Chapter 29: Checkmate
An associate at my dad’s law office has set up a meeting with a specialist from the bank. The date of the meeting happens to be exactly two weeks after my parents’ death. The box has been locked in my dad’s safe at the office since we found it, so as I take it out, the shock of holding something that has brought so much death nearly knocks me down. As I walk the box through the empty building into my dad’s office, I find that the specialist standing at my dad’s desk is around my dad’s age with thinning white hair and a beard to match.
A news reporter sits in a chair, tapping her foot nervously against the floor anxiously awaiting her big break. I set the box on the desk, wishing Joanna could be here for this, but she is just getting out of class, and this can’t wait any longer.
The specialist’s cool hands shake mine as he says, “Your dad would be proud of you.”
I shake my head in agreement, as I open the lid to the box. Here goes nothing, there’s no telling how much could be in it.
I take a seat in the chair beside the reporter as the specialist puts on a pair of gloves and inspects the first few notes. At first, I meticulously watch his every move, waiting for the announcement, but it becomes clear by his methodical process that it could be a while before he says anything. So, I turn my attention to the reporter who is scribbling in a notebook.
She looks like a natural born reporter—her thin glasses covering the brim of her nose, while short red hair accents her pale complexion with a layer of bangs covering her forehead. Typical news reporter, they are all the same.
I watch the minute hand on the clock tick by as the man digs through multiple stacks of notes and coins in the box. Eventually, he looks up at me, “It’s amazing. This was in Everton the whole time and nobody knew about it. My first estimate is the contents of this box are worth a little over five million dollars today. But that’s the low end, it could be as much as ten, there are some rare coins and notes that need to be looked at more closely.”
The reporter gets up and walks over behind the desk while writing in her notebook, as I stand up, looking towards the ceiling with my eyes closed in amazement. Wow! Five million dollars, I don’t even know what to do with that much money. I should call Joanna.
Before I can open my eyes, there is a loud vibrating noise followed by a slight crash. My eyes open to find the specialist on the floor with his eyes closed while the red headed reporter comes dashing towards me with a stun gun. She forces me up against the filing cabinet as the faint smell of vanilla creeps up my nose.
I yell, “What the hell? Ryleigh!”
She stares into my eyes, her features looking nothing like the Ryleigh from a couple weeks ago. “What? I couldn’t let you run off with my money—off into the sunset with Barbie.”
“How are you even here? They said you left.”
A wicked grin comes across her face, “Sugar, I’ve been ten moves ahead of you from the start.” She kisses me on the cheek, “Have I ever told you how much I love chess?”
I shake my head no, as I take a glance towards the motionless man on the floor. She continues, “Well to understand how I’m here, you’ll have to understand how much I love chess. You see, it wasn’t my brother that concocted this scavenger hunt for our family fortune, although his weak mind probably thinks he did, but it was me.”
She brushes the stun gun against the side of my face. I can’t decide whether to sit by and let her talk or try to overpower her right now. One powerful jolt from the gun, and I’m on the floor like the specialist.
“I’ve been organizing my own chess match while everyone else has merrily played their part. Take your beloved police force, for example. All it took was getting Jim on the force, and wha-la, they were but a pawn in my match, staying out of the way when I wanted them to and putting the pressure on when needed. Except for when they almost caught us in Burkeville. Jim almost messed that one up. He was supposed to have the search only centered on Everton.”
I interrupt, “Why would you do this? You’re a monster.”
She backs away from me a few steps, but she keeps the gun pointing in my direction. “It doesn’t matter why; the point is I did. But you wouldn’t know because you were a pawn the whole time, too. Becoming your girlfriend, befriending your parents, unexpectedly having to aid you with your memory, keeping an eye on you and setting up fake news credentials for today, the list goes on and on.”
“What about your brother? He killed my parents and dictated everything in the mansion.”
She laughs, spit hitting me in the face as she shakes her head. “You’re still not getting it. Jim played the part I led him to play, the king, and he did play it well most of the time. He acted as if he was in charge because that's how I set it up, but he could only move one space at a time. Everyone was so concentrated on the pawns or trying to find the king and get him in checkmate that they forget about me, the queen. I was able to move and act as I pleased, lying in wait for my final move. CHECKMATE!”
My muscles tense up from agitation as she closes the distance between us. I want to fight, but I’m at a loss, cemented to the floor, trying to take in what has happened. She jabs the stun gun into my neck but nothing happens, she hasn’t clicked the button that releases the electricity.
Her lips brush against my ear as she whispers, “Don’t worry, it will only hurt for a moment. When you wake up, I’ll be gone. But I’ll leave you a parting gift, something highlighting James’ weakness that was left behind in the safe for our family, and I might even leave you something to share with Joanna.”
She kisses my cheek once more before a shock of electricity runs down my spine. The pain starts in my twitching neck and ends with a crash to the floor. My eyes shut and the pain bleeds out of existence.
“Ryan, Ryan!” a voice calls out, my cheeks stinging from repeated impacts. My eyes open, finding Joanna’s glowing face hovering over me. As she helps me sit up, I notice the specialist is gone. Sensing my confusion, she responds, “He’s out in the lobby, calling the police. What happened?”
With my throat itching, I reply, “Ryleigh, she wasn’t an accomplice. She was behind the whole thing.”
She struggles to help me to my feet. I’m still disoriented as we walk over to the box sitting on the desk. The box is nearly empty except for a few coins and a small amount of notes. Maybe part of her did care for me or perhaps 4.9 million dollars was enough for her.
She wraps her arms around me, saying, “We will be fine. There are more important things than wealth.”
My lips press gently on her forehead. “I know, but it sure would have been nice. Maybe you were right, we should leave all this alone. Learn from it and cherish each other, but leave anything dealing with the Gate family in the past.”
Joanna picks up the top note, and shoves it in front of my face. There is a red lipstick stain on the right corner. Her face scowls up at mine, “Guess this one is for you?”
Ignoring her sarcasm, I pick up some of the coins. Under the grouped coins, I find a letter folded up, crinkled and worn by time like James’ diary entry from the file. There are water drips staining the parchment as I unfold it. Like a cheap 3-D illusion, the name James Gate seems to jump off the paper sending my mind into a free for all.
It had been one thing to chalk Jim’s delusions up to insanity. Then Ryleigh’s manipulations broke through the fog sending everything into oblivion, but finding this sends my mind somewhere far worse. A place where delusions of grandeur are a part of human nature. The black and the white muddied together in the slop of life. The good and the bad fighting for control within man’s deceitful heart.
Are any of us actually clean? Am I basically good? I’ve had my share of shortcomings, but I’ve never questioned my heart and overall goodness. But my eyes have been opened, and the mirror is pointed straight at me. Sure, I might not act out every insane compulsion or be completely lost in my own crazed mind like Ryleigh and Ji
m, but I almost let the pain overcome me. There is something simplistic about the Gate family that I can’t separate from my own behavior. It’s the need to be the best and use everything to get there, even if it means giving into to paranoia and selfishness. Unfortunately, even while knowing the truth, Ryleigh and Jim followed the wrong footsteps of their departed ancestors and were given over to their black heart’s desires.
But it wasn’t just them; everyone buries truths within them that they don’t want to listen to for one reason or another. Some bury it subconsciously, as I did with the murder, while others bury it out of want or need, so that even while the truth is staring them in the face they can’t see it, like how I forget I knew Ryleigh, which inhibited me from seeing what she really was in reality.
Yep, from my experience, the truth is either light that will set a man free if he listens, which will lead to true life, or its darkness that can easily overpower him, sending him into a destructive world of his own creation, and that type of self-satisfying truth will ultimately lead to death. Through the trauma and heartache, the hard part is for someone to understand that there is both an honest and dark truth waiting to be uncovered. Then the key to staying alive is identifying that the dark truth isn’t truth at all but self-deception. I and James Gate the first learned that difference, our fates intertwined, but not the same, for I learned that difference with a full life ahead of me, while he learned it only just before death.
‘James Gate
I fear I have lost my sensibility. My mood is always one of fear and trembling towards everyone around me. I feel as though everyone is out to get me. Including my dear friend Jonathan and my very own wife. It's as if my entire family wants me dead. I can’t trust my thoughts or my actions for I have for some time now been one man split in two. The better part of me remains only within my mind, ever since the night when I but a boy was left all alone. I have fought the darker half of myself, struggling for control. Now that fight has ended, buts it’s too late for me in this life. In this box holds my family honor and fortune. I don’t know who is friend and who is foe. My mind has been far too deranged for so long, that to struggle to my dying breath in search of knowing what is real and what is not would only feed my darker half. If this is all in my head, then I apologize to my family and Jonathan. But, there is a certain truth to it, for I know someone is after my wealth, a wealth born out of greed. I alone can carry the guilt of my life, and I alone will bury it, but I have a hope that a purpose much bigger than my own will accompany me after death. If anyone were to find the fortune, use it for good. It may all be but delusion within my own mind, but the mind is wicked and will lead you into sorrow. Stay in the light or death will prevail.’
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