World Tree Girl

by Kerry Schafer

  Jill stops short in the doorway when she sees that Jake is also here, but Matt is already behind her and relieving her of her purse and the knife at her hip.

  Too easy. Clearly, she’s got other weapons on her.

  “Jake, can you hook her up?”

  He shakes his head, stepping into his assigned role. “Insufficient cause. Nothing to be done in a legal capacity.”

  “Guess it’s up to us then.”

  She tries to back out through the door, but Matt is quicker, slamming it shut and leaning against it. Her eyes take in the three of us, and it’s Jake she appeals to.

  “Are you going to let them do this—whatever it is?”

  “They just want to talk, is all,” he says. “I’d suggest you sit down and listen.”

  “Maureen said she had a message for me from my father.”

  “Trust me, he’s here,” I tell her. “Sit down. You have some explaining to do.”

  A muscle twitches in her right cheek. There’s a tiny mascara smear under her left eye.

  “You are paranoid and pathetic. What exactly do you suspect me of?” She turns her gaze on Jake, trying to look pitiful. “Surely you can see that she’s lost it.”

  “Do sit down,” Matt says, pulling out a chair for her. “We’d be terribly distressed if you had another episode.”

  Jake’s hand moves to his belt, resting just beside his service weapon.

  Jill’s gaze flicks to Jake, then Matt, then back again.

  I can see the calculation behind her eyes. When she finally realizes she can’t fight all three of us, she sighs like a long-suffering martyr and sinks into the chair, which Matt politely shoves in close to the table.

  “What is this all about?” she asks.

  “I’ve done a little research. Amazing what the Internet will tell you. First, you lived with Phil. For about five years, I believe. Kind of a far cry from the sob story you told me about spending all that time in Juvie, but never mind the lie. I’m pretty sure he taught you an interesting set of skills.”

  She doesn’t answer. I sit down across from her. “What happened with you and Sophronia?”

  “The witch girl? You were there. She tried to kill me. Sucked away half of my soul.”

  “You sure about that?” Matt asks. He’s going to need to learn to master his expressions if he’s going to be in this game for long; he has grief and anger written all over his face. As it is, he’s behind her, but she can still hear it in his voice.

  I lean forward on my elbows. “What I can’t figure out is why she would want to hurt you. Never harmed a fly before you showed up.”

  Jill snorts, a sound incongruent with her Parisian persona. “To listen to the nurses at the hospital, she kills people all the time. Gets away with it because she picks on the weak and the sick.”

  “And how did you come to be having this conversation with the nurses?” Jake growls.

  All wide-eyed innocence, she responds, “They asked how I was injured. I had to tell them, n’est-ce pas?”

  “How about the truth? What I saw was you engaged in a tug-of-war with your father’s ashes. You won. You fell. You hit your head. Congratulations and here you go.” I shove the plastic container toward her. She shoves it away.

  “One wonders,” Matt puts in, “why you want those ashes so badly in the first place.”

  “Because Phil is my father! My God, do none of you have any emotions?” She manufactures tears from somewhere, and a little quaver comes into her voice.

  Behind her, Matt puts his hands to either side of her neck as if he’d like to strangle her. Jake’s expression stays neutral. “You still haven’t told us why Sophie would want to kill you.”

  “Does an Angel of Death need a reason? I could only speculate.”

  “Speculate away,” he says.

  “I thought I wasn’t under arrest.”

  “You’re not.”

  I open the container of ashes and push them toward her again. A faint, rotting smell drifts out, thanks to the blood. Jill turns up her nose and tries to shove her chair away from the table. With Matt solidly behind her, she’s trapped.

  “What, you don’t want them now?”

  “Let me go.” For the first time, there’s a taint of fear in her voice.

  “When we’re done with our chat.” Jake pulls out the chair beside me, turns it, and straddles it so he can lean on the back. “Maybe,” he adds.

  “This is outrageous! I will call the cops just as soon—”

  “Jake is the cops. And we’re all three of us onto you. Tears, smiles, flirtation—none of those things are going to have any effect on us. Except maybe Matt. Can you withstand her charms, Matt?”

  He rolls his eyes. “I think I can just manage.”

  “There you have it. So, tell us about Sophie.”

  “I can’t tell you what I don’t know! I had never seen her in my life before I met her in your suite. She threw a fit about me having Phil’s ashes. You saw that, Maureen. You can’t deny she’s totally unreasonable about cremation.”

  “I’m a little unreasonable, too.”

  Jill adjusts herself in the chair and puts on her schoolteacher voice. “My father’s quick cremation had nothing to do with me. Your coroner, I believe. Whatever game you all are playing down here, it’s time to end it.”

  “What about this? It came in that night, just before her little incident with you.”

  I hand her Sophie’s phone, open to the text message.

  She stares at the message just a beat too long. “I don’t know any Ravenna. Or am I supposed to be Ravenna? Probably one of her school friends or something, playing a joke, because who would ever name their kid that?” She slides the phone across the table and then, for no reason I can see, leaps half out of her chair, stopped by Matt’s hands pressing her back.

  “Ouch!” She swivels around to glare at him. “You pinched me. How dare you?”

  Matt lifts his eyebrows. I shrug. Nothing touched her, at least nothing visible. Matt’s hands were where I could see them the entire time.

  A cool breeze drifts across the table and flutters the papers there. So the spirits are here, after all. I’m surprised to find myself grateful, as though they are backup rather than threat.

  Opening the laptop and switching on the projector, I flash the Genesis logo up on the wall. We’ve situated Jill where she can’t help but stare at it, while we monitor her reactions.

  “What is that supposed to be?”

  Again, there’s a fraction too long before her reaction, but she’s good.

  I move on to an image of the letter sent to Sophie. While she reads, or pretends to read, I say, “I think you know perfectly well what Genesis is. In fact, I’m thinking you’re part of it. Maybe you’re the one who gave this letter to Sophronia in the first place.”

  “Your imagination is getting carried away with you again. Maybe you need to be evaluated. Dementia can begin quite young, I’m told.”

  “How about we call the number?”

  “Be my guest.”

  Jake dials the number. My pocket starts ringing. “Shall I answer that?”

  I pick up. “Hey Jake, is that you?”

  He salutes with his phone and hangs up.

  “I’m confused,” Jill says.

  “Join the club. There’s confusion enough for everybody.” I set the phone on the table. “This phone belongs to Pastor Hemsley’s wife, a woman named Evelyn, and maybe known to you as Eve.”

  “Somebody connected to a project called Genesis,” Jake says.

  Jill sighs. “Listen. Just because Phil was my father—genetically—it doesn’t make me a spy or a scientist. I’m a publicist. Looks like an organization that would be at odds with publicity, don’t you think?”

  “Interesting thing about that,” Jake says. “Because what likely would be useful is a molecular biology degree. A doctorate, no less. With a thesis on genetic manipulation. I don’t suppose you know anybody with those qualifications?”
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  Before she can make up her mind whether to lie or tell the truth, I flash the 1998 Harvard class roster with her name and course of study.

  “You’d have been a brand-new grad. Eager to prove yourself. So maybe the right people came along and offered you a job directly related to your area of expertise, and maybe you got involved because it was precisely the sort of thing your father was against.”

  “Would have, could have, maybe,” she says, dismissively. “You’re putting together random elements to make up a theoretical story. Great for a mystery novel, maybe, but real life doesn’t work that way.”

  “Humor me.” I bring up the pics of Aline. “If somebody was involved in such a project, say, and then the subjects started dying?”

  “And?” she asks, moving her hands to her lap.

  “I think you’re involved.”

  “I think you’re delusional.”

  “We have the letters from Genesis, you see. And we’ve talked to parents. So we know that two research subjects are dead and one is missing.”

  “A serial killer?” she asks.

  “We were thinking it might be an inside job.”

  “That’s ridiculous. If I were involved in a research project of some kind, were being the key word, I’d hardly kill off their subjects. That would be wasteful.”

  “Unless the study was over, of course,” Jake says, conversationally. “And if the research study was illegal, or forbidden by the FBI or Homeland Security or some other watchdog, then destroying all of the research notes, so to speak, might be in order.”

  “Or maybe somebody was onto you,” I add. “Somebody like Phil, say, who wouldn’t stop justice for his daughter, something he’s proven in the past.”

  “You are all crazy. I have listened. Now I’m leaving.”

  “Not just yet. There’s also a matter of this.”

  I flash a picture of the badly bound little book I found at Ravenna’s. Mythology and Genetics. “This is a fascinating little research study, written by Hemsley et al. Do I need to tell you who et al. is?”

  “So I contributed to a research project done by a couple of boring old women. What does that have to do with anything?” She sounds petulant, and I know we’ve rattled her.

  I nod at Matt, and he sets her purse on the table.

  “Let’s look at this, shall we? It must have gone to the hospital with you—a fortunate coincidence for you—since it wasn’t in your room for me to search.”

  “I knew you went through my stuff!”

  “Naturally. What have we here?”

  She fidgets while I lay out the inventory: a switchblade, the kind that is illegal in the US; makeup; perfume; a wallet with credit cards and drivers’ licenses from a number of US states, all with different identities; a passport; three rings of keys; a lock pick set; a tiny handgun, of the type that can’t hit a target no matter how carefully you aim.

  “Tell us about your connection with Alice Sorenson and Eve Hemsley.”

  “I collaborated with them on their stupid little book. That’s it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. Can I go now?”

  “Oh, not quite yet. I think Alice is—was—the brains behind the Genesis Project. I don’t think it was your father’s death that brought you home at all. It was hers.”

  “I loved my father. I wanted to bury him beside my mother where he belongs. I was stupid enough to think maybe I could get close to you. That’s the only reason I’m here, and I know absolutely nothing about any of this.” She gestures at the wall where Aline’s image floats suspended.

  “Whether you loved your father is not the question. It’s what you can tell us about the research subjects.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You’d be smart to cooperate.”

  There’s no way she can miss the warning in Jake’s voice.

  Meanwhile, I start flipping through the pictures that showed up on Dason’s computer. “Do you know this person? How about this one?”

  “I do not know any of these people. This is about keeping me from inheriting the Manor, isn’t it? I thought—maybe—Phil would be a bond between us, but you don’t want any more to do with me than you did when I was sixteen. Fine. You win.” She starts stuffing her belongings back into her purse. “I’ll go to a hotel.”

  Matt, at a signal from me, steps away from her chair and out of the room, leaving the door open behind him.

  “Spare me the guilt trip.” I hold up the lipstick I took from Eve. “Do you know what this is?”

  Her nose wrinkles. “Certainly not. That’s a ghastly brand no right-thinking woman would buy.”

  “I took it from Eve Hemsley.”

  “I don’t know this person, but she clearly has terrible taste.”

  “Here’s the thing. It doesn’t even have lipstick in it.” I open the tube and pull out the phone number.

  Jill stiffens.

  “I know. Keeping a number on you, even in a secret compartment, is a bad idea. But when it’s a foreign number, one for a phone in France, maybe it’s difficult to remember.”

  “So this woman knows somebody in France. Circumstantial evidence.”

  “Unfortunately true. Well, thanks for visiting with us,” Jake says. “Sorry for the inconvenience.”

  “Don’t forget to take Phil.” I push the plastic container toward her.

  She narrows her eyes at me, as if she’ll be able to see my motives more clearly through a smaller visual field, then glances at Jake. She doesn’t move toward the open door. “Can I have my weapons?”

  “Don’t look at me.” Jake raises his hands in a gesture of innocence. “I have no legal right to search your purse. No warrant. No cause beyond a lot of circumstantial evidence.”

  She pushes herself slowly to her feet. Takes a step toward the door. Pauses. Looks back over her shoulder at me.

  I hold both hands up, palms forward. “If I was going to shoot you, Jill, it wouldn’t be in the back. Not my way. I don’t know about Jake, I’ve never seen him shoot anybody. Ever shoot anybody in the back, Jake?”

  “Nope.”

  Jill flips her hair over her shoulder. “I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, Maureen, but I’ve had enough. I’ll book my return ticket immediately.” With that parting shot, she picks up the potato salad container and taps out of the room and toward the stairs. We give her a good head start and then follow.

  I’m cursing my bad leg for the millionth time this day. There’s no way I can keep up, and I’m going to miss the fun. I motion to Jake to go on ahead. He gives me a salute and leaves me to focus on dragging myself up the stairs. About halfway up, a cold draft hits me from behind, powerful enough that I feel like I’m going to have lift off.

  Either the spirits are following Phil, as Sophie said, or they have an interest in the outcome of the proceedings. Which leads me to think maybe I should have brought Val to join the show. Oh well. Best laid plans and all of that.

  There will be time enough to lay the ghosts to rest when we’ve found Sophie and stopped the Medusa.

  • • •

  “I knew it.” Jill’s voice, loud and furious, drifts down the staircase to me.

  A male voice answers her, muffled and low.

  Jill is not to be soothed. “I can’t believe you fell for it! What did you tell them?”

  Anubis comes thudding down the stairs toward me, ears laid back, looking like all the demons of hell are after him. He hits the incoming spirits and turns tail, with a howl, thundering back the way he came and vanishing through the doorway.

  By the time I make it up through the closet and into my suite, he’s nowhere in sight.

  Jake has Jill in handcuffs. Ravenna stands facing her, looking bewildered. “How was I to know? Matt here told me you’d decided to bring him and his team in, for the good of the study. Aline is dead, you know. So is Vince. Sophronia is missing. They are just children after all.”

  “Th
ey lied to you and you fell for it. How could you be so stupid?” Jill shouts.

  Ravenna clucks and shakes her head. “Well now. I did want to help the children. But really…” She pauses, shivering. “Is there a door open? A window? It’s chilly in here.”

  “Ravenna’s role in all this,” Matt says, filling me in, “is mostly to help keep tabs on the kids. Lend a sympathetic ear. Show up in their community around the time their abilities might start to surface. Make contact over a little tattoo art.”

  “Are you ready to tell us where Sophronia is?” Jake demands. “We’d like her not to end up dead.”

  Or killing somebody else, I add silently. Of the two risks—Sophie dead or Sophie altered into a killing machine—I’m not entirely sure which would be the worst.

  “I did not send that text,” Ravenna insists. “I’m sorry. I have nothing to gain from lying to you at this point, do I? I did not send it.”

  “Where are the rest of the subjects? Tell us where to find them. Maybe we can save them. And your research.”

  Jill’s jaw tenses. Her nostrils flare. “Don’t you answer that.”

  That, for me, is as good as an admission.

  Ravenna folds her hands into her lap. “Do I require an attorney?”

  “This is not an official investigation,” Jake says. “Although, it will be if it turns out Jill has been having these people murdered.”

  “Why would I do that? It makes no sense.”

  “To protect your research,” I respond. “What does the hybrid DNA look like, anyway? I’ve been curious.”

  Her lips clamp down hard, holding back words that are threatening to burst out of her control.

  “The FBI is involved,” Matt says. “Coming along behind you, sweeping up the evidence. They may or may not kill your subjects, but you can bet they’ll be taking the opportunity to look at your research.”

  I sink into a chair, trying to ease my leg, which feels like the bones are on fire. “The way I figure it works is this: Ravenna, the listening ear, lures the subject out with offers of comfort and advice. Jill is waiting to do the blood work.”

  Ravenna’s eyes widen with horror, but I discount that. We already know what a good actor she is.