World Tree Girl

by Kerry Schafer

  Leo’s voice calls after us.

  “Just thought of a thing. Don’t know if this will be any help to you, but the boy had a phone like that on him.”

  “Was it on him when he was killed?” I picture the phone at the bottom of the pond, another dead-end lead.

  “No, no. Hang on. I’ve got it here.” She disappears into the cabin and comes back a moment later with a smartphone. I make a move to come back into the warm to have a look, but she bars the door with her small body and waves me away. “You just keep that. Any friends he keeps in there are nobody I’ll want to talk to. I had thoughts of throwing it into the lake behind him.”

  With that, the door closes, leaving me shivering on the porch. Mac is brushing snow off the Jeep. By the time he opens his door and gets in, accompanied by a flurry of snow, I’m engaged in trying to break the password Vince used to lock his screen.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “What the hell is Genesis?” Mac asks, navigating the treacherous driveway.

  “Don’t know yet. Only that it’s a research project for enhancing fertility. Aline’s and Sophie’s parents participated.”

  “Vincent’s mother was a poor candidate for fertility research.”

  “True. Which disrupts the theory I’ve been putting together.”

  “If it helps at all,” Mac says, “Vince’s father was married at the time Vince was born—and not to Vince’s mother. As far as I know, he had no other children.”

  “Hmmm. So maybe he received fertility treatment and spilled his special seed on unsanctioned ground. Can’t imagine his marriage ended well.”

  “You’d suppose right. Heard a family rumor that she tried to forgive him until she met the baby, and then it was all up. Vince was born mean and ugly.” Mac gives me a side glance. “I suppose you’re curious about my connection to someone like Leo.”

  “I’m more curious about your connection to someone like Vince.”

  “Spent as little time with him as possible. As for Leo—I’m not even sure, to tell you the truth. Some sort of third-cousin-twice-removed on my dad’s side of the family. She’s been a living legend since I was a little kid.”

  “What else do you know about Vince’s dad? His history? What kind of guy he was?”

  “Besides the kind of guy who gets a fertility treatment and then hires himself a hooker instead of going home to his wife? Honestly don’t know. He didn’t have much to do with Vince, and I only met him a couple of times.”

  “Do you know where he is now? Could we talk to him?”

  “Dead. Ran off the road and into a tree about, oh, five years ago now. Vince was in jail at the time, so we can’t blame him for that, at least.”

  I tap my fingers on the door. “House all packed up and sold, I suppose. No papers or documents anywhere. Next of kin?”

  “Vince. The ex-wife was clean out of the picture by then. I heard it all got auctioned and went to yard sale. If you’re looking for documents, those would be long gone.”

  “Where was this, though? His father’s home?”

  “You think that…thing will go there?”

  “I don’t know what it will do. If it does go there, I suspect it will look exactly like Vince. What I’m trying to figure out is why the Medusa targeted him and Aline. Why come all the way out here after Vince?”

  “If it even happened like she said. Aunt Leo’s about half crazy.”

  “Crazy or not, she described Aline perfectly.”

  I don’t like what I’m thinking. At all. The Medusa was already too damned lethal and intelligent last time I encountered it. If it can take on the appearance of its victims and maybe some of their abilities, it’s going to be impossible to stop it.

  By the time Mac drops me off in the Manor parking lot, I’m frustrated and on edge. Whatever the password is on Vince’s phone, it wasn’t something obvious like his birthday. I’m going to have to hook it up to my computer and run a password hacking program.

  And something is off-kilter at the Manor. Before I can get my door open, Cathy barrels out of the building, face like a thundercloud. She should still be on shift, but she’s in her car with the engine running before I’m able to intercept her.

  “Need help?” Mac asks.

  “No, I’ve got this. Thanks for the ride.” He lifts my bag out of the back seat for me anyway, salutes, and heads on out.

  When I knock on Cathy’s window she doesn’t turn her head, just sits with both hands gripping the steering wheel, hair screening her face. I can guess by the set of her shoulders that she’s crying and I knock harder.

  Without looking at me, she finally presses the button to lower the window.

  “What’s happened?”

  At last she looks up at me. I’m right about the tears, but it’s outrage that lies behind them, not grief.

  “Like you don’t know. Nice job, pawning your dirty work off on somebody else.”

  “Cathy—”

  But she rolls up the window and starts backing up, pissed enough to run over me if I get in her way. I let her go and walk into the Manor, where the chaos continues.

  A little clump of residents stands in the hallway across from the office, voices raised, hands gesticulating energetically. I’m about to ask, when my question is answered for me.

  Jill bounces out of the office. She’s dressed in nursing scrubs, albeit they’re the high-end variety in slightly shimmery fabric, black with pink trim. Her hair is twisted up in a bun that would be more appropriate to a benefit dinner than a retirement home, and her makeup job is no doubt meant to be prim and professional, but still looks exotic and Parisian.

  She makes shooing motions at the seniors with her hands. “I’ve told you, this is not an appropriate place for you to loiter. Please go to the games room or—”

  All four of them turn to face her, oldster solidarity. Dan, articulate as always, acts as spokesperson. “Young woman, we’ve earned the right to loiter by reason of years of hard time. You, on the other hand, have not earned the right to wear that uniform.”

  I’m almost sorry to break up the party. The old-timers seem to thrive with the occasional shake-up, and look generally better for it. But I don’t have time to observe the little drama play out. There are serious issues afoot. So I barrel into the fray.

  “What’s going on? What did you do to Cathy? Shouldn’t you be tucked up in bed, having chills or seizures or something?”

  “I fired her,” she says. “And—”

  “You did what?”

  She raises her voice, enunciating each word as though I’m deaf. “I. Let. Her. Go. She was incompetent and—”

  “And you’re supposed to be in the hospital until tomorrow. Did the doctor change his mind?”

  Her eyes shift away from me.

  “Right. You left against medical advice.”

  “I feel fine.”

  “You’re brain damaged. And you waltz in here and dare to start firing staff and giving orders?” All my half-formed intentions to tolerate her for Phil’s sake have evaporated in the instant of actual contact.

  Jill makes her voice overly reasonable. “I have a number of issues I want to address with you. How about you come into the office?” The emphasis on office has a possessive quality. From out here in the hall I see evidence that she’s been rearranging things in there. Clearly, I need to see what she’s been up to, but since that’s where she wants me to go, I carry on down the hall, dragging my bag behind me.

  The residents clear a path to let me through.

  I hear Jill’s ridiculous heels tapping along behind me. “Maureen, come back here. I need to talk to you.”

  “Hey, Maureen. Glad you’re back.” Dan gives a little military salute as I pass him, which warms my heart in a completely unexpected fashion. I grin at him and he grins back and actually winks.

  There’s another clump of gossipers farther down the hallway, and an entire gathering in the games room that has taken on the look of a formal meeting. Ginny presi
des at the front of the room, with Julia as her second.

  “I make a motion…”

  “Seconded…”

  I stand at the doorway and catch Ginny’s eye. She doesn’t smile, but she nods at me and glares at Jill, so I leave her to whatever it is she’s trying to stir up and keep walking. “God, Jill, you can’t have been here for more than a couple of hours. How did you manage to get them so riled up?” I can’t help a faint tinge of admiration.

  “You abandoned them,” she says, behind my left shoulder. “Without leadership. So I took over.”

  “They aren’t children, Jill. They are fully functional adults. I was gone for two days. Cathy has my cell phone number and knew to contact me with any questions or concerns.”

  “My attorney says—”

  “I don’t give a damn what your attorney says.” I punch the buttons for the elevator and turn on her, looking her up and down from the top of her shiny head to the soles of her French-heeled shoes. “You certainly made a rapid recovery.”

  “Look, I’ve changed my mind. I’m not trying to take the Manor away from you, I just want to share it. We can run it together!”

  She follows me into the elevator. “That Sophronia girl—”

  “Is missing. Thanks to you.”

  My anger has reached a danger level and it’s all I can do to keep my hands off all of my weapons. The elevator stops. Jill holds the door, but makes no move to exit. “Come on, Maureen. Let me help you run the Manor and I won’t tell anybody.”

  “Tell them what, exactly?”

  “About the secret passage. About Sophronia’s special talents.”

  “Blackmail, now? Oh, Phil would be so proud.” I tug my suitcase across the uneven gap into the hallway. “No teeth in that, Jillian. G has probably already spread the word. It’s expecting a lot for a kid to keep her mouth shut.”

  Jill follows me down the hallway. I unlock my seven locks, wishing there was only one instead of many.

  “You went through my things,” she says.

  I turn and smile at her. Her cat-with-the-cream expression fades to something close to fear and I speak to her, very gently. “My dear, don’t push me too far. I hold my hand because of Phil, but as you say, he’s dead now. I suggest that you watch your step.”

  And with that, I close my door and shut her out.

  • • •

  My first task, immediately after hooking Vince’s phone up to my code-breaking software, is to call Cathy and cajole her into coming back to work. It costs me half an hour and a dollar an hour raise, plus the promise that Jill will not be permitted to speak to her. I left Morpheus in Matt’s care, so at least he’s not demanding attention, but Anubis winds around my ankles, meowing as if he’s actually missed me.

  Cats being what they are, I figure he’s likely wanting food, even though I filled a giant bowl for him before I left and filled the bathroom sink with water. The litter box does need attention, and I’ve just finished scooping when Jake arrives.

  “What’s kicked over the Manor anthill?” he asks, bolting the door behind him. “Residents scurrying all over hell and gone.”

  I suppress an impulse to move into his arms and kiss him.

  “Jill.”

  “I thought she was at the hospital.”

  “You and me both. Walked right out, she tells me. How did it go with Lysander?”

  “You were right. He’s been getting letters from Genesis all along. Swears he didn’t ever answer a single one of them, and shredded them all on arrival. None of their business, and all that.”

  He drops a file folder on the table. “I’d been hoping we were wrong, but it’s pretty clear both Sophie and the World Tree Girl have some sort of connection to this Genesis Project. I found this in Sophie’s room.”

  “Lysander let you search? Without a warrant?”

  “I phrased it as a missing person’s problem, adding in my suspicions that it might be time to look more closely into the disappearance of his wife.”

  “We looked, when we were there the other day.”

  “It was under the mattress.”

  He hands me a single piece of paper. It’s a letter. On the top left there’s a Genesis logo. Out of the G grows a wide branching tree. Serpentine vines wind through the rest of the letters, and the I is dotted by a tiny red apple. There’s a PO Box for the return address.

  Dear Miss Alexander,

  I have attempted repeatedly to make contact with you through your father, but he has not responded. As you are now of legal age, I am writing directly to you.

  Not knowing what your parents may have told you of the circumstances of your birth, I will first explain.

  Your mother being unable to conceive and carry a child to term, your parents presented at the Genesis Project for fertility treatment. Both agreed to a new experimental technology designed to enhance Lysander’s sperm. Happily, the experiment was a success. Your mother conceived, and you were born healthy.

  One of the conditions of participation in this study was that the research team would continue to monitor your growth and development. Your mother complied with this until that time when she stopped responding. Your father has ignored all requests for contact or information.

  As you are now legally an adult, it falls to you to meet with me to complete the survey and allow me to gather data about your health. As there could be unintended and unanticipated side effects to the experimental technology, it is essential to your health that you present for a physical examination.

  I must impress upon you the need for caution if you are sexually active. Procreation could be dangerous for you. Please contact me at once, using the phone number listed below.

  If you do not comply voluntarily, I’m afraid that we must come to find you.

  Sincerely,

  Eve

  I read and re-read, my body temperature dropping as if another spirit storm is brewing.

  “So, she could just as easily have responded to this, as to the text message.”

  He nods. “I ran the letter by Lysander. He swears the logo is the same. Before you ask, I called the number, got an auto-recorded computer-generated voice: ‘Leave your name and number. We’ll get back to you.’ Not helpful. I also had a trace put on the number and there’s no record. Probably a disposable cell.”

  “This logo—”

  “I saw that too. Matt is on stakeout at Ravenna’s.”

  “I tried to call him. He’s not answering.”

  “Cell service is spotty down there. Always has been. Now. What are you not telling me?”

  I fill him in on Vince, watching my words wind him up like one of those old-time toys from my childhood. By the time I’m done, he’s up and pacing, or trying to, given the boxes still making an obstacle course out of my suite.

  “So, we have a death, or a disappearance, and our coroner and you have already interviewed the reporting party and scoped out the scene of the crime—”

  “Possible scene of the crime. Leo might just be crazy.”

  “—without word one to law enforcement! Just because there may be paranormal elements involved doesn’t mean you can cut out the law altogether!”

  I let him rant, comparing my photos of Aline’s tattoos with the Genesis logo. The concept of the world tree is not uncommon, but the similarities are notable. One of the branches growing out of Aline’s world tree even bears a tiny red apple.

  Jake has apparently asked a question and is waiting for an answer.

  “What?”

  “You’re not even listening to me.”

  “You were being predictable. Would you rather I don’t tell you anything in the future? I thought not. If you’re unhappy with Mac, tell him so. Not me. What I might offer as something useful would be a look at the place Vince’s father lived. Maybe tracking down his ex-wife and seeing what she knows.”

  “I thought you said Vince is dead. What would I be looking for?”

  I’m reluctant to give voice to the dull fear lurking
in the back of my brain, as if speaking it will give it more power. Which is just stupid. Still, it seems like speaking the thought turns it from conjecture into fact. “When the Medusa killed Alice, before it disintegrated, what did it look like to you?”

  He stares at me, then his gaze flicks upward, remembering. “I thought, at the time, that it looked like a child, almost as if it went to Alice for comfort.”

  “And after that? After Alice was consumed—”

  He sees it. His jaw tightens; the color drains from his face. “It looked like Alice.”

  “Right. And what Leo saw come up out of the lake looked like Aline.”

  Jake sinks into the chair across from me. “I don’t think I like what you’re implying.”

  “I don’t like it, either. But if it can take on the shape of whatever it has killed, then we need to be on the lookout for something that looks like Vince.”

  He sits there for a long moment, thinking.

  “I’ll put out an APB. But—if they find a thing that looks like Vince and try to arrest it—”

  “Make him out as armed and dangerous. Wearing an explosive device. Make something up.”

  “I know how you feel about the FBI and the special unit—but would this be something they should know? Should we have Matt pass it on?”

  I weigh the pros and cons of this decision for a long moment. “You’re thinking in order to protect civilians?”

  “That’s what I’m thinking.”

  “I don’t know, Jake. Six of one, half a dozen of another. You might save a cop, but we might lose Sophie.”

  He absorbs this, then shrugs. “Moot point just now since we can’t reach Matt. I’ll put out the search bulletin and then hang out at Vince’s daddy’s old house myself. Anything else?”

  “Other than Jill back at the Manor and creating havoc? Nothing.” It’s not a lie, exactly. Just a shading of the truth.