Pinewood Corner Kitchen Chapter 20
“So you’re saying that they’re all out to get us?” Jan Chapman asked, her eyes wide behind her green plastic glasses.
“What?” James said, taking a step backward. “No, that’s not at all what I’m saying.”
Gabriella didn’t want to be here. Not that she would have accepted any offers to skip this meeting. She just didn’t want to admit how much the Chapmans had shaken her with their flaming crockpot trick. But at least she wasn’t alone. Having both James and Graham there as the Chapmans pretended to have no idea what was going on was reassuring. Or, at least as reassuring as a situation like this could be.
They were in the kitchen of Pinewood Corner Kitchen, just like every time Gabriella was here. And with the missing chandelier, crumbling plaster, and broken window, it was a lot less elegant and intimidating than it was on her first visit. Just like its occupants.
“You said that these attacks on us line up with the times that we’ve, well, you know,” Jan said with a self-deprecating eye roll. “So what else could it be?”
“It’s you,” Gabriella said.
Both Chapmans zeroed in on her again. “Excuse me?” Steve said, his voice dripping with contempt.
“It’s your power, coming back on you.”
“I don’t follow.”
There was no way he didn’t follow, not for real. “You attack these other people-” Gabriella started, but Jan held up a hand.
“Okay,” she said. “Wow. That’s going too far. We never attacked anyone.”
“Lilly Colombo broke her ankle,” Graham said.
“And there’s no way to link that to us,” Jan said. “We never broke her ankle. We wanted to just shake her up a little, she needed to back off. Upscale home cooking is our niche and she’s been getting a little too close.”
“Lilly Colombo broke her ankle,” Graham repeated, “And then your car’s engine went.”
“While we were on the highway,” Steve added. “That was very dangerous. Lilly could have killed us.”
“It wasn’t Lilly,” James said, not bothering to hide his frustration. “It was your own power bouncing back on you.”
Steve squared his shoulders and stood a little closer to James, though he was still slightly shorter. “And why do you say that?”
“Because there’s no way that ten other food bloggers are psychic and out to get you.”
The chances of them and Casey Romano all being psychic and involved in this situation were small enough, not that Gabriella was about to bring him up.
“They could hire someone,” Jan said with a practiced shrug. “There’s always someone out there that can be hired to do the job.”
“Not on the money most of them are making,” Graham said.
He had been nearly silent the whole ride over as James and Gabriella talked tactics. And now he was here, his anger simmering under his words as they pretended to be innocent victims.
Gabriella glanced at the broken window behind the Chapmans, both of whom turned to see what she was looking at. When they looked back at her, she just raised her eyebrows.
“The attacks will stop if you stop,” James said, his voice calm again. “It isn’t them, it isn’t Casey Romano, it’s you. Just like when you broke Gabriella’s window. It bounced back on you seconds later. Stop yours, and the energy won’t bounce back on you.”
“You’re covering for him,” Jan said suddenly, coming around Steve to glare at James with glittering eyes. “He’s doing this and you’re covering for him. I knew it.”
“No ma’am, I’m not-”
James doubled over, gripping his stomach as something invisible knocked the wind out of him. Gabriella hurried toward him as Jan stepped back, then let out a low moan of pain as blood dripped out of her nose.
“I’m fine,” James said breathlessly, waving off Gabriella and standing up. “There, you see? You did that.”
He pointed at Jan’s bloodied face as she wiped it with a clean napkin.
“There’re reasons why it could bounce back,” Graham explained, his voice strong and practiced now, like he was standing at the front of a classroom, not feet away from two angry psychics. “You’re strong, we know you’re strong. You might be some of the strongest psychics in the world.”
That could be true, Gabriella realized, but it was also Graham buttering them up. Right, he’d followed their website, he knew them better than her. He’d been betrayed on a more personal level.
“But if your heart isn’t in it, that can do it,” he continued, moving just slightly in front of James, who was standing straight again. “Your heart is in your cooking, I can tell. Everything I’ve made of yours has been incredible. I’ve made your fettuccine so many times. My sister asked me for the recipe and I sent her to your website. Your food is the real deal.”
Jan smiled slightly under the napkin she still held to her face. “You know that you don’t need to do these things,” Graham said. “You’re good people. You’re extremely talented people. You’re better than any of the competition. I think you know that, and every time you attack someone, you hesitate, just a little. Because you know it’s wrong. And unnecessary.”
“You’re being ridiculous, Graham,” Steve said. “We don’t hesitate. We know who we are and what we deserve. And anyone who had these powers would use them the exact same way we do.”
If she’d known all it took to get a full confession from this guy was to swell his ego before accusing him, Gabriella could have saved them all a lot of time and herself hours on the phone with her renters insurance.
“That’s not true,” Graham said. “And you know it. There are people out there, maybe not as powerful as you, but powerful too. And they don’t do this. And that hesitation, that moment when you know you’re doing the wrong thing, that’s what keeps you from protecting yourself from it bouncing back.”
“We don’t hesitate,” Steve repeated. “Jan is a shark. She’s fearless, just like me.”
“It’s not about fear,” Gabriella said. “It’s about conscience.”
Jan looked at her, lowering the bloody napkin. Her face was smeared unsettlingly with blood and she looked furious, but Graham was right. There was shame in there. And Jan knew Gabriella could see that.
“You’re just jealous,” she snapped. “You want what we have, Graham. You want this life and you can’t have it. And you’re going to ruin it for us instead of trying to get it for yourself. You could have said yes when we offered you a possible position. If you drop this right now, maybe we could still work something out.”
They’d offered him a job? James didn’t seem surprised by this, so Graham must have discussed it with him.
“I don’t want it like this,” he said. “Not at other people’s expense and not if you’re going to hurt my friends.”
James was watching Graham for what to do next. Gabriella wasn’t sure either, and she knew that Madelyn was on comms at headquarters silently listening too, with whoever else might be there.
“You can’t have it anyway,” Steve said. “You’re too weak. Cook all you want, you’ll never have what we have.”
“I don’t want that,” Graham snapped. “I wanted a fucking hobby. And you ruined it. And you’re ruining yourselves too.”
And then he was on the floor, his eyes rolling back before Gabriella even realized what was happening. “Graham!” she screamed, dropping to her knees beside him.
Graham didn’t acknowledge her, his whole body shivering as only the whites of his eyes showed. Gabriella shook his shoulder. “Graham!”
“What’s happening?” Madelyn shouted over comms. “Ja-”
The comms burst into flame on James’s chest and he tore it off, tossing it away and stomping out the flames. “He’ll be fine,” Jan said, waving them off. “I’m not ashamed and I’m done with this conversation. You can leave now. Carry him out for all I care.”
She went to storm off through the door behind her, but Steve grabbed her, his hand tight over her wrist. “Jan?” he said, his voice gentle.
She looked almost afraid for a second. No, no almost about it, Gabriella realized, looking from her face back to Graham, whose shaking was subsiding, though he wasn’t getting up. He was breathing, though, and his pulse was strong when she checked it.
“What did you fucking do to him?” she demanded.
“Psychic pulse, he’ll be fine,” Steve said dismissively, still glaring at his wife. “Jan, did you hesitate?”
“No!” she insisted.
He ran a finger down the patch of blood on her pale face as James shook Graham. Graham shuddered, his face scrunching for a second. James started patting his cheek. “Come on, man,” he said, darting a look at the two furious psychics glaring at each other at the table. “You have to wake up.”
“If they’re telling the truth…” Steve started, and Jan scoffed.
“You believe them?” she said. “They’ve been in Casey Romano’s pocket this whole time.”
Casey Romano couldn’t afford twenty minutes of time with the Foundation in the next sixteen years and they knew it. And Steve wasn’t buying it.
Jan Chapman screamed as she fell backward to the floor beside Graham, landing still and not moving. Steve glared at all of them.
“We’re done here,” he said. “Leave my property.”
Was Jan breathing? Gabriella tried to go to her, but a force sent her off her feet and tumbling into the next table, gasping as a corner of it caught her thigh.
Steve didn’t flinch. Right, he wasn’t hesitating, so nothing was going to come back at him. To her relief, Graham was slowly sitting up, looking dazed as James helped him. She tried to get to Jan again, but now Jan was sitting up too. “We built this together,” she said, her voice low and furious. “How dare you.”
She stood tall, looking up at her husband. And then three long scratches appeared down the skin of his cheek, like invisible fingernails tearing the flesh. Steve dabbed it with a finger as Jan continued to glare at him. “And you were too scared to do what we had to do,” he said, “and that’s what got us into this mess!”
Maybe they could escape while the two of them were busy fighting each other. But then Steve said, “And they know. So I guess they have to die.”
Terror pooled in Gabriella’s stomach as she did her best to keep it off her face. She took Graham’s arm as he looked at her, his eyes still hazy, but clearly comprehending the danger they were in. At the other end of the short entrance hall, there was a pounding at the front door, then someone trying the knob. Was it someone from the team? There was no way they’d get here this quickly. But the pounding continued.
“So you’re going to kill us?” Gabriella demanded. “You’re going to kill us over a fucking cooking blog?”
“IT’S SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT!” Jan screamed at her, spit flecking from her mouth as her bloody teeth gleamed inches from Gabriella’s face. “You have no idea.”
Something broke at the front door and it tumbled in, the shattering wood catching everyone’s attention. “Gabriella!” Casey Romano yelled.
“In here!” Gabriella called. She had no idea how he’d known to be here beyond the obvious, but she was so grateful to hear his voice that she could cry.
“You!” Jan shouted.
“This is ridiculous!” Casey yelled from down the hall, trying to push his way through as an ominous wind began to whip through the kitchen, sending furniture skidding and metal utensils clattering on their hooks. “Just stop! This is all you guys, no one else!”
“It’s you!” Jan yelled. “You did all of this!”
“Are you insane?” he demanded. “Do you think I have nothing better to do?”
Gabriella could feel a cut bleeding on her face now. Great, more facial scars. But she tried to ignore it as she pulled Graham to his feet. “Get him out of here,” James said.
She hooked Graham’s arm over her shoulder and tried to go toward the door, but something pushed them both off their feet, sending them back down to the expensive tile floor. “None of you can leave,” Steve said, sounding bizarrely patient as the wind whipped around them. “We can’t have you sharing our secrets. That’s why we wanted an NDA.”
“So you want to kill us? You said you aren’t murderers,” James said from where he’d also landed, sounding far more patient than Gabriella knew he actually was.
That was when the damaged ceiling above them began to creak ominously. Steve’s eyes dripped blood as the air around Gabriella seemed to shimmer and flecks of plaster drifted down. He looked up and she finally saw some fear on his face. Maybe they could get through to them now, but they all needed to get out of here first. She kept one hand gripping Graham and, with force, turned her head to see that James was trying to push his way toward them. There was no way he was going to make it. His hand stretched toward her and she reached for him, but he was too far away.
They were about to die because of a fucking cooking blog.
Gabriella heard the crash, felt the heat of something in the back of her head, and as the ceiling came down, she knew she was dead. At least she was with her friends, there was a little comfort there. But there were so many things she wanted to do first.
Maybe this was it. Big and scary, but ultimately good. In some sick cosmic way.
No, this wasn’t good. None of them should-
