Free The Rose Ransom (Girls Wearing Black: Book Three) by Spencer Baum Page B

hurry.”
    “Just a second, Mom. Please.”
    “I don’t have any more seconds
for this nonsense, Jill.” Carolyn was at the car now, pulling on the handle of
the locked door again and again like a little kid. “Let me in!” she cried.
    “Oh good lord,” Jill muttered.
She pulled the keys from her pocket and used the remote to unlock the car.
Exasperated, her mother crawled inside.
    Jill turned back to the front
door.
    “Hello?” she said, rapping on it
with her knuckles. “Hello. I need to speak with Gordon!”
    Nothing happened. They weren’t
here. In her rush to get out of the house, with Code Orange called and her
cover blown and the mission in disarray, Jill hadn’t bothered with the simple
step of calling before she came.
    She looked back to the car. Her
mother was inside now, with the doors locked. The window was up. The laptop was
open and her face was illuminated with the dull glare of its screen.
    Confident there was no way her
mother could hear her, Jill rang the bell again. This time she followed it up
with the words, “Gordon? It’s Jill Wentworth. From the Network.”
    Footsteps on the other side. The
door opened. Gordon Krause, the master hypnotist who had once looked in Jill’s
mind to ensure she was suitable Network material, stood on the other side.
    “Jill! I’m so sorry you’ve been
waiting,” Gordon said. “We’ve got this encyclopedia salesman working the
neighborhood.”
    “Encyclo-what?” said Jill.
    “Never mind. Just something they
try to sell to old people,” said Gordon. “Please, come in.”
    “Hang on,” Jill said. “I need to
get my mother.”
     

Chapter 7
     
    “Are you the hypnotist?” Carolyn
asked.
    “I am,” said Gordon.
    “Where do I sit?” Carolyn said,
shuffling about the living room like a crazy person. “I want to get this over
with.”
    “Get this over with?” said
Gordon. The poor man had no idea what was going on.
    “Yes, get this….does he even
know what we’re doing here?” Carolyn demanded. “Jill, I’ve indulged this for
long enough. I will speak to your father about it. He thinks this is what he
wants for me, but he’s wrong. What he really desires is for me to do my best
work, and my best work happens when I am in my room working, not when I am
playing silly mind games.”
    “Mom, why don’t we get the
laptop and put you someplace quiet while I speak with the hypnotist?”
    Jill looked to Gordon for help.
“Do you have a bedroom where she could work? She really needs a place where she
can sit down at a desk and close the door.”
    Now Gordon was completely lost.
To his credit, he played along. “Yes, there is a guest room upstairs.”
    “I’ll be right back with the
laptop, Mom. We’ll set you up and you can type away until it’s time for your
session to start.”
    A minute later Jill was closing
the door on a small bedroom upstairs, shutting Carolyn inside with her laptop.
    “Sorry about all this,” she said
to Gordon. “My mom…”
    “Your mother has been programmed,”
Gordon said.
    He said it in such a plain voice
Jill didn’t know how to react. “How did you know?”
    “She displays all the
hallmarks,” said Gordon. “Over the years the Network has brought hundreds of
subjects to my door for deprogramming. Every time their response is similar to
hers. Their program doesn’t want them to be here. The internal conflict tears
them apart. They become irritable to the point of irrational. We’re lucky that
you knew how to calm her. How long will she be content to stay in the bedroom?”
    “She’s working now,” Jill said.
“She’ll forget about the rest of the world. She’d stay there all day if we let
her.”
    “So her program is to work,”
said Gordon.
    “Something like that,” said
Jill. “I’m hoping you can tell me.”
    “Let’s sit down and talk.”
    They sat in the den, Jill on a
couch, Gordon in a chair. Gordon made a pot of tea and brought out a bag of
stale cookies.
    “I’ve been on