The Dream Thieves

It would take nothing at all to spring him from his hiding place. If he so much as touched her —

But the Gray Man didn’t touch Aurora. Instead, he bent over to look into her face. It was a curious, piercing study, over in a few seconds. He toed the tubes and wires that led from machines to nowhere. He rubbed his jaw and puzzled.

Finally, the Gray Man asked, “Why are you walled up in here?” Aurora Lynch didn’t answer.

The Gray Man turned to go, but paused. The puzzle box, still sitting on the desk, had caught his eye. Retrieving the box, he turned it over and over in his hands, experimentally scrolling one of the wheels and watching the effect it had on the other sides.

And then he took it with him.

Ronan put a fist to his forehead. He wanted to go after him and recover it, but he couldn’t risk discovery. Where would he get another puzzle box? He had no way of knowing if he’d ever dream of it again. Ronan tensed, thought about emerging, thought about hiding, thought about emerging. Matthew put a hand on his arm.

They waited a long time. Finally, a car rumbled out front before receding down the driveway.

They unhid themselves. Matthew pressed up against Ronan’s side, reminding Ronan of Chainsaw when she was frightened. Ordinarily, Ronan would have protested, but this time, he allowed it.

“What was that?” Matthew whispered.

“There are,” Ronan replied, “bad things in the world. Let’s get out of here.”

Matthew kissed his mother’s cheek. Ronan made sure he had the will still tucked in his back pocket. The loss of the puzzle box still smarted, but at least he had this puzzle of his father’s with him. Two lines, two languages. What are you trying to say, Dad?

“Bye, Mom,” he told Aurora. He felt in his pocket for his keys. There were two sets: the BMW’s and the false Camaro’s keys. “See you later.”

33

At that particular moment in time, Richard Campbell Gansey III was ninety-two miles away from his beloved car. He stood in the sun-soaked driveway of the Ganseys’

Washington, D.C., mansion, wearing a furiously red tie and a suit made of tasteful pinstripe and regal swagger. Beside him stood Adam, his strange and beautiful face pale above the slender dark of his own suit. Tailored by the same clever Italian man who did Gansey’s shirts, the suit was Adam’s silken armor for the night ahead. It was the most expensive thing he had ever owned, a month’s wages translated into worsted wool. The air was humid with teriyaki and Cabernet Sauvignon and premium-grade fuel. Somewhere, a violin sang with vicious victory. It was impossibly hot.

They were ninety-seven miles and several million dollars away from Adam’s childhood home.

The sweeping circular driveway was a puzzle game of vehicles: tuxedo-black sedans, cello-brown SUVs, silvery two-seaters that could fit in the palm of your hand, and sweating white coupes with diplomatic plates. Two valets, having exhausted every parking solution, smoked cigarettes and blew smoke curls over the fenders of a Mercedes beached on the curb beside them. Rose blooms rotted on the bushes beside them, sweet and black.

Gansey snaked between cars. “Lucky thing we didn’t have to trouble ourselves with parking.”

The helicopter ride still rested uneasily in Adam’s stomach. He didn’t care for flying or for being seen arriving in a helicopter. He’d spent thirty minutes scrubbing grease from his fingertips before they’d left. Was this the dream, or was his life back in Henrietta?

He echoed, “Lucky thing.”

Two men and one woman stepped out of the front door of the house. Hands chopped at air; bits of the conversation exploded off the gutters overhead. Already been passed — legislation — damn idiot — also his wife is a cow. A murmur of guests passed through the open door behind them as if the threesome had pulled the sound out with them. The view through the doorway was a collage of pants suits and pearl necklaces, Vuitton and damask. So very many. So very, very many of them.

“Jesus Christ,” Gansey said tragically, his eyes on the gathering. “Oh well.” He flicked an invisible piece of lint off the shoulder of Adam’s suit and placed a mint leaf on his own tongue. “Good for them to see your face.”

Them. Somewhere in there was Gansey’s mother, stretching her hands out to the hungry D.C. off-the-rack suit crowd, offering them treasure in heaven in return for votes. And Gansey was part of the sales package; there was nothing more Congressional than the entire Gansey family under one roof. Because those dripping necklaces and red ties were the captivated retinue who would fund Mrs. Richard Gansey II’s run for office. And those shiny oxfords and velvet pumps were the nobles Adam sought squireship from.

Good for them to see your face.

A laugh, high and confident, pierced the air. Conversation swelled to accept it.

Who are these people, Adam thought, to think they know anything about the rest of the world?

He must not let it show in his eyes. If he reminded himself that he needed them, these people, if he reminded himself it was only a means to an end, it was a little easier.

Besides, Adam was good at hiding things.

Gansey greeted the guests standing outside the door. Despite his previous complaint, he was completely at ease, a lion in the Serengeti.

“In we go,” he said grandly. And just like that, the Gansey who Adam had befriended — the Gansey he would do anything for— vanished, and in its place was the heir born with a silk umbilical cord wrapped round his blue-blooded neck.

The Gansey mansion spread out before them. There was Helen, now deliberately effete and decidedly unattainable in a black sheath, her legs longer than the driveway. What shall we toast to? Toast to me, of course. Oh, yes, my mother, too. There was ex-Congressman Bullock and there was the head of the Vann-Shoaling Committee and there were Mr. and Mrs. John Benderham, the largest single donors to the last Eighth District Republican campaign. Everywhere were faces Adam had seen in newspapers and on television. Everything smelled of puff pastry and ambition.

Seventeen years before, Adam had been born in a trailer. They could see it on him. He knew it.

“What are you two handsome devils up to?”

Gansey laughed: ha ha ha. Adam turned, but the speaker was already gone. Someone grabbed Gansey’s hand. “Dick! Good to see you.” The unseen violin wailed. The acoustics gave the impression the instrument was imprisoned in the chesterfield by the door. A man in a white shirt pressed champagne flutes into their hands. It was ginger ale, sweet and fraudulent.

A hand slapped the back of Adam’s neck; he flinched badly. In his head, he fell down his father’s stairs, fingers grabbing dirt. He could never seem to leave Henrietta behind. He could feel an image, an apparition, looming behind his eyes, but he pushed it away. Not here, not now.