A World Apart (Shades Below, #1)

by Oliva, L. J. K.

  She turned back to the desk clerk. "These are police files. We were hoping to compare the names on them with your records. Would it be possible to see your registration for the last, say, month?"

  The young man hesitated. "I don't know if I'm supposed to... Shouldn't you have a warrant or something?"

  Lena spread her hands. "Look, we're not cops. In fact, you really don't want to know how I got these. It's just that my brother..." She looked away, returned her gaze to the man. "We've been over three blocks already, and you're the first decent-looking person we've run into. Are you sure you can't help us?"

  The young man wavered. Then he got to his feet. "Just one moment."

  Several minutes later, a scuffed three-ring binder lay open on the counter behind the glass. The desk clerk watched as she and MacMillian held up first one file, then another. "What did you say you were looking for again?"

  MacMillian didn't slow down. "These files contain the names of people who have gone missing in the Tenderloin during the past few weeks. If we can get a lock on where they were staying..." He stopped. Triumph flooded his face. "There. Got one."

  The desk clerk's eyes widened. Lena fought back the excitement rising in her chest and peered over MacMillian's arm. "Stan Mitkovski." She glanced up at the clerk. "Recognize the name?"

  "Mitkovski... Mitkovski..." The man snapped his fingers. "Sure. Except he called himself Stretch." His eyebrows drew together. "Now that you mention it, I haven't seen him recently."

  MacMillian pulled a pen and notepad from the pocket of his field jacket, and jotted down the name. "Any idea how long?"

  The man shrugged. "A week. Maybe two. I was beginning to think he'd skipped on his bill."

  They found several more matches by the time they reached the end of Durbin's files. The desk clerk closed the binder, and caught Lena's eye. "Your brother is lucky to have a sister like you. I hope you find him."

  Lena gave him a sad smile. "Thank you. I hope so, too."

  MacMillian didn't speak until they were outside again. Eyes on the street around them, he murmured, "Never would have pinned you for such a convincing liar."

  Lena shrugged. "Years of practice." Her lips twisted. "It's not like I can just go around telling everyone I see dead people, right?"

  MacMillian's lips twitched. "No. I suppose not."

  She blew out a sigh and looked up at him. "So, what now?"

  "Well, we found some of the names we were looking for." MacMillian nodded at the SRO's that lined both sides of the street. "Now we find the rest."

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  "I'm officially ready to stop treating this like one of your investigations."

  Lena leaned hard against the outside of the last SRO on the block. Her head pounded with errant pot smoke and what she suspected were residual crack fumes. She massaged her temples and shot MacMillian a pleading look. "Please tell me we're done here."

  MacMillian didn't look much better than she felt. His face was drawn, and his walk was painfully stiff. "Yeah. Let's get back to the car."

  Lena resisted the urge to sprint back to where the Fury was parked, instead matched her pace to MacMillian's. Jaw tight with concentration, he kept his steps short and even. There was no sign of his previous limp. They passed a group of bedraggled-looking men clustered outside one of the hotels. Lena tried to ignore the flagrant stares aimed her way.

  Without a word, MacMillian tucked her hand through his arm.

  She didn't start to breathe normally again until the Fury's sleek green body came into view. By some miracle, it appeared untouched. MacMillian unlocked the door, still scanning the surrounding street. They slid into their respective seats, and he quickly started the engine and pulled out into traffic.

  A few blocks later, Lena finally gave herself permission to relax. She unfisted her hands in her lap. "Let's not do that again."

  MacMillian's lips curved.

  Her cell phone rang. Lena shook off the events of the past few hours and answered it.

  "Lena? It's Cyrus. Where are you?"

  Lena glanced at MacMillian. "Just left the Tenderloin. We were checking something at Jimmy's old hotel."

  "MacMillian still with you?"

  "Yes."

  "Good. Put me on speaker."

  "Yes, sir," Lena muttered, and did as he ordered. She nodded to MacMillian. "I think Cyrus found something."

  "Sure did." Cyrus's voice reverberated through the car. "Turns out I can survive abandonment under a stack of books."

  Lena made a face. "You were on a computer. And we didn't abandon you."

  "Same principle, but it's not important." His voice turned smug. "Point is, I'm a goddamn wizard at this shit. I did what MacMillian suggested and googled the Downtown Subway project."

  Lena rolled her eyes. "Congratulations, Sam Spade. You can operate a search engine."

  MacMillian let out a cough that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. "What did you find out?"

  "You mean besides that we live in a society with no respect for privacy?"

  "Yeah. Besides that."

  The sound of knuckles cracking echoed over the speaker. "Well for one thing, it wasn't just construction workers who had access to the tunnels. Hold on, I'm sending you something right now."

  Lena waited. A split second later, the alert dinged on her email. She minimized the call screen and opened it.

  "Did you get it?"

  "I'm looking at it now."

  It was an article from the San Francisco Chronicle: "Stuck In The Midden-Archaeologists Discover Artifacts During Subway Excavation." Lena scanned it quickly.

  MacMillian's eyes flicked back and forth between the road and her phone. "Well?"

  "Apparently while they were tunneling under Fourth Street, the digging crews ran into some old Native American trash heaps." Lena raised her voice so Cyrus could hear. "This is it? What does this have to do with-"

  "Look at the picture I'm sending you."

  Lena waited until her email buzzed again. This time Cyrus had forwarded a picture of a slender, academic-looking man wearing a construction vest and a hard hat. "Who's this?"

  "Dan Wachsmuth. He's an anthropology professor at San Francisco State University. He's also the consulting archaeologist on the Downtown Subway project."

  MacMillian raised an eyebrow. "'Consulting archaeologist'?"

  "That's not all. I found another picture." Cyrus paused. Lena's email buzzed a third time. "Got it?"

  She opened the file, and drew her brows together. "What am I looking at?"

  "That, dear sister, is the former site of The Butterfly Room, otherwise known as the extraction site."

  Lena stared at the new photo. "Okay, I recognize the archaeologist. But who's the guy shaking hands with him? Is that a... priest?"

  "Father Edward Narvaez." Excitement filled Cyrus's voice. "When they broke ground for the extraction shaft, they discovered a piece of foundation from an old church that used to stand there. Father Narvaez's church. The place was destroyed in the 1906 quake, and the theater was built right on top of the wreckage."

  MacMillian's hand flexed on the driving controls. "So this Father Narvaez had access to the site?"

  "Yeah but only once, when the project commission returned the piece of foundation to his church. Our Professor Wachsmuth, on the other hand, has had pretty much free reign over the entire tunnel system throughout construction."

  Lena caught MacMillian's eye, then turned back to her phone. "Cyrus, what's the quickest way to SFSU from downtown?"

  ←↑↓→

  San Francisco State's Anthropology Department was housed in an oddly haphazard, faintly modernistic yellow building. Tall trees cast dappled shade over the path that led up to the entrance. Beyond them stretched a lush green quad, mostly empty.

  MacMillian double-checked the campus map Cyrus had sent to Lena's phone. "Is he sure this is the right place?"

  Lena reached out a hand, and he obligingly placed the cell in her palm. "I guess. I've never
seen him so fired up about research before."

  "Maybe he just needed the right kind of encouragement."

  She snorted. "What, like your boot up his ass?"

  MacMillian swallowed the chuckle that rose up his throat. "Sure. Like that." He swept his free arm towards the door. "After you."

  The office number Cyrus had given them was on the third floor. They rode the elevator up in silence, stepped off and started down a deserted hallway. MacMillian took stock of their surroundings, and frowned. Basic tile floors, harsh fluorescent lights, cinderblock walls, and the glimpses inside the classrooms were hardly impressive; all in all, the place looked more like a high school science wing than a university-grade facility.

  The office was the last one at the end of the hall. An engraved plaque hung next to the door:

  Dan Wachsmuth, PhD

  Professor

  A loud voice carried through the wall. "No, you tell them we'll show up at the original time. They said they'd have someone there to let us back. I'm not going to be kept waiting just because some eight-dollar-an-hour security guard feels like sleeping in."

  A pause. MacMillian glanced at Lena.

  The voice continued louder. "Well, then we'll bring bolt-cutters. If they don't want us breaking in, tell them to have somebody meet us at the exhibit like they promised in the first place."

  A phone banged back into its cradle. MacMillian knocked on the door.

  "I'm not taking appointments right now. Office hours are on the syllabus."

  MacMillian scowled. Lena looked up at him. "Maybe we should come ba-"

  He rolled his eyes and opened the door.

  The room was small, even for an office. A packed bookshelf stood against one wall. The other was plastered with various certificates and awards. In the center of the room sat an oversized desk, strewn with papers. A framed picture of a blonde, middle-aged woman rested in the corner, her beaming face angled towards the door.

  The man from the newspaper photograph was seated behind it. He looked even less imposing in person. A pair of round, Benjamin Franklin-style spectacles sat perched on his nose. He glowered over the wire rims.

  "I don't have time to answer questions. You'll have to get the assignment from one of the other students."

  Lena took a step forward. "We're not students here."

  The man's eyebrows raised, then drew together. He pursed his lips and looked them up and down. "No. I suppose not."

  MacMillian bristled and started to retort. Lena cut him off. "Dr. Wachsmuth, my name is Lena Alan. This is Jesper MacMillian. We need your help."

  Wachsmuth's eyebrows rose again. "My help?"

  MacMillian stepped up next to Lena. He forced his voice to remain even. "We're interested in your work on the Downtown Subway project. Can you tell us about your role as consulting archaeologist?"

  Wachsmuth started shuffling the stack of papers in front of him. "The Chronicle already did an article on that. I suggest you read it. Now if you'll excuse me..."

  "We're doing a follow-up."

  MacMillian gaped down at Lena. She didn't look at him, instead kept both eyes on Wachsmuth. "For the Examiner. After all, can't rely on The Chronicle to get it right every time."

  Christ, did she wink? Wachsmuth stared, as if noticing her for the first time. A slow, sly smile spread across his face. MacMillian resisted the urge to snarl.

  "Of course not, Miss... Alan, you said?"

  "That's right." Lena's voice sounded more like a purr. She lowered herself to the edge of his desk and crossed her legs. "So maybe you could go over it for us again. Please?"

  Wachsmuth adjusted his glasses. "Of course I could always, that is, I don't suppose there'd be any harm in..." He cleared his throat. "What did you need, exactly?"

  MacMillian swallowed a growl and pulled out his notepad. "Did you ever encounter anything unusual in the tunnels?"

  Wachsmuth's eyes jerked up from Lena's legs. "Unusual? Unusual, how?"

  Wasn't that interesting. MacMillian feigned apathy. "Oh, you know, anything that might not have made it into your original reports."

  Wachsmuth's eyes darted to the side. Before he could speak, the office door opened. A pretty, petite Asian woman strode inside, eyes locked on her smartphone screen. "Dan, I made the reservations for six. Do you want to pick me up in front of the..." She looked up, and trailed off. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were..."

  Wachsmuth cleared his throat, then cleared it again. "This isn't a good time, Ms. Sato."

  The woman's gaze landed on Lena, sharpened. "I can see that. Sorry to have disturbed you." She retreated back into the hallway, shutting the door behind her.

  MacMillian waited until the sound of her footsteps faded, then turned to Lena. "You know, maybe we have this all wrong. Maybe we shouldn't be doing a follow-up." He flashed his most predatory smile. "Maybe we should be doing an exposé."

  Wachsmuth balked. "An exposé? What the hell are you talking about? Exposé of what?"

  "Not what. Who." Lena slid off his desk and returned to MacMillian's side. She looked up at him, a twinkle in her eye. "You may be on to something. Just imagine. It wouldn't be Pulitzer material, but the public always loves a good sex scandal."

  Wachsmuth's complexion visibly grayed. "S-s-sex scandal?"

  Lena gestured towards the picture of the blonde woman. "So tell me Dr. Wachsmuth, for the record, how long have you been married?" She nodded at his bare ring finger. "Do you always remove your wedding ring at the office?"

  "Stop! Enough." Wachsmuth's Adam's apple bobbed. He slid a finger between his collar and his neck. "You have to believe me, I was going to mention it, I just needed to collect more proof."

  MacMillian finally released the growl he'd been holding back. "Proof of what?"

  Wachsmuth leaned back hard in his seat. "You don't understand how it is in this business. You have no idea how difficult—no, impossible—it is to get funding." He wiped a thin sheen of sweat off his forehead. "The instant word got out, those fucking parasites at Sonoma State would have poached the whole site."

  MacMillian drew his brows together and looked down at Lena. She appeared every bit as confused as he was. He turned back to Wachsmuth. "And just why would they do that?"

  Now the professor looked confused, too. "The bone awls I left out of my preliminary report." His eyes shifted between them. "You were talking about the middens we found, weren't you?"

  ←↑↓→

  "So? How did it go?" Cyrus sounded excited over the phone.

  MacMillian sighed and shifted the Fury into gear. "Professor was a bust, though if your sister had showed a little more leg, we probably could have gotten his phone number."

  "Phone number? What? Lena, what the hell's he talking about?"

  Lena rolled her eyes. "Don't worry about it. Point is, the guy was more worried about his middens than that church foundation. Speaking of which, do you have the current address?"

  "Sure." Paper rustled in the background. "Name's St. Sophia Orthodox Cathedral. It's a few blocks off Lombard and Van Ness."

  "Great." Lena rubbed her face. "We can check it out tomorrow."

  "I have another theory." A chair squeaked as Cyrus shifted. "What if we're dealing with a poltergeist?"

  MacMillian fought to keep from swerving. "Are you fucking serious?"

  "Oh, please. Don't go all mundane on me all of a sudden." Cyrus paused. "Lena? What do you think? The article did mention Native American artifacts."

  MacMillian sneaked a glance at her. She pursed her lips, then after a moment, shook her head. "No. It just doesn't fit. Wachsmuth didn't say anything about human remains, and I doubt ancient spirits would waste time guarding a few old trash heaps. Besides, the signature's all wrong. No rapping, no loud noises, no strange lights. And the last time we saw Jimmy, it was daytime."

  "Damn." Cyrus sounded gloomy. "Okay, I'll keep brainstorming. Seriously, I don't like this. When was the last time we worked a case with zero possibilities?"

 
"I know." Lena was quiet. "Just try to get some rest tonight. Maybe we'll find something new at the church tomorrow."

  "Yeah. Maybe." Cyrus sighed. "All right. Night, Pee-Wee."

  "Night." Lena hung up, then grimaced at MacMillian. "I'd appreciate it if you forgot hearing that."

  MacMillian couldn't help the grin that tugged at his lips. "Pee-Wee?"

  "For Powonia. Seriously, you can't tell anybody. Ever."

  He wrestled the smile off his face, lifted a shoulder and dropped it again. "Who would I tell?"

  She humphed and crossed her arms.

  They were almost to The Wayfare before she looked at him again. "I completely forgot to ask. Would you mind driving me home?"

  "No problem." MacMillian paused. "You were good, you know."

  Her gaze had been drifting out the window. It jerked back to him. "What do you mean?"

  "Today. At The Damascus, then back there with the professor." Another grin threatened to break free. "I've never seen a man sweat so much for so many different reasons."

  Lena chuckled. "I was a little mean to him, wasn't I?"

  "A little." MacMillian shrugged. "Point is, you were... impressive."

  "You were impressed?" She angled her body towards his. "Why, Mr. MacMillian, is this your way of telling me I've made the grade? Do I get to be your Gal Friday now?"

  "Let's not get carried away." He hesitated. "I was going to grab some food before I headed home. You could come, if you want."

  She cleared her throat. "Thanks, but I, um, already have plans."

  "Plans." MacMillian raised an eyebrow. "For dinner?"

  She didn't answer.

  He let out a short laugh. "Of course. Durbin."

  Lena turned to him. The swiftly decreasing light hid her exact expression, but her voice was earnest. "He's nice, you know."

  His lip curled before he could stop it. "Oh, I'm sure he is." He blew out a breath. "You said you wanted to get an early start tomorrow. I can pick you up at eight. Think you'll be home?"

  He could feel her eyes harden. "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "Nothing." Damn it. MacMillian sighed. "Really. Whatever you do or don't do is none of my business. I'm just asking if I should pick you up."