Conspiracies

by F. Paul Wilson

  "Gut?" Jack said.

  "G-U-T. That's how Mel refers to her Grand Unification Theory. And look," he said, pointing to the blank white screen. "It's empty. She had years of notes and analysis stored in that folder, and someone's erased it."

  "The same people who have her, you think?"

  "Who else?"

  "Maybe the lady herself. She knew she was going away; maybe she copied the contents onto floppies and"—he resisted saying gutted—"cleared the contents herself to keep them secret. Is she the type to do something like that?"

  "Possibly," he said, nodding slowly. "It never occurred to me but, yes, that's definitely something she might do. She was pretty jealous about her research—never gave anybody but Salvatore Roma so much as a peek at what she was up to."

  Roma ... that name again. "Why him?"

  "As I said, he was helping her. They were in almost daily contact before Mel ... left."

  Mr. Roma was looking better and better as the possible bad guy here.

  "Did you contact him?"

  "No. Actually, he contacted me, looking for Mel. She was supposed to call him but hadn't. He was worried about her."

  "And he had no idea where she might be."

  "Not a clue."

  Why don't I believe that?

  Jack looked around the cluttered study and the missing Mel's words came back to him: Only Repairman Jack can find me. Only he will understand.

  Sorry to disappoint you, lady, he thought, but Jack doesn't have a clue.

  "How about friends? Who'd she hang with?"

  "Me, mostly. We're both pretty much homebodies, but Mel has acquaintances all over the world via the Internet. Spent a lot of time on her computer."

  "How about her car? What does she drive?"

  "An Audi. But I haven't gotten a call that it's been found anywhere."

  "No other contacts?" Jack said. He felt his frustration mounting. "What about family?"

  "Both her folks are dead. Her father died before we met, her mother died just last year. Mel was an only child so she inherited the house and everything in it. I keep telling her to sell it but—"

  "She has another house? Why didn't you tell me?"

  "I didn't think it was important. Besides, I searched the place just yesterday. She wasn't there. I've been there before, but never actually searched through it. I found something odd in the cellar, but—"

  "Odd? Odd how?"

  "In the cellar floor." He shrugged. "Nothing that would relate to Mel's disappearance."

  We're talking a very odd woman here, Jack thought. Two odds sometimes attract.

  "Can't hurt to look," he said, desperate for something to give him direction. "Where is it?"

  "It's a ways from here. A little town named Monroe."

  "Never heard of it."

  "It's near Glen Cove."

  "Great," Jack said. "Let's take a look."

  Not that he had much hope of finding anything useful, but this Monroe was back toward the city, and he had to head in that direction anyway.

  But if the Monroe house yielded as much as this place, he'd have to return Lew's down payment. This was going nowhere.

  Jack cast a final look at the painting at the far end of the study as he followed Lew down the stairway. His fingertips didn't hurt any longer—must have been something sharp within the paint; it simply had felt like a bite—but damn if they didn't still feel wet. Weird.

  6

  Monroe turned out to be a Gold Coast town, smaller and prettier than Shoreham. It had a picturesque harbor, for one thing, and no room for a nuclear plant. Jack guessed from the faux whaling-village facades on the harbor area shops and buildings that the town must do a fair amount of tourist trade in the summer. A little early for that now. Traffic was minimal as he followed Lew's Lexus through the downtown area, then uphill past the brick-fronted town hall and library, the white steepled church—a real postcard of a town. He trailed him past rows of neat colonials, then came to a development of mostly two- and three-bedroom postwar ranch houses.

  Lew pulled into the driveway of a house that wasn't so well-kept. Its clapboard siding needed a fresh coat of paint; last fall's leaves clogged the gutters; dark green onion grass sprouted in the weedy, anemic, threadbare lawn. A detached garage sat to the right. A huge oak dominated a front yard that was unusually large for the neighborhood—looked like half an acre or better.

  Jack parked Abe's truck at the curb and met Lew at the front door.

  "Why does she keep this place?" Jack asked.

  "Sentimental reasons, I guess," Lew said, searching through his key ring. "I've wanted her to sell it, or maybe even subdivide the lot. Be worth a pretty penny, but she keeps putting it off. She grew up here. Spent most of her life in this house."

  Jack felt a chill as they paused on the front stoop. He looked around uneasily. They were standing in the deep shadow cast by the massive oak's trunk as it hid the late afternoon sun. That had to be it.

  Lew opened the door and they stepped into the dark, slightly mildewy interior. He turned on a light and together they wandered through the two-bedroom ranch.

  Jack noted that the place was filled with pictures of Melanie at various ages—birthdays and graduations, mostly; no sports or dancing school shots—and always that Must-you-take-my-picture? expression. The walls of her old bedroom were still hung with framed academic achievement certificates. A bright child, and obviously cherished by her folks.

  "Where's this 'odd' something you mentioned?" Jack said.

  "Down in the basement. This way."

  Through the tiny kitchen, down a narrow set of stairs to an unfinished basement. Lew stopped at the bottom of the steps and pointed at the floor.

  "There. Don't you think that's odd?"

  All Jack saw was a rope ladder lying on the floor. A typical fire safety type with nylon rope and cylindrical wooden treads, sold in any hardware store. Other than the fact that it was kind of short and in the basement of a ranch house, he couldn't see anything odd about—

  Wait. Were his eyes playing tricks on him, or did the end of the ladder disappear into the floor?

  Jack stepped closer for a better look.

  "I'll be damned."

  The bottom end of the rope ladder was imbedded in the concrete of the floor slab. Jack squatted and tugged on the last visible tread—no give at all. He looked back along the ladder and saw that the top end was tied to a steel support column.

  "What's this all about?"

  "Beats me," Lew said, stepping closer and standing beside him. "I've never been down here before yesterday, so I can't say how long that's been there."

  Jack scratched the front of his shirt. He chest had begun to itch.

  "Can't be long," he said, touching the nylon cord. "This ladder is new."

  "But the concrete isn't," Lew said. "These houses were built shortly after World War Two. This slab's got to be at least fifty years old."

  "Can't be. Look at this. It's obvious the concrete was poured around the ladder."

  "Look at the concrete, Jack. This is old."

  Jack had to admit he was right. The concrete was cracked, chipped, obviously old. And Jack could find no telltale seam that would indicate a recent patch.

  "What we have here," Jack said, "is what you call a mystery."

  As he was straightening, Jack noticed a small dark splotch on the concrete. He leaned closer. Half-dollar sized, black, irregular, flared on its edges, it looked like some sort of scorch mark. He scanned the rest of the nearby floor and found seven more, evenly spaced in a three-foot area around where the ladder disappeared into the concrete.

  "Any idea what might have made these?"

  "Not the slightest," Lew said.

  Jack rose and looked around. Two steel columns supported the central beam; the foot of the staircase was attached to one of them. Not much else: a washer and dryer, a sump pump in the corner, a sagging couch against the rear wall, a rickety old desk, a folded card table and some chairs. Jack w
ent to the desk. An electric screwdriver, a wrench, a dozen or so nuts and bolts sat on the top, along with three large, oblong, amber quartz crystals. The drawers were empty.

  Still scratching at his chest, he turned and stared at the rope ladder. Something about this really bothered him, but did it have anything to do with Melanie Ehler's disappearance? Jack couldn't see how.

  "All right," he said. "Let's go back upstairs."

  "I told you there was nothing here," Lew said, once they reached the kitchen.

  "That you did."

  Lew's cell phone rang. While he spoke to someone in California about a late shipment, Jack wandered back to Melanie's bedroom, looking at the photos, trying to get a feel for her. No pics with other kids, only adults, undoubtedly family members. Not a lot of smiles in those pictures. A serious child.

  He opened a closet and pulled a box off the shelf. A bunch of old dolls, Barbie and the like, some dressed, some not. He was about to put it back when he noticed that one of the dolls was missing its left hand. Not broken off or cut off ... more like whittled off, ending in a point.

  Odd ...

  He pulled out another and found its left hand whittled away as well. And the others—each missing its left hand. Some forearms had concentric grooves near the end, as if they'd been stuck in a pencil sharpener. ' Beyond odd into very weird.

  Jack returned the box and stared at the ten- or twelve-year-old girl in one of the larger photos. Dark hair and dark, piercing eyes, and somewhat pretty. Why aren't you happy, kid? Can someone make you smile? Where are you now? And why do you want only me to look for you?

  Jack was hooked now. He was going to have to find this strange lady and ask her face to face.

  He wandered back to the kitchen as Lew was finishing his call.

  "Sorry," Lew said. "That call couldn't wait."

  "Speaking of calls," Jack said, "is there anybody we can call that Melanie might have called? A friend? A relative?"

  "No relatives, but she did have one childhood friend in Monroe she kept in touch with. His name's Frayne Canfield. He's in SESOUP too."

  "All right. Let's get in touch with him."

  Lew shrugged and called information on his cell phone, punched in a number, listened for a moment, then broke the connection.

  "His answering machine says he'll be out of town for a few days but he'll be checking his messages."

  Interesting, Jack thought. Mel's away ... her old friend's away ...

  "What are you thinking?" Lew said.

  As he spoke, Jack stared out the kitchen window at the backyard where an old swing set rusted under another big oak. The itching on his chest seemed to have eased.

  "I'm thinking that people disappear for two reasons: they run away or are abducted. Either way, in almost every case, someone they know is involved. Yet all the people Melanie 'knows' except for you and this Frayne Canfield are spread all over the globe."

  "Not this week, they're not. Most of them, including Frayne Canfield, I'm sure, will be in Manhattan for the first annual SESOUP conference."

  Lew started toward the front door. Jack followed.

  "Is that where she promised to 'blow all other theories out of the water' with her Grand Unification Theory?"

  "The very same."

  "And Roma will be there too, I assume?"

  "Of course. He put it all together."

  Jack felt as if a weight suddenly had been lifted from his shoulders. All the possible suspects in one place—perfect.

  "When's it start and how do I get into this conference?"

  "Day after tomorrow, but you can't get in. Members only—and only one guest each."

  "Then I'll be yours."

  "I'm not a member. I'm Mel's guest."

  "Why so restrictive?"

  "I told you—it's very exclusive. This is serious business for them."

  "I want you to get me in."

  "Why? Mel won't be there."

  "Yeah, but I bet the person who knows where she is will be."

  "Yes," Lew said, his Adam's apple moving in and out as he nodded. "I can see that. I'll see what I can work out. But you'll need a cover story."

  As they stepped out the front door, movement on the street caught Jack's eye. At the far corner of the property to his right, a black sedan began pulling away from the curb. He watched its rear end coast away.

  He wondered about that. Had they been followed? He didn't remember seeing any cars parked on the street when he arrived.

  "Why do I need a cover story?" he asked Lew.

  "I assume you're not planning to go up to people and ask them if they've seen Melanie Ehler lately."

  "Well, no. I figure you'll introduce me around—"

  "But you need a reason to be there and a connection to Mel. I'll think on it. The conference is in the Clinton Regent—you know the place?"

  "Vaguely. Not exactly the Waldorf."

  Far from it. If Jack remembered correctly, the Clinton Regent was in Hell's Kitchen.

  "Well, SESOUP's membership isn't exactly poor, but the typical midtown room rate is over two hundred dollars a night, plus twenty-five percent additional in taxes. That would strain a lot of budgets. Roma got the Regent to give us a more affordable rate if we could fill the whole hotel, which we will."

  "Okay. I'll see you there Thursday morning. What time?"

  "Registration opens at noon. Meet me in the lobby around eleven-thirty. I'll have something cooked up for you by then."

  They parted—Lew heading back to Shoreham, Jack to Manhattan.

  He rubbed his fingers against his pants leg. Why couldn't he get them to feel dry?

  7

  He awakens feeling wet. He turns on the light and sees that his sheets are red. He leaps from the bed with a cry of alarm. The sheets, top and bottom, are soaked with red, so are his shorts and T-shirt.

  Blood. But whose?

  Then he notices that his right palm is full of thick red liquid ... trickling from his index and middle fingertips—the ones that touched Melanie Ehler's painting earlier. Squeezing the fingers to stanch the flow, he hurries to the bathroom, but stops halfway when he spots the easel and canvas set up in the center of his front room.

  He stares in cold shock. Where the hell did that come from? This is his home, his fortress. Who could have—?

  As Jack steps warily into the front room, he recognizes the painting. He saw it earlier at Lew Ehler's house, the disturbing one in Melanie's study, only now the glistening impasto swirls are alive on the canvas, twisting and contorting into Gordian tangles of black and purple pigment, and from deep within the kinetic madness of those tortured coils, meteoric crescents of yellow glare briefly, then disappear.

  Jack rotates slowly, searching for the intruder, and when he completes the turn, he sees that the canvas has changed—no, is changing as he watches. The color is leaking away, draining like a tainted transfusion from a befouled IV bottle into a pool on the rug before the easel. The stain spreads quickly, too quickly for Jack to step back and avoid it. But instead of feeling pigment ooze against his bare toes, he feels nothing—nothing against his skin, nothing but air beneath his soles.

  Jack windmills his arms wildly, reaching for something, anything to stop his fall. Somehow the paint has eaten through his floor and he's plunging into the apartment below. He twists, clutches at the edge of the hole, but his fingers slip on the slick pigment and he plummets into the waiting darkness.

  He lands catlike, in a crouch, and knows immediately that he's not in the second floor apartment. Neil the anarchist may not be a personal hygiene poster boy, but he's never smelled this bad. Jeez, what is it? Choice strips of three-day-old roadkill folded into rotten eggs and left out in the sun to warm might come close.

  And worse ... Jack recognizes it.

  But it can't be.

  And then he realizes that he's not crouching on wood flooring or carpet, but metal grating—cold, and slick with a sheen of engine oil. Some sort of catwalk. He looks up—a tangle of
ducts and wiring, but no sign of the hole that dropped him here. And from far below ... light—faint, flickering off the steel plates of the inner walls of a ship's hull ...

  "Shit!" Jack whispers.

  He knows where he is—the Ajit-Ruprobati. But it can't be. Not possible. He sank this rustbucket and everyone aboard it—human and non-human—last summer. This old freighter rests and rusts now in the silt of lower New York Harbor. No way he can be aboard it ...

  Which means this must be a dream. But it sure as hell doesn't feel like one. He had nightmares about this place and the creatures it harbored for months after he damn near died sinking it, but never this real.

  The creatures ... the rakoshi ... Jack feels every muscle in his body recoil at the thought of them. If the ship is back and awash with their stink, then they too must have returned from the Land of the Dead.

  Movement below catches his eye. Jack freezes as a massively muscled, shark-snouted creature glides along another catwalk directly below his. It stands six or seven feet tall and the flickering light plays over its glistening cobalt skin as it moves with sinuous grace.

  A rakosh.

  Jack wants to scream. This isn't happening. He killed these creatures, incinerated every damn one of them in this very hold last summer. But Jack doesn't dare even to breathe. Hold statue-still until it passes, then find a way out—fast.

  But as the creature moves beneath him, it slows, then stops. In a strobe-flash of motion it whirls into a hissing crouch, its head darting back and forth as it sniffs the fetid air.

  Does it sense me? Jack wonders as his heart races even faster. Or does it simply sense something different?

  The rakosh tips back its shark-like head and looks up. As Jack gazes into the glowing yellow slits of its eyes, he fights a primal urge to jump up and run screaming from this abomination.

  I'm in the dark up here, he tells himself, forcing calm. I'm on the far side of this steel mesh. If I don't breathe, don't blink, it won't see me. It'll move on.

  Finally, it happens, just as he hoped. The creature lowers its head and looks around, indecisive. It turns, but as it starts to move away, Jack sees something falling through the mesh of his perch. Something small ... globular ... red.