“Finding three bodies in the basement is an accident?” Norma’s voice rose. “A serial killer dropping dead in the house is an accident ? The property is a crime scene now. The press is having a field day with the story.”
“I realize it may take some time for the media to lose interest, but I’m sure that in a few months everyone will forget about what happened at the Zander house,” Isabella said soothingly.
“Not a chance. That property is never going to be marketable. The only reason I called is to tell you not to bother to send me a bill for your services. I didn’t get what I paid for and I’m not about to write a check to your agency.”
Outrage splashed through Isabella. “But J&J solved the case.”
“There was no case,” Norma said. She sounded like she was speaking through set teeth. “I hired you to help me get rid of those silly rumors about the property being haunted. I thought if a psychic detective agency declared the place ghost-free, I could sell it. But instead you killed the deal.”
“It isn’t J&J’s fault that the property was a dumping ground for a serial killer.”
“Maybe not, but I’m holding your firm responsible for killing the sale, so do not bother to send me your bill.”
The connection went dead. Isabella closed the phone.
“Bad news,” she said. “Norma Spaulding says she won’t pay our bill. She blames J&J for making the Zander house unmarketable.”
“Told you the case was a waste of time,” Fallon said. “That’s why we don’t like to encourage that kind of work.”
“It’s not our fault that there were bodies in the house.”
“Clients always blame the investigator when they don’t get the answer they want,” Fallon said. “Hell, most of the time they blame the investigator even when they do get the answer they say they want or even the one they expect. It’s the nature of the business, Isabella.”
She slumped in the seat and gazed morosely out the window. “It’s not fair.”
“Here’s a little tip going forward.”
“What?”
“Always get a nonrefundable retainer up front.”
She drummed her fingers on the armrest. “Good idea. I’ll make sure to do that next time.”
Fallon turned off the main street and drove behind the J&J office. He parked under the wide overhang. They climbed out of the SUV. Fallon opened the rear of the vehicle.
“You take the clock,” he said. “I’ll handle the Queen.”
She hoisted the blanket-wrapped clock under one arm and opened the back door of the office. They carried the curiosities upstairs to the landing. Fallon got out his key and opened the door.
Isabella walked into the office ahead of him, switched on the lights and set the clock on the floor in the corner.
“Now what?” she asked.
He closed the door and put the doll on the floor next to the clock. “Like I told Henry and Vera and Walker, an Arcane lab team will collect all of the curiosities tomorrow and take them back to the Society’s main lab in L.A. I want a complete report from the experts. I’d also like to know who brought the gadgets here three decades ago.”
Isabella walked into the tiny kitchenette that adjoined the office and picked up the teakettle. “I sense a new conspiracy theory in the making.”
There was a moment of crystalline silence behind her. She knew she had gone too far.
“Do you think that’s what I do?” Fallon asked, his tone chillingly neutral. “Invent conspiracies?”
The cold, emotionless edge on the words caught her off guard. She turned quickly to face him. Fallon was watching her with a look that matched his tone. She had seen that same expression and felt the deep sense of aloneness that went with it many times since meeting him. It was as if he spent most of his life locked in some other dimension. She longed to reach out to him, but it was not as if she lived in a normal dimension, either. She was certain of one thing, though. She must not move too fast with Fallon Jones. He did not fully trust her yet, and until he crossed that boundary she had to feel her way.
Then, again, she thought, she had not entrusted him with her secrets, either. That makes us even, she thought.
“Of course not,” she said, keeping her voice light with an effort. She turned back to the sink and ran water into the kettle. “It was just a little joke, boss. I’ve got no problems with what you call your conspiracy thinking. After all, most of the time you’re right.” She shut off the faucet and looked at him. “Right?”
Some of the tension went out of him, but it was replaced by some of the soul-deep weariness that she had sensed in him the first time he walked through the door of the café.
“Most of the time,” he said. “Not always. And when I do screw up, I put people in danger.”
“Now you’re talking about the Nightshade case, aren’t you?”
“It’s not just Nightshade. Yesterday at the Zander house, if you hadn’t called me—” He stopped.
“But I did call you,” she pointed out. “What’s more I had enough sense not to go into the basement alone. Give me some credit. I told you, I can take care of myself. I’ve been doing it for years.”
Energy heightened a little in the atmosphere. She knew that he had tapped in to his talent.
He went to the counter where the industrial-size coffeemaker sat, picked up the package of ground coffee and started to fill the machine. He did not bother with a measuring spoon.
“How, exactly, can you take care of yourself?” he asked.
She leaned back against the sink and folded her arms. “That’s one of the things I admire about you, Mr. Jones. Your interrogation technique is so amazingly subtle.”
He filled the machine with water. She noticed that his jaw was clenched.
“I hope you’re not grinding your teeth,” she said. “That sort of thing leads to crowns and root canals.”
“I’ve tried not to push you,” he said.
“I know. You’ve been very patient, all things considered. You weren’t able to find out anything about me online, were you? Just my picture-perfect bio.” She could not conceal her pride. “Even the brilliant director of Jones & Jones hit a brick wall when he went looking for me. Am I good, or what?”
He smiled wryly. “You’re good. I found a nice, neat narrative of your life all the way back to your birth and it’s all fake, isn’t it?”
“Yep.”
“I’ve known from the beginning that you’re running from something or someone.” He flipped the switch on the coffee machine. “You chose Scargill Cove as a hideout, and I’m pretty damn sure that wasn’t by accident.”
“Coincidence?”
“I’ve explained to you that we have this policy about coincidences at J&J.”
“Right,” she said. “Out of curiosity, how long were you prepared to wait before you pounced?”
“Pounced?” He looked baffled.
“Before you started demanding answers,” she clarified.
He watched the coffee fill the pot. “I was planning to wait a little longer, but given recent events, I think maybe now would be a good time for you to start talking.”
She considered that. “Okay, but I really don’t see any connection between the discovery of the Bridewell curiosities and my presence here in the Cove. Aside from the fact that I have a talent for finding things, of course. I mean, it’s what I do. Even when I don’t want to do it, if you see what I mean.”
“Talk to me, Isabella.” He looked at her with his shadowed, unreadable eyes. “I need some answers.”
“I understand,” she said. “And now that I’ve worked with you for a while, I know that I can trust you. It’s not like I have a choice, anyway.”
“Why is that?”
“I knew the night I arrived in Scargill Cove that this was as far as I could run. I’m good at living off the grid, heck, I was born off of it. But it’s only a matter of time before they find me.”
THEY SAT at their respective desks. Fallon swallowed some coffee
and watched Isabella sip her green tea. He could see that she was composing herself, trying to decide where to start her narrative. He searched for a way in.
“What did you mean when you said you were born off the grid?” he asked.
She looked at him over the rim of her cup. “Ever heard of the Iceberg website?”
“That bizarre conspiracy-theory website run by some nut who calls himself the Sentinel?” Fallon grimaced. “Sure, I know it. Some folks say I’ve got conspiracy issues, but I’m a piker compared to the Sentinel. That guy is so far over the horizon, he’ll never come back. He must have lost touch with reality long ago.”
“Think so?”
“He’s definitely looney tunes.”
“So why do you monitor his website?”
Fallon shrugged. “Because sometimes he hits on a nugget of solid information that I can plug in to one of my case files. Like they say, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. The problem with whatever I get from the Iceberg site is that the bits of good data are always tangled up in one of the Sentinel’s crazy wheels-within-wheels, circles-within-circles fantasies. Teasing out the truth can take hours of research. There is no logical foundation to the Sentinel’s theories and therefore no meaningful context. The guy is a classic paranoid conspiracy nut.”
She raised her brows. “You, on the other hand, have context, is that it?”
“Makes all the difference,” he assured her. “Case in point. The Sentinel will happen on a small hint of hard information about Nightshade and then embed it into a fantasy of alien abduction. It’s useless in that fantasy context, so no one pays any attention. But I can sometimes fit the data into my own investigation because I do have context.” He paused. “Come to think of it, I haven’t seen anything new on the Iceberg site for a while. Maybe the Sentinel finally went on meds. To tell you the truth, I’ll miss him.”
“No,” she said coolly. “The Sentinel didn’t go on meds. He was murdered.” She took a deep breath. “Maybe.”
“Yeah, there was some chatter about that a while back online but it faded. That’s the thing about the Sentinel. You can’t believe anything you hear about him. I wouldn’t put it past him to fake his own murder just to stir up more conspiracy theories.”
“Believe me when I tell you that I am praying that she did exactly that.”
Fallon stilled. “She?”
“The Sentinel is a woman. She pretends to be male online because it adds another layer of cover.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because the Sentinel raised me after my parents were killed in a plane crash,” Isabella said. “I’m her granddaughter.”
Fallon felt as if he’d been poleaxed. He sat forward abruptly, automatically heightening his talent. “You’re serious.”
“The reason you never found the real me when you went looking is because I have been living under fake IDs all of my life.” Isabella cradled her tea mug in both hands. “My mother did not go to a hospital to have me.”
“So, no Social Security number? No birth certificate?”
“I’ve had a dozen Social Security numbers during my life, as well as a variety of birth certificates, credit cards and passports. My grandmother manufactured a fake ID for me before I was even born and she gives me a new one whenever I move or change jobs.” Isabella glanced at the wall where her backpack hung on an iron hook. “I’ve got two brand-new, unused sets in my pack right now.”
“Where were you born?’ he demanded, fascinated. “How did you manage to stay out of the system?”
“My parents were living with my grandmother on a remote island in the South Pacific when I was born. My father wrote thrillers under an assumed name, all based on conspiracies he had uncovered. My mother was an artist. Her work hangs in some very respected museums. All the paintings are under a fake name. I was born at home, and the birth was never registered with any official government agency. I was homeschooled from the start. Every name I’ve ever used except Isabella Valdez has been manufactured.”
He whistled softly. “I’ll be damned. And people think I have a problem when it comes to the paranoia thing. Isabella Valdez is your real name?”
“Yes.” She straightened her shoulders. “I decided to start using it the night I hitchhiked to Scargill Cove.”
“What about the bio I found online?”
“Oh, that’s a complete fake, of course. First time it’s ever been used. Grandma told me to save it for this particular situation.”
“Where did your grandmother get the sets of fake ID?” Fallon asked.
“From an old family firm that specializes in that kind of high-end art. They’ve been in business for generations. Grandma always said that if they were good enough for J&J, they were good enough for her.”
“I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that she uses the Harper family’s services.”
Isabella smiled into her cup. “Good guess.”
Understanding whispered through him. “Why did you come to Scargill Cove, Isabella?”
“To find you, of course,” she said very steadily. “Grandma always told me that if anything ever happened to her or if I got into the kind of trouble that I couldn’t handle on my own, I should contact Jones & Jones.”
“Why did it take you this long to tell me the truth?”
“Because I had to be sure I could trust you. We are all influenced by our upbringing. I was raised in a family of conspiracy theorists. I have certain hardwired eccentricities.”
“In other words, you don’t trust anyone outside the family.”
“I trust you, Fallon, now that I’ve had a chance to know you. But I had to be sure. My grandmother’s life, assuming she is still alive, depends on it.”
“And if she is dead?”
Isabella’s eyes darkened. “Then I will avenge her.”
He steepled his fingers, thinking. “What makes you think someone would try to kill her?”
“Because they don’t want her to expose the conspiracy on her website, of course. But I’m praying that she outwitted them. Grandma is really, really good when it comes to this kind of stuff. With luck, the bastards believe that she’s dead.”
Wheels within wheels, Fallon thought. Classic conspiracy theory logic. No context, no hard facts, no problem.
“Why would they believe she’s dead?” he asked.
“There’s plenty of documentation confirming her death.” Isabella waved that off. “There was a notice in the local paper. A death certificate was filed. According to the records, Grandma was cremated. It’s all very neat and tidy.”
“But you’re not buying any of it?”
“It’s possible that they found her,” Isabella conceded. “But I think there is also a very good chance that she is alive and has gone into hiding. I have no way to contact her. That was part of the plan, you see. She told me that if she ever had to disappear, we had to make it look solid.”
“But she told you to come to J&J for help?”
“Yes.” Isabella watched him with a steely determination. “They’re after me, too. I got away once, but I might not be so lucky a second time.”
Fallon went stone cold. “Someone tried to kill you?”
“In Phoenix about a month ago. They found me at the department store where I was working. That’s when it hit me.” Isabella broke off. Tears glistened in her eyes.
“When what hit you?” he prompted.
“That they might have found her, after all.” Isabella opened her desk drawer, yanked a tissue out of the small box she kept there and wiped her eyes. “I had been telling myself that she was following the emergency plan. Gone into hiding. But if they found me, maybe they found her, too. Maybe she really is dead.”
Isabella was crying. He had no clue what to do in a situation like this.
“Isabella,” he said.
“Sorry,” she said. She sniffed into the tissue. “It’s just that if she really is gone, it’s as if she never even lived. She set things up t
hat way. Her only legacy is her website, and it just sits there online like some kind of virtual tombstone. I can hardly bring myself to look at it.”
“Isabella,” he said again. And stopped because he could not think of anything else to say.
“If she’s dead, it’s my fault because I told her about the conspiracy,” Isabella said into the tissue.
He was on his feet without conscious thought. He rounded his desk, yanking the clean, neatly folded white handkerchief out of his pocket. She took the handkerchief from him, looked at it for a few seconds as if she had never seen one and then she started to cry quietly into it.
He hauled her gently to her feet, wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly, as if he could somehow shield her from the dark fantasy world she had constructed.
With a small cry, she dropped the damp handkerchief onto the desk, buried her face against the front of his black pullover and sobbed in earnest.
He stood there with her while the fog off the ocean rolled in, cloaking the town and the office windows, isolating them from the rest of the world.
15
After a while, Isabella stopped crying. She raised her head and gave him a shaky smile.
“Sorry about that,” she said. “Lately that’s been happening to me without warning. I’m fine one minute and then I think about how she might actually be dead and that maybe I’m just fooling myself and all of a sudden I’m crying.”
“It’s all right,” he said. He couldn’t think of anything else to say. He realized that she was trying to step back. Reluctantly he opened his arms and released her.
She sat down, carefully refolded the damp handkerchief and handed it to him. She grabbed another tissue and blew her nose one last time. She tossed the tissue into the trash basket, drank some tea and composed herself.
He stood in the center of the office for a few seconds, unsure of what to do next. When nothing helpful came to mind, he went back to his desk, swallowed more coffee and forced himself to focus on the problem at hand.
“Using your line of logic,” he began.
She gave him a wan smile. “That’s a polite way of saying you don’t believe me.”
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