I’m okay now. Just surprised is all. And Gram’s pork chops aren’t exactly food.
No one could ruin a perfectly good piece of meat like Gram, mainly because she’d never met a piece of meat she considered overcooked. That old Irish thing again: Cook it until it has the texture of jerky, then cook it some more. Daley had once considered getting a sign for over her front door: Abandon All Hope of Flavor Ye Who Enter Here.
“A wee bit of stout then?” Seamus said. When Daley shook her head he held up a bottle of Jameson’s. “A touch of whisky?”
Watch his reaction when I say …
“Don’t you have any Bushmills?”
His eyes fairly bulged. “Oh, you cheeky thing, you! You know I’ll not have Protestant whisky in this house!”
(“I take it this isn’t the first time you’ve played this scene.”)
Nor the last. But I could use a shot to settle my nerves.
(“This Billy Marks really upsets you.”)
I want to see him dead.
“Maybe just a wee dram, Unk.”
Seamus poured and Daley sipped her Jameson’s while he and Gram had at their soup. As soon as they finished they immediately lit up cigarettes.
Daley coughed.
Gram offered a sour smile. “We know that’s a fake cough, dearie. Why do you keep doing it?”
“It’s not fake. It’s the smoke.”
Then the dog coughed.
“See? Even Brendan’s got a cough!”
MONDAY—FEBRUARY 23
1
Daley found herself abruptly wide awake in the dark on one of Gram’s couches.
(“It’s four A.M. Time to move.”)
Did you wake me up?
(“We agreed on four o’clock to return to our place unseen.”)
So now it’s “our” place?
(“Su casa es mi casa.”)
Pain shot up Daley’s spine as she sat up. Oh, my back. I’m too young to have backaches.
(“This couch was not made for sleeping. You should have taken your uncle up on his offer.”)
Seamus had wanted her to take his bed while he took the couch.
Wouldn’t think of it.
She’d slept in her clothes so she was ready to go. She checked her phone, wondering if she could get an Uber at this hour, but no problem. One was ten minutes away.
Once back in North Hollywood she had the Uber drive around her block once but spotted no lurkers.
(“It appears your fans have gone to bed.”)
In her apartment she packed an overnight bag and emptied her candle safe of the fat roll of Benjamins she hid there. She figured it might be best to stay away a few days until her “fans” gave up.
She jumped in her car and headed for the desert.
2
“There it is,” Daley said as she spotted the casino.
It sat west of the 86 with nothing but desert around it—as if plopped there by a giant hand.
(“About time,”) Pard said from the passenger seat where he’d spent the trip.
The sun was climbing the clear winter sky. Traffic hadn’t been bad but still the trip had reached the three-hour mark. Daley had called Juana as they reached the Salton Sea and been instructed to meet her at the Red Earth Casino just south of Salton Sea Beach.
She found Juana waiting with her Harley near the entrance to the parking lot. Red Earth had its own gas station and convenience store—one-stop shopping for gamblers. She held out her hand as Daley unfolded herself from the driver seat.
“Here,” the older woman said, handing her a seashell.
“For me?”
“They’re everywhere.” She pointed to an area of disturbed sand a few feet away. “I kicked that up while waiting for you.”
“Looks like an oyster shell.”
“Except it’s six million years old.”
“You’re a morning gambler?” Daley said as she tucked the shell into her bag.
“Not any sort of gambler. I realize your Subaru has all-wheel-drive but it’s built low to the ground. It would have been slow going on the path to my place, and then you’d have had to turn around and go back the same way. Better we meet here.” She gestured at the casino. “My tribe owns this.”
What’s her tribe?
(“It’s buried in your memory—Desert Cahuilla.”)
“Desert Cahuilla, right?”
She smiled. “Good memory. You drove through our reservation a few miles back.”
Daley had seen the signs and remembered it as pretty desolate with no paved roads. “The government should have given you part of the San Fernando Valley instead.”
She shrugged. “You know how that goes: As soon as it became worth something they’d have kicked us out. Besides, my people have always lived here. These are our tribal lands.”
“Is this what you wanted me to see?”
“No. We’re headed fifty miles southwest as the crow flies.”
“Southwest? That’s all empty desert.”
“Pretty much, but not quite. Since we’re not crows, we’ve got maybe seventy miles by road. Less than an hour and a half. You follow me.”
“What is this place?”
“Small resort town with mineral waters and a spa. It’s called Nespodee Springs.”
* * *
“‘A small resort town,’ she said,” Daley muttered as they drove the main drag. “I feel like I’m back in the old west riding into Tombstone. Where’s Wyatt Earp?”
(“You’ve never been to Tombstone.”)
“No, but I’ve seen the movie.”
They’d followed Juana south to somewhere between Brawley and El Centro where they came upon a big sign with a bright red arrow pointing west.
YOU’RE ALMOST TO NESPODEE SPRINGS!
A right turn took them onto a desert road. After nine or ten miles of sand and sagebrush, the utility poles disappeared. Just … stopped.
(“That can’t be good,”) Pard had said.
Daley couldn’t argue. But then the white poles and spinning vanes of a wind farm appeared in the distance and she felt a little better.
“Somebody’s cranking out voltage ahead.”
They reached a Welcome to Nespodee Springs sign and the road suddenly improved. Rows of mobile homes lined both sides; farther to the north the cluster of three-bladed wind turbines they’d seen from afar pinwheeled in the breeze. To the south lay a huge, glittering solar farm, and beyond that some weird-looking tower like a giant skeletal mushroom.
Pard had ridden shotgun the entire trip. When Daley looked left, he looked left; when she looked right, he looked right.
“Why are you mimicking me?”
(“It’s more like synching. I can see only what you’re seeing.”)
“You see what I’m seeing whether you turn your make-believe head or not. It’s annoying.”
(“Sensy-sensy.”) He faded out. (“I’ll simply monitor from within.”)
And then they arrived at what might be called a town: two rows of one-and two-story wooden buildings flanking a strip of asphalt that ran westward up to the nearby foothills. A planked boardwalk ran along in front of the storefronts, just like in a Wild West town. A sign advised them that the Nespodee Springs Hotel and Spa lay beyond the town, farther up the slope toward a thick cluster of palm trees.
(“Oh, look,”) Pard said as they rolled on. (“One of the hallmarks of western civilization: a laundromat. And a no-name gas station with a car wash.”)
Daley spotted the Nespodee Springs Market, Arturo’s Cozy Coyote Café, a beer-wine-liquor store, a used furniture store with couches and chairs out front, and a no-name bar with a corrugated steel awning over its boardwalk. She saw a storefront with Thomas Llewelyn, MD—General Practice on the window, along with a couple of empty units.
Pard reappeared. (“Her advice was to start small but this is beyond small. It’s minute.”)
“I’d go so far as to say it’s microscopic.”
(“Beyond that. It’s subatomic.”)
“It’s quantum—even though I don’t know what that means.”
(“Nobody does, but at least you admit it. The big question is: Can this tiny place support a doctor and a healer?”)
“Maybe he’s here for his health—you know, the desert air?—and has very limited hours.”
(“Maybe. But I sense friction ahead. Even so, I think I like this place.”)
“You do?”
(“I can’t tell you why, but it has a homey feel.”)
“It’s ‘homey’ only if one has spent most of one’s existence clinging to the roof of a cave. Oh, wait. That would be you.”
(“That’s hurtful, Daley.”)
“Deal with it.”
Up ahead Juana parked nose in before a real estate storefront. Daley pulled in beside her. She checked the outside temperature on her dashboard: 70. A good fifteen degrees warmer than LA. She wondered what the thermometer read in July.
3
The same notice about the “pairing” had appeared on Rhys’s screen three mornings last week. They didn’t run analyses of the stellar images on weekends, so now he waited to see if Monday morning was going to be the same. His father stood by his shoulder as he scrolled to the bottom of the screen. His shoulders tightened as the message appeared:
THE DUAD APPROACHES
Similar, but the difference was ominous.
Rhys said, “I’m guessing that means this ‘pairing,’ this ‘Duad’ is on its way here.”
His father shook his head. “I can’t see any other way to interpret it.”
“But I’m still not clear on what ‘a pairing’ means. A pairing of what? Are we talking two people? A couple? What? And why is it—they—coming to a godforsaken corner of nowhere like Nespodee Springs?”
“To interfere with our destiny.”
Rhys couldn’t hide his annoyance and impatience. “Who is this ‘our’? It doesn’t include me, because I’ve never been briefed on this destiny.”
“You will be soon enough, but right now only I and the heads of the other families are involved.”
Rhys could only growl with frustration.
“Forget the investments for today,” Dad said as he laid a gentle hand on Rhys’s shoulder. “I’ll watch the indexes while you watch the town.”
“And how am I supposed to do that?”
“Reposition one of the sky scopes to focus downhill.”
Oh. Of course. Simple enough. The roof scopes were all on servos that allowed them to be pointed in almost any direction; they fed their images directly to the Lodge’s server and from there to any of the monitors. He got to work on it as his father walked away. In no time he found a scope that could angle toward Nespodee Springs’s main thoroughfare.
He settled back for what he anticipated to be a long, boring morning. But almost immediately he spotted a motorcycle approaching. He focused on it and upped the magnification.
Only Juana. She sure as hell wasn’t the pairing or Duad. That strange native lady kept popping in and out of the town. Practically a fixture around here. Back in the day her tribe called much of the valley their own, but still, what was the attraction in Nespodee Springs that kept her coming back?
She pulled into her usual spot before the real estate office. She and Jason Tadhak seemed to be tight. Hung out a lot. Rhys couldn’t imagine they had anything romantic going on, so what was the attraction? Juana wasn’t in the market for—
Hang on a sec. A car approaching. A Subaru Crosstrek pulling in next to Juana. He focused on the driver as she got out. Wearing a baseball cap with a short dark ponytail out the back. Her face was shaded but she looked slim and, best of all, young.
But only one of her. If she was part of the Duad, where was her other half?
And then she glanced up and her face turned Rhys’s way. Add good looking to the slim and young.
Things were suddenly looking up in Nespodee Springs.
4
Daley joined Juana on the boardwalk before a window signed with Tadhak Realty.
Juana said, “I called this morning and asked if they had any commercial space available and they do.”
“I’m not surprised,” Daley said. “The place looks dead.”
“Appearances can be deceptive,” said a dark-haired, thickset man as he stepped from the real estate office. He wore a gray suit with a white shirt and no tie. He extended his hand. “Jason Tadhak.”
“Daley,” she said, shaking hands.
His bushy eyebrows rose. “That’s all? No ‘Miss’ or ‘Ms.’ or ‘Mrs.’? Just ‘Daley’?”
“For now.”
He stared for a few heartbeats. He was built straight up and down: broad shoulders that flowed into a thick waist that blended into wide hips.
“As you wish. Call me Jason.” He turned to Juana. “Still riding that Harley, I see.”
“It gets me where I want to go.”
Daley said, “Obviously you two know each other.”
He smiled, showing perfectly even teeth. “Everyone knows Juana. But I’m guessing you don’t know much about Nespodee Springs.”
“Never heard the name until a little over an hour ago. I’ve heard of Borrego Springs and Jacumba Springs, and Palm Springs, of course.”
Jason gestured around. “My family has been here quite literally for centuries. We run the spa and hotel and we built this town. We have a natural hot spring that gushes wonderful mineral water with a steady temperature of one hundred and four degrees. Nespodee Springs was very popular throughout the twentieth century—not as popular as Borrego and Jacumba, I’ll grant you, but we held our own, especially with the Hollywood crowd. Bette Davis and James Cagney were regulars here during the thirties. Even little Shirley Temple came a few times.”
Daley widened her eyes and tried to look impressed. “Wow!”
Do you have any idea who he’s talking about?
(“He mentioned Hollywood, so … old movie stars, I guess?”)
“But then, as the popularity of soaking in hot mineral springs diminished, so did our trade. And consequently, our population. We’re down from our peak of fifteen hundred or so, but we’re still home to five hundred souls and still experience steady tourist traffic.”
Only five hundred?
(“A micro-town.”)
“A good place to get your healing feet wet,” Juana said.
(“More like get your toe damp.”)
“I don’t know…”
Jason pulled a set of keys from his pocket. “Let me show you what we have.”
Just then a bus came downhill and rolled past, all white with no markings and heavily tinted windows. Looked weird, almost sinister.
“From the spa?” Daley said.
“No, they’re workers at the wind farm.”
“Yeah, but the wind farm’s down there,” she said, pointing in the direction the bus was headed. “Where are they coming from?”
“My family compound,” Jason said. “The wind farm is a family project, so we Tadhaks work it. We’ve found it best to keep it all in the family.”
Yeah, well, whatever.
He led them to a pair of empty storefronts side by side at the end of the building row. An unpaved driveway divided it from the laundromat in the next group. He keyed open the door to the end unit. The inside was dusty with empty shelves, display cases, and counters, but spacious.
“The previous tenant ran a gift shop here. I’d warned her she’d be competing with the spa’s gift and souvenir shop but she opened it anyway. Didn’t last six months. You, on the other hand … Juana said ‘healing.’ What kind of healing? Holistic? Naturopathic? Reiki?”
Daley hadn’t thought this all the way through yet. Should she mention her degree in homeopathy?
Nah.
“It’s … it’s my own style. I haven’t given it a name yet.”
(“Your own style? My-my-my!”)
I’m riffing. Don’t break the flow.
“Well, let me be frank with you: A lot of our
guests at the spa—I’m not going out on a limb when I say most of our guests at the spa—are into alternative and holistic medicine. They obviously believe in the healing powers of a natural mineral hot spring or else they wouldn’t be here. But many hold New Age beliefs, like crystals and pyramid power and such. It’s a big tent and if your system fits under it, you could do well here.”
“But your town already has a doctor. I don’t want any trouble.”
Jason grinned. “Doc Llewelyn? He’s a pussycat. And semi-retired. His family is part of the Pendry Clan and they keep him pretty much as busy as he wants to be.”
“The Pendry Clan?”
“A cluster of Welsh families who moved here early in the last century. They own that monstrosity up there.”
Daley followed his point and saw a massive two-story house jutting from the hillside. Its flat roof and horizontal planes gave it a Frank Lloyd Wright look.
Frank Lloyd Wright? Who…? And then she knew. Pard again.
“‘Clan’?”
“Five families. Pendry, Llewelyn, Mostyn, Baughan, and Gwynn, but you need only remember Pendry. They’re the ones who run the show up there. All very insular.”
“And all living in the hills,” Juana said. “Won’t live down here with us flatlanders. Have to be above us all.”
(“Do I detect a note of hostility, hmmm?”)
Tadhak said, “They do come down to buy their groceries and support the town, so you’ll see them around. The women are easy to recognize by their clothing. They keep to themselves, home-schooling their kids and all that. Don’t expect them to consult you. They won’t use anyone but Doc Llewelyn. He’s one of them.” He pointed to the hillside home. “The big place—they call it their ‘Lodge’—is their meetinghouse and home of the current head of the clan, Elis Pendry.”
“What do they do here?”
“Some have small businesses in Brawley and El Centro, a lot of them work the solar farm. Elis Pendry invests their money for them and he’s very good at it, I’m told.” Jason winked. “Mostly they have babies.”
“What about all those solar panels I saw?”
“My family runs the wind farm to supply energy for the town—we’re all electric here, by the way. The solar array is a Pendry project that’s connected to one of their less conventional endeavors.”
Double Threat Page 12
