by Alex Gordon
Lauren watched Stef shuffle out of the bar. We’ve only been here a day and a half. Yet the difference between the woman whom Lauren had met at the Carmody airport and the one with whom she had just spoken was profound. She’s really not well.
She watched the doorway of the bar for a while. Then she got up and went behind the counter and searched for pen and paper. Normally she typed notes on her phone, but sometimes it helped to actually write down the words.
Especially when you don’t know what in hell is going on. She grabbed a soda out of the refrigerator, returned to her chair, and set to work.
Steven Carmody. A wealthy man whose family had a vein of magic running through it. Lauren had grown used to the presence of the nether talents in her life over a short period of time. What would it mean for a family like the Carmodys to possess that sort of power over generations? How would they use it? Abuse it?
Elliott Rickard. Steven Carmody’s good friend. Behavior modification. Lauren thought back to the toy car, the depths of discord and pain it had contained. She hadn’t seen Rickard’s face among the shades she had seen at Jericho, but she had seen the photo taken there with Carmody. And his toddler son, Andy.
“And this has what to do with Fernanda?” Possibly nothing. All families had multiple issues, and given the Carmody wealth and reach, theirs would be whoppers.
The Council. Carmody apparently provided them support. Judging from Stef’s clumsy bribery attempt, something had happened to jeopardize that. I call shenanigans. Why did it always boil down to money?
“So deep in thought.”
Lauren flinched so hard she almost dropped the pen. She looked up and saw Kaster standing at the counter, watching her. His bathrobe had given way to jeans and a mossy green pullover, and he had finally finished shaving.
“I didn’t mean to startle you.” He held up a plastic bag. “I came down for some ice.”
“There isn’t any in the family wing?”
“The icemaker in the refrigerator is broken.” Kaster went behind the counter, flipped up the lid of the ice chest, and commenced scooping. “The repairman will be here in the morning. Should I notify you when he arrives?”
“Everybody here hates questions, but they all want answers.” Lauren folded her notes and tucked them in her pocket. “How’s Nyssa?”
“Asleep, finally.” Kaster hunted through cupboards until he found an ice bucket. He dropped the filled bag inside, shut the lid, then tucked it under his arm. “She picked my brain about you. Wanted to know everything I could tell her. I’m afraid I embellished a bit, just to make her laugh. If she asks you tomorrow about the miniature horse and the White House visit, feel free to deny everything.”
“Golly. An actual joke?” Lauren looked outside, and spotted Jenny curled up on a lounge chair at the far end of the deck, either asleep or passed out. “This isn’t a happy place, is it?”
Kaster set the bucket on a nearby table, then sat in the chair Stef had vacated. “No less so than most places.”
Lauren shook her head. “I don’t think it ever was. Happy.” She played with the pen, clicking it open, then closed. “When a place goes bad, the way Gideon went bad, it starts small. But then it feeds on itself, grows fat. Strong.”
Kaster eyed his watch. “Is it that time of night already?”
“Time for what?”
“Philosophical ruminations.”
“This never was a good place. Was that why Steven Carmody built the house here? Did he think he could work whatever lived here to his advantage?” Lauren looked Kaster in the eye until the humorous light flickered. “I’ve seen that before, you know. It didn’t end well.”
“He built the house here because it’s a beautiful location.”
“The Coast Range is jam-packed with beautiful locations.” Lauren stopped to breathe. Her mind raced. She felt lightheaded, as though she’d had too much to drink. “Everything here—it’s all zeroing in on Nyssa, like she’s a lightning rod. You all claim to care about her so much, but you’re standing back and letting it eat her alive.”
“I beg to differ.” Kaster looked toward the entry, then leaned forward and lowered his voice. “If we felt that way, you wouldn’t be here.”
“I’m still not sure why I am here. I’m supposed to be helping her, but I’m not allowed to ask how this place came to be or why she is the way she is. Unless you get to the source, she’ll never recover, and that will never happen until you stop treating her like a simple wild teenager.”
“You think we don’t know that?”
“I think you know it. You just don’t want to do what needs to be done. You have to address what’s attacking her. You have to dig it out, root and branch, and grind it to fine powder, and I am sensing a reluctance to do that.” Lauren stood. “When bad things happen in a thin place, when they keep happening, who knows what connections are made, what is awakened, if given that much pain to feed on? A steady diet, like an IV drip, supplemented with the occasional massive influx. Eventually it grows too big to contain. Too big to control. It breaks free.”
Kaster sat back. Sighed. “I’m so glad you came down here. I haven’t heard a good ramble about the nature of good and evil in ages.”
“I am serious.” Lauren walked to the bar and set the pen on the counter. “I should’ve turned you down.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.”
Lauren started to leave, then walked back to the sitting area. Kaster watched her with an intensity that she knew should have alarmed her, but whatever feelings he inspired at that moment, fear wasn’t one of them. “What are you?” She held up her left hand, then wiggled her fingers.
Kaster shrugged. “A simple witch like you.”
“Not so simple.”
“That makes two of us, then, doesn’t it?” Kaster looked out over the deck. When his gaze settled on Jenny, he frowned. “It disturbs me to see those I like in pain.”
“So you like me?”
“Oh, yes.” A thin smile, weary and a little surprised.
Lauren lowered to the edge of the chair opposite. “I think you know what’s happening here. Why don’t you stop it?”
Kaster took the ice bucket from the table and lifted it onto his lap, raised and lowered the lid, ran his hands over the sides. “We all have our roles to play. Mine is quite well defined, and I step out of character at my peril.”
“Do blond twins and big black cars mean that much to you?”
Kaster’s hands slowed. Stopped. “Whatever you choose to believe, I like you. I do. But this is a very different place than Gideon, with different rules, and if you run afoul of them, I cannot help you.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Lauren stood and headed once again for the door, then stopped and looked back over her shoulder. “Embezzlement?”
Kaster’s brow furrowed. “I beg your pardon?”
“Just trying to read between the lines of a conversation I had with Stef Warburg. What’s going on between the Council and the Carmody Foundation?”
“You’re wasted in Gideon.” The light returned to Kaster’s eyes. “Money has disappeared from accounts, yes.”
“How much?”
“Enough.”
“Stef thinks I was brought in as some sort of sniffer dog. I’m supposed to put in a good word so you call off the hounds.”
“In exchange for?”
“Financial support for Gideon.”
Kaster sat quiet for a few moments. Then he stood. “It wouldn’t matter what you said. You don’t take what belongs to a Carmody.” He walked past Lauren and out the door, bearing the ice bucket in both hands as though he carried an offering, or a saint’s head on a plate.
CHAPTER 19
Heath Jameson lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. Glanced at the clock yet again, even though he knew that only a few minutes had passed since the last time he checked and that time always moved more slowly when you needed to wait. He had done this before, this waiting for the right time. He knew the dri
ll.
He hated having to embarrass himself in front of people he had known for years—Stef, Pete. But he needed to get back to this house and finish what he started. Any thought he might have given to waiting vanished when he remembered the bills that waited for him at his house, at the gallery.
It took longer than Heath thought, but the house eventually quieted. Porter, the lawyer, had been the last to retire. He had watched from his window as she stumbled in from the deck off the bar, wine bottle in hand. Funny. He never figured her for a drunk. Under different circumstances he might have felt sorry for her. Now he just needed her out of the way.
Just a little longer. He continued to study the ceiling. Wood tongue-in-groove, it was, peaked and beamed and just about every other damn thing you could imagine. He counted the number of boards on one side, then the other, took their square root, divided them by three. Played with numbers over and over until—
Now. The little voice in his head alerted him, and it had never been wrong. He eased out of bed, got dressed, tried to forget how humiliating it had been to pretend to be so loaded that he couldn’t undress himself. The look on Carmody’s face . . .
I’ll make it right. He could pay back what he borrowed from the Council. Except that “borrowed” wasn’t the legal term for what he had done. No, he had no choice but to brazen it out. Stef knows. He could tell by the way she looked at him. And Carmody. That was the only explanation for Mullin. The fixer of Gideon, come to fix the Council. They’ve backed me in a corner. If they had just left things be, given him time, he would have taken care of it. Now he had no choice but to keep juggling time bombs and hope that he could pull together enough cash to get the hell out of town.
He hefted the messenger bag, slung it over his shoulder. That had been the worst part, letting Pete slip it off over his head and toss it on a chair. Not that the objects inside were that heavy, and he had taken care to pad them well and secure them at the bottom of the bag. But accidents happened, and the sight of one of his carefully manufactured fakes rolling across the floor would have brought the evening to a rather nasty close.
He gathered up his shoes and crept out of the room in his socks. Stairs instead of elevator, then through the cavern of a living room to the bar, and from there to the side door that the smokers on Carmody’s staff had disabled so that they could sneak out and grab a few quick drags as the need arose. He smiled as he slipped through the door, the wrecked lock indicator light shining red as though it worked just fine. Nothing rendered a security system to crap more than a desperate smoker in need of a fix.
He walked out onto the patio, paused a few moments in the shadows to scan the garden for signs of guards out on patrol. No motion lighting to worry about—the glare would have burned through all the damned glass and awakened the whole house, so Carmody in his good host’s wisdom had decided to go without.
Heath moved quickly, across the patio and down the steps to his first target, the bronze hare. He knelt before it, then looked up at the house. He couldn’t see anyone in the windows, but if they stood back far enough in the shadows, they would be well enough hidden that he wouldn’t have been able to. Security cameras. Sensors. He hadn’t seen any during his previous passes through the garden, and more important, he hadn’t sensed any. No one gave him any credit for his witch sense, even those who should have known better.
He told himself it wasn’t stealing. Not even close. He was protecting the pieces from further exposure to the elements, securing them homes with collectors who knew how to care for delicate works of antiquity. Besides, the bastard Carmody owed him. Yes, what happened to Sam was an accident, and if anyone seemed bound and determined to end her life as a Death by Misadventure, it was her. But still. Call it restitution. Payment for pain and suffering.
Heath glanced up at the windows again, then quickly extracted the fake hare from his bag. Damn Harris for wanting this particular piece—it was the only one located in full view of the house, which made it the most difficult one to substitute. But the woman was his best customer. He needed to keep her happy.
He remained still as the seconds ticked by, poised on the brink of action yet unable to make the next move. Then he leaned forward, weight on his left hand, his body blocking the view of the palmed figurine in his right. Bent close to the hare, as if for closer examination.
Finally, with one smooth motion, he pushed it off its pedestal with his right hand and set the fake in place, then picked up the real hare and tucked it in his bag as he straightened up. Spent a few more moments pretending to brush away dirt and study the nearby fauna. Then he stood and continued down to the next level.
One down, three to go. Heath’s heart hammered in excitement, anticipation, a delayed case of nerves. This is going to work. Just fill up the bag and return to the house, then leave first thing in the morning with his host’s relieved blessing. This is going to work.
He didn’t bother to kneel in front of the pottery boar. At this point, he was well and truly hidden from view of the house, so no mucking about was necessary. Instead he simply took the fake out of his bag, removed it from its cloth wrapping, made the switch, then wrapped the real piece and stashed it.
Two down, two to go—
Heath’s gut clenched as the crunch of footsteps sounded from behind a planter. He dropped the bag behind a rosebush and lowered to the nearest bench. Slumped forward, his head in his hands, and cobbled together his tale of woe. He couldn’t sleep—his gorgeous girl—it was all too much—he had to walk—
“There’s my monkey.”
Heath slowly raised his head.
“I’ve been looking all over for you.”
“Sam?” Heath closed his eyes, opened them, rubbed them. Blinked again. She stood before him, hair shimmering in the moonlight, wearing the same clothes she had that morning. The clothes that the hospital had bundled into a paper bag and handed off like so much Chinese takeout, that he had stashed in the trunk of his car because he couldn’t bear to look at them. “How can you be here?”
“I never left, silly.” Sam bent forward, hands on her knees, as if she was talking to a child or a small dog.
“You’re in Portland. In the hospital.” Heath rose slowly, then stepped around the bench so that it stood between them. “In the morgue.”
Sam smiled. “Nonsense. I’m right here.”
“I’m dreaming.” Heath backed up as Sam drew closer. “I’m still in bed. I’ll wake up any second now, and there I’ll be.” He closed his eyes.
Counted to three.
Opened them, and sighed in relief.
He still stood in the garden walkway. But at least Sam had vanished.
“Guess again, silly.”
Heath’s heart stuttered. He turned his whole body at once, like a doll on a pedestal, and found Sam standing behind him. She had positioned herself a few steps above him, so she could block him if he tried to get around her and flee back to the house.
I need to tell them—I should just scream—
“No, you shouldn’t, Heath.” Sam shook her head. “Because they’ll all come running down here and you know sure as hell that with your luck someone will find that bag you hid behind the rosebush.”
“What bag?”
“Oh, honey, we’re way past that stage where you lie and I believe you because the truth hurts too much.”
Heath felt his face heat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do.” Sam descended one step. Another.
Then before Heath could back away, she stood in front of him. He felt her fingers close over his, as cold as if she had just pulled something out of the freezer. The moonlight hit her full in the face, revealing whitened skin and bluish lips. Clouded eyes. She’s dead. I kissed her goodbye.
“So kiss me hello.” Sam stood on tiptoe, parted her lips.
Heath shook off her hold and once more circled around the bench. Then he sniffed the air and winced. “Do you smell that?”
“Sme
ll what?”
“Like something crawled under the deck and died.” He looked again toward the house, all the darkened windows, no faces in any of them. Didn’t anyone suffer from insomnia anymore? Were they really all sleeping, dead to the world?
Don’t think dead. He glanced down the steps that led to the bottom of the garden. I could run down there, then circle around and run back up the mountain to the house. But the steps vanished into darkness that grew closer as he watched, consumed one step, then another, like a rising tide.
“Time to go, Heath.” Sam smiled, but even though she had stopped speaking, her cheeks continued to move.
Heath swallowed hard. “Why is your skin moving?”
“Because I’m talking.”
“No. That’s not it.” He flashed back to a summer’s day like this one. A hike through the woods, he and his brother. They had come upon a dead fox, except that at first they thought it lived because it seemed to be moving, even though it made no attempt to get up as they drew near.
Then they looked closer, and realized that it wasn’t the fox that moved.
Fifty years gone by, yet Heath never forgot. The stench of rot. The buzzing, which filled his ears and rattled his brain and vibrated along his bones. He had poked the fox with a stick, and the flies and maggots responded by moving one way, then the other, making it look as though muscle rippled beneath the dull pelt.
How a single fly emerged from the fox’s mouth and flew at them, driving them away.
“Heath? It’s time.”
“Stay away from me.” Heath looked toward the house, waited for somebody, anybody, to turn on a light, step outside.
“Oh, Heath. You never could learn to just give up.” Sam parted her lips, and something large and black emerged, crawling out of the corner of her mouth and down to the point of her chin.
Then it took to the air, straight at Heath’s head. He slapped at it, but it darted past his hand—he lost track of it until he felt the stabbing pain burn on the side of his neck.