Page 48 of Tito
I stared at him as he stepped down.
I stepped down and onto the stairs. Then I gasped as the door behind me or– the wall really– slid shut. “What is going on, Tito?” I asked breathlessly.
He helped me down and then looked around. “I don’t know yet. But damn, the hair on my arms is practically standing up.”
“What?” I asked. “You mean like when they say, the hair on the back of your neck?”
Tito shook his head. “No. I mean for real. And…” His voice fell away. “Valen, your actual hair looks …” He reached out and touched my locks. “Like when you rub a balloon across your head.”
I raised my hands and I found out what he meant. My hair was standing up like it was full of static. “Is it electrified in here?”
“Again, baby. I don’t know." He looked around. “But this isn’t right.”
I looked around like he had. We were in a small space like a closet. “So there was a secret door and it led us to this? A closet?”
“The hell it does,” Tito replied. “I’m not fooled by this closet shit.” He then started running his hands over the wall in front of us.
I watched him and realized he was looking for a switch or something that would open up another door. “Oh wow, this is like one of the places Deacon took me to.”
Tito froze and stared up at me. “I hope not, didn’t one of them explode if you didn’t know a code or something?”
I nodded my head. “Yeah, but this was another location. Do you see a light switch?” I asked him.
He looked around and said, “The lights are already on.” Then he gazed upward. “Only where are the lights?” He grunted in bemusement. “What’s lighting this place up?”
I kept looking for it along the wall. Then I turned around to look at the wall by the stairway. Spotting a light switch, I stepped over and said, “It goes like this. See the three switches, you start at the 3rd one and it is…” I flipped all three, starting with the one furthest on the right. “3, 2, 1.”
Now we both heard a noise. Then the whole wall slid over as if on rails.
“Well fuck,” Tito exclaimed as he moved me back.
When it opened up, we both stared at a large room. It had a huge fireplace that was fully burning. So the whole area was overly warm.
“What the hell?” Tito started at it. “It’s 70 degrees and the fireplace is lit…” He turned and looked around at the interior of the basement room.
I did the same.
On the far side of the room were monitors and a single office chair on wheels in front of them.
We both went over to them.
One showed the front of the estate, the gatehouse and driveway. The next showed the back of the house. The 3rd and fourth ones were inside the house, showing the main hall. Then the foyer, dining room, study and the main stairway were shown in four parts of the screen.
Tito looked pissed as he swore, “What in the fuck—?”
“Your mother would not approve of all the swearing,” a deep voice spoke from behind us.
We both flipped around.
A man seemed to step out of the large furnace-like fireplace.
I screamed and practically leapt up onto Tito in absolute fear.
“Max?” Tito said.
I peeked around Tito, even as frightened as I was, I had to see this.
“You know me, Sir,” the tall figure replied as the fire disappeared.
