We parked down an old logging road, then walked back, sticking to the woods. We got the spare key from the shed and went inside.
The cottage had already been searched. It wasn't a rip-the-place-apart kind of search, just kitchen and dresser drawers opened and stuff inside left piled on top, like Chief Carling had been looking for anything that might help her find Mina Lee's family.
We'd hoped to find a laptop, but there was no sign of one.
While Daniel searched more thoroughly, I checked caller ID on the landline. It said she'd had five calls since yesterday, presumably all after her death. Three came from unlisted numbers. The other two had the same number attached with an area code I didn't recognize. I wrote it down. Then I played her messages. There was only one, and it must have come in after Chief Carling searched the place, because no one had listened to it yet.
"Hey, it's me." The voice was male. "You did get my text messages, right? The Nasts paid me a visit. They're starting to think we're holding out on them, that we found something and we're seeing if the Cortezes will pay more. I told them we aren't stupid enough to try that."
A pause. "We aren't, right? Double-cross a Cabal and we'll be paying the price into the afterlife." Another pause. "You know that, right?"
The man swore. "I can't believe you'd ever be that stupid, but if I don't hear back from you soon, I'm bolting--and taking everything we have so far with me."
Daniel walked in, frowning as the message finished. "When did that come in?"
"Tonight. If anyone else left messages, someone erased them. This one's from the only number on caller ID." I lifted a scrap of paper. "I wrote it down."
"Can you play it again? I missed the beginning. Someone drove by on a dirt bike and drowned it out."
I did. As he listened, his frown grew.
"Could be corporate espionage," he said. "A drug company wants to buy stolen research. Sounds like that guy's really afraid of them, though. I imagine it'd be a shady company, if they're willing to buy that information. Maybe that's what cabal means. Industry slang."
"It doesn't explain what she wanted with us," I said. "How would cozying up to local teens help?"
"I don't know."
He walked over to the desk and started moving stuff around, looking under the phone and the answering machine, searching drawers. I kept thinking about the message.
We'll be paying the price into the afterlife.
It was probably just an exaggerated phrase, like saying "kick our asses into the next century." But put it together with that book on witches and the stuff on skin-walkers and it just ... It bugged me.
"Daniel?" I said.
He bent to run his hand under a drawer. "Hmm?"
When I didn't continue, he straightened. "What's up?"
"I found out something today, and it's going to sound crazy--"
The back door clicked. I waved Daniel to silence and mouthed, "Someone's here."
He opened the folding door to the closet. I hesitated. Even thinking about being in such a small place made my skin crawl. I glanced at the window instead, but he shook his head. No time for that.
The closet was even smaller than it looked. Daniel went in first and I had to back in. To get the door closed, he had to put his arm around my waist and pull me against him.
"Just relax," he said, his breath hot against my ear.
His hand slid to rest against my hip. He stayed bent over my shoulder, as if trying to see through the slats in the door, his breath ruffling my hair. When I shifted, he put his other hand on my other hip. I shifted again.
"Stop squirming," he said. "I didn't wear my steel-toed boots."
I stepped off his foot. "Sorry."
"I know you hate small places. Just close your eyes and relax."
I did and focused on the light footsteps. Chief Carling?
Drawers opened and shut. Papers rustled.
The intruder finished in the living room and went into the bedroom. More searching. Now Daniel was the one getting restless, fidgeting and shifting. When I tried to pull away to give him room, he jumped like I'd startled him, then murmured, "Just relax," like I'd been the one fussing.
Finally, the intruder came into the study. Through the slats, I could make out only a dark figure, but I picked up a faint smell of--
A day ago, I'd have told myself I was smelling perfume or hair gel or fabric softener, something that would identify a person. Now I realized I was smelling the person's scent.
I leaned forward. Daniel tried to stop me, but I waved him off. I bent, putting my face to the slats. It was a far from perfect peephole, but I could see enough to confirm my guess.
I pushed open the folding door and stepped out. "What are you doing here?"
Sam spun.
Her eyes narrowed when she saw me. "What am I doing here? I'm not the one hiding in--" Her gaze lifted over my shoulder. "Daniel?"
She looked from me to him.
I realized I was in a notorious make-out spot with Daniel. "We're not--"
"What are you looking for, Sam?" he said, stepping toward her.
"Looking for? N-nothing."
"You were really interested in Mina Lee," I said. "You thought she was here because of you."
"What? No."
"Why are you going through her things?"
"None of your business."
She brushed past me. As she walked away, I saw papers sticking out of her rear pocket. I snatched them. She yelped and spun, swiping at me as I backed out of reach.
"That's mine," she said.
"No, it's not." I held the papers up for Daniel to see. "Recognize the handwriting?"
He nodded. "It's Ms. Lee's."
"You don't know that." Sam lunged to grab them, but I backed up again.
"She left a note for Daniel," I said. "That's her handwriting."
Sam went still. "A note about what?"
I scanned the first page. "Not about you. This one is, though. Background notes. Where you're from. What happened to your--" I looked up at her. "Your parents didn't die in a car accident. They were--"
"Give those back," she said, advancing on me.
"Your parents were murdered," I said. "Why does everyone think--?"
She hit me. A right hook to the jaw. I flew off my feet. Daniel knocked her out of the way before she could hit me again. She grabbed the pages and took off.
Daniel started to go after her, then saw me and ran back, grabbing tissue. I tasted blood. As I winced, blood gushed from a split lip. Daniel pressed the tissues to my mouth.
He moved me back to sit on the edge of the desk. "Hold that. I'm going to find some ice."
I shook my head. "Sam. Those pages--"
The roar of a dirt bike stopped me. I tried to get up, but he tugged me back onto the desk.
"She's gone," he said. "We need to stop the bleeding and get some ice on that." He paused. "Are your teeth ...?"
I ran my tongue over them, ignoring the sharp tang of blood. "Present and accounted for."
"Good. Hold on then."
THIRTY
IDID HOLD ON--TO the tissues. I didn't stay put, though. With my free hand, I mopped up drops of blood from the hardwood floor. If this turned into a murder investigation, I definitely didn't want my blood found in the victim's house.
When Daniel came back, he had some ice wrapped in a dishcloth. As he exchanged it for the bloody tissues, he said, "I can't believe she did that. I mean, Sam is way too fast with her fists, but to deck you? Over papers?"
I'd been thinking the same thing. I felt weirdly hurt--and not because my jaw ached. I always thought Sam and I got along okay. In the last few days, she'd even been friendly. Now I realized that was only because she thought I might have more information on Mina Lee.
I told Daniel that, then said, "I'm still shocked that she hit me. I know she took a swing at Rafe's sister--" I stopped, realizing what I was saying, then continued. "She's ... brain damaged. That's why he's away from school a lot."
/> "Looking after her." Daniel wadded up the bloodied tissues inside clean ones, then stuffed them into his pocket. "I hadn't heard that."
"No one knows. And no one can know. She's his guardian, and if people find out ..."
"They won't from me. You know that." He leaned beside me, against the desk. "So, what happened? Sam didn't realize Rafe's sister was brain damaged and lashed out when she provoked her?"
"Not unless being extremely friendly can be considered provocation."
Daniel shook his head. "The girl's definitely got some loose wiring, and it seems to be getting looser." He glanced at me. "Steer clear, okay?"
"I intend to."
"So those sheets said her parents had been murdered? What else?"
"That was as far as I got. Her parents were killed in a home invasion, and it said Sam 'survived,' which must mean she was there. I guess that might explain some of the loose wiring. And why the Tillsons told everyone her parents died in a car accident."
"Less traumatic."
I nodded. Made sense, but it still bugged me. Why had Sam still been determined to get those papers before I read more? What else was in there?
"Bleeding's stopped," I said, taking the makeshift ice pack. "We should keep looking around. Sam found something. Maybe we can, too."
We discovered where Sam had found the pages--under the mattress in the main bedroom. We hadn't looked there earlier, and we wouldn't have now if we hadn't noticed the bedcovers were wrinkled.
Under the mattress was a file containing background info on every kid in our class. Parents' names, date of birth, hobbies. Mina had put a lot of emphasis on hobbies, underlining some of them, like wrestling, boxing, and law for Daniel. The emphasis on sports and extracurricular interests would make sense ... if you were filling out applications for a dating service. Why would a corporate spy care what local teens liked to do in their spare time?
"It's a cover," Daniel said. "If anyone gets close, she can pull out these, and the hobbies and stuff make it seem like she really is doing a general interest story." He flipped through the pages. "She's got everyone here. Even Rafe, though his is filled with question marks and notes for follow-up. Seems she wasn't having much luck getting background on him. Weird."
I kept my gaze on the pages, so he wouldn't see that I knew it wasn't weird at all. "Where's my page?"
"Right--" He flipped through again. "Huh. Seems someone is missing."
"Me?"
He didn't answer until he'd laid out all the sheets on the bed, in alphabetical order. Everyone was there except Sam and me.
"I bet she grabbed yours, too," Daniel said. "Sam, I mean. They weren't in any kind of order, and she had a bunch of pages. Yours was probably behind hers." He folded the sheets and stuck them in the backpack we'd brought. "Let's keep looking."
We didn't find anything else. When we were done, I went back into the study to make sure we'd left it the way we found it.
"We should double-check that number you wrote down." Daniel clicked through the recall list. "Hey, it tracks calls out, too. The last five."
"Grab those." I handed him a pen.
He started writing down numbers, then stopped and stared down at the display.
"Daniel?" I peered over at the number.
"It's my mom's cell." He blinked and pulled his gaze away. "Or it was. Dad got it from the lab files, and he used to call it when he was drunk. She changed it a few months ago."
I didn't ask how he recognized the number. I could picture him, writing it down from redial, then sitting in his room, phone in hand, preparing for a call he'd never make.
Daniel didn't get emails from his mother. Didn't get calls. Didn't even get birthday cards. I don't think he ever got an explanation either. She just left.
I don't know how anyone could do that to a kid, but I especially don't know how anyone could do it to Daniel. We used to joke that he was so good he made the rest of us look like brats. I'm sure he wondered what he'd done to make her leave and not look back. I think that about my birth mother, who'd never had a chance to know me, so he must think it about his mom.
"You okay?" I said.
"Course." He shrugged it off as he put the phone back. "But I'm wondering how Mina Lee got that number, and more important, why she'd be calling it. At least twice."
"Because, other than Serena's parents, your mom is the only employee who ever left Salmon Creek. Serena's parents still work for the St. Clouds. Your mother doesn't. Which might make her more willing to talk about problems."
"And if there were problems, she might know." Dr. Bianchi had been a chemist at the lab. "We could check her old computer. My dad's probably passed out by now."
"Let's do that."
Daniel's father wasn't passed out. We could tell that as soon as we rounded the corner and heard the TV blaring through the open kitchen window. But he was too engrossed in his TV show to notice us as we sneaked inside. Daniel waved me to his mom's study while he closed the window. The neighbors never complained about the noise, but it embarrassed him anyway.
His mom's office looked exactly the way it had when she'd taken off. Although the company had left her desktop computer for Daniel, his dad wouldn't let him use the office, making him do his homework at the kitchen table.
I slipped in, waited for Daniel, then closed the door behind him. He turned on the computer. He knew her password--she'd given it to him once when his laptop was acting wonky. It was 19Curie11, after the scientist Marie Curie's 1911 Nobel Prize in chemistry. That password said a lot about Dr. Bianchi and what mattered in her life.
"We probably won't find anything," Daniel said as he logged on. "I know she had to do all her work on the company network and save the files on their servers. They shut that connection down after she left. I'm hoping she saved something to the hard drive, though. Dad told them he wiped it so I could use it, but since I never got to, I don't think he bothered. He doesn't come in here."
Someone had cleared the hard drive, just not very well. Whether it was his mother before she left, quickly deleting files, or his dad doing a cursory wipe in case the St. Clouds checked, I don't know. The documents and email folders had been emptied, but not wiped from the trash.
Most of what was in it was garbage. Family schedules. Shopping lists. Personal emails to college friends and colleagues. Then an email from a colleague that wasn't personal.
It was a chain of messages that ended shortly before she left. The last one told Dr. Bianchi to do what she wanted with the information, just make sure she printed the correspondence, then deleted it.
Daniel scrolled down to the previous message.
"Perfect," his mother had written. "They won't try to hold me to my contract now."
Beneath that, her correspondent had written, "Fine, here's the list. Good enough? It better be. Don't ask me for anything else. We're even now."
A list of names followed. Under that was the beginning of the email chain.
I need more, Mike. Damn it, you owe me. Telling them I know the experiment went wrong won't help. I need proof. Give me the names of the failed subjects. They screwed up in Buffalo and I'm not sticking around until the same thing happens here.
I reread the emails in sequential order, figuring it out aloud as I did. "Your mom discovered that the St. Clouds were hiding a failed project in Buffalo, where Dr. Davidoff works. Whatever research they're doing here, she expected the same thing to happen, and she wanted out before it blew up in their faces. She blackmailed them with the details in order to get out of her contract."
Ever since Mrs. Bianchi left, people in Salmon Creek had whispered about how she broke her contract. The most popular theory was that her husband had been abusing her. Wouldn't it have made more sense to get rid of him, though? He was in the business office; she was the valuable scientist.
We searched for the earlier emails, where she'd gotten the details about the failed study. They were gone. She must have been careful about permanently erasing them but got carel
ess with the last messages, eager to leave.
Daniel scrolled the email back to the list of names.
"Project Genesis," he said. "Have you ever heard of it?"
"No, I--" I stopped and stared at a name on the list. "Elizabeth Delaney."
Daniel frowned. "Is that a relative?"
"Not that I know of."
"Well, no one in your family works for the St. Clouds, so it must be a coincidence. Common enough last name, isn't it?"
I nodded.
"Make a note of it, then. We should write down all--"
A crash made us both jump.
"Daniel?" His dad called from the kitchen. "You here, Danny? I need some help."
Daniel let out a puff of breath. The nickname and the plaintive tone told him his dad was at the far end of a drinking bout, past the anger.
"Danny?" Footsteps approached the study.
Daniel swore as we realized the light was on. He motioned me back, then opened the door and slid out. I took out my house keys and plugged my key chain thumb drive into his mother's computer.
"Hey, Dad. Did you drop a plate? Let me clean that--"
"What were you doing in your mother's office?"
"Looking for a stapler."
"You know I don't like you in there." An edge seeped into Mr. Bianchi's voice.
"It's okay, Dad. Everything's all right."
"I don't--"
Daniel's voice took on the same tone that had convinced the old woman to tell us what yee naaldlooshii meant. "Everything's all right. You can go lie down. I've got it under control."
I turned off the computer, then peered through the door crack. Daniel stood eye to eye with his father. Mr. Bianchi shifted uneasily, like he was trying to break eye contact but couldn't.
"Just go watch TV, Dad. Everything's all right."
Mr. Bianchi nodded, then shuffled back into the living room. Daniel waited until he was gone before coming back to me.
I lifted the thumb drive. He nodded and waved me out.
"Close one," I said. "Thank God for your amazing powers of persuasion."
"Yeah, if only they worked when he was really pissed. And really pissed off."
"Still, you need to teach me how to do that sometime, so I can use it on my dad, get whatever I want."
"Like you don't already."
"Maybe. But I'm always looking for ways to fine-tune the process."
The Gathering Page 19