By the third lap, none of that mattered anymore. She was having such a good time breathing in the clean air with this handsome young man. They stopped on top of the ridge and looked at the incredible desert panorama.
“Do you believe in UFOs?” she asked him.
“I believe in something,” he said. “How about you?”
“I don’t know what I believe. You’re hiding something. Why did you really bring me here?”
He smiled that million-dollar smile. “There’s one theory, that this wasn’t the only crash site, that one also happened in Lordsburg, and there were a bunch all over the world.”
“I read the article in the Lordsburg Liberal.”
“Your brother was obsessed with it. He had this theory that some of the flying saucers had people in them as passengers—either genetically created in a lab or ones that had been snatched before and then returned to earth as an experiment for future colonization.”
“Do you believe that?”
“That’s above my paygrade,” he said. “I hate that expression, I guess I got that from all the work I do on bases.”
“And the grails?”
“Well, here’s where it gets complicated. According to one scientist, there are humans who are capable of either joining with the aliens or using the power of the grails to fight the alien colonization.”
“So are the grails good or bad?”
“Depends on who’s using them. They’re like the sword in the stone, they’re supposed to attract certain people. How those people interact with the grails is up to them or up to the grails. Same with the drones. But my own theory is that the grails intensify whatever emotion a person might be feeling.”
“So, if Denny was feeling hate when he approached the grail that night?”
“Then the hate would be intensified. Beyond his control.”
“What about love?”
“Then that feeling of love would be intensified.”
“So do the aliens or whoever want Denny to actually touch the grail?”
“They wanted him to try, to reveal himself. Now, that they know about him, they don’t want him anywhere near it. I bet they hope he sits in a cell or a mental hospital for the rest of his life.”
It was getting hot. A creepy man was approaching them with a metal detector, hoping they were standing on top of the mothership. They got out of his way.
“Where to next?” Denise said.
“Another surprise,” he said. “And you’ll like this one even better.”
Brutus launched the helicopter slower this time. They flew over the blue waters of Elephant Butte reservoir, and then back to the tall dark pines of New Mexico’s Sacramento Mountains.
Hikaru pointed to a break in the pines with a small meadow, a cabin and a pond. He nodded at Brutus who landed the helicopter, scaring away a few deer into the pines. They could be in the Swiss Alps.
“Where are we?” Denise asked. “It’s beautiful.”
“This is my family’s cabin,” Hikaru said as they departed the helicopter.
The cabin sported a big satellite disk on the roof but was otherwise rustic and cozy. The deer had returned.
The sun was setting through the pines, and there was an unobstructed view of Sierra Blanca which was now becoming Sierra Rosa—the pink mountain—in the sunset. The pink summit reflected perfectly off the still blue waters of the pond.
“I love it!” she said.
Hikaru took her hand, but before he could say anything Brutus came over to them. “Do you need anything else, sir?”
Hikaru hesitated for another moment, looking at Denise, then at the cabin.
Denise checked her phone. There was a text from Dew.
EVERYTHING GOING GREAT. WE ARE COMING BACK AGAIN TOMORROW. YOU DON’T NEED TO COME HOME!
Denise smiled. She didn’t need to come home. It was all going to work out perfectly.
“You can go now,” Denise said to Brutus, touching Hikaru’s arm.
Brutus looked at Hikaru. Hikaru looked at Denise. “Are you sure?”
“Kinda,” Denise said with a smile. “I’d like to stay here with you.”
Moments later, the helicopter took off, and the deer scattered again. Denise and Hikaru were alone in this alpine wonderland. A rabbit hurried past them without a care in the world.
A series of concentric waves now emanated from the center of the pond. Were they doing that with their spark?
Hikaru took a deep breath and then Denise kissed him.
Chapter 41
Saturday, August 1
When they woke up the next morning, Denise could not stop smiling. It was even better than she expected. Unfortunately, before she could revel in the bliss, she received a phone call. She didn’t answer it.
The phone rang again, and then again. It was Rita. “Auntie Denise, can you pick me up? I haven’t heard from my mom. I’m still over at the spaceport, but my grandma is really busy and can’t watch me. She says I’ve got to go soon, something big is about to happen and she has to stay here.”
That was odd. She looked over to Hikaru who was looking at his own phone, frowning.
“I can have Brutus fly you over to the spaceport and get you a car there,” Hikaru said. “I’ll stay here. Something’s come up at work.”
He pointed to the big computer screen on the far side of the cabin. She could see the shadow of the satellite dish on the ground as if it had eclipsed the sun. “They can find me anywhere,” he said.
She didn’t want to leave the cabin. She didn’t want to leave Hikaru. They stared at each other for a long moment. “How about breakfast?” he said. “While we’re waiting.”
“Perfect,” she replied. She put on her safari clothes, which were only slightly worse for wear after that magic night.
They had a delicious brunch at a picnic table overlooking the pond. The high-altitude air was extremely clear up here, but thin and cool. She smiled at the deer looking at them through the pines.
Brutus and the noisy helicopter soon arrived. After a final kiss, Denise took one last deep breath of mountain air and then climbed inside the black helicopter. She waved to Hikaru, and then Brutus flew her away. He was back to playing the bad-ass pilot and was flying too fast. They were rocked by turbulence. She hoped it was the wind and not a missile launch.
She texted Rita that she was on her way. Still no texts from Dew or Rayne, and she didn’t know why that bothered her. She told herself that if there was an emergency on base, someone would have texted her, right?
“I’ve got to take the long way around, they’re firing missiles again,” Brutus said. “Something’s definitely up. I’ve never seen so many tests in one week.”
He pointed to down in the valley. Denise now saw a few blasts off in the distance at the missile range. She couldn’t tell if they were launches or impacts.
“We’re perfectly safe,” he said. But were they?
A gust of wind suddenly blew them in the same direction as the tests.
“Are you sure?”
“Well, we better go south, and go the really long way around, just in case,” he said, checking the radar.
The really long way indeed. After a grand tour of all of southern New Mexico, and then up the Rio Grande, Brutus landed at the spaceport. Spaceport America was more port than space. Most of the stubby rockets were launched by plane. The terminal itself looked like a gigantic turtle shell, fit for Gamera, the monster turtle of Japanese cinema.
As she disembarked, she saw her car, the Kia, being loaded off a tow truck. They had thought of everything.
Rita was still in her matching safari clothes, but hers were stained as if her grandma had fed her too much ice cream. Rita hurried over to Denise and gave her a hug. Denise’s phone beeped, indicating a text from Dew. The phone said: MEET ME ON TOP OF PASS.
Rita shivered. “Wouldn’t the text say meet us?”
“I don’t know. I’m sure it’s fine. Dew and your mom don’t always seem to get along.”
They got back into the Kia. “You seem different somehow, Auntie Denise,” Rita said. “Glowing.”
Could this girl sense what had happened? “I’m still me,” Denise said. But was she?
They took a back road from the spaceport through the desert. Denise’s glow faded with every mile. She tried to call Rayne, as did Rita, but there was no answer.
Dew texted MEET ME AT THE PASS again, with no explanation. Denise dialed Dew, but the line was busy.
“Once I meet my mom on top of the Pass, we can all relax,” Rita said, biting her nails. “I just hope Dew didn’t screw everything up for my mom.”
Denise knew she’d have to distract the poor girl before she bit her fingers off. Once they hit Interstate 25, they passed a small elementary school. Denise saw a chance to distract the girl. “Do you like being home-schooled by your mom?”
“My mom’s a really good teacher. Well, even when she isn’t, I get to go and see exciting things. It’s like one big adventure.”
“I wish I’d had one big adventure with my mom,” Denise said. “You’re lucky in that respect.”
“I wouldn’t call it lucky. I miss hanging with kids my age. Auntie Denise, do you ever want to be a mom?” Rita asked.
Denise thought for a moment, and nearly missed the exit to get on US 70 East to head up to the pass. Denise turned the car sharply and made the turn.
“That’s a long way off,” Denise said. Or was it?
“That boy, Mr. Hikaru, really likes you. I can tell.”
Now on Highway 70, Denise looked over at Rita again, to make sure the girl’s seatbelt was still fastened. She must have somehow produced more stains on her outfit without moving.
This was a good kid, and Denise couldn’t help but feel for her. Her maternal instincts were engaged for some reason.
“I told the team if I had a daughter, I hoped she’d be like you,” Denise said. “I really mean that.”
“Thanks. I feel a connection to you, Auntie,” Rita said. Rita reached out to touch Denise. “I love my mom, but you and me, we seem to have more in common.”
“Thanks.”
Denise sensed something odd emanating from Rita through the touch on her shoulder. The girl was trying to tell her something but didn’t want to say it out loud. “Do you ever hear anything about your dad?” Denise asked.
“I don’t know my dad. It sounds kinda icky, but my mom told me that she didn’t really know the guy either. You heard what she’s always told me. That she was on a school trip and then they went over to Mexico, to that Puerto place.”
“Wait, where was the high school trip to? I mean, the trip didn’t go straight to Mexico, she had to start on the American side, right?”
“She didn’t say.”
They both looked at each other. Didn’t Rayne say she’d been to Lordsburg once? “Who was he?” Denise asked.
“I don’t know, my mom just said that she got all drunk at a party back when she was on the high school basketball team at this tournament down south, and then since there was a snowstorm back up north and the roads were closed, her and the local boy from Lordsburg went over to Mexico. Didn’t my mom tell you the story, Auntie Denise?”
Denise looked at the innocent, gangly girl sitting next to her, she sure didn’t want to tell her about the birds and the bees. Rita’s hand was still on her shoulder, and Denise now concentrated on the touch.
Denise sped up, almost hitting the car in front of her before she realized what was going on. She pulled off the road to catch her breath.
“What’s wrong, Auntie Denise?”
And then it hit her why this girl was so obsessed with her, with Auntie Denise, and so obsessed with the case involving her brother. Even obsessed with her mother, Jen Song.
They had pulled off the road near something called the Space Murals Museum which had a wooden imitation of a space shuttle, twenty feet high next to a cylindrical water tower with murals of outer space.
“Your mom went to Clovis High, right? And you’re saying she played basketball, right?”
“Yeah. She was all-state and got recruited at Texas Tech. She met this guy at a tournament down south.”
“What’s your birthday again?”
Rita told her. Denise now held her hand tightly. Denise went deeper with her mind, trying to get down to Rita’s cellular level.
It wasn’t exact science, but still holding Rita’s hand, Denise subtracted nine months. With her other hand, she used her phone and checked out the schedule for the Clovis High Basketball team, and then cross-checked against a big snowstorm that would have closed the roads back to Clovis that year.
Sure enough, the basketball team had been at a tournament in Lordsburg. It was a Boys and Girls tournament for a variety of sports and the Shakespeare Classical Academy was there as well.
It didn’t take Denise long to put together the rest of the pieces as she continued to hold Rita’s hand in hers. A bunch of high school girls stranded at a motel for a couple of days. They get some food over at McDonald’s. They meet up with some local boys. One of them is a cute “bad boy” at the time and says something about Puerto Penasco, Mexico and lies that it “is just over the border.” He says he can get her back in time before her basketball team leaves for Clovis the next morning. Or maybe even the morning after that if the roads stay closed.
This tall, awkward, girls’ basketball player jumps at a chance to rebel against her controlling mom and accompanies the bad boy across the border. She spends one extra day at a Mexican resort and probably drinks too much tequila.
“And your mom never said who the boy was?” Denise asked. Denise could tell from the current between them that Rita knew the truth too. “Even after you got involved with this case?”
They looked at each other and clasped their hands tightly.
“Did you know?”
“Duh, Auntie Denise,” Rita said, and wiped a tear from her eye. “You really are my auntie.”
“I love you, Lovely Rita Meter Maid,” Denise said. “The niece of Denise.”
“I love you too. Now, where’s my mom?”
Denise looked at her phone. Yet another MEET ME AT THE PASS.
But there was something new at least. I’M ALMOST THERE.
Why “I” and not “we?”
Denise got back on the highway and headed the last few miles to the top of the pass. While it was sunny on this side of the Organs, clouds had rolled in over the top of the mountains. Before they knew it, Denise and Rita had made it to the summit of San Augustine Pass with its expansive view of the entire Tularosa basin, but it was now totally cloudy, and they could barely see in front of them.
Dew and Rayne hadn’t arrived yet. Unfortunately, an MP directed them to the rest stop with the rest of the vehicles on the road. The road was closed for testing yet again.
“Why is there so much testing?” Rita asked. “I hope my mom didn’t get caught up in it.”
“I wouldn’t know,” the MP said.
Denise and Rita parked there at the crowded San Augustine Pass rest stop. They were under the billboard of Big Red posing with her daughter and granddaughter. “That’s me and my mom up there!” Rita said to a few passersby who nodded politely.
“If they’re testing, aren’t they stopping my mom and Dew from going out?” Rita asked. “Did they have to stay overnight and that’s why they didn’t call?”
“They would have to, right?” Denise replied.
But was that true? And why did Dew keep using “I” instead of “we?”
Down below, a dust storm existed all right. Because the sand was white, it almost looked like a snowstorm.
More appreh
ensive by the minute, Denise texted Dew a few times, but no response. Rita leaned closer to Denise, like a kitten curling against its mother. It was hard to tell where the khaki of one outfit ended and the other began. Denise patted Rita’s head. They calmed each other in the storm. They were blood after all.
Another boom out in the valley. Why were they still firing missiles in a storm like this?
“Are you sure they’re OK?” Rita asked. “It sounded like they just shot off a missile. They would have stopped my mom and Dew if they were going into the middle of it, right?”
“I’m sure they’re fine.”
“You’re lying, Auntie. I can tell you’re worried too.”
The dust storm glowed in the setting sun. The phone rang. Both Denise and Rita jumped.
“Almost there,” Dew said through the phone.
“Can I talk to my mom?” Rita said.
The phone cut out before Dew could promise anything. Why hadn’t Rayne said anything just now? She was in the car, right?
“Do you think my mom’s OK, Auntie Denise?”
Denise didn’t know what to say.
Rita dialed her grandma, Big Red, a few more times to see if Rayne had called her, but Big Red didn’t pick up.
The sun had now set totally behind the pass to the west, and it grew dark quickly. Denise and Rita could feel the dust blowing against the car.
More flashes of lights burst over the valley. Could those be drones? Missiles? Flying saucers?
Rita looked disturbed. “They’re over there,” she said pointing at some lights in the sky. “They’re really over there!”
Hadn’t Rita said that the last time they encountered weird lights in the sky? Denise couldn’t remember. They held hands, but instead of comforting each other, they now shivered. She felt nauseous and dizzy at the same time, she opened the car door to vomit, but nothing came out.
Rita pointed to another explosion down in the valley that lit up the dust storm like a rogue firework. “That’s where my mom is!”
The Shakespeare Incident Page 24
