by Jayne Castle
“Go through it again for me,” Adam ordered.
“Right,” Galendez said. “Not much to tell, though. I was at my post.” He angled his chin up toward a broken window in the abandoned warehouse behind Marlowe. “Treiger was in the alley. Drake and O’Conner entered through the front door.”
“No one came through the alley,” Treiger said. “No one left that way, either. Drake and O’Conner didn’t rez the office lights.”
“Is that part of their pattern?” Marlowe asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” Galendez said. “Don’t really need lights here in the Quarter this close to the wall unless you’re trying to read a newspaper.”
“That’s true,” she said.
“Figured it was just another late-night meeting,” Treiger said. “But naturally we didn’t hear anything because there aren’t any bugs inside.”
Marlowe understood. “Sophisticated listening devices don’t work well in the Quarter, especially this close to the wall. The psi levels cause too much interference.”
Treiger nodded. “Next thing we know, we hear the explosion. The fire started immediately.”
“The blinds covering the office windows went fast,” Galendez said. “I had a clear view into the room, but I couldn’t see much. The place was engulfed in ghost fire. I could feel the energy of it all the way across the street. Didn’t last long, but by the time it de-rezzed, the whole building was in flames.”
“Figure O’Conner and Drake set the fire and got out of the building through their hole-in-the-wall.” Treiger said. “That’s the only other exit, and it’s the one place we can’t post a watch.”
“Looks like O’Conner and Drake decided to close down the office,” Adam said. “They wanted to make sure that there was nothing left in the way of evidence.”
“Fire like that will do the trick,” Galendez said. “But who could pull that much alien psi? I know Drake and O’Conner are both strong, but I’ve never heard of any ghost hunter who is that powerful, not outside the tunnels.”
Adam exchanged a glance with Marlowe. She knew what he was thinking. A couple of strong Guild men like O’Conner and Drake, working with the crystals, could have generated the kind of psi required to ignite a fire aboveground.
“We can’t go into the building,” Adam said. “But we can check out the hole-in-the-wall. Doubt if we’ll find anything useful, but you never know.”
They used the rip in the wall beneath the empty warehouse to enter the catacombs. Although their goal was just across the street, the journey underground was, as always, convoluted. They walked for a good fifteen minutes through the tunnels before arriving at another jagged hole in the quartz.
“This is it,” Galendez said.
Adam looked through the opening. “Fire’s still smoldering in the basement. It’s going to stay hot for a while, probably a lot longer than a couple of days.”
Marlowe studied the view through the ripped quartz. She could see only a profound darkness lit here and there by flames. She could not smell the thick smoke on the other side of the tunnel entrance, but no ash drifted into the catacombs. The heavy psi prevented the tainted air from drifting into the underworld.
Adam turned toward her. “What do you see?”
She rezzed her senses cautiously and examined the layers of strong dreamprints that seethed on the floor near the hole-in-the-wall.
“O’Conner and Drake have used this entrance on several occasions over the years. Both sets of tracks show signs of crystal use.”
“They knew that the Bureau was closing in on them,” Adam said. “They came here tonight to destroy the place to make sure that there was no evidence left that could be turned over to a Chamber tribunal.”
“Not exactly,” she said, examining the prints very closely.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“They have certainly come and gone this way many times,” she said. “But they did not leave through this exit tonight.”
There was a moment of sharp silence.
Adam cast a speculative glance at the portion of smoldering basement that could be seen through the ripped quartz.
“Well, that’s interesting,” he said.
Galendez frowned. “No offense, but are you sure they both didn’t get out of the building through this hole, Miss Jones?”
“Positive,” she said quietly. “I think that when the fire investigators are finally able to access the scene, they’re going to find the bodies of both O’Conner and Drake in the rubble.”
Adam looked at her. “See any other prints?”
“Yes,” she said. “A couple of other people besides Drake and O’Conner have come this way recently, but one set of prints in particular worries me. They’re only a day or two old. They belong to a woman.”
“One of O’Conner’s mistresses,” Treiger offered. “Or maybe one of Drake’s women.”
Marlowe hesitated. “Whoever she was, she was terrified.”
“Maybe she saw something she shouldn’t have seen,” Adam said.
“There was someone with her.” Marlowe tracked the prints around the corner. “Not O’Conner or Drake. Whoever he was, he took her this way.”
Adam and the two Bureau agents followed her. Marlowe kept walking, following the trail of seething dreamlight.
“This stuff is boiling,” she said. “I think he meant to kill her. That’s why she was so scared. It also explains why his prints are so hot. He was anticipating the kill. There is a return set of prints, as well. His, but not hers.”
“Probably didn’t murder her outright,” Adam said. “More likely, he stripped her of her amber and sent her into the tunnels.”
“She wouldn’t be the first inconvenient Councilman’s mistress to disappear that way,” Treiger said.
“If they sent her into the rain forest, I’ll never find her,” Marlowe said. “It’s impossible to track dreamlight in the jungle.”
“O’Conner and Drake are old-school,” Adam said. “Traditionalists. They aren’t comfortable in the rain forest. They don’t know the rules there. They would have stuck with the tunnels for this kind of business.”
The flat certainty in his words sent a shiver through her. She remembered what he had said about keeping his enemies close. He had studied Drake and O’Conner. He knew them well enough to predict their actions.
She paused to take another look at some of the pooling dreamlight. “She’s alone now. He left her here and went back to the office. She was still alive at this point. Maybe we’re not too late.”
“She probably started running,” Galendez warned. “People always run when they end up underground without good amber. They panic. Start to hallucinate. Sooner or later, they blunder into a ghost or a trap, and it’s all over.”
Marlowe stopped in front of a vaulted opening and looked into the vast rotunda beyond. A dozen glowing passageways opened off the circular space.
There was a woman on the floor in the center of the rotunda. She sat with her arms wrapped tightly around her knees, her head down, rocking gently. The dreamlight on the floor around her shimmered with despair.
“Gloria Ray,” Treiger said. “Drake’s latest mistress.”
Marlowe hurried forward. “It’s all right, Gloria. You’re safe now.”
Gloria raised her head. Disbelief and uncertainty flashed across her tear-stained face. “Are you real?”
“Yes,” Marlowe said. She reached down and helped Gloria to her feet. “We’re real.”
“I started seeing things,” Gloria whispered. Her voice shook. “They say that happens down here in the tunnels when your amber doesn’t work and you’re all alone and you know you can’t find your way out. The psi gets to you. They say first you start seeing things, and then you panic and you start running.”
“You didn’t panic, and you didn’t run,” Marlowe said.
“I almost did,” Gloria said. “Lost count of how many times I thought about doing that.”
“What stopped you?” Adam asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“I didn’t run because I didn’t freak out completely,” Gloria said. “Even without amber, I’ve still got a little talent. I’m intuitive, you see. Had a feeling that if I just stayed put, someone might find me.”
Chapter 38
“GLORIA IS STILL FRACTURED,” ADAM SAID ON THE other end of the phone. “She was down there in that green hell for nearly two days.”
“Long enough to fray anyone’s nerves.” Marlowe lounged back in the big desk chair and absently swiveled from side to side. The springs squeaked rhythmically.
Gibson left his box of toys on the window bench, fluttered down to the floor and over to the desk. He bounced up onto the arm of the chair and from there to the high back above Marlowe’s head. He clung to his perch with his hind paws, chortling in delight as the chair swung back and forth in a slow semicircle.
“She told me she found out that O’Conner and Drake were planning to get rid of me,” Adam said. “She decided it was time to disappear. Says she intended to call and warn me about their plot when she was safely out of town.”
“How did she end up in Drake’s and O’Conner’s office the other night?”
“She went there to get some insurance. She knew they kept incriminating financial information in a wall safe in the office. Somewhere along the line she discovered the combination. She took a camera with her and photographed several pages of a journal. She was planning to use it as blackmail material in case O’Conner sent someone after her.”
“But he found her there in the office photographing the journal?”
“No,” Adam said, sounding very satisfied. “He found her after she had photographed the journal and hidden the camera in her bra.”
“Wait a second.” Marlowe sat forward abruptly. Gibson almost fell off the back of the chair. “Are you telling me Drake didn’t search her and find the camera before he sent her into the tunnels?”
“All Drake cared about was making sure she didn’t have any good amber. She says he aimed some kind of weird flashlight at her and then told her that her amber was dead.”
“He used vortex quartz on her.”
“Sounds like it. The story checks out. The lab techs tell me that the one piece of concealed amber that Ray had on her was warped.”
“But now you’ve got her camera?”
“Better than that. The pages she photographed have been developed and printed out. It’s definitely a financial journal of some kind, but it’s coded. Shouldn’t be too hard to crack the code, though.”
“You’re sure?”
“Trust me, Drake’s and O’Conner’s minds didn’t work that way. I’ve got a couple of Bureau forensic accountants going through the data now. Should have something soon.”
“But now you’re looking for a third man,” she said. “The one who set the fire that killed Drake and O’Conner.”
“Someone is pulling the plug on an operation and snipping off loose ends. You said you saw other prints leading away from the bolt-hole and that they were fresh.”
“Yes. But there was very little heat in them. I don’t doubt but that whoever set the fire is a cold-blooded killer, but even cold-blooded killers get hot when they kill.”
“The adrenaline,” Adam said quietly.
“After rezzing all that ghost light and killing two people, there should have been a lot of heat in those prints.”
“Another chameleon like Tucker Deene?”
She thought about it. “Theoretically possible, I guess.”
“You’re the one who said that kind of talent is extremely rare. What are the odds that two chameleons would turn up in this case?”
“Slim to none,” she admitted.
“So, odds are we’ve actually got one chameleon: Tucker Deene. I told you I didn’t trust that guy.”
“The thing is, he’s a con artist, Adam. Not a killer.”
“How do you know? He’s a chameleon. He’s probably never let you see his real prints.”
“I saw them when he pulled that mag-rez on me in the stairwell at the condo. But say you’re right. Say Tucker was involved in some kind of conspiracy with Drake and O’Conner. What’s in this for him?”
“Revenge on the two men who encouraged his brother to forge the crystal guns that nearly killed him? Or maybe he’s just trying to make sure there’s no trail of conspiracy that leads from O’Conner and Drake back to the Deene family.”
“I keep telling you, Tucker is a con artist, not a cold-blooded killer.”
“He and his brother and sister were doing business with O’Conner and Drake, who were up to their necks in everything from antiquities smuggling to drugs, not to mention money laundering, fraud, gambling, and extortion. Shall I go on?”
“Okay, I understand that there was a lot of money involved.”
“The Deenes have good reason to worry that any serious investigation of O’Conner and Drake would inevitably involve them.”
“But you more or less let them off the hook. You didn’t threaten them.”
“That still leaves the Frequency City Police for them to worry about,” Adam said.
She swallowed hard. “You’re right. Sometimes I forget that there are regular law enforcement agencies in this town.”
Adam was quiet for a time. Marlowe tapped her pen against the desktop. Gibson got bored and bopped down to the floor. He fluttered out the door. Marlowe heard Rick lift the lid of the cookie jar.
“About that real date that we’ve never had,” Adam said.
Marlowe froze. “What about it?”
“Would you be interested in going out to dinner with me? To an actual restaurant?”
She drew a breath and let it out slowly. “Yes. Yes, I’d like that.”
“Good. Thanks.”
Silence hummed again.
It was as if they had both just made it safely across a fragile bridge strung above a very deep gorge, she thought. The case that had brought them together was winding down rapidly. Soon there would be no more excuses for a partnership. Soon they would be on their own, facing the complications of their relationship, trying to get back to normal, always assuming that there was such a state.
“One piece of good news on this end,” Adam said after a while.
“What’s that?”
“Got a lead on Joey the broker. I sent Galendez and Treiger to check it out. If they find him, I may be able to get some answers.”
“Good luck.”
“I’ll call you later.”
He ended the connection.
Marlowe sat quietly for a few minutes, studying the genealogy file that she had pulled up on her computer just before Adam had called.
After a while she got to her feet and went into the front office. Rick looked at her.
“Going somewhere?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. She took her leather jacket and helmet off the hook. “I’ll be at the Arcane genealogical library. Ready to ride, Gibson?”
Gibson did not need a second invitation. He hopped off the desk and dashed across the room toward her. She picked him up and tucked him under her arm.
“What’s happening with genealogy?” Rick asked.
“I want to talk to one of the librarians.” She opened the door. “Call me if anything comes up.”
“Are you kidding? The phone has been ringing all morning. Business is starting to pour in, boss. I told you all that publicity was going to do J&J a lot of good.”
“Try to weed out the crank calls, okay? I refuse to do haunted houses.”
“Got it. No haunted house cases.”
Chapter 39
THE LIBRARIAN’S NAME WAS BEATRICE RAMSEY. SHE was in her early sixties, but she looked like a very stylish forty-five. She was trim, athletic, and passionate about genealogy.
She led Marlowe down a long aisle of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves crammed with thick, heavy volumes. The interior of the
Society’s Bureau of Genealogy was not unlike the catacombs, Marlowe reflected. A person could get lost in the maze of bookshelves. The windowless, atmosphere-controlled environment added to the disorientation.
“The Society’s files are maintained on computers, of course,” Beatrice explained. “But we also keep original, hard copy records. The advanced preservation techniques back on Earth made it possible to conserve even the oldest journals before they were brought through the Curtain. Some of these volumes date back to the founding of the Society.”
“Yes, I know,” Marlowe said. She had learned long ago that once you started talking to a member of the genealogy staff, it was best to just shut up and listen.
“It’s not often we get a request for a hard copy original, however,” Beatrice said. “It’s so much easier to access the information on the computer.”
And so much easier to hack into the database, Marlowe thought. But she did not say that out loud.
“Ah, here we go.” Beatrice stopped. She studied the labels on the spines of the books and then plucked one volume off the shelf. “I think you’ll find what you’re looking for in this. Renquist’s research has rarely been equaled.”
“Renquist?”
“Grace Renquist. She was a brilliant Arcane genealogist who lived back in the twenty-first century on Earth. Over the years, there has been a lot of very fine work done in the field of psychical inheritance traits, but Renquist’s analysis is still considered a foundation text. It is often consulted by the experts, even today.”
“Sounds like the right place to start.” Marlowe opened the volume and read the title page aloud. “A Study of the Inheritance Patterns of Rare Paranormal Characteristics in Families Registered with the Arcane Society.” She looked up. “Yes, this will be very helpful.”
“There are a few other texts that I think will also answer some of your questions,” Beatrice said. “Follow me, please.”
“One more thing. I’m going to need the hard copy version of the records of a family named Deene.”
“Sure you don’t want to use the computer for that? So much easier to search family trees that way.”