"Why?"
"Let's just say that the combination of my talent plus my family history gives me employment problems. The result is that I change employers the way some folks change their socks." She paused. "I get fired a lot."
"I understand the personal history issues. It could not have been easy growing up in a family that doesn't officially exist. But what's the problem with your talent? I would think being a finder would make you a natural fit for any kind of investigation or security firm."
She took another sip of tea and lowered the mug. "The problem is that I'm picky about what I find."
"Explain."
"A lot of security and investigation work involves locating people who don't want to be found. Often those who are lost have a very good reason for disappearing. Then there are the dead bodies. Sure, once in a while those kinds of jobs are okay. I understand that sort of work needs doing."
"Like yesterday at the Zander mansion?"
"Right," she said, very earnest now. "I mean, I'm all for getting justice for murder victims and closure for families. It's important work. Honorable work. Necessary work. But it is incredibly depressing to spend your entire working life, day in and day out, searching for people who are either dead or don't want to be found."
"Hadn't thought about it," he admitted. "Is that what you did?"
"Mostly. As soon as my employers realized I could find bodies and lost people, they kept giving me those kinds of cases. But Lucan Protection Services was different. I was one of the technicians there. I enjoyed the work. No one expected me to find dead people, just lost art and antiquities."
"What went wrong?"
"I was doing a really good job. I got promoted to Department A."
"What's Department A?"
"It's an elite investigation division within Lucan," she said. "Very hush-hush."
Fallon suppressed a groan. "Right. Hush-hush."
"I was doing okay, making good money. I was even thinking about getting vested in the company retirement plan. I had a nice apartment. It almost felt as if I was starting to get a life. Finally."
"You didn't have one before going to work for Lucan?"
"Not the normal kind," she said. "Do you have any idea what it's like living under fake names and IDs your whole life?"
"No," he admitted. "But I can see where it would start to wear on a person."
"After a while, you start to wonder if you really exist. But I was beginning to feel comfortable at Lucan, probably because people like me are considered normal there, at least inside Department A."
"You mean people with some talent?"
She nodded. "Lucan hires a lot of sensitives, especially in Department A. It caters to clients who are sensitives and deal in antiquities that have a paranormal provenance. All in all, I fit right in. Then I found out what was really going on."
The rabbit hole suddenly got a whole lot darker. I'm doomed, Fallon thought. I've fallen for a woman who has gone over the horizon.
"What did you stumble into?" he asked, resigned to his fate.
"One of the lead investigators in Department A, Julian Garrett, my old boss there, is running his own private business. He's an arms dealer. But not just any arms dealer. He specializes in paranormal weapons."
Isabella waited, watching expectantly for his reaction to her bombshell.
"Huh," he said.
"That's all you have to say? I thought Arcane frowned very heavily on that kind of thing."
"It does." Fallon put his fingertips together and gave the subject some serious thought. "Hard to imagine that something like that could be going on inside Lucan Protection Services, though. I don't doubt that Max Lucan has brokered a few shady antiquities sales in his time. And I'm aware that he specializes in art and artifacts with a paranormal provenance. But Lucan is no fool. He knows that if Arcane finds out that he's dealing para-weapons to bad guys with some talent, J&J will come down on him like a very big mountain."
"I don't think Max Lucan knew what was going on. But I think he must have been getting suspicious about Department A. Julian Garrett knew that. To save his own hide, he set me up to take the fall. Now Lucan thinks I'm the one who was dealing the para-weapons. I'm sure he told Julian to find me and bring me in, but Julian wants me dead so I can't talk."
"Let's go back a step. How did you discover that you were being set up by Julian Garrett?"
"I walked into my cubicle one morning and saw a whole bunch of really ugly energy around my desk and computer. It was not there the day before when I left work. The trail led straight back to Julian Garrett's office."
"What did you do?"
"I realized Julian had been in my cubicle, but I couldn't imagine why. I started going through my drawers. I didn't find anything, so I went to work running all sorts of virus checks and searches on my computer."
"You found something?"
"A hidden file," Isabella said. "It contained a record of the sale of a number of antiquities. At first glance there didn't seem to be anything unusual about it, but I couldn't understand why Julian put the file on my computer. So I started researching the individual artifacts."
"What did you find?"
"I soon discovered that all the objects had a few things in common. In addition to having the usual paranormal provenance, every single one of them should have been classified as weapons-grade artifacts according to the company guidelines."
"Anything else?"
"All of the transactions had been handled off the books. None of the sales were recorded in the company archives. What's more, they had all been obtained from a single source, a broker named Orville Sloan. He's a major player in the black market."
"Did you confront Julian Garrett?"
"For Pete's sake, of course not," Isabella said. She looked horrified. "It was obvious he was setting me up. It would have been my word against Julian's. Julian has worked for Lucan for several years. Lucan trusts him. What's more, Lucan would have been ruthless. He would have made certain that I wound up in prison or worse."
"So you ran."
"Yes. But I also called my grandmother and told her what was going on. She's the one who said that if Julian Garrett found me, he would very likely kill me."
Isabella was not inventing any of this, Fallon thought. Her interpretation of events might be skewed, but she was giving him the facts as she knew them. What the hell was going on here?
Fallon sat forward, reached for the computer keyboard and typed in a quick series of searches. He got a ping immediately.
"What did you find?" Isabella asked.
"A report of the death of an arms dealer named Orville Sloan." Fallon studied the data on the screen. "He was shot a month ago. No suspects."
Isabella's mouth tightened. "I'll bet Julian killed him to cover up more tracks."
"Arms dealers have a lot of enemies," Fallon said mildly.
He reminded himself that Isabella was the granddaughter of the Sentinel. Conspiracy theories were second nature to her. But he couldn't restrain his instinctive response. He slid deeper into the hot zone of his talent. The vast web was starting to brighten with a cold light. A pattern was forming. There was something here, something important.
"I don't suppose you have anything resembling proof of what you think is going on inside Department A, do you?" he asked.
Isabella hesitated. "It's sort of hard to prove that kind of stuff."
"Yes, it is."
"That's why Grandma thought that I should turn the problem over to Arcane. She said that policing the psychic bad guys was part of the Society's job."
He exhaled wearily. "We do what we can, but it's not our job. It's just that when you get guys like that crazy bastard at the Zander house yesterday, there isn't a lot regular law enforcement can do."
"Exactly."
"Isabella--"
She closed her eyes for a few seconds. When she opened them, he could see nothing but stoic resignation.
"I was afraid of this," she said quietly.
"You don't believe a word I've said, do you? You think I'm crazy, like the Sentinel."
"Damn it, Isabella."
"I thought maybe if I gave you time to get to know me, you would realize that I'm not a nutcase. That's why I delayed telling you the truth about myself. Maybe I should have waited a little longer before I tried to explain, but I needed to tell someone. Not knowing if my grandmother is dead or alive is just so hard to deal with. She's the only one I've got left and if she's gone--"
"Isabella." He got to his feet, rounded his desk, reached down and closed his hands over her shoulders. He hauled her to her feet for the second time. "I don't have enough information to make an informed decision on the subject of Julian Garrett's involvement in para-weapons dealing, let alone decide if your grandmother actually was murdered."
"I understand."
"But what I do know," he said, "is that you believe every word of what you're telling me. And as long as you believe it, I'll do whatever it takes to get your answers for you. If your grandmother was murdered, I'll find the killer."
"Fallon," she whispered. Her eyes glistened again. She reached up to touch his jaw. "I don't know what to say, except thank you." She stood on tiptoe and kissed him lightly.
It was a damn gratitude kiss, he thought. The last thing he wanted from Isabella was gratitude.
16
They gathered in the Scar that evening. Everyone who had lived in the Cove during the heyday of the Seekers' community showed up. Isabella made a mental note of the handful of longtime residents who had a long history in the town. Henry and Vera were there. So were her landlord, Ralph Toomey, and Marge from the Sunshine. The proprietors of the inn, Violet and Patty, were also present. The two women sat at a table with Bud Yeager, the owner of the gas station and garage. Harriet and Ben Stokes from the grocery store lounged at another table. Even Walker showed up. He hovered, jittering a little, near the door.
Oliver and Fran Hitchcock, owners of the Scar, took up positions behind the bar, solemnly pouring beers. Everyone except Walker had one.
Isabella perched on a red vinyl bar stool. Fallon occupied the stool beside her, one booted foot propped on the brass rung, his laptop in its leather case on the counter beside him.
Isabella watched the faces of the small crowd as Henry gave a brief summary of the day's events. By now the news had spread throughout the Cove. When Henry told those present that Gordon Lasher's skeleton had been discovered in the old bomb shelter, no one showed any signs of shock.
Bud Yeager snorted in disgust. "Figures he came back to steal whatever is down there. Lasher was nothing but a low-rent con man. After all this time, I still can't believe we fell for his scam."
"He was good." Marge sighed. "Real good. And we were a lot younger back in those days. We wanted to think that we were special and that there was a magic path to enlightenment that only we could experience. Lasher made it easy for us to believe."
"Only for a short period of time," Vera said grimly. "The guru magic wore off very quickly, if you will recall."
"As soon as it became obvious that the son of a bitch was going to go after every young girl who wandered into town," Patty said bitterly.
Bud Yeager drank some beer and lowered the bottle. "Wonder who killed him?"
"Who cares?" Harriet Stokes said. "He got what he deserved. I will never forget how he used me. I let him take every dime of the money my parents left me."
Ben Stokes reached across the table to touch her arm. "He used all of us. It was never about founding a community. It was about the money right from the start."
"Good riddance." Violet shuddered. "Wanted to kill him myself, there at the end."
"Who didn't?" Ralph Toomey asked.
Henry cleared his throat and took charge again. "We always knew there was something dangerous down there in that old shelter. Turns out we were right. Fallon and Isabella say that the objects look like genuine antiques from the late Victorian era but they're actually very dangerous experimental weapons. They need to be deactivated by experts."
Bud Yeager slapped the tabletop with his palm. "Fat chance of that happening if we turn those weapons over to the Feds. We all know that."
"He's right," Marge said. "The CIA will want to find out how they work, and the military will want to figure out how to make a thousand more just like 'em."
Fallon stirred slightly. Instantly the crowd fell silent. Everyone looked at him.
"Given the unique nature of the weapons, it is highly unlikely that they could be duplicated," he said. "That's the good news. The bad news is that the clockwork gadgets that we found are not only dangerous, but they also are highly unpredictable because the technology involved is based on the principles of paranormal physics."
Isabella noticed that no one appeared shocked by that announcement, either.
"Everyone knows that the CIA and the FBI have been fooling around with the woo-woo stuff for years," Oliver Hitchcock growled from behind the bar.
A lovely warmth blossomed inside Isabella. These were her people, she thought. That was why she felt at home here in the Cove. The locals spoke her language, the language that she had been taught from the cradle, conspiracy-ese.
"That's right," she said eagerly. "Years ago, the press exposed those so-called far seeing experiments that the CIA conducted."
"And don't forget the paranormal research programs funded at Duke and Stanford decades ago," Marge offered.
"Those projects were just the ones they let the public know about," Henry said. "No telling what they were doing in secret."
"Let's not get carried away here," Fallon said neutrally. "To date, the black-ops folks don't seem to have accomplished too much in the field of paranormal weaponry."
Vera sniffed. "Not for lack of trying. If those gadgets down there in the shelter are the real deal, we sure as hell can't turn them over to the government."
"If we do, they'll wind up in the hands of some black arts agency, sure as we're sitting here," Henry warned.
"I happen to agree with you," Fallon said patiently. "Trust me when I tell you that I don't want those artifacts falling into the wrong hands. I propose that we give them to the one organization that is capable of deactivating and storing them."
Bud frowned. "What organization is that?"
"A group called the Arcane Society," Fallon said. "Full disclosure here, the Society is my biggest client. It has been engaged in serious paranormal research for generations. What's more, it has had some experience with other gadgets just like those we found in the shelter."
Another wave of murmurs rippled through the crowd. Isabella noticed a few skeptical faces.
"The Society is for real," she assured them. "Just like Fallon is for real. You can trust him to do what's right with the weapons."
Heads nodded around the room.
"Jones, here, knows more about those weapons than any of the rest of us," Henry said. "I think we should take his advice."
"I agree," Vera declared. "Given the way the clock showed up at the old Zander place and the fact that there's a second entrance to the shelter that most of us never knew about, it's clear we can't protect those gadgets any longer."
"What about the skeleton?" Marge asked. "You're sure it's Gordon Lasher?"
"According to the ID in his wallet," Fallon said. He looked at Henry. "And a few other things."
"There was a ring with the body," Henry said. He took it out of the pocket of his coveralls and held it up for all to view. "Remember that big old flashy crystal that Lasher always wore? This is it."
"Okay, so it probably is Lasher," Marge said. "What are we going to do with it?"
"The body is a small problem," Fallon conceded.
Violet widened her eyes. "A small problem? It's a dead body."
"Whatever happened to Gordon Lasher happened more than twenty years ago, and judging from the comments I've heard tonight, no one seems to have missed him," Fallon said.
"That's for damn sure," Ben Stokes mutter
ed.
"We've got a couple of options," Fallon continued. "We could tell the county cops about the skeleton but I can't see the sheriff or any of his men figuring out how to get into the shelter to retrieve the remains, let alone conduct an investigation into the death. You know what the atmosphere is like down there."
"Jones is right," Henry said. "The local authorities will realize right away that something downright weird happened down there in the shelter and they'll contact the Feds."
"That means the CIA," Fran Hitchcock said darkly. "Or some other clandestine agency. The same folks that set up that lab twenty-two years ago may still be in operation for all we know."
Oliver Hitchcock looked alarmed. "If that crowd comes back, they'll be all over the Cove this time, trying to isolate the source of the energy in that fallout shelter. I wouldn't put it past them to shut down the whole town and kick us out."
"It will be like Area 51," Isabella said, getting into the spirit of the conversation. "There will be armed guards all over the place."
"Fallon says there's some kind of cosmic energy nexus along this stretch of the coast," Vera offered. "If the CIA discovers that they can tap in to a power source like that, there won't be any stopping them. Isabella is right. The first step will be to clear out the town."
"It could be a whole lot worse," Harriet Stokes said in ominous tones. "They might decide they don't want any witnesses."
There was a vast silence while the crowd digested that possibility. Then the hubbub started up again, louder this time.
Beneath the cover of the general uproar, Fallon turned to Isabella.
"I never used the term cosmic energy," he said.
"Details," she said.
"Cosmic implies energy from beyond Earth. While some of that may be in play here, it is not, at present, measurable, and has no bearing on the nexus energy that I mentioned."
She patted his thigh. "Nobody's listening to you, boss."
"I noticed," he said.
The anxious conversations got louder and so did the level of alarm.
Fallon leaned back and extended his arms along the bar. He surveyed the crowd with a satisfied air.