by Alex Gordon
Carmody huffed. “Well, call me old-fashioned, but I don’t automatically assume that my guests are planning to steal from me.”
“What about your employees?”
“Only if they planned to flee to the Antarctic because they’d never find a job worth a damn anywhere else.” Carmody yanked off his bandanna and worked a hand through his hair. “Speaking of which, has anyone seen Jameson since last night?”
Jenny continued her recording with the irritated air of one who considered herself the sole adult in the room. “You have security cameras out there, right? Please tell me you at least have those.”
“We have CCTV.” Carmody must have sensed everyone’s surprise. “It’s in the interest of safety. Someone could fall down the mountainside while exploring one of the lower levels, and no one in the house would ever know. It has happened. Just last summer—” Before he could finish, one of the security guards appeared in the entry.
“Sir?” The woman fidgeted, hands in and out of pockets, then tugging at the gear hanging on her belt. “You need to see this.”
They hustled en masse to the elevator and rode down to the garage, then crowded into the small security office as the guard ran the video from the previous night. It proved to contain the bulk of the guards’ search and discovery of Heath’s bag, which flitted by in lightning-quick reverse. Then came the darkening sky as morning altered to dawn and then to nighttime.
“I was out on the deck until just after midnight. I confess I slept for most of that time, but I didn’t see anyone when I came back in.” Jenny stood by the guard’s shoulder, twirling her finger for her to continue rewinding. “Stop now.” She pointed to a figure standing at the top of the steps. It was possibly male, face and figure obscured by the dark. “That could be Jameson, but I can’t tell. Shouldn’t motion lighting have come on?”
Carmody shook his head. “No lighting.” He met Jenny’s pained sigh with one of his own. “Not when I have guests. Because of the windows. Every time a skunk waddled into a beam, it would wake up the entire house.”
“Maybe he stashed that bag there earlier, after we left him.” Peter shrugged. “He ran scared. Thought someone saw him. He bolted.”
“Without his wallet and his phone?” Lauren recalled her first days in Gideon, when Blaine’s malign influence had been sufficient to disrupt any signal. How lost she had felt without her phone. “Unless he planned to come back.”
“Is anybody else going to look at the actual video?” Jenny motioned for the guard to reverse, then to freeze the image. “What’s that?”
They all bent close, and saw . . . something . . . moving down the levels, drifting like smoke around shrubs and planters.
“A shadow.” Stef waved a dismissive hand. “Just a shadow. Probably made by an animal. That’s what scared Heath off.”
“There’s nothing that shows Heath was even there.” Kaster paced the small office, then perched on the edge of a table.
“The question is, where is he now?” Carmody nodded to the guards, who filed out of the office.
Stef closed the door after them. “He was a practitioner. We tend to forget that. He likely obscured himself in some way. I am sure we’ll find the appropriate spell-casting materials among his things.” She walked over to Carmody, placed her hand on his arm. “Besides, you have your figures in hand. What’s the point in pursuing this any further?”
“I think we both know the answer to that, Stef.” Carmody eased out of the woman’s hold, then turned away. “Why didn’t you tell me that he was in financial trouble?”
Stef glared at Lauren, then took a deep breath. “I’m sure I don’t know what—”
“Please, Stef. Anyone with eyes could see that business at his gallery had tanked. He hadn’t sold a piece of any significance in months.”
Stef’s face darkened. “You checked up on him.”
“Credit checks are run on all employees once a year. Research is performed when needed.”
“We of the Council are not your employees.”
“You are if I haul your freight.” Carmody kicked at a plastic trash can and sent it tumbling across the room. “Speaking of which, the discrepancies in the Council accounts. Almost three-quarters of a million appears to have walked. Something else you neglected to tell me.”
“Yet you uncovered it all the same.” Stef smiled sadly. “And here you said that you didn’t expect guests to steal from you.”
“I’m not a sucker and I pay attention, facts that those closest to me always seem to forget.”
Lauren watched Carmody pace, and wondered how much of his rage was real and how much was an act. “You set Heath up, didn’t you?”
“You should know.” Peter caught her eye and arched his brow.
“I know what you thought I was doing here. I finally figured it out last night, when”—Lauren glanced at Stef, caught the flash of fear in her eyes—“when I had a chance to sit in the bar and think. I wasn’t invited here to investigate anything. Believe me, or don’t, but it’s the truth.” She saw Peter shake his head, and wondered if he and Stef would ever believe anything she told them.
“Well, I’m the nonmagical civilian in this crowd, and all I can say is whatever that shadow thing was, it was no animal.” With that Jenny left the office, followed closely by Kaster, who walked with his head down, seemingly lost in thought.
“I’ll have my people notify the sheriff and a few of the places along the main road. Tell them to keep an eye out for Heath. Without his wallet and phone, I doubt he gets very far.” Carmody hesitated before finally placing a hand on Stef’s shoulder. “You really shouldn’t keep things from me, however you think I’ll react. If we can’t work as a team after all we’ve been through together, what’s the point of continuing?”
Stef nodded, eventually. Wiped her eyes. Silence and nerves settled, and they filed out. Peter and Stef went first, the looks they gave Lauren indicating that her protestations had fallen on deaf ears.
Lauren tried to follow but found her way to the door blocked by Carmody. When she tried to skirt him, he grabbed her by the elbow and held her back until the others had boarded the elevator.
“Anything you want to tell me?” Carmody let her go, his hand hanging in the air for a moment before he shoved it in his pocket. “I caught that hesitation as you explained your brainstorm in the bar.”
“Ask Gene—I told him.”
“I want to hear it from you.”
“Do you ever lose track of which side you’re pitting against the other?”
“No.” Carmody waited, finally smiling as time passed and it became obvious that he would get no answer. He stood back, looked Lauren up and down. “Going somewhere?”
Lauren quickly assessed all the cover stories that sprang to mind. Pick one, dammit. Now. “I just wanted to explore the grounds.”
“The hiking boots are overkill, don’t you think?” Carmody started walking, but instead of heading toward the elevator, he strode in the opposite direction, through the garage and out into the backyard. There he stopped, pulled his bandanna out of his pocket, and tied it back around his head.
Lauren lagged behind, unsure whether he expected her to follow or if he wished to be alone. She had just about decided to duck back inside the garage when he beckoned her.
“I can’t stop thinking about how you put your hand through that wall. What if she could get her whole body through, I wondered. Think how useful she would prove to be.” His blue gaze fixed her with earnest intensity. “I would love to pursue it, but I won’t. Not without your permission.”
“Pursue it how?”
“You’re kidding, right? You are a pearl of great price.”
“And you want to string me up and wear me around your neck?”
“Our circle is small and word will get around. It always does. I would simply appreciate the chance to counter any offers you might receive. I’m a bastard to work for, but I will make you rich. There are worse fates.”
Lauren walked farther out on the lawn, then turned back toward the house so that she could see the garden. “You didn’t have to let Heath return here. But you knew about his problems and that he planned something, and you wanted to catch him at it.” She pointed toward the woods. “He could be anywhere out there. I don’t think he’ll ever be found.”
“Some people go through their entire lives with targets painted on their backs. Who am I to get in their way?” Carmody made as if to say more, then instead raised a hand in farewell and headed back toward the house. But after a few strides, he stopped and turned back to Lauren. “Nyssa likes you. She seems happier than I’ve seen her in months.” A ghost of a smile. Then he vanished into the maw of the garage. “Enjoy your walk.”
CHAPTER 21
Lauren followed the path across the backyard that led into the woods. She passed the empty helipad on the way. If Heath ever worked up the nerve to return, he would have to wait until tomorrow to fly back to Portland.
Assuming he’s still alive. Which she didn’t. At this point, anyone who walked into the Carmody woods alone risked never coming out.
So what am I doing here? Lauren wiped her face with her sleeve. My job. Like a doctor dropped into a disease-ridden town. Stop the infection before it spreads. Even if she risked dying of it herself. The fixer of Gideon. Jesus, who in hell had given her that nickname? Thanks a bunch.
The heat intensified and the air felt hot-shower thick. Lauren unzipped the vents in her clothing and tied a fresh bandanna around her forehead to keep the sweat from running into her eyes. She didn’t see many animals along the path—a few jays, a squirrel with a bent tail—and thought of Gideon’s crows, which followed her everywhere, their caws announcing her passage like a personal pack of town criers. I miss you, you little bastards. She hadn’t seen any since her arrival, and wondered if whatever inhabited the mountain had driven them away, if that were a sign that the Lady had abandoned this place.
Every so often, she slapped away a fly identical to the ones that had flown out of the toy car. She had coated herself with bug spray as soon as she entered the depths of the woods, but even that failed to dissuade the creatures completely. They buzzed around her head and past her ears, swooped from on high like miniature dive bombers, tormented her in every way short of biting.
Lauren checked her hands. The wounds from the first attack had healed completely, not a scab or welt to be seen. Maybe the bites really aren’t that bad. Maybe something else had caused the blackened welt on Sam’s hand.
Or maybe it’s only a matter of time. She shoved her hands in her pockets and kept walking.
THE SUN SHONE high in the sky by the time Lauren rounded the bend that overlooked Jericho. She walked past the tire tracks that marked the site of the previous day’s search. Hiked to the top of the rise, looked down over the settlement, and froze.
“I wondered when you were going to get here. I thought you got lost or something.” Nyssa stood leaning against the old gate. She wore cutoffs and a white tank top, clothes more suited for an afternoon by the pool than a hike through the deep woods. Her only concession to the conditions proved to be her hiking boots, which reached mid-calf and looked heavy enough to smash rocks. “There’s a shortcut. It’s kinda overgrown now, and you have to do some climbing, but you can still get through. I would have told you about it, but you didn’t ask anybody for help, so . . .” She shrugged, looked around in feigned innocence, then pushed away from the gate and circled around it toward the settlement. “Coming?”
Lauren pointed back toward the house. “Go home. If I’m not back by sundown, tell your father where I’ve gone.”
“No.” Nyssa stopped. She had already stripped off her bandages. The cuts she had made showed ruby bright against her white skin. “What were you going to do?”
“I don’t know. That’s why you have to go back. I don’t know what I’m going to find, or what I’ll have to do to protect myself, and if I don’t know how to protect myself, how can I protect you?”
“But you said I was strong. I can protect myself.”
“You don’t know what to do.”
“So maybe I’m like you. I’ll figure it out as I go along.”
“Go back, Nyssa.”
“So you’re just going to go down there, walk in, search through all the buildings?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“You’re an idiot. You’re, like, the first one that dies in all the movies.”
“You’re not wrong.” Lauren pressed a hand to her forehead—the heat had given her a pounding headache. “This is what I do. I wing it. I feel my way, and sometimes I screw up. That’s why you can’t come with me.” She tried to think of something that would persuade Nyssa to leave. “I saw your mother here yesterday.”
Nyssa nodded slowly. “She liked it here. She used to bring me here when I was little.”
Lauren blew out a long breath, even as she realized that she shouldn’t have been surprised. Alone on this mountain for weeks at a time. Fernanda must have explored every nook and cranny out of sheer boredom. And who knows what she found.
“During the day we’d run through the buildings. Play tag. Pretend that the big building was our house.” Nyssa toyed with the busted gate latch. “But we came here at night a few times. Mom called them our ‘camping trips.’ She brought blankets, a picnic basket. We slept out in the middle there.” She pointed to the central expanse of grass. “Counted the stars. Sang.” She quieted, then sniffed, and brushed away a tear. “People say all kinds of things about her, and maybe some of them were true. But not all of them.”
“Did your father know?”
“No.” Nyssa kept her eyes fixed straight ahead. “Grandfather did, though.”
Lauren walked to the gate and placed her hands on the top railing near the place Elliott Rickard had stood. “Were your mother and your grandfather close?”
“For a while. Grandfather was sick by then, and Mom used to spend time with him. I’d see her pushing his wheelchair on the patio. Then they’d just talk.”
“What about?”
“No idea.” Nyssa’s lip curled. “I know what people thought, though. I heard Heath say it once, a few years later. That even though he was so sick that he couldn’t even walk, Grandfather was my real father. I ran crying to Dad because I didn’t have Mom anymore and Grandfather was dead by then. I didn’t want both my parents to be . . . not around.” She kicked at the fence post. “So Dad and Gene sat down with me and Gene took out a paper calendar and the two of them very carefully explained about how and when Mommy met Daddy and then they counted days and months and showed me that Dad really was my Dad.” She managed a smile. “It’s funny now, thinking back. Dad’s face was so red. He was, like, glowing.”
“He must have been furious. You wouldn’t think that he’d invite Heath here after that. He doesn’t strike me as the forgiving type.”
Nyssa shrugged. “Heath was stealing from him. Bringing him out here and exposing him in front of his closest friends is Andrew Carmody all the way through.” She looked at Lauren with eyes dulled by memory, the events of the last few days. “People think I can’t figure things like that out. That I don’t remember anything. They don’t know me at all. Not even Dad.” She gave the gate latch one last yank. “I haven’t been here since Mom disappeared.”
Carmody’s last words to her rattled through Lauren’s head. Enjoy your walk. “Your father knew I was coming here. I’m the fixer.”
“This isn’t your problem to fix.” Nyssa headed down the slope, then stopped and waited by the guard shack.
Lauren extended her hands as she walked toward the shack, feeling for any breach in the warding, the ripples in the dark space that she had sensed the previous day. Felt nothing even after she entered, and wondered whether it was because her blood ward had worked so well, or because whatever inhabited Jericho had fooled her. It’s a trap. The thought settled like an earworm in her brain, replayed over and over. And I’m leading a chil
d right into it. She walked the perimeter of the small space, in search of anything that had changed since the previous day. “Do you feel anything? Any increase in the buzzing? Change in temperature?”
Nyssa held out her hands as Lauren had done. Turned one way, then the other, like a horror show mummy emerging from its crypt. “I don’t feel anything different.” She pointed to the line of brown spatter that dotted the floorboards from one end of the shack to the other. “Is that your blood?”
Lauren nodded. “Yeah.” She let Nyssa take hold of her cut arm and examine the wound. “It just itches a little. It’s healing.”
“You heal fast, like me.” Nyssa held out her arms. Up close, her wounds looked like cat scratches rather than deep gashes. “Gene wrapped them as soon as he got hold of me. He said that helped.”
“Uh-huh.” Lauren kept her thoughts about Gene Kaster and his healing touch to herself. Poor witch like me, my ass. “I don’t see anything different here.” She beckoned to Nyssa, and together they left the shack.
They walked down the hill in tandem, then split up, each taking one side of the settlement. They searched around the buildings, checked windows, opened doors, and peeked inside.
“Nothing looks weird.” Nyssa swung a door back and forth, its hinges squeaking like small animals in distress. “But I don’t know what I’m supposed to be looking for.”
“If you see any piles of bones, let me know. But don’t touch anything.” Lauren checked the last of the small structures on her side, then closed the door. “They’d be against one of the walls. And they’d be small, maybe only a handful. Possibly with some feathers surrounding them in a ring.”
“That’s so gross. And mean. Poor little birds.”
“That’s what Sam thought, too.” Lauren walked to the middle of the open yard and studied the largest structure. “When I saw your mother, I also saw people going in and out of all the buildings. But here, more went in than came out.” She took one of the elder sprigs out of her pack, crumpled it, and rubbed it on her clothes. “Here.” She gave another to Nyssa.