Ultimate Nyssa Glass by H. Burke (ebook reader browser txt) 📗

“It’s all right. I don’t blame you.” She glanced over her shoulder and dropped her voice. “So what are we going to do?”

“Is there anyone out there looking for you?”

Ellis is. “Yes, but I can’t count on them finding me before Rivera loses patience.”

“Maybe we can find a way to send a message out, get help. That signal-sending device in your bag, can we modify it?”

“That might work.” She stared at the computer screen. As hard as it would be to tell him, he deserved to know the truth. “Look, Hart, there’s something I have to tell you about the ‘copy’ of you I took from here.”

“I bet you two have been having a lot of fun without me.”

“Yes, we have, actually. He’s been my constant companion and best friend for almost a year now, but it’s more complicated than that. He’s—”

“Aito’s coming back.”

Nyssa froze.

The “delivery man” slipped through the door. “Sorry to interrupt, but it looks as if you might be here a while, so I thought I might see to your comfort.” He stepped aside. A burly man with shoulders so broad they barely fit through the door squeezed in, carrying a bundle of blankets. “It would be a good time to make your lunch order as well.”

Nyssa frowned. “Lunch order?”

“We aren’t savages. Sandwiches be all right?” Aito tapped the burly man on the shoulder. “After you’ve brought the cot in, go tell the cook we’ll need sandwiches … oh, and send up a pitcher of water and maybe some coffee. Do you want coffee, Miss Glass?”

“I guess.” She swallowed.

“Good. If you don’t mind, I’ll keep you company until the food arrives, just to make sure you don’t get lonely.” He leaned against the wall. “Don’t let me stop you two from conversing, though. You have a lot to talk about, I’m sure.”

Nyssa’s hands clenched at her sides. She couldn’t tell Hart about Ellis with Aito in the room. Well, she’d just have to wait.

***

Ellis tapped his fingers against his briefcase as the hired steam car pulled up in front of the narrow, three-story, brick townhouse. While he trusted his return to New Taured had been stealthy enough, he didn’t wish to risk unneeded attention, so he’d arranged to meet his lawyer, Clarence Vanderpool, at his home rather than his office.

O’Hara fidgeted as the driver came around to open her door.

“I still wish you’d let me stop and call this all in to my captain,” she said before getting out.

Ellis activated his chair on the sidewalk and swung into it. He waited until the driver had returned to his seat and started the rumbling engine to address O’Hara. “I’m missing, presumed dead, and my kidnapped girlfriend is a wanted fugitive.” He wheeled towards the front door. “By the time we got through the explanations, anything could’ve happened to Nyss.”

When they reached the door, it popped open without them even ringing the bell. A stocky, dark-skinned man with graying hair gazed out at them, his brows furrowed. Ellis smiled, and the man’s face lit up.

“Thank God, you really are alive!” The man beckoned them inside and shut the door behind them. Then he grasped Ellis’s hand in a vice-like shake. “Your letters had me mostly convinced, but seeing you with my own eyes—it takes such a weight off my soul.”

“It’s good to see you again, too, Mr. Vanderpool.”

Mr. Vanderpool waved his hand. “Come now. That was fine when you were a boy playing beneath your father’s workbench, but now? Now I think Clarence is more appropriate, don’t you? Or should I, in turn, refer to you as Mr. Dalhart?”

Ellis laughed. “Clarence, then, but it will take some getting used to. This is Detective O’Hara. She’s helping me search for Nyssa.”

“Ah, so the police are involved. Excellent.” Mr. Vanderpool—Clarence—led them to the study.

Clarence pulled out a chair for O’Hara then settled behind a large wooden desk in front of a bookshelf of leather tomes.

“So, to business, shall we?” He steepled his fingers and leaned forward. “I have been quietly putting things in motion for you to claim your rightful inheritance. As soon as you’re ready to resurrect yourself, you’ll have full access to the accounts.”

“I will never be able to properly thank you,” Ellis said. “I can’t imagine how hard this was for you.”

“Rivera gave me grief, but he wasn’t willing to have your disappearance investigated—said it would cast the company in a bad light—so that allowed me to function as if you and your father were still alive … and I am sorry about your father.” Clarence sighed. “Ephraim was a good friend. I never understood why he shut himself away after the accident.”

Ellis dropped his gaze. “It changed him … but the past is the past. Let’s focus on the future. I have reason to believe that Rivera might know something about Nyssa’s disappearance.”

O’Hara sat up straighter in her chair. “Why do you think that?”

“If he thinks Nyss has knowledge of my father’s research, that would be invaluable to him.”

Clarence nodded. “Rivera seemed desperate to buy the manor. Perhaps we shouldn’t have sold it to him.”

“No, there was nothing usable left there. Did you make him pay through the nose, though?”

“Three times the property’s market value.” The lawyer smiled.

“Good man.”

The wrinkles around Clarence’s eyes deepened. “Rivera being involved might explain a few things, such as why he was so eager to keep your disappearance from being officially investigated.”

“If it were, some dark tales would come out. My dad … in his madness, he turned into a monster.” Ellis gripped the arms of his chair. “He may have put me through Hell, but at least I escaped with my life. Others weren’t so lucky.”

“A bad business.” Clarence gave a solemn nod.

“You don’t know the half of it.” Ellis’s letters to Clarence had been intentionally vague about his father’s actions. “We’re going to use it in our favor, though. We’re reopening the Dalhart disappearances. My statement to the police should be enough