Kurt shook his head. “I would have noticed any receipts anywhere with that name. I want that land they own, and if there’s even a suspicion of a hint that they may be ready to sell, I’d be all over it.”
“They’re talking about it now,” Keegan said. “Or so I’ve heard.”
Kurt went still. Mariah waited for dollar signs to spin in his eyes like a slot machine. But he just rubbed his temple and winced. “Figures.”
Teddy shook her head at their inquiring looks. “Not now. Daisy first. We’re on a roll here. Let’s keep going.”
“We’re not on a roll,” Sam said in puzzlement. “We have nothing but names. There’s no law against people meeting once a month.”
“Daisy carried a sketch in her cart that has a vague resemblance to Trevor Gabriel, the dead guru fraud. We know that, unlike the others, he had half a dozen kids by different mothers,” Mariah said, running more searches now that she’d pried Teddy’s computer from the police chief. With no internet to slide down, she stuck to sorting pertinent data into folders. She lined up the most recent photos of Gabriel’s offspring. “How good are you at identifying faces?”
Everyone looked at Keegan, who grimaced as he studied the images of Trevor Gabriel’s sons. “Robert,” he concluded. “Robert Gabriel most resembles that sketch, and he’s the one meeting with Edison and Wainwright at the lodge.”
Silence descended as they digested that information—until Mariah grabbed the laptop again and began filtering more information. “Robert Gabriel has his face all over the city society pages. He’s listed on several philanthropic boards, but he doesn’t appear to have any real job. Trevor must have left him ten fortunes.”
She hit the keyboard and opened another file. “Caldwell Edison’s father is also in the mural. He’s still alive and a powerful politician. I take it from these files that Caldwell is a wheeler-dealer, negotiating backdoor power plays for his father and others. He would travel in the same circles as Robert. He’s recently been accused of sexual harassment, but who hasn’t? He appears to be sitting on a fortune, also, although its origins aren’t immediately apparent.”
She ran a search on the next name. “Ralph Wainwright, Keegan’s dodgy pillock of a relation, isn’t on the mural. He never lived at the commune, but we have the artwork proving Wainwright visited there, possibly to see Dolores. He’s not an artist but a physicist,” she crowed, digging deeper.
“This is almost more than the mind can manage,” Keegan complained. “Wainwright is only a distant cousin. He has to be in his 70s by now.” He hesitated and added, “But he’s been at our castle, possibly to see the library. I suppose he could have found the crystal journals, at least the one that went missing after the last inventory.”
“He’s also been accused of misrepresenting research studies in scientific journals and lost his prestigious position at one of the east coast laboratories.” Mariah spun through more material, finding the genealogy information. “Here—Dolores Menendez was Ralph’s older sister.”
Ignoring curses around the table, Mariah continued reading. “Dolores died in a tragic murder-suicide involving drugs and alcohol not long after she left the commune in the 80’s. She left one son and one daughter to be raised by her ex, Mateo Menendez, presumably Harvey’s grandfather. I love these ancestry places.” She shoved the computer at Walker. “I can’t imagine Harvey killing Daisy for any reason.”
Walker took the computer and opened a different file. “Robert Gabriel is one of Trevor Gabriel’s younger sons. He only went to jail once, when he was a teenager, for an elaborate credit card scam that milked hundreds of old people. After his father’s death, he must have inherited enough that he didn’t need to make further effort.”
“Both Dolores Menendez and Trevor Gabriel used crystals,” Keegan pointed out. “We have Dolores to connect Wainwright to the commune and thus, the Sunday meetings with the descendants of Edison and Gabriel.”
“It all goes back to the commune and crystals somehow, doesn’t it?” Sam asked, frowning.
“And if my family is involved,” Keegan said, “it may also involve paranormal ability. Hillvale seems to attract the oddly gifted.”
Mariah sighed, sat back, and glared at the computer screen. She didn’t want to do this, but if they were to get anywhere, all the facts had to be laid on the table. “Would the woman you almost married be called Brianna Dougal?” she asked of Keegan.
“Dougal is a common enough name in our town,” he responded slowly. “Why?”
“Ralph Wainwright, your dodgy cousin, had a daughter, now deceased, who married a Dougal. They had a daughter named Brianna. She’s just about the right age.”
Keegan growled, shoved back his chair, and stalked out.
Twenty-seven
July 12: Thursday, evening
Oh damn, she’d done it again. Would she never learn?
Mariah jumped up to go after Keegan, but Kurt rose at the same time, waving her back down. “I’m no good at research,” he said, “but I know how to listen. It’s not easy knowing your family is working against you.”
A Kennedy would be one to know, Mariah admitted. She sat down and swallowed as Kurt hurried out. Her damned nosiness had done nothing but beat up Keegan time after time—the one man who had never done anything more than help her. “I ought to quit now before I destroy anyone else,” she muttered.
“If Brianna betrayed him and his family, it’s not your fault,” Sam said, patting her arm. “And this Wainwright is only an aging, distant relation he can’t know well.”
Mariah pointed at the computer and stated her greatest fear. “But the files I found may destroy his family, right?” As they had Adera and her family. She felt sick to her stomach. “I only wanted to find Daisy’s killer. Why does it have to be so sticky? Can’t we just erase all that and forget we ever saw it?”
“As I believe you’ve pointed out yourself. . .” Walker took back the computer. “Like attracts like. It isn’t just the gifted who seek each other out. Criminals seek other criminals. No one asked Edison, Wainwright, and Gabriel to hang out together. We still don’t know what they’re doing, except that it probably isn’t legal and may involve crystals. But if they’re behind Daisy’s death, then they are guilty, not you or Keegan. I’m suspecting they’re also behind Thompson’s death. This isn’t hunting season. His death was no accident, and we have him tied indirectly to this trio. If they’re killers, they must be caught.”
Knowing it wasn’t her fault didn’t help. Mariah wanted to use her abilities for good, not to cause pain.
She couldn’t bear to destroy anyone else—not Keegan or her friends or Hillvale. She sank in her seat, wondering if there were any good way to become a hermit so she’d never come near another computer.
“Just because Brianna is related to Wainwright doesn’t mean we know how that links to anything else,” Teddy reminded them. “I say we give the list of names to our reporters as a prize scoop and let them run with it.”
“I’ll just take a little vacation, see if there are any mines in the hills I can hide in,” Mariah muttered.
“Don’t you dare,” Sam protested. “Hillvale is your home. We take care of each other. You’ve done nothing wrong and have nothing to hide.”
Walker snorted and turned the computer around again. “If this blurry image is all your reporters have of you, you’re safe.”
Mariah didn’t even have to look to know he’d brought up the stupid photo all the newspapers had printed. It was one of her at a company picnic with her hair in a knot with a poniard through it, wearing a lumpy blazer and blousy slacks—her standard uniform back then.
“I’ve always avoided having my picture taken, but people still know me,” she insisted. “A reporter recognized me just the other day.”
“That was a fluke,” Sam insisted. “None of them at the café have.”
“They let you wear a dagger to work?” Walker asked cynically, taking the computer back.
“They
thought it was a hairpin.” Mariah almost smiled at that distraction. “Other women stuck pencils in their topknots. I was just more creative.”
“Women might recognize you,” Teddy said, reclaiming the screen to study the image. “But if all men ever saw was you looking like this. . . I don’t think they’d see the similarity. You barely look female in these clothes.”
“That was the point.” Keegan would understand why. Mariah’s heart cracked a little more fearing this new betrayal would drive him away. “I could hope reporters think all people with brown skin look alike, but then I’d open my mouth, and that would be the end of that.”
There were nods of agreement and everyone reached for their wine glasses.
“How are crystals involved in all this?” Teddy demanded, sticking to the subject she knew. “Thompson died in a crystal cave owned by the entire Menendez clan. But as we all know, the crystals are worthless and quite possibly dangerous. So, why?”
Mariah didn’t feel like eating anymore, because as long as she was sinking into the lowest pits of hell, it was very possible she had an answer to this. It was right there in that material Walker was rifling through, except he didn’t understand the implications.
Knowledge was dangerous. She’d never meant any of the information she’d downloaded to go into anyone’s hands but her own. And now they were sitting on a time bomb that could totally take out Keegan’s family and more. She just wasn’t going there again.
Mariah threw down her napkin and started to rise, but Walker motioned her down.
“Not yet,” he insisted. “Keegan and Kurt can do their manly thing. We need to come up with a way of luring killers out of the woodwork. I like Teddy’s idea about offering a prize to the reporters for finding connections.”
“Understanding what Lucys do is a manly thing,” Sam purred, leaning into him. “What do we need to do Fearless Leader?”
Mariah prayed Walker was smarter than she was about consequences because luring killers didn’t sound safer than falling down rabbit holes.
Kurt reached Keegan before he’d passed the café.
“What are you going to do?” the resort owner asked, keeping up with Keegan’s longer strides.
“Play with rocks,” Keegan retorted. “It’s all I know to do.”
“That makes about as much sense as any of this. Want me to give you some space where you can set up your equipment or whatever you need? If I can help, we can bring down a bottle of whiskey and make a night of it. I have someone covering for me tonight, so I’m allowed to get smashed.”
Keegan snorted. “Or I could teach you to smash rocks instead.”
“I’d rather smash noses, but rocks might do. I have an unused conference room at the lodge. Long tables but they wouldn’t hold up to a lot of smashing.” Kurt followed him down the alley to Aaron’s back door.
“Tables will work for sorting.” Keegan unlocked the door, found the backpacks they’d flung inside earlier, and collected his laptop from the drawer. “I’ll pound rocks on the pavement. Why do you want to smash noses?”
“For more reasons than I can count. Unless you wish to hear the resort’s financial woes, which are directly related to Hillvale’s depressed economy and all that empty land out there, it’s best just to let me pound rocks. Do you have any particular goals in rock smashing or just general satisfaction?” Kurt hefted Harvey’s pack.
“Both. Do you have a car or are we walking?” Keegan led the way back to the road.
“Car. You don’t want to walk that winding road at night when the drunks are out.” Kurt led the way to his low-slung Mercedes.
“You could build steps into the hill for pedestrian access between the lodge and town,” Keegan suggested. “Then people who drink in town could stumble back on foot.”
“Huh, good thought, if I get the liquor license. But that won’t put a hole in the mounting debt. I need that Menendez land before Hector gets permission to build a casino up there.”
“If they won’t widen the road to allow more residential housing, they won’t allow casino traffic.” Keegan had heard all the arguments bouncing around the café. Journalists were knowledgeable. “You need something like a winery in there.”
“That would take years to develop and enormous loans we can’t pay.” Kurt swung the Mercedes into the lot reserved for his family. “But the Lucys would love it.”
“Looks like I’m a Lucy,” Keegan grumbled. “Couldn’t you find a better name?”
“Want to be a Null?” Kurt led the way down a darkened corridor to a conference room. “Is this close enough to the parking lot so you can smash and tote?”
Keegan observed the long tables and began pulling out his sample boxes. “It’s a good start. I don’t have all the equipment I need, but I can improvise some of it. I’ll need small envelopes for labeling and sending to a lab.” He could no longer trust his family lab.
If Brianna had betrayed his family. . . It would be as if their own daughter had done so. The lies, the deceit, the willingness to let his dad and brother go to jail for her depredations. . .
He couldn’t handle the rioting emotions demanding release.
He needed to smash rocks.
“Do you have any idea what you want to accomplish?” Kurt asked again.
“Not precisely, but I have a few theories.” He was more comfortable with theories than knowing Mariah’s damned insidiousness had brought his world crashing down again. “It would be good to know if Wainwright has any of my ability, and if any of Gabriel’s family might have it too. Because if there’s anything in those crystals they know about, I should be able to figure it out. I just don’t like that they have the rest of the journals.”
Because Bri must have given them to her damned dodgy physicist grandfather. Why hadn’t he seen that?
“It will be nearly a month before the ugly trio meet again, so I can’t even search their rooms to see if they have the books on them.” Kurt dug into Harvey’s backpack and began distributing the sample boxes on the first table.
“Which means I may be re-inventing the wheel here, if they already know what I suspect. How much do you know of quantum physics?” Keegan emptied his pack on a second table.
“I’m an architect. Figure exactly zip.”
Keegan nodded understanding. “I’m a geologist, not a physicist, but I follow developments in other fields that might affect mine. Crystals are being used for all sorts of purposes these days, including computers, which has led scientists to theorize they can create crystals that bend space and time and potentially create natural computers.”
Kurt snorted. “I think Cass has already done that. Have you seen her place?”
“I have, but apparently you and Walker see things I don’t. Looked normal to me.”
“Lucky you. Go on. Let’s hear how Cass can be a quantum genius.” Kurt discarded his suit coat and began organizing the samples by box number.
“The lab Wainwright was fired from has a team of scientists working on what they call time crystals. Even though they are theoretically impossible, several different labs have created working models. The lab Wainwright once called home built a chain of charged particles. A different lab has built an artificial crystal lattice using synthetic diamonds. Both have the potential to fulfill the theory.”
“Diamonds, I understand,” Kurt said, frowning. “Beyond that, you’ve lost me.
“I’m not a quantum physicist,” Keegan reminded him. “I don’t understand the theory either. But I can create synthetic diamonds using some of these rocks. I think the vibrations, or energy, in the crystals can be charged in the same way as the ones in the lab. Wainwright may be wary of displaying his paranormal talent, but if he’s actually created such a computer, I don’t know why he’d hide it. He could regain his reputation by reporting his findings.”
Kurt grimaced. “I can’t imagine what can be accomplished by bending space and time, although I like the notion of creating a house where you turn the corner and di
sappear into another dimension.”
Keegan laughed. “That may be a way off, unless you believe that’s what Cass has done.”
“What Lucys do has no basis in science, but I have a feeling that they stay one step ahead of us Nulls, who insist on proving things are possible before we try them.”
Keegan thought of Mariah flying with the hawk, mentally calling Cass, and performing witchy searches with her essence in computers. “I wonder if there is such a thing as a Lucy who isn’t a risk taker.”
“You can ask yourself that,” Kurt pointed out.
He’d never thought of what he did as taking risks. But he’d never made synthetic diamonds before either. “There may be something to the Lucy’s energy theory,” Keegan admitted, setting the last sample box on the table. “When we all gather together, it produces an insane energy causing us to do what no sane person would try.”
Kurt looked grim. “Tell me about it. You haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen Teddy use crystal energy to plaster a drunken asshole to the floor.”
“If my theory pans out, we may just bust this town wide open,” Keegan warned as he organized his samples. He could almost feel the rocks vibrating in impatience. “We could have prospectors and scientists and crystal gurus crawling up the walls.”
Mariah would despise that worse than anything, he knew.
“You mentioned whiskey?” Keegan asked. It was going to be a long night.
Twenty-eight
July 13: Friday, morning
Wondering if Keegan would ever forgive her, Mariah couldn’t sleep. The plans Walker and the others had made after Keegan left had made sense at the time, but she really needed his perspective. Or that’s what she told herself as she tossed and turned, aching and alone.
Crystal Vision Page 26
