Borderline (The Arcadia Project, #1)(57)



“Are you f*cking kidding me?!” someone blurted.

Oh. It was me.

“I think that sounds like a fine idea,” said Gloria, the very picture of humility.

I forced myself to take slow, deep breaths. “Fine,” I said. “But this is a complicated enough situation without everyone just going off and doing their own thing. If you want my help dealing with Berenbaum and Rivenholt, then I want to be in charge.”

“Now you’re just being a silly goose,” said Gloria. “You don’t even work for us yet. Caryl can’t put you in charge of a major crisis response.”

“So hire me,” I said. “Give me a pen and I’ll sign the damned agreement right now. Don’t act like there is any chance you lot could fire me at this point. I could blow your Code of Silence to bits.”

Gloria put a hand to her mouth, a cute little oh my! gesture. “Oh, honey,” she said in tones of deepest pity. “You haven’t figured it out?”

“That’s enough,” said Caryl. Two calm words, but it was as though someone had cut Gloria’s strings. She drooped submissively on the couch, hands in her lap.

“I haven’t figured what out?” I said.

“That is quite enough bickering,” Caryl said. “I am taking all four of you to Residence One so we can find out if Rivenholt is still alive and plan what to do next.”

“Let me just freshen up first,” said Gloria, sliding down off the couch and hurrying to the downstairs bathroom.

I watched her go, ashamed of myself for focusing my loathing on her short-legged gait instead of her scheming mind. Once she was gone, I muttered between clenched teeth, “I thought everyone came here straight out of the loony bin. Does passive-aggressive qualify as a personality disorder these days? What’s her story?”

The room was very quiet. Uncomfortably so.

“Right,” I said. “I’m not supposed to ask. If someone will give me one of those agreements to sign, I’ll follow the rules and shut up about it. But since no one seems to find me worthy of such a document, I wouldn’t mind a damn answer, since I’m stuck working with her.”

To my surprise, it was Tjuan who spoke. “She stabbed two men to death with a steak knife,” he said. “Says she doesn’t remember it, got off on insanity.”

Everyone was looking at me in a way that suggested that they already knew about this. I tried to stop the color from draining out of my face, but emotions are slippery things, so everyone got to enjoy my moment of bald horror.

“Maybe think on that,” said Tjuan, “next time you feel like giving her attitude.”

“All right, I get it,” I snapped.

I didn’t like the slow way he smiled. I didn’t like any of this. I didn’t like that I was lower down in the social pecking order than Blondie just because I hadn’t killed a guy. The rewards for kindness and sane behavior seemed to be pretty sparse at Residence Four.

Gloria emerged from the bathroom so glowingly smug that I was almost sure she’d heard Tjuan schooling me.

“I call shotgun,” I said quickly. Gloria stopped in confusion, then frowned. Sometimes you have to savor the small victories.

? ? ?

The ride to Residence One was awkward and Bach-filled. As always, Caryl had turned the music up to a conversation--killing volume, and her gloved fingertips kept precise time on the steering wheel. I flipped down my sun visor and opened the mirror, angling it so I could check on Teo in the backseat. The seat was made for two adults and a child, but Teo and Tjuan were both such beanpoles that Gloria fit comfortably in between. Teo saw me and made a face. I laughed, and caught my own eyes in the mirror as I did so.

For the first time since my tumble off the roof, I didn’t have to look away. Because I was the girl in the drawing.

There had to be some way Rivenholt could feel me if I just thought at him hard enough. He had to know I was looking for him, that I was on my way, that I was going to make it all right.

We headed west on the 10 to Santa Monica and got off on Lincoln, heading south toward Ocean Park. We took a little zigzag path through some residential streets and ultimately pulled into the driveway of a tiny yellow house on a postage-stamp lot. The tall wooden fence around it overflowed with scarlet bougainvillea.

BEWARE OF DOG, read the sign on the gate.

“What kind of dog lives here?” I said nervously when Caryl had turned off the car.

“No dog,” said Caryl as we got out. “But I thought ‘Beware of Interdimensional Portal’ might be a bit confusing to the average home invasion specialist. The sign serves the same purpose: it encourages any interested parties to rob the house next door.”

“Why doesn’t Residence Four have a sign? Isn’t there a Gate there too?”

“Residence Four was the first property we built specifically to protect its Gate. The Gate here had to be built inside a preexisting house, so it is placed . . . more awkwardly.”

“Why is this called Residence One? Was it the first?”

“The sixth, technically. The original LA1 Gate was demolished along with the Hotel Arcadia in 1909, and we were unable to replace it until we could acquire a suitable property two years later. This was the best we could manage.”

“Do you live here?”

She shook her head, unlocking the wooden gate. “Manage-ment lives in independent housing; agents live in Residences and deal with the fey that have been assigned to their Gate. Rivenholt uses LA4, and that is why you and Teo were assigned to him.” Caryl waved us all through into the yard. “Residence One is more of an office than a residence, in truth; it houses the majority of our arcane equipment. Travel through the Gate is limited to our oldest and highest-ranking visitors—the reactionary sort who take offense at being assigned a lower number.”

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