Malcolm and Ives 02 - Trouble With Air and Magic

by Patricia Rice

  As it was, Ryan Franklin’s aging friend looked up just as the guard blocked the office door, weapon in hand. Ouch. Conan bet Dorrie wouldn’t approve of guns in the office, so he didn’t show her. “Call your dad now. Zimmer is about to get frisked, and that should be fun.”

  “He’s already on his way,” Dorrie reported a few seconds later. “Tillie is screaming about a server blowing, and he’s riding to the rescue. Not that he knows anything about computers, mind you,” she added. “He just needs to feel needed.”

  “Got it. Here he comes. Zimmer is cursing and trying to elbow the guard to death. He’s pretty bony. That’s gotta hurt.”

  “You’re a jerk, Oswin,” she told him without wrath. “But thank you for catching the bastard. Just don’t let Papa get too overwrought.”

  “I love you, too, beautiful. Where will you be when I drive back up there?”

  “Heading for Mojave. Your brother checked and General Adams’ murdering son has skipped town.”

  Conan stared at the phone in disbelief. Mojave? A murderer was on the loose and she was heading to the desert? Without him?

  As he’d gone to the office without her. Damn. Payback was a bitch.

  Chapter 29

  Conan’s cell phone video cut off just after he sent Dorrie shots of her father roaring his wheelchair down the tiled corridor, screaming at someone other than herself. It had been an interesting shot. She had to wonder if Ryan Franklin was shouting at Conan, Zimmer, or the security guard. Probably all three.

  But what she took away from the scene was that her father hadn’t died from the pressure, that his wheelchair worked better on tile than the carpet she would have installed, and that the problem at the office had nothing to do with Bo. Conan was right. She hadn’t needed to be at the office to watch her father suffer the betrayal of a man he called a friend.

  She’d like to believe that actually sharing the performance with her might be a little more than Conan would have done when she’d first met him. She wanted to think that he’d learned a little from her, just as she’d grown new horizons from watching him.

  Now she had to take the lessons learned and build on them.

  Independence could be hers, if she had the courage.

  Dorrie hugged Toto and left him with Amy and the kids. They were happily following Dorrie’s suggestion and decorating Oz’s unfinished rec room. They were painting wood frames green for the family photos, all good symbols for the family sector. They didn’t ask where she and the Oswins were going. She still couldn’t bear to raise their hopes.

  As her frail bones demanded, Grandmother stayed in the security of Oz’s mansion and acted as command central. The house was a mini-fortress despite its unfinished state.

  Ling Fai had already called Cho and Francesca to help in the search for Bo. Francesca’s psychic abilities might pick up more GPS signals if they were close to Bo. And Dorrie had photos of both Magnus and Bo for Cho to target with his finding gift.

  Jack and Tom were going with them to help as they could.

  The Oswins and her cousins set out in separate vehicles. Jack and Tom commandeered the Hummer that Oz summoned from his pool of vehicles. Her cousins weren’t inclined to express their thoughts, but Dorrie knew they would be having fun with the high-powered vehicle.

  Bo would have, too, if he’d been there. The ache in her heart that was her missing brother became unbearable just watching the cousins with whom he’d once played.

  Dorrie rode with Pippa and Oz in his BMW. While Conan’s brother and sister-in-law discussed impossible strategies to find what was lost in the middle of a desert, Dorrie called her father.

  “Are you back in charge?” she asked, keeping her tone light when he answered, hiding her hope. As much as anything else, she was thrilled that Conan had actually dragged Ryan Franklin out of his comfortable hiding place and back into the world.

  “Where the hell are you?” her father grumbled. “The office is shot to hell and we need you here to calm things down.”

  Interesting approach. Had her father actually been listening to her all these years? “Cheerful music, a pizza party, send everyone a bamboo plant as a gift for keeping up without you,” she suggested. “You don’t need me there for that.”

  “A bamboo plant? What kind of screwy—” He backed off and finished grudgingly, “Pizza sounds good. They can’t get anything done until we have the computers back online.”

  “Is Conan with you?” she asked, astonished by her father’s new demeanor and looking for a reason.

  “He brought in a crew to get the servers running again. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you about Zimmer. He must have gone senile without me noticing. He said he wished he’d slashed you instead of your tires. No one slashed your tires, did they?”

  Dorrie shuddered. “Someone did. That’s why I called in Conan, remember?”

  Her father paused, probably because his memory still wasn’t the most stable. He returned to his original thought. “I don’t know about vandals, but Zimmer was ranting about how he should have been in charge instead of you. Old fart can’t find his own rear end with his hand, and he thought he was better than my daughter?”

  Still horror struck by how much the crazy old man hated her, Dorrie was caught off guard by her father’s question. Astounded, she stared at the phone as if it had grown an ear. Her father thought she was good at running the office?

  Zimmer was probably right that he’d have been better as the business manager, but the foundation was more about people than money. She supposed she did have a few advantages when it came to making decisions about clients. Fighting the pain that her unnatural gift had caused her more than one enemy, she let her father’s confidence in her boost her esteem a little.

  She added a smile to her voice just for him. “You can put me in charge of deciding on the tough cases, but you and Bo are the business managers, not me. You didn’t answer earlier—is Conan still there?”

  “He left after the cops arrived. Oswin is a pain in the ass, but he’s good,” he said with grudging admiration.

  Dorrie chuckled. “A lot of people would agree with you. Will you be okay in the office if he’s left? Do you have a way of getting home?”

  “I have the limo. I don’t need babysitting. Oswin said maybe you ought to stay up there with your friends a while longer. I think he’s still looking for the guy who shot at you. What’s that all about?” he sounded worried.

  Dorrie luxuriated in his unusual concern. Her father would be back to his old self once he settled in, but for now, it was good to be reassured that under all that bluffness, he really cared. “Probably nothing,” she said to soothe him, “but Conan likes to play it safe. I’m having fun up here, so don’t worry about me.”

  “I do worry about you, you know,” her father said gruffly. “You’re all I have left. It’s not right for a parent to outlive a child.”

  “It’s okay, Papa,” she said, blinking back tears. “We’ll be okay. You just be careful and don’t work too hard, please?”

  Pippa turned to look over the backseat as Dorrie hung up. “Is your father all right? Conan hasn’t locked him up or driven him up any walls?”

  Dorrie managed a smile. “He’s fine. He’s better than fine. He’s grieving over Bo. Conan did a good thing dragging him out of the nursing home.”

  “Baby bro isn’t good at explaining things, but he’s good at getting things done,” Oz threw over his shoulder. “Is he on his way back here?”

  “You think he’d tell us if he was?” Dorrie asked, calling his number next.

  Both Pippa and Oz exchanged knowing looks when her call went to Conan’s voicemail. It was like dealing with a ghost—now he was there, now he wasn’t.

  Tucking the phone he’d bought for her into the purse Pippa had loaned her, Dorrie thought sadly that she might as well get used to Conan not being there.

  ***

  Dorrie nervously climbed out of the BMW after Oz parked it in the Mojave airport parking
lot. It wasn’t a busy passenger airport. Industrial and business planes would be her guess. Shimmering in the heat, the blacktopped lot was nearly empty. The sky was cloudless. She was glad it was nearly October so they weren’t totally frying.

  Jack and Tom left the Hummer to join them. “Once Cho and Francesca arrive, we need to divide the area into a grid, break into pairs, use the airport as our central base, and start searching outward.”

  Dorrie translated for the puzzled Oswins. “Cho is a Finder. He takes a mental picture of our target, which is why you needed to bring a photo and an object belonging to Magnus. He picks up—I don’t know, vibrations? Perhaps another form of energy tracing? None of this is scientific. It just increases our odds to a small degree. Francesca is a pilot and the closest we have to a genuine psychic in the family. Grandmother can be uncanny in her predictions, but Francesca can sometimes detect thoughts. She’s better when she can see faces, but if Bo and Magnus are close by and thinking hard, she might hear them.”

  “Wow,” Pippa said in awe. “I wish I’d known your family while I was growing up.”

  Jack snorted. “No, you don’t. Cho could find our hidden stashes and Franny tattled on everyone unless we bribed her. She still doesn’t make friends easily. We all wanted to be only children.”

  “Besides being bigger than all of us,” Dorrie elbowed her cousin, “Jack picks up traces of who touched an object last. If we took his toys, he knew who had played with them. He never could explain how, so he just beat the stuffing out of the thief.”

  “Did not,” Jack objected, following his brother to the fence. “I just hung them upside down until they coughed it up.”

  Dorrie nodded toward her other detective cousin who was already exploring the sand and gravel along the perimeter. “Tom can smell things others can’t, which isn’t exactly an advantage at the best of times.”

  “Kimchi and dog poop is all I’m getting,” Tom called back in acknowledgment of her explanation. “Nothing here that smells like body odor or decomposition.”

  Jack smacked his brother’s head and Tom shut up.

  Sprawling buildings and aerospace firms surrounded the airport. A convoy of pickups rattled down the road, turning toward the parking lot. One truck veered off toward the administration office under the old control tower. The others pulled up by the fence line, as Oz had done. When they began unloading gear, Oz strolled over to talk to them.

  “Conan’s tracking team,” Pippa explained. “They’re trained to track lost children, but they have other uses.”

  Lost children. Her enigmatic white knight had brought together an entire team to locate lost children! She hadn’t thought he even liked dogs, much less children. And he’d summoned them out here while accosting Zimmer and dragging her father out of his padded cave. Multitasking, indeed.

  A helicopter zoomed in overhead, skimming the control tower and swinging into the landing pad with the dexterity and speed of a military maneuver. Dorrie didn’t even have to ask. She could feel him. Conan was in that helicopter.

  “Does he move mountains, too?” she asked of the air, since everyone had turned to watch Conan’s dramatic entrance.

  “Give him good reason, and the answer is probably yes,” Pippa replied with a touch of annoyed exasperation. “Oz produces drama. Conan is drama.”

  “And he calls me a drama queen.” They were wrong, though. Conan did produce drama. But rather than argue, Dorrie watched the helicopter with anticipation.

  He’d left his computers and his fun at the office to come here because—no matter how insanely—this is where she believed they needed to be. No argument, no fuss, he’d just lined up his crew, hauled them in, and appeared.

  She prayed with all her might that she could find his brother in return for that level of confidence.

  As she watched Conan swing down from the helicopter, wrap-around sunglasses hiding his eyes, lightweight flight jacket concealing his strength, Dorrie ran across the crumbling lot to greet him.

  *

  Conan spotted Dorrie, colorful skirts swirling, curls blowing wildly as she ran, and his heart nearly thumped straight through his chest. His nose for trouble was itching like mad. He’d got here as quickly as he could, terrified she’d headed into the desert and trouble without him. He caught her as she leaped into his arms, and held her so tightly she had to push away to breathe.

  “Don’t ever terrify me like that again,” he ordered, refusing to release her. “I had visions of calling in the military to stop King Kong from tearing up the desert. Damn, Dorrie, wait for me next time.”

  She laughed and wrapped her arms around him and kissed his cheek. “King Kong! Thank you for catching Zimmer and for getting Papa out of the apartment and back where he belongs.”

  Conan knew he was risking his entire livelihood by sticking his neck out this time. Bo and Magnus had been working on a top secret military operation, and this area stank of military. Still, if Dorrie thought there was a chance their brothers were here, he was willing to do whatever it took to find them.

  Oddly, his perfect life didn’t matter as much as he’d thought it did, not if he couldn’t have Magnus back or make Dorrie happy.

  Conan loved the delight in Dorrie’s face as her cousins Francesca and Cho jumped down from the helicopter to join them. He kissed her turned-up nose. “Oz is probably taking pictures of us that he intends to blow up and frame on his walls,” he murmured.

  She laughed and shoved away to hug more of her enigmatic family. He missed holding her against him. But it was good to have her beautiful smile in sight again.

  Her cousins were watching Dorrie for direction.

  “Jack and Tom are creating a search grid,” she explained. “I can’t imagine how that will work.” She gestured at the enormous spread of land and buildings beyond the fence. “We need a magic wand.”

  Conan took her hand and steered her away from the family reunion and toward one of the unmarked vans. “Radios,” he demanded when he reached it.

  His tech guy pried open a box. “One or two?”

  Glancing worriedly at the small woman trustingly holding his hand, Conan sighed. She really would turn into Queen Kong if he tried to leave her behind this time. “Two. We’ll be circling the perimeter while the rest of you set up and square off.”

  Chapter 30

  Wearing the hiking boots Conan had insisted she put on, Dorrie prayed her pounding pulse didn’t prevent her from noticing energy patterns. They’d walked around the airport in ever-widening circles for over an hour now. Conan’s men had produced fancy equipment which she assumed sounded for hollow spaces under the earth or voices hidden behind walls. For all she knew, they had a moonwalker in there. But unless Bo and Magnus were wearing tracking devices, nothing was likely to find them in these vast open spaces.

  Even her cousins were at a loss out here—as she was. Reality sucked. They needed magic.

  They were on a wild goose chase expecting two numbers from an invisible contact to provide the answers they needed. The knowledge slowly sank in as they tramped around still another cactus. The rocks and cacti all looked, smelled, and felt alike. The sun was going down, and the air had developed a distinct chill. They’d have to come back in the morning.

  She’d had high hopes that Cho would be able to zoom in on their target after studying the photos and objects she’d given him. Cho was the most exotic-looking of her family, lean, black-haired, and wearing shades to hide his eyes. He was exploring slightly north of them. She hoped that meant they were close.

  “I smell kimchi,” Conan said unexpectedly. He studied the warehouse-like buildings a hundred yards from where they were walking. “Not a likely place for a restaurant.”

  “Tom said he smelled kimchi earlier. Pickled cabbage doesn’t even need to be heated to stink,” Dorrie pointed out. “Someone may have brought it for their supper.” She sniffed. “I don’t smell it.”

  “That’s because you’ve never been served it for a week, until starvati
on seemed preferable,” Conan said, frowning at the horizon. “Magnus learned to brine any available food when he decided to practice survival as a kid. Damned overachiever. We ate the results until he got tired of that and moved on to scaling walls. I think Dad took a new job just so we could move away from the stink. We never could get it out of the carpet.”

  “I don’t think I want to ask how it got in the carpet.” She halted and studied their surroundings as he did. “Your chi is too strong. I don’t know if I’d notice your brother’s. Let me walk further out, see if I can feel any differences.”

  She knew it sounded silly to people who’d never felt energy, but Conan didn’t argue. She felt him fasten his intense focus on her as she walked toward the desert, as if he could keep her safe just by watching.

  She thought she smelled kimchi, too. Was there any chance the smell was a signal to Conan from his brother? Or…her heart beat faster while fantasizing the impossible. What if Bo had told Magnus about Tom’s weird sense of smell? Would they be hoping he’d show up if Bo got the coordinates out? Could they really be on the right path?

  Denial was more than a river in Egypt, she reminded herself. She didn’t sense any differences in the earth energy nearby. No hollows beneath her feet. No pulsing of human life.

  Their radios crackled. Dorrie hadn’t quite figured hers out yet, but Conan answered his as she walked back to him. Over at their base of operations, she could see people running around and hope soared. She watched Conan expectantly.

  “Francesca is picking up more coordinates,” he told her. “Someone is psychically broadcasting coordinates loud enough for her to sense. They’ve pinpointed the location as half a mile north of where we’re standing. Francesca says she trying to communicate but simply keeps picking up the same signal.”

  “Psychically broadcasting coordinates,” Dorrie repeated in wonder. “I never thought I’d hear the day anyone would say such a thing aloud. Is your brother psychic?”

  “He’s Special Forces scary, but not psychic that I know of. I’ve occasionally wondered if that might be the Librarian’s problem,” he admitted. “She only picks up pieces of things and doesn’t know what to make of them. Or maybe your Francesca picks up signals on different broadcast frequencies. It could mean nothing. Wait for the cars or walk north?” he asked.