House of Stone

by T. K. Thorne

  Three days. We have three days to keep the killer from stealing an affordable diabetes treatment and taking little Kaleshia’s brother away from her, permanently.

  “Has anything unusual happened?” I ask. “Have you had any visitors?”

  He laughs. “Nope. Nobody comes to see me, except Mr. Enslen or a couple of homicide detectives.”

  “Right. I’ll check on you again.”

  “You are easy on the eyes, lady. Come see me anytime.”

  I click off. Nobody comes to see me except Mr. Enslen.

  Have we overlooked something right in our faces? Enslen has been in the Army. He would know his way around guns and knives. Could he have been behind the ski mask? Yes, I decide, he could. He knows exactly who Segal is, his schedule, and the significance of what role Segal plays in the drug testing trials. What if Dr. Crompton had found out something fishy was going on and shown up at the Edge of Chaos asking questions? Enslen would have been in the perfect place to take notice. Did he have a financial interest in ZQ Pharmacological? Don’t know at this point, but he certainly has interests in the University, which stands to make profits from a new drug patent. Could one arm of the massive institution be trying to track down how zahablan works for the good of humanity, while another is using that information for potential profit? And is that an unworthy goal? Turning research into successful business ventures is part of what a university does, isn’t it? Where does right turn into wrong?

  At murder.

  Maybe we should pay Mr. Enslen another visit.

  Tomorrow. Tonight, I help Alice get Becca ready for bed, undressing her, putting on a nightgown and adult diapers.

  “I got her,” I tell Alice. “You need a break.”

  I brush Becca’s teeth, using a squirt water bottle to rinse and catching whatever she doesn’t reflexively swallow into a plastic bowl. When she sits stiffly on the edge of her bed, I push her down gently and straighten her legs. Last night she lay on her back all night. I don’t think she ever rolled over.

  The same fears that haunted me after the Ordeal have returned. How do I get through to her scalded mind? How do I help her? Is she feeling anything, thinking anything? I touch her forehead. She doesn’t even blink. Is she in there, trapped and sealed off as Jason implied?

  After the Ordeal, her progress had been incremental, but when Daniel moved in, they made an instant connection, and she blossomed. Had she really been coming back before Nora killed herself or was that just her brain starting over, forming a new person, a child reborn with a fresh slate? She wasn’t my Becca, but she wasn’t this mockery of her. She was a human being trying to rediscover a world that was strange and new to her. What happened to that person?

  In the confines of her room, I pace. It’s Alice’s only spare bedroom, not counting the one in the basement. We modified the study into a bedroom for Nora and Daniel, but most nights Daniel snuck into Becca’s room and slept beside her. I would find them together in the morning. Daniel was a restless sleeper and often his foot would be on Becca’s neck or his arm flung over her chest. She never seemed to mind.

  The book I had been reading to her and Daniel sits on the bedside table. I guess Becca’s situation was like the Glob’s. She had to reform herself out of nothing. This is not the way the story is supposed to end—the Glob is not supposed to go backward, to return to the formless mass and float aimlessly.

  I bite my lip and pick up the book on the bedside table, sitting beside her. She stares at the ceiling, but I recall hearing that people in comas can hear even when they can’t respond. I open the book and start reading.

  “Long ago there was a Glob. He was a shapeless thing and he floated to and fro in the tide of the early sea . . .”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  First thing in the morning, Tracey and I head to the Edge of Chaos to interview Max Enslen. It yields nothing. Dispirited, we return to the office. Enslen could have been lying, but neither of us could add anything other than he was in a position to know Segal’s schedule and what he was doing. The night Laurie Stokes was killed, he was at an event with his wife and twenty people until midnight. We confirmed that with his wife and two of the other attendees. Dead end.

  Back to the drawing board, or in this case, the computer and our lists.

  Several hours later, I throw my pen on my desk and rub my eyes. “This is not fun.” The growing list of corporations and their spinoffs has eaten two pages of a notebook. “I should be answering domestic disputes and writing speeding tickets.”

  “Stop grousing,” Tracey says, glancing up from his terminal. “You know how many patrolmen would give their front teeth to work Homicide?”

  “They can have it.”

  “A bit testy today, aren’t we?”

  “Not a morning person,” I mutter.

  He chuckles. “I have gotten that, but it’s 10:00 a.m.”

  “What did you find on Mack Enslen’s background?” I ask, changing the subject. “We’ve ruled him out as the person who pulled the trigger, but what if he hired someone to kill Stokes?”

  “Nothing. He’s clean as a whistle. No priors, honorable discharge from the Army. Married, no children. Graduated from Auburn.”

  “That last one alone should make him a suspect,” I say.

  He grins. “War Eagle.”

  “You didn’t even go to Auburn.”

  “I know, but I find I enjoy riling you up.”

  The football rivalry between the two universities—Alabama and Auburn—divides the state in half. “War Eagle” is the rallying cry for Auburn University, and “Roll Tide” is the cheer for the University of Alabama—the one in Tuscaloosa, my alma mater, which is about sixty miles southwest of Birmingham.

  I ignore his attempt to tease me out of my mood.

  Lt. Faraday peers around the edge of our cubicle. “Good morning,” she says. “Have some new cases for you.”

  Tracey and I exchange glances.

  “Umm, anyone else you can assign them to, Lieutenant?” he asks. “We kinda got a clock ticking here.”

  She crosses her arms over her chest. “Nope.” She eyes me. “That’s why Brighton is here instead of in Burglary, to help with caseloads.”

  I suppress a groan. We can’t explain to Faraday that our concerns for Deon Segal are based on a vision. We’ll have to put our fingers in the dike on these cases and do what we need to. I suspect it will be another late night.

  “It’s 6 p.m.,” Faraday says later. “It’s okay for you guys to go home.”

  Tracey spreads his arms wide, an act that encompasses a lot of space. He stretches and yawns. “Just trying to get a few things done before you hand us more cases tomorrow, Lieutenant.”

  “It’s not my fault people are violent,” she says. “Although it does provide job security.”

  She turns to leave, stops, and looks at us over her shoulder, “I’m going home. Don’t burn out. I don’t know which homicide you’re working on, but he’s already dead.”

  When we are alone in the office, Tracey says, “It would help if we could tell her that Segal will be a dead man if we don’t solve this soon.”

  “That would involve explaining how we know that.” I lean back and stretch my neck from one side to the other. “And I don’t think the explanation would fly.”

  “Probably not,” he mutters, his attention back on his computer terminal. “The thing that’s so frustrating is we’re only halfway through this list, and we may have already looked at a suspect without knowing it. We’re shooting in the dark.”

  “Is there anything else we should do?” I ask. “Follow Enslen?”

  Tracey shakes his head. “I think that would be a waste of time, and we don’t have that time. His alibi is tight.”

  He scowls. “If we don’t get a lead, we’re going to have to sit out on that alley while Segal works the data.”
/>
  “And what if someone has already gotten to Segal, and he changes the data?”

  Tracey’s mouth flattens into a line. “Our first priority is to save his life. We may not be able to stop him from changing the data.”

  I think about Ferd Johnson, the man with diabetes who had his foot amputated. Maybe not the most heroic example of humanity, but he is just one of millions whose lives have been horribly affected by that disease. How can we not try to stop that? Researchers have toiled for years to find something that could. If we let all that work, all that hope be for nothing—

  “We have to stop him,” I say.

  I ask myself a question I’ve been avoiding. Could I stop him with Iron’s magic? Stand over Segal and keep him from changing the data? Putting aside that I have sworn not to do that, would I have any clue how to go about making sure the data was right? Segal said it took a couple of days to go over all the information. I wouldn’t even understand what he was looking at.

  But maybe there is a way at least to find out if someone is threatening him. My stomach roils thinking about using power to manipulate him. That is wrong. But so is doing nothing. It’s an old question: Does the end justify the means?

  I dig through my purse for my phone. My gun has a special place in a hidden Velcro enclosure, but the rest of my purse is chaos. It seems like things keep collecting there.

  Segal answers the phone on the fifth ring. “Detective?”

  “Hi. I need to talk to you. Where are you?”

  “At the hospital.”

  “How long will you be there?”

  “Just a few minutes. I was going to grab something to eat and go home.”

  “Where? I can meet you there.”

  “I was just going to get takeout.”

  “Can you eat it at the restaurant?”

  “I guess. Sure. I have a hankering for Full Moon BBQ.”

  “Fine. The one near UAB?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I know where it is.” I also know they have cookies dipped in dark chocolate.

  “I want to talk to Segal,” I say, getting to my feet. “I want to feel out if someone is threatening him.”

  He nods. “If he can tell us who that person is, that would be a hell of a lot more productive than this.” He jerks his head at pages of names. “Want me to come?”

  “No, I think I can do better alone on this.”

  He meets my gaze. I have no way to know if he thinks I’m going to use my interview skills or feminine charms. What would he say if he knew I have Iron magic and plan to use it on Segal?

  He sighs. “Just get the info. You’re right. If there is any way we can stop sabotage on the research trials, we have to do it.”

  Segal is already at a table when I get to the restaurant. I sit across from him in a booth.

  “Hey, thanks for the ego boost,” he says around a mouthful. “You just upped my reputation.”

  I smile. “My pleasure.”

  “Is this about the diabetes trial?” He sighs. “You sure are interested in that.”

  “We think it may have something to do with why Dr. Crompton was killed.”

  “Damn. I thought my good looks and charm finally got to you.”

  I “explore” the ground below us, searching for iron ore. It’s not hard to find. At the same time, I touch Segal’s arm, releasing a miniscule measure of Iron magic into him.

  I don’t want to do this, but I’m desperate. Magic, I tell myself, even Iron magic is not evil. It is just a tool, like a gun. It’s the wielder who decides whether to use it and how. I am using it for Segal, to save his life.

  “You will tell me the truth,” I say with a smile. “Won’t you?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  His dark eyes are fixed on me, reminding me of the way Becca followed Theophalus Blackwell’s every move as if she had no life outside of his will. A shudder serpents my spine, and I almost jerk away. But I clench my teeth. I can’t chicken out. I have to do this. If Segal dies, a lot of people’s hope will die with him.”

  “Do you have any intention of sabotaging the data on the trials?” I ask.

  He blinks. “Of course not.”

  “Is anyone threatening you in any way to get you to do that?”

  “No.” He seems to pull back into himself a bit. “Should I worry about that?”

  “Yes. And you should find a random hotel and go there. Call in sick. Don’t tell anyone but Detective Lohan or me where you are. And if anyone threatens you in any way, I want you to call me immediately, no matter when or where or what is said to you. Will you do that?” I send an extra tiny push into him.

  “Yes.”

  “And don’t walk down any alleys. Go the long way.”

  Have I saved his life or just altered the future so that now we have no way to know how he will be stalked?

  I sit back, trembling with the effort to restrict the magic to a pinhole trickle. It’s different than holding the living-green. Iron is a cold, oily burn and a pressure that seeks relief. So much easier just to let it flow out and scald what it may.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  When I return from meeting Segal, Tracey is alone at the office. “Well, at least we don’t have to climb Vulcan to have a private conversation.”

  He grunts. “I may have found something.”

  “What?”

  “I was going through the data we collected on that pharmaceutical company involved in funding the new drug research at the private lab, and I discovered these parties.” He slides a piece of paper toward me. On it is a long list of names, but one is circled.

  “Fe, Inc.?”

  “Yep.”

  “Strange name.” Something about it is familiar. I try to recall high school chemistry. “Iron,” I say. “‘Fe’ is the chemical symbol for iron.”

  “It is. I noticed that too and dug a little deeper into it. One of the incorporators was a Samuel Blackwell.”

  “Blackwell? That’s House of Iron.”

  I recall the short, rotund man who had taken amusement in showing me the strange details of the basement of his house, a long corridor of rooms decorated to mirror different time periods. Becca and I had been imprisoned in one of those rooms.

  “‘Uncle Sam?’” I ask.

  “Was he someone you met the night your aunt died?”

  I grit my teeth. “Yes.”

  Misinterpreting my response, he puts a hand briefly on mine. “I’m really sorry. Your great aunt’s death was a blow to all of us.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “If House of Iron is connected to this thing with zahablan—” He leaves the rest of his sentence hanging.

  “And if they know I’m working it, they may be trying to kill two birds with one stone. Stop the investigation and finish my House.”

  He looks at me, his gray eyes steel. “Rose, we’re prepared to take you somewhere safe. Give you a new identity. Protect you. All the resources of House of Stone are committed to this.”

  I blink at him. “You mean ‘run away’?”

  “I mean give you a chance. That man on the roof at Vulcan Park meant business. If Iron is involved in this, solving the case is not going to stop them if they’re intent on killing you.”

  “I hoped that was over when Theophalus Blackwell died. He was unbalanced. But that doesn’t mean everyone else in House of Iron is.”

  “Maybe not, but I think others may have you in their sights.”

  “My mother mentioned a cabal in House of Iron committed to eradicating House of Rose.”

  He lifts an eyebrow. “I thought your mother died when you were young.”

  “She did, but she left a letter in my great aunt’s custody, and Alice left it for me in a safety deposit box.”

  “If this cabal kills you, it’s the end of Hou
se of Rose.”

  That is true, even though Alice is alive. At over a hundred, she’s not going to have a child.

  He looks up at the ceiling, avoiding my gaze. “It’s none of my business, but have you ever . . . um . . . thought about having children?”

  My head snaps up. “Why do you ask?”

  He shifts. “My father is a geneticist. He’s researched the House genes for a lot of years, and he believes House of Rose is important for all of us.”

  Could his father be the person Alice mentioned who sent her reports? He must be. What are the odds of there being another geneticist in House of Stone?

  “That’s why Stone is intent on protecting me? I’m a prize cow that’s needed for the genetic line?”

  I can feel my earlobes burning.

  “Yeah, I’d be lying if I said differently.”

  I press my lips together and glare at Tracey. “I’m not running away.”

  Chapter Forty-Five

  The next day is Thursday, day two of the three we have until the data is in. I wait in the most public place I could think of, an outside table at the Black Market Bar & Grill in the middle of Five Points South. The sidewalks buzz with an eclectic motley of people. Mirroring the diversity of the humans are the nearby statuaries. I can almost reach out and touch the kneeling statue of Brother Bryan praying for the sinful, lusty mining boomtown where bars and brothels outnumbered any other type of business. Just across the street, the whimsical “Story Teller” fountain features a bronze statue of “Bob” the ram, who reads to an audience of rabbits, turtles, frogs, and other creatures. Some people look at it askance, wondering if the ram (close enough to a goat, I guess) is a satanic image. Those folks would probably not be happy to know that a real witch sits nearby.

  The leap of my pulse alerts me to Jason’s presence before I actually see him. When he sits across from me, his hand on the table, magic zaps across the short distance between us like chemical transmitters leaping the synapse in the brain’s circuitry. Okay, that metaphor is imaginary, but I believe Alice is right that what we label “magic” is science when you get down to the nitty-gritty. We just don’t know enough to explain it yet, so it’s “magic.”