by Jen Blood
He studied me for a second before turning his attention to Diggs. “That’s true? You gave the memory card to Erin, and now it’s gone? You have no copies.”
When I didn’t intervene, Diggs nodded. “Yeah, it’s true,” he agreed smoothly. Diggs has it all over me in the lying department. “I gave the card to her. We didn’t think it would be safe to try and copy it.”
Juarez didn’t say anything, but I knew he didn’t believe us. It hurt to see the betrayal in his eyes, but there was something under that—a hint of determination, maybe even anger, that made me think Diggs and I weren’t the only ones holding back. He scrubbed his hand along his jaw, looking frustrated as hell—not a look I associate with Jack Juarez, usually the most Zen man on the block.
“So, we know… what, exactly?” he asked me. “Your father’s sister was raped and murdered in 1970, and from there he went underground. Before that, he was apparently childhood friends with this Mitch Cameron, who went on to join U.S. Army Special Forces and was reported dead in 1975 in Saigon. Then, your father reappears in…” he looked at me expectantly.
“1978,” I supplied.
“Right,” he said. “Your father reappears as Adam Solomon in 1978, when he joins the Payson Church of Tomorrow. And then, in 1990, you say you saw Cameron on Payson Isle the day the church burned to the ground.”
I nodded. “That’s it in a nutshell. Ten years later, Dad faked his own death and vanished again.”
“But we know now that Adam Solomon is still alive,” Diggs said. “And both he and Kat have something—some piece of information—over these people, which up to this point has been keeping Erin alive.”
“But Kat’s always refused to tell me what that something is,” I said. “Believe me, I’ve tried to get her to talk.”
“All the same, based on the explosion at your place tonight, I’d say no one’s killing themselves to keep you breathing anymore,” Diggs said. “So, here’s what I’ve come to in all this: We know what Adam Solomon was doing until 1970. We know what he was doing—for the most part—after 1978. If we can figure out what happened in those eight years in between, I’m willing to bet that will go a long way toward unraveling this whole mess.”
“Have you made any progress on that so far?” Juarez asked.
“Dad covered his tracks well,” I admitted. “So far, we haven’t had much luck.”
“I’ll get on it—see what I can find,” Juarez said.
“You need to be careful,” I said. “Cameron’s been clear from the start: we’re not supposed to look into this. Anyone who has so far—with the exception of Diggs and me—has turned up dead.”
“I’ll be discreet,” Juarez agreed. “You just focus on staying alive. When we get out to the island, maybe I can get some information from Kat.”
“Yeah. Good luck with that,” I said.
“And you’re sure you have no idea what was on that memory card,” he said. “And you have no copies.”
“Positive,” I agreed. This time, I looked him in the eye. Maybe I was better at this lying thing than I’d thought.
By this time, we were forty-five minutes into the trek, far out to sea. The bad weather and the fact that we were below deck meant we felt every swell, every rock and roll. Diggs has spent the better part of his life in shitty boats on shittier seas in the quest for the perfect wave, and I might as well have been born with fins, but Juarez wasn’t looking so good. Once we’d finished our briefing, he excused himself and went up for some fresh air. I stayed with Diggs, staring after the Fed.
“What the hell was that about?” I demanded when he was gone. “They’ve been monitoring my purchases? Checking the websites I’m looking at? What are we onto here?”
“He’s lying about just deciding to come out here on his own, too,” Diggs noted. I noticed that he didn’t seem quite so keen on his buddy Juarez now that we knew what he’d been up to since we had seen him last. “There’s no way he arranged a trip like this without his boss knowing. Ten to one, they’re the ones who sent him.”
“So, we’re agreed we say nothing about having the memory card. I don’t know what’s going on, but right now I don’t trust him—or anyone—with that information.”
“Agreed,” Diggs said.
“Which means we need to keep a close eye on this.” I pulled my laptop from the backpack we’d been dragging with us since Littlehope and powered it up. We argued briefly about the wisdom of using it with Juarez just above deck, but I could tell that Diggs’ heart wasn’t in it. It was clear that he wanted to know what the hell was going on just as much as I did.
I opened the decrypted document I’d saved the night before. Two neat columns of alphanumeric entries filled the screen. Now that we had a few minutes of down time, I made more of an effort to decipher what I was seeing, focusing on the first entry in the list: 40N85W 3062210511115DM. Going down the line, every number began with the same format: two numbers followed by a letter—usually N—and another two digits followed by either W or E. I paused close to the bottom of the first column.
“Do you have a map?” I asked.
“Not in my back pocket, no.”
“The first numbers on here—these are coordinates.” My blood was humming now, something slowly clicking into place. Once I realized what that something was, I couldn’t decide whether it was good or bad. “This number, here,” I said, stabbing an entry halfway down the page with my index finger. “These are the coordinates for the island we’re headed out to.”
“Wait…” Diggs shook his head in confusion. “What? How do you know that?”
“There was a nautical chart back at the ferry terminal. The coordinates of the island were up in the corner—these are the coordinates: 44 North, 68 West. 44N68W. Diggs, why the hell would the coordinates for an island where my mother is counting exotic birds for no earthly reason anyone can think of, be on an encrypted memory card you took from a dead guy in Kentucky?”
“Are you sure those are the same coordinates?”
“Positive. I don’t have a clue what the rest of the numbers mean, but these are definitely locations. And one of them is the island we’re headed for now.”
Diggs looked as unsettled as I felt. “We should print these out when we get to the island. I don’t know how safe it is having the file on the laptop at this point.”
“Especially if Uncle Sam is monitoring my activity.” I continued staring at the numbers. Eventually, they began to swim in front of my eyes. I stifled a yawn. “We need to figure out where the rest of the coordinates are. I don’t suppose they have Wifi on this boat.”
“I think that’s a safe assumption, yeah.” When I yawned again, he took the laptop from me, powered it down, and snapped it shut before I’d even managed a worthy protest.
“What are you doing?”
“Saving you from yourself. Or saving us from yourself. We have at least an hour before we hit the island… Plenty of time for a power nap.”
“I’m all right—we should be using this time to go over those numbers. What do you think they mean?”
“Solomon—”
“I’m not tired.”
“Give me a break, would you? I’m exhausted. Just humor me.” He stowed the laptop in my bag, lay down on the bunk, and pulled me down with him. If he wasn’t such a comfortable pillow, I would have put up more of a fight. Instead, I settled in with my head on his shoulder, my hand resting on his stomach.
“How many entries would you say are on there?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Sixty, maybe seventy.”
“And they all start with coordinates, followed by a series of maybe fifteen numbers and two letters. What do you think the numbers mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe they’re a code,” I mused. “Substitute the numbers for letters, or… pass codes, maybe. There could be safes in each of those locations, and the numbers are the combination or… something.”
He turned onto his side to face me. �
�Close your eyes.”
I didn’t. Instead, I gnawed on my lower lip and considered our future, for the first time surrendering to the possibility that things might be slightly out of control. The thought sent a surge of fear through me. “Do you think they’ve already gotten to Kat and Maya?”
Diggs looked at me seriously, pushing the hair back from my forehead. “I don’t know,” he said. I was grateful he didn’t hand me some bullshit line about everything being all right. We both knew by then that things don’t always go that way. “The fact that Jenny was on the mainland when Cameron called, though… If he was still looking for your mom, then maybe Jenny was, too.”
“What do you think Juarez is hiding?”
“Erin,” he said. He touched his lips to mine. “For the love of god, just close your eyes.”
This time, I did. A few seconds of silence passed before I spoke again.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Don’t mention it, ace. It’s what I’m here for.”
I ran my hand along his side, cuddling in a little bit closer. For a guy who hadn’t slept or bathed and had nearly been blown up just a few hours ago, he smelled surprisingly good. When I nipped his neck, I could feel his heart speed up.
“You’re supposed to be sleeping,” he said.
“I told you: I’m not tired.”
“Well, you should be.”
I kissed along his jaw line, up toward his ear, remembering things I thought I’d forgotten about him in the years since we’d done this last: the taste of his skin, the feel of his body; the things he whispered and the way he whispered them. I nipped his earlobe and he growled, low in his throat, before he wrapped his hand around the back of my neck and pulled me to him. The kiss was hard, just this side of rough, his lips moving over mine with an urgency that left me breathless. When he moved back, my heart was pounding and his eyes were dark.
“Go to sleep,” he said, a little breathless himself.
I raised my eyebrows at him and propped myself up on my elbow. “You want me to sleep after that kiss? Are you nuts?”
“Probably,” he muttered. He pulled me back down and wrapped his arms around me. “But I’m not fooling around with you in the belly of a boat while your mother’s missing and your armed ex-boyfriend is just above us. A man has to draw the line somewhere.”
“Fine.” Despite everything, I felt the tiniest knife edge of fatigue cut through the adrenaline that had been fueling me for hours. I closed my eyes when his hand fell to the back of my head, stroking my hair. “I’ll try to sleep, for your sake.”
“That’s what I love about you, ace. That generous spirit.”
He pressed a kiss to my temple. Against all odds, I slept.
An hour later, we docked at a small landing on Raven’s Ledge. The island wasn’t any different from any other Maine island I’d visited over the years, as far as I could tell: evergreens, granite, and a whole lot of water. My nap had left me blurry and dazed and not especially refreshed by the time we docked at eight a.m. The cold weather and spitting snow didn’t help matters any.
Once we’d gotten the dogs and the crew off the boat and onto solid ground, Jamie led us up a narrow, snow-covered path into the woods. The trees closed in around us. I kept Einstein on leash, but he wasn’t exactly chomping at the bit to get away from me. The past year had left both of us more than a little gun shy.
I tried to focus on the path ahead of me instead of the months behind, and kept walking.
The Raven’s Ledge research station was a two-story log cabin perched on the edge of a granite cliff. Solar panels lined the roof, with a shaky-looking crow’s nest at the top of the building. By the time we got there, about half an hour after docking, the snow was lighter and the sun was making an honest effort to push through the clouds.
Jamie slowed down at the top of the path and waited for us to catch up. There was a picnic table in front of the station, with an empty bottle of root beer and a half-filled ashtray on it. When we were all together again, about twenty yards from the front door, Jamie stopped.
“Since we haven’t been able to raise anyone on the radio yet, we’ll go in first,” she said, indicating Juarez, Monty, and Carl. “Cheyenne will stay with you two. Nobody wander off, and don’t move until you get the all-clear from us.”
I didn’t argue. Cheyenne—the blue-haired boat captain—and her pit bull, Casper, joined us as Juarez went to the door. He went in first, Jamie and her dog on his heels while Monty and Carl brought up the rear. The door slammed behind them. I stared after them, wishing for x-ray vision or psychic powers or anything that might speed up the agony of waiting to find out what the hell was going on behind that door.
For a few tense minutes, no one said anything. Cheyenne managed what I assumed was supposed to be a reassuring smile, but mostly she looked as freaked out as Diggs and me. She was younger than I’d thought when I first met her—early- to mid-twenties, maybe 5’6”, with a body built for power, not grace. She focused on Casper and Einstein, clearly more comfortable with them than her human companions.
When Jamie reappeared about ten minutes later, I couldn’t hold back a sigh of relief.
“You can come on in,” she called. “It’s clear.”
Clear, and empty.
The research station wasn’t so different from your average, run-of-the-mill hunting lodge, but instead of deer heads and stuffed fish, the walls were decorated with nautical charts and drawings of island birds. It opened on a spacious Great Room with cathedral ceiling and fireplace, a breakfast bar separating it from the kitchen. A stairwell just off the kitchen led to the second floor, a loft and another fireplace visible from the Great Room.
“It’s a nice set-up,” Diggs said.
“The Nature Conservancy paid for renovations to the Melquist place,” Cheyenne said. “Which is how we convinced the family to let us build here. We set the family up with a windmill to help power things… It’s been a very friendly, mutually beneficial set-up.”
“Cheyenne’s been volunteering with the project from the beginning,” Jamie said. “Trying to butter the family up in the hopes that they’ll let us move the business out here.”
“The dog business,” I said, surprised. “You think they’d go for something like that?”
“Probably not,” Jamie said. “But our lease is up in a few months, and the owner’s being a dick about negotiations on a new contract. I’d like to just go… A place like this would be ideal. No issues with zoning or noise, no worry about the dogs getting loose and eating the neighbors.”
“Do they usually get loose and eat the neighbors?” Juarez asked. He sounded worried.
“Only on full moons,” she assured him. I liked the little spark of mischief in her eye—and more, the fact that Juarez looked like he wasn’t sure if she was kidding.
“Is it unusual that no one’s here right now?” Diggs interrupted, pulling us back to the point.
The look on Cheyenne’s face was all I needed to know that it was beyond unusual. Someone should have been there to meet us at the door; hell, someone should have been waiting at the dock for us. Rather than saying that, though, she shrugged.
“Hard to tell. They might be out checking one of the nests or doing some observation on the north shore.”
No one said anything to that, but I clenched and unclenched my fists and gnawed at my bottom lip, trying to calm myself. There had been some deep, stupidly optimistic part of me that had been hoping we’d find Kat and Maya here at the station, Kat blissfully ignoring my phone calls while the two of them took pictures of puffins and chased seagulls. The fact that the place was deserted was feeding demons I’d been trying like hell to keep at bay since this whole thing started.
Cheyenne continued with a grand tour of the station, leading us upstairs. At the top of the stairs, there was a closed door to our left and a full bath directly in front of us. Farther down the hall on the right were the loft and two more closed doors. Cheyenne stopped at the farthest
one, labeled STAFF ONLY in giant gold letters.
“This is where the magic happens,” she said as she opened the door.
I stopped at the threshold to take it in. It was a bigger room than I’d expected, with one wall comprised of floor to ceiling windows that looked out on the ocean below. A set of rickety spiral stairs led up to the crow’s nest I’d seen when we first arrived. Shelves lining the wall were filled with island specimens: crabs and urchins, flowers and herbs, stones and soil.
Otherwise, though, there was no sign of a living soul.
After the lab, Cheyenne let us check out the other rooms: two bedrooms on the second floor, and a larger bedroom below with a private bath and two sets of bunk beds.
“Bedrooms on the second floor are for staff,” she explained when we were on the ground level again. “But when we have volunteers or research groups around, they stay here.”
Which meant this was where Kat and Maya were staying. The room was efficient but impersonal, decorated only with framed photos of the research station during the building stages. All the bunks were made, the blankets smooth enough to bounce a quarter on.
Except for one.
A backpack lay open beside the bottom bunk closest to the door. The blankets were thrown back. A pair of gold earrings lay on the night table beside an empty glass and a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels.
I saw Diggs watching me, but looked away quickly while I reminded myself to keep breathing. I knelt and pawed through the pack, my heart beating harder. It sped up that much more when I found a soiled lab coat with Dr. Katherine Everett stitched in the upper right corner. Half a dozen little bottles of booze, some open and some not, lay at the bottom of the bag.
I put everything back, folding Kat’s lab coat carefully, and then made the bed. My hands were shaking.
Kat was a heavy drinker back in the day—and not in a life-of-the-party kind of way. She was a mean, messy drunk, and more often than not I paid through the nose for it. As far as I knew, though, my mother had been sober for over a decade.