggled, “It would be a lot funnier if this wasn’t the home of an insane murderer. Alice in Wonderland was so incongruous with Gabriel, it practically screamed ‘delve deeper’ at me.”

  Diana showed Joe where the light switch and the button to close the panel were inside the secret room, and she explained how the fan would come on any time the room was shut from the inside. Just then, both of them heard the floor creak overhead, and they realized someone was in the house with them. Diana threw her backpack on the chair in the secret room. “Joe! Go in there and shut the panel behind you!”

  Joe stared at her open-mouthed as Diana ran to the office light switch and turned it off. Then she ran to the far right side of the room, pulled out her flashlight, stuck it in her teeth, and started scrambling up the book shelves like a little monkey. As she reached the wooden beams and headed for the platform in the pointed corner, she heard Joe’s exasperated whisper, “Oh yes! I’m really going to go hide in the closet, and leave you alone out here with those devils!”

  He tossed his own and Vincent’s backpack onto the chair next to Diana’s in the secret room. Diana pulled the flashlight out of her mouth and whispered back, “Oh, for

  Pete’s sake, Joe!” She balanced on the beams, and turned the flashlight on. Then she took the remote control out of her pocket again, pointed it at Alice, and closed the panel, putting the remote control back into her pocket. “Then hurry and get up here! There is room for two on top of those two corner beams with the platform.”

  When Diana reached the beams just under the platform, she discovered a fatal flaw in her plan. She wasn’t quite tall enough to reach the platform. Joe saw her predicament and wished he had time to rib her about it. Since there was no time to be amused at Diana’s expense, he climbed around her without a word, reached up, grabbed the edge of the platform, and pulled himself up onto it. While he was still on his knees, he reached down, locked right wrists with Diana, and pulled her up onto the platform. Then Joe stood up, lifted her to her feet, pulled her against him, and shrank back with her into the pointed corner of the walls just as two men came into the room and turned the light on.

  Diana had turned off and pocketed her flashlight. Now she was trying to calm her breathing and her racing heartbeat. Her head was against Joe’s chest, and his heartbeat was calm and steady. That helped her to calm down. She suddenly became very aware of Joe as he held her in his arms. “Focus, Bennett!” She thought, and then another stray thought ran through her mind. “Why does he have to smell so good?”

  As he felt Diana begin to relax in his arms, Joe was

  having his own errant thoughts. “This is nice! Oh, forget it, Maxwell! The only way she would be interested in you is if you were lying on a morgue slab as the victim of an unexplained homicide she found intriguing.”

  Diana had her back to what was going on below, but she heard Adrian Vlas’ voice, in a very angry tone, talking to the second man below them. “What do you mean they keep losing them?”

  Then she heard Jonathan Pope’s apologetic voice answering. “I’m sorry, Sir. Every time our people try to tail either Diana Bennett or Joe Maxwell, they manage to slip the tail. They don’t seem to be communicating with each other at all. Our taps on their phones reveal no recorded conversations between them. I don’t think they are even aware that we are trying to keep track of them. It’s very perplexing.”

  Adrian stormed, “Just hire more competent people, Pope! You have a bunch of imbeciles working for us. I can’t plan to eliminate Diana Bennett, if I don’t know where she is!”

  Joe’s arms tightened around Diana, and his heart rate doubled. “Oh, why did he have to go and say that?” She thought in dismay.

  Jonathan Pope sounded contrite. “Ill be sure to do that, Sir.”

  Adrian responded in his usual commanding tone. “Make sure that you do! Now help me move this filing cabinet beside the desk here. According to the note that

  Gabriel left for me, along with a key in the locker he sent me to, there is a vault in the floor under this filing cabinet.”

  The two men moved the heavy filing cabinet, revealing the vault, and then Adrian said, “Take this key, Pope, and open it. Give me everything you find inside.”

  Pope kneeled down and unlocked the floor vault. Joe watched him give Adrian a notebook, the same size as the one Vincent was keeping of Gabriel’s, and several videotapes. Adrian put them all on the desk.

  When Pope stood up after emptying the vault and locking it again, Adrian looked at him and said in a triumphant tone, “Do you realize what all of this is?”

  Pope answered him. “No, Sir, I don’t.”

  Adrian went on. “The notebook isn’t important. According to Gabriel, it is the key to the code he had his lawyers using in that missing notebook about our operation. We never found it in Elliott Burch’s office building or at his home, so it must have been destroyed when the Compass Rose blew up. All of these videotapes, though, are a gold mine! Two of them are the surveillance tapes my brother recorded of Vincent’s attack on the two buildings where he was keeping Vincent’s woman, the investigative attorney. The others are all videotapes my old man recorded of Vincent’s people, which Gabriel discovered when he found this vault. The old man videotaped them when he was doing his genetic research. These should be very educational! We need to go find a large box to put all of these in, so I can move them to my Manhattan mansion. Ill put them into my vault there.” The two men left the room without turning the light off, and Joe and Diana listened to them go up the stairs. As soon as the men were off the stairs, Joe released Diana, and he quickly climbed down off the platform and onto the beams. Diana lowered herself over the edge of the platform, and Joe took her by the waist and put her safely on the beams. Then they climbed the rest of the way down to the floor. Diana opened the panel and grabbed her backpack.

  Joe was furious. “That maniac has been under my nose in Manhattan this entire time!”

  Diana’s tone was desperate. “Don’t worry about that now! We’ve got to get the records I found, these videotapes, and that notebook, out of here before they come back.”

  They both began stuffing journals and tapes into the three backpacks, as Joe said with a worried tone, “Taking journals they aren’t aware of yet won’t alert them. If we take these videotapes and the notebook too, they will figure you did it. Obviously, Adrian suspects that at least you are still investigating their organization in spite of your report I’ve been circulating.”

  Diana looked at Joe and frowned. “What’s worse, having them aware we’ve been here and swiped the notebook and videotapes, or having them get their hands on solid proof that Vincent and his people exist? It’s one thing for Adrian to rave like a lunatic about mythical lion-people living under the streets of New York. It’s quite another for him to have documented proof that they do!” Joe was very firm as he answered. “I agree with you, but I heard that personal threat Adrian made against your life. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you heard that the last time you were here, and you just decided to conveniently leave that out of your narrative to Vincent and me! You will have to go and stay with Father’s people until this is all over with. That is the only safe place for you right now.”

  Diana didn’t argue with Joe, and she didn’t deny his suspicions about her omission in relating what had happened when she discovered the secret room. She simply said, “All right.”

  Joe strode over to Diana, grabbed her by the shoulders, looked down into her eyes, and said, “I’ve already nearly lost one woman who was important to me to these animals. I’m not about to take any chances and lose another one. Promise me you will s
tay below!”

  Diana met Joe’s worried gaze, and she smiled softly at him. “Don’t get so intense! I promise! Now, let’s hurry!”

  When Joe and Diana stepped back through the tunnel-access-door, Vincent gave them a very relieved look. “I heard men’s voices in there. What happened?”

  He took one of the backpacks from Joe and handed them their coats. Joe and Diana laid their backpacks down, and put their coats back on. Grabbing their treasureladen backpacks, the three began the journey back to Father’s world, as they discussed what had happened in the mansion.

  Joe chuckled, “We just took Adrian’s ‘gold mine’ away from him. He is going to be more than a little upset.” Then, in a more serious tone, he said, “Diana, here, failed to mention that Adrian had plans to kill her if he got the chance. I told her that she has to stay below in your world until this is all over with.”

  Vincent looked sternly at Diana. “Ill make sure that she does!”

  Diana looked from one man to the other and said,

  “You bullies! I promise I will be a good little girl. You don’t need to worry about me. I won’t run off! Joe, do you remember that list of high-priced mansions that we found out had the same Italian pattern of tiles as Gabriel’s mansion?”

  Joe nodded, “I still have that list in the desk at my office.”

  Diana was relieved. “That’s good! Three of those homes were in Manhattan, and I’m sure it wouldn’t be difficult to figure out which one is Adrian’s. Guess what else we took away from Adrian, Vincent!”

  Vincent had finally relaxed, and he smiled at her. “What else did you take away from him?”

  Diana was almost giddy with joy. “We are now the proud owners of the key to the code in Gabriel’s little-

  black-crim e-notebook!”

  Joe was sober as he added, “Taken illegally, though. The search warrant has expired.”

  Diana looked at Joe in surprise. “Joe, what difference does it make how you break the code? The original notebook was given to you by Patrick Hanlin. There was nothing illegal about that. He was about to turn ‘state’s evidence,’ and he was killed for it. All you have to do is break the code, and you have everything you need to shut Adrian down. No one has to know how you did it! Adrian won’t know what hit him, because he thinks the original notebook was destroyed.”