Aware of the rumors about him, Victor no longer talked openly about his concerns. But Slater and Lucas and others in the family were well aware that he had not stopped obsessing over the legend. There was a driven quality about him. His amber eyes were shadowed with the resolve of a man who has a clear vision of the task in front of him; a man who fears time is running out.
The only outward indication of his obsession lay in the paintings that currently covered the walls of his paneled office. The pictures were everywhere, hanging one on top of the other. Several more were stacked on the floor. A few were valuable works of art by the old masters. Others had been created by modern artists. There were also a number of sketches done by Victor himself.
All of the paintings in the room were focused on the same theme: the Oracle of Delphi.
Most of the pictures depicted the Oracle in the classic pose, draped in a hooded robe and seated on a three-legged stool that straddled a crevice deep inside a cave. In that position she inhaled the mysterious vapors that wafted up from the fissure in the rocky floor of the cavern.
Under the influence of the unknown gases, the Oracle hallucinated and saw visions. She delivered prophecies and predictions, usually in the form of cryptic phrases that had to be interpreted by those who paid handsomely to obtain the otherworldly information.
The oracle business had been a very profitable enterprise for the ancient city-state of Delphi, Slater thought, but he was pretty sure that wasn’t why Victor was obsessed with the ancient legend. Victor already had money—a lot of it. He had made a fortune with his hedge fund before retiring to take control of the Foundation.
His first major change was to move the organization from its old headquarters in Los Angeles to Las Vegas. He had made no secret of his reason for the decision. In a town that specialized in creating the illusion of endless night, a world in which Elvis impersonators, magicians, ageless entertainers, shady characters and those afflicted with gambling fever all coexisted, it was easy for an enterprise dedicated to paranormal research to vanish into the shadows.
“Walk me through this,” Slater said. “Why is Catalina Lark going to be a problem?”
Victor heaved a melancholy sigh. “There was an unfortunate incident in Seattle several months ago while you were recovering.”
“You mean while I was locked in the attic.”
Victor glowered but evidently decided to move on.
“A man named George Ingram died,” he said. “The body was found in a vault in his private gallery. The death was attributed to natural causes, but Ingram was a . . . collector, so I decided to take a look at the scene.”
When Victor used the term collector it went without saying that the individual he was talking about was not a standard-issue connoisseur of art. It meant the person was obsessed with objects, artifacts and antiques that had a connection to the paranormal.
“You wanted to know if Ingram was murdered because someone was after an artifact in his collection,” Slater said. He did not make it a question.
“I knew something of Ms. Lark’s talent and I was aware that she had a Fogg Lake connection. I asked her to consult on the case.” Victor grunted. “Paid her very well for her time, I might add. It’s not as if I stiffed her when it came to the bill for her services.”
Victor sounded defensive now. A sure sign that he had really screwed up.
“What kind of assistance did you request, and what went wrong?” Slater asked.
Victor had a computer for a brain. He could leapfrog over a dozen scraps of data and reach the logical conclusion. But sometimes you had to take things step-by-step. He tended to skip right past pesky little details that indicated he might have miscalculated.
“It was just a routine analysis job,” Victor muttered. “Nothing to it. All she had to do was take a close look at the scene of Ingram’s death.”
Take a close look was one of Victor’s favorite sayings.
“What’s her talent?” Slater asked.
“She . . . senses things.”
“A lot of people from Fogg Lake sense things,” Slater said. “Be more specific.”
Victor switched his brooding gaze to one of the paintings of the Oracle of Delphi. He contemplated it as though it contained some secret that he needed to know, as if people’s lives depended on acquiring that knowledge.
“Miss Lark sees visions,” he said quietly.
“Hallucinations?”
“No, the real thing,” Victor snapped. “There’s a difference between hallucinating and seeing visions, and you damn well know it.”
“Speaking from experience, I can tell you that there are times when it can be tough to tell the difference.”
Within the paranormal community, the ability to control hallucinations was the working definition of sanity. It was what made it possible to pass for normal.
“Miss Lark’s visions are a manifestation of her strong intuition,” Victor said. “She can read someone’s aura and pick up on the vibe of what the individual is likely to do next.”
Slater glanced at the nearest Oracle painting and shook his head. “You’re not going to tell me that she can see the future, are you? That kind of nonsense is for the Freak crowd.”
Over the years, a number of those who had been affected by the vapors released on the night of the Fogg Lake Incident had found themselves unable to cope with their new senses. Those who failed to gain control of the psychic side of their natures lost the ability to use logic and reason and old-fashioned common sense. All too often they fell into cults or obsessed over conspiracy theories. Some ended up in the locked wards of psychiatric hospitals.
The Freaks had appeared online a couple of years ago. The group had popped up on the Foundation’s alert file almost immediately, because several people with links to Fogg Lake had found their way into the secretive group.
Until recently Victor had not been particularly concerned, because the Freaks had appeared to be just another relatively harmless bunch of conspiracy theorists.
Recently, however, the Freaks had begun to work their way up Victor’s long to-do list. There was some indication that one individual in particular was trying to gain control over what had, until now, been a loosely linked crowd of whack-jobs.
Victor shook his head. “Catalina Lark isn’t one of the crazies. She has full control of her talent. The reason she will be a valuable asset is that not only can she pick up on an individual’s future intentions, she can read the energy prints that a perp or a victim leaves behind at the scene of a crime.”
Slater got a ping. Curiosity sparked across his senses. “She can analyze crime scene heat?”
“The same way you can pick up the energy infused into artifacts,” Victor said. “To be clear, I’m as certain as I can be that this is not a Freak case. There’s something else going down in Seattle.”
“What, exactly?”
“Another collector died three days ago. Jeremy Royston. His body was found in his vault. The death was attributed to natural causes. Heart attack.”
“Anything missing from the collection?”
Victor snorted. “By now I’m sure the place has been cleaned out. Somehow the raider crews always seem to get to the scene before the Foundation people arrive.”
“But you think that Royston was murdered for a particular artifact?”
“I think there is a possibility that is the case, yes. I want you to investigate and confirm my theory.”
“Why?”
Victor was silent for a moment. Then he heaved another sigh.
“Because I think that someone or some group is trying to find the old Vortex lab,” he said.
“People have been looking for that facility for decades. There’s no record that it ever existed.”
“There’s no official record that any of the lost labs existed,” Victor said. “But we know that
they did.”
A case focused on a possible Vortex link was most likely a waste of time, Slater thought. But any job was better than returning to his office in the Foundation museum. Victor wasn’t the only one who had become the subject of rumors and speculation in the halls of the archives, museum and research labs.
“I’ll go to Seattle for you and take a look at the scene,” he said. “And I will ask Ms. Lark for her assistance. You said you paid her bill. What did you do that makes you think she might not be willing to help the Foundation again?”
“Nothing,” Victor muttered. “What happened was not my fault.”
This is not going to be good, Slater thought.
“What exactly did happen?” he asked.
“There was some unfortunate publicity in the media. But that was after I left town.”
“Define unfortunate,” Slater said.
Victor cleared his throat. “A reporter somehow got hold of the fact that a psychic had been called to the scene of Ingram’s murder. What followed was a social media frenzy. It didn’t last long, but there were accusations hurled around. The press declared Ms. Lark a fraud.”
“And?”
Victor sighed. “The owner of a Seattle-based consulting firm that does sophisticated crime scene analysis was not helpful when he told a reporter that if Ms. Lark was not an outright fraud she was most likely delusional and should seek professional help. Ms. Lark lost her position as a career counselor. It was after that incident that she and her friend Olivia LeClair decided to open their own investigation business.”
“I see.”
Victor brightened. “I believe their firm is holding its own and may even succeed. But a start-up business always needs cash. It occurs to me that they might be very pleased to consult for the Foundation.”
“Or not.” Slater studied Victor for a moment. “Why do I get the feeling that you aren’t telling me every detail of the fallout from the Ingram case?”
Victor drummed his fingers on the top of his desk. “In addition to losing her job, I think Ms. Lark’s personal life may have been somewhat affected by the media storm.”
“In what way?”
Victor heaved yet another sigh. “Ms. Lark was apparently involved in a personal relationship with Roger Gossard at the time.”
“Who is Gossard?”
“The owner of that crime scene consulting company that I just told you about.”
“Gossard is the person who told a reporter that if Catalina Lark wasn’t a fraud she was delusional and should seek help?”
“Evidently.” Victor sat forward with a purposeful air. “To be absolutely clear, what happened between Lark and Gossard after I left town was not my fault, either. Relationships fall apart all the time.”
“Can’t argue with that.”
Victor slanted him a wary glance. Neither of them mentioned Roanna Powell. There was no need. Relationships did, indeed, fall apart—especially if one of the parties involved had to be locked up for a month due to instability of the paranormal senses.
“Moving right along,” Slater said. “I will contact Ms. Lark and request her help, but considering the fact that you left her in a situation that can only be described as the sum of all FUBAR, I don’t think we can expect her to welcome our business, even if we do pay our bills.”
“Well, she might turn us down,” Victor admitted. “But it’s worth asking her to consult. She’s good, Slater. I’ve never met anyone who could read a crime scene as clearly as she can. And we need all the help we can get on this. We’re not just chasing another Vortex lab rumor this time. Two collectors are dead and I am convinced that they were murdered by whoever is behind this project. We need to move fast.”
“Why send me?” Slater said. “Why not one of the other cleaners?”
“Because I know that while you are not convinced of my theories concerning Vortex, you’ll do a thorough job. I don’t trust the regular team to take this problem seriously. Besides, no one is better than you when it comes to tracing objects with a paranormal provenance. Also, for what it’s worth, I think you’ve got the best shot at convincing Ms. Lark to help us.”
“Why?”
“Because her talent is similar to yours. You hear voices. She sees visions.”
“Made for each other, huh?”
Victor glared. “I’m just saying that the two of you have something in common.”
“Is that right? Has she ever been locked up because she’s delusional?”
“No, and neither have you,” Victor shot back.
Slater smiled a cold, humorless smile. “Not officially. But the only reason I didn’t wind up in Halcyon Manor six months ago was because you and Lucas kept me locked in the attic until the hallucinations finally resolved.”
Victor snorted. “Don’t exaggerate. This penthouse does not even have an attic.”
“Details.”
“You were injured. Your parents were beside themselves with worry. You needed a quiet place to recover. Lucas and I provided it. That’s all there was to it. Now, try to forget what happened six months ago. It’s over. Morgan is dead. You’re alive and stable. That’s all that matters. You need to focus here. We’ve got a possible Vortex problem. We have to deal with it.”
Slater thought about that. He would never be able to forget the disaster that had happened six months earlier. There was still one burning question that had to be answered. But he could not continue to drift through the dusty storerooms of the Foundation archives pretending he was back at work.
“What else can you tell me about Lark and this case?” Slater asked.
“Lucas put together a file for you,” Victor said. He broke off at the sound of a knock on the door. “Come in, Lucas.”
The door opened. Lucas Pine strolled into the room. He looked at Victor, brows slightly elevated.
“Did I hear my name just now?” he asked.
Charming, with a warm smile, a gracious manner and an innate sense of style, Lucas was the exact opposite of Victor in many ways, but the two had been together for nearly twenty years. They had recently formalized the relationship with an over-the-top Vegas wedding hosted at one of the big, glamorous casinos on the Strip. Slater’s mother held the opinion that the enduring relationship was a classic example of the old theory that opposites attract.
There was no denying that Lucas and Victor complemented each other in a way that made them a formidable team.
“Uncle Victor just finished explaining to me that he managed to piss off the investigator I might need to assist me in the Seattle case,” Slater said.
“Right,” Lucas said. “That would be Catalina Lark. Victor threw her whole life into the toilet six months ago.”
“What happened was not my fault,” Victor grumbled. “And for the record, she seems to be doing fine now.”
Lucas ignored him. “You’re going to have your work cut out for you, Slater, but Ms. Lark does have an exceptional talent. It would be very good to have her consult. Try to keep all contact with her on a face-to-face basis if possible, though. Your phone is heavily encrypted, but we think you should stay off of it as much as possible.”
“Understood.” Slater glanced out the window. It was past three now. Maybe he could still catch a couple of hours of sleep before he left for Seattle.
“I’ve got you booked on a six fifteen flight to Seattle,” Lucas continued. “You’ve got just enough time to pack a bag and head to the airport. The flight time is about two hours and forty minutes. Here’s the file. You can review it on the plane.”
So much for a few hours of sleep.
“I’m flying commercial?” Slater said. “I don’t get to use the Foundation jet?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Victor snorted. “Talk about a red flag to whoever might be watching. Besides, do you know how much it costs to put that plane in the a
ir?”
“Petty cash for you,” Slater said.
“Victor is right,” Lucas said. “No sense announcing the fact that the Foundation has taken an interest in the Royston murder.”
“If people are watching, they’re going to figure that out right quick once I start asking questions,” Slater said.
“Every minute of time we can buy up front gives us just that much more of an edge,” Victor said. “Go figure out what the hell is going down in Seattle.”
“On my way,” Slater said.
He went into the hall and closed the door. The thick carpet hushed his footsteps as he made his way through the penthouse.
Out of nowhere, a little rush of exhilaration and anticipation flashed across his senses. It had been a while since he had felt the familiar stirring sensation. The last time had been just before the Morgan case six months ago.
He wondered if the whisper of excitement was an omen and then reminded himself that he didn’t believe in omens and portents. He tightened his grip on the file. He would focus on the unknown Catalina Lark instead.
He walked swiftly through the elegant, high-ceilinged rooms, heading toward the grand foyer, where the butler was waiting.
When he turned one particular corner, he was very careful not to look at the closed door of the room at the end of the hall. He saw enough of the attic in his nightmares.
* * *
—
Victor waited until the door closed behind Slater before he pushed himself out of his chair and crossed the room to the wall of windows overlooking the Strip.
“He still thinks that we locked him up in an attic, Lucas,” he said.
“He doesn’t really believe that.” Lucas moved to stand beside Victor. “Slater knows we did what we had to do to protect him.”
“Why does he keep insisting he was locked away in some damned attic?”
“Because we did lock him up. He was hallucinating wildly. His mind obviously translated that room at the end of the hall into an attic. He probably picked up the imagery from some old horror movie that he saw years ago. It’s okay. He’s stable now. He has been for months.”
The Vanishing Page 4