In Too Deep Page 8

  "Y-yes." Walker rocked harder. He rarely rode in motor vehicles. They made him even more anxious than normal.

  The dogs appeared, coalescing out of the mist like a pack of wolves. They charged the SUV, barking furiously. Isabella sat quietly with Fallon and Walker, waiting. Not one attempted to open a door. Everyone in Scargill Cove knew the drill. If you visited Henry and Vera, you stayed in the car, the windows rolled up, until someone called off the beasts. On the rare occasions when some hapless tourist, laboring under the mistaken impression that the lodge was still a functioning motel, pulled into the lodge, Henry and Vera remained inside until the people gave up and moved on.

  Fallon glanced at the illuminated windows of the office.

  "Looks like Henry and Vera are home," he said.

  "They usually are," Isabella said. "Sometimes I do wonder what they do in that place all day long, day after day."

  Fallon smiled. "You mean, you don't know?"

  "No." She gave him a sharp look. "Do you?"

  "Sure. I'm a detective, remember?"

  In the rear seat Walker spoke up. "They g-guard the v-vault. That's their job. I do patrol at night. They s-secure the vault. Marge and the others keep watch during the day."

  Isabella turned in the seat to look at him. "Marge and other people in town are involved in this thing?"

  Walker gave her a jerky nod. "That was the plan back at the start. We've followed the plan. But s-something went wrong. We have to put things right. Alien technology is very d-dangerous."

  The front door of the office swung open. A bulky, bearded figure in denim overalls and a red-and-black plaid flannel shirt lumbered out into the fog. He glowered at the dogs through a pair of old-fashioned gold-framed spectacles.

  "Poppy, Orchid, Clyde, Samson, the rest of you, that's enough," Henry called. "They're friends."

  The barking subsided immediately. The six dogs stood waiting, ears pricked, eyes cold and watchful.

  Isabella was the first one to open the door.

  "Hello, Poppy," she said to the big shepherd mix. "You look lovely today."

  Overcome with delight, Poppy rushed forward, tongue lolling, to greet her. Isabella rubbed her ears. Poppy swooned. Orchid, Clyde, Samson and the rest crowded in eagerly. Isabella patted them all.

  Fallon opened his door and got out. "Don't know what it is with you and those dogs."

  "I like dogs," Isabella said. She gave Poppy one last pat. "I'm thinking of getting one of my own." A dog would make it official, she thought. A dog would mean that she had settled here in Scargill Cove, that she had found a home.

  Henry peered at her. "How's the toaster working?"

  "Great," Isabella said. "It's the best toaster I've ever owned."

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw Fallon's brows climb but he made no comment.

  Henry grunted, satisfied. "Don't make 'em like they used to." He looked at Walker and Fallon. "I take it this is about the things in the vault?"

  "How did you know?" Fallon asked.

  Henry angled his head at Walker. "Only one reason Walker would get into a vehicle. What's up?"

  Walker got out of the SUV, jittering a little. "They found s-something, Henry. Something that belongs in the vault. I could feel it, you know?"

  Henry gave Fallon a long, considering look. "Is this connected to the Zander house business?"

  "You figured that out in a hurry," Fallon said. He went around to the back of the SUV, opened the rear door and removed the blanket-wrapped clock.

  "Heard about the bodies buried under the basement," Henry said, watching him. "It was all over the evening news last night. They said they found the killer's body, too. Heart attack."

  "Yes," Fallon said.

  "Real neat and tidy ending," Henry said. "Vera and I like that kind of ending." He squinted at the object in Fallon's hands. "What did you find?"

  "A clock," Isabella said. "Not an ordinary clock, though."

  Walker twitched. "It's one of the alien weapons stored down in the vault, Henry."

  Henry frowned. "It sure as hell didn't come out of there since Vera and I have been watching the place. Must have been removed before we locked it down all those years ago."

  "The Zander house killer told me that he found the clock in a glass box hidden in a cavern beneath the basement of the mansion," Fallon said. "Got a feeling the clock had been hidden for quite a while."

  Henry looked interested. "You and the killer had a chat before he croaked?"

  "Guys like that have to brag," Fallon explained. "Guess he wanted to impress me."

  "Uh-huh." Henry grew thoughtful. "And after he finished with his bragging, he had his heart attack. Hell of a coincidence."

  "It happens," Fallon said.

  "Nope," Henry said. "No coincidences. Not when it comes to anything that came out of that vault."

  Isabella moved to stand beside Fallon. "We understand that Walker sees things through his own private prism, but please don't tell us that you really believe that aliens from another galaxy visited Scargill Cove and left some baggage behind."

  "Not aliens," Henry said. "They told us they worked for a small research company, but everyone around here knew that was probably a cover. The black-ops folks use a lot of private contractors when they want to keep a low profile."

  "Right," Isabella said. "Everyone knows that."

  Fallon winced, but he did not comment.

  Henry contemplated her, and then he studied Fallon for a few seconds. Isabella could see him making a decision.

  "You two are locals now," Henry said. "You've got a right to know what happened here twenty-two years ago. Come on inside. Vera is making coffee. Tea for you, Isabella. We'll tell you what we know, but I gotta warn you up front, it isn't a whole lot."

  11

  Walker trooped into the lodge and took a seat on a window bench. He wrapped his arms around his waist and rocked quietly.

  Isabella scooped a pile of books off the cushion of an old-fashioned, padded leather armchair and sat down. Fallon grabbed one of the two wooden chairs at the small dining table, reversed it and sat down astride it. He put the clock, still covered in the blanket, on the floor beside his left boot and folded his arms on the back of the chair.

  The interior of the lodge reminded him of his own office or at least the way it had looked until Isabella had swept in and taken charge. Every available surface was cluttered with books, magazines and printouts. There were a computer and a printer on the dining room table.

  A fire burned in the big fireplace. Two rows of framed portraits hung on the wall above the mantel. Each featured a young man or woman. Some were in caps and gowns. Others wore military uniforms. One of the women stood, smiling proudly, in the doorway of a restaurant. Fallon knew that the name of the restaurant was her own.

  Over the decades a number of runaways and homeless kids had wandered into Scargill Cove. Most did not hang around for long, but those who did were quietly taken in, sheltered and educated. Vera and Henry were the town's unofficial schoolmasters. The framed photographs were portraits of the Cove's graduates.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Fallon saw Isabella glance briefly at the top page of a ream-thick stack of paper positioned on the arm of her chair. Her eyes widened a little and then she smiled. He was coming to know that particular smile. It meant that she had just solved some small mystery.

  He winked. She laughed.

  Vera, a good-looking, strong-boned, full-bodied woman in her midfifties came out of the kitchen carrying four mugs by the handles. Her graying-brown hair was tied back in a ponytail. She wore a long, loose-fitting dress of green and purple that fell to her ankles. Faded tattoos peeked out from beneath the sleeves of the dress. In spite of the chill of the day, she had a pair of flip-flops on her feet.

  "Hello, Isabella, Fallon," she said, her voice pleasantly husky. "Nice to see you both. You, too, Walker."

  She made no comment about the strangeness of seeing Walker indoors.

  Isabell
a tapped the printout sitting on the arm of the chair. "You are Vera Hastings, the writer, aren't you? You do the suspense series featuring the vampire and the witch. I love those books."

  Vera chuckled. "Thanks. Actually Henry and I are Vera Hastings. He does the vampire. I do the witch."

  "Those novels are terrific," Isabella enthused. "I loved the one in which the vampire had to drink the witch's blood because he was dying, and her blood made him drunk."

  Fallon decided it was time to step in and regain control of the conversation. "About the clock."

  "The clock?" Vera echoed.

  "The one in the blanket," Fallon said.

  Walker jittered. "It came from the vault."

  With a worried expression, Vera studied the blanket-covered clock next to Fallon's boot. "You're right, Walker. Whatever is under that blanket must have come from the vault."

  Walker rocked harder. "You can feel it. Like me."

  "Yes," Vera said. She set the mugs on the table. "Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later, wasn't it? We always knew that someday whatever is in that vault would cause more trouble."

  Henry came out of the kitchen, a pot of coffee in one meaty hand, a pot of tea in the other. "We just never got around to figuring out what we'd do about it when the trouble came down."

  "Because we didn't have any great ideas," Vera said. She looked at Fallon. "Have you told anyone else in town about finding that . . . thing, whatever it is, under the blanket?"

  "Not yet," Fallon said. "Walker sensed it while I was taking it upstairs to my office. He made it clear that we needed to talk to you and Henry right away. I figured he knew what he was talking about."

  "Yes," she said. "When it comes to objects in the vault, Walker knows at least as much as any of us. Maybe more."

  Henry filled the mugs. Vera handed them around. Walker refused his, sticking to the no-charity code. Vera left the coffee sitting on the windowsill nearby. After a while, Walker picked up the mug as if he'd just happened to find it the way he found the other life necessities that came his way.

  Fallon leaned down and raised the blanket.

  Vera and Henry looked at the clock. They both appeared baffled.

  "It's just a clock," Henry said, frowning.

  "It's actually a clockwork device that generates energy that interferes with light waves in the visible spectrum," Fallon said. "Wind it up and when it starts to tick everything goes dark for a radius of several yards."

  Henry whistled softly. "Son of a bitch." He looked up suddenly, eyes narrowed. "Looks old."

  "It is old," Fallon said. "Late nineteenth century."

  Vera eyed the clock. "Are you telling us that it was designed and built in the Victorian era?"

  "Yes," Fallon said.

  Henry shook his head. "What you're describing is cutting-edge technology. If it came out of the vault, it must have been designed and built in a high-tech lab." He glanced uneasily at Vera. "Like the other things down there."

  "No," Fallon said. "It came out of the workshop of a very ingenious, very dangerous inventor who lived in the Victorian era. Mrs. Millicent Bridewell. Trust me."

  "But the kind of technology involved in such a device would have to be state-of-the-art," Henry said. "Hell, beyond state-of-the-art. I don't care how brilliant your Victorian-era inventor was, she would not have had access to the kind of advanced materials and algorithms required to design and build a machine that can neutralize visible light waves."

  "Mrs. Bridewell's clockwork curiosities, as she called them, were not based on software programs or cutting-edge manufacturing techniques," Fallon said.

  Vera looked uneasy. "What are you saying?"

  "The design of this clock is based on the principles of para-physics."

  Vera and Henry exchanged looks. Henry cleared his throat and turned back to Fallon.

  "Are you telling us that the clock generates some kind of paranormal energy?" he asked.

  "Yes," Fallon said. "Vera and Walker are obviously somewhat sensitive to that kind of energy. That's why they can feel the psi infused into the clock."

  Vera looked wary. She glanced at Walker. "It's just our intuition."

  "That's what people say when they sense something they can't explain," Isabella said gently.

  "She's right," Fallon said. "Most people are reluctant to acknowledge the psychic side of their natures, but they're usually okay with the concept of intuition. Scargill Cove is a nexus, a hot spot, psychically speaking, which probably explains how the clock, and whatever else is in the vault, got here."

  They were all looking at him now, including Isabella.

  Vera tapped one finger against the side of her mug. "Do you mean the Cove is a vortex? They say there are some in various places around the world. Sedona, for example."

  "Similar principle," Fallon said. "But a nexus is more powerful."

  Henry appeared reluctantly fascinated. "You want to explain that?"

  No, Fallon thought. I don't want to waste the time. But he had a feeling that things would move more rapidly if he took a few minutes to go through it.

  "There are different kinds of nexus points," he said. "Those like Scargill Cove occur where there's a natural confluence of several kinds of powerful currents. This stretch of coastline happens to be a place where the forces generated by strong ocean currents combine with currents from the earth's magnetic field and the energy of geothermal heat flowing deep underground."

  Henry frowned. "What geothermal heat? We're not sitting on top of a volcano."

  "The hot springs in the cave out on the Point," Vera said suddenly. "They're the result of geothermal energy in the area."

  Henry reflected for a moment. "All right, I get that there are some powerful geophysical currents running through this area, but how does that translate into paranormal energy?"

  "The paranormal and the normal exist on a continuum," Fallon said. "There's no hard, fast line that divides the two. Think of the light spectrum. There's plenty of energy just beyond the visible range. Some birds and animals can see it and there are instruments that can detect it."

  "Well, sure," Henry said. He squinted through his spectacles. "But paranormal energy?"

  Fallon felt himself getting a little impatient now. Isabella gave him a tiny, quelling frown. He decided to take the hint. He needed Vera's and Henry's cooperation.

  "Someday we'll have the kind of instruments needed to detect psi, too," he said. "But take it from me, power is power and there's a hell of a lot of it running through the earth. In places like the Cove, where you've got a tremendous amount of geophysical energy flowing into a nexus, the currents are so strong that they register on human senses. Not everyone who comes to town is consciously aware of the confluence of forces here, but I think most pick up on it on some deep level. It bothers a lot of folks."

  "Probably explains our low tourism numbers," Vera said dryly.

  "Yes," Fallon agreed. He watched her very steadily. "The thing is, some people are attracted to nexus points, even if they aren't aware of the pull of the place."

  "People like us?" Vera asked quietly.

  "Yes," Fallon said. "People like us."

  He noticed that Isabella was smiling a little again.

  "That's right," she said. "People like us."

  Henry's expression sharpened. "You say you think this nexus theory explains why the black-ops people set up the lab here? They wanted to tap in to some currents of power in the area?"

  Fallon got the little buzz of adrenaline that he always experienced when the answers started coming. Out on the grid more sectors brightened.

  "Tell me about this black-ops lab," he said.

  12

  Vera and Henry looked at each other. Walker rocked on in silence.

  Vera took a deep breath. "Something very weird happened here twenty-two years ago."

  "That would have been during the period when J&J was operating out of L.A.," Fallon said.

  "There was no Jones & Jones in the C
ove in those days," Henry said. "That's for sure. Wasn't much of anything, come to that. But for about a month someone ran a secret weapons research program here, at least that's what we all assumed was going on. If the weapons were paranormal in nature, it would certainly explain a few things."

  "Certainly wouldn't be the first time the government has conducted secret paranormal experiments," Isabella said.

  Henry snorted. "Might just be the first time they were successful, though. Don't think they liked the results. After the accident they left in one hell of a hurry, at least the survivors did. No one ever came back for the weapons."

  Fallon heightened his senses a little. "Tell me what you know, Henry. It's important."

  "Yeah, I can see that," Henry said.

  He settled back in one of the big armchairs near the fireplace. "Might as well start at the beginning. Twenty-two years ago when Vera and I and Walker and the others arrived, Scargill Cove was a boarded-up ghost town. The whole damn place had been abandoned, including this lodge. There were twenty-five of us at the start." He glanced at Walker for confirmation. "Twenty-five in the beginning, right, Walker?"

  "Twenty-five," Walker said urgently. He rocked harder.

  Henry nodded. "We called ourselves the Seekers. We fell under the spell of a real asshole of a guru named Gordon Lasher. Don't ask me why we thought he was so smart and so enlightened. To give the man his due, he was incredibly charismatic."

  "He was the perfect con man and we were young and dumb," Vera said. "We fell for his pitch. Gave him every dime we had. A few of the Seekers had some real money. Trust funds and inheritances. He took it all."

  "Several people wised up or got bored and split after the first couple of months," Henry added. "Lost a couple of others the hard way."

  "The hard way?" Isabella asked.

  "Sam took his own life," Vera said. Her eyes were shadowed. "Lucy got stoned and drove her car off the Point."

  Isabella took a sip of tea. "You were all members of a commune?"

  Henry chuckled. "I believe the politically correct term is intentional community. What can I say? We were young and determined to find an enlightened path."

  "America has a long tradition of intentional communities," Fallon said. "Goes all the way back to those folks who got off the boat in Plymouth."