Jericho: A Novel

by Alex Gordon

  “It’s a little late for a walk.” He jerked his head toward the garden. “You can’t see much now. We set the lighting to a minimum; otherwise it shines into the bedrooms and keeps folks up all night.”

  “I just saw Fernanda.” Lauren struggled to keep her voice down. “At the bottom of the garden.”

  Carmody stared at her for several moments before speaking. “That’s not possible.” Before he could say more, there came the sound of the French door that led out to the patio opening, then slamming closed.

  “No, it isn’t possible.” Stef strode toward Lauren, hands bunched into fists. “This house, this property—both are protected in ways you cannot begin to imagine.”

  Lauren kept talking. She had to say what she saw, whether anyone believed her or not. “I saw a younger version, the way she looked before she disappeared. Nyssa was a toddler. They played in a small pond at the bottom of the garden—”

  “There has never been a small pond at the bottom of the garden. Has there, Andrew?” Stef glared at Carmody. When he said nothing, she fixed back on Lauren with shining eyes, chin raised in triumph. “You are a liar. A dirty spy. You tested us during dinner with information that Gene fed you. You saw how accepting we were of your story about seeing Fernanda in Seattle, and decided to push. Well you can tell your scummy little master—”

  “Stef.” Carmody’s voice bit.

  Stef closed her eyes. “Think of him as you will, Andrew. Believe him if you think you must.” She shot Lauren one last hard look, then turned on her heel and headed back to the house. “He will bring you nothing but heartache in the end.” This time she opened the door gently, closed it softly, and walked slowly in the direction of the stairs.

  “I should go with her. Make sure she takes the elevator. Pete will kill me for letting her get upset.” Carmody hurried after the woman. “Stef? Stef? Wait for me!”

  Lauren watched him go. For a time she leaned against the patio railing and imagined bailing out of the whole damned business, stealing one of the staff vehicles and driving back to Portland. Then she paced, from one end of the patio to the other, and tried to figure out what in hell Fernanda Carmody was trying to tell her. In Seattle, I saw her older, panicked. Now she had gotten a glimpse of the younger woman, in happier times. What do you want? She worked the question over and over in her mind, hugged herself against the growing chill, and almost collided with Carmody when he bulleted back outside.

  “Let’s go.” He handed her one of the pair of flashlights he held, then started down the garden steps. “Don’t turn it on until we reach the bottom. I don’t want Stef to see us.”

  Lauren hesitated. “How is she?”

  “Settled. Resting. Pete’s looking after her.” Carmody stepped to one side, then gestured for Lauren to move up beside him. “She really should retire. But the Council is her life. Poor Pete’s been relegated to second place for years.”

  Lauren’s heart quickened as she stared down into the dark. “You believe me.”

  “Yes.” Carmody watched her. Waited. Then he gave a bare hint of a smile and his shoulders drooped just enough. “Does being alone with me concern you?”

  Lauren shrugged. “Should it?”

  Carmody lowered his gaze. The half smile faded. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a phone. Pressed a single key. “Michael? Send a few men. I want them to check out the lower garden. Have them meet me at the top of the walkway.” He paused. “One of our guests saw something suspicious. Probably just animals, but we can’t be too sure given the current situation.” Another pause. “I know the area is monitored, but sometimes you can’t beat several pairs of eyes.” He disconnected, then leaned against a planter and looked out over the garden. “Lovely evening. A bit warm for the time of year, though.” Before he had a chance to say more, three fit-looking men in black polo shirts and khakis approached from the far end of the patio. They nodded to Carmody as they passed, then continued down the walkway, Tasers on their belts, wires in their ears, and industrial-size lanterns in hand.

  Carmody straightened, then looked up at Lauren. The faint smile returned, this time colored with a fuck you edge.

  Touché. Lauren joined him and they started down the steps. “What’s the current situation?”

  “The . . . anniversary of her disappearance. One of the logging companies is being picketed. Twenty-seven more emailed death threats arrived with the sun.” He sighed. “It wouldn’t do me any good to tell you I didn’t murder my wife, would it?”

  Lauren considered her answer. “I used to try to assume the best about people. Then it almost got me killed. Call me gun-shy.”

  Carmody nodded. “Believe me or not, I understand.” Then his step slowed. “As for what you saw. Nyssa had just turned three. She had seen some tropical fish at a pet shop and wanted one. Fernanda, as usual, went overboard.”

  Lauren thought back to the scene she had witnessed, the happiness she sensed. How strong must that emotion have been to work its way through whatever protections Stef had put in place? “You mean she built Nyssa a very big fish bowl?”

  “Who the hell installs something like that with a small child around? I ordered it filled in the second I found out about it. Then I had nightmares for weeks afterward, about walking down there and finding Nyssa—” Carmody stopped, his breathing ragged. “She said she would watch her, that she would never let her out of her sight.” He stared straight ahead, transfixed by memory. “You would have to have known her to realize that she was incapable of that level of discipline.” He resumed his descent, one long, slow step at a time. “You can turn on your flashlight now.”

  Lauren hit the button. Somehow the beams of light bouncing over the broken flagstones unsettled her more than the prospect of what they might find. “What are we looking for?” She waited. “Mr. Carmody?”

  “Oh, please, call me Andrew.” Carmody walked out into the weeds. “Just not ‘Andy.’ That’s a child’s name.” He joined his security men at the edge of the woods, where they poked through bushes and scanned the trees overhead.

  Lauren searched the ground where the pool had been located. “So could I have learned about this pond from Gene?”

  “No one else saw it but Fernanda and me. And whoever built it. Gene did not know, and I never told him because—”

  “Because?”

  Carmody moved closer and lowered his voice. “Because I forgot. Because we were in the middle of the European expansion and so much was going on and it—” He shook his head. “And it was handled. There’s no reason to keep discussing something after it’s been handled.” He turned his back to her and went to rejoin the guards.

  “Did Fernanda want to discuss it?” Lauren waited, until it became obvious that Carmody considered the subject closed. She kicked at the ground as she had before, but this time she struck something hard jutting up through the soil. She crouched down and worked her hand through the weeds, felt something small and rounded, took hold of it and wiggled it back and forth until she freed it, then held it under the light. It proved to be a tiny toy car that had once been blue, now rusted, tires broken. The car she had seen in the reflection, resting at the bottom of the pool.

  One of the guards approached her. “Did you find something?”

  “Just a rock.” Lauren pretended to drop the car back on the ground. As soon as the guard turned his back, she slipped it into her pants pocket, then stood and examined the rest of the area.

  Carmody rejoined her. “I don’t see signs that anyone was here.”

  Lauren turned slowly, lowering her voice so that only her host could hear. “I can usually sense a ward. I don’t sense anything like that here.” She waited. “You aren’t going to tell me what’s going on, are you?”

  “No.” Carmody turned to face her. “You’re the type who would go off and do something on your own, and this needs to be handled a certain way.”

  You mean your way. Lauren felt the weight of the toy car in her pocket. “At least Stef and the o
thers tolerated me before. I doubt they’ll want anything to do with me now.”

  “From what Gene told me, being the outsider is something you’re comfortable with.”

  “Do you believe everything Gene tells you?”

  Carmody looked at her as if she had sprouted a second head. “Of course.” He gave an overgrown yew one last prod, then dismissed the guards. “Let’s head back before someone misses us.”

  They walked back up the steps in silence, shutting off their flashlights when they reached the lighted part of the garden. There, Lauren stopped. Held her breath, and listened. Reached out a hand, and felt.

  “What?” Carmody backed up and stood next to her.

  Lauren felt his chest press against her shoulder, then picked up the faintest hint of sandalwood cologne. She edged away from him and drew back her hand. “Nothing.”

  “And that’s a good thing, right?”

  “I mean, nothing. I can usually sense some sort of life about a place, but it’s too quiet out there.”

  “That means Stef’s wards are still working.”

  “Why don’t you want Fernanda to come here?” Lauren waited, heard nothing but Carmody’s breathing, looked to find him regarding her with eyes gone ice cold.

  “Grow to hate someone you once loved, then ask me that question.” He looked down at the flashlight in his hands, rapped it against his thigh, then resumed his climb.

  Lauren took her time following in the hope that Carmody would have gone inside before she arrived. But when she reached the patio, she found him leaning on the railing, looking out over the garden. As she approached, he straightened, then turned to face the house.

  “This place. It has a better memory than most. There are days when I swear I hear my father pace in his office. Mine is on the ground floor, just off the family wing, and his was on the second, directly above. I left it untouched after he died. I sometimes wonder if that was a good idea.” He chuckled. “Most of my senior staff visit it every so often. They say they need to dig through the old files, but I think they look on it as a shrine. Longing for the good old days. I’m pretty sure that some of them light candles.”

  Lauren set her flashlight on the railing, just beyond Carmody’s reach. Kept her distance. Arm’s length at all times. Because of propriety. Because every time he drew near, she felt as she had with his daughter. Off-balance. Drawn in. “Don’t they like you?”

  “They wish I had kept the company small. They miss—whatever the hell they miss. I’ve made them all millionaires fifty times over, but there you go. No good deed ever goes unpunished.” Carmody fell silent. Then he folded his arms, lowered his head, studied Lauren through his lashes. “Gene said you could prove useful. Is that why you came, because of him? I ask because, I don’t know, he seems to like you. Despite the impression he gives that he loves the world and everyone in it, he doesn’t like many people.”

  “To be honest, I don’t know why he would like me. He barely knows me.”

  “Then why did you come here?”

  Lauren looked out toward the garden. “I was called.”

  “I hear that a lot, in these circles. Working with the Council. From you it sounds—”

  “Phony?”

  Carmody rolled his eyes. “I was going to say, like you know what the word means.” He nodded to himself, as though he’d made a decision. “I want you to meet my daughter.”

  “I ran into her after I left the dining room.” Lauren recalled the girl’s soft voice. I don’t know what quiet is. “She’s powerful.”

  “Good—I’m glad she met you on her own. Makes things a little simpler.” Carmody pushed away from the railing and walked toward Lauren. “No pressure. No expectations. Just talk with her, and we’ll go from there.” He extended his hand. “Let’s shake on it.”

  Shit. Lauren tried to get away with a limp fish touch of the fingers, but Carmody enclosed her hand in his and held on and she felt the rough, dry skin and the muscle and bone beneath and in the space of a breath she could read it all, like the biggest block letters on an eye chart.

  Hello Lauren I’m Andrew and I’m really not the sonofabitch that everyone says I am—

  She yanked her hand away. “If you pull shit like this on purpose, yeah, I think you are.”

  Carmody’s eyes widened. “Damn.”

  Lauren tucked her hands as she folded her arms, as if that could make any difference at this point. “Why did you do that?”

  “Just—testing.”

  “Please don’t do it again.”

  “I won’t.” Carmody backed away until he hit the railing. “It gets so messy so quickly, this thing we all share. You’re unsure of me—I can accept that. But I believe that we can reach a mutually beneficial arrangement separate from personal feelings.” His tone had grown formal, more businesslike. “You need a job. Your town needs help.” His voice wavered. “I need help.”

  Lauren pressed her fingers to her cheekbones, then above her eyes. This was new. Nothing like this had ever happened before when she touched a person, no matter how strong the emotion she had sensed. Her head ached, and she felt a weird trickle down the back of her throat that made her think nosebleed. “I will talk to your daughter, if she wants to talk.” She walked toward the house. “Good night.

  Carmody called after her. “Thank you.”

  “I’m not doing it for you, or for what you think you can offer me.” Lauren placed her hand on the door handle, then looked back at her host. “Andrew.”

  Carmody nodded. “Lauren.”

  Lauren tried to think of something else to say, pithy last words that would inform Andrew Carmody once and for all that her mind and talents were her own, and that she couldn’t be bought. But her headache had grown worse, and she felt nauseated to boot. All in all, it had been a crap of a day, and she decided the best way to end it would be to say nothing at all.

  LAUREN KEPT AN eye out for the others as she trudged up the stairs to her suite. She wouldn’t have minded running into Nyssa, even though she would have had a difficult time coping with the girl’s intensity. Jenny seemed all right. Even Sam seemed likable, if high-strung. She wouldn’t win any popularity contests with Stef and Peter, but they had probably turned in for the night. Please, Lady, not Heath.

  But all proved quiet, the soft echo of her footsteps on the bare wood floors the only sound. Once inside her room, she cleaned off the toy car in the bathroom sink, dried it, and set it on the nightstand. She showered quickly, all the while fighting the sense that something watched her through the shrubbery.

  She fled to the walled confines of the walk-in closet to dry off and put on her pajamas, and wondered if Sam did the same. Mined a bottle of lime-flavored seltzer from the well-stocked room refrigerator and climbed into bed, dimmed the lights, and took hold of the car.

  It fit easily inside her palm, two inches of plastic and cast metal that had once been glittery electric blue with bright white striping if the flecks of paint that survived over a decade in the dirt were any indication. She tried to race it along her forearm but the remains of the tires had rusted in place, and she had to content herself with zooming it through the air like a spaceship.

  Then she enclosed it in her hands, held it close, and waited to see if it had anything to tell her.

  Lauren sensed nothing at first. She laid her head back, closed her eyes, breathed slowly, all the steps one was supposed to take to slip into a meditative state. But she couldn’t get comfortable. The edges of the broken wheels cut into her hands no matter how lightly she held the car.

  Then she flinched as something jabbed her finger. Pain followed, sharp at first, then hot and radiating, spreading under the skin. She dropped the car and tumbled out of bed, looked back to find the wheels moving, the car shaking as though trying to flip itself over.

  Then she looked closer, and saw twitching bodies, and wings. Wasps—no, flies, large, shiny black things that took to the air above the car, hovering over it as though guarding it.


  Lauren grabbed a towel from the bathroom, then dug a newspaper out of a stack of reading materials that had been left in the sitting area and rolled it tight. She returned to the bed to find the flies settled on the car and the surrounding bedding, a half dozen or more.

  “By the Lady.” Lauren flipped the towel over them. “In her name.” Then she leapt atop the towel, holding down the edges with her knees and free hand as she brought down the newspaper again and again, all the while uttering prayers and pleas to the Lady because the car wasn’t hollow and it was so small that there would have been no place for the flies to hide and yet here they were. As she struck, a foul odor seeped through the towel, the salty tang of sewage mixed with the sickly sweetness of rotting flowers. Then came the staining, soaking through the thick terry, black and viscous, too much to have come from a handful of insects.

  Lauren gave the towel a final whack, then pulled it back. The stench hit her full force, and she gagged. She flicked the car off the bed to the floor, made sure all the flies were dead, then stripped off the ruined coverlet and sheets and thanked whoever had made the decision to cover the mattress with a waterproof pad, which kept the mess from seeping through. The sheets had the texture of shredded silk, and she tried not to think about how much they cost as she bundled them along with the towel into the pillowcases, which she knotted closed and tossed out onto her balcony. Then she threw open all the doors and windows and let the suite air out as she showered off the stink that had attached to her skin and hair.

  After donning fresh pajamas and cleaning and bandaging the bites, Lauren returned to the bedroom. She stood over the car and used a clothes hanger to nudge it back and forth. When additional wildlife failed to emerge, she picked it up and examined it. It looked as it had after she cleaned it, as spotless as a rusty old toy could be, a smidgen of soap still stuck to one door. No staining. No horrid stench.