CHAPTER FOUR "Where did that come from?" Kevin asked Lucy as he warily eyed the painting in the living room of their hotel suite. The canvas sat sullenly in the room, the paint drying defiantly as if daring anyone to wipe it away. The old mansion known as Rose Academy looked far darker and gloomier than Kevin remembered it, but what bothered him the most was the evil looking rose that coiled around the school, entwining the building with thorny stems. Kevin repressed a shudder. "Don't tell me that I painted that?" At Lucy's nod, he continued, "I don't recall painting it." "You did it, Doc. I saw you, but you didn't see me. You were asleep." Kevin continued to stare at the rose, noting the color, a dark, sooty black, with twinges of something almost reddish in its heart. The thorns of the stems were firmly embedded in the building, and the same deep, reddish color seemed to seep from where each thorn pierced the bricks. "I hate roses," Kevin muttered. "I've always hated them." "I kind of got that feeling," Lucy commented. "That one looks positively evil. I've heard of kids hating school, Kevin, but this is a bit much." "Yeah," he tried to laugh. "Sleep painting. God, Lucy, I thought that the dark days were behind us." "Maybe they are," Lucy said, but while her tone was hopeful, her common sense and experience told her that they weren't. "But, if we have a few more dark days ahead, we'll get through them together. We'll do what we did before--expose the memories to the light and watch them wither into nothing." Their eyes met, and once again, both wondered if he was right, if the dark days had somehow managed to return to plague them with yet another episode out of Kevin's less than ideal childhood. Lucy reached out and took his face between both hands, looking directly into his eyes. "We'll do it, Doc. There's nothing that we can't face together." "How can we be certain about that, Lucy? By taking another guided tour of the particularly unpleasant slice of hell that I call my subconscious?" Kevin shook his head as he looked back at the painting which sat malevolently in the room, seeming to absorb any light which came its way. "How can we be certain of anything?" "We can be certain of one thing," Lucky noted as he, Nikolas, and Jer stared over the edge of the cliff, "if anybody was in that car, he or she is history by now." Some hundred feet or so below, the car blazed brightly, flames engulfing it, sending streaks of heat and fire several feet into the air. "I wonder what happened?" Nik asked, as he visually traced the path the auto had taken to the point of impact. "There are no skid marks." "The black limousine happened," Jer explained, his face white with fear. "I'm telling you guys--that limo is involved in this. Look--the guy nearly ran us down, and he was coming from this direction. Maybe the driver ran this car off the road." "That's a possibility," Lucky admitted. "Be that as it may, we need to notify the authorities of this accident, and we should probably climb down there and see if there's anything we can do for the victim." At that moment, there was another explosion, and Nikolas shook his head. "Bad idea, Lucky. Nobody could have survived that, and if by some wild chance Jer is right, and the limo driver is involved, then we need to get your, that is our Dad out of jail. We know that he's in danger, by virtue of the fact that he got between Jer and some bad guys." "I still think that we should check out the victim." Before the group could say more, they heard the wail of a siren as what passed for the police department of the small village roared into view down the hill. "On second thought," Lucky said, "Opportunity just knocked. Let's beat it." "This is really weird," Peter Castles remarked to Suzi as he hung up the phone. "I just talked to Linda's neighbor, and she says that Linda asked her to pick up the mail and tend the plants for the next couple of weeks, that she'd be out of town. The neighbor was in Linda's house watering the plants." Suzi looked up from the travel brochure she'd been studying, and asked, "Did she leave a number where she could be reached in case of emergency?" "Not according to her neighbor. She said that Linda left a note on her doorstep saying that it was an emergency and that she had to leave." "That is weird. You'd think that she'd have called us, under the circumstances." "Definitely, since she knew that we were going to see her only child." Peter and Suzi exchanged glances, both aware that there was a strong possibility that something really odd was going on. "You realize that this makes it impossible for us to get her permission to have Rose Academy give us Jeremy's travel itinerary." "That had crossed my mind," Peter answered. "And if we're right, one or both of them may be in trouble. And, if this is the case, there is something big going on here." "But what? What would involve an American teenager in Switzerland, and his mother, a widowed housewife in San Francisco?" "That remains to be seen," Peter said, picking up the phone again. "And, we're going to find out. But first, I need to place a call. "Marty?" Marty and Jared were watching CNN's coverage of the Parisian tragedy involving Princess Diana and her escort, Dodi al Fayad when the call came through. Shaking her head, Marty answered, "Marty…Peter!! How nice to hear from you……I see……How interesting. Yes, I think that we can manage to do that. Yes, we'll check on your children, under the circumstances. Oh, and one more thing, Peter--you may not have gotten the news, but Sonny Corinthos has escaped from the high security prison in which he was incarcerated. Yes, I know what that means. This could get interesting again. Say hi to Suzi for me. Okay, bye." Marty turned to her new husband and smiled ruefully. "It never rains but it pours. That was Peter Castles and he thinks that there may be something strange going on with Rose Academy in Switzerland." "Isn't that where his nephew is going?" Marty quickly filled Jared in on what she'd learned, adding, "This isn't the first time the name of the Rose Academy has come up in our files. It's one of the premier prep schools in the world, very exclusive, and for the most part, only the crème de la crème of the wealthiest elite get in." "So how did Peter's nephew get in? I know that his nephew isn't from a wealthy family. Peter made his own money, and his sister-in-law has none to speak of." "I don't know. Maybe Peter paid his way?" "Heck, Marty. P.J. isn't going there--surely his own son would go if that was the case." "Scholarship?" "Who knows. I'll make a few calls and see what we can find out." Luke stared out of the jail cell which he'd occupied for the past thirty-six hours and scowled. Talk about the world turning to **** when you weren't looking. It had taken him a while to understand what the jailers were saying, but the glaring headlines about Diana's death said it all. He'd been exposed to the blood-sucking paparazzi for only a few weeks, and had felt the need to escape. He couldn't begin to imagine how anyone survived that constant harassment, or the feeling that your life was public fodder. And now, hers was over. A brilliant streak, a shooting star across an otherwise ordinary sky. She was gone, and somehow, that changed things. He had to get out of this miserable jail and get back to his family. Nothing like the finality of death to put a lot of things in perspective. "Yep," he told the man sleeping off a drunk in the next cell, "I've got to get out of this place and get my family back together. There are some things that can't wait, some things that I need to say to them, and I'm sure as hell not leaving the people I love to that bunch of bottom-feeding, ****-seeking, misery loving, predatory paparazzi." "Mister," the jailer addressed Luke as he stood in the doorway of the room that held the cells. "There are three young women to see you. They say that they are your daughters." Luke looked up, startled, then smiled. "My three daughters?? Well, well, well! Send the little darlins in."