Hidden Heart, Book 2 of the Hidden Trilogy (Fantasy) Read online

“Yeah. I know. Because the handsome man said so. Okay, thanks Mrs. Rooney.”

  I trudged back to my car, my heart sinking. So that’s how they did it, how they managed to “disappear” hundreds of young fans, inserting them into the fan pods of Dark Elven actors, musicians, politicians, and athletes without any sort of public outcry from worried family members. I guess if they saw them on Facebook smiling and posing at exciting Hollywood parties and premieres, Mom and Dad figured all was well. And of course they’d been assured everything would be “fine.”

  Emmy had explained the fan pod system to me in her car at the Sonic a few weeks ago when she’d first told me she’d applied for one. She’d mentioned an article in People magazine about some super-agent in Los Angeles who’d created the whole concept. I couldn’t remember his name, but you’d better believe I broke a couple of rural speed limits to get back home to my laptop and look him up.

  First I did a search on Vallon Foster and found his agent’s name. Alfred Frey—that was it. There he was on Wikipedia.

  Frey first became a fixture on the Hollywood scene in the early 90’s and quickly rose to legendary status as the representative of an uncanny number of top movie and television stars as well as popular musical artists, professional athletes. Frey has even handled media relations for some of the country’s top political figures and financial powerbrokers.

  The entry went on to list the names of some celebrities Frey represented. I couldn’t help but be impressed. The Dark Elves had been busy claiming the most prominent spots on the music charts, prime time television, the box office, and state and national political offices.

  And the humans had no idea. They were hiding from us in plain sight. But why? What was their purpose in forming the fan pods and recruiting people like Emmy for them?

  That’s what Lad’s father and the Light Elven High Council had wanted to find out during the Assemblage. I wondered if they’d gotten very far with the inquiry before Ivar was murdered. It had probably stopped immediately after his death. Was that why he was murdered?

  Well, whatever they were up to, I knew what I had to do—find Emmy. And there was only one way to do it. I had to go to Los Angeles.

  I was one of only a few, maybe even the only human who knew the truth about the fan pods. Without me, Emmy could end up like Allison Douglas, the girl from Deep River who’d gone out to L.A. to join a fan pod and come home in a casket.

  I didn’t know exactly how I’d go about finding her. Take one of those Hollywood tours of the stars’ homes and jump out when we got to Vallon Foster’s house? I wasn’t sure. But it seemed talking to Grandma Neena was a good first step

  * * *

  “Well, you can’t go alone, that’s for certain,” she said when I told her about my intentions. “You need help.”

  She gave me a hand rake, and I squatted down beside her among the baby summer squash in the garden to help remove the weeds. The scents of freshly turned earth and sun-warmed leaves settled my nerves but made me feel homesick, though I hadn’t even left yet.

  “There’s no one to help me. Unless you want to come.”

  She sighed. “I’d love to, but it’s been so long since I’ve been in touch with the Elven world, I’d most likely be useless to you. And someone has to stay here and get your tea company up and running on time. Someone who’s able to communicate with the Elves and take delivery of the saol water to produce the tea. What about your friend Nox?”

  The tines of my tool stabbed into the soft earth. “He’s not my friend.”

  Shaking her head at my stubbornness, Grandma matched it with her own obstinate expression. “Well, I don’t see what other choice you have. I won’t allow you to go out there alone. Nox is sworn to protect you—”

  I stood and brushed the dirt from my knees. “He’s a Dark Elf. He was raised with Lad’s family from the age of twelve, but he still might be on the Dark Elves’ side. Besides, how much can his promises really mean? I don’t trust him.”

  “Ryann.” Standing to join me, Grandma shook her head sadly. “When did you become so suspicious of everything and everyone in the world?”

  “I’m not suspicious of everyone. I trust you, and Mom, and Emmy, and Shalena.”

  “So, it’s just the males of the species then?”

  “Well, can you blame me? Daddy cheated on Mom and ran off and left us for almost a year. And Nox lied to me about who he was, and Lad—he’s the worst of all—he told me he loved me and wanted to be with me forever, and then he ended it without a look back over his shoulder. So why exactly would I trust men?”

  “Hello Maria,” Grandma said loudly, no doubt a signal to me that any conversation about Elves should cease immediately. I hadn’t heard Mom’s approach.

  I turned around to see an expression of deep concern on her face, the lines between her drawn eyebrows forming a small eleven. “Ryann… honey, I’m sorry for eavesdropping, but I overheard the last thing you said. We need to talk, sweetheart.”

  Great. The you-can-have-a-man-in-your-life-but-only-as-icing-on-the-cake-speech. She was preaching to the choir on that one now. “No we don’t, Mom. You don’t have to tell me anymore—you were right. You should never love someone more than he loves you, and you should never need anyone. It only leads to misery.”

  Her face fell into a sketch of sorrow and regret. She ran her hand through my hair, extracting part of a fuzzy squash leaf. “No, honey. That’s not what I was going to say.” She swallowed. “In fact, I was going to say the opposite. Poor kid—I’ve messed you up good, haven’t I?”

  I shrugged away from her touch, irritated. “I’m not messed up.”

  “I think I’ll go see how the watermelons are coming along.” Grandma turned to head for the far side of the garden.

  Mom continued, a sympathetic softness in her voice. “Well, I’ve confused you, at least on the subject of love, right when you’re at the stage of life when you should be opening your heart to it.”

  I shook my head in protest, but she continued. “I was wrong, Ryann. I was hurting, and at the time it seemed like good advice. But the truth is, I was miserable—filled with bitterness and distrust. I don’t want that for you.”

  “Oh—and now you trust Daddy?” My tone was all sour sarcasm. In spite of the fact my father had returned and begged my forgiveness, begged Mom to take him back, they were not a couple again. While he was away, she’d started dating a man she’d met through mutual friends—a powerful Georgia senator, in fact. They were still seeing each other on a regular basis.

  Her eyes grew even sadder. “Sweetie, there are so many things you don’t know, and you shouldn’t have to worry about all these adult problems. But I will tell you this—Daddy and I didn’t break up over his infidelity.”

  I blinked, confused. A horsefly landed on my arm, and I brushed him away before he could sting me. “But you said…”

  “I know. He did have a brief affair—but he did it to punish me, to make a point. I hurt him first, so I’m as much to blame for our problems as he is.”

  My head felt like a pinwheel spinning in a hurricane. I’d never heard this part of the story before. Why hadn’t Dad said anything to defend himself? And what defense could there possibly be? “Mom—what did you do?”

  Her gaze fell to the ground. She glanced over the rows of squash and peppers and tomatoes then back to me.

  “We had a fight over the IRS thing. I was very angry, and I… said something I never should have said. Anyway…” She swished her hands in front of her chest like she could wipe away the unpleasantness of the past. “That’s all behind us now.”

  Her expression and tone brightened. “And it is possible to find love again. Look at me and Davis. I’ve never felt this way about anyone—he’s just—he’s amazing, and I’m so happy. I know you’re hurting right now, but you can believe me because I’ve been there. Your heart will heal, and you will find someone else to love—someone you’ll love even more than Lad.”

  I stayed stock still, m
y gaze following a ladybug up a trellis where winding green bean vines intermingled and overlapped so thickly they’d never be pulled apart. She was wrong—I’d never love anyone more than I loved Lad. It was impossible.

  And she was unbelievable. I wanted to run past the garden fence into the woods, screaming. After all of her preaching this past year about never needing a man, Mom was now telling me to trust in love.

  Well, cynical as it was, her advice had been right the first time. I’d actually defied her icing-on-the-cake warning and given my whole heart to Lad—and look where that got me. I was alone and miserable, and he wasn’t here when I needed him.

  I do need him. The thought was arresting. I needed him—and for so much more than my own sake. He was the only answer to the Emmy situation.

  Kicking a dirt clod with the toe of my shoe, I watched it roll into a garden stake and break in half. Lad might not want me anymore, but he would have to help me. He knew the Dark Elves were up to no good with the fan pods. He knew how much I cared about Emmy.

  No matter what happened between us, he wouldn’t just stand by while they hurt my friend. Besides, I had nowhere else to turn.

  “Well, I’d better get back to work,” I said to Mom.

  Her sorrowful frown deepened as she backed up a couple steps and lifted a hand. “Okay, babe. I guess I’ll go get dinner started and give Davis a call. He had a big committee meeting today in D.C. I’ll tell him you said hi.”

  “Sure. You do that.” I still hadn’t met the new love of her life, and in my present mood, wasn’t in any hurry to.

  Chapter Four

  Above It All

  “I’m going to Altum,” I announced after finding Grandma depositing some rotted tomatoes into the compost bin.

  She looked up at me with wide eyes. “You can’t. The High Council could decide to hold you there—indefinitely—on suspicion of involvement in Ivar’s murder.”

  “Lad said he thinks I’m safe now—relatively safe. And I have to speak to him. He’s the only one who can help me find Emmy and get her away from the fan pod. He’ll help me—I know it—if I can just talk to him.”

  And if he agrees to help me, we’ll be spending time together, and he’ll remember he loves me, and… I tried to squelch the rising hope that this was the answer to finding Emmy and also to getting our relationship back on track.

  Grandma didn’t look so sure. “You can ask, honey, but I’m warning you—don’t get your hopes up.”

  “So you won’t try to stop me from going to him?”

  She stepped away from the bin and brushed her dirt-covered hands together to clean them. “No, you’re still to go nowhere near there. I’ll go tomorrow and deliver a message asking him to meet you. You can wait at his tree nest.”

  “But if you go to Altum alone…” Was I selfishly putting her in danger?

  She shushed me. “I’m immortal, remember? You’re only part-Elven, so there’s no guarantee you are. Don’t you worry about your old grandma. Besides, the Council members already questioned me. They know I was with my family in their quarters at the time of the king’s death, so I’m not a suspect.”

  * * *

  We hiked through the familiar woods on her six hundred acre property. The air was extra muggy, though it was early morning, and the smell of hot pine needles permeated the atmosphere. Finally, we came to the huge tree where Lad and I first met as children.

  I turned to ask Grandma one more time if I could go with her. “I think I could explain better how much I need him to help me.”

  “I’ll get the message across, I promise. If Lad can come to you, he will. And if he doesn’t come by noontime, you hightail it on home—with or without me. I don’t want you out here alone for long.”

  I assured her I understood and watched as her wild white ringlets disappeared between the trees and brushy undergrowth. Climbing the large tree carefully, I made my way to the comfortable nest-like structure Lad had built as a child.

  He’d continued to use it as a secret place where he could be alone and keep his most precious treasures. Like the library books he’d been forbidden to have. And the book I’d left behind when I was lost out here as a little girl. He’d used it to teach himself to understand our language.

  Gradually, over many years, he’d become familiar with human life and culture through books and newspapers and magazines, making him an anomaly among the Light Elves, who held themselves completely apart from humans.

  I pulled my old book out of the ancient chest that anchored the corner of the nest and looked through it then sifted through Lad’s boyhood treasures. Arrowheads, feathers… a picture of me.

  My heart contracted with a fierce beat. He must have taken it from the hall table the only time he’d ever been in my house, that day when he’d met Mom and Grandma Neena, the day Grandma realized he was the son of the Elven fiancé she’d jilted forty years ago—Lad’s father, Ivar.

  Hearing the scrabbling of feet on bark, I looked up to see Lad swing himself over the edge into the nest. He landed lightly on his toes and fingertips, crouching right in front of me.

  Though it had been only a day since I’d last seen him, the vision of his beautiful face, his powerful body before me, shocked me with a jolt of pleasure that was almost violent. How could I miss him so much already?

  “What are you doing here?” he snapped in an agitated tone. “I asked you not to come to me.”

  And there went all the good feelings. “Sorry to bother you.” My tone sounded as hurt as I felt. Was he really completely over me, so fast, so easily?

  He huffed an impatient breath. “What is it you need to say, Ryann? I don’t have much time. I was in the middle of something.”

  Ouch. I’d hoped he might be at least a tiny bit pleased to see me, that maybe yesterday’s conversation had been rooted in his pain and he’d had second thoughts about us.

  Right. Well, hurt feelings or not, I still needed his help. I had to convince him.

  “Fine—I’ll try not to waste too much of your time. I’m here on business. Emmy has disappeared. A Dark Elf came to get her early to take her to her new fan pod, and I didn’t have a chance to stop her from going. I don’t have any contact information for her. Her family doesn’t even know where she is, and they’re not worried about her.”

  His eyes revealed a flicker of concern, but it didn’t reach his voice. “Then maybe you shouldn’t be.”

  “Are you serious?” I gasped. “You know I should be. You know what’s going on with those fan pods.”

  He shook his head. “Not really. We don’t know what’s going on with them, only that they’ve been increasing rapidly in size and number recently. My father is… was concerned about them, but there’s no proof there’s any harm in them.”

  His nonchalant demeanor was ticking me off. Were the Light Elves really so above-it-all? And did my former “rebel” boyfriend suddenly think exactly like the rest of them? My blood pressure was rising along with the volume of my voice.

  “No harm? They’re going to glamour her brains out! Emmy will do and say whatever Vallon Foster tells her to, and she’ll think she’s happy about it. She won’t be Emmy anymore. And what about what happened to that girl Allison Douglas? They did an autopsy, you know, and couldn’t find any reason she died. She was nineteen years old, Lad. And my mom said the body looked totally normal when it arrived at the funeral home. Nineteen-year-old girls don’t drop dead for no reason. They did something to her. Her family said the police out there aren’t even investigating—I’m sure the detectives were glamoured, too.”

  He held up a hand to stop my rant, the expression on his face torn between regret and annoyance. “I’m sorry about your friend, Ryann—I am—but I can’t do anything to help you.”

  “What?” I was having a hard time believing what I’d just heard. Did he not care at all? What happened to my sweet, open-minded, open-hearted boyfriend?

  “I can’t help you,” he repeated, confirming that the Lad I’d know
n and loved had apparently died right along with his father.

  “You mean you won’t,” my voice was choked with the threat of angry tears.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t leave Altum. I can’t afford to give any of my time to this. Even if I could, I’m not sure how much help I could be to you. I had a very limited relationship with the Dark Elves before. And now since my father’s—after he called off the wedding and what happened afterward—our relations with the Dark Elves are even more strained.”

  “Wait…” A new suspicion hit me like a poison-tipped arrow. “Do you blame me for what happened to your father? Do you think his murder was related to the cancelled wedding?”

  He hesitated before answering, giving a long, slow blink. “I’m not sure what to think right now, Ryann. That’s one reason I’m so busy—I’m trying to discover who’s responsible for his death. But no, I don’t blame you. I didn’t want the marriage. I was only too happy to walk away from it when Father told me I could.” He paused. “I have only myself to blame for that.”

  But if his father had been killed because of reneging on the marriage contract, at least some of the blame had to fall on me. I was the reason for it. If Lad had never met me, he probably would have been happy to marry a beautiful Elven girl of royal blood, even if she was the daughter of the Dark Elves’ leader. The union had made political sense to all of them, and in the brief moments I saw her, she certainly seemed to be in favor of it.

  “Have you spoken to Vancia since then?” I asked in a small voice.

  Lad’s entire body went still. His eyes softened for a moment as he fixed them on mine. And then they turned back to glistening green stone and held something that looked a lot like pity.

  He stood, obviously preparing to leave. “I have to go back, Ryann. I don’t have time to deal with your… insecurities and jealousy. I know your concern about your friend seems like a very big thing to you right now, but I’m sure she’ll be fine.” His lips rolled in to form a tight line. “Don’t send me any more messages. It’s hard on both of us to meet like this, and… I won’t come next time. So please, just—don’t.”