“I’ll do anything. What do you need from me?” he said a moment later, looking back up at her.
“Did she talk to you about the story she was currently working on?”
“That’s all she talked about. She was obsessed.”
“Todd, listen.” Heat gave him a sincere, imploring look. “We suspect that her pursuit of this story is what killed her. If there’s anything you can tell us that might help, we can bring her killer to justice.”
He didn’t have to think about it before he started talking. “It started with some rituals we both witnessed happening on campus. But here’s the thing. They weren’t fraternity hazings.”
Despite the fact that their conversation was being recorded, Heat took notes as he talked, interjecting here and there as necessary. “How do you know?”
“Their heads were covered with black hoods. Very cloak-and-dagger, you know? But the other guys—the ones without hoods? They weren’t students. They wore suits. One of them had a pretty big book under his arm. And they led the hooded guys to a van. It was weird.”
“It sounds it,” Heat said. “And Chloe was intrigued by it?”
“That’s putting it mildly. I had to stop her from following them.”
“Where was this?” Heat asked.
“I’d just met Chloe at the newspaper office. We were walking back to my car, approaching Zabro Hall. That’s when we saw the first man coming out of the front entrance—”
Heat’s heartbeat ratcheted up. It was the building with the secret passageway to the dungeon-like room. “One of the men in the suits?” she asked, her calm demeanor never changing.
“Right. We were far enough away that he couldn’t see us, but the lights near the building meant we could see him.”
“Go on,” she said after making a few notes.
“The building was closed for construction. It still is, actually. So she thought it was unusual that he was there, especially in the evening. I didn’t think much of it. I told her it was probably a professor, but, I don’t know, she had some kind of sixth sense. I wanted to go to dinner. We started walking again, but that’s when the others came out of the building.”
“The men in the hoods?” Heat asked, her pen hovering over her notebook.
“Right. There were seven of them. They kind of stumbled along. Each guy had his hand on the shoulder of the one in front of him. Another man in a suit walked beside them, and the last one brought up the rear. As soon as she saw that, she wouldn’t budge.”
“And her reporter instincts kicked in,” Heat said. It was something she understood. She and Rook were similar in this way. If they saw something unusual, something that piqued their interest, they were both instantly intrigued. Her cop radar went off, while his reporter hat went on.
“Exactly. Why were they there? What were they doing? Where were they going? From the second she saw those guys in hoods, there was no going back for her. And it was the beginning of the end for us.”
Todd couldn’t tell her much more. Only that the van was large and windowless, white with no lettering or distinguishing marks. “And they were willing participants,” he said.
“Why do you say that?” Heat asked.
“They were talking. And laughing.”
“Could you hear what they were saying?”
Todd shook his head. “Nah. We were too far away. All I know is that wherever they were going, they were excited.”
Heat was fairly certain that what Chloe and Todd had witnessed was the opening stages of initiation into the secret part of the Freemasons that was a pathway to the deeper level. If their conspiracy theory was to be believed, then that meant those college boys were heading into the world of the Illuminati.
Heat called the Cambria precinct but hung up before she connected with Ian. She and Rook had a lead to pursue. She didn’t want to slow down so Ian could catch up. If it came to it, she’d ask for forgiveness later.
The lobby of the hotel had plush oversized chairs gathered in clusters around an enclosed gas fireplace. It looked tempting, but instead she headed straight to the concierge desk.
The concierge, a woman dressed in a crisply pressed white blouse, navy blazer, and matching slacks greeted her with a pleasant “It’s a beautiful day! How can I help you?”
Nikki noted the woman’s name from the badge clipped to her lapel, then smiled amiably. Daisy Malone. She looked the part of a concierge. Bright and friendly. “I’m new to town and want to look around. Do you by any chance have a map of Cambria?”
“I do, in fact.” Daisy turned to a pocket stand against the wall behind her, turning back around with a map in her hand and handing it to Nikki. “This is a map of Cambria proper, as well as some of the surrounding area. There are some lovely sites once you get outside of town. Lake Washington is lovely this time of year. Hamilton National Forest has some very popular trails. And of course there’s the river. Too cold for rafting this time of year, but maybe for your next visit. We are lucky, though. The weather couldn’t be more perfect.”
Daisy was right. The weather hadn’t topped seventy-three degrees during the day since Nikki had been there. The sun setting brought it down to the high thirties or low forties, but they weren’t experiencing the frigid temperatures they might have been. Nikki took the map and thanked Daisy Malone for her help.
Back in Rook’s suite, she opened it up and spread it out on the table, smoothing down the creases. She and Rook spent thirty minutes going over every inch of it, trying to pinpoint where the secret sect of the organization Chloe had uncovered might meet. Zabro Hall, they determined, was merely the site of the initiations, not a location for regular meetings. Nothing jumped out at them.
“What about the forest or woods?” Nikki suggested. “There must be secluded caverns or caves. That would be the perfect spot for clandestine meetings.”
Rook hemmed and hawed. “I don’t think we can take Foti literally. If Chloe was a bird, the forest was a metaphor for someplace else. We have to assume they have fairly regular meetings. A cavern in the forest in the dead of winter, with snow on the ground, would make it highly inconvenient. Same with mud season. Secret meetings mean unobtrusive. Coming home covered in mud would set off a few red flags.”
“And in spring and summer, there would be too many people on the trails.”
“Exactly.”
They alternated staring at the map with staring at the murder board. After few minutes of thought, she got up, uncapped one of the whiteboard markers, and drew a line through Hamilton National Forest. It had been something to consider, which is why she’d written it, but now it seemed unlikely that the forest was where Tektōn, the Freemasons, or some faction of the Illuminati would meet.
“There’s only one place that makes sense,” Rook said after another few minutes of contemplation.
“I know,” Nikki said.
And then they spoke in unison: “The Masonic Lodge.”
“I love it when that happens,” Rook said, pulling her to him and planting a kiss on her lips.
“Me too,” she said. It showed her how in tune with each other they were.
“I wonder...” Rook trailed off, stroking his chin as he pondered whatever thought had drifted into his head.
“What?”
“The entire Freemason membership can’t possibly be involved in the Illuminati. Think about Chloe’s notes. She drew staircases, remember?”
Nikki could picture the pages in Chloe’s notebook. One pages had a staircase going diagonally down the page. Next to it, Chloe had jotted down some notes about what Nikki now knew was Tektōn. On the adjacent page, Chloe had drawn another set of stairs. These she’d shaded and added little lines along the edge like a ruler. Finally, on the following page, she’d drawn a third staircase. She’d doodled all around the pages, most heavily on this third one. Suns, moons, letter Vs, the flag, a pyramid, triangles, circles, and squares. Heat pulled up the pictures of the notebook on her phone, finding the images she wanted to ex
amine. Chloe had drawn a series of geometric shapes with a circle in the center. It was like a clock, with a triangle at twelve o’clock, followed by a square, a pentagon, and a hexagon. At six o’clock was a triangle with curved lines, making it look like a Christmas tree. The next several were stars with different numbers of points. When she’d first taken the photos, Nikki hadn’t thought much about the drawings, but now they took on new meaning.
“What if her drawings of the staircases were symbolic? A way for her to make her notes cryptic, yet still convey what she wanted to.”
“I don’t follow,” Rook said.
Nikki held out her phone, scrolling through the pictures. “Look. The first set of stairs she drew had the school’s crest, so they must represent Cambria U. Now look more closely.” She drew her fingers apart on the screen, enlarging the image so he could see what she did.
“The Tektōn symbol,” he said.
She went on, scrolling through the pictures on the phone. “Look at how she drew the stairs. The first set starts in the upper left corner and goes about halfway down the page at a diagonal. The next set still starts on the left side, but down about a quarter of the page. It follows the same diagonal, but ends well before the bottom of the page.”
“I see where you’re going,” Rook said, looking at the next picture. “The third staircase starts even lower than the second, but ends in the lower right corner of the page.”
Nikki took a minute to draw three sets of staircases on the murder board just as Chloe had in her notebook. “Look,” she said, pointing at the different staircases as she spoke. “They descend, starting with the university, passing through the Freemasons, and ending up with the most well-known secret society of them all: the Illuminati. Chloe discovered the pipeline. We know that not everyone in the first two tiers of the organizations can pass on to the next one. There must be scouts in each group. Someone who evaluates candidates and recommends them to move into the next tier.”
“Not a higher level, like you might think,” Rook said, “but a lower level, descending into the depths of secrecy.”
“Into the lion’s den,” Nikki said, repeating what Christian Foti had said.
“The Order of Tektōn might not be willing to do something as heinous as killing a journalist digging into their order. The Freemasons wouldn’t, either. But whatever tier falls below them—”
“Some part of the Illuminati—” Rook said.
“Might easily do so without compunction.”
“I’m starving,” Rook said.
“What I wouldn’t give for a kimchi taco,” Heat said. Her stomach growled.
“Or Korilla BBQ,” Rook said. “Any food truck would do.”
“We’ll have to do with a brick-and-mortar. But rest assured, Souvlaki GR, we will be seeing you soon.”
“The lion’s den,” Rook mused as they drove toward Cambria’s downtown in search of a suitable culinary experience. “There’s got to be a meaning to that.”
“It could just mean a room somewhere,” Heat said. “Wherever they hold their meetings, like the ceremonial room for the Masons.”
“Have you learned nothing about secret societies during this investigation?” Rook asked. “We are talking about the final tier in a progressively secretive organization, each level having more at stake than the previous. The room is more secret than secret.”
She looked at him. “What does that even mean?”
Rook’s smile sparkled. He let go of the steering wheel long enough to rub his hands together gleefully. “It means Tektōn’s little hidden dungeon at the college pales in comparison to our Illuminati faction. This is it, Heat. I can feel it.”
“Simmer down, tiger,” Heat said.
“But the Illuminati! I never—not in a million years—dreamed I’d actually come anywhere near the most infamous secret society there is. Okay, well, maybe I did dream I might, but here we are on the cusp of...something.”
“Yeah, but what? What do I need to know about the Illuminati?”
“A better question is what do you not need to know?”
She swallowed a growl. “Rook, so help me—”
He waved a hand at her. “Okay, okay. Let’s start with Freemasonry. It began in Europe. First England, then Ireland, then the US. The order of chivalry dates back to the Crusades. Think an order of knights. It’s symbolic.”
“I get it. The Freemasons are all about their connection to the past.”
“There’s what’s called a Grand Lodge. Here each state has its own. Pennsylvania, then New York and New Jersey, were the first in the country. The Provincial Gran—”
She held up her hand to stop him. “Do I need to know this?”
“Patience, my dear—”
“Rook, I don’t want a dissertation. I want you cleared. I want to get back to the city. Both of which mean we need to figure out who the hell killed Chloe.”
“I want those things, too, Nik. More than you know. Which is why I’m sharing my knowledge with you. In the organization, the Grand Master is elected and oversees the Masonic jurisdiction. But every jurisdiction is autonomous. They make their own rules. How they do their rituals, how many officers are present. The layout of the meeting room. It makes perfect sense that Tektōn is a pipeline to the underbelly of this particular Freemason order, which, in turn, leads to some faction of the Illuminati. They make their own rules.”
“Everything we’ve figured out leads us back to the lodge, but we have a lot of unanswered questions.”
“Shoot.”
“What is the point? Why have this pipeline? To what end? The secret Freemasons feed the Illuminati, but why?”
“Power, of course. Imagine the Illuminati as the roots of a climbing garden vine. Each pipeline grows the tendrils, and those tendrils invade society. Government. Religion. Education. You name it, they are there.”
If Rook’s explanation was true, the Illuminati was worse than Big Brother watching. “Is there some universal goal?”
“World power.”
She scoffed. “Oh, is that all?”
“Mock if you will, but it is true. They are after an authoritarian society. In 1776, while the United States was declaring independence, the Bavarian Illuminati was born. What has developed today is quite different.”
Rook pulled into a parking lot and turned to face her. “Historically, it was a secret society in the Enlightenment era. They had the very lofty goal of fighting against superstitions, abuse of power, abuse of religious authority, and those opposed to intellectual enlightenment. In other words, they fought the good fight. They, along with the Freemasons, I might add, were outlawed in the late 1700s. But critics, primarily religious and conservative groups, believed the Bavarian Illuminati continued to operate underground and that the French Revolution, among other things, rested squarely on their shoulders. The society was vilified.”
“Well, sure. I mean, if they caused the French Revolution...”
“Louis the sixteenth and Robespierre played a part, too,” Rook admitted. “Oh my God.”
This could be one of Rook’s brilliant moments. “What is it?”
“Louis the sixteenth. Robespierre. What if one of them was Illuminati!”
“What if one of them... ?” Oh brother. She snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Focus.”
He blinked, breaking the spell. “Right. Sorry. The point is, the Illuminati is worldwide. The belief is that they have one goal: world domination.”
“World domination,” she repeated, as if she hadn’t heard him correctly.
“It sounds far-fetched, I know. But that’s what they’re about. Gaining political power. Influencing and infiltrating governments and corporations. Masterminding events that cause chaos and advance their agenda.”
“Like?”
Rook scratched his cheek. “Where to start? The Kennedy assassinations. The attempt on Reagan. The mortgage crisis in 2008. The Syrian war. 9/11. The power of the NRA lobby. The list goes on and on.”
“And you believe the Illuminati is behind it all?”
“Heat, it’s not whether I believe it or not. I haven’t researched it enough to say one way or another. It’s what others deem to be true.”
“You know an awful lot for not having researched it.”
“I said I haven’t researched it enough. I did preliminary background on it in college. You saw my notes.”
“That was years ago.”
He tapped his temple, a gesture she’d come to recognize as a symbol of his never-ending brainpower. If she hadn’t loved him so much, she’d have thought he was the most arrogant man on the planet. Which was exactly what she’d thought when she’d first met him. But his charm eventually won her over.
“Mind. Sponge. Boundless capacity for knowledge.”
She turned in her seat, bending one leg under her, to face him. “Then put your Victoria St. Claire hat on, squeeze that sponge, and spin me a tale, writer boy. What’s the big Illuminati conquering-the-world plan that killed Chloe?”
He shook his head. “You’re looking at it wrong. This isn’t a ‘give me the facts, and just the facts’ kind of solve.”
“Rook, there have to be facts—”
“The facts will lead us to the who. But the why is more...loosey-goosey.”
“The DA can’t convict on loosey-goosey.”
Rook ignored that annoying detail. “Chloe didn’t interrupt a specific plan. She discovered the pathway, which would have revealed the very existence of this particular faction of the Illuminati. That’s a big reveal for a secret society that operates on the down”—he pointed his index finger south—“dooown low.”
“So you’re saying the organization killed her.”
He shrugged. “Yes and no. Obviously a person actually committed the crime. But that someone was acting on behalf of the organization.”
“I can’t arrest an organization, Rook. Which means I need the person.”
“Remember what we talked about,” he scolded, and then reminded her, “Patience. Now bear with me.”
Crashing Heat Page 23