Harry nodded, still thoughtful. “Okay, in that case I believe it, too. Doesn’t explain why you’re in an MC.”
“Ethel Whitcomb has been spending a lot of money this past year trying to make Alice’s life hell. The effort has been successful for the most part. The night I found Alice, I had to deal with a private investigator searching her apartment, looking for anything that could be used against her. Ethel wants Alice in jail.”
“You figured Ethel Whitcomb would back off once she found out that you were in the picture.”
“I thought it would send a message,” Drake said evenly. “At the time I was concerned that Whitcomb might try to have Alice followed to Rainshadow. We didn’t need the complications. That was before I found out that the island had been shut down by the fog.”
“Uh-huh.”
Drake looked at him. “What?”
“You’re sleeping with Alice North.”
“So?”
“I’m thinking you didn’t need to get involved in an MC to protect her from Ethel Whitcomb. You have other resources available to you for handling situations like that.”
“In hindsight, maybe it wasn’t absolutely necessary. It just seemed like the most efficient way to get Whitcomb out of the picture until the problem here on Rainshadow was resolved.”
Harry smiled slowly. There was a knowing look in his eyes. “Wait until Mom finds out.”
Chapter 44
ALICE PUT THE NORTH DIARY DOWN ON THE TABLE AND looked at the small crowd gathered in the cafe at the back of Shadow Bay Books. Drake and Harry both lounged against the wall. Jasper, Fletcher, Rachel, and Charlotte sat at tables, cups of tea in front of them.
“In the years that followed the breakup of the North-Sebastian partnership, my great-grandfather returned to Rainshadow on a number of occasions,” Alice said. “His light-talent made it possible for him to come and go through the psi-fence, and his copy of the psi-code treasure map allowed him to get to the cave where the crystals were stored. He ran some experiments on the stones and at some point he discovered that they could be made to function as paranormal compasses.”
“Compasses that pointed toward hot spots on the island?” Drake asked.
“Right,” Alice said. She put her hand on the diary and thought about what she had read. “Properly positioned, they resonated with the energy fields coming from the various ruins on the island. But he could not navigate the terrain inside the Preserve any better than anyone else—until he found Bainbridge’s personal papers that led him to the hole-in-the-wall entrance and into the tunnels.”
Rachel smiled, understanding. “Once North was down in the catacombs, he set out to map them, and in the process he found the ruins of at least two Alien labs, the pyramid and the aquarium.”
Drake smiled appreciatively. “Aware that the ruins were finds of potentially incredible value, he very cleverly got his old pirate partner, Harry Sebastian the First, to sign an agreement giving North and his heirs half of anything of value that was ever discovered on the island.”
“That was probably the only shrewd business move my great-grandfather ever made,” Alice said.
Fletcher chuckled. “Could turn out to be downright brilliant.”
“At that time Harry Sebastian probably wasn’t paying much attention to Rainshadow, anyway,” Harry said. “He was busy building his business and starting a family. He would have had no objection to signing the agreement. As far as he was concerned, he and North had been partners when they buried the treasure. He figured North had every right to half the value of whatever was discovered on Rainshadow. But he assumed that nothing of financial importance would be found on the island for years, if ever.”
“He also assumed that if something of value was discovered, Sebastian, Inc., through the Rainshadow Foundation, would control the discovery,” Alice said. She kept her tone exquisitely polite.
A quick grin came and went on Drake’s face, but he said nothing.
Harry narrowed his eyes. “Your great-grandfather’s version of your family history is a little different than the Sebastian family version.”
“They say that happens a lot when it comes to history,” Alice said. “Different people hold different views and the prevailing story is the one written by the winners.”
“There are no winners and losers here,” Harry growled. “Just a partnership that went bust.”
Drake shot Harry a warning look and took charge of the meeting. “To continue, Nick North died before he could return to Rainshadow again after the agreement was signed. Thanks to his MC wife at the time, the diary and Nick’s psi-code map to the cave where the crystals were stored disappeared into the underground antiquities market.”
“There’s always a market for lost treasure maps,” Charlotte observed. “No telling how many people tried to find those ruins over the years.”
“Tried and failed,” Alice said. “Because only a descendant of Nick North, who also possessed a version of his talent, could decipher his copy of the psi-code map.”
Drake folded his arms and sat back. “Zara Tucker came across North’s psi-code map and the diary during the course of her research. She became obsessed with finding the ruins, particularly the pyramid, which North believed contained extraordinary secrets that only a light-talent could unravel. But first she had to locate the crystals. She landed a position at the Foundation research labs to try to get an inside track and access to the Sebastian family archives.”
“Her plan worked at first because the two of you started dating,” Harry said. “She even persuaded you to go to a matchmaking agency and take the test. Lo and behold the two of you were a perfect match.”
Drake winced. “Don’t remind me. Who knew you could bribe a matchmaker to fake the results of the test? Is nothing sacred?”
Fletcher shook his head. “Nope.”
“It soon became clear to Tucker that, in spite of what the agency test showed, you were not going to marry her and you certainly had no intention of taking her into your confidence,” Harry continued. “Hell, our family has never even officially acknowledged that the Old World crystals existed. Those damn rocks were a deep, dark family secret and we intended to keep it that way.”
“When I ended the relationship,” Drake said, “she was furious because she saw everything she had worked for going down in flames. In her rage, she used the Alien laser on me and then she faked her own death.”
Alice pursed her lips. “In hindsight, it certainly looks as if the two of you should have conducted a more thorough investigation into her disappearance.”
Harry and Drake looked at her.
“Thank you for that advice,” Harry said.
Drake nodded solemnly. “Have to remember that the next time I run into a mad scientist.”
Alice shrugged. “Just saying.”
Rachel and Charlotte smiled.
“Got any idea how hard it is to prove that someone did not fake her own death by walking off into an uncharted section of the catacombs?” Harry asked. “People disappear into the tunnels all the time. In this instance, there was a note. There was a record of a recent para-psych evaluation in which the doctor noted that Tucker was at risk of doing herself some harm. A stash of potent hallucinogens were discovered in her bedroom. None of her bank accounts were ever accessed after she vanished. None of her credit cards were ever used.”
“Okay, okay, I get it,” Alice said. “You thought she was dead. I will admit that it’s easier to disappear than most people assume—if you’re willing to leave everything behind.”
Drake cleared his throat. “Moving right along, Tucker reinvented herself as an Alien antiquities expert in the black market. It was the perfect cover. She operated freely in the shadows of that world and in the process she met Aldwin Hampstead, director of the Whitcomb Museum. They did business together but Tucker never gave up on her goal. She went looking for a North descendant who could lead her to the crystals.”
