Thursday, December 28th
They got an early start that morning, as they were anxious to return to the Quest Compound. The morning was clear but cold, and a light breeze shook the branches of the bare trees, causing them to creak ominously. Scott felt that the weather was fitting to how he felt—while he was happy that Jessie and Hadji had been rescued and that all of them were safe, he was still worried about his father, whom the police were still unable to find.
Dr. Quest had related to Scott the guilt that he felt for leaving Frankford and returning home, while Dr. Barnes was still missing, but since there was no sign of the missing scientist in Frankford, it did not seem logical to remain in the town.
"We can do a more thorough search from the Compound," Dr. Quest had explained. "I have some contacts with the state police, and I'll tell them what we know already. I'll do everything that I can to help reunite you with your father."
Scott was thankful that he had come to know the Quests and Bannons. He did not know if he would have been able to find his father without them. Even if he had been able to obtain a copy of his father's formula, who could say that the criminals would have cooperated and actually released his father. More likely they would have killed both Scott and Dr. Barnes after gaining possession of the invisibility potion, and then they would have disappeared forever. No, it's better that they're all in custody now, Scott thought to himself, as he sat in the passenger seat of Race's Camero. Even if they never found his father, at least no one would be able to abuse his invention.
Scott glanced at the vanity mirror to steal a view of Jessie, who was sitting in the back seat. She was staring out of the window, watching the winter scenery flash by, but her expression suggested that her thoughts were a million miles away. Scott was concerned about her. When she had run into him quite literally the previous night, she had seemed absolutely terrified. Of course she had a right to be, Scott reasoned, but even after she realized who he was and had stopped fighting him, what he had seen in her eyes unnerved him. She had seemed lost. This Jessie was very different than the one with whom he had shared a bagel in the coffee shop, just after escaping from the back of the criminals' van. Something about the warehouse must have been infinitely more terrifying than the van experience. Ever since then, she had been distant, avoided answering any direct questions, and spent as much time alone as she could. He did not know her well, but he knew that he cared for her. She was beautiful and kind, and although he had known her for only a couple of days, and during that time they had been fighting for their lives, he had seen glimpses of a spirited personality. She had told him about some of the places to which she and her family had traveled, and the adventures that they had had. She sounded like a fascinating person, and he really wanted to have the chance to get to know her, but whatever had happened to her in that building really affected her mind. Or maybe it was just everything over the past few days building up to a climax, and the warehouse experience had simply pushed her over the edge. He hoped that once she returned home she would recover quickly. And he intended to help.
The two cars wound their way up the long driveway and pulled up to the mansion about 1:00 PM. Estella was waiting for them on the front steps, and when Race's car doors opened, and Jessie climbed out onto the driveway, Estella ran to her, with tears in her eyes.
"Oh, Jessie! Thank God that you're all right." She held Jessie so tightly that her hands were turning white. "I was biting my fingernails all day yesterday."
"I'm fine, Mom," Jessie replied, breathlessly, extracting herself from her mother's grip. "Really," she smiled. "We're all okay."
"Yeah, Estella," Race agreed, coming up behind Jessie and wrapping his arm around her shoulders, "We'll tell you the whole story inside." The three Bannons followed the others into the mansion and settled into the living room, which still bore the stunning Christmas tree, although unlit.
"I didn't even bother getting a tree, this year," Scott mentioned to no one in particular. "Dad had been working practically 24 hours a day to finished the formula and package it, so he could send it to his partners in San Francisco. Then when he disappeared, celebrating Christmas fell to the bottom of my list. I didn't even notice Christmas Day." He paused and then looked up suddenly, realizing that all eyes were on him. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to go on like that.
"It's perfectly all right," Dr. Quest told him, leaning back in his armchair by the windows. "But let me ask you something. You said that your father was worried about the potion falling into the wrong hands. Was he certain that he could trust his partners, to
whom he sent the formula?"
"Oh, you can trust them," Scott nodded, straightening in his place on the couch with Jessie and Jonny. "It's mainly my father's brother Alex and his associate Peter Johansson. They're all right. But after my father mailed the package, he really began having doubts about whether or not he should be reproducing this solution. He was about to call my uncle to tell him not to analyze it, but..."
"Why did he tell the press about his invention?" Race wondered.
"Well I don't think that he did. Even when he was still excited about finding the correct formula, he still understood the need for secrecy. I think that one of the technicians leaked the information to the press. My father gave an interview in one of the scientific journals a few weeks ago, but he never mentioned the invisibility potion. The journal must have heard that from another source." He stopped speaking, clenching his teeth, visibly angry about the betrayal toward his father. "If I ever find out who told the press..." He let his last comment fall, without finishing the thought out loud. For a moment nobody spoke, as everyone considered the situation. Then Race sighed and said,
"I just don't understand where they would have hidden your father. He wasn't at the factory, which appeared to be their base of operation, and he wasn't at the warehouse in the alley."
"Well think about it logically," Benton said, appearing to be trying to put the pieces of a puzzle together in his mind. "These men needed Dr. Barnes accessible in case Scott demanded proof that he was still alive and also so that they could keep him alive. Not to mention so that he wouldn't escape. So he would have had to be with them most of the time. But then you were captured, Scott," Benton turned his attention to the young man, "and they probably worried about you knowing where your father was, so they moved him to somewhere less accessible to wherever you were going to be."
"Now that they're all in custody," Scott shook his head, "my father could be stuck somewhere, starving to death. That is if they didn't kill him already." Benton leaned forward in his armchair, resting one arm across his knee.
"If your father is alive, we will find him," he said, assuredly, although not entirely convinced himself.
Half an hour later Scott sat alone on the bed in his guest room. This house certainly was something, he thought, glancing around at the photographs decorating the walls. They were all black and white scenic prints of different places. One showed the ocean right before a storm, the sky hidden behind a multitude of clouds all different shades of gray. Another depicted a mountain range—maybe the Rockies or the Grand Tetons, Scott decided—capped with snow, as evergreen trees grew at its base. Each photograph was matted and framed, and on the mat at the bottom it was signed Rachel Quest. Scott was not sure who Rachel Quest was, but he understood that she must be a fantastic artist.
His gaze returned to the door of the room, which he had left ajar. He knew that Hadji's, Jonny's, and Jessie's rooms were just down the hall. He wondered if he should go knock on Jessie's door. She had retreated to her room after she, Jonny, and Hadji had given him the "grand tour," which really was grand in his opinion. The mansion consisted of only two floors, but it made up in square footage what it lacked in height. They began the tour in the main hall on the first floor, which extended from the front door to the back door.
"Dad had the house designed that way for convenience," Jonny had explained, "but it worked out better than we could have imagined. It's good to be able to keep an eye on the front and back doors at the same time, in case someone's trying to break in." The house was actually made up of several smaller buildings all connected together, as if the house had originally just consisted of the main part of the house. But that part of the house now made up the middle section of the H-shaped Compound, which also included an extra building for the garage.
The living room was on the left side of the main hall, just inside the front door. A few steps past the living room, on the other side of the hall, was the door to Dr. Quest's study, which Jonny told Scott was usually locked for security reasons. Scott supposed that Dr. Quest would have the need for an extensive security system in this mansion. First of all he was beyond what most people considered wealthy, but more than that, Scott knew from his own father that Dr. Quest had been producing inventions over the past 25 years that had revolutionized the scientific would. Scott imagined that many criminal organizations would pay big money to get their hands on either Dr. Quest or his inventions, and now Scott had first-hand experience of that very same thing.
Continuing down the main hall, they passed the main staircase on the left and came to the dining room on the right side of the hall, and the library on the left. Entering the library from the main hall, Scott noticed how the light from the two windows on the opposite wall (one in the alcove under the main staircase) filled the room, casting shadows on the bookcases, and giving the room an aura of being older than the rest of the house. The hardwood floor sported several large red cord rugs, which integrated with the armchairs by the windows, the computer desks along the wall to the right of the door, and the towering bookshelves to the left of the door.
Another door to the room led to another hallway, which crossed the main hall halfway between the front and back doors. On one end of this hall, between the living room and library, was the main staircase, and on the other end was the kitchen, which was technically in a separate building than the main part of the house. The kitchen attached to the main house through two doorways—one in the hallway leading to the stairs and the other one in the dining room, which was pretty magnificent, with a long table that seated ten people.
"We eat in the kitchen most of the time," Jessie had said, motioning toward the round table in the middle of the room. "There are only five of us living here, so there's no point in sitting at the dining room table." Scott had to admit that for a kitchen with all of the modern conveniences, it did look pretty cozy—the sunlight from the two kitchen windows shining on the white eyelet tablecloth covering a red one. Scott smiled, thinking that Jessie must have had quite a bit of influence on this house full of men. On the opposite side of the kitchen from the hall, were the laundry room and garage. There was also a doorway leading outside of the kitchen and to the driveway. Another door from the kitchen led to a game room with a pool table and a big screen TV.
"The walls in here are soundproof," Jonny explained, "so we can turn up the radio or TV as loud as we want, and we won't disturb our fathers."
As they made their way toward the opposite side of the house, walking back through the kitchen and into the hallway, Scott noticed several pieces of artwork hanging on either side of the hall. A light was mounted above each painting, illuminating each brilliantly. Certainly the walk to and from the kitchen was not a boring one, he thought to himself, as they made their way back to the main hall and turned left toward the living room. They walked through the living room, passing the Christmas tree on their left and the giant window facing the front lawn.
"Dr. Quest likes each room to very 'open,'" Hadji explained, noting how Scott shielded his eyes from the sunlight pouring through the living room window. They passed the fireplace on their right and continued on into the larger family room with two huge windows facing the cliffs, which surrounded the mansion on three sides, and a large-screen TV. On one side of the family room, facing the cliffs, was Race's suite, and on the other side, facing the front yard, were two guest suites.
"Well this house is pretty amazing," Scott said, turning back to the living room to head for the main staircase leading upstairs, but Jonny looked at him and smiled.
"We have another staircase." He led the way back through the house to the game room, and opened a closet door on the opposite side of the room. Scott followed and, stepping through the doorway, he discovered that this was no ordinary closet. He smiled, amused at the sight of the hidden staircase.
"I feel like I'm living out a game of Clue."
The four teenagers proceeded up a couple of steps, turning right at the landing and continuing up another long flight of stairs, finally reaching the second floor, in what Jonny called "the West Wing." This wing contained mainly guest rooms, and so they continued on into the main part of the house, which had one main hallway extending to the other side, where the main staircase joined the second floor. On the right side of the hall, facing the cliffs were three more guest rooms, but on the left side were Dr. Quest's room, a sitting room with some large armchairs and bookshelves, and a computer lab. Instead of returning to the main floor, by way of the main staircase, however, the four new friends, turned left at the stairs and headed down a smaller hallway, which led straight to a balcony, which extended the length of the main part of the house, and overlooked the snow-covered front lawn. The sitting room and Dr. Quest's room also had doors leading to the balcony.
After gazing out the window at the expansive lawn, the four turned to their right and walked through a doorway, which led to "the East Wing," which housed Jessie, Hadji, and Jonny's rooms, and the room that would be Scott's guestroom, which had a panoramic view of the cliffs on three walls of his room.
The sight had taken Scott's breath away, and he wondered how he would be able to return home after visiting here. With that the tour had ended, and the boys and Jessie had left him there to get settled.
As Scott sat on his guest bed, his mind wandered back to his father and everything that had happened over the past few days. He wanted to believe so badly that his father was alive but—(rring). His cell phone suddenly began its quiet ring, and he pulled it out of his pocket and answered on the third ring.
"Hello?" he said, tentatively. Few people had his cell phone number, so he wondered who would be calling.
"Scott! It's me, son."
"Dad!" Scott was so overwhelmed by the surprise of hearing his father's voice, that he could barely form the words to respond, "Where are you? Are—are you all right?"
"I'm all right," Dr Barnes answered. "I escaped last night, and I walked all night until I found a town from which to call you. Where are you?" he asked urgently. "Are you safe?"
"I'm at Dr. Benton Quest's home, Dad. It's a long story, but I'm safe. Dr. Quest has been helping me try to find you. He's had the state police looking for you. Look," Scott hurried on, not allowing his father time to reply. "Where are you? We'll come and get you."
Jonny was sitting at his computer console, his hands on the keyboard, but he was not typing. Hadji stood to his left looking out the window at the grounds, which stretched to the cliffs overlooking the ocean. Jonny had not had much of an opportunity until now to talk to his adopted brother about what had happened to him the previous day, but now that he did, Hadji had clammed up.
Jonny and Hadji had always had a close relationship; Jonny felt that he could talk to his friend about anything, but he found it difficult now to express his relief that Hadji was all right. He could not seem to formulate his feelings into words, but he was sure that Hadji knew already how Jonny felt. Conversely Jonny knew that Hadji was thinking the same about him. At times the two brothers seemed to be able to read each other's mind. Jonny shuddered when he remembered Jessie saying that she thought that he had been dead. Hadji had told him the same thing, and it had not occurred to Jonny until later what that must have down to his two best friends, first to be kidnapped and on top of that to believe that Jonny had been murdered by their assailants. Now he glanced up at Hadji, who immediately turned from the window to look at his brother. That one, shared look conveyed more than their most involved conversations, and Jonny knew that they understood each other.
Suddenly Scott burst through the open door of Jonny's room and announced, breathlessly,
"My dad called. I know where he is!"
The Quest Chopper landed at Peabody Airfield just outside of Warren, the town from which Dr. Barnes had called only 40 minutes earlier. The helicopter had made exceptional time and arrived shortly after 3:15 PM. Race removed the key from the ignition and climbed out of the driver's side door, as the rest of the family and Scott poured out of the right side of the chopper and onto the pavement outside.
Three state police officers had been dispatched upon hearing from Benton Quest of Dr. Barnes's escape and met the Quests at the airfield as they made their way toward the buildings twenty yards away. The officers, who had arrived in two cars, chauffeured the concerned family into town to meet Dr. Barnes at Warren Park, where he had agreed to wait. He had agreed that he should wait in an open and public place, in case any associates of the criminals, who had not yet been apprehended, should realize the scientist's whereabouts.
When the two cop cars pulled up to the small town park, Scott immediately sighted his father sitting on a bench in the snow-covered park feeding some ducks, who were taking advantage of the only partially ice-covered pond.
"Dad," Scott shouted, as he ran to his father and threw his arms around him. "Oh, I'm so glad that you're all right."
"Well, thank you," the scientist gasped, pulling himself from his son's death grip. "Now tell me how you've made friends with Dr. Benton Quest."
The eight new friends shared a collective sigh of relief as they sipped hot cider in the living room of the Quest Compound that evening. After Dr. Barnes had told the police where he had been all this time, Benton had invited Dr. Barnes and his son to stay at the mansion that night.
Joseph Barnes had originally been taken to the chemical factory and had been held there from Saturday the 23rd until early morning on Wednesday. He had not known why at the time, but about 5:00 AM, the crime boss threw Dr. Barnes in the trunk of his car and drove him to the boss's house in the country. There the boss locked Dr. Barnes in the cellar, which was separate from the house. After that no one came back for him or brought him food, and by that night he decided that he had to escape before he starved to death. Even though he had been attempting all week to escape, it was his newly discovered determination that finally helped him to loosen the ropes around his wrists. He rushed up the stairs of the cellar but found the wooden doors locked from the outside. After searching the root cellar, he found a rusted metal pole, which he used to rip apart the wooden slats and pry open the cellar doors. He then climbed out of his prison and ran to the nearest road, which he followed all night and all morning before he reached the little town of Warren.
"It truly is an amazing story," Benton said to his new friend. "We are all very lucky that none of us was seriously injured."
"I want to thank you, Dr. Quest, for taking care of my son," Dr. Barnes said, before drinking deeply from his mug of cider.
"It was my pleasure. Scott is a wonderful young man, and he assisted my sons and Jessie more than I can say. And please, call me Benton."
"Oh, all right," said the other scientist, "but only if you'll call me Joe."
"Joe," Benton nodded, smiling, "you and I must get together sometime soon and discuss physics. I am absolutely fascinated by the thesis that you wrote in the Stamford Business Journal about..." By then conversations had begun to spawn among the other occupants of the cozy living room. Flames crackled in the fireplace, and everyone seemed content for the first time in several days. Like the smoke rising up through the chimney, their voices dissipated into the starry winter night.