So what had changed?
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
CHAPTER TWO
The store was probably the last place I felt like going the next morning, but Kara hadn’t come back to work full-time yet, so it was my duty to run the place most days. Things had been glacially slow, and I wasn’t looking forward to yet another day of clock watching.
You’d think the weeks leading up to Christmas would be busy for us, but Sedona actually tended to be dead until right after the holiday. People wanted to come into town for the week between Christmas and New Year’s, and even right afterward into the first of January, but before then? Not so much. Oh, yeah, there was always the influx of pagan types who wanted to be around the vortexes on the solstice. Unfortunately, they tended to spend all their money on new crystals for their collections and not on UFO literature and alien-motif tchotchkes.
I placed a king-size travel mug filled with green tea on the counter, then pulled my MacBook Pro out of my backpack and set it up on the counter, plugging an ethernet cable into its designated port. Kara didn’t bother with wifi, but at least she did have high-speed internet. Since business had been so slow, I just worked on my clients’ projects in between helping the odd customer here and there. A string of brass bells hung from the door, ready to announce the arrival of whatever tourists did decide to show up.
The fears of the night before seemed to have blown away with the clouds and the snow. This morning was fiercely bright, the sun glinting off the patches of snow that still survived. The ridge lines would probably stay white for several days as long as the temperature didn’t rise too much, but the slippery streets I’d had to navigate on my way home from Kara’s were already a memory.
My newest client owned an art gallery in West Sedona, and wanted a site that would help showcase her art and draw more customers out to that part of town. I was glad I could use HTML5 to build an animated portfolio that wouldn’t be a drag on slower customers’ computers — or not show up at all on devices like iPads and iPhones, which wouldn’t even support Flash. Playing with the code helped take my mind off that sensation of unbearable pressure I’d felt the night before, that wave of cold, that sound of hellish voices murmuring words I couldn’t understand.
I’d almost called Jeff this morning but decided against it. If he wanted to hash things over, he knew where to find me. Besides, I knew for a fact he wasn’t an early riser and probably wouldn’t have appreciated a phone call any time before noon.
Maybe I was sticking my head in the sand. Of course I wouldn’t bother Kara with this — and I didn’t feel close enough yet to Lance to open up to him — but maybe I should tell Michael Lightfoot what had happened. He was always calm, considerate, never judgmental, sort of the uncle I’d never had, a sympathetic ear when I needed one. I somehow doubted Jeff would talk to Michael, although he might decide to say something to Lance.
Great. If that happened, then Lance would probably give me shit for not mentioning the incident to him first. Some days it seemed I just couldn’t win with Lance.
The bells on the door jingled, and I looked up from my laptop. A couple of tourists in their thirties, probably from Southern California, judging by the way they were overly bundled up against the forty-degree temperatures outside.
I pulled a smile out of somewhere. “Welcome to the UFO Depot. Can I help you?”
“Oh, we’re just browsing,” the woman said, giving me that funny side-eyed look I was used to by now, the look that always seemed to ask, “Do you really believe in this stuff?”
“Okay,” I said, knowing better than to say anything else. “Just let me know if you need anything.” And I returned my attention to my computer screen, switching to a mindless task like resizing images in Photoshop so I wouldn’t completely lose track of what I was doing if they did end up buying something.
And although I’d pegged them as lookie-loos, the husband did actually buy one of the “I Had a Close Encounter in Sedona, Arizona!” T-shirts. His wife didn’t look overly thrilled with his purchase, leading me to guess they probably wouldn’t be having a close encounter of their own when they got back to their hotel room.
Then they left, and quiet descended once again. Kara tended to play dreamy New Age space-themed music when she tended the store, but I could only handle so much of that stuff. I was pretty sure she wouldn’t be too happy if I blasted the Foo Fighters or Arcade Fire, so I went with silence instead. Besides, it was easier for me to concentrate on my real work without a distracting soundtrack.
The bells on the door jingled again. In the middle of saving a file, I said automatically, “Welcome to the UFO De — ” And the words sort of caught in my throat, because I looked up on the last syllable and realized that my latest visitor wasn’t a tourist at all, but Martin Jones, Kara’s erstwhile Man in Black.
Okay, he wasn’t really “her” Man in Black the way Grayson had definitely been “her” alien-human hybrid super-soldier, but since she was the first one to meet Agent Jones, I’d always sort of labeled him that way in my mind.
Well, when I wasn’t privately referring to him as “sex in a suit.”
I’d last seen him in August when he’d stopped in the store, looking for Kara. He’d disappeared soon after Grayson performed his sabotage on the alien base in Secret Canyon, and we’d all sort of assumed that he’d gone back to wherever MIBs hung out. Too bad, since he was awfully easy on the eyes.
But now he was here, looking even more gorgeous than I remembered, a long wool overcoat half hiding the trademark black suit, aviator shades covering his eyes. The suit was enough to make him stand out in Sedona, even aside from his good looks; the high-desert town wasn’t exactly business-suit territory. Dress shirts and ties for the waiters in some of the higher-end restaurants, and for some of the guys who worked in the local banks and so on, but a full-on suit?
“Hello, Kiki,” Agent Jones said, his tone casual, as if dropping into my store out of the blue was no big deal.
“Kirsten,” I replied automatically, wishing I’d never bestowed the nickname on myself. Getting everyone to stop calling me that was a Sisyphean battle at best, but necessary if I wanted people to start taking me seriously.
“Kirsten,” he repeated, and smiled.
That smile did certain things to portions of my anatomy that I really didn’t want to think about. I closed my laptop. “Kara’s not working today.”
“I know.” He moved a little farther into the shop, pausing a foot or so from the counter I was sitting behind. “So how do you like being an aunt?”
“It’s great,” I said. I wasn’t about to let him rattle me. So sure, he knew about the baby. How much he knew about the baby, well…that was the $64,000 question, wasn’t it? I mean, you didn’t have to be a government agent to know that Kara Swenson, owner of the UFO Depot, had just adopted a baby. It wasn’t as if she was hiding Grace under a rock.
“Good.” His smile faded a little. “I actually didn’t come in here to see Kara. I came here to see you.”
“You did?” Normally I would have been happy enough to learn that a guy of Martin Jones’ caliber had come into the store expressly to see me. When the hot guy in question is a Man in Black, though, that sort of statement isn’t always a good thing.
“Yes.” He paused and glanced away from me, as if taking in the clutter of alien-themed merchandise, from the crowded bookshelves on the far wall to the stacks of T-shirts and the alien plush dolls on the low tables. God knows what he thought of all that stuff. Taken in aggregate, it did look pretty silly, even though I knew the creatures that had inspired it were no laughing matter.
And I sort of doubted Agent Jones’ presence here, the day after those aliens had decided to let me know that they hadn’t taken a powder after all, was exactly a coincidence.
The silence stretched out for a minute, but I wasn’t about to break it, no matter how uncomfortable it might feel. If he’d come here to tell me something, then he could just tell me. He w
as going to find out real fast that I wasn’t a game-playing kind of girl.
“Been quiet here lately?”
“Oh, well, we’re mostly busy right after Christmas,” I told him, even though I knew he wasn’t really asking about business.
He reached up and took off his sunglasses. The blue-gray of his eyes was a little shocking against his olive skin and dark hair. I’d just assumed he must have brown eyes, judging by his coloring.
Gorgeous as they were, those eyes were just a little too piercing. “I wasn’t talking about the store.”
“Oh?”
“Do you want to talk about what happened last night?”
Uh-oh. I cleared my throat and said, “Not really.”
“It would be smarter for you if you did.”
“Is that a threat?”
He looked a little taken aback at my words. “No. As I once told your sister, we’re on the same side.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, nonplussed. Wow, that was eloquent. To cover my confusion, I reached over for my mug of green tea and took a long sip. “I’m not sure what you want me to say,” I went on. “I mean, it sounds as if you already know what happened.”
“I know something happened. I want to know exactly what it was.”
“Well, then, you’re doomed to disappointment, because I don’t know exactly what it was, either. If anything.”
He just stood there, waiting, watching me with those improbable blue eyes. I’d never thought of myself as someone who rattled easily, but it was really hard to meet that stare and not want to spill everything.
Then, again, he’d probably been doing this for a while. I wondered exactly how long, and how old he was. Translation: I wondered how much older he was than I. Ten years? Twelve? He looked like he was somewhere in his mid-thirties.
Not relevant, Kiki! I scolded myself. “Not much to say. I mean, I could’ve just been having a galloping case of the heebie-jeebies.”
One eyebrow lifted. “Heebie-jeebies?”
“Okay, maybe it was a little more than that. But really, it just felt dark and cold and…heavy. The solar lights went out. And I heard something.”
“Something like what?” His tone was calm enough, but I caught a little edge to it that I didn’t like, as if even Martin Jones the super-cool MIB was hearing something he didn’t particularly care for.
“Just…voices.” I stopped for a moment, forcing myself to recall that faint but somehow hostile murmuring I had heard at the outer limits of my perception, as if hundreds or even thousands of beings were speaking all at once. “Not words or anything. I couldn’t even tell you if it sounded human. Just this weird murmur, rising and falling. Jeff didn’t hear it.”
“Jeff Makowski.”
I didn’t bother to ask how he knew who Jeff was. “Yeah, he was with me over at Kara’s house. But Gort sure heard it…and he didn’t like it.”
Martin Jones didn’t ask me who Gort was. I supposed he’d met the dog when he came to first question Kara in August, just after she had her buzz-by — briefly celebrated on YouTube before the powers-that-be pulled the plug — from a UFO while trying to conduct a tour.
Needless to say, we hadn’t offered any UFO tours since then.
“And how did it make you feel?”
How did it make me feel? What the hell was this, a session with my shrink? I crossed my arms. “Well, it didn’t make me feel all warm and fuzzy, that’s for sure.”
He didn’t crack a smile. “It’s…worrisome…that they would make their presence known to you like that.”
“You’re not exactly inspiring confidence here, Agent Jones.”
This time his lips quirked a little. But his expression sobered again just as quickly. “That wasn’t my intention.”
“So what are your intentions?” It slipped out before I realized what I was saying, and then I felt a stupid flush spread over my cheeks. Great, now he probably thinks you’re a complete airhead!
But obviously a good poker face was as much a part of MIB training as chasing aliens and interrogating abductees, because he didn’t even let out a betraying twitch this time. “To keep an eye on things, Kirsten. The time of year is…troubling.”
“What, you’re not into the whole holiday-spirit thing?”
“It’s not the holidays, per se. It’s the astronomical event taking place before that.”
It was my turn to raise an eyebrow. “Oh, come on. You’re not seriously talking about the solstice, are you?”
“Why should that surprise you?”
“Well, because — ” I broke off, made a dismissive gesture with one hand. “I mean, sorry, Agent Jones, but you don’t look like the type to be dancing around naked at the solstice with the rest of the pagans.” Although that’s something I’d pay to see….
“True, that’s not something I have a habit of doing.”
I had the distinct impression he was teasing me, so I just said, “But you think the solstice is important.”
“I know it’s important.” He frowned. “Unfortunately, so do the aliens.”
“And…? What do you expect us to do about it? I mean, thanks for the vote of confidence, but it seems as if we’ve been doing you guys’ work for you lately, so it would be kind of nice if we got a little help, you know?”
His gaze shifted away from mine. “I can’t say for sure yet. But if anything else happens, call me.” And he reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a card, then laid it on the counter next to my laptop.
I glanced at it quickly, noting the FBI logo at the top, and then saw his name with “special agent” after it, and a Phoenix-area phone number below that. Who knew it would be that easy to get his number? However, I sort of got the feeling he wouldn’t exactly be amused if I called him up later and asked him out for drinks.
“Thanks,” I said, and picked up the card and shoved it in my jeans pocket. I could transfer it to my wallet later. Looking back up at him, I added, “It’s only ten days until the solstice. Cutting it a little close, aren’t you?”
“This was the first time they’ve made any sort of move here in town,” he replied calmly. “It may be nothing.”
“But you don’t think so.”
“No, I don’t.”
A thought struck me, as I realized for the first time he’d come here by himself, instead of as part of a team. “Seems like kind of a big thing to take on by yourself. Where’s your partner?”
A grim smile. “He was reassigned. Take care, Kirsten.”
And he turned and went back out the door, leaving me to stare after him, wondering what the hell his visit had been about.
Ten days to the solstice. Ten days until…what?
I decided then that I’d better talk to Michael Lightfoot, stat.
* * *
Actually, “stat” was more like six hours later, after I’d finished a full shift at the UFO Depot and could close the place up and get the hell out of there. I did call Michael not too long after Martin Jones had left, telling him I needed to see him at his place when I was off work, so at least Michael was expecting me.
No cozy summertime chat on his patio this time, with the warm winds in the trees and a fire going in the fire pit. No, the temperature had fallen to 35 degrees outside by the time I pulled up in front of Michael’s place. I was happy to see smoke billowing out of the chimney and to smell the scent of burning mesquite on the air, so I knew Michael had a good fire going indoors.
He greeted me solemnly and led me inside, to his front room with its mishmash of Southwestern tchotchkes and mismatched furniture and assorted souvenirs. More than once Kara had made a derisive comment about all the shops in Tlaquepaque Village throwing up in Michael’s house all at the same time, but I sort of liked the clutter. Not that I’d want to live with it myself, necessarily, but there was something comforting about it when I went to visit.
Obviously he’d guessed from my tone of voice that this wasn’t going to be an ordinary chat; I spied two glasses of red wine si
tting on the banged-up coffee table. Or maybe he’d just psychically divined that I was more than a little freaked out. Either way, I wasn’t going to argue with a glass of cabernet…or malbec, or whatever it was.
“Thanks, Michael,” I said, as I shrugged out of my coat and hung it on the coat tree by the door. “I really didn’t want to bug Kara with this…”
“It’s no problem. We are all here for each other, after all.”
Some of us more than others, I thought, but I just smiled and went over to the couch, then sat down and picked up a glass of wine. After taking a sip, I was doubly glad that I’d gotten over my beer and tequila phase pretty quickly. There’s a reason why they call it “ta-kill-ya,” and beer just makes me feel bloated, but a glass of wine tends to make everything seem better. My palate wasn’t developed enough yet for me to say for sure what I was drinking, although I knew it wasn’t heavy enough for a cab. Pinot noir, maybe? Not that it really mattered, I supposed.
I waited to say anything until Michael sat down opposite me, but once he was there, it seemed harder than I’d thought it would be to tell him what was going on. We’d all had such a quiet autumn — even with Kara going away to New Mexico to have Grace — and I supposed we all had been hoping that maybe that was the end of it, that this time the aliens had decided to go elsewhere.
No such luck.
Well, a little more wine couldn’t hurt. Maybe it would help unfreeze my tongue. I drank again, then blurted, “I think they’re back.”
He didn’t bother to ask who. “So you felt it, too.”
“You did? I mean — last night? That whatever it was?”
“‘Whatever it was’ is a good way of putting it.” Michael finally lifted his own glass and took a slow, measured sip. “It’s interesting that you felt it, though. You might want to talk to Persephone about that.”
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