Bloodstone

by Gwen Hunter

  Except for short breaks and a longer rest at one o’clock for lunch, we climbed hills all day. And we found nothing. Finally, at dusk, foot-sore and exhausted, we were ready to call it quits. We had hiked a dozen pieces of property to no avail. They had nothing in common, nothing that marked them as being of interest to anyone. Some had been recently surveyed, some hadn’t been walked in years. Some were relatively flat and had been homesteaded in the past. Some were so sheer a mountain goat would have needed climbing gear to scale them. Some were close to Connersville, some were so far out they took an hour to reach. None showed any evidence of gold, not that I knew what to look for.

  All in all, it was a totally wasted day. And I was afraid I was going to be forced into plan B, touching and then bitch-slapping the men in town. And didn’t that sound like a wise course of action?

  It was nearly dusk and we stood midway up a hill, in a shallow, tree-tangled gorge created by water runoff. I stood on a stump, and Evan in a depression filled with leaves. The shadows were long across the ground, the sun already dropping behind the western hills. The wind had risen and the temps had dropped fast.

  “Time to head back,” Evan said.

  “We can make the top of the ridge.”

  “Yeah, but we won’t make it back down before dark. Let’s go home, Tyler.”

  I tried to read the card. It was too dark to see the numbers. “Spit and decay,” I said. The cop was right. I sighed, exhaustion and failure in the sound.

  Evan stepped to me and cupped my chilled chin in his hand. Our flesh was cold, rough against rough, chapped from the constant wind. He kissed the tip of my nose and wound my scarf around my lower face. “We’ll try again tomorrow.”

  Zipping up my down vest, he handed me my leather gloves for the trek back to the Tracker. He froze. “What?” I asked.

  Rather than answer, he lifted my binoculars and focused on the ridgetop. “Look at that. People.”

  “Here? This property hasn’t seen a human in ages.”

  “Quite a coincidence, don’t you think?” He handed me the glasses. “You know ’em?” He pointed as I lifted the glasses and positioned the eyepieces. “Near that huge spruce, the one to the right of the blasted stump.”

  I found the place he described and searched down. A man came into view. I felt my heart lighten and my mouth form a smile, the first real smile I’d allowed myself all day. “Gotcha.”

  “You’re sure it was Floyd Feaster?” Isaac asked as he dished up a hearty stew.

  “Oh, yeah. It was him. I saw him at the county council meeting, trailing along behind Colin Hornsburn like a love-sick calf. We marked exactly where we saw him so we can go back if we need, but there didn’t seem to be anything important about the spot. More tea, please?” I held out my glass and Jubal filled it. Evan tore off a hunk of homemade bread and passed the loaf to me, taking a bite of his own bread as he did. I bit and we both groaned in pleasure.

  Isaac looked at Jubal. “Moaners. Both of them.”

  Jubal rolled his eyes. “They’ll be noisy if they ever get around to it.”

  I blushed hotly. Evan laughed around the mouthful of bread.

  “Get around to what?” Jane asked.

  “Shoveling snow,” Isaac said with a look of warning he threw at Jubal. “Tell your aunt about your day.”

  Jane’s eyes took on a manic glow. “I shoveled snow and I learned some cool moves at the do jang. I can do an Ap Koob Yi and a Deui Koob Yi, and a Mom Tong Jireugi and…and…and a bunch of other stuff, I forget the names, and I got a Do Bok! See?” She bounced from the table and whirled in a fast pirouette to show off her white pj’s, tied smartly with a white belt. “And Isaac said if I practice a lot I can reach a black belt in just a couple of years. I think it would be so cool to be a black belt.

  “Jubal taught me how to snip silver. Real, pure, sterling silver. I’m going to make a necklace to wear back to school. And Isaac taught me how to do some origami. The turtle is mine.” Jane pointed at the table centerpiece as she sat again and chattered on to another subject, her agile mind full of her day rather than the thoughts and feelings around her. I shot Isaac and Jubal looks of appreciation between bites of stew. I was famished.

  At eight o’clock Isaac and Jubal left, carting dirty pots back across the bare, narrow rooftop garden, and Evan started washing dishes. Who was I to stop a man from feeling useful? While he sudsed up the stoneware, I put Jane to bed, this time in a trundle bed Isaac and Jubal had rigged up during the day. It was a foam mattress on a lightweight frame that slid under my bed when not in use, and they had made it up with linens donated from their own closets. I didn’t ask who had owned the purple satin comforter that Dyno claimed as her own. True to Isaac’s promise, Jane climbed into the bed, gathered the cat to her and fell instantly asleep.

  Carrying a bottle of wine and two glasses, Evan joined me on the couch, limping less in his sock feet. We both needed showers, which brought to mind all sorts of lascivious activities, but they weren’t happening in my house with Jane asleep only ten feet away. We’d just have to remain stinky. I took a glass of the strong merlot, exchanging it for a sheaf of Davie’s papers and we settled in, a single afghan covering us.

  For an hour, we went through my brother’s papers again, looking for anything that might point to a bad guy. If we didn’t find anything in here, all in all, the day would have proved useless.

  Luck wasn’t with us. Besides the coordinates, the only things that still came up suspicious were the Q Core papers and the antique, ornate key. There was still nothing it could open. I was turning the key around and around in my fingers, watching the way the light hit the tarnished metal, thinking that a necklace designed with an elaborate key pendant might be a great Valentine’s Day item for Bloodstone’s Internet store when Evan’s phone rang.

  “Bartlock. Yeah. On the mountains, hiking.” His brows went up and his gaze went to his sock-covered feet propped on a small table. His toes twitched in pain. “Sure. It was lots of fun. A real vacation.” I grinned at him but he ignored me. After a moment he said, “How good is the source? Yeah? You got someone on him? Okay. Kid’s with her aunt. Yeah. I will. Thanks for the heads-up.” Frowning, he closed the phone.

  I looked my question at him.

  “You won’t like it.” When I didn’t reply, he said, “Seems Quinn has a bit of a gambling problem. A source claims a small-time bookie took his marker, then sold it to a guy in Atlanta. If the source is right, Quinn owes some major bucks to him.”

  The cold from outside crept into my bones. Colin Hornsburn was from Atlanta originally. And hadn’t someone told me that Roman Trio was out of Atlanta? Would a major criminal organization bother to torture Davie? Wouldn’t they just kill him outright? “How much is major bucks?”

  “Close to fifty grand. Local law seems to think the attack in the parking lot was either staged to throw the cops off his trail or was intended as a warning for him to pay up. It could be considered a motive for kidnapping his boss, except that no ransom demand has actually been issued.”

  We both looked at my phone, which had been suspiciously silent. I glanced over to make sure that Jane was still asleep. The cat was on her chest, curled into a ball that rose and fell with Jane’s deep, even breaths. I felt Evan’s eyes on me but didn’t look his way. “That’s not the only thing he just told you, is it?”

  Evan’s cool eyes seemed to measure me. “You were fingerprinted when you applied to work in a day care about nine years ago. The crime techs found your fingerprints on cabinets and dishes in David’s kitchen.”

  “Okay,” I nodded, trying to be agreeable. “Bloodstone was just a dream then. I worked several jobs to support myself after my stepfather died. The day care and thirty screaming tots in dirty diapers lasted a whole day.” And though I seldom went to Davie’s, when I did it was usually to eat supper. I didn’t say this to Evan Bartlock, who seemed to be wavering from cop to family and back again as he watched me. After a short silence, he went on.
>
  “They confiscated old tax records. David was employed by the government for over five years. After a bit of digging, they discovered that he may have worked for the Department of Defense under an assumed name—which, believe me, is impossible—in a bureau called Q Core.” I felt the hairs on the backs of my arms lift in excitement. “We need to discover what the heck Q Core is or was, and what your brother did for all those years.” I nodded. Evan’s eyes sharpened. “Oh, and by the way. When he worked for Q Core? He went by the name David Lowe.”

  When I woke, dawn was streaking the heavens, long golden bands of light against a dark sky, black hills below. I stretched slowly, pulling on muscles I had used in the hike. I was stiff but not painfully so. We had slept through the night, without waking to Jane’s nightmares. I rolled in the warm linens and peeked over the side to the trundle bed. It was empty.

  In an instant, I threw the covers from me and landed with a thump on the cold floor. The bath was vacant. The locks were sealed on the doors. The window-doors to the garden were shut. “Jane?” I called softly.

  The loft felt empty, the way space does when no one has moved in it for hours. “Jane?” I shouted. A rustle summoned me to the kitchen. Jane, unmoving, eyes wide, was curled in a ball on the floor in the corner, pressed into the cabinets. Dyno was in her arms, asleep. “Jane?” I whispered. She stared across the apartment, right through me.

  I fell at her side, touched her. Ice. Like Davie… “Jane.” I gathered her to me. The little girl was chilled through, her flesh so cold she might have spent the night outside. Dyno woke and mewled a protest as I lifted Jane, half crushing the cat between us, and carried them back to my warm bed. I bundled us all under the covers, but knew Jane needed warmth faster than my body heat could give. I crawled back out, found an electric blanket in the armoire and plugged it in, tucking it around Jane beneath the other covers, before I mounded them high over us and cradled her again.

  Her body was so still, her eyes so vacant. What had she seen? Had she been with Davie? And what in the name of all that was holy was I going to do to help her?

  The cell phone was on the bedside table and I dialed Aunt Matilda from memory. The stupid message and the stupid beeps answered me. I wanted to slam the cell against the wall. Instead, I closed it and cuddled my niece.

  Having nothing else I could do, I started talking. I talked about Davie, telling her of her father when he was a boy, how he was such a loner, spending his time with books and writing, with long solitary hikes in the hills he so loved. And I told her how he went away for a time, then came back, bringing with him his beautiful daughter, and how I fell in love with her at first sight. I described her skirt and the shiny shoes she had worn the first time I saw her. Told her how bright her eyes had been, shining and shy.

  The blanket began to warm, giving off little clicks of sound as it heated. As I talked, Jane slowly began to relax. A half hour later, Dyno leaped from the floor and wandered across us with smooth steps, sniffing and purring, sticking her nose into the covers, padding across our pillows, rubbing her face over Jane’s head. Satisfied that she had marked ownership of her human, she bounded back to the floor and settled by her water bowl and kitty-litter box. Jane didn’t react to anything, and I knew she was deeply asleep. But what was I going to do with her? How could I help her?

  11

  Friday, 9 a.m.

  Jane was snoring softly when I pulled the drapes closed to create an ambience of night and safety and went down to help open Bloodstone. I had watched over her for two hours, and though she didn’t move, or wake, she seemed to soften and loosen as she slept, her brow smoothed in true slumber.

  As Jubal, Isaac and I opened the store safe and the locked cabinets, setting out the wares for display, I described Jane’s condition to them and told them I would be staying close today. I babbled an apology about the spring line, jabbered promises to do twice the work once Davie was found, and knew I sounded demented. They were silent, letting me talk. When I ran down, Jubal came over to me, took a display rack from my hands and pulled me into his arms.

  “We’ll take care of the spring line and the store, honey-bunch. It’s under control. You just take care of your family.”

  “You’re going to have to quit calling me that,” I said, and I burst into tears. He let me snivel into his shirt, leaning into him. He held me while I cried until my tears dried themselves. I rested against him and sighed with comfort.

  “Better?”

  “Yeah.” I stood away, hands on his shoulders, and met his true blue eyes. “Thanks. I know you guys will handle the spring-line designs. That won’t make me feel any less guilty, though. I’m going to get some things from the back and take them upstairs. I can do some work up there, which will make me feel better. When Evan comes, will you send him up?”

  “Sure. If you want to work, take the polished bloodstone up and string some sets. A bit of advice?” Jubal didn’t wait to see if I listened. “If you don’t jump that cop’s bones soon, your head will explode.”

  “Jubal’s right,” Noe said. I hadn’t seen her come in. She was bent over a display and stood upright, a mischievous glint in her eyes. “He has a nice ass. You should jump him and get it over with.”

  I laughed shakily and squeezed Jubal’s shoulders. “You guys are shameless.” To Noe I said, “You say every man has a nice ass, and you’re all but married to the green-logger.”

  “Smitten. Not married. Not dead. Do the guy and get it over with. You’ll feel better.”

  I rolled my eyes and unlocked Bloodstone’s front door before going to the workroom. Some comments were not worth a reply, and some would only make me blush, so I retreated. Better part of valor, and all that.

  In the back, I pulled boxes marked in Jubal’s strong block print, BLOODSTONE HEARTS, BLOODSTONE BEADS, and MISC. STONES—GREEN. I gathered a fourth box containing findings: clasps, various silver and gold spacers, leftover pearls and stones from other projects, things I would need. While I worked I heard the first customer come in, the bells over the door tinkling, and registered the sound of voices speaking, though I didn’t catch the words. On top of my pile went a final box of jumbled jump rings, spacers and green glass beads, a tool kit with several kinds of pliers, stringing supplies, needles and thread, scissors and a few odds and ends. While I worked, my thoughts turned to the ornate key I had tucked into my pocket. To keep it safe, I strung it on a thin length of leather and hung it around my neck. If I ever found what it opened, I wanted to have it handy. Arms full, I was ready to go back to Jane.

  Lugging the boxes up the stairs, I entered the loft. The first thing I saw was that the draperies had been thrown open. The logs blazed merrily in the fireplace, and the trundle bed had been put away. My bed was empty. I almost dropped the boxes as I whirled, taking in the apartment with a fast pirouette.

  Sitting at the kitchen table was Jane, her head bent attentively forward. Across from my niece, her back to the tall windows, was Aunt Matilda.

  My mouth fell open. Emotions tumbled across themselves as they raced through me. Shock, anger, relief, gladness, hatred. Jane nodded. “This is so cool,” she said. “It’s like a computer game.”

  Jealousy wrapped itself around me. A red haze tinged my vision.

  Before them on the table was a tin box painted with a stained-glass rendition of an angel. Beside it were three boxes of Tarot cards, and a deck of Tarot cards laid out in the Ha-gall Spread. Seven cards in three vertical rows, two cards to the left, two to the right, and three down the middle, with three across the bottom as if the upper seven rested on them.

  Fury bubbled up in me. Without looking, I found a place to set the boxes and moved toward the kitchen table.

  Aunt Matilda’s voice, melodic and soothing, said, “The Hagall Spread is a tool for revealing the path of spiritual growth in difficult situations. It is a favorite of mystics and those confronting a major life challenge.”

  Neither looked up at me as I approached. I focused on the ope
n tin box to the side and fought the desire to grab it to me. It was mine, and my mother’s before me! It had been in my trunk. Aunt Matilda had gone through my things. I gathered my growing anger about me like armor.

  “The Knight of Swords is the significator card you have chosen. While it isn’t seen, and is hidden beneath the center card, it influences and directs all the other cards and they must be interpreted by its strengths and weaknesses. The Knight is a fearless and skillful warrior, a tornado, unfettered by emotion or material concerns. A card of action, indicating one able to boldly take on challenges that others consider terrifying or insurmountable.”

  “Challenges? Like my gift?” Jane asked.

  “Indeed. The Knight of Swords is a person who inspires fear and awe through the purity of his purpose and the intensity of his intellect.” Aunt Matilda didn’t look up from the cards, but her voice caressed, as if no one in the world existed for her in that moment but Jane.

  “Does it have to be a guy?”

  “Oh, no. A woman may be this Knight, for she is one who accepts quests, missions of great importance, fraught with danger. The desire to save David is such a quest as a Knight of Swords might accept. She is one who is outspoken, who speaks frankly. Your choice of this card represents your heart and your purpose. It may portend the swift initiation or conclusion of a conflict. A decisive invocation of force.”

  “You will not do this in my house,” I said. Fury rose in me, a slow, steady swelling of power. “You will not.”

  “It’s Aunt Tyler. She’s the Knight of Swords.”

  I stopped, caught in the trap of Jane’s pronouncement.

  “Ah. Then you were not thinking of yourself when you chose the Knight?”