sedona files - books one to three

by Christine Pope

  If it had been someone else, I might have tried to read something into that statement. So he wanted me to meet him at his place? But even if what I’d seen in his eyes was real, he had no reason to try to get me alone. We were alone right now, after all.

  “Okay. Where?”

  “I’ll call you.” He finally moved away from the window, but instead of coming toward me, as I halfway hoped he would, he headed to the door. “The best thing you can do is get some rest. You’re going to need all your strength.” With those ominous words he let himself out, slipping away into the night.

  Great. Well, at least he’d offered me a shoulder to cry on, even if it was only for a few minutes. Fighting back a sigh, I pushed myself off the couch and went to secure the deadbolt and the chain latch on the door, although I was pretty sure neither one of them would do much to keep out the aliens if they really wanted to get in.

  But I did somehow find the energy to limp into the bathroom, to clean myself up a little so I could go to bed. Martin Jones had told me to rest, so I would try my best even though my brain didn’t want to shut itself off. As I lay down, reassured a little by the soft glow of the stained-glass nightlight on one wall, I tried to push back the images of my mother’s still-lovely but troubled face, the sound of her voice telling me that I’d seen her dreams, that my father couldn’t possibly be an ordinary man.

  I rolled over and squashed my pillow, attempting to find a more comfortable position. It didn’t help that when I forced my mother’s face out of my mind, it was only replaced by that of Martin Jones — the firm chin, the mouth that I found just a bit too distracting. How was it that I’d lived in this apartment for a whole year and slept alone that whole time without it ever bothering me, and yet now all I could think about was how it would feel if I had him next to me, had him to hold me close and keep the dark and the cold and the fear at bay?

  Okay, now you’re being completely stupid, I told myself. Go the hell to sleep.

  I shut my eyes, willed away Martin Jones and Marybeth Swenson and the aliens in Secret Canyon. Time enough for that tomorrow. At least there would be a tomorrow. I didn’t know about what would happen five days from now…

  * * *

  Because reception had been so bad on the drive back from Taos, I’d put my phone into “airplane” mode and basically forgotten about it. When I staggered out of bed the next morning, though, I saw I had four texts from Jeff, in escalating tones of annoyance, culminating in “I can’t believe you would leave w/o talking to me first. Call me!” That was Jeff — he refused to use textspeak even to save letters.

  That wasn’t the worst, though. Those were the messages from Kara, also expressing her dismay that I would skip town without discussing it with her, along with the added bonus of her guilting me about getting Michael to cover my shifts at the store. “He’s not a temp agency, you know,” she snapped during the last message before hanging up.

  I found that a little rich, considering that she’d used Michael a time or ten to watch the store when I wasn’t available. Not that I didn’t understand her worry, but still… I decided to chalk it up to hormones but knew I’d have to talk to her. It wasn’t fair to keep from her where I’d been, who I’d spoken to. And probably better to do that first and get it out of the way so I’d have the rest of my day to talk to Martin. I’d have to hope that he planned to spend a little more than ten minutes talking to me. Our exchanges lately had been pretty brief.

  After a long shower and two cups of tea, I felt a little more human…or at least as human as my questionable parentage would allow me to be. I even went to the Secret Garden Café and treated myself to a slice of their heavenly quiche lorraine, figuring that if I were about to get ripped a new one by Kara, at least I could do it on a full stomach. My plan was to drop off the Jeep after I ate and retrieve the van, then hit the store about fifteen minutes before it opened at ten. At least that way Kara would have a finite amount of time to yell at me.

  Henry was already at Sunrise Jeep when I got there, of course. He looked a little surprised when I came in just past nine-thirty, since I’d told him I probably wouldn’t be back in Sedona until the late afternoon.

  “Small change of plans,” I said as I handed him the keys. “I filled up on the way over. I didn’t have time to get it washed, but I figured with the weather the way it’s been, that’s not too much of a problem.”

  “No problem at all. The tourists like the dirt — makes the Jeeps look like they’ve been well used.” A quick glance, as if he could tell something was wrong but couldn’t quite put his finger on it. “Drive went okay?”

  “Oh, yeah, flawless. Anyway, I’ve got to run.”

  He let me go without further inquiries, thank God. I was less than thrilled about having to go get a lecture from my big sister, but frankly, after confronting our mother, Kara didn’t seem quite as scary.

  Driving the UFO Night Tours van was a little like having to steer a Coke can on wheels after that Jeep, but I told myself to suck it up. Maybe after the alien apocalypse was averted I’d have time to worry about whether or not I should buy a new car.

  In the meantime…

  I pulled into the UFO Depot’s parking lot, noting that Kara’s Prius was already sitting there. Great. There went the element of surprise. But at least I had my own key and so could come in through the back entrance, the one that opened into the shop’s minuscule storage room.

  Not that it did me any real good. Kara was still waiting to pounce.

  “I can’t believe you would take off like that without telling anyone!”

  First rule of sibling guerrilla warfare is to always have a comeback ready. “I did tell someone. I told Michael.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. Just like Grace had been the miracle baby, Kara was sort of the miracle mom. Sure, that chest was a little bigger than usual, but overall the baby weight had fallen off her like it did those Hollywood stars who were back to a size four less than a month after giving birth…except that Kara didn’t have a team of trainers and nutritionists working for her. I didn’t know quite how she’d managed it, unless the weight loss was another byproduct of Grace’s part-alien DNA.

  “Telling Michael isn’t enough. You should’ve called me.” Kara paused to catch her breath, then looked at me a little more closely, as if seeing something of the strain of the last two days in my face. “Where did you go, anyway?”

  Moment of truth. I sucked in a breath and let it out. “I went to see Marybeth.” Somehow after that encounter I’d stopped even mentally referring to her as my mother.

  “You what?”

  “I went to see her in Taos.”

  “In Taos,” Kara repeated, as if that were the pertinent element of my reply. “In this weather?”

  “I borrowed a Jeep from Henry at Sunrise.”

  My sister usually wasn’t at a loss for words, but I could tell I’d flummoxed her. She turned away from me and went to the table where the T-shirts were stacked, reaching out to straighten them (even though they were in perfect order) as if that was the only thing her brain could handle at the moment. After a long pause, she said in a low voice, “How was she?”

  “Great,” I said. “She looks like a Ralph Lauren model. Married some rich guy. You should see her house — and her shop.”

  “Shop?” Kara echoed faintly.

  “I think she does jewelry design or something. Very ritzy. I’m guessing the resort crowd just eats that stuff up.”

  “I need to sit down.” Abruptly she moved away from the table and sort of collapsed in her chair behind the counter. “Kiki…why?”

  I ignored the use of my old nickname, figuring I should forgive the lapse in this moment of stress. “Because Agent Jones said I should.”

  At his name her head went up, just the way Gort’s did when he heard something he didn’t quite like. “Agent Jones?”

  “Turns out his instincts were right. Marybeth had some interesting information for me — namely, that she’s pr
etty sure my father wasn’t just your run-of-the-mill barfly but some sort of otherworldly being. She didn’t know whether he was an alien or an angel, but I guess that doesn’t really matter so much. Oh, and apparently I have some sort of weird psychic powers that I’ve been repressing all this time. Who knew?”

  During this speech Kara’s eyes kept growing wider and wider. Finally she managed, “But you’re — you’re — you’re my sister.”

  “And Grace is your daughter,” I replied. “Doesn’t change the fact that there’s something a bit freaky about her DNA if you look close enough.”

  “But you’ve never — I mean, there wasn’t anything extraordinary about you.”

  “Gee, thanks,” I said, planting my hand on my hips.

  “Oh, come on, Keeks, you know what I mean. You’re beautiful and you’re smart, but so are a lot of other people. It’s not as if you’ve been walking around reading minds or bending spoons or — ”

  “Or getting visited by spirit guides,” I supplied. “Yeah, I know. Believe me, I’d rather be normal. Normal was working out okay for me. But lately…”

  “Lately?”

  “I keep sensing them,” I said, with a quick jerk of my chin in the direction of Secret Canyon. “It’s getting worse.”

  She paled. “Worse?”

  “According to Agent Jones, the shit’s really going to hit the fan on the solstice.” I figured I might as well tell her; it was going to be all hands on deck pretty soon. “And he seems to think I might be able to do something about it.”

  “How?”

  “I have no idea. That guy’s tighter-lipped than a clam.” Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything about his lips. Because then I started thinking about his mouth, and his face, and everything his head was attached to…and that was a distraction I really didn’t need at the moment. Fighting the heat I knew was rising in my cheeks, I added, “He said he would talk to me today. So maybe I’ll have more to tell you later.”

  “But Keeks — ” She broke off with a guilty look at the clock above the counter as the door to the shop rattled and an irritated-looking couple of faces peered in. “Oh, crap. You’d think people would have something better to do on a Tuesday morning.”

  “It’s okay,” I told her. “I really need to check in with Jeff. I think he was also kind of pissed that I took off like that.”

  “But what about the solstice, and — ” She couldn’t quite bring herself to say the words, but gave a significant nod westward, toward alien country, even as she hastened to the door with her keys.

  “We still have a few days. Let’s try to get everyone together tonight. I’m not sure when I’m meeting Agent Jones, but I hope it will be this afternoon at the latest.”

  “Okay,” she said, and opened the door, murmuring apologies even as a small group of tourists hurried in, grumbling about being locked out in the cold.

  I knew we wouldn’t have a chance for any more conversation after that, so I just gave her a quick smile as I pushed past the tourists and headed for the van.

  Well, I’d survived that confrontation without getting my ears chewed off too badly. I’d have to see if I fared as well with Jeff.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “Do you have any idea what we’re up against here?” Jeff demanded.

  Probably a better one than you do, I thought, but I only shrugged. I knew his annoyance stemmed from my not being around to appreciate his brilliance in hacking the aliens’ transmissions, not because he’d been worried about me or really cared what I was up to. I sat back in the other dinette chair in Lance’s cramped dining area and replied, “Enlighten me.”

  One of Jeff’s patented scowls spread across his face. “Okay, so I managed to isolate the frequency they’re using — ”

  “Really high, I bet.”

  “No,” he said. “Low. So low that it almost sounds like background radiation emissions or something. I’m sure they’re trying to make sure it blends, make it seem as if it’s something natural. Only it isn’t.”

  I nodded, a little impressed despite myself. Jeff could be trying at times — okay, most of the time — but I would never dispute his brilliance. “Can you understand anything they’re saying?”

  “Not yet. That is, I’ve detected a pattern, but I haven’t cracked the code yet. But I will. It’s just a matter of time.”

  “That’s something we don’t have a whole heck of a lot of,” I said.

  Jeff’s eyebrows drew together. “What do you mean?”

  “Because according to Agent Jones, they’re going to draw on the power of the solstice to do…whatever they’re planning on doing. Kara’s calling everyone in for a pow-wow at the house tonight.”

  “She hasn’t called me.” Jeff sounded distinctly petulant.

  “I guess she figured I’d tell you. Anyway, that’s beside the point. I’m hoping to get more info out of Agent Jones, but in the meantime you’ve got to work on cracking that code like nobody’s business. This is Enigma and World War II all over again.”

  At those words Jeff brightened — for him, anyway. “It’s a worthy challenge.”

  “I’m sure you’ll kick its ass. Just try to make sure you do it in the next four days.”

  The scowl returned as Jeff glanced down at his laptop’s screen and starting pounding away at the keyboard. I wondered how many of those things he went through in the course of a year.

  But then my phone rang, and I pulled it out of my purse and checked the number. Phoenix area code. I knew who that was. “Gotta take this,” I said.

  “Uh-huh,” Jeff muttered, not even bothering to look up from his keyboard.

  I wished I felt a little calmer as I touched the “accept” button on the screen and put the phone to my ear. “Hi.”

  “Hello, Kirsten.”

  He had such a nice voice, too. Warm and deep, but not too deep. It reminded me of the caramel-y burnt-sugar topping on crème brulée.

  “Are you free now?”

  “Sure. I mean, I can finish up with what I’m doing.” I hoped that didn’t sound too over-eager, like I was just dying to drop everything I was doing so I could run to be by his side.

  “Good. I’m staying at the Creekside Inn. The Sovereign Suite. Do you know where it is?”

  “Sure,” I replied. No wonder he’d been able to get over to my apartment so quickly the night before. You could practically throw a rock out my apartment window and hit the B&B where he was staying. Okay, maybe that was a slight exaggeration, but still. “Give me about twenty minutes.”

  “Of course.” He hung up.

  “Jeff.”

  He didn’t look up from his laptop. For the first time I noticed he had an earbud in his right ear. Maybe he was listening to his audio capture of the alien transmissions.

  “Earth to Jeff!”

  That time he did glance up, but he didn’t look too thrilled at the interruption. “What?”

  “I’m heading out. Kara didn’t give me an exact time, but I’m guessing six o’clock at her place, since she won’t be getting out of the shop until after five.”

  He grunted something and went right back to his laptop.

  I decided to take that as a yes. Shouldering my purse, I let myself out of Lance’s condo and went back to the van, then drove over to the Creekside Inn. Their parking lot wasn’t very big, and I hoped it was okay to leave my van there. Then again, they must have some accommodation for people coming to visit guests.

  Luckily there were pretty little signs pointing the way to all the various rooms, so I didn’t have too hard a time finding the Sovereign Suite. Somewhere below me I heard the soft chatter of the creek running over its stony bed. It never got cold enough here for Oak Creek to actually freeze over, so it flowed all winter long.

  I knocked on the door, and Martin Jones opened it at once. “Hello, Kirsten,” he said, then stepped aside so I could enter the room.

  “Wow,” I remarked once I was inside and had gotten a good look at my surroundings. Not exactly t
he sort of $69-a-night motel that you’d expect a government agent to be holed up in. “My tax dollars at work, huh?”

  “This location is…important.”

  “Hmm.” The place was almost the size of my apartment, with a little freestanding fireplace and French doors that opened to a private patio. It was too cold to sit outside and enjoy it, of course. I tried my best not to look at the enormous Victorian-style king bed. It was a little too easy to imagine being in it with him.

  I reached up to remove the scarf from my throat, but Martin said at once, “No, keep it on. We can’t talk here.”

  Mystified, I stared back at him. “Then why did you ask me to meet you in your room?”

  “Follow me.” He crossed the room to the French doors and opened them, indicating as he did so that I should step outside.

  I did as he requested, and paused on the little herringbone-brick patio while he secured the doors behind him. As I waited, I noticed there was a stone path leading away from the patio, and that was where he ended up taking me. The path wound down through bare cottonwoods and sycamores, and I could see patches of snow gleaming here and there in the shadowy spots. As we walked the sound of the creek got louder, until we came to a small wooden bridge that crossed the water at a narrow point.

  Here he halted, and so I stopped as well, and gave him a questioning look.

  He pointed at the water with a black-gloved finger. “It’s the creek,” he explained. “The water blocks their instruments. They can’t listen in to us here.”

  “Are you saying they’re listening everywhere else?” That was not the sort of revelation I’d really wanted to hear.

  “Not that they necessarily are, but that they can. Your friend Michael’s house offers the same protection because of its location.”

  This made me wonder whether I should call Kara and tell her to move tonight’s meeting to Michael’s place. It would be cramped, but it’s kind of silly to have a council of war if the enemy has a direct pipeline to everything you’re saying.

  “Okay,” I said, trying to ignore the cold seeping up through the bottom of my boots. If I’d known we were going to be hiking around in the semi-wilderness, I would’ve put on my waffle-stompers, not these thinner cowboy boots. “So you’ve got me in the cone of silence. What exactly do you expect me to do next?”