After Dark gh-2

by Jayne Castle

  "I know where you're going here, but it doesn't work."

  "Emmett, I understand that you and Tamara have a past. You were in love with her. Maybe you still are—"

  "No."

  "Denial is no way to deal with these kinds of issues."

  "I am not in denial. I'm telling you that I no longer have any strong feelings for Tamara."

  "Right. She dumped you for another man. Of course you've got some strong feelings about her."

  "Can we stick to the subject?" he asked evenly.

  She looked as if she was going to argue. But she must have seen something in his face that changed her mind. She cleared her throat instead.

  "Okay, fine," she said briskly. "I believe we were considering the possibility that Tamara is involved in whatever is going on at the shelter."

  "Don't think so," Emmett said.

  She glared at him. "Why do you keep insisting she's innocent? We've already decided that everything that's happened is connected. Chester's piece of dreamstone, his death, the missing youths, and Greeley's murder."

  "I know."

  "The common link is the shelter."

  "Lydia—"

  "There is one other fact that you can't ignore. Everything that's happened has taken place in the past few months. After Tamara's marriage to Wyatt. After she directed the Guild to set up a charitable foundation and start funding the Transverse Wave Youth Shelter. It all points to Tamara. Admit it."

  He couldn't deny her logic. He pondered the problem for a few seconds, trying to find words for what until now had been only an instinctive reaction to the facts.

  "Whatever is going on at the shelter, I agree that it's probably connected to the dreamstone," he said at last.

  "So?"

  "Think about it. Dreamstone is potentially extremely valuable both as an archaeological discovery and in the private collectors' market."

  "Right. Whoever gets his hands on it can use it to establish an instant, brilliant reputation in the academic world. But in order to do so, he would have to turn it over to a museum."

  "If someone who wasn't connected to the university wanted to capitalize on the discovery of dreamstone to become a celebrity, he or she would have to go public. That would mean holding press conferences. Giving interviews."

  "Hmm."

  "On the other hand, if the discoverer was planning to turn a huge profit on the dreamstone, he would have a good incentive to keep the find secret until he could do deals in the private market. That would be especially true if the excavation work was being carried out illegally."

  "It's pretty obvious that someone is trying to keep the discovery quiet and that the excavation work is being done illegally. So what? How does that make Tamara innocent?"

  "Everything about this operation points to someone who wants to keep it secret," Emmett said. "If Tamara was involved in this, she would be far more interested in the publicity than the money."

  "Hmm," Lydia said again.

  "As Mercer Wyatt's wife, she's already got access to all the money she could ever want."

  "Some people never have enough money."

  "What Tamara craves," he said patiently, "is social status and the power that comes with it. She wants to rub elbows with the right people. She wants to sit on the boards of charitable foundations, give fund-raisers for the arts, get invited to the homes of the movers and shakers. Believe me, if she got her hands on dreamstone, she would go public with it in a big way."

  Lydia tapped her spoon on the edge of the bowl that held the oranges. "I guess you know her better than I do."

  "Yeah." He shook cereal out of the box into his bowl. "I do."

  She gave him a quick, unreadable glance, but she did not pursue the subject of his relationship with Tamara. "Okay, so we rule out Tamara based on your gut feeling that her motives don't fit the secrecy scenario we've uncovered. And it doesn't look like Ryan is directly involved, either."

  "Someone tried to use him to find out how much you know about the missing piece of dreamstone, though," Emmett said. "Whoever is behind this knows we're getting close."

  Lydia put down her spoon. "Last night I did a lot of thinking. Among other things, it occurred to me that whoever lured Ryan to the Green Wall Tavern may have had something else in mind besides getting rid of him."

  He grunted and concentrated on eating cereal.

  "Emmett?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Did you hear me?"

  "Of course I heard you."

  "Last night you made a big point of telling Ryan that you were safe because of your Guild connections."

  "Uh-huh."

  "But if you had been killed in that alley, the Cadence Guild authorities could have claimed that it was just the tragic consequences of your going to the aid of a mugging victim. One of those wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time crimes. Everyone's sorry, but it's nobody's fault."

  "Wyatt would still have to explain to the Resonance Guild why the mugging was carried out by a couple of hunters," Emmett said.

  "That's just the point. Those two youths probably aren't members of the Guild. You said yourself they were untrained. If and when they're caught, Mercer Wyatt can deny all responsibility."

  He shrugged. "That doesn't mean the Resonance Guild wouldn't raise hell. A couple of young, strong dissonance-energy para-rezes like those two should have been under the control of the Guild."

  "So the Resonance Guild makes a fuss. Big deal. Wyatt promises to investigate and find the bad guys. And that's the end of it."

  He smiled briefly, without any amusement. "Take it from me, Lydia, Guild politics aren't that simple."

  "You're deliberately missing my point here," she said very steadily. "I think someone hoped you would follow Ryan last night."

  He picked up his rez-tea. "You're telling me that you think someone tried to set me up last night, aren't you?"

  "Yes."

  He took a swallow of tea and said nothing. There wasn't anything to say. He was pretty sure she was right. He'd been sure of it since he'd followed Ryan out into the alley.

  "Well?" Lydia said aggressively.

  "I can take care of myself, Lydia."

  "Damn it, it was a setup. I knew it."

  She came off the stool with so much speed that her elbow hit the rez-teacup and sent it flying. She ignored it to grab him by the lapels. Since he was not wearing a shirt, she got two fistfuls of T-shirt instead.

  "Take it easy, honey," he said soothingly.

  "I'm right, aren't I? Someone tried to kill you last night."

  "It's okay."

  "No, it is not okay. In case it has escaped your notice, we are in big trouble here. We've got to go something. Maybe we should contact Detective Martinez."

  "And get ourselves arrested on suspicion of murder? That's not going to do a whole hell of a lot of good."

  "Well, what do you suggest, Mr. Ex-Guild Boss?"

  He was silent for a moment. Then he said softly, "I suggest I go ahead with the plans I've already made."

  "What plans? Why don't I know about these plans?"

  "I haven't had much of a chance to discuss them with you," he said, deliberately vague.

  "You mean you didn't intend to involve me in them, don't you?"

  "Lydia—"

  "Never mind. Tell me what you're going to do."

  He shrugged. "I'm going to take a look around the offices of the Transverse Wave Youth Shelter tonight. See if I can turn up anything that will give us an idea of who is using the facility to recruit young para-talents off the street to excavate a cache of dreamstone."

  "I'll come with you."

  "No, you will not."

  "You're going to need me, Emmett."

  "Give me one good reason why I can't handle it alone."

  She smiled coolly. "I told you that I thought I sensed illusion trap energy somewhere in the vicinity of the shelter's office, remember?"

  He watched her, wary now. "We agreed that it wasn't unusual to pick up traces of energ
y leaks that close to the Old Wall."

  "What if it wasn't just some leaked energy I sensed? What if it was emanating from a trap set to protect a cache of dreamstone or a small hole-in-the-wall gate that someone found and wants to keep secret?"

  "Everyone knows you tanglers are inclined to be over-imaginative," he said.

  "Everyone knows you stubborn, arrogant ghost-hunters think you can handle anything with a dose of dissonance energy, but it ain't so. I'm coming with you, Emmett. We're in this together."

  She was right, he thought. They were in this together.

  Chapter 25

  MELANIE TOFT PUT her head around the corner of the office door. "Thought this was your day off. What are you doing here?"

  "I just came in to take care of some paperwork." Lydia turned away from the bookcase and smiled. "Don't worry, I'm not going to stay long."

  "I should hope not. I've told you over and over again, you mustn't give Shrimp the idea that just because you're a genuine professional para-archaeologist, you should put in unpaid overtime."

  "I promise I'll be out of here in less than ten minutes."

  "Good." Melanie eyed her more closely. "Is there anything wrong?"

  "No, Melanie, nothing's wrong."

  "Look, I know you've been under a strain for the past several days, what with Chester's death and all. If you need more than just your regular day off, don't be afraid to say so. Shrimp won't mind."

  "Don't worry." She picked up a pen and then threw it down, very hard, onto the desk. "I'm not going to crack up under the strain."

  Melanie looked instantly abashed. "I never meant—"

  "I know, I know. It's okay." Lydia pulled herself together and forced a smile. "Don't worry about me, Melanie. I'm fine." Sheesh, now she sounded like Emmett last night when he tried to tell her he was okay after nearly getting killed.

  "All right." Melanie looked dubious. "But just remember, you don't have to prove anything to me or to Shrimp. If you want some time off, just speak up."

  "Thanks."

  Lydia waited until the door had closed behind Melanie. Then she turned back to the bookcase. She gazed thoughtfully at her volumes of the Journal of Para-archaeology.

  She removed the photograph that Chester had stashed in the duffel bag alongside the dreamstone jar and looked at it again. Chester grinned proudly from the photo, his hand firmly clasped around the issue of the Journal of Para-archaeology that contained the article listing him as a contributing consultant.

  Fragments of her dream floated through her mind. Along with it came the question she had been asking herself yesterday when Ryan interrupted her.

  What if Chester had been on his way out of Shrimpton's the night he was killed?

  She took a step forward and trailed her fingertip along the spines of the journal volumes. She paused at the one that contained the article naming Chester as a consulting contributor.

  She pulled the volume off the shelf and opened it slowly to the familiar page. The title of the article blazed up at her. "An Assessment of Variations Found in the Para-Resonance Frequencies of Ephemeral-Energy Sources."

  A slip of paper fluttered to the floor. She bent down, plucked it up, and stared at it. Chester's handwriting was unmistakable. There was a series of numbers. Beneath each number was a letter.

  * * *

  An hour later, Lydia opened the sheet of paper containing the coordinates and spread it out on the kitchen counter. She put Chester's key down beside it. Then she unfurled the university's official archaeological site map of die Dead City.

  "The code is simple enough," she said. "Chester used our birthdays, phone numbers, and the date of the issue of the Journal in which my article appeared. I recognized them immediately. After that it was just a mater of connecting the dots."

  Emmett watched as she penciled in the coordinates on the map. Her gathering excitement fairly shimmered in the air around her. She wanted desperately to get back underground, he realized. She wanted to prove to herself that she could still handle the catacombs.

  "If Brady's information is solid," he said, "it indicates an unmapped hole-in-the-wall gate into the catacombs beneath the shelter."

  She nodded, concentrating intently on her task. "There are dozens of them, of course. The university authorities seal them whenever they find them, but the ruin rats discover new ones all the time."

  "Same story in Old Resonance."

  She put down the pencil and looked up, her face flushed with anticipation. "Somewhere along the line, someone must have discovered this particular hole-in-the-wall gate. For all we know, it's been found and lost many times over the years. But this time someone discovered the dreamstone down there, somewhere in one of the catacombs."

  Emmett thought about it. "At the same time, he must have found the passages clogged with ghosts and illusion traps. Probably realized that he needed to put together a team to help him clear the site so that he could excavate."

  "But he couldn't put together a legal excavation team because he would have had to report his finds to the university authorities. They would have claimed the dreamstone."

  "But it occurred to him that he was sitting on top of a perfect source of unregistered labor. Street kids come and go from the shelter all the time. Some of them are bound to be untrained dissonance and ephemeral-energy para-rezes. Easy to recruit, especially if you promise them a little free training and a share in the profits."

  "And if you don't mind risking their young necks," Lydia added grimly. "Excavation work in the unmapped sections of the catacombs is dangerous, even for expert and experienced tanglers and hunters. When I think of a bunch of young people being sent out to clear the tunnels—"

  "Cannon fodder," Emmett said softly.

  She glanced at him sharply. "What?"

  "It's an old Earth term. I came across it once in a book."

  "Oh." She let that pass. "Well, one thing's for certain. If someone is using a hole-in-the-wall gate that is accessed via the youth shelter and if he's recruiting kids out of the shelter, then he almost certainly has to be on the staff at the Transverse Wave. It's the only way he could come and go freely."

  "Or the only way she could come and go freely," Emmett said quietly.

  "True." Lydia agreed. "Hard to believe that anyone could excavate a catacomb right under Helen Vickers's feet without her suspecting that something out of the ordinary was going on. She's got to be involved in this."

  "I told you, I've got my people in Resonance checking out her background. With any luck we may get some info tomorrow."

  "We're talking a couple of murders, basic training for some hunters, and some serious illusion trap work. Hard to believe Vickers is handling all that alone."

  Emmett thought about the locker key he had found in the pocket of one of the young hunters. "When did Bob Matthews say he started volunteering at the shelter?"

  "A few months ago."

  He studied the map while he ran through his options. He wished like hell that there was another way, but he knew there wasn't. He needed to get inside the unmarked catacomb passage, and he needed a good illusion tangler to help him. Lydia was one of the best.

  He felt her watching him. He had a hunch she knew exactly what he was thinking.

  "Like it or not, the job requires a hunter-tangler team, and you know it," she said.

  She was right.

  "We'll do it tonight," he said.

  She glanced at Fuzz, who was munching a pretzel on the counter. "Don't worry, we'll take backup."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Fuzz." She plucked the dust-bunny off the counter and stroked his scruffy fur. "His night vision and sense of smell are much better than any human's." She hesitated. "I think of him as my good luck charm."

  Chapter 26

  LYDIA STOOD IN the darkened shelter office and looked out at the silent, night-shrounded street. It was two in the morning. The Transverse Wave had been closed since midnight. The doors and windows were locked. There were n
o street youths hanging around. No one had come or gone from the shelter in two hours. Either the illegal excavation work was not done at night or it was not scheduled for tonight.

  The only indication that the neighborhood was not entirely deserted were the pair of drunks Lydia had seen slumped in a doorway as she and Emmett made their way through an alley. The only light in the vicinity was the sickly glow of a tavern sign half a block away.

  "Everything okay?" Emmett asked from the shadows behind a metal desk.

  She turned quickly, irritated by the query. "I'm fine," she said brusquely. "Just getting the feel of the place. Trying to pick up the illusion trap vibes I sensed the last time we were here."

  "Right." There wasn't enough light filtering through the window to show Emmett's expression. His voice was very even. He turned and went down the hall toward Bob Matthews's office.

  Lydia followed, fighting the thread of panic that was unfurling deep inside. Not fear of the dark, she thought. At least not yet. This was another kind of fear. Please don't lose faith in me now, she wanted to say to Emmett. You're the only one besides me who thinks I can still do this. Please believe in me.

  But she kept silent. Even to voice the plea would be an admission to herself as well as to Emmett that she was anxious about what lay ahead. Ever since she had recovered from her Lost Weekend, she had been desperate to get back underground. Now the moment was upon her, and all she could think about was how she must not screw up.

  But what if Ryan and the shrinks and everyone else were right? What if she really had lost some of her ability to tune into the psi frequencies?

  Stop it, she told herself. You de-rezzed that little illusion trap in the dreamstone jar. That was delicate work. If you could handle that, you're okay.

  She reached up to touch Fuzz, who was perched on her shoulder. He did not rumble in response as he usually did when she petted him. She sensed his heightened state of alertness and knew that all four of his eyes were open.

  Emmett did not click on the penlight until they reached Matthews's office. Lydia left him to the task of rummaging through the desk drawers. She opened up all of her own senses, physical and paranormal, searching for the invisible traces of ephemeral energy that indicated an illusion trap.