sedona files - books one to three

by Christine Pope

  Screw that. I wasn’t an ice queen. I was just…selective.

  Unlike my mother.

  The evening pretty much went downhill after that. I drank way too much, and Dave Wallace eventually drove me and a similarly inebriated group of passengers home at around one o’clock. Five miles isn’t enough to really give you time to sober up, but I did feel a little better the farther away I got from Lindsey’s house. The freezing air that hit my face as I got out of Dave’s SUV helped somewhat, too.

  But then I realized I was really hungry, and I didn’t have that much to eat in my apartment. The Circle K seemed like the perfect solution. I could go down, grab a hot dog and some chips, maybe get a Coke, even though I normally didn’t drink much soda. Sounded like a plan.

  I tucked my scarf in more closely around my throat and headed down to the convenience store, walking carefully, since my boots had almost three-inch heels and it was a downward slope from my apartment complex. Of course there was no one else in the store. But I knew Mike, the clerk, and he nodded at me as I made my selections and went to check out.

  “Midnight munchies, huh?” he said as he rang up my purchases, giving my somewhat bleary state a knowing grin.

  “Something like that, yeah.” I knew I didn’t have to explain myself. Mike had probably seen plenty of people stagger in here looking for something to soak up the booze.

  I took my bag and went outside, trudging around the corner of the store into the shadowy side of the building. The wind had picked up, finding its way past the scarf I’d tucked into my wool coat, blowing my loose hair and sending it flapping around my face, obscuring my vision. I reached up to push the offending strands away.

  When I dropped my hand, I saw a figure standing in front of me. I blinked, vague alarm bells going off in my mind behind that fourth glass of wine I’d drunk. But then I realized it was just a man, bundled like me in a heavy coat, probably in search of another six-pack or maybe a bag of chips.

  I sort of gave him a nod but kept moving forward. Sedona’s a small town, and a safe one. That didn’t mean I was about to engage a stranger in conversation at one o’clock in the morning.

  But instead of returning my nod and heading down to the Circle K’s front door, the stranger lunged for me, hands outstretched. Without really thinking, I brought my knee up, thinking I could get him in the groin and run before he had time to recover.

  Great plan. Too bad it didn’t work.

  I knew I connected — I could almost feel the sickening thud of my knee into his nuts, but I might as well have given him a hangnail for all the good it did me. Even as I kneed him, his hands were up and around my throat.

  No time to think. Of its own volition, my right hand raised the bag of “munchies” and smashed it against his temple. Now, okay, a hot dog isn’t that great a weapon, but a can of Coke smashing into a person’s head generally will at least slow them down.

  Not in this case. Those icy fingers continued to clamp down on my neck, and white spots began to flare in my field of vision, even as I ripped at his hands with my fingernails, pulled at fingers that might as well have been made of iron for all the difference my struggles made. I stared at my assailant, gasping, stared at the ordinary features, the too-blank eyes. My brain couldn’t seem to form a coherent thought. I still tore at him, but weakly. I knew my oxygen-starved brain was going to shut down at any second.

  Murdered behind a Circle K. That’s a hell of a way to go out.

  A flash of blinding blue-white light flared from nowhere, striking my attacker squarely in the side of the head. At once he let go, and I doubled over, gasping, choking, as the light flared again and the murderous stranger slumped motionless to the gravelly asphalt.

  Someone was bending over me. A voice I half recognized said, “It’s all right. I’ve got you.”

  And strong arms were suddenly around me, lifting me and carrying me away. I blinked my streaming eyes and looked up into Martin Jones’ face. “What — ”

  “Not here.”

  My throat felt scraped and raw, although the alcoholic haze seemed to be gone. Funny what a murder attempt and a rush of adrenaline can do to make four hours of drinking disappear just like that.

  Maybe I should have attempted to get out of his arms, but at the moment I didn’t know if my legs would even hold me up. He seemed to know exactly where he was going, taking me across my apartment complex’s parking lot and up the stairs to my apartment. A pause at the front door, and I realized he’d somehow managed to scoop up my purse as well.

  He handed it to me. “Keys?”

  I dug them out with shaking fingers and handed them over with the key to the deadlock extended so he’d know which one to use. Still holding me, he unlocked the door and carried me inside, then set me down on the couch. After that he moved away, going to the front window and twitching the curtains aside just for a second, as if making sure no one had followed us.

  My hands were still shaking. I pulled off my gloves and then shoved my icy fingers between my legs and the sofa cushions, trying to restore some of their warmth. Martin Jones turned to face me, brows slightly lowered.

  I stared up at him. There were roughly a million questions rushing through my mind, and I blurted out the first one that rose to the surface.

  “What the hell was that?”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  He didn’t answer at first. He watched me, face almost impassive, although I thought I saw a muscle twitch in his cheek, as if he were trying very hard not to betray any emotion. Finally he asked, “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I said, although my voice didn’t even sound like mine, raspy and rough, more like someone who’d spent the last twenty-five years smoking unfiltered Lucky Strikes and drinking Jack. I could almost feel those heavy fingers circling my throat, see those blank eyes staring into mine. Giving a shaky laugh, I added, “Strange things are afoot at the Circle K.”

  Something that might have been the beginnings of a smile twitched at one corner of his mouth. Wow, gorgeous and familiar with ’80s cult movies? I hadn’t really expected a Man in Black to recognize a quote from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.

  He didn’t reply right away, however. In silence he went to the kitchen, extracted a glass from the cupboard, and poured me a glass of water. He handed it to me. “What were you doing out there alone?”

  “I was getting a frigging hot dog, for God’s sake. That a crime?” Stupid as it might have been, I experienced a pang at the loss of my little bag of goodies. Attack or no, I was still hungry.

  A shadow passed over his face. “No, but I would have thought you’d be more careful…considering.”

  That was rich. Here I get attacked by some methed-up maniac behind a convenience store, and yet somehow it’s my fault. Talk about victim blaming. I drank some of the water, then cleared my throat. “Well, maybe I wanted to spend my Saturday night feeling like a normal human being. And if that includes a late-night run to the Circle K, well, so what?”

  “But you’re not — ” he began, and then seemed to check himself, as if he had been about to say something he realized I shouldn’t be hearing.

  “I’m not what?”

  “You’re not being careful.”

  “Okay, I think you established that already.” I sipped the water, then reached up to feel my throat and winced. Good thing it was scarf season, because I had a feeling I was going to be covering up some nasty bruises for the next couple of days. “What you didn’t do was answer my question.”

  He hesitated, then shook his head slightly and pulled his own scarf from around his neck before sitting down in my one armchair. “Could you be more specific?”

  Oh, for Chrissake — “All right. Why did that man attack me? What was that light you shot him with? And, for that matter, how did you happen to be there in the first place? Not that I’m not grateful for the rescue and all, but seriously — have you been following me or something?”

  Incongruously, he smiled. “Okay, that�
��s pretty specific. To answer your last question first, yes, I have been…keeping track of you.”

  “‘’Cause that’s not creepy or anything.”

  “It’s my assignment.”

  “Me?” I demanded incredulously. “Why the hell would you be assigned to follow me? I’m nobody.”

  His smile disappeared as quickly as it had come. “Don’t be so sure about that.”

  I had the feeling that being important wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, especially if it included lunatic strangers attacking you in the middle of the night. “So who was that man? And is he…” I let the sentence trail off. I didn’t really want to utter the word “dead.” That would make it all seem even worse than it already was.

  “No, he’s not,” Martin Jones said quickly. “He was only stunned, the thing that was controlling him knocked out of his system. He’ll wake up and won’t remember anything, except that he left the house to get a six-pack of beer and ended up there.”

  This explanation didn’t have the reassuring effect Agent Jones apparently expected it to. “The thing that was controlling him? He wasn’t on drugs?”

  “No.” The blue eyes caught mine and held, and something in them made a shiver run down my spine, even though I’d left the heat on in the apartment while I was gone and it was cozy enough in there. “I think you know what took hold of his mind.”

  I broke away from that gaze and looked past him, out in a general westerly direction. Toward Secret Canyon.

  Toward the aliens.

  “Will they try again?” The question was almost painful to ask, but I needed to know if I had to be on guard against anyone in the immediate vicinity who looked at all spacey.

  “Not in that way. Now they know you’ll be on guard. It was a gamble. They’d hoped to catch you alone and unprotected.”

  And thank God Agent Jones had been lurking in the background. I didn’t even want to think about what would have happened if he hadn’t been there. My voice dropped to almost a whisper, and it wasn’t just from the throttling I’d experienced a few minutes earlier. “But why do the aliens want me dead?”

  His fingers clenched on the knees of his dark pants. “I can’t tell you that.”

  “Oh, you can’t? Why the hell not?”

  “Because I’m not the person who should be telling you.”

  This conversation was not going at all the way I had expected it to. For some reason I could still feel his arms as they’d held me, carried me away from danger, feel the rough wool of his overcoat as it scraped against my cheek. And that was just stupid, because he’d only been doing his job. Watching me. Defending me if necessary.

  But…why?

  I pulled my hands out from where I’d been trying to warm them up under my legs and crossed my arms over my chest. At that point I realized I was still wearing my overcoat, and that I was actually starting to feel overheated. So I unbuttoned it and pulled the scarf from around my neck, trying not to wince as I did so. Alien-possessed or not, that bastard had some strong fingers.

  “Okay,” I said, since Martin Jones seemed content to watch me in silence, waiting until I responded. “I’ll bite. Exactly who should I be asking about why the aliens want me dead?”

  “Your mother.”

  At that reply I stared back at him, a frown digging itself into my forehead. My mother? Was this some sort of sick joke?

  “I’m guessing you know I’m not exactly on speaking terms with my mother.”

  “Yes.”

  “And so why do you think I’d suddenly get the urge to talk to a woman who ditched me when I was only three years old?”

  “Because if you don’t, the aliens will win.”

  Okay, he must have lost his mind. It was the only explanation for a pronouncement like that. “You’re joking, right? What the hell does Marybeth Swenson have to do with the aliens?”

  “You’ll have to talk to her. In person. Once you hear what she has to say, you’ll know why she’s the only person who could give you that information.”

  Something in his tone told me he wasn’t going to give me any more than that. My thoughts roiled. Marybeth Swenson had gone out for cigarettes twenty years ago, and I hadn’t seen her since. And now I was supposed to go waltzing off and drop in on her — in Taos, I recalled. At least, that’s where Agent Jones had told Kara our mother was hanging out these days.

  “And what about this whole ‘time is running out’ thing?” I demanded. “You do realize that it’s going to take me two whole days just to drive to Taos and back?”

  “Yes,” he replied, expressionless. “That’s why you’ll have to leave first thing in the morning.”

  First thing in the morning. Now it was almost two, and my head had begun to pound, although whether that was from the adrenaline or the alcohol wearing off, I couldn’t say. I supposed it really didn’t matter.

  For a minute or two I just sat there, wondering what the hell was really going on, and if there was any way to get out of it. I didn’t want to drive to Taos. I didn’t want to see my mother — not that I’d probably even recognize her after all this time. What I really wanted to do was go to bed and sleep for about a hundred hours.

  But then I thought of Persephone, who had left behind everything to drive to Sedona to rescue the man she loved, and Kara, who’d faced her fears and decided to keep a half-alien’s baby, despite not knowing what bearing such a child could do to her. Was I going to drop the ball now just because I was carrying twenty years’ worth of resentment toward my mother?

  “First thing tomorrow,” I said wearily, and stood. “This whole thing is crazy. So do you at least have an address for her, or do I have to start hacking the New Mexico motor vehicle department’s database?”

  In silence he reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a business card, then laid it down on the coffee table. “Thank you,” he said quietly, and went out, closing the door behind him. I didn’t hear his footsteps on the stairs. Maybe he was taking up guard position outside my door.

  I bent to pick up the business card. It was heavy recycled paper, with a stylized depiction of clouds and birds in a soft gray-blue shade. It read, “Skyheart Designs, Marybeth Swenson-Engle.” Beneath that was an address on Bent Street in Taos. I didn’t recognize it, of course, since I’d never been to New Mexico, despite it bordering my home state.

  “Swenson-Engle.” So had she gotten married at some point?

  I guessed I’d find out more soon enough.

  * * *

  Five hours of sleep was not really enough to make me functional, especially after the night I’d had, but I didn’t have much choice. I rolled out of bed at a little past seven, took a long, hot shower, and nuked two breakfast burritos, hoping that I could make up my energy in calories if I couldn’t do so in actual sleep.

  A few minutes on the computer, and I had a hotel room booked at the Taos Inn. I didn’t know anything about it except it was the first place that popped up when I searched on Yelp for hotels in Taos, and luckily they’d had a cancellation and were able to accommodate me. Okay, so I wouldn’t be sleeping in my car…which led to my second problem. Transportation.

  I knew there was no way the UFO Night Tours van was going to make it all the way to northern New Mexico, especially in the winter. Right now my bias against buying a new car was really biting me in the ass. True, Lance had a four-wheel-drive Jeep, but if I asked to borrow it, then all the questions would start, and I just couldn’t face that right now. The only way I was going to make this work was if I kept at it logically, mechanically, not thinking about the inevitable confrontation at the end of my 500-mile road trip.

  Okay, so Lance’s Jeep was out of the question, but I’d just done the Sunrise Jeep Rental’s website overhaul a couple of months ago, and I thought I might be able to wheedle a vehicle out of Henry, the owner. True, his rentals were intended for people going off-roading in Sedona’s environs, but he liked me and knew I was reliable. It seemed my best chance. Otherwise I’d have to s
ee if Enterprise had a truck I could rent, which didn’t seem as optimal as the Jeep.

  I packed enough for a three-day trip. Even if I didn’t encounter any problems on the road, it was still going to take me more than seven hours to drive to Taos, and it would be too late to try seeing my mother by the time I got there. That card was for a place of business, not a house, and if Taos was anything like Sedona, the sidewalks would be rolled up way before I got there around six.

  After throwing my suitcase in the passenger seat of the van and making sure my apartment was securely locked up, I headed over to Sunrise Jeep Rentals. It was barely nine in the morning, early for a Sunday in a tourist town, but I knew Henry would be there. A lot of people liked to get an early start for their off-roading ventures, and he opened at eight seven days a week.

  As I drove, I called Michael. Normally I would never have phoned someone at such an ungodly hour on the weekend. However, Michael was always up with the sun, so I guessed I wouldn’t be even close to waking him up. And I had to have someone watch the store while I was gone, since Kara wasn’t supposed to be back in until Tuesday. If I were lucky, Michael wouldn’t ask too many questions.

  He answered on the second ring, and I said, my tone falsely bright, “Hey, Michael. Something’s come up, and I need to go out of town for a few days. Do you mind watching the store today and tomorrow?”

  Being Michael, he saw right through me, even on the phone. “What’s happened?”

  “I can’t talk about it right now. Just please, Michael — can you do this for me?”

  A long pause, and then I could almost see him nod. “It’s time for your vision quest. This is necessary, so — yes, I’ll come in to the shop for you.”