Water to Burn

by Katharine Kerr

  The voices formed into a single voice. I began to hear a man speaking. Another psychic, I realized suddenly, was thinking about treasure, obsessing about that Spanish gold, the emeralds as green as the depths of the sea. Caleb? The name formed in my mind before I could block my thought. The voice abruptly stopped. I picked up a trace of fear, then nothing from that source.

  I got out of bed without waking Ari and padded naked and barefoot into the living room. The curtains over the bay window turned a faint lavender, then dark again, then lavender, as the sign from the Persian restaurant across the street blinked on and off. I switched on the desk lamp by my computer, found a pad of sticky notes, and scribbled a few words about Caleb. I had no worries about forgetting what I’d just experienced; I merely wanted to ground it so I could go to sleep.

  When I turned off the light, I stood by the desk for a moment to listen to the inner world. The treasure hunter had definitely signed off, but someone else, or some thing—I felt a distant mind, but not a human mind, unless it was a human mind so twisted that it no longer felt human. At first I turned cold, thinking it was hunting for me. Yet as I listened, Caleb—or whoever the treasure hunter was—returned. I could hear nothing as concrete as a voice or even a muffled sound of voices, but I could feel the Other Thing’s satisfaction. A curtain of silence fell and covered both of them. I’ll admit it, I was glad.

  I heard Ari get up and go into the bathroom. I scurried back to bed and slid under the warm covers. When he came back, I turned into his arms and stayed there for the rest of the night.

  In the morning, though, he got up before I did. I was dimly aware of his leaving the bedroom before I fell back asleep. The smell of coffee brewing finally jerked me awake enough to take a shower. I put on a pair of jeans and a white Giants T-shirt, then followed the scent of coffee into the kitchen.

  Ari was sitting at the table reading a fat book. When he saw me, he smiled and shut it with a paper napkin for a bookmark. I recognized the cover—a “learn Latin” text for adults.

  “You want to crack the family code, huh?” I said.

  “Yes. Do you mind?”

  I hesitated. In a way I did mind, but only because it was another symptom of how serious he was about our relationship. I remembered how cold I’d been over the gold pin he’d given me, and how my behavior had hurt him. I never wanted to do that again.

  “No, of course I don’t,” I said. “If you need help—”

  “So far it all seems perfectly clear, especially compared to English.”

  “Just about any language is clear compared to English.”

  He smiled at that. I got myself a mug of coffee and sat down at the table. He continued reading for a few minutes with a self-absorbed seriousness that surprised me. Twice, he flipped a couple of pages back to check some point, then returned to his original place in the text with a little nod. At what looked like the end of a chapter, he shut the book again.

  “It’s about as complicated as the Hebrew of the oldest parts of the Tanakh,” Ari said. “I’m not surprised. So many ancient languages are.”

  “I take it that modern Hebrew’s a lot simpler.”

  “Oh, yes. We couldn’t run a modern society otherwise.”

  The “we” came so easily that it reminded me of a truth I tended to forget. He wasn’t British; he wasn’t even European, much less American, despite his perfect accent and his jeans and leather jacket. He came from a country so different that I had trouble conceptualizing what it would be like, to live under siege in a place that ancient Romans had once claimed to own, even though it had a history old before the Romans ever got there.

  And I found myself wondering if it was really Ari I wanted to keep at a distance, or Israel.

  CHAPTER 6

  WHEN IT WAS TIME TO LEAVE FOR KATHLEEN’S PARTY, I changed into a flowered skirt in blues and rusts and a teal silk top with a draped neckline. I put my ID and a lipstick into a small beaded bag with a strap long enough to sling across my body bandolier style. I considered taking a swimsuit, but even though the pool would be heated, the weather outside looked so gray and grim that I decided to skip the water. Ari, it turned out, could swim but had absolutely no interest in doing so. He wore jeans and a blue shirt and carried his gray pullover sweater over his shoulders.

  “Once we’ve moved, though,” he said, “I do need to find a gym to join. Something near the new flats, assuming we get them, of course.”

  Even on Sundays, which lacked an official rush hour, traffic swarmed on the Golden Gate Bridge. Marin folks drove in to sample the delights of the city, while city folks drove out to the country and suburbs to get away from the same. We had some slow going through the rainbow tunnel. Still, we reached Kathleen and Jack’s around four o’clock.

  The Donovans’ house had originally been a Victorian farmhouse. Although the farm was long gone, it sat on four acres of prime San Anselmo land a couple of miles beyond and behind Red Hill. Thanks to Kathleen’s menagerie, Jack had surrounded the entire plot with an eighteen-foot-high chain-link fence, which he kept securely locked. We parked on the graveled strip out in front, then rang the electronic buzzer on the gate.

  Jack trotted down the flagstone walk through rhododendron bushes to let us in and to meet Ari. He was a tall man, Jack, with a shock of wavy dark hair and pale blue eyes. In his early thirties, he was still handsome, but he had the fleshy neck and stippling of broken capillaries across his cheeks that announced a very Irish drinking habit. Eventually, I supposed, he’d look like Uncle Jim. That night, he was wearing his usual jeans and a heavy red cotton canvas shirt.

  “It’s going to be chilly later,” he remarked. “I’ll get the heaters going out back near the pool.”

  I introduced him to Ari, and Ari to him, and they shook hands companionably. Still, I noticed how the two men sized each other up. Jack had good reason to be suspicious of my new partner’s job with Interpol. The British accent wouldn’t sweeten Jack’s mood, either. Ari smiled so pleasantly that I was sure he was up to something.

  “So,” Jack said to Ari. “You’re another guy who’s gotten involved with an O’Grady girl. I don’t know if we’re brave or stupid.”

  “Probably both,” Ari said. “But she has her compensations.”

  Jack laughed, Ari smiled, and I considered mayhem.

  “Ah, come on, Nola,” Jack said. “We only tease you because you’re usually right.” He glanced Ari’s way. “She saved my dad’s life a while ago. She insisted he needed to see a doctor, and damn, she was right about that! A couple more weeks, the doc said, and the cancer would have spread. Lights out.”

  Ari winced. Both men turned solemn.

  “How’s he doing these days?” I said.

  “Pretty good!” Jack brightened again. “The doc says he’s in remission, all right. It’s been a year now since he finished the chemo. We’re going up to the vineyard next week to celebrate with him. The real problem is getting him to rest enough. You know what he’s like.”

  “I sure do. He’s too used to storming around in charge of everything, flinging orders right and left.”

  Jack laughed again. “That’s it, yeah. Well, come on in. Everyone’s out back.”

  The house metaphorically smelled of money, with its hardwood floors, Persian rugs, wood paneling, antique furniture, and original paintings by American Impressionists. It also literally smelled like cat boxes, no matter how often Kathleen and her housekeeper changed them. Kathleen had acquired two more strays, bringing her cat collection up to twenty. We tromped down the long hallway in a cloud of scattering felines, some diving into side rooms, others darting up the long staircase to the second floor. While they could go outside at will, in chilly weather they stuck to the central heating.

  “Out back” at the Donovan house was not your usual backyard. Kathleen loved to swim, she loved to cook, and she loved to be outside. Jack had accommodated these three loves with a fifty-foot-long swimming pool and its surroundings. Off to the left side stood the
cabaña, as they called it, which was actually a small cottage with a bathroom and all the necessaries. To the right stood what amounted to an outdoor kitchen, with a gas-powered grill and a portable bar and refrigerator unit powered by electricity from underground cables. Fruit trees, shrubs, and flowers grew thick and lush all around.

  Kathleen herself was standing by the pool. She was wearing a pair of cut-off jeans over a modest tank suit in a light blue that set off her dark blue eyes. She’d pulled her long black hair back into a single braid, and she wore no makeup, a stark style that on her looked gorgeous. She trotted over to join us, followed by a small mob of mutts. We hugged.

  “I was just going to get the guys inside,” she said with a wave at the dogs, who swarmed around her like surf around a rock. “And I guess I’d better get dressed.”

  “Are you cooking tonight?” I said.

  “Nah, I hired the usual caterers. They should be here any minute.”

  “I’ll go wait on the front porch,” Jack said. “Let ’em in and all that. Besides, I left my beer out there.”

  He strode off before Kathleen could even agree. I glanced her way and raised an eyebrow. She shrugged with a faint look of disgust.

  “I invited a lot of people, not just Caleb,” Kathleen said to Ari. “So he’ll be distracted, and we can snag his drinking glass or something.”

  “That would do,” Ari said. “But why don’t you just leave the matter to me?”

  “Okay, I’ll be glad to.” She glanced around. “I’m keeping watch for Jack. He’d be furious if he knew.”

  “Nola tells me he’s afraid of this person. He doesn’t look like the sort of man who scares easily.”

  “He isn’t, or he wouldn’t have married me.” She grinned at him. “The family, y’know?”

  “I happen to like your family.”

  Kathleen’s expression turned beatific, much like Aunt Eileen in a matchmaking mood. She patted Ari’s arm. “I’m so glad Nola found you.”

  The dogs in the pack began to whine and shove each other. A golden retriever yawned and snapped. One of the Dobermans started sniffing Kathleen’s bare leg. She kicked him, just lightly, and made him back off.

  “I’ll get them inside,” Kathleen said. “Oh, and Ari? Thank you.”

  Kathleen rounded up her pack and began shepherding them toward the house. I noticed Woofie Five, gray, fat, and whiskery, bouncing along behind the big dogs on his short little legs.

  “That’s the dog that bit Jack’s business partner,” I said to Ari.

  “Evil-looking creature,” Ari said.

  With the dogs stowed, Kathleen reappeared wearing a Jean Paul Gaultier dress in a subdued tropical print—but an original, not one of the department store numbers—over her bathing suit, though she had, mercifully, taken off the cut-off jeans. She’d unbound her hair and let it fall uncombed and wavy down her back. Since we stood a good distance away, Ari stared at her. Men always did, and I tried to ignore my burning jealousy.

  “Your sister,” Ari said, “is really peculiar. Sorry if that’s offensive, but she is.”

  The jealousy cooled off and died. “We’re all really peculiar,” I said. “That includes you.”

  “I’d never deny it.”

  The caterers, Maria Elena and her husband, Diego, arrived soon after, both dressed in spotless white. They brought with them helpers, a parade of boxes of food and liquor, bottles of mineral water, and several enormous jugs of orangeade. While this culinary mob set up a long buffet table near the cabaña, Jack hovered nearby with a bottle of beer in his hand. A few at a time, the other guests began to arrive, about twenty adults in all, couples with young children, mostly. The kids hit the buffet like locusts while parents fussed and kept up a running chatter of “say please, don’t grab, say thank you.”

  When the kids gravitated toward the pool, Jack changed into baggy swim trunks and an undershirt to play lifeguard for the evening, a maneuver that let the other adults circulate, drink, and eat in relative peace. It also saved him from having to make casual conversation, which he hated doing.

  “I thought kids weren’t supposed to swim so soon after eating,” I said to Kathleen. “That’s what Dad always told us, anyway.”

  “I remember, yeah,” Kathleen said. “But all that’s changed. I guess it never really mattered, according to the doctors.”

  The cool night began to darken the sky. Jack got out of the water long enough to put on the outdoor lighting, including the lights housed inside the rim of the pool. The water turned into liquid turquoise—a seething mass of liquid turquoise with the kids jumping and splashing. Kathleen began glancing around and biting her lower lip.

  “I don’t see you know who,” she whispered. “I hope the little jerk gets here.”

  One of Maria Elena’s helpers, a girl of maybe sixteen, came trotting over to announce that the caterers needed Kathleen’s instructions about the arcane matter of reheating chiles rellenos. Kathleen hurried off just as Caleb arrived. I spotted a man answering his description moving through the crowd, mostly men, around the bar. A quick check showed me the disciplined aura of a person who’s learned to control his natural talents.

  “That’s got to be him,” I said to Ari.

  Ari considered the distant Caleb. “I’ll have a closer look,” he said. “Do you want some food? No, of course you don’t. Why do I ask? I do, however, and I’m going to go over to the buffet.”

  “Well, if there’s salad—”

  “Salad’s not enough. You’re not a leaf-eating chimpanzee.”

  On this wave of impeccable logic, Ari strode away. I stuck my tongue out at his retreating back. As I waited, I began to feel someone watching me, though no SAWM or ASTA went off in my brain. The natural suspect, Caleb, was sipping a drink and talking with Kathleen some distance away. He had his back toward me.

  I turned around and saw a little girl of about five, with blonde curls and big blue eyes, dressed in a dripping wet pink bathing suit. She stood with her hands on her hips, studying me.

  “Do you have worms?” she said.

  “Say what?” I said.

  “You’re so skinny. We went to Mexico, and my aunt ate some bad candy, and she got worms. And she got skinny, and she kept getting skinnier and skinnier until the doctor killed them. The worms, I mean. With pills.”

  I gaped. A woman in a pale green dress spun around and shrieked, “Daphne! What are you asking the nice lady?”

  “Does she have worms?” Daphne said.

  “Ohmigawd!” The woman, whom I assumed was Daphne’s mom, grabbed the child’s arm. “Don’t say things like that!” She looked up at me with eyes filled with honest anguish. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Not a problem.”

  The woman groaned and dragged the protesting Daphne away. I remembered the Goddess Venus saying, “Get a better mirror.” Not all mirrors are made of glass. Maybe, I decided, I could eat a little more, just now and then.

  I started toward the buffet, but Kathleen strolled over, Caleb in tow. She introduced us, then announced that she had to discuss dessert with the caterers and hurried off again. Caleb and I stood near the pool and smiled the moronic smiles of people who have just met at a noisy party.

  Kathleen’s earlier description of Caleb—short, pudgy, smells bad—did not predispose me to think highly of him. In person, however, he turned out to be maybe 5’9”, a few pounds heavy around the middle, and scented with muskand-ginger aftershave. Facially he was good-looking, with humorous eyes and a tan; overall, I found myself thinking of William Shatner in Star Trek’s first TV season, not that I have any idea of how Captain Kirk smelled.

  I was also positive I’d seen him before. I just couldn’t place where. I did know I’d merely glimpsed him from a distance, but that I’d seen him at all struck me as important. For a few minutes we watched Jack teaching one of the younger kids how to float on his back. Caleb allowed as how he was impressed.

  “He’s got more patience with
kids than I ever will.” His voice, while light, certainly didn’t squeak in the upper register, but he had the New England “havahd yahd” accent, all right. “Sometimes I think he should teach school.”

  “Yeah, I’ve had that thought, too.”

  I smiled; he smiled and moved a step closer. He glanced away, but I felt the touch of his mind on mine—an SPP. He had talents, then, just as I’d suspected. I refrained from defending or answering, and in a few seconds the touch vanished. Let him wonder, I figured, about any talents I might have.

  “Jack must have told you,” Caleb said, “that we’ve got a business venture going.”

  “Kathleen mentioned it, actually.”

  “I know she doesn’t approve, so you don’t have to be polite about it. Do you think Drake’s treasure is just a myth?”

  “Yes and no,” I said. “He had one, yes, but I believe he gave it all to the queen of England, so no, I don’t think any of it’s still around here.”

  “Well, that’s what the academic establishment wants us to believe. They can’t think outside the box, and they’re too damn lazy to change their lecture notes when new information comes along.”

  I had no idea of how to respond to that. I was saved when a woman called my name from across the babbling sea of guests.

  “Nola! Is that really you?”

  I looked and saw Mira Rosen, an old friend of mine from college. She’d gotten her M.S. in psych at the same time as I’d finished mine. I waved madly and yelled back, “It is! How cool to see you!” I turned to Caleb. “Excuse me. Someone I haven’t seen in years.”

  He nodded and headed in the direction of the bar. I made my way through the chattering partygoers toward Mira, who waddled her way toward me. She stood about five foot one and normally barely topped a hundred pounds, but that night she was vastly pregnant. Her belly hung over her blue maternity shorts; her navel peered out from under her white maternity top.