Trove (The Katie Walsh Mysteries)

by KJ Montgomery

  “Hello, Alec,” Laura answered.

  “Hey, it’s me. I borrowed Alec’s phone. How’s everything going?”

  “Hold on while I walk outside,” Laura said.

  “How’s Lucy? Has she been nosing around? I’m still not convinced she doesn’t have her hand in this somewhere along the line,” Katie said.

  “I actually haven’t seen much of her. Word around here is that she’s working on a special project.”

  “See? I knew she was involved,” Katie seethed.

  “Katie, you’re sounding paranoid. As much trouble as she is, I don’t think she’d be involved with something like that.” Laura hesitated. “I don’t think she’d be involved with that sort of blackmail.”

  “What is with you and Alec? I think you’re both caught in her web. She’s been trying to get me out since Day One and what better way to make me ineffective wherever I went? I can just hear it now. ‘Oh, you’re that Katie Walsh, the one on the sex tape.’ I could have invented a time machine and I’d be forever known as ‘sex-tape Katie Walsh.’ I’d never be taken—”

  “Okay, I’m outside now,” Laura cut in. “I had our friend take a look like you asked and he was able to definitely trace the email back to a server at the Institute.”

  “Can he dig any further?”

  “He’s pretty sure he can, though he did say something about some odd routing being used to obscure the sender’s identity.”

  “Great, so theoretically it could be anyone at the Institute.”

  “Hey, don’t include me in that,” Laura snapped.

  “Sorry, I wasn’t. I’m just saying I haven’t any idea who it might be besides Lucy or one of her minions.”

  “You really think she’s involved, Katie?”

  Katie inhaled. “She could be. The caller said I knew ‘of him,’ but that doesn’t mean she’s not involved in some way. She had a hand in Alec getting hired.”

  “Wow, somehow you forget to tell me that little tidbit,” Laura said.

  “Sorry. Maybe I should start keeping a journal and then copy you on it.”

  “Katie… can I ask you something?”

  “Sure, you can. What’s up?”

  “Well, I looked at that picture…”

  Katie cut her off. “And did you have Willie delete it from your hard drive? Please tell me he deleted it.”

  “Yes, but even though you and Alec just met that night…”’

  Katie drummed her fingers on her leg, willing Laura to get to the point. “And?

  “Well, it seems… I mean, the way you’re looking at each other… It’s as if you’ve known each other long before that moment. In that one picture, there is a look on both your faces… What I’m trying to say is do you think you two are soul mates and find each other in each life you live?”

  Katie exhaled. “I know we’ve talked about the possibility of reincarnation and I think I can buy into it, considering the universe is estimated to be about thirteen billion years old. It would make sense that there is more to us than just a seventy year existence, but soul mates?” She shook her head. “I don’t know about that.”

  “Look at the picture and look at your faces, particularly the eyes. There’s something there, and I’m not talking about sexual arousal. There’s something deeper.”

  “Laura, you’re such a romantic.” Katie twirled a curl around her finger, but maybe Laura was on to something. She had to admit that there was some connection between them, one she couldn’t define, and it was more than physical. It was there that first moment she became aware of him at the hotel. Was Laura right? “Anyway, have Willie email me or call me on Alec’s phone. Our connection may be rather sporadic over the next several days so let him know.”

  “Will do and you guys be safe.”

  Kate glanced down at her laptop. The internet connection was decent. She logged in to her email and saw there was one from Eric. She double clicked and grinned as she read it.

  Program appears to work well. I’ve run it as you requested and identified several promising sites. I’ll send the coordinates to your phone.

  She replied and asked him to send the coordinates to Alec’s cell phone. Her stomach growled, reminding her they hadn’t had any supper. She picked up her purse and left the room in search of some take-out food.

  She returned with some sandwiches, figuring they’d be up all night if they had a heavy, rich supper. She entered the room, shut the door behind her, and flipped the deadbolt. She started to walk to the small table… where Alec was sitting, using her laptop. “What are you doing?” she asked as she approached the table and set the food down.

  He stood, towering over her, and glared. His brows knitted together, and his mouth formed into a tight slit. He was angry, very angry. And odds were with her.

  She stepped back and swallowed. “What’s wrong? I got some food,” she said as she busied herself with unpacking it. She stole a few quick glances at him.

  Alec inhaled. She watched as his broad chest grew even bigger. She’d never seen him like this. Every muscle in his body seemed to contain an energy just waiting to erupt, focusing on a target, and she seemed to be that target.

  In an instant he was on her, grabbing her by the shoulders and whipping her body around to face him full on. She raised her head and her eyes were captured in his penetrating stare.

  “Do you think this is a school field trip? Do you not understand that someone may be out to kidnap you? Did you learn nothing that day in the North End when you were nearly abducted off the street in broad daylight?” He shook her. “What do I have to do to knock it into your head you are not allowed to go out alone until this is over?”

  Her voice shaking, Katie replied, “But I only went a few doors down to the pub to get some food. I just assumed I’d be safe.”

  “Tell me honestly, Katie. You didn’t even think about the danger. It didn’t even enter your mind.”

  She slowly nodded and then exhaled. “You’re right. It didn’t register with me. I was hungry so I just zipped out to grab something.”

  “So help me I’ll handcuff you to me if I have to. Do you want that?”

  She felt the grin spread across her face. “Hmmm, handcuffs. I might actually enjoy that.”

  Alec dropped his hands. “Jeesh, Katie, I’m not talking about sex.” He ran his hands through his hair.

  “Admit it, Alec, it might prove very… entertaining.”

  He shook his head. “Stop it, Katie. I need your promise that you won’t venture outside or answer the door without me nearby until this is over.”

  Katie plopped into a chair. “I’ll try,” was all she could muster.

  “Not good enough,” he said as he scowled down at her, his crossed arms adding to his threatening tone.

  “But it’s hard for me. I’m used to being on my own and doing what I want when I want. It’s just not in my nature to be constrained.”

  “Well, make it,” he snapped. “Your life and mine may depend on it.”

  Katie absently nodded. His life, his life may be in danger. That was something she could focus on. “I promise.”

  “Good. Now let’s discuss this email.”

  “It’s a crime to read other people’s mail.”

  “Nice try but that law applies to mail delivered from the post office.”

  “All right,” she huffed. “To which particular one are you referring?”

  “Let’s start with Eric’s.”

  She swallowed. Start with Eric’s. Did that mean he’d seen the one with the photo? She squared her shoulders, straightened her spine and told him about Eric’s latest results.

  He whistled then frowned as he looked down at her. “Just when did you intend to tell me about this? Or were you never going to share the information?”

  “I was going to wait until we got closer to Duntulm. As a matter of fact, I asked Eric to send the GPS coordinates to your phone.” She didn’t admit that if she hadn’t been hell bent to vent her frustration wit
h robo-caller by destroying her phone, the coordinates would have been sent her way instead, but since he was driving, it was a moot point. “That way you’d be able to load them into your GPS app.”

  He nodded. “Okay, I’ll buy that.” He braced his arms on the table, leaning down, getting in her face. “Now, Dr. Walsh, let’s discuss the other email.”

  She took a bite of her sandwich. “Which one?” she asked as the food sank to the pit of her stomach like an express train.

  “The one with the photo,” Alec replied as he pulled her upright and against his chest. He tucked his hand under her chin and tilted her head up. “The one with you and me in flagrante delicto.”

  Katie pressed her palms against his chest. “Maybe I should be asking you about it since it was taken in your room. For all I know you collect video of your sexual encounters for…” She tried to step back but he held her tight against him.

  His eyes flashed. “Is that what you think? That I’m some pervert who gets off taping my conquests and then what, watching them over and over, or selling them?” When she didn’t answer, he nudged her chin with his forefinger. “Is it?”

  “No,” she whispered as she shook her head. “I don’t think that. It’s not who you are.”

  “Then tell me who this bastard is and what he wants. And how the hell did he get a picture of us from five years ago?”

  She tried to wrest herself from the close proximity. It was too confusing having his hard body pressed against her soft one. Her body wanted to meld into his, leaving no space between them. It made it very hard to fight him.

  “Don’t pull away from me, Katie. We’re not done yet. I know it makes you uncomfortable to surrender control to me, but you’re much easier to deal with when you do. If I let you go, you’ll erect that invisible wall and start arguing with me. We need to clear the air… now.” She wriggled again, trying to break free from his hold.

  “So tell me, Katie. Tell me what he said, what he wants.”

  “Okay, okay,” She sighed and relaxed against him, letting her head rest on his chest. Her breathing slowed, matching his. “I’m pretty sure that he left the letter at my condo the other night because he told me there was more to the notes, the runes than I was aware of, and he all but admitted to the attempted abduction. He told me if he were involved it wouldn’t be an attempted abduction. It would be an abduction. I think he was trying to scare me, get me to notice things maybe weren’t as they seemed. What I don’t understand is if he’s part of the Institute, he’ll have access to the runes and the translation once it’s complete so why does he need them immediately?” She lifted her head. “He must know something about them, about their significance. But what and how?”

  “Wouldn’t you know it too? I mean with your knowledge of the legends from around here, surely you’d know something,” Alec said.

  Katie shook her head. “When it came to writing down the local legends, some of them were very, very old and seemed like gibberish, their original meaning lost as language changed and words took on different meanings. So they weren’t recorded or if they were, they were in some obscure tome that may not exist any longer.” She drummed her fingers on his chest. “Maybe this guy has one of those books. Maybe he’s unraveled a legend and is waiting for a certain site or clue to be uncovered. Maybe… maybe that’s what Josh was supposed to deliver and when he didn’t…”

  “He became a loose end.” Alec eased his hold on her. “That would make sense. You said the missing runes were probably names or places. That’s what he needs to know so that he can move quickly, claim his stake.”

  Katie nodded slowly. “It fits. Actually, it seems to be the most likely solution. But what the hell is he looking for?” She pursed her lips. “I mean, my God, the monster very likely murdered Josh.”

  “I know that look. Something else is bothering you. What is it?”

  “I hate that he seems to know more than I do.”

  ****

  Alec chuckled, the laugh rumbling through his chest and into her. She loved being close to him both physically and mentally. He awakened sensations, feelings she didn’t even know she had. She wanted to stay here in his arms forever. She felt safe and… loved.

  Katie swallowed as she realized she was well and truly in love with him. How was that possible? She’d known him less than a week yet she felt like they’d always been together. “Maybe Laura was right,” she murmured.

  “Right? Right about what?”

  “Um, nothing. Just a girl thing.”

  He huffed. “I hate it when women say that. It’s like some secret thing all women seem to know and men will never be let in on.”

  She smiled. “Even if I told you, you wouldn’t understand. Men’s brains are wired differently. I could tell you what she said and you’d understand the words, but you’re right. You’ll never understand what she meant.”

  “It’s that whole ‘men are from Mars’ thing, isn’t it?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Alec lifted her chin and gazed into her hazel-green eyes. She thought he was about to kiss her. She wanted him to kiss her, but there was this unspoken problem that he just wouldn’t share with her, but oh, how she wanted him, needed him. Maybe this would be it, the last time she could entice him into bed. She worried that he’d never tell her what was wrong, but she was going to be selfish in this moment and take what she could get.

  “I shouldn’t do this…” He closed his mouth over hers, nipping her lip. His tongue swept out, swirling through her lips, demanding entry. She relaxed into him and opened her mouth, her tongue greeting his, twirling around his, and inviting him in. He groaned when she slid her hands around to his back and then grabbed the cheeks of his butt, urging him closer. He scooped her up into his arms and carried her to the bed. He hesitated for a moment and then said, “Katie, I’m not sure—”

  “Shhhh,” she whispered as she wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling his weight onto her. “Just make love to me.”

  R

  Chapter Fifteen

  Katie woke fully sated, wonderfully relaxed, and deliciously loved. She stretched and glanced at the clock radio. It was 3:12 a.m. Why, no matter where she was, did she wake up frequently around 3 a.m.? She glanced over and saw her laptop was still on. Thank goodness she plugged it in earlier and it was running on real juice and not the battery. She had no idea when they’d be able to charge it, so it was important that she reserve the battery charge. She rose and went over to log off and shut it down. Her email was active. She remembered that Alec had been reading it last.

  She checked her inbox. There were two new messages. She opened the one from Willie.

  Sorry, Katie. I’m still trying to identify the original sender. Whoever this guy is, he’s good at covering his tracks. While the servers are definitely at the Institute, when I trace back the routing, the address loops back and forth through multiple servers. I’ll keep trying.

  Her shoulders slumped. If Willie couldn’t identify this creep, she didn’t know who could. Part of his expertise had been in computer forensics during the first Gulf War. Though he rarely talked about what he’d done, he did let on that he was a field desk jockey, tracking electronic message and cell phones. Her mind drifted back to the photo. If it wasn’t Alec and she just knew he wasn’t involved, then how was the jerk able to get it? That wasn’t her room and the odds of her ending up in that room were astronomical, so clearly someone wasn’t stalking her. And as far as she knew, Alec was not into anything clandestine or illegal like artifact smuggling, so why was there a camera there?

  Why did she pick that hotel? Was there some connection to her staying there? She thought back to the circumstances that led her to the Uber Metro Hotel. She’d been staying at Willowton, doing research for about a week. She’d discovered that Willowton was situated over an underground river and at the intersection of three powerful ley lines. It was like sitting on top of an electrically charged object. Clearly it played havoc with her biorhythms.

&
nbsp; Snippets of her memory were rising to the front of her mind now, starting to fall into place. She’d been talking with Lord Chester, telling him how his estate wound her up. He agreed and told her that’s why he didn’t stay there for any length of time, preferring his home in London. He told her some people were affected by the electrically charged atmosphere while others weren’t. She was one of the more sensitive, like him.

  Katie told him she just couldn’t take the train up to London to be surrounded by the seething mass of people at Heathrow and she definitely couldn’t survive being cooped up in a plane for six hours. She needed to decompress for a few days, but the last thing she wanted was some staid hotel. She inhaled as she remembered it all now. Lord Chester was the one who told her about the Uber Metro Hotel. It was sleek, modern, full of glass and chrome and he’d recommended it to other visitors to Willowton.

  She slumped back into the chair as it hit her. He was connected to the Institute. The Institute had an agreement with Lord Chester that permitted Willowton to function as an off-site unofficial campus of the main location in Boston. Researchers came to spend time quite frequently. “My God,” she whispered. “Is it him? Lord Chester?”

  She typed a reply to Willie’s email.

  Willie, I need to ask you another favor. While I’d still like you to keep trying to find the origins of the email, I need you to see if you can find out who owns the Uber Metro Hotel in London. And in case it may have been sold over the intervening years, I’m particularly interested in who owned it five years ago. Call Alec’s cell if you come across anything, regardless of how remote it might seem.

  Hopefully Alec’s phone would work out near Duntulm. She had no faith that she’d pick up an internet connection. “Great move,” she muttered. “I just had to murder my cell phone now.” She shook her head. “And to think I called him impulsive.”

  She continued on to the next message. Her stomach lurched as she read the subject line: HERE’S MY GIFT TO YOU, MY FRIEND. His use of the term “my friend” unnerved her. How was it possible that two simple words would cause the hair on the back of her neck to stand on end? She double clicked the message and began reading.