see the investigator running gazelle- like among the trees along the ridge, gun in his hand. Ward also saw the man Todd had called, working his way among the trees on the ridge, coming in from the left side.
Standing, Ward saw Todd signal the other man before sprinting deep into the woods. Five minutes later the two men came walking back, their guns holstered. Todd was wiping dirt from his pants and his jacket.
Ward walked out through the kitchen door and onto the patio in front of the covered pool, Natasha and Leslie following. He saw the two men looking down at the ground. Todd had disappeared below his waist. From a distance, he looked half buried. He reached down and came up with something that looked like a blanket with a man- size hole in the middle.
“Wait here,” Ward told the women. He walked swiftly down the grassy slope and up the rise, approaching the two men.
“He got away,” Todd said, reaching down into a hole that was about four by six feet wide and a good three feet deep. He lifted out a pair of armored binoculars by the strap and inspected them gently. What Ward had thought was a blanket was actually fine netting stretched across a wood frame with dead leaves attached to the material.
“Mr. McCarty I'm Bixby Nolan. I work for Mr. Hartman.” The other man turned to Ward and nodded.
“Nice to meet you,” Ward said absently.
Nolan, wearing black jeans and a T-shirt under a lightweight jacket, was five six, and he looked like a prizefighter. He had a thin scar across his forehead, just above the dark sunglasses, and his blond hair was gathered into a ponytail.
“I didn't see anybody,” Nolan said.
“I saw a reflection from these glasses,” Todd said. “He ran from the hide when I broke around the house. He was wearing black jeans and shirt and ball cap. Maybe six feet tall with wide shoulders. He vanished into thin air.”
Todd reached back into the hole and took out a small, rectangular, flat, dull orange object, which he studied for a moment before he set it on the ground beside the binoculars.
“What's that?” Ward asked.
“See the writing. ‘Fine India Made in the USA’ stone. For sharpening a survival knife,” Todd said. “Stones just like this one come with Randall fighting and survival knives. It fits in a little pocket on the holster.”
“That's an expensive knife,” Bixby said.
“I doubt the guy was a reporter,” Todd said, reaching down and feeling something in the front wall of the hole. He straightened and, climbing out, moved to the backside of the hole and kneeled to look in.
“How do you know that?” Ward asked.
“He's been here for a lot longer than just since yesterday, when the virus hit.”
When Ward came around and knelt beside Todd he saw, carved in the clay walls, scores of carefully crafted letters stretched out in long straight lines, stacked to fill the space like a lesson painstakingly chalked on a blackboard. At the base of that wall was a pile of small bits of dry clay, lying where they'd fallen during the carving. Ward realized that the words were, in fact, one word written over and over, and, although they were run together without any spacing, the word was immediately readable because of the capital G every fifth letter. Whoever had been here had time and patience.
Nolan Bixby asked, “What the hell does ‘Gizmo’ mean?”
“Nothing good,” Todd said, with perfect certainty.
THIRTY-EIGHT
“We should call the police,” Natasha said, after learning about the hiding place.
“You sure should,” Leslie agreed as she poured Ward a cup of coffee.
“What do you think?” Ward asked Todd. “Some nut has been watching our house for a long time. Would Dibble or Lander Electric hire a private eye to spy on us over time like that?”
“This will be under the sheriff's jurisdiction, and the truth is we're only talking trespassing. It might be some private eye. Some of us will do anything to get a result. I think you should call Gene Duncan and see how he thinks you should handle it. Given all that's happened, I think he might want to report it to the FBI. Let them process the evidence.”
“There's something else,” Ward said. “I was about to tell you when you saw the guy outside. Some weird things have been happening. Some of Barney's things have been moved around over the past week. A baseball from his room ended up in Natasha's bed under a pillow. She thought I did it. A stuffed bear of Barney's vanished from Natasha's room. A watch of his vanished from Natasha's jewelry box.”
“And there's no other explanation? Nobody else has access to the house?”
“No. And we found a handmade casket with a figure of a young boy in it in Barney's room. We are sure Barney didn't have that, and we certainly didn't put it there.”
“I've been having hand tremors that started about a month ago,” Natasha said. “They're getting progressively worse. And Ward's been losing time and doing things he doesn't remember.”
“It's like I lose my nights, don't remember dreams, feel dull in the mornings.”
“I know it sounds crazy,” Natasha said, “but now in the light of everything else that's happened, I'm seriously thinking that we're being drugged.”
Todd was silent.
“I can't believe I'm saying this. Look, since our symptoms are very different, I think the drugs we've been getting are as well,” Natasha said. “Isn't it possible that someone out there might be giving each of us the different drugs, different ways? Isn't it possible?”
“It's possible,” Todd said. “If someone's been in here, he certainly could be moving things and even drugging you both. Maybe he's doing it and watching his handiwork. Yes, it sounds paranoid, but I think you have reason to be paranoid.”
“That's scary,” Leslie said. “Sitting in a hole for days on end, carving a word into the clay over and over, is way beyond creepy. If the crazy bastard has been coming in here when you weren't home, he could have come in when you were, or hidden in here and…”
“Maybe he knows what only one of us drinks or eats. He spikes hers with one drug and mine with another,” Ward said.
Todd stared at him and nodded slowly. “So let's see if we can figure out what that might be.”
“Well, she drinks wine. I don't care for it,” Ward said.
“Daily,” Natasha said. “That's the only thing I can think of. I know how far- fetched this is, but it makes sense, doesn't it? Oh, and I drink orange juice and Ward has a citrus allergy.”
Todd nodded. “And you, Ward? What's only yours?”
“Scotch. That and bottled water. Natasha drinks our well water. I don't mind the taste, except when I pour it into my single malts.”
“Gather up the bottles you have, and I'll take the samples and drop them at a lab I use.”
“Shouldn't they get the FBI to test them?” Leslie said.
“You could let the FBI test them. I'm not saying you shouldn't. But I'll do it, too, in case they screw it up or don't actually do it. Are you ready to trust them? They may just think this is a smoke screen designed by Ward to throw them off him.”
“I don't trust the FBI,” Ward agreed, surely.
“But, on the other hand, if someone's been in and has done that, it might help convince them of your innocence with the virus,” Natasha told Ward. “And they might be convinced we didn't spike the drinks ourselves. I mean, there's no real evidence you are guilty of anything. And this same person might have put the virus in your computers. I mean, they have to see that's possible, and would explain everything.”
“Why would he be targeting both of us, not just me?” Ward said. “I think we should let the FBI see the hole out there, and if they seem receptive, we can tell them that we think we're being drugged.”
“I'll take samples of the wine, the OJ, and the Scotch, and we'll give them the rest and see if we get the same results. They'll have to check it out. It isn't proof that there's someone else doing it, but coupled with the hole
