“Me either,” Jade said. “I’ll tell you when we get wherever it is we’re going. Where are we going?”
“That’s up to you, babe.”
“Ummm, how ‘bout we find a hotel, yeah?”
Not-Professor threw her a lascivious grin. “Exactly what I was thinking.”
She managed a half-hearted nod. “Yeah. I need a shower. And a drink.”
Kellogg piped up again. “Should we be worried about those Arabs…or Iranians or whatever?”
“I doubt we’ll see them again. This is a small island, and they’ve got nowhere to hide. The shooting will bring out the police.”
The police, Jade thought. Maybe it was time to finally take Kellogg’s suggestion seriously and seek help from law enforcement. And tell them what, exactly? That there are Changelings running around?
Okay, not the police. But who else could she ask for help? “Good,” she said finally, doing her level best to sound confident and calm. “It’s settled then. Let’s find a hotel and worry about all this in the morning.”
“Got a preference? Or should we just see what comes up on Google?”
An idea started to take shape in Jade’s head. “Give me your phone for a sec. We got rid of ours, remember?”
Not-Professor did not challenge the request or question the conspicuously guilty-sounding elaboration, but simply handed his phone—Professor’s phone, Jade thought — over to her.
Her fingers were jittery on the touch-screen controls as she scrolled through the icons and finally tapped the Settings button. Her heart was hammering in her chest. Did he suspect what she was doing?
Privacy…Location Services…System Services….
There it was. An inconspicuous item in the menu marked “Frequently Visited Locations.” She tapped it and a list of locations appeared — every city he had visited on the journey through Malta, a stop in Rome. Sydney. Some place called Rosebery TAS. Sydney, again.
Rosebery. Where on earth is that, and why the hell did he go there?
She exited out and hastily typed the words “hotels Paola Malta” into the search bar. There were no lodging results, but one of the hits for “Things to Do in Malta” gave her another idea. She clicked on it, read the short paragraph, then went back to the search and refined it to “hotels close to Paola Malta.”
She glanced over and caught Not-Professor staring back. He smiled, and she tried to smile back. Crap. I’m taking too long. He knows.
No. He doesn’t. Stay cool.
“Looks like we’ll have to go to Valletta,” she said.
He shrugged. “Great thing about islands. They’re small. I guess I don’t have to tell you that.”
“Right. How does the Hotel Phoenicia Malta sound?”
“It sounds expensive,” the imposter said with a grin. “Who’s picking up the tab?”
Jade tried again to smile but it felt more like a grimace. She glanced back at Kellogg who made a show of rolling his eyes. “I’m not a bottomless pit of money, you know.”
“Yeah, but that next book is going to be a best-seller.”
“You’re not wrong about that.”
Not-Professor chuckled. “Tell me where to turn.”
Jade relayed the driving directions — the hotel was only a few minutes away — while she surreptitiously studied the road map. Getting away from Professor and Kellogg would be relatively easy, provided she had not already aroused their suspicions, but getting away from Malta might be a lot trickier, especially since anyone she encountered might be working with the Changelings.
For the first time since the nightmare began, she understood how Roche had become so paranoid. There was only one person she could trust. Just as Roche had turned to her for assistance, she would have to go to her sworn enemy.
She spent the rest of the drive in silence, speaking only when it was necessary to convey the directions to the hotel. The Phoenicia-Malta was a sprawling palatial resort — a blend of Old World colonial and 1930’s art deco, with just a hint of Moorish influence — situated just outside the City Gate of old Valletta, with a spectacular view of the harbor. Jade felt a slight pang knowing that she would not have the opportunity to indulge in the available creature comforts. She did not know where, much less if, she would sleep tonight, but it would not be here.
In the elegant hotel lobby, Jade stood by patiently while Not-Professor booked their rooms. She kept her reaction completely neutral when he asked for a double room for them to share, but her mental gears were spinning. From the moment he’d appeared, this impostor had acted as if a romantic involvement between them was well-established — the kiss, the pet names, and now the assumption that they would be sharing a bed. Where had the Changeling gotten such a ludicrous idea?
Is it ludicrous? Doesn’t part of you wish that it was true?
She shook her head to banish the idle thoughts. It didn’t matter that the Changelings had tapped into that particular fantasy; they had gotten reality completely wrong, which meant maybe they weren’t omniscient after all.
Or maybe Not-Professor had a different reason for wanting to share a room with her. What better way to keep an eye on her.
Go! Now! You won’t get a better chance.
“Hey, hon,” she said, trying to sound light and airy, and hearing instead a faint quaver. “I’m gonna find the ladies room.”
“I’m almost done here. We’ll be in the room in five minutes.”
She pressed her thighs together and danced from foot to foot. “When you gotta go…”
He nodded and turned back to the reception desk. Jade made a show of searching for the restroom as she wandered through the lobby and then angled toward the hotel lounge, where presumably there would not only be restroom facilities, but also an exit from the building. As she was about to pass out of view of the lobby however, she hesitated.
What if I’m wrong? She glanced back at them — Kellogg, fidgeting a few steps behind…Professor? Not-Professor? — and wondered again if her imagination had run away from her. Maybe the infrasound had messed with her mind. Maybe this was some kind of neurotransmitter-overload-induced delusion?
As much as she wanted to, Jade couldn’t make herself believe it.
If I’m wrong, he’ll forgive me.
She found a door that opened onto the pool deck, where she broke into a jog, darting past rows of chaise lounges and scantily clad tourists, toward the low wrought iron fence that separated the pool from the landscaped garden beyond. She vaulted the fence and kept going, heading toward the noise of traffic.
Her destination was less than three miles away, walking distance, but she needed to get there before her protracted absence was noticed. She figured she had only a few minutes — five, tops — before Not-Professor got suspicious. Time enough for a taxi to get her across Valletta and back to Paola. When she told the driver where she wanted to go, he looked askance at her, but then shrugged and started the meter.
She saw her destination from several blocks away, a tall illuminated spire — like a king’s scepter — jutting up out of the surrounding cityscape. Beside it, and only slightly less obtrusive, was an enormous dome. The surrounding area, several acres, was undeveloped, a rare thing in one of the most densely populated countries in Europe, and formed a wooded buffer zone for the campus of buildings surrounding the tower. The occupants of the religious compound evidently valued their privacy.
She handed the driver a stack of Euro notes, then leaned in close. “Listen, there’s this guy. My ex-boyfriend. He doesn’t agree with…” She nodded at the building. “Some of the decisions I’ve made. It’s probably nothing to worry about, but I’d appreciate if you could forget you ever saw me.”