Downpour

TWENTY-FOUR

Food and a chance to dry out were welcome. While I was wolfing my meal—unladylike of me, but true—I kept turning things over in my head. Aside from the late Jonah Leung, the ley weaver had listed four mages: the nexus, the puppeteer, the child, and the rogue. Including the freaky, inhuman thing as well, that was five, not four as I’d expected. I’d been thinking in terms of four cardinal points and assuming the spell-flingers who occupied each virtual position were the anchors. But going from Willow’s reaction, the anchors were physical objects that lay in the lake itself—or had until one of them had been shifted in 1989, causing the magical energy of the grid at the bottom of the lake to break loose. So in a way, maybe I was right in thinking that Costigan’s house and Jewel’s were now holding down two of the points, but it wasn’t the way the system was supposed to work. What the hell had happened in 1989 and how had it moved the anchor? Surely an anchor was something pretty solid or magically resistant to change, something that probably dated back to whenever the landslide tumbling down Mount Storm King had dammed up the original valley and formed the lakes. It wouldn’t be something easily shoved aside. And where was it, whatever it was? Leung must have had it or had some control over it if it was the cause of his death, but Steven seemed to be the only member of the family who didn’t possess an iota of magical power. But he’d known about it....

I put the gnawed remnants of my meal aside, frowning and wondering if I was chasing my own tail. It would be nice to know what sort of object was causing all this carnage, because then I might be able to discover who had one, but if I just knew who killed Leung, or Strother, surely I’d be able to find the anchor among the individual’s effects. It was another chicken-and-egg problem—find one, find the other, but where to start looking . . .

The longer a crime goes unsolved, the harder it becomes to close, and the events of 1989 were now twenty-two years past. Clues were fading away. But now someone had killed Alan Strother, not just because I was in town—though that certainly was the catalyst—but because he was close to something that pointed at Leung’s murderer. He hadn’t been killed for the license plate, because no one knew I had it, not even Jin. No one would have confused Strother for me, either, so it wasn’t an accident of time and place. On the surface, there was no connection between Alan Strother and Steven Leung except the investigation of the sunken Subaru. But there was one link, now expunged from the records: Willow.

Seventeen years had elapsed between the time the anchor was moved and Leung disappeared. It wasn’t the wild magic that had taken him, as it had his son; it was a person who wanted to stop him from doing something with the anchor. Not Willow; she hadn’t known the anchor was the cause of the wild magic or her father’s death until I’d said something. Why had Leung waited so long to do something about the anchor? Hadn’t he figured it out sooner? Willow hadn’t, but she’d had other things to look after, as she’d said. Chasing and taming the yaoguai would be my guess. But Steven, alone in his house mourning his wife and son and missing his daughters, must have had a lot of time to think about what had taken them all away. . . .

And the anchor had sat wherever it was all that time. Could Leung have had the anchor all along and not known what it was? If he suddenly came to that information, would he think the anchor was the key to his problems and try to get rid of it or fix it? Jewel had indicated as much, and if she wasn’t jerking my chain, then what had Leung tried to do? And who had known his plans and tried to stop them? I was still betting on a neighbor; someone Leung had trusted enough to talk to when he must have been scared—at least scared enough to try something crazy. What had he done, who knew about it, and where was the anchor now?

I sat at my table, puzzling over it all for a few more minutes, getting nowhere. Now that I was actually in Forks, my cell phone had started working again and it flashed a light at me to let me know I had messages waiting. I hoped they’d be more helpful than my current ruminations.

The first was from Soren Faith. The department had found an electronic file containing the list of resident home owners around the lake on Strother’s computer. It had half a dozen names and addresses, going back to 1988. It looked as though Strother had been out trying to talk to some of them in person when he’d told Ridenour he wasn’t nearby. I guessed he was buying time for Willow to leave the greenhouse but hadn’t known I’d take his place and undo that gift. Faith seemed to think the list wasn’t that useful, but he told me to call him anyhow.

But there had to be something to it. If Strother had found something interesting, maybe he’d gone back to follow up rather than coming to look for me on the mountain. Of course, he didn’t know Ridenour hadn’t picked me up, so he’d have assumed I’d be at my hotel once the storm came in after dark. He’d had no way to know about the zombies or how long it would take me to get back to Port Angeles. But someone could have followed him down the mountain and to my hotel.

I let the other messages wait while I called Faith back and asked for the list.

“Well . . . it is the homicide of a fellow officer, now, Ms. Blaine. Not sure I should pass it on.”

“You know I’m not the one who killed him and he only made the list because I suggested it. My client wants some closure on the death of her father. I promise not to get under your feet. I just want to see the list.”

Faith sighed. I could hear an ancient desk chair creak as he leaned back into it. “I wish I was working with a dog on this. . . .”

“Excuse me?”

“Usually my partner and I spend most of our time with K-9 units, hunting down missing persons and dead bodies that float up off the Strait, chasing down marijuana smugglers, and picking up after idiots who drink and drive on the cliffs. No offense, but frankly the dog’s a lot easier to work with than you. I know you’re cooperating, but for God’s sake, lady, you’re kicking over rocks like you want to get yourself killed next. One freakin’ homicide a year’s more than enough. I’ll give you this damned list if you can get yourself into my office by four thirty. But after I do, you tell Mrs. Newman that any more carnage on this account will not be ignored. She is not going to wave this off with the smell of money.”

I found myself nodding at the phone. “Understood, Mr. Faith.”

“Ah, that ‘mister’ stuff makes me think I ought to wear a tie.” He said it as if he could already feel it strangling him. “Just ‘Faith.’ And you’re not here by four thirty, I’m gone.”

I didn’t get a chance to reply before he’d cut the connection. I checked the time and thought I could listen to the next message and still make it back across the hill if I started right away.

The other message was from Quinton.

“Hey, beautiful. Um . . . sorry about the other day. But I’m done with my project and I thought I’d better come talk to you so . . . I’m about to get on the ferry to Kingston. I’ll call again when I get to Port Angeles.” Strange—not only did he sound odd, but he wasn’t in the habit of checking in on me or randomly showing up while I was working.

The next call was also Quinton. “Hey. I’m in Port Angeles, but the clerk says you checked out of your hotel. I’m just sitting in the lobby for a while, staring at this pay phone. . . .” He rattled off the number. “I’ll wait here until four. I brought you something from Ben.”

He sounded worried and I guessed the sheriff’s department was still hanging around. Given his feelings about police agencies, I imagined he was nervous, and I wondered what had prompted his trip—I doubted that whatever Ben had given him was so compelling that he had to bring it to me immediately. He hadn’t called very long ago, so I tried the number.

“Hello?” It was definitely Quinton’s voice at the other end.

“Hey,” I said. “What brings you out this way?”

“Hey. Um . . .” He cleared his throat but didn’t say more.

“So . . . someone’s nearby whom you don’t want listening to this conversation?” I asked.

“That sounds right.”

“All right. I have to stop at the sheriff’s department. Do you want to meet me there?”

“Not so much. I met most of them already, I think.”

“OK. Go down to the Canadian ferry dock and I’ll pick you up there about four forty-five.”

“Will do.” He got off the phone without an endearment or goodbye, which was standard procedure for Quinton if he thought anyone might be too interested in what he had to say. Since having worked for a covert agency, he really distrusted phones.

I rushed to get back to Port Angeles before Faith’s deadline. In the steadily increasing rain, it was going to be tight.

But I made it and found Soren Faith standing beside a desk in the sheriff’s department, shrugging on his jacket. He looked up and waved me closer.

He picked up a file from the desk as I approached and held it out to me. “I don’t think it’s going to be much help.”

I took the folder anyway. “Why not?” I asked.

“Well, most of the folks on that list are already suspects. The rest aren’t around anymore. The 1990s were a good time for real estate investors, so most of the lake cabins were bought as vacation homes, not permanent ones. Aside from Elias Costigan, the Newmans, and a couple of Morganroths and Barnses whose families have lived here as long as Washington’s been a state, no one’s a year-round resident who isn’t accounted for. Alan’s car computer logged all his stops and times, so I marked up which houses he visited and when on that list. He pretty much covered everyone. The only thing that’s unusual is that he drove back and forth a couple of times.”

“Did he drive or did he stop?” I asked.

Faith smiled—a crooked, funny smile—as if I’d figured out something that pleased him. “That is the interesting feature, but I haven’t been able to figure out what he was doing yet.” He reached for the folder I held and I gave it back to him so he could spread the contents on the desk. He pointed to the car computer log, item by item. “Down here, he stops by Costigan’s place. Then he stops a few minutes later at the Newmans’. That’s not too strange since they lie along the same route. But then he goes back and stops at the Log Cabin Resort—isn’t that a strange coincidence—about four hours before you called us from there. Then he turns it around and drives out to Lake Sutherland and goes around the back side of it and stops at three different houses, including Steven Leung’s. All of them are unoccupied. He goes to Fairholm, around to Camp David Jr. and back, then heads to Lake Sutherland again. He was out of the car for about thirty minutes at that point, and he didn’t log what he was doing, so I assumed he was eating or having a piss, but the car wasn’t near any facility because all of them are still closed and there’s no one resident at the small lake who’d have let him.”

“So where’d he go and what did he do?” I asked, as expected.

“I don’t know. Nothing else on the list or the log points to anyone specific,” Faith replied, rubbing the scar under his hair.

I frowned and started to push my hair back, mirroring his movement until I caught myself. Faith gave me another of his crooked cat-smiles. “It points to no one,” I said, disappointed. “I was sure it led to something.”

A wry quirk twisted his mouth. “It does. We just don’t know what. And that’s why I’m giving it to you. I don’t want you getting into trouble, but putting the extra brainpower on the problem won’t hurt. You been up here most of a week, so I figure you might see something I’m missing.”

I gave him a suspicious glance. “How do you know how long I’ve been in town?”

“I like to be thorough. I checked with the hotels and guesthouses,’cause you don’t look like the camping type.”

I snorted. It wasn’t that I wouldn’t or couldn’t go camping; I’d just never had much cause or chance to. Though I suppose surveillance details were kind of like camping, in a homeless-guy-living-in-his-car kind of way. And thinking about cars made me ask, “Hey, do you have a list of the items found in Leung’s car? I’d like to take it to my client and see if anything stands out.”

Faith glanced down, thinking. “I believe I do. Hang on a second.” He banged around on the nearest computer keyboard for a moment and coaxed a page from a cranky laser printer that made grinding and coughing noises and shook as if the page were being generated by a hidden Gutenberg press tended by asthmatic souls of the damned. Faith handed the still-warm paper to me. “Good luck with that. And if you come up with any ideas, don’t act on ’em. Call me first.”

I agreed, knowing I was probably lying. “Oh, one more thing,” I said as he shooed me toward the door.

Faith cocked me a look with raised brows. “Yeah?”

“What happened at the lake in 1989?”

“’Eighty-nine?” He gave it some thought. “Nothing. Nothing I know about at least. Ridenour’d be the one to ask. He would have been pretty new back then, but I imagine if anything significant happened, he’s the one who would know.”

I plunged back out into the rain in Faith’s wake and watched him head deeper into the parking lot until the rain hid him from sight, reflecting light from the sodium vapor lamps into scrims and rippling swags of liquid gold streaked black in the fallen night.

The rain was no heavier by the water, but the wind off the Strait of Juan de Fuca blew it in at a cutting angle that filled the windshield with blurry white lines. I had to concentrate on the road just to be sure I was on it, and not wandering into some ghostly pocket of the Grey, but I found the Black Ball Ferry Line’s passenger pickup zone without having to circle around more than once.

There was only one passenger at the dock at that time of night, since the last boat from Victoria hadn’t arrived yet. The size and shape were right, but in the downpour it was hard to tell if it really was Quinton. After what had happened to Strother, I was a touch more paranoid than usual and moved my pistol into the center console. I kept my hand on it as I unlocked the doors.

He bounded into the front seat and shut the door, sweeping off his hat and dropping it onto his boots along with his backpack. Then he pushed back the hood of the sweatshirt he had on underneath the coat, and as the light fell on his face I almost shot him.

“Whoa!” he shouted, putting up his hands as he saw my hand on the gun. “Next time I’ll say something first.”

I let my breath out in a relieved puff at the familiar sound of his voice and drew my hand away from the pistol. I peered at him for a second, just in case it wasn’t really Quinton but some kind of Grey trick. “What the hell happened to your hair?” I asked as I started to pull the truck back onto the road.

He made an embarrassed chuckling sound and ran one hand over his head. His long ponytail was gone and his hair was clipped into a neat, short style that probably looked boringly corporate when it wasn’t damp and mussed. He’d shaved off his beard as well, and his face seemed too large and a little too hard around the jaw without it. He looked more like the old ID photo I’d seen of him when the NSA had come calling a couple of years earlier than like my beloved, shaggy anarchist. I recognized him from other details as well, but it took some restraint not to stare at his broad cheekbones and naked chin.

“Well . . . um . . . I had a need to change my look.”

“Are you running from someone? Is that why you’ve been so jumpy? Is that why you’re here?”

“Not as such.”

“How ’bout you get to that ‘such’ and tell me what’s going on?”

“Could we go somewhere drier and quieter for that? And private?” he added, reaching into his pocket for his pager. Then he popped off the back and removed the batteries, eyeing me with an unspoken suggestion that I do the same.

I pointed at my phone where it sat in one of the cup holders. Quinton took it and removed its battery also, putting the two parts in separate holes in the console. He seemed to breathe easier once it was done.

“What’s the problem?” I asked.

“It’s a long story. I’d rather tell it all at once. Where are you staying?”

“I was at a hotel a few blocks away, but I wasn’t planning on going back there. One of the local cops—”

“Was killed in your previous hotel room. Yeah. I got that story out of the desk clerk. So you were going to take a different room tonight?”

“It sounded like a good idea to me.”

“Is there some other place, not a hotel, we could go? Someplace a bit . . . off the grid?”

I thought about the key Geoff Newman had given me. The Leung place wasn’t perfectly safe, but it wasn’t likely anyone would come there by chance. It also was guaranteed to have no phone or Internet connections, and probably no cable, either, so if Quinton was being paranoid about electronic surveillance, it was the best choice we had, short of staying in the Rover. We’d done that before and I hadn’t cared for it.

“I have a place. . . .”