Chapter Three

A/N: Got behind a few days ago and playing catch up since. So we're posting a little behind what I've actually written. Sorry about the delay.

Ariel Minster hung off the side of the narrow bed, platinum blonde hair pooling on the floor below her head. She’d had a very nice chat with Dr. Welsh, and felt a good deal better, but solitary confinement was boring. Her fingers wanted her keyboard, wanted to dance, to design, to see the code and bare lines whirl together into something new and strange and touchable. She’d finally gotten fur right, and she wanted her laptop and WVG unit to test and explore and-

Her hands dropped limply to her legs, and she pulled herself back up on the bed to drag her fingers through her hair.

With all this, she might never see her laptop every again. Some moron would probably take the thing apart and screw it up and she’d lose half her work trying to get it back together and- Ariel sniffled, tears leaking out of her eyes.

It wouldn’t do any good if no one would hire her ever again. If she was stuck in prison for years and years without her computer, without her design without - anything.

The door rattled, and she propped herself up on her elbows.

“Good afternoon, Miss Minster.”

“Hey, Giordo. It’s afternoon?”

“You slept pretty good.” The big Hispanic cop beckoned her up, turned her gently and cuffed her hands. “You okay?”

“No. Where are we going?”

“Someone’s here to talk to you.”

“Diana Blackburn.” Ariel choked on the name, the sneering face over Paul’s shoulder in the office, just behind that stupid ragged dusty plant that should have been thrown away years ago, gloating, transferring blame, letting Ariel take the blame for what Cal-

“No. A gentleman.”

He led her lightly by the elbow into the empty little mess hall. A gentleman indeed. His cuff links glinted and his suit did not have a single thread out of place. Ariel sat down on the bench across from the man, self conscious of the fact that her plain orange jumpsuit was rumpled and her hair hadn’t been washed in a week.

“Simon Prospero,” he said. “And I assume you’re Ariel Minster?”

“Yes.”

“Pleased to meet you. I recently acquired Sychorax Studios, only to find its lead designer missing. Your coworkers speak highly of you.”

Ariel sat still, watching the man across from her and trying to figure out what he wanted.
“We’d like you back on the team.”

“You’re paying my bail?”

“You’re paying your own bail. I’m putting the money up front, and you’ll pay it back to me.”

Ariel gaped at him. She’d been too rattled during the hearing to think properly, but she was fairly sure the judge had set her bail somewhere in the millions. Prospero took a sheaf of paper from his briefcase. “If you’ll agree to this contract.”

Giordo unlocked the cuffs, and she slid the papers across the table.

“Where do I sign? Do you have a pen?”

Prospero raised an eyebrow. “You don’t want to read it?”

If it got her out, got her back to her laptop and her designs, she would do just about anything he asked. Ariel leaned back. “Just give me the gist.”

“Very well.” Prospero steepled his fingers. “You’ll be on our design team as the design coordinator, with the accompanying pay. You will also act in capacity as my personal assistant. I’ve bought a house up on Old Mill Road, and you will live with my daughter and myself - light housekeeping duties in exchange for room and board and any other personal expenses necessary for your upkeep. My daughter’s name is Miranda. She has agoraphobia and had never been outside our home in Salt Lake. This move has been very traumatic for her, but I believe the small town will be good for coaxing her out of doors. You will share her room and be her companion when you are not working.

“All three jobs - four, depending on your housekeeping abilities - are paid positions, with the entire amount put towards your bail debt.”

“How much do they pay?” Ariel asked.

“That depends on you.”

“In other words, once I sign this, I am at your disposal until you decide I have repaid you.”

“You will never put any less than seventy five thousand dollars towards your debt every year.”

Ariel gaped at the figure - almost seven times what Sychorax had paid her before. “May I have a pen, please?”

She didn’t read the contract, just swirled her initials and signature across it wherever Prospero had highlighted. Giordo acted as witness, and Ariel went back to her cell feeling lighter.

The sun went down before her discharge finally went through, and she changed back into her clothes. It was funny to see herself in the mirror, wide gray pants and airy pale blue top with loose, lacy sleeves. She didn’t look quite right in the clothes, tired as she was from in time in the jail.

They didn’t give her all her things. Evidence, the detective explained, apology all over his face. Her computer was too essential to the investigation. She didn’t even get to see it, to make sure it was alright. Ariel put her backpack over her shoulder, turquoise and silver pendant swinging off the front pocket zipper, and found Prospero waiting for her in the front of the station with no less than three of the force’s burliest officers.

Outside, the press was crammed around the doors, all microphones and cameras and the biggest lights they could drag around with them.

“Ignore them,” Prospero ordered her. “Answer no questions.”

“Yes, sir.”

Sound hit them like a rock slide, and Ariel stuck close to the four men, letting them push a gap through the crowd. Cameras flashed in her face until all she could see was little green and blue specks of light floating across her vision. But she kept her chin up, and slowly let a smile slip across her face. She was out, and she would be designing again, and she didn’t have to work for Diana Blackburn a day longer, the old hag. That thought made a grin break across her whole face, and she gave a little jump of happiness. The reporters exploded around her, pushing microphones into her face, and she ignored every single one, ducking into the front passenger seat of the shiny black Centurion. Prospero eased his way through the crowd of reporters, picking up speed as soon as they turned out of the crowded parking lot onto the street.

She could see all the way to the other end of town from here, glowing neon signs of the small town’s little strip. Further out, on the western horizon was the sea, vast and dark, with a few spots of light where the ships were. Prospero turned the other way, down cracked black pavement, headlights shining where there were no streetlights and only a few porches lit up. The crooked sign for Old Mill Road loomed out of the darkness, and the Centurion climbed the hill easily. The top leveled out a little, with a view of the town’s glittering lights, the long peninsula that was the small state park stretched out into the Pacific Ocean, and the sea itself, white-capped in the moonlight.

Gravel crunched under the wheels as they passed the stone wall into the driveway. A remote control closed the gate behind them. The house sat next to a hill, a two story stone dwelling with a large two-level deck and a long uncovered porch. Several large gables topped the second story, edges of the gutters dripping with a little moss.  The edge of the large property was overgrown with evergreens and other tangled trees and underbrush, but the front of the house was neatly landscaped with low flower beds and an overeager green vine trailing all over the trellis over the front door. Bright lamps hung off the corners of the house, casting the area beyond it in strong shadow.

They parked in a hollow six car garage, all concrete and barren walls and floors. Ariel was abruptly uncomfortable walking across the driveway to the house, and glanced back over her shoulder. The garage had a second story, windows dark, like watching eyes. Her neck prickled. Prospero rang the doorbell, then unlocked the front door and stepped through in front of her. She paused to wipe her feet on the mat, her view blocked by her employer’s shoulders, and was hit abruptly from the side by an obnoxious hug.

“You’re out! Oh, I’m so happy!”

The girl was tall and slim, with untamed curly blond hair and brown eyes. She wore a black pair of Ravenclaw lounge pants, a soft gray t-shirt, and a radiant smile.

“I’m Miranda, but you can call me Randi, if you like. When Daddy said he was going to get you, I thought to myself, O dear, it’s terrible that I’m such a hermit that Daddy has to practically buy me friends out of prison, but then I thought, That’s just the way we meet, and it doesn’t mean we can’t be real, honest friends. So I don’t expect you to think of me as a friend straight off, but we get to share a room, and it’s so lovely here, so we can be roommates first off.  I’ve never had a roommate, have you?”

A little overwhelmed by this barrage, Ariel could only pull together a “Yes.”

“Oh, good! You’ll have to help me along, then. Have you had supper? Because I was about to order a pizza, and we can eat it and shop online and get all matching sheets and bedspreads, and choose paint and rugs, and lamps do you like pictures of dragons? Because I do, and there’s a really cool dragon poster that I brought from Salt Lake that we can put on the wall to start with to coordinate colors around. Do you prefer Domino’s or Pizza Hut?”

“The only take out pizza here is Geribaldi’s Pizzeria,” Ariel replied, still processing everything else.

“A local place?” Miranda looked terribly excited. “Do they make the pizzas by hand, and toss the crust and everything?” She squeaked excitedly when Ariel nodded. “Oh, it’s perfect!” She grabbed Ariel’s hands. “I am going to love it here, and I’m so glad you’re here too, and I promise pinky-swear to be your forever friend, cross my heart.”

Miranda’s excitement was contagious. Ariel felt a smile crack over her face and offered her pinky to the other girl. “Alright.”