The Vanishing

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  “Then you and I start to investigate and we are attacked with a gas that causes violent hallucinations. But it isn’t lethal, either.”

  “Because they didn’t want to kill me. They wanted to take me alive.”

  “Tonight we find out that one of the triplets from hell did time for selling drugs,” Slater continued. “Not just the standard street shit. Designer drugs.”

  A feverish chill crackled across Catalina’s senses. It came straight from her nightmares. You don’t want to go back there. That way lies madness. You will throw yourself into the lake and drown.

  She met Slater’s eyes. “You’re going with the theory that the many drug connections in this case are not a coincidence.”

  “I’m not big on coincidences, but even if I was okay with that possibility, there is another factor that has to be taken into account.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Whatever was in that fog the kidnappers used on us in Royston’s cellar did not simply knock us out,” Slater said. “It played havoc with our paranormal senses.”

  “There are a lot of drugs that can produce hallucinations. LSD, for example. There must be dozens more.”

  “Yes, but weaponizing them, making them into a potent gas that can swamp the senses of a couple of strong talents in a matter of seconds, isn’t that simple. It would take the skill set of an experienced individual with a sophisticated lab and a working knowledge of how various drugs affect people with talent.”

  You don’t want to go back there.

  Catalina sat quietly for a moment, processing what Slater had just said.

  “My turn to get hit with a blinding flash of the obvious,” she said. “Maybe.”

  “What?”

  “If the appearance of drugs is not a coincidence in this case, if you’re on the right track here, then we shouldn’t overlook the one other time they showed up.”

  “When was that?”

  “Back at the start,” Catalina said.

  She told him about the possibility that had just occurred to her. When she was finished, Slater nodded, satisfied.

  “That fits,” he said. “And your theory has one other thing going for it. I knew there had to be a local connection. This is it.”

  CHAPTER 30

  I consider myself a naturally suspicious person,” Catalina said. “I’m an investigator, after all. But I have to tell you that until you insisted that the accomplice had to be local and that there was a high probability of a drug connection, Nyla Trevelyan would not have been at the top of my list of suspects. I mean, she’s the local healer. A lot of people in this town are very grateful for her skills.”

  They were standing outside Nyla Trevelyan’s small vine-covered cottage. Fog cloaked the scene, but it was possible to make out the small SUV that Nyla used to transport her homeopathic medicines and herbal tonics to craft fairs. The only electric light was the one that glowed above the door on the front porch. It illuminated the pots of thriving herbs and the spectacular ferns that crammed the space and bordered the steps.

  But electricity wasn’t the only source of illumination around the cottage. The lush gardens sparkled faintly with what looked like fairy lights. Nyla had planted several varieties of the local foliage that gave off a faint glow after dark.

  “I remember my parents saying Nyla was trained as a botanist,” Catalina said.

  “That explains a lot,” Slater said.

  While the gardens around the cottage emitted an eerie, otherworldly light, the windows of the house were dark. If Nyla was inside, she was asleep like most of the other inhabitants of Fogg Lake.

  “With her extensive knowledge of local herbs and her experience treating people with talent, she would have known exactly what to put in that tisane you and Olivia were given after you came out of the cave,” Slater said.

  “She administered the first couple of doses to both of us personally,” Catalina said. “I think she tried to plant a strong hypnotic suggestion at the same time: You don’t want to go back there. That way lies madness. If you try to go back you will fall into the lake and drown. Olivia and I have often wondered why our dreams of that night were so similar.”

  “The tisane must have had hypnotic properties,” Slater said.

  “Nyla left packets of the herbs with our parents and instructed them to give us two doses a day for at least ten days. Afterward Olivia and I became increasingly confused by our memories. Eventually we tried to convince ourselves that maybe the adults were right. Maybe we had imagined everything that happened that night. But as we got older we compared our memories and our dreams. There were so many similarities that we decided we really had witnessed the murder. We were never entirely certain about the Devil’s Ballroom, though.”

  “Did you ever try to convince your parents or the people of Fogg Lake that you were right about what happened that night?” Slater asked.

  “No. There didn’t seem to be any point. They would have wanted some proof, and we had none. So Olivia and I kept our secrets. After we left town, neither of us came back here very often. We never went back into the caves.”

  “That is probably what saved your lives,” Slater said. “Until now you were not a threat.”

  “That’s just it,” Catalina said. “We haven’t ever been a threat, because no one here believed us.”

  “What’s changed is that someone has figured out that you and Olivia found the old Fogg Lake lab that night.”

  “How?”

  “That is one of the questions Trevelyan is going to answer for us,” Slater said.

  “What makes you think she’ll tell us anything?” Catalina asked. “It would mean admitting she was involved in a murder and a kidnapping.”

  “I think she’ll talk to us,” Slater said.

  “Because of your new talent?”

  “If that doesn’t work, there’s always the staff at Halcyon Manor.”

  Catalina realized she was gritting her teeth. “And you and your uncles wonder why the citizens of our fair town don’t invite the Foundation authorities to the annual Fogg Lake Days celebration.”

  “I think Uncle Victor would settle for a little cooperation from time to time, especially when murder is involved,” Slater said.

  “I tried the cooperation thing six months ago. It didn’t go well for me.”

  “We can talk about that later. At the moment we’ve got other priorities.”

  They went up the front steps of the cottage. Slater rapped sharply on the door.

  There was no response. Slater knocked again.

  A deep silence echoed inside the cottage. Slater tried the doorknob. It turned easily in his hand.

  “She didn’t lock her door,” Slater said. “Guess she didn’t pay attention to the Oracle tonight.”

  Flattening his back against the wall, Slater pushed open the door. Catalina was braced for gunfire or some other unpleasant surprise, but there was only silence. She heightened her senses and knew that Slater had done the same. He risked a quick glance inside. If there was someone concealed in the shadows inside the cottage, the individual’s aura would be visible.

  “I don’t see anyone,” he said. “Stay here. I’ll take a look around inside.”

  “I’m coming with you. Nyla is probably asleep. The last thing you want to do is walk into her bedroom and scare her. She may be innocent. We still don’t have any proof that she’s the one behind this.”

  Slater hesitated. “All right. But no more high-risk moves like the one you made at Royston’s place.”

  “It worked, didn’t it?”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  Slater reached around the corner and groped for and found a switch. A lamp came on in the small living room and kitchen area. No one jumped out of a closet with a gun. No one sprayed them with toxic fog. The silence just got deeper.


  “She’s gone,” Catalina said. “You can feel the emptiness.”

  “We need to be sure.”

  They went down the short hall, pausing to check the tiny bathroom. In the bedroom Slater hit another switch. This time an overhead fixture came on, revealing a neatly made-up bed.

  “There’s one other place we can check,” Catalina said. “Nyla has an old-fashioned stillroom off the kitchen. It’s where she concocts her herbal products.”

  They went back down the hall and through the small kitchen and opened the door. What had once been the back porch of the cottage had been closed in with glass to create a quaint little stillroom. The scents of lavender, roses and peppermint drifted in the atmosphere. The room shivered with a gentle paranormal vibe. Bundles of dried herbs dangled upside down from the low roof. Empty jars sat on a shelf, waiting to be filled with creams and lotions.

  Slater moved to a workbench and examined the burner and the simple equipment that Nyla used to process herbs into essential oils, tisanes and other concoctions.

  “This is all pretty low-tech,” he said. “Hard to imagine that she could produce the sophisticated stuff used on us with this basic equipment.”

  “Maybe we’re wrong about her.”

  “You said Trevelyan made periodic trips out of town to sell her products. It would be easy for her to purchase lab equipment while she was away.”

  “Sure, but I’m telling you, if she had a more sophisticated lab anywhere around Fogg Lake, everyone in town would know about it.”

  “Not,” Slater said, “if it was hidden in the caves.”

  Icy fingers touched the back of Catalina’s neck. “If you’re right, maybe that’s where she’s hiding Olivia.”

  Slater did not respond. He was opening and closing drawers, checking out the contents.

  “Receipts, notebooks filled with data about the local plants, flyers about upcoming craft fairs.” Slater tossed several papers aside. He picked up a booklet and flipped through it. “Here we go.”

  “What?” Catalina said.

  “It’s a catalog of lab equipment. Some of the items are circled.” Slater looked up briefly, taking in the glass beakers and the simple burner on the workbench. “I don’t see any of these things here. She’s got another lab, Catalina. That’s the only explanation that fits the facts.”

  “How are we going to find it?”

  “With your mother’s sketches and the map we are going to draw,” Slater said.

  CHAPTER 31

  They made their way back to the Lark house to embark on the creation of a map. The process went quickly. Less than an hour later Catalina sat beside Slater at the dining bar and watched Slater study the rough sketch of Fogg Lake and the surrounding countryside. Her memories combined with her mother’s drawings had provided a remarkably accurate rendering of the area, but it only served to illustrate just how daunting the task of locating Nyla Trevelyan’s lab—assuming it existed—would be.

  “Talk about a needle in a haystack.” Catalina looked at the map. “It would be easy to conceal a drug lab anywhere inside the caves.”

  “We’ve got a few facts to work with,” Slater said. “We know that the lab has to be within a reasonably short walking distance.” He looked up. “Unless Trevelyan is in the habit of disappearing overnight?”

  “Not that I know of, except when she goes down the mountain to the craft fairs,” Catalina said. “But she only does that a few times a year.”

  Slater tapped the tip of the pen against the map, thinking about it. “You said she has lived here for years?”

  “Yes. I think she moved here about five years before Olivia and I witnessed the murder.”

  “She’s had a couple of decades to get to know the caves and the woods.”

  “She’s probably quite familiar with the woods, but I very much doubt that she’s gone deep into the caves. No one does. The radiation is just too intense.”

  “A lot of heat would probably have unpredictable effects on any drugs that she might be producing. That tells us her lab is probably well hidden, but not far inside the cave complex.”

  “Even if you allow for a relatively short hike to one of the entrances to the caves, you’re not talking about a stroll in the park,” Catalina said. “It’s more of a trek. The terrain is very rugged. There is a decent trail from town to the lake and another that leads to the entrance of what we call the Freak Zone complex, where the murder occurred, but that’s about it. This area is riddled with caves.”

  “If we’re right about any of this, Trevelyan needs a cave entrance large enough to allow her to come and go with her lab equipment.”

  “That still leaves a lot of options for her,” Catalina warned.

  “It’s a good bet that she’s been running her drug operation for years,” Slater continued. “You don’t invent exotic street pharmaceuticals and hallucinogenic gases over the course of a long weekend.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “There will be a trail,” Slater said. “And I think it will be very, very hot, because tonight she realized we are closing in on her. That’s why she ran. She’s probably in a state of high anxiety or maybe outright panic. She’ll head for the one place she feels safe.”

  Catalina hopped off the stool and began pulling on her trench coat. “If there is a hot trail, it will start at her cottage. If she used the path tonight, the tracks will probably still be fresh enough for me to identify them. We have to hurry.”

  She grabbed her day pack and a flashlight and headed for the door.

  “Not so fast,” Slater said. But he was on his feet, too, shrugging into his jacket. He grabbed his pack with the vintage phone and the contacts file and picked up the gun he had placed on the counter. “If we do find her, she may have a couple of Marge’s clones with her. We need backup.”

  “We’ll wake up Euclid Oaks and some of the others,” Catalina said. “They’ve all got guns and they know how to use them. They will help us if we convince them that we may have a lead on Olivia’s whereabouts.”

  The lights inside the house and the lamp on the porch winked out just as Catalina opened the front door. The sudden fall of darkness and the blinding glare of a powerful flashlight had a brief but disorienting effect on her heightened senses. It took her a beat to realize there was a figure standing on the front porch.

  “I’ve been waiting for you, Catalina,” Nyla Trevelyan said.

  CHAPTER 32

  As far as Catalina could tell, Nyla Trevelyan was not armed with anything other than a flashlight, but she was not alone. Two auras, each with the signature pale wavelengths of true blanks, blazed in the shadows on either side of the door.

  One of them aimed his weapon at Slater.

  The auras of the two triplets were strikingly similar but there were some small, subtle differences. No two people were ever exactly the same individuals, after all.

  “Which one of you is Tony?” Slater asked in a disturbingly casual voice.

  “That would be me,” Tony said. “I hear the cleaners got Deke. You’re gonna pay for that.”

  “Nothing like a little brotherly solidarity,” Slater said. He glanced at the second man. “So you’re Clone C.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about? I’m Jared. Want me to do him now, Nyla?”

  “Not yet, you idiot,” Nyla snapped. “And not with a gun. Are you crazy? You’ll wake the entire town.”

  “I told you we might need another dose of the drug,” Tony grumbled.

  “Even if we had brought it with us, we couldn’t use it here,” Nyla said. “We don’t have time to get rid of the body. We’ll deal with Arganbright later.”

  “Where is Olivia?” Catalina asked.

  “Don’t worry, you’ll see her soon,” Nyla said. “Let’s go.”

  “This is working out nicely,” Slater said. “We won�
��t have to waste time stumbling around in the woods trying to follow your trail.”

  “What trail?” Tony demanded.

  “Ignore him,” Nyla said. “Can’t you see he’s just trying to rattle you so that you’ll get careless? Speaking of careless, one of you search him for a gun. Hurry.”

  “Hands on top of your head,” Jared said.

  Slater raised his hands. “Under my jacket.”

  Jared found the pistol and took it. Catalina felt a new chill in the atmosphere and knew that Slater had raised his talent. But he made no move to try to ice Jared.

  “Let’s get going,” Tony muttered. “It’s fucking cold out here. Feels like the temperature dropped about twenty degrees.”

  “Follow me,” Nyla said. “Keep a close eye on both of them. And try not to lose sight of me, all right? If you do you’ll get lost within about thirty seconds in this fog. I do not have time to look for you.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Jared said. “Let’s get going before it gets any colder.”

  Nyla took off, setting a brisk pace. Catalina and Slater followed. The two triplets brought up the rear, guns and flashlights firmly fixed on their captives.

  The fog was very heavy now, but it was infused with the ambient glow of some of the foliage in the woods. Here and there fluorescing creepers and vines climbed trees and rocks, providing Fogg Lake’s version of streetlights.

  Catalina kept her senses only partially elevated, trying not to waste energy that she might need later. But she could feel the heat, old and new, on the path they were walking.

  “You’ve come this way many times, Nyla,” she said quietly.

  “For more than fifteen years,” Nyla said. “Ever since I found the infirmary.”

  “What infirmary?” Catalina asked.

  “You’ll see. I realized at the time that I had discovered a small chamber that originally had been connected to the main facility of the Fogg Lake lab. I have been searching for the rest of the lab ever since.”