Deception Cove h-10

by Jayne Castle

  She closed her mouth on what would have been a convoluted explanation of the MC.

  “Oh, you have a dust bunny pal, too,” Rachel said, delighted.

  “This is Houdini,” Alice said.

  She reached up to take Houdini from her shoulder. But he surprised her by chortling excitedly. Avoiding her hands, he bounded gleefully down to the ground and fluttered through the front door of the shop. Alice heard a responding chortle from inside.

  She glanced at Rachel. “You’ve got another dust bunny here?”

  “Darwina. She’ll be ecstatic to have a new playmate. But it doesn’t take much to make a dust bunny ecstatic.”

  There was more wild chortling from inside the bookstore and then a sudden silence. “Darwina must have given him one of her last chocolate zingers,” Rachel said. “He and Darwina will both be bouncing off the walls in a few minutes.”

  Charlotte waved everyone indoors. “Come on inside and have some tea. You didn’t arrive by boat here in the marina, so I’m guessing you have a story to tell.”

  “Where is Harry?” Drake asked.

  Rachel paused in the doorway to look at him.

  “You didn’t know?” Rachel asked. “No, I guess you wouldn’t have heard. Harry said the last time he talked to you was several days ago. The phones and computers have been down since Monday.”

  Alice was aware that the others had gone very quiet.

  “What’s wrong?” Drake asked.

  It was Fletcher Kane who answered.

  “Harry and Chief Attridge left about forty-eight hours ago. They had to go into the Preserve to track a bunch of those Glorious Dawn twits who decided to go through the fence to get enlightened. They got lost, of course. Harry and Slade went in to pull them out.”

  “They haven’t returned yet,” Jasper said. “We’re getting concerned, to tell you the truth.”

  “They’re okay,” Rachel insisted. “I’d know if something had happened to Harry.”

  “And I’d know if anything had happened to Slade,” Charlotte declared.

  Both went into the shop.

  Jasper looked at Drake and lowered his voice. “Like I said, we’re worried about Harry and Slade.”

  Chapter 17

  “YOU GOT CAUGHT OUT IN THE OPEN WHEN THAT FOG rolled in last night?” Rachel Blake asked. She poured tea into the three cups she had placed on the table. “That must have been an absolutely horrible experience.”

  Alice indicated the amber lantern sitting in the center of one of the tables. “Not nearly as bad as it would have been if Drake hadn’t realized that the boat’s emergency lantern and a nice big fire muted the effects of the fog’s energy. But I have to tell you, it was the mutant insects that made for a long night.”

  Everyone at the table, with the exception of Drake, stared at her.

  “Damn,” Charlotte said. “You’re not kidding, are you?”

  “No,” Alice said. “It wasn’t a joking matter, believe me.”

  They were gathered in the café at the back of Shadow Bay Books. It was a motley crew that had come together to figure out how to stop whatever was going on inside the Preserve, Alice thought. The weird thing was that, although she told herself she was part of the group only because she needed the job and because Drake had promised to find Fulton’s killer, she felt oddly comfortable with the others. Maybe it was because she had some genuine family history on Rainshadow. In a way, she had a right to be here; make that a responsibility to be here.

  It wasn’t much in the way of family history, of course. She had not even known that Nicholas North existed until a year ago, let alone her connection to him. In addition, he had evidently been a failure at just about everything except the pirate business. She was pretty sure the only reason he had been successful in that line was because of his partner, Harry Sebastian the first, who had no doubt been the brains of the outfit. Still, North had been involved in burying the crystals that were now causing so much trouble, and Alice was his direct descendant. That linked her to the island and the situation—for better or worse. Either way, she belonged here with these people, at least for now, she thought.

  Besides, she liked her new friends. They had welcomed her even though she’d had a hand in creating the problem they now faced. She wanted to help them and undo the damage she had unwittingly caused.

  Rachel had prepared a special tisane for the weary travelers. Alice was amazed at how much better she felt after a few sips of the herbal brew. She could see that the tisane was also having a soothing effect on Karen Rosser, who now appeared more composed.

  The two dust bunnies, high on chocolate zingers, were dashing around the floor of the bookshop. They appeared to be engaged in some version of a dust bunny game. Darwina clutched a small Amberella doll dressed in a sparkly ball gown. There were occasional crashing sounds when books or other small objects fell to the floor.

  Drake picked up his cup and inhaled the aroma of the tisane with obvious appreciation. “Figured the amber lantern might be useful, but the fire worked better because with it for illumination I didn’t have to wear my glasses. That gave us an advantage when the insects came out of the Preserve. We used a couple of fire-starters modified for use inside the fence to zap the bugs.”

  Charlotte shuddered. “Giant mutant insects. How much worse can things get?”

  “I don’t think we want to find out,” Fletcher said.

  Jasper shook his head. “Gotta say, it’s amazing that you both survived the night.”

  “We spent it watching each other’s back,” Drake said. “Literally.” He looked at Alice across the table. “We maintained physical contact. That helped. And we had Houdini, who functioned as an early warning system.”

  Fletcher nodded, understanding. “Sounds like the three of you made a good team.”

  “Yes,” Drake said. He did not take his mirrored gaze off Alice. “We do make a good team. Nothing like spending a night zapping giant roaches to find out if you were meant for each other.”

  He said it very seriously, but the crowd around the table—with the exception of Alice—laughed. The sudden rush of heat into her cheeks told her that she was blushing.

  “Probably a more accurate compatibility test than those questionnaires the professional matchmakers use,” Charlotte said dryly.

  “Yes,” Drake said. It was clear he took the comment very seriously. He looked at Alice. “A hell of a lot more accurate.”

  Frantically, Alice searched for a way to change the conversation.

  “When did the Glorious Dawn crowd arrive?” she asked quickly.

  “That lot came in on the last ferry,” Rachel said. She made a face. “No one was expecting them. Slade and Harry were getting as many people off the island as possible. Not everyone was willing to leave, but most of the folks with kids did want to evacuate. Slade and Harry let the Dawn crowd stay because they needed space on the ferry for the Shadow Bay families. They figured they’d get rid of the Dawners on the last run. But there were no more runs. The ferry was never able to get back to the island. Several of the families did not make it off.”

  “Thus, we got stuck with the Dawners,” Jasper explained. “And the first thing they did was head into the Preserve.” He sighed. “Slade and Harry thought it would only take a few hours to find them and pull them back out. But that was two days ago.”

  No one spoke for a moment.

  Rachel exchanged a look with Charlotte.

  “We keep telling you, they’re okay,” Charlotte said quietly. “Trust me, Rachel and I would know if that wasn’t the case.”

  Fletcher eyed Karen, who was sitting very quietly and drinking her tea.

  “You said that this Dr. Zara Tucker stuck a couple of Old Earth crystals into an Alien ruin to jump-start it and now the place is overheating?”

  Karen lowered her cup. “Yes. She wants to get off the island before it blows but she’s trapped, too, just like us.”

  Alice cleared her throat. “I think you should all kn
ow that I’m the one who located the Keys.”

  Charlotte stilled. “The Keys? You mean those three crystals?”

  “I was told that’s what my great-grandfather called them in his diary,” Alice said. “Why? Does that mean something to you?”

  “Nothing terribly useful,” Charlotte admitted. “But it may explain something I’ve always wondered about. My aunt Beatrix, who died and left me Looking Glass Antiques across the street, spent the last years of her life searching for something she called the Key. Singular, not plural, but she may not have realized there were three of them. I don’t think she even knew what the Key looked like or what it opened.”

  “Dr. Tucker used those crystal Keys to fire up the Chamber,” Karen said. “That’s all I can tell you.”

  Drake finished his tea. “Alice and Karen and I all need some food and some sleep.” He looked out the window at the unnatural dark that had fallen in the past half hour. “We need to pull together the information we’ve got and come up with a plan, but there’s nothing we can do until morning.”

  “You’ve got that right,” Fletcher said. “Shadow Bay was never what you’d call a lively town after dark. We roll up the streets around nine o’clock most nights. But lately it’s gotten real quiet at night. You can move around to some extent with an amber lantern, but that fog makes people nervous as hell.”

  “Folks think they see things in it,” Rachel said. “And now that we know about those mutant insects in Deception Cove, we have to take the hallucinations a little more seriously.”

  “Everyone who couldn’t get off the island or who refused to leave is staying here in town,” Fletcher explained. “Jasper and I are sleeping in our shop.”

  “Rachel and I are staying at the B-and-B at the end of the street,” Charlotte said. “We can squeeze Karen in there, but the place is really full. I think Burt Caster, who owns the Marina Inn and Tavern, mentioned that he had one room left. Drake, you and Alice can have it.”

  Alice went very still. She did not dare look at Drake.

  “That works,” Drake said.

  Rachel gave Alice a commiserating smile. “I’ll bet you didn’t expect to spend your honeymoon on Rainshadow, did you?”

  “Actually,” Alice said, “it’s become something of a tradition for me.”

  Chapter 18

  “YOU KNOW,” ALICE SAID, “IF WE HADN’T ALREADY SPENT a couple of nights together, this situation would be somewhat awkward.”

  Room Number Five at the Marina Inn had seen better days. The curtains, carpet, bedspread, and towels were faded and a bit frayed, but the bathroom and the sheets were clean, and that counted for a lot in her opinion. During the past year she had learned to establish priorities. Nevertheless, in the low, mellow light of the amber lantern on the table, the place didn’t look all that bad. Under other circumstances, it might even have been romantic in a retro sort of way. The kind of place where a young, broke, eloping couple might spend a honeymoon.

  But she could not remember a time when she had felt young, and she was married—temporarily at least—to one of the wealthiest men in the four city-states. True, they had eloped, but not for the usual reasons.

  When they had entered the room a moment ago, Drake had done a methodical walk-through of the small space. Houdini had followed at his heels, evidently taking the job of checking out the room as seriously as Drake. There was none of the usual dust bunny obsession with turning the nearest bright, shiny object into a toy; no trying to swing from the drapery cord. At first Alice had wondered if the effects of the chocolate zingers had simply worn off, but now she sensed that, like Drake, Houdini was in sentry mode.

  “Charlotte and Rachel probably could have made space for you over at the B-and-B,” Drake said. “But I didn’t want to go into detailed explanations of exactly why we got married, not in front of a lot of people we don’t know very well.” He shrugged out of the pack and dropped it on the small table near the window. “Figured that would be even more awkward.”

  “You’re right.” Alice smiled ruefully. “Explaining to a bunch of strangers that you married me to protect me from Ethel Whitcomb, who thinks I murdered her son, would have been a tad difficult.”

  “That wasn’t the part that worried me.”

  “No?”

  “No.” He opened the pack. “I held off on the explanations because this is a small town. It’s even smaller now that the few locals who are still here are all hunkered down. I trust everyone at that table tonight, primarily because Harry told me that he trusts them. But there are no secrets in small towns. If word gets out that our marriage is a fake, there’s no telling who will find out.”

  Alice looked out the window. The dark mist had closed in on Shadow Bay. Here and there she could see the weak light of an amber lantern in a window or the flames of a hearth fire, but the rest of the scene was drenched in dark, disturbing energy.

  “I don’t think that any gossip will get off this island as long as it’s locked in this fog,” she said.

  “We can’t be sure of that. I’d rather not take any chances.”

  “Are you going to tell your brother the truth about our marriage when he returns?” she asked. Assuming he does return, she thought. But there was no reason to sound pessimistic. Drake had enough to cope with at the moment.

  “I’ll have to explain the situation to Harry.” Drake removed his overnight kit from the pack. “He’ll know there’s something off about the marriage as soon as he finds out about it.”

  Alice wrinkled her nose. “Because we don’t look like a happily married couple?”

  “No.” Drake studied the fog-bound scene through the window. “Because in our family we don’t do MCs.”

  Her insides clenched but she tried not to let him see the effect his words had on her.

  “I suppose MCs are way too tacky for the Sebastian family,” she said, going for flippant. “Always nice to meet a man with such high standards.” Guilt flashed through her. “Sorry,” she said gruffly. “That was uncalled for under the circumstances. Our MC is certainly not typical.”

  “It’s not so much a question of standards—more like a definition. In my family, marriage is marriage. An affair is an affair. There is no middle ground.”

  “In other words, in your family, when it comes to making a commitment, there’s no gray area. You either make a commitment and keep it or you don’t.”

  He gave her a wary look. “Something like that.”

  “What a lovely, noble tradition. Very admirable. Yet here you are, stuck in a low-class MC thanks to me. Yep, I can see why you feel like you have to explain things to your brother. Sorry about that, but if you will recall, it was your idea.”

  “Yes,” he said a little too evenly. “It was my idea. And it’s not like Harry did things perfectly, either. He went through a full-blown Covenant Marriage ceremony, but his wife divorced him three weeks after the wedding.”

  “Really?” Alice stared at him, astonished. “I didn’t hear about that.”

  “Probably because a lot of money was spent keeping the scandal out of the media.”

  “I see. Wow.” Alice thought about that. The dissolution of a Covenant Marriage was not unheard of, but it was rare because it was a legal and financial nightmare that always left a social stigma. “Mind if I ask what the grounds for the divorce were?”

  “It was granted under the new laws governing divorce. Harry’s ex claimed intolerable psychical incompatibility.”

  “Geez. Must have cost a fortune.”

  Drake smiled wryly. “Like I said, money can’t buy everything but it comes in handy at times.”

  “That’s for sure.” Alice took a deep breath. “Okay, thanks for the family background. That makes me feel a little better about getting you into this mess.”

  Drake stopped smiling. “You didn’t get me into it. The MC was my idea, remember?”

  “I know, but—” She stopped because she did not know where to go with that.

  Drake s
urveyed the room with a grim expression. “And while we’re on the subject, I apologize for the accommodations.”

  “Not a problem.” Alice sat down on the bed, leaned back, and braced herself on her hands. “I’ve lived in worse places. You saw that apartment I was renting in Crystal City. This is a real step up. It’s . . . cozy.”

  He watched her through his glasses. “I was apologizing for the lack of privacy, not the lack of luxury.”

  “Oh, well, that can’t be helped. You heard the woman at the front desk. This is the last available room. We’re lucky we’re not going to be sleeping on the floor in the lobby. What do you say we go downstairs to the tavern and get some dinner? Don’t know about you but I’m hungry.”

  Drake seemed to relax. “Sounds like a plan.”

  “Also, I could use a drink.”

  “That, too, sounds like an excellent idea.”

  * * *

  THE TAVERN ON THE FIRST FLOOR WAS LIT WITH AMBER lanterns and crowded with locals who were spending the night at the inn. The mood was that of a community under siege, Alice thought. In spite of the fact that almost every table was filled, a dark, subdued atmosphere pervaded the rustic space. Some of the booths and tables were occupied by families. The parents talked in hushed tones. The kids were unnaturally quiet.

  A boy who appeared to be about thirteen sat at a table with a woman who looked the right age to be his grandmother—a young grandmother. She was blonde with a fit, athletic figure and she wore a police uniform complete with a mag-rez pistol. There was another person at the table, a young man in his early twenties. He, too, wore a uniform with a patch embroidered SBPD.

  The kid brightened when Alice walked in with Houdini on her shoulder.

  “Hey, look, the lady has a dust bunny,” he said to a friend.

  The other youngsters in the restaurant turned around to look at Alice. The little ones jumped up and came running.

  “Can we pet him?” a small, dark-haired girl asked eagerly.