In Too Deep (13 page)

“Crack in the skull and the body fell facedown,” Fallon said absently. “It’s not rocket science.”

“Oh, right. But that means that there was someone else down here with him.”

“Yes,” Fallon said. “It does indicate exactly that.”

“Henry and Vera told us that Lasher ran off with a woman named Rachel Stewart. Both of them were able to tolerate the psi down here. I’ll bet they came together to steal the curiosities. Rachel must have decided that Lasher really was an asshole after all and that she didn’t need him anymore. She bashed him in the head with the crowbar.”

“I’d say the probability of that scenario is about seventy-four percent.”

“Only seventy-four?”

“Yes.” Fallon swept the rest of the chamber with his flashlight. “Here we go, there’s our second entrance.”

Isabella studied the steel door built into the concrete wall. “It’s a door but it doesn’t go up to the surface.”

Fallon went forward, gripped the handle and pulled on the door. It opened with only a few faint squeaks of the hinges. A great darkness lay beyond. Chilly, damp air flowed into the chamber. Isabella heard the muffled rumble of the ocean in the distance.

“A cave,” Fallon said. “It leads out to a cove or a beach.”

“That door opened fairly easily,” Isabella said. “The salt air should have done a lot more damage by now.”

“Whoever has been keeping the Queen in functioning order all these years uses this entrance,” Fallon said.

“Why do you suppose the original owner built a second entrance?”

“Think about it. If you were down here waiting for the bombs to fall, not knowing what was happening on the surface, wouldn’t you want a second escape route in case the first one got blocked?”

“Good point,” she said.

He closed the cavern door, walked to the first elongated box and wiped off a layer of grime with one gloved hand.

“More bullet-resistant glass,” he said. “They used these boxes to store the curiosities.”

Isabella went to stand beside him. The glass box was empty.

“Looks about the right size for the Queen,” she said. She glanced down the row of stands and cases. “There’s no box on one of the stands. I’ll bet that was the one that held the clock. The killer said that when he found the device in the tunnel beneath the Zander house basement, it was in a glass box.”

They went to the third case in the row. Fallon wiped off more grime.

Isabella saw a wood-and-bronze clockwork dragon with eerie glass eyes. She moved to the next box. It contained an ornate miniature carriage and two small wooden horses. The glass windows of the vehicle glinted darkly. The third case held a toy-sized merry-go-round decorated with small mythical beasts. The last box held a Victorian-era camera.

“If we assume that the Queen was in the empty case and that the clock was stolen together with its glass box, all of the curiosities that were originally stored here are accounted for,” Fallon said.

“You sound relieved.”

“Trust me, I am,” Fallon said.

“But who comes down here on a regular basis to keep the Queen in working order?”

“Someone who can handle the psi in this place and who also feels a duty to protect the artifacts.”

“Walker,” she said softly. “But that means he knows about the second entrance. Why didn’t he mention it?”

“Walker operates in his own universe and employs his own kind of logic,” Fallon said. “It’s our fault. We didn’t ask the right question.”

“I think that, in his mind, he has turned over the responsibility of protecting the inventions to J&J. He probably assumes that you know everything he knows.”

“Yes.”

Isabella looked at the skeleton. “What do we do with the body?”

“Nothing until we get the inventions out of here. Gordon Lasher has been here for twenty-two years. He can wait a while longer.”

T
hey emerged from the shelter a short time later, closing the hatch to cut off the disturbing psi wind. Isabella fondled the dogs while Fallon told Henry and Vera what they had found and explained his plans to bring in an Arcane team to remove the remaining curiosities.

Henry squinted at Walker. “Let me get this straight. Vera and I have been guarding the front door of that shelter for twenty-two years while you’ve been coming and going through the back door?”

Walker was bewildered by the question. “Have to k-keep the Queen working. Takes oil.”

“Why didn’t you tell us there was another entrance to the shelter?” Vera asked calmly.

Walker looked confused. “No one knew about it.”

“Except you and Rachel and the Asshole,” Henry said, disgusted.

“J-just me, now,” Walker said earnestly. “Gordon Lasher is dead. Rachel never came back. I kept the secret.”

Henry grimaced. “Wonder how many other people discovered the second entrance during the past twenty-two years.”

“I don’t think that anyone else knows it exists,” Fallon said. “As far as we could tell, all of the devices are accounted for. Walker’s footprints are the only new ones down there.”

Walker rocked. “No one knows about the tunnel d-door. Except me. And Rachel. But Rachel never came back.”

“Where does the door lead?” Isabella asked gently.

Walker concentrated. “Comes out in the h-hot springs cave.”

“Which is out at the Point,” Vera said. “Well, that explains it. The only people who know about the springs are those of us who live in the Cove.”

“I’ve been inside the hot springs cavern a few times,” Fallon said. “There’s a vast network of tunnels leading off of it that have never been explored. Obviously one of them leads to the shelter.”

“Walker, Lasher and Rachel saw the second door when they went down into the shelter,” Isabella said. “But how did they find the entrance from the hot springs cavern? They would have had to map that maze of tunnels. It would have taken weeks, at the very least. But from the looks of things, Lasher was back inside the shelter shortly after he left town with Rachel.”

“Rachel,” Walker said suddenly. “Rachel f-found the tunnel that leads to the shelter. She showed it to Lasher.”

Fallon looked at Isabella. “Sounds like Rachel Stewart had some serious talent.”

WALKER
CHOSE
TO
WALK
back into town. Isabella grabbed the handhold just inside the door of the big
SUV
and did a little hop to get up into the cab. Fallon put the remains of the Queen, together with the clock, into the cargo bay of the vehicle and got behind the wheel.

Isabella’s phone rang just as Fallon drove out of the Sea Breeze parking lot. The number looked familiar.

“Norma Spaulding,” Isabella said. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

“Clients are always trouble,” Fallon said. “In a perfect world J&J wouldn’t need any.”

“That would certainly be an interesting business model.” She opened the phone. “Hello, Norma,” she said, going for her most professional tones.

“The buyer I had lined up for the Zander house just called,” Norma said tightly. “He heard the news about the so-called Haunted House murders. He is no longer interested.”

Isabella winced. “I’m sorry about that.”

“Damn it, I didn’t hire Jones & Jones to kill the deal.”

“I assure you, it was an accident.”

“Finding three bodies in the basement is an accident?” Norma’s voice rose. “A serial killer dropping dead in the house is an
accident
? The property is a crime scene now. The press is having a field day with the story.”

“I realize it may take some time for the media to lose interest, but I’m sure that in a few months everyone will forget about what happened at the Zander house,” Isabella said soothingly.

“Not a chance. That property is never going to be marketable. The only reason I called is to tell you not to bother to send me a bill for your services. I didn’t get what I paid for and I’m not about to write a check to your agency.”

Outrage splashed through Isabella. “But J&J solved the case.”

“There was no case,” Norma said. She sounded like she was speaking through set teeth. “I hired you to help me get rid of those silly rumors about the property being haunted. I thought if a psychic detective agency declared the place ghost-free, I could sell it. But instead you killed the deal.”

“It isn’t J&J’s fault that the property was a dumping ground for a serial killer.”

“Maybe not, but I’m holding your firm responsible for killing the sale, so do not bother to send me your bill.”

The connection went dead. Isabella closed the phone.

“Bad news,” she said. “Norma Spaulding says she won’t pay our bill. She blames J&J for making the Zander house unmarketable.”

“Told you the case was a waste of time,” Fallon said. “That’s why we don’t like to encourage that kind of work.”

“It’s not our fault that there were bodies in the house.”

“Clients always blame the investigator when they don’t get the answer they want,” Fallon said. “Hell, most of the time they blame the investigator even when they do get the answer they say they want or even the one they expect. It’s the nature of the business, Isabella.”

She slumped in the seat and gazed morosely out the window. “It’s not fair.”

“Here’s a little tip going forward.”

“What?”

“Always get a nonrefundable retainer up front.”

She drummed her fingers on the armrest. “Good idea. I’ll make sure to do that next time.”

Fallon turned off the main street and drove behind the J&J office. He parked under the wide overhang. They climbed out of the
SUV
. Fallon opened the rear of the vehicle.

“You take the clock,” he said. “I’ll handle the Queen.”

She hoisted the blanket-wrapped clock under one arm and opened the back door of the office. They carried the curiosities upstairs to the landing. Fallon got out his key and opened the door.

Isabella walked into the office ahead of him, switched on the lights and set the clock on the floor in the corner.

“Now what?” she asked.

He closed the door and put the doll on the floor next to the clock. “Like I told Henry and Vera and Walker, an Arcane lab team will collect all of the curiosities tomorrow and take them back to the Society’s main lab in L.A. I want a complete report from the experts. I’d also like to know who brought the gadgets here three decades ago.”

Isabella walked into the tiny kitchenette that adjoined the office and picked up the teakettle. “I sense a new conspiracy theory in the making.”

There was a moment of crystalline silence behind her. She knew she had gone too far.

“Do you think that’s what I do?” Fallon asked, his tone chillingly neutral. “Invent conspiracies?”

The cold, emotionless edge on the words caught her off guard. She turned quickly to face him. Fallon was watching her with a look that matched his tone. She had seen that same expression and felt the deep sense of aloneness that went with it many times since meeting him. It was as if he spent most of his life locked in some other dimension. She longed to reach out to him, but it was not as if she lived in a normal dimension, either. She was certain of one thing, though. She must not move too fast with Fallon Jones. He did not fully trust her yet, and until he crossed that boundary she had to feel her way.

Then, again, she thought, she had not entrusted him with her secrets, either.
That makes us even
, she thought.

“Of course not,” she said, keeping her voice light with an effort. She turned back to the sink and ran water into the kettle. “It was just a little joke, boss. I’ve got no problems with what you call your conspiracy thinking. After all, most of the time you’re right.” She shut off the faucet and looked at him. “Right?”

Some of the tension went out of him, but it was replaced by some of the soul-deep weariness that she had sensed in him the first time he walked through the door of the café.

“Most of the time,” he said. “Not always. And when I do screw up, I put people in danger.”

“Now you’re talking about the Nightshade case, aren’t you?”

“It’s not just Nightshade. Yesterday at the Zander house, if you hadn’t called me—” He stopped.

“But I did call you,” she pointed out. “What’s more I had enough sense not to go into the basement alone. Give me some credit. I told you, I can take care of myself. I’ve been doing it for years.”

Energy heightened a little in the atmosphere. She knew that he had tapped in to his talent.

He went to the counter where the industrial-size coffeemaker sat, picked up the package of ground coffee and started to fill the machine. He did not bother with a measuring spoon.

“How, exactly, can you take care of yourself?” he asked.

She leaned back against the sink and folded her arms. “That’s one of the things I admire about you, Mr. Jones. Your interrogation technique is so amazingly subtle.”

He filled the machine with water. She noticed that his jaw was clenched.

“I hope you’re not grinding your teeth,” she said. “That sort of thing leads to crowns and root canals.”

“I’ve tried not to push you,” he said.

“I know. You’ve been very patient, all things considered. You weren’t able to find out anything about me online, were you? Just my picture-perfect bio.” She could not conceal her pride. “Even the brilliant director of Jones & Jones hit a brick wall when he went looking for me. Am I good, or what?”

He smiled wryly. “You’re good. I found a nice, neat narrative of your life all the way back to your birth and it’s all fake, isn’t it?”

“Yep.”

“I’ve known from the beginning that you’re running from something or someone.” He flipped the switch on the coffee machine. “You chose Scargill Cove as a hideout, and I’m pretty damn sure that wasn’t by accident.”

“Coincidence?”

“I’ve explained to you that we have this policy about coincidences at J&J.”

“Right,” she said. “Out of curiosity, how long were you prepared to wait before you pounced?”

“Pounced?” He looked baffled.

“Before you started demanding answers,” she clarified.

He watched the coffee fill the pot. “I was planning to wait a little longer, but given recent events, I think maybe now would be a good time for you to start talking.”