Magic in the Desert: Three Paranormal Romance Series Starters Set in the American Southwest

by Christine Pope

  “Looks like cooking oil,” he commented.

  “Yeah, that’s exactly it,” I said. “We drove all the way out here so I could bring you a sample of Mazola.”

  Jeff shot me a withering look, but I really didn’t care. It was pretty obvious this Raymond person was going to do the tests no matter what I said.

  “We’ll see soon enough.” Raymond moved away from us and began busying himself with slides and various apparatus.

  “You might as well go back to the break room,” Jeff told us. “This will probably take a while.”

  Break room? I wondered, but I just shrugged and followed Paul as he nodded and headed in the direction Jeff had indicated. Sure enough, toward the back of the building there was a pretty well-equipped space with a couple of tables and accompanying chairs, soda and snack machines, and, thank God, a coffee maker. I realized it had been a long time since breakfast. Lunch had come and gone without us even noticing it.

  “Coffee?” I asked Paul.

  “Sure. It could be a long night.”

  That comment sounded ominous. I hoped he didn’t think we were going to hang around here for hours and hours. Sure, I could live for a few hours on pretzels out of the snack machine, but sooner or later I was going to need something a little more substantial than that.

  I busied myself with making some coffee — Lampson had a decent variety from Peet’s, so I put together a pot of Kona Gold. There was a row of new-looking mugs sitting in a cabinet above the counter where the coffeemaker lived, and I grabbed two of them and set them down.

  It was strange, though. The place had none of the feel of an office occupied by actual human beings. All the mugs were plain white heavy stoneware with a thick glaze. I didn’t see any of the motley assortment you’d usually find in a regular company’s break room. And the refrigerator, when I opened it, was likewise shiny and clean, occupied by only a single takeout container. It was as if Lampson had the entire facility all to himself.

  “Here,” I said, setting a mug of coffee in front of Paul, followed by a couple of containers of cream and some stir sticks. I remembered from breakfast how he liked to take his coffee.

  “Thanks.”

  He poured cream, and I sat down opposite him and took my own mug, adding both cream and sugar. I’d never been a huge coffee fanatic, preferring tea, but I knew from my grad school days that coffee would keep me going the way nothing else could.

  “Odd, isn’t it?” he commented, after he’d finished swirling the cream through his coffee.

  “What is?”

  “This place. It’s set up as if there should be an entire staff working on-site, but I don’t see any indication that there’s anyone but Lampson here.”

  So he’d noticed it, too. Of course he had — Paul Oliver was not stupid. The coffee was too hot for me to drink yet, but I wrapped my cold fingers around the mug, grateful for its warmth.

  “No one does work here,” I said. “There no food in the fridge, no personal stuff in the the cupboards. And yet — ”

  “What?” He leaned forward to blow on his coffee, but I noticed the hazel eyes had remained fixed, watching me.

  “And yet it doesn’t feel wrong, even with how obnoxious Lampson was acting.” I paused, still holding on to my coffee cup, letting the vibrations wash over me. I didn’t sense anything strange, none of the jangling psychic residue of a building that had been hastily evacuated or its occupants told to leave, their business unfinished. I lifted my shoulders and said, “This just feels like it’s his place.”

  “It is,” said Jeff, who had appeared out of nowhere to pause at the entrance to the break room. “He owns the building. Likes to work alone. Guess he can afford to — his father developed most of the land around here. So Raymond bought himself a lab. By the way, he sent me over to tell you that you might as well leave.”

  “Leave?” I asked. Barely ten minutes had gone by since we left him in the lab. “He didn’t find anything?”

  “On the contrary. He found plenty — he just doesn’t know what it is. And he’s pretty sure it’s going to take him all night to even start to figure it out.”

  Paul pushed his mug of coffee away from him. “You’re sure the sample is safe here?”

  “And what could you do to protect it if it weren’t?” Jeff responded, and then shook his head. “This place is as secure as anywhere else. I’ll stay here. But there’s no point in us all hanging around all night.”

  Some part of me thought abandoning the sample to Raymond Lampson’s tender mercies was a horribly bad idea, but another, larger, part thought that getting out of there sounded pretty appealing. Especially if some food was involved.

  For a few seconds, Paul hesitated. Then he glanced over at me. I had no idea what he saw in my face. Stark hunger, maybe, because he said, “All right. Text me if you have anything. In the meantime” — he smiled — “I think I owe someone some dinner.”

  Chapter Seven

  Even though Raymond had made it sound as if he was going to need all night, Paul didn’t want to stray too far away from the lab. So we ended up at Ontario Mills, a sprawling mall only a few miles away. Since our eating choices were pretty limited unless we wanted to fight the crowds at the food court — which neither of us really found too appealing — we went to the Rainforest Cafe, a kitschy spot that seemed to cater to tourists and families with small children. Not exactly something I would have chosen if I had a decent alternative, but I didn’t, as the other restaurant that would have allowed us to sit down was located inside an arcade. We decided to take our chances with the ersatz Tiki Room and hope for the best.

  I didn’t exactly see money change hands, but somehow we ended up at one of the few booths tucked away in a corner, far from the large tables populated with oversized families. The din was a little muted back there, and the faux greenery surrounding the booth and the fish tanks around the corner offered at least a semblance of privacy, if not the actual thing.

  What I really wanted at that point was a mai tai roughly the size of my head, but I thought ordering such a thing might not go down very well with Paul. I settled for requesting a glass of chardonnay when the waitress appeared, although Paul only ordered an iced tea.

  “It could still turn out to be a long night,” he said as the waitress departed, and then I felt vaguely guilty for ordering the wine.

  “That may well be, but I have a feeling I’ll be spending it asleep in the back seat of the car.”

  He laughed then, and shook his head. “I’m guessing Raymond at least has a couch somewhere in that building, if not an actual bed. We can probably do better than the back seat of the car.”

  “Here’s hoping. My back would probably have a few choice things to say to me if I did end up sleeping in the car.” I reached for the glass of water the waitress had left for me and drank. I hadn’t realized how thirsty I actually was, and downed almost half the glass without thinking. Still, I couldn’t help pondering Jeff’s comment about Raymond definitely finding something of interest in the sample we’d brought him. “What do you think he found?”

  “Hard to say.” Paul lifted his own water glass but paused, holding it a few inches above the table as he appeared to consider my question. “Biology isn’t my strong suit. But we all know that the human dermis is like one big sponge. It can absorb all sorts of things. A topical application of a substance carrying an alien virus — or whatever it turns out to be — makes sense in that it would be absorbed quickly and not leave much trace, unlike something given in a syringe or even orally. But why a spray tan, which would seem to target a certain fairly small segment of the population?”

  “I don’t know.” I thought about it for a minute and couldn’t see the reasoning. You’d think if aliens were trying to take over the planet by mind-controlling certain key figures, they’d be going after members of Congress. God knows some of them were orange and spray-tanned enough to qualify, but even though their actions were often incomprehensible to me, I didn’t get
the feeling that any of them were directly connected to this. Not yet, anyway.

  The waitress showed up then with our drinks, and I took a bracing sip of chardonnay. It was sharp and way too heavy on the oak, which was about to be expected in a place like this. I guessed they were more concerned with pushing T-shirts than maintaining an adequate wine list. Something was tickling at the back of my mind, however, and usually when that happened, the best thing to do was just wait and let it come up to the surface.

  “Lotus,” I said slowly, and Paul dropped a lemon slice into his iced tea and watched me, obviously waiting to hear what I had to say next.

  “A lot of industry types go there,” I continued. “I only went the first time because of a recommendation from one of my clients. And then I liked the service, so I kept going. But I’d say the majority of their clientele is studio execs, or wives of studio execs, or people connected with them in some way. I’m guessing that Alex Hathaway’s out-of-work actress girlfriend was not their usual type.”

  “So you think that was a red herring?”

  “Maybe. I just don’t see why aliens would even care about people who work in the film industry. I mean, there’s a lot of money that gets thrown around in this town — and I do mean a lot — but although humans tend to equate money and power, I don’t know if aliens would.”

  Paul stirred his iced tea in a contemplative fashion, eyes narrowed. “There’s got to be some other connection, something we’re just not seeing.”

  “Very likely, but I’m not getting hit with any bolts of inspiration.” This came out sounding a little more testy than I had intended. I didn’t like feeling this way, as if I was just blundering around in the dark. Otto was going to get some serious words from me when — or if — he ever reappeared.

  “Neither am I, so don’t beat yourself up about it.” He opened his mouth as if to say more, but at that moment the waitress appeared, asking about our order.

  I’d barely looked at the menu, so I guiltily scooped it up and ordered the first thing that sounded interesting, which was grilled fish with mango salsa. Paul also ordered fish — blackened salmon — and the waitress took our menus and disappeared in what I assumed was the direction of the kitchen.

  It wasn’t just the absence of Otto, though, but my utter blankness regarding the entire situation. I knew my spider sense hadn’t gone completely away, because I’d certainly gotten strong enough feelings from Jeff and Raymond. Somehow, though, my native abilities just weren’t enough to pierce through the veil of obscurity that seemed to have been thrown over the alien conspiracy. If there really was one. Not that I really wanted a visitation from little green…that is, gray…men in the middle of the night, but even the slightest hint that Paul and I weren’t on the world’s biggest wild-goose chase would have been nice.

  A thought struck me, and I set down my glass of wine before saying, “You told me you’d never been abducted.”

  “That’s right.” The reply was delivered in a flat tone that didn’t seem to invite further questioning, but that had never stopped me in the past.

  “Do you want to be?”

  “God, no.”

  I felt my eyebrows shoot up at hearing the vehemence in his voice. “Really? I’d think with your field of research — that is, with all the investigation you’d done, you’d want to have that sort of firsthand experience.”

  At the moment, he was beginning to look as if he’d regretted not ordering a drink. “I’ve talked to far too many abductees to want it to ever happen to me. Some view it as a positive experience — or at least they come to feel that way — but for most it’s terrifying. It can lead to all sorts of problems…failed marriages, substance abuse. Not to mention the little problem of most of the world thinking you’re either crazy or a liar.”

  “I can see why these UFO groups are so important for people,” I commented. “When you feel that alone, you instinctively reach out to people you think have shared the same experience, or at least aren’t inclined to disbelieve you from the get-go.”

  Paul was silent for a bit. He swirled the straw through his glass of iced tea once or twice, then asked, “Was it like that for you?”

  “For me?” I stared at him, puzzled. “I’ve never been abducted by a UFO.”

  “No.” A hint of a smile flickered around the corners of his mouth. “When did you realize you were psychic?”

  Oh, that. “For real?”

  “For real.”

  It had been twenty years since Otto first appeared to me and told me what my “true path” was intended to be, but I’d known there was something different about me for some time before that. “I guess I was twelve. Oh, there were times when I was younger that I got odd feelings about things, or told people that something was going to happen and it did, but Otto first showed up on my doorstep when I was in middle school. He sort of explained what was going on.”

  “That must have been a shock.”

  “To put it mildly. As if puberty wasn’t tough enough.”

  He laughed then, just as the waitress appeared with our entrees. She shot an apologetic smile at us, as if she knew she was interrupting.

  “Do you need anything else?”

  Both Paul and I shook our heads, and she scampered away.

  The food smelled amazing, and I couldn’t resist just digging in. Paul did the same, so for a few minutes we ate in silence. I could practically feel my depleted tissues soaking up all the protein and Omega-3s and all the other good stuff in that delectable hunk of filet. I had to revise my opinion of the Rainforest Cafe upward a few notches. The place might have felt like the Enchanted Tiki Room on crack, but the food was excellent.

  “It’s interesting, though,” he said after we had done some serious damage to our respective meals. “I’ve worked with some psychics, and the ones who channel other beings have often said they’ve been in contact with spirits from other dimensions, or intelligences that claim to be from other worlds. And yet you’ve never experienced anything like that?”

  I shook my head; my mouth was still full of red snapper and mango salsa. After I swallowed, and took a sip of chardonnay to wash down the food, I replied, “No. Otto is definitely an earthly spirit. I’ve met some other psychics who have said the same thing, that the beings they’re channeling are definitely otherworldly in origin, but that’s never been the case with me. And I’ve never had contact with any other intelligences besides Otto. I don’t know if that makes me a deficient psychic or what.”

  There might have been a touch of defensiveness in my last words; over the years, I’d often wondered as well why I only spoke with Otto…and I’d had one or two snippy practitioners make disparaging remarks about my limited repertoire of psychic guides. At the time, I’d done my best to brush them off, telling myself that this wasn’t a competition. Even so, I couldn’t help questioning these supposed “abilities” of mine and how strong they really were.

  Then again, considering the grief Otto was able to cause me all on his own, I supposed I should be glad that I didn’t have a whole bevy of spirits hanging around and clamoring for attention.

  Paul said, “I definitely wouldn’t call you deficient.”

  That look was back in his eyes, the one I wanted to think of as admiring. Ginger probably would have looked at him boldly, inviting more. Since I was definitely lacking in flirting skills, instead I glanced back down at my plate and pretended to be gathering up a choice mouthful of mango salsa. After an awkward pause, I said, “One woman I met a few years ago at a New Age fair said I was bottling myself up, that I needed to open myself to new experiences. But I don’t agree. When you’re dealing with the paranormal, sometimes if you open the door too wide, you risk letting all sorts of bad things in.”

  “Like those kids who play with Ouija boards.”

  “Exactly. I don’t know if it’s the Devil — I’ve never met the guy — but not all intelligences are benign.”

  “Apparently not.” His expression sobered, and I knew
he must be thinking of Alex Hathaway, dead for a reason neither one of us could begin to understand.

  At that moment, Paul’s jacket pocket began ringing, and he reached in and pulled out his cell phone. “Hello.”

  Of course, I couldn’t hear who was on the other end of the line, but somehow I knew it had to be Jeff, a certainty that had more to do with the fact that no one else had the number for Paul’s pay-to-play cell than because my psychic powers had decided to kick in.

  “We can be there in ten minutes,” he said, and shut the cell phone. He peered past me into the main section of the restaurant. “Have you seen our waitress?”

  “No, but we can probably just guesstimate the tab if it’s that urgent.”

  “It’s not. Raymond has a few things he found that he wants to discuss with us, but he certainly hasn’t cracked the code, as it were.”

  At that moment, our waitress did appear, probably to do the customary “how are things going?” check-in. She looked a little surprised when Paul requested the bill, but nodded and said she’d take care of it right away.

  Maybe she’d seen something in his face that I hadn’t, because she did return with greater than usual haste and set the bill down on the table. He and I both reached for it at the same time.

  “I said I was taking you out to dinner,” he protested.

  “And how much cash do you have left?” I countered. “I’m carrying a lot more than you — might as well make yours last longer.”

  Slowly, he withdrew his hand, but I could tell he wasn’t happy.

  To mollify him, I asked, “How about I make you take me someplace fancy when all this is over?”