by Tasha Black
Including Indiana, there were five players. He already knew Mr. Travers, of course, and he had met Ed and the small older man from this morning.
The final arrival was a man with a neatly trimmed silver beard. He was chatting with the server, looking her up and down as if he were trying to figure out how much air she would displace in a vacuumizer tunnel. He must have been the replacement for the disgraced Flanders.
Indiana was just wondering if it was in any way significant that a mustached man had been replaced by a bearded one, when Travers headed over to the table.
“What, are you all afraid?” Travers trumpeted. He laughed and seated himself next to Indiana. “Where’s your drink? Hey, Michaela, where’s his drink?”
The server looked up gratefully, gave a little wave and left the man with the silver beard to head to the kitchen.
“Charming girl,” said the man as he headed over to the table.
“Sure, Rex, sure,” Travers said. “Keep it in your pants. Rex, this is Indiana. Indiana, Rex.”
“A pleasure,” Rex said in a bored way, offering Indiana his hand.
“Good to meet you, sir,” Indiana said, shaking the man’s hand.
By then Ed and the wiry little man from the morning had arrived.
“Ed,” Rex said, nodding to him. “Alan,” he said with a nod at the smaller man.
“You all know the rules,” Travers said. “Buy-in is a grand.”
Indiana swallowed hard. He knew how much money that was. And he did not have a thousand dollars.
“Don’t worry, boy,” Travers said. “I’ve got you covered, just this once. A scholarship.”
Ed and Rex exchanged a significant look.
But Travers only chuckled.
“I’ve got a paternal side, what can I say? And I always take care of the people who take care of me.”
He gave Indiana a meaningful look, although Indy wasn’t exactly sure what the meaning was supposed to be.
“Thank you,” Indiana said quietly.
The game began.
The pace was slow and the players were bullshitting a lot about women and cars.
Michaela came in and out regularly with drinks.
It didn’t take Indy long to memorize the cards and pick up on the players’ tells. But he didn’t use any of the info to put himself at a notable advantage.
Instead, he played just well enough that he could stay in the game without availing himself of a second favor from Travers.
While one part of his mind recorded the players’ behaviors, the rest of him focused on the conversation.
These guys had obviously been playing together for a long time. They fell into an easy talk. By staying quiet, Indy hoped he would begin to blend into the background enough for them to feel comfortable talking business.
He was able to work things so that Travers won big in the first couple of hands.
Travers was laughing and smiling and asking Michaela to bring him another Scotch on the rocks after his second winning hand.
When he won the third, Rex threw down his cards.
“Damn it, Travers,” he said.
Travers cackled and pulled the pile of bills toward himself. “Doesn’t matter, you got it all from me anyway, right?”
Rex cracked a smile.
“Thanks for the tip on DeBeers,” he said.
“My pleasure,” Travers winked.
“What tip on DeBeers?” Alan whined.
“Easy, Alan,” Ed said quietly. “Little pitchers…”
“What the hell, Sam?” Alan continued.
“It was no biggie,” Travers said dismissively.
“But—” Alan protested.
“Enough,” Travers said firmly. “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” he continued with a smile.
Alan shut his mouth and sat down again.
Indiana wondered what DeBeers might be. At least it gave him some clue about what to look for. It seemed that Travers didn’t want to talk about trading in front of him. Though maybe he would feel more comfortable as the summer wore on.
Or maybe Travers would never invite him here again.
The cook took the pot of whatever he had been stirring off the stove and Michaela joined him in the kitchen as he ladled tiny portions into a tray of small ramekins.
Now was Indy’s chance.
When Travers began to deal again, Indiana put a hand to his sleeve.
“I’ll sit this one out,” he said. “Where’s your bathroom?”
“Too many Cuba Libres, eh, son?” Travers chuckled. Down the hall, on the right.”
Indy hadn’t drunk any Cuba Libres, only the one rum and Coke, which he didn’t finish because the taste made him suspicious, but he saw no need to argue. He got up and headed in the direction Travers had pointed.
He could hear the sounds of the ladle hitting the side of the pan in the kitchen, and the quiet talk of the men at the card table.
So far as he could tell, there was no one else in the apartment.
Indiana headed in the direction of the bathroom.
Just past the door on the right that Travers had described, stood a set of double doors on the opposite side of the hall.
Indiana turned and looked back the way he’d come.
No one in sight.
He crept up to the double doors and turned one handle very gently.
The door opened with merciful silence, and he found himself inside a huge bedroom. A wall of windows opened onto the same lakeside view as the living room.
He pulled the door shut behind him and looked around.
A roll-top desk and leather office chair sat in one corner.
Indiana went immediately to the desk, but it was locked, of course.
He looked around for the obvious place to hide the key, and saw the little black book - the one Kitt had retrieved for Travers at the restaurant - sitting on the bedside table.
Wondering if the book might contain a clue to the whereabouts of the key, he picked it up.
The first page was just a strange list of abbreviations and numbers. Indy wondered what they might mean.
He thumbed through and randomly came to a page with words.
May - DeBeers stock to split - via Charles H. Board mtg 3/5
DeBeers… It must have been what Rex was talking about.
He scanned the rest of the page and flipped to the next one, scanned it, and moved on to the one after that.
The sound of footsteps didn’t reach his ears until it was too late.
He had thought it was a good thing that the door opened silently. But now someone was right behind him in this massive room.
Quickly, he slipped the book back onto the table and turned, bracing himself for Travers to punch him in the face.
But it wasn’t Travers.
Michaela stood before him instead. Her drink tray was gone. And her green eyes were twinkling.
“Hey, big guy,” she said.
“I-uh, I was looking for the bathroom,” Indiana stammered.
“Well, you found something better,” she murmured and ran a hand up his chest.
“What did I find?” he asked, mystified, and hoping she didn’t mean the book with all the numbers in it. She didn’t look angry, so perhaps she wasn’t loyal to her employer.
She didn’t answer. Instead, she removed her hand from his chest and moved it slowly to her own, and began to unbutton her blouse from the top.
Oh.
Indiana was flattered that this woman wished to mate with him, but he had already selected Nikki as his mate, whether she would have him or not.
“Michaela,” a voice said from the hallway.
“Damn it,” she muttered.
“Coming,” she called back.
“We’ll finish this later,” she whispered.
She slipped out the door before he could say another word.
He waited five seconds and then followed, grateful that no one was in the hallway.
When he got back to the living room, the
players were taking a break.
“You get lost back there, boy?” Travers chuckled.
Indiana laughed too.
Michaela looked up at him from where she was pouring drinks in the kitchen, grinned and winked.
He had hoped to get back into the room and read more of the little book. But there was no way he was going to get anything more tonight with Travers noting his absence and the server clearly expecting to mate with him if he got cut off from the herd again.
Of course he would remember all he had seen already.
He only hoped it would be enough.
Nikki
Nikki was going crazy waiting for Indiana.
She had been over the moon with excitement when he told her he’d been invited to the real poker game, but the more she considered it, the more she realized that she hadn’t really thought it all the way through.
Indiana had such a cool, confident way about him.
But by Earth’s social standards he was practically a baby.
She couldn’t help feeling like she had sent a lamb into the lions’ den.
Honey, Addy, Kitt and Remington all sat around the sofa in the women’s cabin, laughing and playing a card game. They didn’t comment when Nikki decided not to join them.
But when she started pacing, Honey finally spoke up.
“Hey, is everything okay?”
“Oh, yeah,” Nikki replied brightly. “I think I’m going to go for a walk.”
She set out before they could ask any follow-up questions.
Nikki walked down to the lake, all the way to the boathouse and grabbed a canoe.
The physical work of getting it into the water and paddling out from the shore made her start to feel better right away. The cool night air was a distraction, too.
She got the boat well into the lake, and around the island to the town side of it. Her cell phone reception was better out here and the line of sight gave her total privacy with the island blocking the view to Maxwell’s.
Besides, it was best not to be able to see the glow of the lights up in the Crow’s Nest at the lodge if she wanted to remain calm.
She meant to call one of her sisters and ask about the kids, she really did.
But instead she found her fingers dancing out her mentor’s number.
Nala picked up immediately.
“Nikki,” she said. “Is that you?”
“Yes, it’s me.” Nikki smiled at the sound of the other woman’s voice. Just talking to her made Nikki feel grounded in the real world - the world outside Maxwell’s, outside her own life, where everything was normal and decisions were easy.
“How’s it going?” Nala sounded justifiably suspicious. Nikki didn’t normally call so late.
“Kind of crazy,” Nikki said.
“Go on.”
“Well, he figured out what I am,” she admitted.
“Indiana?”
“Yes,” she said, realizing she was probably giving herself away by referring to the main ‘he’ in her life so casually. “Indiana.”
“How did this happen?”
“Well, for a lot of reasons,” Nikki said. “But mostly he was just paying attention. And he followed me one day. I guess anyone who was suspicious of me would probably figure it out. I’m just an undercover journalist, not a trained Russian spy.”
Nala laughed. “Well, it was a good run, baby,” she told Nikki. “But I guess you’ll be home soon.”
“No,” Nikki said.
“Your cover is blown,” Nala said.
“He knows why I came in the first place,” Nikki said. “But he doesn’t know about my alien article.”
“Oh,” Nala said. Nikki could practically hear her mentor’s wheels turning in the silence that followed.
“He’s helping me,” Nikki added.
“Oh, Nikki, be careful,” the older woman said mournfully.
“He would never betray me,” Nikki said.
Nala made a noncommittal sound, somewhere between a grunt and a sigh.
Nikki began to think about the day at the pavilion, how oddly Indy had been acting. Maybe he was having second thoughts…
“You’re on dangerous ground,” Nala said.
If she only knew. But no way was Nikki going to share that she had practically slept with him too. Though her mentor was intuitive enough she wondered if she knew already.
“Do you hear me?” Nala sounded very worried. “I want you to be careful.”
“Yes,” Nikki said. “I will, I promise.”
And in her own head, she promised she would put the romance on ice. Nala was right, she needed to cool it, at least until they had evidence on Travers.
She’s your mentor. She’s been around the block. You need to think with your head, not your heart, Nikki.
It was good advice.
But the thought made her feel hollow inside.
Wade
Wade Travers did a little dance of sheer happiness.
He wasn’t much for dancing, unless he could feel up Honey while he was doing it.
But this intel was just too good.
He had known something was up with Nikki Fortune. She never partied like the rest of them, never hooked up with anyone. All she ever wanted to do was play tennis, though by his dad’s account she sucked at it.
But now it all made sense. She wasn’t at Maxwell’s to be a drama teacher - she was a journalist, there to write a story about those goofy aliens.
Breaking her up from Indiana with this info would be like taking candy from a baby.
Candy sounded good, actually.
He slipped his phone from his pocket.
Wade:
Hey, I need some candy. And another bottle. Not a girly drink this time.
Jim:
What kind of candy?
Wade:
I dunno, just candy. Bring it now, I gotta think.
He threw the phone on the bed before Jim could quiz him to death.
He needed to think and he needed to sleep. The night noises were getting worse and worse. The past few nights, he’d had a hard time drifting off until the sun was rising over the lake.
And this morning, when he went downstairs, he could have sworn someone had been looking through his stuff.
That wasn’t possible though. He would have known if someone had come here. And no one ever did. Except Jim.
His mind went back to the waving curtain in the living room.
He shivered and then put it out of his mind.
He was going to be out of here soon. He just needed to focus.
Wade grabbed his notebook.
Underneath where he had slashed out Nikki & Indiana = Honey & Kitt, he began to write again.
1) Tell Indiana that Nikki is writing about him and the other goofy aliens.
2) Tell Honey and Addy that Nikki is undercover.
3) Watch them all lose their shit.
He underlined item number three and then made a quick drawing of six stick figures looking dismayed.
Excellent.
Yes, that was exactly how it was going to be.
The wind blew and the house began to groan. Something on the stairs creaked.
Suddenly the ghost story was in his head again. He could hear his dad telling it over the fire pit one summer when Wade was little. The old man had knocked back a few, and his face was red and swollen. In the firelight he had looked almost demonic.
Little Wade had shivered as he listened.
“There’s a cabin on that island. Do you know why they call it the honeymoon cabin?”
Wade shook his head and the teenagers all giggled.
“Back in the 1800s,” his dad continued, “all of Maxwell’s belonged to one family.”
Wade could see that his dad liked that idea. If one family owned it all they must have been rich. And Wade’s dad respected money.
“The tradition back then,” his dad told them, “was for newlyweds to row across the lake to the island and spend their honeymoon in t
otal privacy.”
At that point, his dad waggled his eyebrows and the teenagers all laughed.
“The last time the honeymoon cabin was used,” his dad said, leaning in confidentially so that the firelight made his face seem to dance, “the family’s oldest daughter was getting married. Back then, younger girls couldn’t get married until their older sister had married, or else she would be considered an old maid. And this older sister was picky.”
Wade’s father’s nose wrinkled up at the idea of a picky woman, so Wade wrinkled up his little nose too.
“Finally she chose someone. Some guy who everyone had thought was interested in her little sister. Anyway, he asked the older sister to marry him. Her parents were happy. The sister was happy. Everyone was happy.”
Then Wade’s dad would lean in even closer, and his voice would drop to a stage whisper.
“Until the day of the wedding. That was when the younger sister disappeared while everybody else was dancing. Her parents sent servants to try and find her in the places she liked to spend time - the strawberry patch, the pavilion…”
“The pavilion?” little Wade had echoed, astonished that the very pavilion where he played was a place where the little sister had played.
“Yes.” His father nodded. “Anyway, at twilight the oldest daughter and her new husband rowed across the lake, as planned.
“They got to the cabin, and she was scared when she saw a big rifle hanging over the front door in the living room. The husband explained that it was in case of bears or wolves on the island. He offered her a snack of tea and biscuits, which he told her the servants had packed for them.
“She took the cup and plate, but she was too nervous to eat or drink. Not wanting to hurt his feelings, she waited until he left the room for a moment, and then dumped the biscuit in the trash and the tea in the mug out the window.
“Then he invited her to bed,” Wade’s dad said with another raise of his eyebrows.
Predictably the teenagers laughed. But Wade didn’t understand why they thought it was funny to go to sleep. Of course he knew better now. Sex jokes were the best.
“And so she went into the bedroom first,” his dad continued, “and changed into her nightgown. Then she crawled into bed and waited for him.
