In Too Deep

“Always get a nonrefundable retainer up front.”

She drummed her fingers on the armrest. “Good idea. I’ll make sure to do that next time.”

Fallon turned off the main street and drove behind the J&J office. He parked under the wide overhang. They climbed out of the SUV. Fallon opened the rear of the vehicle.

“You take the clock,” he said. “I’ll handle the Queen.”

She hoisted the blanket-wrapped clock under one arm and opened the back door of the office. They carried the curiosities upstairs to the landing. Fallon got out his key and opened the door.

Isabella walked into the office ahead of him, switched on the lights and set the clock on the floor in the corner.

“Now what?” she asked.

He closed the door and put the doll on the floor next to the clock. “Like I told Henry and Vera and Walker, an Arcane lab team will collect all of the curiosities tomorrow and take them back to the Society’s main lab in L.A. I want a complete report from the experts. I’d also like to know who brought the gadgets here three decades ago.”

Isabella walked into the tiny kitchenette that adjoined the office and picked up the teakettle. “I sense a new conspiracy theory in the making.”

There was a moment of crystalline silence behind her. She knew she had gone too far.

“Do you think that’s what I do?” Fallon asked, his tone chillingly neutral. “Invent conspiracies?”

The cold, emotionless edge on the words caught her off guard. She turned quickly to face him. Fallon was watching her with a look that matched his tone. She had seen that same expression and felt the deep sense of aloneness that went with it many times since meeting him. It was as if he spent most of his life locked in some other dimension. She longed to reach out to him, but it was not as if she lived in a normal dimension, either. She was certain of one thing, though. She must not move too fast with Fallon Jones. He did not fully trust her yet, and until he crossed that boundary she had to feel her way.

Then, again, she thought, she had not entrusted him with her secrets, either. That makes us even, she thought.

“Of course not,” she said, keeping her voice light with an effort. She turned back to the sink and ran water into the kettle. “It was just a little joke, boss. I’ve got no problems with what you call your conspiracy thinking. After all, most of the time you’re right.” She shut off the faucet and looked at him. “Right?”

Some of the tension went out of him, but it was replaced by some of the soul-deep weariness that she had sensed in him the first time he walked through the door of the cafe.

“Most of the time,” he said. “Not always. And when I do screw up, I put people in danger.”

“Now you’re talking about the Nightshade case, aren’t you?”

“It’s not just Nightshade. Yesterday at the Zander house, if you hadn’t called me—” He stopped.

“But I did call you,” she pointed out. “What’s more I had enough sense not to go into the basement alone. Give me some credit. I told you, I can take care of myself. I’ve been doing it for years.”

Energy heightened a little in the atmosphere. She knew that he had tapped in to his talent.

He went to the counter where the industrial-size coffeemaker sat, picked up the package of ground coffee and started to fill the machine. He did not bother with a measuring spoon.

“How, exactly, can you take care of yourself?” he asked.

She leaned back against the sink and folded her arms. “That’s one of the things I admire about you, Mr. Jones. Your interrogation technique is so amazingly subtle.”

He filled the machine with water. She noticed that his jaw was clenched.

“I hope you’re not grinding your teeth,” she said. “That sort of thing leads to crowns and root canals.”

“I’ve tried not to push you,” he said.

“I know. You’ve been very patient, all things considered. You weren’t able to find out anything about me online, were you? Just my picture-perfect bio.” She could not conceal her pride. “Even the brilliant director of Jones & Jones hit a brick wall when he went looking for me. Am I good, or what?”

He smiled wryly. “You’re good. I found a nice, neat narrative of your life all the way back to your birth and it’s all fake, isn’t it?”

“Yep.”

“I’ve known from the beginning that you’re running from something or someone.” He flipped the switch on the coffee machine. “You chose Scargill Cove as a hideout, and I’m pretty damn sure that wasn’t by accident.”

“Coincidence?”

“I’ve explained to you that we have this policy about coincidences at J&J.”

“Right,” she said. “Out of curiosity, how long were you prepared to wait before you pounced?”

“Pounced?” He looked baffled.

“Before you started demanding answers,” she clarified.

He watched the coffee fill the pot. “I was planning to wait a little longer, but given recent events, I think maybe now would be a good time for you to start talking.”

She considered that. “Okay, but I really don’t see any connection between the discovery of the Bridewell curiosities and my presence here in the Cove. Aside from the fact that I have a talent for finding things, of course. I mean, it’s what I do. Even when I don’t want to do it, if you see what I mean.”

“Talk to me, Isabella.” He looked at her with his shadowed, unreadable eyes. “I need some answers.”

“I understand,” she said. “And now that I’ve worked with you for a while, I know that I can trust you. It’s not like I have a choice, anyway.”

“Why is that?”

“I knew the night I arrived in Scargill Cove that this was as far as I could run. I’m good at living off the grid, heck, I was born off of it. But it’s only a matter of time before they find me.”

THEY SAT at their respective desks. Fallon swallowed some coffee and watched Isabella sip her green tea. He could see that she was composing herself, trying to decide where to start her narrative. He searched for a way in.

“What did you mean when you said you were born off the grid?” he asked.

She looked at him over the rim of her cup. “Ever heard of the Iceberg website?”

“That bizarre conspiracy-theory website run by some nut who calls himself the Sentinel?” Fallon grimaced. “Sure, I know it. Some folks say I’ve got conspiracy issues, but I’m a piker compared to the Sentinel. That guy is so far over the horizon, he’ll never come back. He must have lost touch with reality long ago.”

“Think so?”

“He’s definitely looney tunes.”

“So why do you monitor his website?”

Fallon shrugged. “Because sometimes he hits on a nugget of solid information that I can plug in to one of my case files. Like they say, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. The problem with whatever I get from the Iceberg site is that the bits of good data are always tangled up in one of the Sentinel’s crazy wheels-within-wheels, circles-within-circles fantasies. Teasing out the truth can take hours of research. There is no logical foundation to the Sentinel’s theories and therefore no meaningful context. The guy is a classic paranoid conspiracy nut.”

She raised her brows. “You, on the other hand, have context, is that it?”

“Makes all the difference,” he assured her. “Case in point. The Sentinel will happen on a small hint of hard information about Nightshade and then embed it into a fantasy of alien abduction. It’s useless in that fantasy context, so no one pays any attention. But I can sometimes fit the data into my own investigation because I do have context.” He paused. “Come to think of it, I haven’t seen anything new on the Iceberg site for a while. Maybe the Sentinel finally went on meds. To tell you the truth, I’ll miss him.”

“No,” she said coolly. “The Sentinel didn’t go on meds. He was murdered.” She took a deep breath. “Maybe.”

“Yeah, there was some chatter about that a while back online but it faded. That’s the thing about the Sentinel. You can’t believe anything you hear about him. I wouldn’t put it past him to fake his own murder just to stir up more conspiracy theories.”