Page 1 of The Silence of Monsters

Channing

There was an old grandfather clock resting against one wall of the crowded antique and curio shop. No matter how often it was sent out for repairs, it always ran fast. The ticking of the hands perfectly matched the rapid beat of my heart and the unforgiving throb at my temples. The chime rang bright and clear, but it was always ten minutes before the hour.

I rubbed the center of my forehead out of frustration while the teenager standing across the counter nervously spun a diamond ring around her index finger. Those diamonds were a gift from her uncle, which meant they were undoubtedly real. And there was no practical reason for a thirteen-year-old girl to own such a pricey piece of jewelry. She couldn’t even keep track of her cellphone. Which was why she’d shown up at the shop where I worked with no warning.

“You have to call home and let them know where you are.” I blinked back the headache trying to ruin my day and watched my one-and-only niece through narrowed eyes. “If you don’t call your uncle, he’s going to report you missing. That’s going to get both of us in trouble.” I sighed and reached out, squishing her still round cheeks together so that she had no choice but to make a cute, kissy face. She still had enough baby fat on her face that I could see the carefree, sweet little girl she’d been lingering on her delicate features. “If your grandma tells law enforcement that I kidnapped you, I don’t know that either of us will convince them otherwise.” I squeezed her cheeks harder until she jerked her head away. Her green and gold eyes were so much like her mother’s. I always felt my heart twist painfully when our gazes locked. “Running away from home is dangerous, Winnie. You’re fortunate nothing happened to you while you were traveling to the city on your own.” I tried to sound stern and authoritative. However, I was neither of those things, and the warning fell flat.

The teenager rolled her eyes at me, but I could tell the mention of her grandmother made her nervous. “I told you; I lost my phone. I’ll call Uncle Chester and let him know I’m safe and that I’m with you. Don’t make me go back home right away, Aunt Channing. I hate it there.”

Winnie’s eyes welled with tears, and I could tell she was really at the end of her emotional rope. I swore under my breath and walked around the counter so I could give my niece a hug. She shuddered when I wrapped my arms around her and dropped her forehead to my shoulder. I patted her back and told her, “Don’t call your uncle Chester. You know how much he hates it.”

She sniffed loudly and muttered into the fabric of my shirt, “That’s what you call him.”

I barked out a dry laugh and tapped her on the back of the head. “I call him that because he and I are sworn enemies.” And as my sworn nemesis, there was little I could do to come out on top when it came to Winchester Halliday. The man was gratuitously wealthy, obnoxiously well connected, and had far too much power for one man. The only thing I could do to let him know I wasn’t afraid of him or envious of his gilded cage was to annoy him to death by treating him like he wasn’t in the top one percent of society. Using the part of his name he despised never failed to get under his skin.

I pulled away from the hug and reached into my bag that was sitting haphazardly on the counter. “I’ll call your Uncle Win. Let me tell the boss I have to leave early. I’ll take you to my apartment and feed you while we figure out the next step.” I sighed again and reached out to smooth her tangled hair back off her face. “You have to go back, Winnie.”

There was no room for false hope when dealing with the Hallidays.

I could tell Winnie was going to cry, so I shuffled her to the small break room at the back of the store while I went in search of my boss.

I liked my job because it was easy and interesting. I enjoyed researching all the odds and ends that came through the door, and it was fun telling some customers that they had found buried treasure. It was also the job I’d held onto the longest while living in the city. My boss was a retired history professor who had a fascination with all things dark and macabre. It was like working for Dracula. He was an intense character, but pretty easygoing. When I told him I had a family emergency and needed to leave, he didn’t bat an eye. When I mentioned I might need to take a few days off to deal with a personal issue, all he did was tilt his head and tell me to let him know if I needed his help with anything. I promised him I would keep him in the loop. Then, I found a quiet corner to call Winnie’s uncle, my only brother-in-law, who just happened to be my second least favorite person in the world.

The grandfather clock chimed, making me jump. The ticking sounded like a countdown to something inexplicably dangerous. I closed my eyes and mentally braced myself as the phone rang.

I wasn’t kidding when I told Winnie her uncle and I were enemies. The only person I hated more than him — was her grandmother. All the Hallidays, aside from my niece, were awful. Somewhere along the line, the entire family had foregone humanity and basic decency. I wouldn’t put it past them to have made a pact with the devil. Why not exchange their souls for unlimited money and power? It’s not like they would ever need them. The entire family never showed grace to those they didn’t consider beneficial to them‌. I definitely had nothing to offer the likes of Winchester Halliday, so there was zero guarantee he would answer my call. If he didn’t, I would just have to bite the bullet and call his mother, Colette Halliday. Even though I’d rather eat glass than speak to Winnie’s grandmother.

Luckily, a deep and impatient voice answered the call. “What do you want, Harvey? I’m very busy.”

From the time we first met, Win called me by my last name. Sometimes I wondered if he didn’t know what my first name was. My fingers tightened on the cellphone as I took a deep breath to calm my nerves. “Do you have any idea that Winnie is missing?”

Win swore, and I heard him snapping orders to whomever was in the room with him. “I’ve had people out looking for her for the last four hours. She had a piano lesson after class today. She called and told her instructor she was sick. I didn’t realize she was missing until her teacher called to check on her and asked how she was feeling.” He swore again and I could hear the frustration in his tone. “I’ve been trying to keep my mother from calling the FBI. I trusted my people to locate her in a timely manner. I should’ve known she was with you.”

There was no relief in his tone. Only irritation and impatience.

“She showed up at the store where I work out of the blue. I wasn’t expecting her. Winnie told me she had a friend drive her to the train station. She lost her phone on the train. When she got to the central station in the city, she walked around until she found someone who had an idea where my store was located. I’m going to take her home with me for now.” I snorted and snapped at him, “She’s begging not to go back to your house, Chester.”

“She’s a teenager. She doesn’t know what she wants.” I heard the rustling of fabric as he moved. “I’m sending people to your place to get her. They’ll be there in a couple of hours.”

“That’s a bad idea. If you send your black-suit brigade to drag her back against her will, she might run again when she gets the chance. Next time she might not come to me. What are you going to do if she really disappears and gets herself into a dangerous situation? Back off for a couple of days. Let me talk to her. I’ll bring her home when she’s not as upset and irrational as she is right now.”

“No. She has school and lessons. Unlike you, Winnie will follow through with her responsibilities. You’re the last person she needs to spend time with.” His words were biting and harsh, but they were nothing I hadn’t heard from him before. He always made his disdain for me and my lifestyle abundantly clear.

“You’re being unreasonable, Chester. She came to me for a reason. You and your mother are more concerned with turning her into a perfect Halliday than you are with her wellbeing. I understand wanting Winnie to be responsible and accountable, but she’s just a kid. Let her have a childhood.” And some fun. I didn’t add the last part because I wasn’t certain that Win knew what fun was.

When Winnie was younger, I still lived near Halliday Cove. The Halliday family founded the small, coastal town back when their ancestors landed on the coast. I was allowed to see my niece more frequently back then, even though Colette tried everything in her power to keep the little girl away from her relatives who weren’t named Halliday.

However, when Winnie got older and started exhibiting troubling behavior and major signs of distress, Colette called a child psychologist. The specialist recommended it would be best if Winnie could have contact with her mother’s side of the family to benefit from spending time with people who knew and loved her deceased mother. Among them, I was the only living relative who wasn’t deemed a risk to the little girl.

As Winnie got older and her issues stabilized, the Hallidays, namely Colette, once again did whatever they could to cut me out of my niece’s life. In the last few years, I’d only seen her a handful of times. Each visit, I could tell she was turning more and more into a copy-and-paste version of Win. The similarities made sense since he was her primary guardian, but I wanted more in life for her. Win was miserable. I didn’t want Winnie to see the world in the same bleak, boring way he did.

Win scoffed on the other end of the call. “Of course, you think I’m depriving Winnie of a proper childhood because I want her to be accountable and responsible. She should end up like you, bouncing from job to job? Do you want her to treat getting married and divorced like it’s a hobby? Do you want her living paycheck-to-paycheck because she has no financial awareness like you? You’re a terrible role model, Harvey.”

I wanted to reach through the phone and wrap my hands around his neck. Not because he was incorrect, but because he was just so arrogant and dismissive about my existence. I hated how he talked to me, and how he looked down on me.

“At least I’m not unhappy day in and day out. It doesn’t take a genius to tell Winnie is terribly upset. You’re raising her. It’s your job to make sure her life is full and celebrated. She’s a human being, not a robot. And not your pet.” She would never be a Halliday clone if I had a say in the matter. I kept the last part to myself. Because if there was one line I wouldn’t cross with him, it was anything to do with his mother.

I was never sure if Win was so touchy about his family because they were the only people he loved in the world, or because he hated them as much as he loathed everyone else. The man was an iceberg, which made him very tough to read. In all the years I’d known him, I don’t think I’d ever seen him smile or laugh. It was no surprise Winnie felt like she had to run away from that suffocating atmosphere.

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