No Charm Intended

by Mollie Cox Bryan

  “Why is it so difficult for her to know where he is? He must be using credit cards, cell phone data. Why hasn’t anything turned up yet?”

  “I have no idea, but I can’t really talk too much about it,” he said. “It’s an ongoing investigation.”

  “Okay, but are you still looking for Gracie in Indigo Gap, too?”

  “Absolutely. We really have no reason to stop. We just have one woman’s word that she thought her husband left with Gracie. One woman. Okay, she fits the physical description for Gracie. But we just don’t know yet. Why are you so concerned about this?”

  “Well, Paul is still staying with me until his parents get into town,” she said. “I have to admit. I’m a little nervous. I have a craft retreat going on here.”

  “He’s still staying there, is he? Hmmm,” the detective said. “But you offered him a place to stay.”

  “And now he’s a person of interest,” Cora said.

  “Ah, well, you know, it’s standard procedure to question acquaintances and friends.”

  “But should I be worried?” she persisted. Cashel told his mother that it was a strong possibility that Paul would be called back in. She could not tell the detective that she knew that, though, because it would be breaking a confidence. “How likely is it that Paul is a killer?”

  He didn’t answer right away. “You know, I can’t really tell you that. But caution is in order, in any case. You have a stranger staying in your house.” He paused. “Henry’s death was bizarre.”

  “That’s another thing. He was found at an amusement park?”

  “Yes, the old Oz World. Right on the Yellow Brick Road,” he said. “Hold on.”

  “Okay,” Cora said, and could hear muffled voices over the phone.

  “Cora, look, I have to go. Be careful,” he said. “I appreciate you keeping him there. But even if he’s not the murderer, at the least he’s a young man who is deeply troubled now, with the loss of Gracie and his best friend. You know what I’m saying.”

  “Yes, I think I do,” she said. Besides, someone could still be after him, she thought. Wasn’t anybody concerned about that but her?

  “I’ll see you later,” he said.

  She heard him, but her mind was circling around the words Yellow Brick Road. Where was this place? What was Henry doing there? And did this have anything to do with this game they were talking about the first night they met?

  Cora knew she should really check on the crafters and go to the pottery class to take some photos, but what she wanted to do was search around on the Internet for this theme park. It would only take a few minutes, she told herself.

  She keyed the words “Oz World Theme Park” into a search engine. Soon she was reading a brief history of the now-defunct park Oz World, which was on Indigo Mountain, not too far from Indigo Gap, still far away enough that Henry had to want to be there—if he had gone there willingly, it was something he would have had to plan; it wasn’t as if he would have just stumbled on it.

  She clicked on the images—the Yellow Brick Road, the Enchanted/Haunted Forest, dilapidated structures, sad-looking cement munchkins, which all took on an ominous tone when she considered that Henry had been killed there. And that they had been talking about a Wizard of Oz computer game.

  She glanced at the clock. She absolutely had to go now, or she would not be able to get any shots of Jane’s class. She grabbed her camera and phone, and took off for the carriage house.

  When she walked into the light-filled studio, her heart lifted. The retreaters had fashioned lovely clay charms. The pieces would not be ready until Sunday morning, but Cora envisioned the end products. The crafters had used plants and flowers gathered from their morning walk to make impressions on the small blocks of clay.

  By this point in the class, the pieces were lined up neatly, glazed, and ready to go into the kiln. Some of the women had created round pendants from the clay, while others went with square or oblong, with beautiful floral and leaf imprints in each one of them.

  She snapped a shot of Jane as she helped Maddy make an impression with a tiny flower.

  Jane peered at Cora and forced a smile.

  Uh-oh. Jane was still not happy with Cora. She took a deep breath as she walked toward her.

  “It looks like it’s gone well,” Cora said, trying to keep the subject on the pottery.

  Jane nodded. “Yes. What have you been up to?”

  “I wrote my blog post.”

  “And?”

  “I called Detective Brodsky.”

  Jane’s mouth twisted. “Why?”

  “I was just concerned about Paul staying here now and wanted some assurance.”

  “All right then. What did he say?”

  “Just that it’s, you know, standard procedure for the police to talk with him and all Henry’s friends, but that we should be careful. Paul is distraught, of course,” Cora replied.

  “Is that it, then?” Jane said.

  Cora nodded. There was no reason to tell her about her research into the abandoned theme park. It really led her nowhere. She felt foolish that she had wasted the time. She also felt helpless—and for Cora, that was one of the worst feelings in the world.

  Chapter 21

  When Cora entered Kildare House, it was through the back screened porch that led into the kitchen. Sheila and her daughter were at the kitchen table drinking steaming herbal tea and welcomed her with warm smiles. “I love what you’ve done here,” Sheila said. “Beatrice was right. This is a special place.”

  Cora smiled when she thought of her great-aunt Beatrice and the way she took over her kitchen during the first retreat.

  “Thank you,” Cora said.

  “I’ve thought about organizing a scrapbooking or paper-craft retreat and I just can’t seem to wrap my mind around the details of all that,” Sheila said.

  “I think I can help you with that, Mom. If not me, Desmond certainly could,” Donna said.

  “Desmond?” Cora asked.

  “Her boyfriend,” Sheila said. “He’s just finishing up his degree at Carnegie Mellon University.”

  “Computer programming,” Donna said. “He wants to design computer games. In fact, he’s already designed and sold a few. He’s had some job offers, but I think he’s more suited to freelancing. I’m sure he could help us out a bit, Mom.”

  Gaming? Cora had never heard so much chatter about gaming in one weekend.

  “You seem troubled,” Donna said.

  “Oh,” Cora said, and waved her hand. “You know the man who was killed? Henry? He was a gamer of some kind. It’s all Greek to me.” She pulled up a chair and sat down. “I’ve never really played a computer game and think I’ll survive without ever doing so. But I’m intrigued because its seems like it’s popular, and creative sorts might be able to get jobs there.”

  “Yes,” Donna said. “It takes both sides of your brain—technical and creative, but there are a lot of poets, for example, who are also good with code. It’s a perfect job for them.”

  “Oh, that’s interesting,” Cora said. “Henry was a poet.”

  “How well did you know him?” Sheila said.

  “I only met him once. When Gracie turned up missing, he and Paul stopped by Jane’s place and I happened to be there. And the next day . . . he went missing,” she said.

  “Why did they come to Jane’s?” Sheila asked.

  “Well, Gracie babysat for London, Jane’s daughter, and was with her the day before she disappeared. They were tracing her footsteps, as it were,” Cora said. “Trying to figure out what happened.”

  “Weren’t the police searching for her?” Donna asked.

  “Yes, of course,” Cora said. “But some people feel like that . . . they have to do something. They can’t just sit and wait.” It dawned on her that she might as well have been describing herself.

  “Yes, but it seems like they’d have been better off helping the police search,” Sheila said, and then sipped her tea.

  “I�
�m not certain the police welcomed their help,” Cora said after a moment. “In fact, they offered the police some information and were ignored.”

  “What? That doesn’t seem right,” Donna said, setting her cup down loudly on the table.

  “Wait a minute,” Sheila said. “Why wouldn’t the police want every bit of information they could get their hands on?”

  Cora didn’t know. The more she thought about it, the stranger it seemed.

  “The only thing that makes any sense is that they already had the same information,” Donna said.

  “Or they thought that Paul and Henry were up to no good,” Sheila said after a minute or two. “What was the information? Can you tell us?”

  Cora shrugged. “To tell you the truth, I don’t remember much that was said that night. Just that Paul, Gracie, and Henry were involved in a computer game that had something to do with The Wizard of Oz. And Gracie had gotten high up in the game and started getting threatening and weird messages.”

  “Well, no wonder the police didn’t want to hear that,” Sheila said. “They were worried about a computer game?”

  But alarm came over Donna’s face. “What exactly did they mean?”

  “I have no idea, but the police didn’t even want to discuss it,” Cora replied. “Do you have some idea?”

  “No,” Donna said, “not without talking with Paul. But the gaming community can be ‘interesting.’” She placed finger quotes around the word interesting. “It’s full of brilliant, creative people, but there’s an element that is just kind of creepy. You know, it just sort of attracts all types, and for some reason a lot of troubled types are attracted to gaming.”

  That didn’t surprise Cora. Who would want to sit behind a computer all day and play or design games? Violent and sexist games, to boot. What kind of people want to “play” at that?

  “But I’ve met some wonderful people who are into it,” Sheila said.

  “Oh, I know. I agree. But believe me, there are some real freaks involved,” Donna said.

  “So, could a gamer get, I don’t know, enamored with one of the players and stalk them?” Cora asked.

  “I don’t know. That seems far-fetched, I have to say. A game is sold to a company who sells it to a consumer,” Donna said, then took a sip of tea. “I’m not sure how a gamer would keep track of the buyers. It seems like they wouldn’t even want to. I don’t know. It’s certainly possible.”

  “But your boyfriend, for example, is a freelancer.”

  “Yeah, I think there are some out there. But he sells to companies, not to people. You see what I’m saying?”

  “Yes,” Cora said. “I suppose it is far-fetched. Yet, both men were deeply troubled by it.”

  “Ask him why,” Sheila said. “Could be a straightforward answer. I mean, I know he’s having a hard time now, but it might do some good to talk with him.”

  That’s my line, Cora wanted to say. Instead, she willed away the chill she felt creeping up her spine as she admitted to herself that maybe she really didn’t want to talk with him.

  “But you want to know the weirdest thing?” Cora said. “Henry’s body was found in a local abandoned theme park, the Oz World.”

  “Now that’s not just odd, that’s creepy,” Donna said.

  Chapter 22

  A group of women were gathered in the paper-craft room and laughing. Cora walked by and waved in their direction. She was heading to the attic to download her photos onto the computer for the next blog post. She wasn’t certain she’d be up for it this evening, but tomorrow was another day. Two crafters had broken off from the group and were knitting in the sitting room. The knitters always seemed to find each other.

  As she walked by the living room, Cora was surprised to find Paul sitting on the couch with his laptop on his lap and Liv next to him looking over his shoulder.

  “That is awesome,” Liv exclaimed.

  “You see, if you move the lion, this is what happens. But I can’t get beyond this point,” he said with a frustrated tone.

  Oh, they were playing a game. Cora continued to walk toward the stairs. She was exhausted and desperately wanted to take off her shoes, lie down, and curl up with Luna.

  “And you think that both Henry and Gracie got beyond this point?” Liv said.

  Cora stopped moving.

  “Yeah, I know they did. I think Gracie is one of the few who has made it to the Gates of the Emerald City. One of the few in the country,” he said.

  “So you say when she got to that point she started receiving weird text messages, not just the usual notifications from the game?” Liv said.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  Cora walked toward them and sat on the edge of a chair. Was she invading their privacy? She couldn’t think this was a private moment—after all, they were in the most public space in the house.

  “The messages were from the actual game? That’s wild.”

  “Well, we all get them, and it’s a part of the game. Some of them are kind of threatening, but it’s a part of the game. But hers were personal.”

  “What do you mean?” Liv questioned.

  “Talking about personal things,” he mumbled. “Like parts of her body.”

  “Woah!” Cora said. “That’s no game.”

  Their attention was now on Cora.

  “Oh, some of these games are completely sexist and masochistic.” Liv waved her hand.

  “Why would anybody want to play them?” Cora asked. “Especially women?”

  “Well, Gracie started playing this game because of the gorgeous graphics. Henry and I were playing and she liked to watch. Finally, she started to play. I don’t think the game was sexist at all,” he said, looking at Liv. “Not until she reached the Gates of the Emerald City.”

  “Could another player have gotten ahold of her phone number?” Cora asked.

  “I suppose that’s possible,” he said. “You know there have been credit card scams and theft associated with some of these online games, but this is supposed to be highly protected. And it’s on the Darknet, which makes it even harder for most people to get to.”

  “Darknet?” Cora asked, not liking the sound of that at all.

  “It’s a place on the Web that ordinary users can’t get to. You have to have a certain app to get there. It’s like the underground Internet,” he said. “All completely anonymous.”

  She felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up as a tingle traveled the length of her spine. “What is the point of it?” It sounded to Cora like this could be a breeding ground for all sorts of criminal sorts. Or was she just being paranoid? Sometimes she thought her years as a counselor in a women’s shelter had permanently scarred her—formed her into a paranoid freak, never to trust anybody or any situation completely. But pings of intuition were zooming though her at this moment.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. All I know is it’s supposed to be completely anonymous. People who don’t want to be tracked use it. So the gamers on the Darknet are serious gamers. Some of them seem to be, I don’t know, completely in character all the time.”

  Liv laughed. “Like method actors.”

  Cora never heard of any of this and she considered herself pretty tech savvy.

  Paul went back to clicking around on the game. Cora was pleased to see he was busying himself with something other than moping around over Gracie. But at the same time, she found it a bit puzzling. Why wasn’t he helping to search for Gracie? Why wasn’t he half-crazed with worry? Or was the medication making him mellow?

  Liv rose from the couch. “Well, I can only look at the screen for so long. I’m going for a walk. Anybody care to join me?”

  Paul, still engrossed in his game, waved her off. She shrugged, then walked away.

  Cora sat and mulled over everything she’d just learned. The Darknet. The gaming community. And Gracie being one of the top players in the country on The Wizard of Oz game. Had Gracie been abducted, or did she indeed run off with her college professor? And
how did Henry and his death play into this, if at all? Was the fact that he was found on the Yellow Brick Road of the abandoned theme park a strange coincidence? Or did it have some meaning?

  The thoughts tumbled through her brain and didn’t connect at all. She sighed. “I’m going upstairs for a bit if anybody needs me,” she said, but she was uncertain if Paul heard her at all. She didn’t even have the fortitude to repeat herself. She needed a late-afternoon nap. And that’s all there was to it.

  Chapter 23

  Cora breathed in the lavender-scented sheets and stroked Luna, who purred loudly next to her. She thought of her mother, who had insisted on lavender in the bedroom and on the sheets. It had just become such a part of Cora’s daily ritual. A touchstone to her past. Before her mother and father died, her grandparents bore no love of lavender, but when they found out Cora did, they made certain to have plenty of it around.

  She took deep belly breaths in and out. She hoped to sleep for a good ten or fifteen minutes before dinner.

  Images played in her mind. The Yellow Brick Road. Flying monkeys. Talking trees. Paul. Gracie. Henry. What did all of it mean? She willed those images and questions away and focused on the sweeping hills and stunning wildflowers of North Carolina. Some of which had been pressed into earthy clay charms.

  She awakened abruptly to the sound of her cell phone. Dang, she had forgotten to shut the ringer off.

  It was Cashel, Ruby’s son, and one of the few lawyers in town.

  “Hello,” she said into the cell phone.

  “Did I wake you?”

  “As a matter of fact—”

  “Cora, is my client still staying there? I can’t reach him.”

  “Client? Who? What?” Her brain was foggy and she just wanted to go back to sleep.

  “Paul,” Cashel said.

  “Yes, he’s here. The last I saw him he was on the couch playing a computer game,” she said.

  “Why is he not answering his cell phone?”