“What am I likely to find in the data?” he asked in suspicion.
Mariah crumpled her bottle. “Can’t say. Essence doesn’t think. It does. I set a goal and directives and build on them as I go, but what is swept up in the cascade of data bytes is always a crap shoot. I went after the original commune members and their friends, which meant mostly newspapers and books from that era to start with. After that, it got real fuzzy.”
“All that for what?” he asked in disgust, scraping back his chair. “You could have killed yourself over nothing!”
“Daisy isn’t nothing.” With what dignity she could muster, she stood and gathered their dishes. “And it’s not as if my life is all that valuable.”
He growled, grabbed her waist, and hauled her up against him. When his mouth closed over hers, she melted into him as if they had truly become one physical entity that shared essences.
The man was downright scary.
Theodosia
July 12: Thursday, evening
“Are you okay? You’re looking. . . not yourself. What happened here this afternoon?” Kurt poured wine and set the glass on the shop table.
Feeling like a limp noodle, Teddy was still trying to figure out what Mariah had done. She shook her head in uncertainty and continued studying her laptop.
The kids were upstairs while her sister ran errands. She couldn’t go home yet. But the shop was officially closed for the evening. She pushed a cardboard UPS box in Kurt’s direction. “These arrived this afternoon. Sheriff apparently doesn’t need them anymore.”
He peered inside. “Thalia’s crystals? I don’t suppose they came with a chemical analysis or anything useful?”
She shook her head again. “Walker just said they weren’t needed as evidence. I need a lead box to keep them in. They emanate negative energy. No wonder Mariah and Sam freaked when the dust hit them.”
Kurt frowned. “Would a safe do?”
She nodded, then shoved loosened curls from her face. “My lockbox will have to do for now. I’ll just hope that along with Harvey’s, they don’t pollute everything else in there. These red stones are mostly almandine, but there’s enough red tourmaline to be valuable.”
He dragged out her lockbox, and she used her key and code to open it while Kurt looked for a plastic freezer bag to hold the rocks. They just barely fit in the remaining space. She’d be feeling rich right now if all those stones were good for jewelry. She suspected they were not, unless she meant harm.
Once the box was safely stashed, she turned the computer screen to him while she sipped her wine. “Look at this. Tell me if any of it makes sense.”
“What is it?” Taking a seat, he flipped through the pages of old newspaper articles, criminal files, and other documents that had no business being in her computer. His eyebrows raised as hers had.
“Mariah, I think. That’s what she dug out this afternoon, after shutting down every computer in town, apparently. I’d have to be more organized to find any pattern to the material, but there are enough familiar names that I think a town meeting may be needed.”
Kurt whistled. “Not a town meeting, please. This could be incendiary when it’s coupled with what I found in the lodge records. We might need to call in Walker.”
Teddy closed her eyes. “That’s what I was afraid of. Will he arrest me?”
Her hero chuckled, leaned over, and kissed her. “You have a super-conscience, or a super-ego. Not all about you this time, I promise.”
She nearly collapsed in a puddle of relief. “Thank you. I know I wasn’t supposed to let Mariah touch computers, but she knows how to fix websites! How can we deny computers to someone with valuable knowledge?”
“Walker will want to talk to her, so I guess we’d better bring in some Lucys to buffer the questioning. But this isn’t about Mariah, either. It’s about the people she was looking into, if she was researching Daisy. Looking at this, I may have to start believing in evil.” He turned the computer back to her. “How do you want to work this?”
“Not in public,” Teddy agreed, staring at the screen as if it might explode. “I’m not sure I even want Cass involved.”
“So let’s have a small dinner party in our place. I’ll call on Keegan and Walker. You round up Sam and Mariah.” He got up, but leaned over to kiss her again.
Teddy luxuriated in his calm reassurance. She loved that he called the bungalow they shared our place. It was a safe place, away from both of their families, a place where they could learn to be a couple together. When he started for the door, she inhaled his scent and held it close. It would be a long evening, she feared. “I’ll ask Dinah for carry-out, right?”
He gave her a thumbs-up and departed on his errands. Teddy slammed the laptop closed and headed for her landline.
Twenty-six
July 12: Thursday, evening
They were just cleaning up when someone rapped at the cottage door.
Keegan finished drying a plate and called, “I’ll get it.”
Just out of the shower and drying her hair, Mariah looked a little panicky. He hated that she had to feel that way in her own home, but she’d done it to herself. All he could do was stand between this mystery woman and the world for as long as he could. Shutting down every computer in town had consequences.
The blond environmental scientist stood outside, looking more worried than Mariah. “We’re having dinner at Kurt and Teddy’s place. You’ll want to come.”
He leaned his shoulder against the doorjamb. “That’s a very strange invitation.”
She nodded nervously. “I know. I’m not entirely certain what it’s about. But Teddy insisted you and Mariah need to be there, and that we should make like this is just an innocent dinner party.”
“Walker hasn’t said anything?”
“No. I’m not even certain Walker knows what this is about. Dinah’s providing food, so at least we’ll eat well. Maybe Kurt will bring wine. He’s thinking we need a liquor store too.” Normality relaxed her edginess a little.
Mariah emerged from the back, still braiding her hair. “Alcohol and Lucys are a very bad mix. What’s up?”
“We’re going out to dinner.” Keegan turned back to Sam. “What time? We have some errands to run.”
“At seven, their bungalow, the one behind the shop?”
Keegan waited for Mariah to agree. She didn’t look eager to do so, but even hard-core Mariah couldn’t turn down eager Sam. She nodded. “Curiosity will kill me otherwise.”
Sam grinned and departed. Keegan closed the door, fighting anxiety. Surely Mariah’s findings hadn’t escaped already. “We’d better download your latest feat fast. I carry an external drive. We’ll have to do it from Aaron’s place, if the cable is operating again. Are you ready?”
“Give me a minute to finish up.” She darted back to the bedroom.
When she emerged, she looked as if she had prepared for war. Gone were the androgynous bulky clothes. In their place was a sleeveless black halter that revealed real cleavage, and jeans that clung to every luscious curve. Her thick braid sported a glittering assortment of crystals and feathers. She wore dreamcatcher earrings dangling to her bare shoulders. Turquoise and coral bands encompassed her brown wrists and adorned her silver buckle. He wanted to fling her back to bed and strip her of all that gear, one shiny piece at a time.
“Indian princess or shaman?” he asked.
“Protective coloration. There are journalists still out there.” Barely limping anymore, she took his arm and steered him out the door, locking up behind her.
As if it was possible to disguise Mariah’s imposing presence! He’d have to look up old photos of her to see what she thought she was hiding.
The antique shop was closed for the evening, and Aaron was nowhere in sight. They dug Keegan’s laptop out of a drawer and got it up and running. He whistled at the size of the files Mariah directed him to. “This could take forever to organize into anything manageable.”
“If you give me
a computer without internet connection, I can organize it,” she said as he hooked up the external drive and began the transfer. “The connections might only be visible to me.”
“The mind of Zoe de Cervantes is a mysterious place, got it.” He resisted watching while she paced his room, examining everything. Her brown, shapely arms were works of art. He wasn’t certain he’d be able to think straight by the time dinner was over. He’d almost rather she hid behind her bulky vests and camp shorts.
He finished copying the material to the disk and the cloud. He grabbed a clean sport shirt from his suitcase and donned a jacket where he could store the drive and the book.
“Is that Lucinda’s journal?” she asked, watching him. “I vaguely recall you reading it to me.”
“Val had it.” He led her out and locked the door. “She mentioned Daisy protecting it. She seems afraid of it, and wants it returned to my library.”
“Good for Val,” she said. “She may act like a mad woman, but I suspect she knows what she’s doing. Did you learn anything valuable yet?”
“Nothing that screams evil here, if that’s what you mean. The journal author is a very orderly scientist, if one can call anyone from that era a scientist. There is no mention of alchemy so far, at least.” They clattered down the stairs and out the back door.
“Alchemy? Surely no one is looking for that book, hoping to turn lead to gold?”
She gave him a long-lashed look that had him stumbling over his feet. The connection between them was so electric, that even Mariah looked briefly startled. She took his arm again but hastily started down the street.
“Alchemy was about transformation of matter, not just lead to gold,” he explained, firmly returning to swot mode. “So far, Dougal has not attempted to turn crystals into anything else. He’s just studying their properties in meticulous detail, considering he knew nothing of molecular structure. I’ve flipped through. His mineral collection was limited. I just have the feeling that once he studied the properties, he probably attempted to use them. It just makes sense. And if he had my abilities. . .”
“You’d be rich in diamonds.” She dismissed his fear. “If Dougal had paranormal abilities, he was more likely to attempt to accelerate or extend his powers, the way Teddy claims crystals can do. Would his direct descendants have the same abilities?”
They avoided the main street, walking along the back alley until they ran into the obstacle of Teddy’s fence. Skirting around Teddy’s shop, they hiked down the highway to the bungalow lower down the mountain, hidden by a yard of pine trees.
“You are not researching Dougal’s genealogy,” Keegan told her as they followed the driveway to the house. “And no, we have no evidence that our abilities descend directly. If we wish to completely disregard science and genetics and use your essence theory, then it’s more likely we inherit the abilities of whatever essence we absorb at birth.”
“Or the soul that possesses the womb,” Mariah crowed as they reached the porch. “I like it! So, if we believe essence doesn’t travel far, those of us who live and die in weird communities are more likely to be born with weird abilities!”
“That sounds like in-breeding,” he grumbled.
The door opened before they could knock. The faces greeting them looked more serious than the occasion should call for. With dread in his heart, Keegan led Mariah in and shut the door.
“Is this an execution squad?” his goddess asked defiantly.
Damn, damn, and double damn. Mariah wanted to pound her head against a wall. She had never ever meant for this material to fall in anyone’s hands but hers, but her essence apparently didn’t like secrets. She wanted to crawl under the table and hide while the others sorted through the explosive contents of Teddy’s computer. How had she unloaded it anywhere besides the website? Why?
Was there any chance of preventing her friends from spreading it from here to eternity? She really didn’t want to have to hide again. Or blow up more families. Please let there not be anything too dangerous.
Over Dinah’s Creole-style dinner, Mariah let the others scan through the mass of information. So far, they were just making connections. If she could actually find Daisy’s killer this way, she was almost glad she’d done it. Almost. And Kurt and Sam had added their own information to the stack, making it even more interesting.
She really needed her tablet and phone to make notes, but she was learning to use pen and paper and highlighter. She took Kurt’s record of bar invoices and room reservations for the past two years and began a quick cross-match. “Wow, spotting this was clever, for a Null.” She added the last just so he didn’t get too cocky. “Georgie was hanging with a wealthy crowd way over his plumber’s head.”
Sam typed Mariah’s notes into her tablet. The bungalow didn’t have wi-fi, so she had to physically pass it around the table.
“Eat your dinner,” Keegan admonished, forking up plump shrimp and savory rice and holding it to Mariah’s mouth. “We can’t move mountains overnight.”
She all but inhaled the jambalaya and kept working, thrilled to be useful for a change, relieved that he didn’t hate her. Swallowing, she pushed her paper toward him and forked her own bites. “Every second Sunday night of the month, for the past year, a Caldwell Edison, Robert Gabriel, and Ralph Wainwright stayed at the lodge. Sometimes one or the other came in earlier or stayed later. George Thompson apparently never paid for a room until this month, but he charged the bar tab every so often, just enough to indicate he was a regular, and that he was there at the same time. Georgie is the one who grew up here, so he must have been their inside man. Did he live locally?”
“In Baskerville, half an hour away, so he probably went home at night. He was a bit of a penny-pincher and probably rather drive drunk than pay for a lodge room.” Walker had Teddy’s laptop next to his plate, skimming over the information Mariah had downloaded earlier.
The chief of police had yet to yell at her, although he wasn’t giving off happy vibes. Some of the information she’d accessed shouldn’t have been accessible. He had to know she’d hacked.
“His license said Monterey,” she recalled. “He must have moved and not reported it.”
Sam pushed another list at her. “The journalists pooled their resources and have identified every person in the mural. They want a party and a scoop. I think they brought their own liquor. I left them high-fiving each other and making grandiose plans over nothing. Harvey and a few of the others are encouraging them.”
Mariah snorted and scanned down the list. “We already knew the Ingerssons, Peterson, Papa Gabriel and Papa Edison were in the mural, plus Daisy. Gabriel wasn’t even an artist. Of the remaining seven—we have three who didn’t have red eyes, including Judas, whose eyes we can’t see.”
“They think Judas is the owner of the gallery where the Ingerssons showed their work,” Sam said. “That would be typical irony to paint the money man as Judas. He’s dead according to his bio. The other two clear-eyed people are apparently a man and wife who painted landscapes. They’re still alive, moderately successful, with half a dozen kids, none of whom look like Daisy’s sketch if their social media means anything.”
Mariah skimmed down the list. “That leaves four more red eyes—three were successful artists from the looks of it, dead from drugs, alcohol, and one arson. Evil doers come to bad ends? No reported children. Menendez, photographer?” Skimming down the list, she frowned. “Which one is a Menendez? None of the people in the mural look like the ones I’ve met around here.”
Keegan stopped eating.
“One of the women, the one with the long brown hair and red eyes,” Sam said worriedly.
Mariah cast Keegan a worried glance but when he didn’t speak, she asked, “Does anyone happen to have a photo of the mural?”
Sam produced one on her phone. Walker sorted urgently through the material in Teddy’s laptop. The phone went around the table, blowing up the image to show a smiling sprite of a Caucasian woman with flowers in h
er hair—and red crystals in her earrings. They really hadn’t been visible through the veil of her hair until looked at close up.
“Dolores Menendez,” Walker read from Mariah’s materials as they studied the image. “Famed photographer, maiden name Wainwright, ex-wife of Mateo Menendez. . . How the hell did you know to look her up?” Walker glared at Mariah. “Sam just brought me that list.”
Mariah shook her head. “I was chasing bunnies, that’s all. I had almost half a dozen names to start with. The connections multiply the deeper I dig. I had no way of knowing she was on the mural, but I’m betting there are any number of references to a famed photographer coming out of the Hillvale commune. But this proves the mural is a bust. As we suspected, they’re all too old or dead. We still have no connection to Daisy.”
“We do,” Keegan muttered. “But I promised not to say anything. At the time, I didn’t realize there was a connection to the commune. I still don’t think it’s relevant. Samantha and Valdis are Ingerssons and related to two people in the mural. That doesn’t mean they killed Daisy.”
“And my. . . stepfather. . . is a Menendez. So unless there’s more reason to say anything, keep your promise,” Sam said.
Feeling a little more confident that the material she’d located this time contained no bombshells, Mariah rolled her eyes, reached across the table, and nabbed the laptop from Walker. She ran a quick search of her documents, pulled up several, then turned the screen around to show the others.
“Everything is online somewhere. There is no privacy and there are no secrets. Harvey told us his grandfather once lived on the commune, and that’s how he inherited his crystals. Mateo Menendez was a musician, like Harvey. Dolores was his ex—so Harvey could be her grandson, making him a Wainwright as well as a Menendez. Anyone looking at him can see that his genetics are whiter than mine. Were any of the Menendez family at the lodge on the second Sunday of every month?”
Crystal Vision Page 25
