"Not tonight?"
"I'm too tired to concentrate tonight."
"Okay," she said.
They were both quiet for a while.
"So Kevin Conner Andrews, alias Nightman, turned out to be an upstanding citizen." Isabella said after a time. "Sterling employment record at the construction company. No criminal record. Everyone thought he was such a nice, normal guy. Blah, blah, blah."
"They always say that. The fact that he was local and in the construction business does explain how he knew about the basement in the old Zander house. Explains the new floor, as well."
"Yes. Want some more soup?"
"Yes," he said.
She got up, refilled his bowl and came back to the table.
"Think the cops are done with J&J?" she asked.
"Pretty much," he said. "The detective might come back for another statement from me, but everything I gave him was the truth, at least up to a point. Norma Spaulding hired us to check out the rumors of ghosts in the old Zander mansion. I went there to take a look. Found the dumping ground in the basement and was confronted by the killer, who must have been watching the house."
"Said killer attacks you in the basement and dies of sudden cardiac arrest."
"It happens, even to men Andrews's age. The authorities may spring for an autopsy but they won't find anything more. And I doubt they'll go that far, not when there's so much evidence."
She looked at him. "You mean the bodies?"
"Not just the bodies. Andrews took pictures. The cops found them in his house."
"Geez."
"Sudden deaths happen, even to killers," he stated. "The cops know that no shots were fired and there's no sign of a struggle. There's no way they're going to go with a theory of the crime that involves death by paranormal forces, so cardiac arrest is all they've got."
"Sounds like you've had experience in situations like this."
"Some," he admitted. "I don't think there's anything to worry about. The detective in charge just cracked the biggest case of his career. He'll be too busy giving interviews to the media to wonder why a serial killer in his prime keeled over and toppled down a flight of basement stairs. As far as he's concerned, the incident saved the county the cost of a trial."
"But it wasn't an incident," Isabella said quietly. "You had to kill a man."
"Yes."
She watched him with her knowing eyes. "That sort of thing, no matter how justified, causes some major psychic trauma."
"Not as major as the trauma that Andrews went through."
"He deserved it. Do you want to talk about the psychic trauma thing?"
"I don't think talking about it will do anyone, including me, any good."
"Okay," she said.
"That's it? You're not going to lecture me about the dangers of ignoring the consequences of serious psychic trauma?"
"Not tonight."
HALF AN HOUR LATER, after consuming two bowls of soup and another glass of whiskey, Fallon Jones fell profoundly asleep on her sofa.
Moving quietly, she turned off the lights and took a spare blanket out of the hall closet. She covered Fallon with the blanket and then stood for a time in the shadows, looking at him. He was too big for the sofa, too big for the tiny apartment. But for some reason it felt right to have him here in her space, surrounded by her plants and the precious used furniture, lamps and dishes that her new neighbors had given her.
Fallon Jones and the secondhand treasures that filled the small apartment anchored her now. She belonged here in Scargill Cove.
8
The smell of freshly brewed coffee and the unfamiliar sounds of someone moving about in his kitchen awakened him. The cramped, stiff feeling told him that he had fallen asleep on the office sofa again.
He opened his eyes and looked out the window at the dark sky of a foggy winter dawn. It was raining but his office seemed much cozier than usual.
Something wrong with the view, Jones. You're a hotshot detective. Figure it out.
Not his office. Not his kitchen. Not even his sofa.
Memory kicked in. He'd had decompression sex with Isabella, eaten her homemade soup and then proceeded to fall asleep on her sofa.
Hell of a way to impress a woman, Jones.
It was an awkward scenario but he felt surprisingly good, rested. He glanced at the table. The clock was still there, wrapped in its blanket, silent and still.
"Good morning," Isabella said.
He turned his head and saw her. And instantly got hard. She was in the kitchen, looking as if she had just stepped out of a shower. Dressed in a robe and slippers, her hair caught back in a ponytail, her face still bare of makeup, she was the most erotic sight he had ever seen.
He tried to think of something intelligent to say and came up empty.
"Morning," he managed.
"How did you sleep?" She cracked an egg into a bowl. "The sofa is a little on the small side for a man of your size, but you were sound asleep. I didn't want to wake you."
Feeling like a great, clumsy mastodon, he lumbered to his feet.
"Sorry about this," he said gruffly. "Not sure what the hell happened."
She looked amused. "You were exhausted. You went to sleep after dinner. That's it. No big deal."
"Didn't think I'd be able to sleep at all."
"You've been pushing yourself and your talent too hard for too long. Yesterday you drew on the last of your reserves when you took down Andrews. Last night your body signaled that it had had enough. It more or less forced you to give yourself a chance to recover."
That wasn't the full answer, he thought. He'd experienced the after-math of violence before and it had kept him awake for a couple of days. It was Isabella's good energy that had made it possible for him to get some much-needed rest last night. But he did not know how he knew that, much less how to explain it to her.
"I'll have breakfast ready when you come out of the bathroom," Isabella said.
Grateful for the opportunity to have a chance to figure out how to handle the situation, he headed down the hall. Once again he contemplated the man with the thousand-year-old eyes gazing back at him in the mirror.
The damage was done. There was nothing he could do now to stop the gossip.
"You really screwed up," he said to the man in the mirror.
When he emerged from the bathroom fifteen minutes later Isabella handed him a warm mug.
He drank some of the coffee and studied the rapidly lightening sky.
"I'd apologize," he said. "But it won't do any good."
"What are you talking about?" Isabella asked.
"This is one very small town," he said. "When I leave here this morning to go back to my place, someone is sure to see me."
She opened the door of the ancient refrigerator. "So?"
"So, by noon, everyone in the Cove will know that I spent the night here."
She closed the refrigerator and set a dish of butter on the counter. "So?"
His usually reliable brain seemed to have locked up like a computer that had been hit by a stealthy cyberattack. It took him a second to realize that he was actually feeling a condition that could be classified as confusion. He never got confused. He tried raising his talent a few notches to see if he could achieve a clearer view of the situation, but it didn't help. If anything he was more confounded than ever.
"It doesn't worry you that everyone will know I slept here?" he asked.
"Of course not." She dropped two slices of bread into the old-fashioned chrome toaster. "It was a rough day at the office. We had a couple of drinks and a meal to unwind and you fell asleep on my sofa. It happens."
"It's never happened to me. Not like that. And we didn't just have a meal and a few drinks, damn it. We had sex."
She raised her brows. "You're worried about your reputation?"
"The problem," he said, groping for the right words, "is that after today the entire population of the Cove will know that we had sex."
"Who
cares?"
He drank some more coffee, hoping the hit of caffeine would help him untangle the strange bewilderment that was fogging up his senses. Isabella did not seem to mind the possibility that people would know that they had spent the night together. Why was he worrying about it? Enlightenment did not come.
"It's my reputation you're worrying about, isn't it?" Isabella said. "It is very sweet of you to be so concerned. It's not necessary, but it is sweet."
"Yeah, that's me," he said into his mug. "Sweet."
"There are so few true gentlemen left in the world."
"Uh-huh." He sensed that things were going downhill fast, but he could not think of a way to stop the runaway train.
A rush of tiny springs followed by small popping sounds interrupted his fugue state. In the kitchenette, two slices of toast leaped high into the air.
"The toast," Isabella yelped.
She managed to snag one slice out of midair, but the other landed on the counter.
"Oh, good," she said. She smiled her brilliant smile. "They didn't fall on the floor this time. Of course, those of us with a strong background in the food-and-beverage business do have this two-second rule that is generally applied in such situations. But I hate to apply it in front of guests."
"Who gave you the toaster?" he asked.
"Henry and Vera. They said they found it in one of the cabins at the old Sea Breeze Motor Lodge."
The Sea Breeze had been abandoned for decades. A few years back, using a somewhat dubious legal claim of squatter's rights, Henry and Vera Emerson had moved in and proceeded to make it their home. To date no one had challenged them. Given the very large dogs they kept on the premises, it was unlikely that anyone in his right mind would try to evict Henry and Vera without the backing of a small army. Thus far no one with an army had shown up.
"You know," Fallon said, "now that you've got a steady job, you could probably afford a new toaster."
"Probably." She slathered butter on the toast. "But I like this one. It has a cool vintage look, don't you think?"
"Probably because it is vintage. Must be more than fifty years old. Amazing that it still works."
"It needed a little tuning up, but Henry got it running again."
"I can see that. Not every toaster can put a couple of slices into orbit."
"Nope." She looked pleased. "Mine is one of a kind."
It occurred to him that he had not given her a housewarming gift.
He sat down at the wooden table and examined the two neatly arranged place settings. The knife, fork and spoon were in proper order. The napkin was neatly folded. There was a tiny flower in a miniature bud vase positioned between the two place mats. He felt as if he had stepped into another dimension.
"So," he said. "When are you going to tell me how you wound up in Scargill Cove?"
"Later," she said. "At the office. Breakfast first. It's the most important meal of the day."
SHE FED HIM a heaping plate of eggs scrambled with ricotta cheese, a pile of toast and a fresh, juicy pear, hoping that the old adage was true and that the way to a man's heart really was through his stomach. A large man like Fallon Jones needed his food.
He left after his third mug of coffee, taking the clock with him. She stood at her window and watched him walk through the fog--the damp kind off the ocean--to the office of Jones & Jones.
She had seen him kill. He was certainly not the first extremely dangerous man she had known. But he was different. Fallon Jones was that rarity in the modern world, a man who lived by a code, a man who cared about old-fashioned things like honor and a woman's reputation.
The Sunshine Cafe was open. She knew that the regulars would be at the counter, eating Marge's delicious homemade muffins and drinking coffee. They would see Fallon come down the street and go into his office. By noon everyone in town would know that he had spent the night with her.
She smiled to herself. "Fine by me."
9
Mr. J-Jones?"
Fallon paused at the top of the stairs, the key in the lock of the office door, and looked down at Walker.
Walker rarely entered any building except his own cabin.
"What can I do for you, Walker?" Fallon asked.
If Walker had a last name, no one in town was aware of it. He was the closest thing that Scargill Cove had to a homeless man but he was not, strictly speaking, homeless. He had a cabin out on the bluffs where he took short naps during the day. All the evidence indicated that Walker did not need a lot of sleep. He was a man with a job to do. Patrolling Scargill Cove was his calling, and he was faithful to the task.
He bathed in the hot springs out at the Point. He wore his clothes until they became tattered and frayed. When he needed new garments, someone in town would leave whatever was necessary on top of a garbage can. Walker would only take items that he found in the trash. He refused flat-out gifts of any kind. I don't take charity was part of his code and he lived by it.
He got plenty to eat. Marge at the Sunshine always left an evening meal out for him at night and fresh muffins and coffee in the mornings. In between times Walker foraged in the trash behind Stokes's Grocery. Although he seemed physically healthy, he never gained any weight. Fallon figured that was because Walker was nearly always in motion. He walked the streets of Scargill Cove all night long, regardless of the weather.
"Got to t-talk to you, Mr. Jones."
Walker hardly ever spoke. When he did, it was always in very short sentences. Most people in the Cove assumed that Walker had done some hard drugs when he was a young man. They said he had gone out on a very bad trip and never found his way back home. Fallon wasn't so sure of that diagnosis. He sensed that Walker was some kind of talent. Something had happened here in the Cove decades ago that had launched him on his relentless patrols.
Fallon turned the key in the lock and opened the door. "Come on inside. I'll make some coffee."
Walker said nothing but he climbed the stairs and entered the office. He stood in the doorway for a minute, looking around uncertainly.
Fallon set the blanket-covered clock on a table and shrugged out of his jacket.
"Have a seat, Walker," he said, indicating Isabella's chair. It was the only chair in the room other than his own. There had never been much need for a client chair. J&J got very little in the way of walk-in business. Mostly the firm was a single-client agency and that client was the Arcane Society. The services of J&J were available to all members of the Society, but when those calls came in, Fallon usually handed off the work to other investigation firms operated by sensitives in the Arcane community.
Walker hesitated and then lowered himself gingerly onto the chair, as if he was unaccustomed to sitting in one. He stared hard at the blanket-covered clock, fascination and dread drawing his taut face even tighter around the bones. He started to rock.
Fallon poured water into the coffee machine. "Something wrong, Walker?"
"It needs to go back," Walker said urgently. "It sh-shouldn't be here."
"What needs to go back?"
"Whatever is under that b-blanket. It needs to go back."
Fallon had been about to shovel the ground coffee into the machine. He stopped, put the package on the table and contemplated Walker.
"Do you know what is under the blanket, Walker?"
Walker shook his head. He rocked harder. His eyes never left the blanket. "No, Mr. Jones. I just know it needs to go b-back. It should be with the other things in the vault."
Fallon forgot about the coffee altogether. He jacked up his talent a little. A multidimensional spiderweb appeared in his mind. For the moment several of the strands remained concealed in the dark night of chaos energy. But that would change as bits and pieces of data came in. Each item of information would land somewhere on the web, get stuck and light up. Relationships, connections, links and associations would gradually illuminate the delicate design. Eventually he would see the answers he needed.
He looked at Walker.
&nbs
p; "What other things?" he asked.
Walker finally dragged his hollow eyes away from the clock. "The alien weapons."
Another small section of the web lit up.
The muffled sound of Isabella's light footsteps interrupted Fallon's thoughts before he could examine the new strand of light. The door opened.
Isabella came into the room on the wings of good energy. At the sight of Walker sitting in her chair, she paused in surprise. But she recovered immediately and gave him her glowing smile.
"Good morning, Walker," she said.
Walker seemed to relax. He stopped rocking. "Hello, Miss Valdez."
Fallon looked at Isabella. "Meet our new client."
Isabella did not even blink. She started to unbutton her coat. "What's the problem, Walker?"
Walker looked at the clock again. "That thing. It's dangerous. It has to go b-back into the vault."
Isabella gave Fallon a questioning look. He knew what she was thinking. If Walker had somehow sensed the energy in the clock, then he most certainly had a measurable amount of talent.
Isabella hung up her coat. "Why don't you start at the beginning, Walker?"
Walker's face crumpled in dazed panic. He started to rock violently. He had no clue how to locate the beginning, Fallon realized.
Isabella, too, understood immediately.
"Better yet," she said, "why don't you show us the location of the vault?"
Fallon was certain that would lead to another blind alley. But to his amazement, Walker's expression became focused once again. He surged to his feet.
"Okay," he said. "But we have to be very c-careful. The Queen is on guard."
10
Isabella opened her senses when Fallon pulled into the cracked, weedstudded parking lot of the Sea Breeze Motor Lodge. There was the usual amount of paranormal fog in front of the main lodge, but she saw nothing out of the ordinary.
"At least the energy here doesn't look like the stuff at the Zander house," she said.
"Good to know," Fallon said. He looked at Walker who was sitting in the rear seat, rocking gently. "You're sure the vault is here, Walker?" he said.