by Linda Mackay
Fault Line In the Sand
Linda Mackay
FAULT LINE IN THE SAND
A Caldera Humorous Mystery
Book 2
By
Linda Mackay
Copyright 2018
Book Cover Design by ebooklaunch.com
Created with Vellum
Contents
Untitled
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
For George,
The love of my life, who makes everything possible.
Chapter 1
Spy boy and his pet piranha walked up my path as I sipped my first cup of coffee. Stronger than a mudslide dislodged by an earthquake, I dumped the coffee down the sink and sighed. I’m Dr. Jorie Clark, and my life is a poop shower.
“We have a problem.” Mac stuck his head around the corner of my screen door without knocking.
My fingers rolled the small rocks in my pants pocket. Rocks give me energy and feed me a stream of calm when I have to deal with people. As a geo-physicist who spends most of my time interacting with nature, I do a good job of avoiding people. Today was different. “Thanks for barging in. Make yourself at home.”
Mac looked at the piranha and laughed. “No one knocks around here, she’s just in a bad mood.”
Don “Mac” MacAlister is my neighbor and retired spy with the Defense Intelligence Agency. I question the intelligence part, especially after government goons tried to kill me a couple months ago. “I’m not in a bad mood. My coffee just sucks.”
“How about I make a new pot,” the piranha said. “Then we can talk.”
She’s obviously not really a piranha, but a fellow spy buddy of Mac’s, and she gives me the heebie jebbies.
“We gave you a few days to chill, but now we need to talk,” Mac said.
At least he was learning. After spending weeks around my field crew and wild animals I need time alone to recharge. “So, what’s your problem?”
The piranha took three mugs off the rack in the kitchen. “Maybe we should wait till she has more coffee?”
“Stop patronizing me. Talk or get out.”
“The samples have disappeared,” Mac said.
“Just the samples?”
“Everything is gone,” the piranha added.
“Maybe I should wait for the coffee.” All the precautions we’d taken to insure our information was passed to the right person, and now it was lost. “Not much of an intelligence community you have there.”
The piranha’s eyes narrowed as she gripped the mug like she was squeezing my neck. I stared back. Intimidate this, toots.
“That’s enough ladies.” Mac stepped between us. “Everyone sit and play nice.”
We sat and talked about the weather and approaching winter season preparations while the coffee brewed. Once done, the piranha filled the mugs and gave one to each of us.
I sipped her near perfect brew. “This is good. What’s your secret?”
“Salt.” The piranha was still giving me the stink eye: so much for civility on my part.
“Let me get this straight. Your contact lost all the evidence and now there won’t be an investigation?”
“He didn’t lose anything,” Mac said. “Someone appropriated all of it and we assume they destroyed it.”
“Someone was also snooping around in Portland trying to identify who dropped the package.” Piranha had for the moment ceased her death ray stare.
“Any luck?” I asked.
Uh oh, the stare was back. “Absolutely not! We’re very good at our job.”
“Obviously not good enough.”
Mac slid forward in the chair. “We used multiple people to move the package from here to Portland. The final drop was made by an eight-year-old boy while his mom was shopping in the grocery store.”
“You enlist kids? What a bunch of…”
“No!” Mac interrupted. “We don’t enlist kids. Our contact asked his neighbor to drop the package in a UPS box while she was in town. He had no idea she would have her son do it.”
“That was a lucky happen-stance,” the piranha said.
“Yeah, real lucky.” My confidence in the government was taking a hit just listening to these two.
The piranha gave Mac a look I didn’t care to decipher, and he gave her one back. I was tired of playing eye-games. “Thanks for the information and the coffee. I’ll see you tonight at the main house.” I held the door open and they took the hint.
Walking down the steps I heard the piranha tell Mac. “I don’t think she’s ready to hear the rest.”
I closed the door, walked to the fireplace, picked up a piece of snowflake obsidian in one hand, and purple quartz in the other. I had a feeling I was going to need a lot of calm energy.
“Take that rope off me!” Amanda yelled.
“First, say you love me.” Todd tightened the lasso that held her feet and hands together.
“No way. Grampa, make him let me go.” Amanda was desperate if she was asking my Grampa Nus for help. I also suspected he was the instigator of the roping event. He may be in his nineties but his brain was sharper than a hand-crafted knife made by the finest artisan in the West. And his fun came from sticking his nose in everyone else’s business.
“Say you love me.” Todd was sprawled on Amanda like it was a WWE wrestling match, except instead of slamming her nose in the mat, he was rubbing dirt on her face.
“I love your big gay ass.”
Todd jumped off Amanda. “My butt is not big.”
Amanda stuck her tongue out.
Usually, the two of them had to be sent to timeout. I walked over and stood next to my Grampa Nus. He gave me a hug and said, “Ten bucks says he won’t untie her till she apologizes.”
Grampa likes to gamble. Okay, we all like to gamble. We’ll bet on when the dog is going to poop. “You’re on. She’ll never apologize,” I said.
“Looks like you got too much sun on this trip.” Grampa pushed the sleeve up on my jacket and shook his head at the difference in my skin tones. “Did you forget sunscreen?”
“No, a bear took it off a rock in broad daylight and smashed it.”
“You didn’t know the bear was near?”
“I was taking a bath in the river at the time.”
“Marjorie Marie Clark you are slipping. A shaman can’t afford to lose focus.” Grampa took hold of my chin and brought us nose to nose. “What do you see?”
There wasn’t any point in arguing with Grampa. I stepped back, closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “Two coyotes to the north. A fox is behind the horse barn. Mountain sheep just over the ridge. Riders coming in from the range.”
“Two out of five,” Grampa said.
“There’s four, and I got all of them.”
Grampa shook his head. “The sheep are always over the ridge, a dead steer could hear the c
owboys riding up the road, and you missed the grizzly across the river.”
“You’re full of it.”
“Look at the tree break where the rock outcrop heads down to the river. Give him a minute…there,” Grampa pointed. “Talent must be practiced.”
Amanda interrupted our conversation. “Untie me or I’m posting the video on Facebook of you trying to pick up a girl at the Florida Fun & Frolic Factory.”
“I’d have sworn she was a drag queen.” Todd untied Amanda.
I stuck my hand out. “Pay up.”
Gramps slapped a ten in my palm. “I didn’t see that coming. That was down and dirty.”
Leaning against the fence I looked at the red hills, ragged and erosion worn, that had been my soul’s song since I was a child.
The squabble sisters were now laughing and walking their horses to the barn. Gramps was watching the cowboys turnout their horses in the pasture. Mac and the piranha were deep in conversation on the front porch of the main ranch house ignoring us all. Weighing my options, I decided to join Todd and Amanda in the barn.
They’d put the saddles away and were brushing down the horses. The bicker brats work for me. Todd is a volcanologist working on his PhD. His wavy brown hair had grown long over the summer and blew in the breeze under his cowboy hat. A reformed twitter addict after our experience in July, he is also not just a computer expert, but a paranoid one, who has made the ranch so tech secure we are basically invisible. When not sitting in front of a computer screen, he likes to ride his unicycle or watch reruns of Gilligan’s Island.
Compared to Todd, Amanda is our resident flamboyant. She wears expensive clothes, is partial to pink, and at 5’2” has been known to literally disappear in a herd of cows during round-up. Amanda is a geologist with no desire to get her doctorate; her dream job combines beaches and hot guys. Right now, she’s stuck with me. And we’re all stuck working for the United States Geological Survey in Yellowstone.
Three months ago I’d tell anyone I had the best job on the planet. Now, thanks to Mac the Spy, I hated my job. It wasn’t really his fault, but I liked to blame him.
“Hey, Jorie, ride out with us tomorrow to round-up cattle on the east range,” Todd said.
“Weather’s great. Company the best,” Amanda added.
“I’ll think about it. Seems Mac and his friend have something to talk about.”
Todd pursed his lips. “She is so dreamy.”
“For an old broad, she’s not bad,” Amanda said.
“Age has nothing to do with sex appeal, Miss Twinkie.” Todd flipped the horse brush at her.
“Seriously? You think Grampa Nus is sexy?” Amanda asked.
Todd put his face in the horse’s side and shuddered. “Some people do have expiration dates and he’s definitely hit his.”
“Before I expire, can someone tell me why she’s still here?” I asked.
“Her recovery from Lasik surgery went well, and now Liz says she’s on vacation.” Todd winked, “I think she and Mac are conducting spy business.”
The piranha had a name. That meant another person invading my remote and happy valley. “I agree with that assessment.”
“I think Frank has the hots for her,” Amanda said.
Cowboy Frank owned the ranch and most everything else for miles. Decades ago, during lean financial times, he’d sold small parcels to Grampa Nus and to Mac’s grandfather. There were a few other small guest ranches in the area, but those people bug-out before the first snowflake.
Frank lived so far off the grid I couldn’t process him being interested in a flat-lander, city dweller. But, I guess everyone has needs. When I wasn’t busy thinking of her as a piranha I’d admit her penetrating eyes could be considered inviting. Her white blond hair encircled her face easily reeling in males like a trout on a lure.
My hair is thin and ruler straight. It’s also black as a cloud filled night sky from my mother’s Blackfoot genes and contrasts with my sickly pale skin from my father’s genes. The disparity is so drastic I could blend in with a herd of zebras. I guess we can’t all be gorgeous spies who lead glamorous, danger-filled lives.
“Earth to Jorie,” Todd said. “Frank rang the dinner bell, let’s haul it before the cowboys eat all the good stuff.”
There’s nothing quite like a cowboy dinner after a day of rounding up cattle. It’s noisy and a fight to the death for the last chicken wing. The conversation is exaggerated exploits at best and at worst all lies. I loved it. I don’t know why, because I preferred solitude. But, it’s a western ritual I’d grown-up with and is the closest thing I had to a large family.
“Did you get enough to eat?” Mac asked sitting next to me.
“Oh yeah, and I’m not afraid to fight for the last piece of cake.”
“I noticed you ate the cake first.” Mac tried to steal a bite of what remained of the chocolate cake on my plate.
I smacked his hand. “You’re lucky I didn’t stab you with a fork.”
“Round-up is amazing,” Mac chewed on a chicken leg. “Next year I’m going to help full-time.”
“It’s hard work. Long hours. And dangerous.” I looked at the overflowing plate in front of Mac and admired that at least he could hold his own with the hungry group.
“I heard one of the guys broke a wrist and an ankle yesterday.”
“The fall off his horse broke the wrist, and then a cow stepped on his ankle.” I loved herding cattle, but I also had a healthy dislike for cows since broken bones suck. “Cowboys wear it as a badge of honor.”
“Tough bunch. I need you to take Liz and I to Mary Bay.”
I choked on the corn and spit it across the table landing on Grampa Nus who winked at me. “What? Winter is in the air. And why are you asking me now?”
“I figured you wouldn’t shoot me in public,” Mac said.
“Don’t tempt me.” Only Gramps noticed me spewing food, so I probably could’ve gotten away with shooting Mac. “Why do you want to go to the bay?”
“We need more evidence so we can go public that the President was assassinated.”
“I thought we were keeping our identity secret.”
“It’s the only option unless you want the world to continue believing the President was accidentally killed in a natural hydrothermal explosion.”
“Well, crap.” I really hate my job.
Chapter 2
I want a badge,” Todd demanded.
“I want to know the truth about the Kennedy assassination.” Leave it to Amanda to ask for the impossible.
“Deal.” Mac said.
“You can’t tell her that.” This was ridiculous.
“Of course I can.”
“Then I want a million dollars.”
“Too late, deals are done,” Mac grinned, “but I can offer you a night worth a million dollars.”
“I’ll pass.”
“Could be a big mistake, boss,” Todd said. He and Amanda chose to forgo round-up when they learned today’s topic of discussion.
“If you people are done playing games, we need to get down to business,” Liz said. See why I call her the piranha. She nibbles away at you, and is basically annoying.
“Are you sure you want to get involved in this mess again? Last time you both had meltdowns when we returned home.” I would’ve bet the ranch they wouldn’t want any part of this plan, yet they jumped aboard like it was a carnival ride at the county fair.
“No one’s shooting at us this time,” Amanda said.
“I’d love the opportunity to research the explosion since we know the facts about what we’re looking for. Last time we were in a hurry, now we can do actual evidence collection,” Todd said. “We can be real undercover spies.”
“Leave that to the experts,” Liz said.
“I don’t recall you being the one to take down a team of escaping assassins.” Frank said flicking crumbs out of his thick mustache. “But I do recall the rest of these faces being there.”
Take that, pi
ranha! My initial reason for having this discussion at the main ranch house instead of my cabin was lack of space. Now I was glad to be sitting at Frank’s dining table, and even happier he was doing paperwork today instead of range riding.
“It’s too late in the season to use the east entrance with the horse trailer. We’ll take the shorter driving route, but longer riding route into the backcountry.” Todd scribbled notes on a pad as he talked.
“With no work being done to reconnect Fishing Bridge and the east entrance, it’s still the best choice.” Amanda opened a new map the USGS had recently provided employees detailing the area changed by the explosion. “Biggest problem with this access will be encountering rangers, and therefore more reason to have a good lie for why our crew is back.”
“Every time I see this it freaks me out that we live in a time when Yellowstone changed so much all new maps need to be drawn,” Todd said.
“Not half as freaky for you as it was for me standing above the bay watching it happen.” Dad hobbled in with a fresh pot of coffee and a plate of cinnamon rolls. “What’s this I hear about the Federal Bureau of Idiots losing my evidence?”
Liz looked at Mac for direction. “I’m retired. This one is on you, Liz.”
“The evidence wasn’t lost. It was stolen by someone high in the government chain of command.”
“How do you know this?” Dad wasn’t letting her off the hook.
“Our contact said the evidence was removed from a secure locker at the FBI. And before you interrupt me, the only other person who knew where the evidence was has since been relieved of their duties and reassigned. You don’t have the clearance to know who that was.”