“Who cares?” Harriet Stokes said. “He got what he deserved. I will never forget how he used me. I let him take every dime of the money my parents left me.”
Ben Stokes reached across the table to touch her arm. “He used all of us. It was never about founding a community. It was about the money right from the start.”
“Good riddance.” Violet shuddered. “Wanted to kill him myself, there at the end.”
“Who didn’t?” Ralph Toomey asked.
Henry cleared his throat and took charge again. “We always knew there was something dangerous down there in that old shelter. Turns out we were right. Fallon and Isabella say that the objects look like genuine antiques from the late Victorian era but they’re actually very dangerous experimental weapons. They need to be deactivated by experts.”
Bud Yeager slapped the tabletop with his palm. “Fat chance of that happening if we turn those weapons over to the Feds. We all know that.”
“He’s right,” Marge said. “The CIA will want to find out how they work, and the military will want to figure out how to make a thousand more just like ’em.”
Fallon stirred slightly. Instantly the crowd fell silent. Everyone looked at him.
“Given the unique nature of the weapons, it is highly unlikely that they could be duplicated,” he said. “That’s the good news. The bad news is that the clockwork gadgets that we found are not only dangerous, but they also are highly unpredictable because the technology involved is based on the principles of paranormal physics.”
Isabella noticed that no one appeared shocked by that announcement, either.
“Everyone knows that the CIA and the FBI have been fooling around with the woo-woo stuff for years,” Oliver Hitchcock growled from behind the bar.
A lovely warmth blossomed inside Isabella. These were her people, she thought. That was why she felt at home here in the Cove. The locals spoke her language, the language that she had been taught from the cradle, conspiracy-ese.
“That’s right,” she said eagerly. “Years ago, the press exposed those so-called far seeing experiments that the CIA conducted.”
“And don’t forget the paranormal research programs funded at Duke and Stanford decades ago,” Marge offered.
“Those projects were just the ones they let the public know about,” Henry said. “No telling what they were doing in secret.”
“Let’s not get carried away here,” Fallon said neutrally. “To date, the black-ops folks don’t seem to have accomplished too much in the field of paranormal weaponry.”
Vera sniffed. “Not for lack of trying. If those gadgets down there in the shelter are the real deal, we sure as hell can’t turn them over to the government.”
“If we do, they’ll wind up in the hands of some black arts agency, sure as we’re sitting here,” Henry warned.
“I happen to agree with you,” Fallon said patiently. “Trust me when I tell you that I don’t want those artifacts falling into the wrong hands. I propose that we give them to the one organization that is capable of deactivating and storing them.”
Bud frowned. “What organization is that?”
“A group called the Arcane Society,” Fallon said. “Full disclosure here, the Society is my biggest client. It has been engaged in serious paranormal research for generations. What’s more, it has had some experience with other gadgets just like those we found in the shelter.”
Another wave of murmurs rippled through the crowd. Isabella noticed a few skeptical faces.
“The Society is for real,” she assured them. “Just like Fallon is for real. You can trust him to do what’s right with the weapons.”
Heads nodded around the room.
“Jones, here, knows more about those weapons than any of the rest of us,” Henry said. “I think we should take his advice.”
“I agree,” Vera declared. “Given the way the clock showed up at the old Zander place and the fact that there’s a second entrance to the shelter that most of us never knew about, it’s clear we can’t protect those gadgets any longer.”
“What about the skeleton?” Marge asked. “You’re sure it’s Gordon Lasher?”
“According to the ID in his wallet,” Fallon said. He looked at Henry. “And a few other things.”
“There was a ring with the body,” Henry said. He took it out of the pocket of his coveralls and held it up for all to view. “Remember that big old flashy crystal that Lasher always wore? This is it.”
“Okay, so it probably is Lasher,” Marge said. “What are we going to do with it?”
“The body is a small problem,” Fallon conceded.
Violet widened her eyes. “A
“Whatever happened to Gordon Lasher happened more than twenty years ago, and judging from the comments I’ve heard tonight, no one seems to have missed him,” Fallon said.
“That’s for damn sure,” Ben Stokes muttered.
“We’ve got a couple of options,” Fallon continued. “We could tell the county cops about the skeleton but I can’t see the sheriff or any of his men figuring out how to get into the shelter to retrieve the remains, let alone conduct an investigation into the death. You know what the atmosphere is like down there.”
“Jones is right,” Henry said. “The local authorities will realize right away that something downright weird happened down there in the shelter and they’ll contact the Feds.”
“That means the CIA,” Fran Hitchcock said darkly. “Or some other clandestine agency. The same folks that set up that lab twenty-two years ago may still be in operation for all we know.”
Oliver Hitchcock looked alarmed. “If that crowd comes back, they’ll be all over the Cove this time, trying to isolate the source of the energy in that fallout shelter. I wouldn’t put it past them to shut down the whole town and kick us out.”
“It will be like Area 51,” Isabella said, getting into the spirit of the conversation. “There will be armed guards all over the place.”
“Fallon says there’s some kind of cosmic energy nexus along this stretch of the coast,” Vera offered. “If the CIA discovers that they can tap in to a power source like that, there won’t be any stopping them. Isabella is right. The first step will be to clear out the town.”
“It could be a whole lot worse,” Harriet Stokes said in ominous tones. “They might decide they don’t want any witnesses.”
There was a vast silence while the crowd digested that possibility. Then the hubbub started up again, louder this time.
Beneath the cover of the general uproar, Fallon turned to Isabella.
“I never used the term
“Details,” she said.
She patted his thigh. “Nobody’s listening to you, boss.”
“I noticed,” he said.
The anxious conversations got louder and so did the level of alarm.
Fallon leaned back and extended his arms along the bar. He surveyed the crowd with a satisfied air.
“It’s an amazing thing,” he said to Isabella.
“What?” she asked.
“Being present at the creation of a full-blown conspiracy theory. It’s like watching a galaxy being born. Lots of random, unconnected bits and pieces of matter whiz past each other, exert a little gravitational pull and bingo, they start forming an organized system. The next thing you know you have a complete, wheels-within-wheels fantasy involving the CIA, Area 51, cosmic energy and a dead guy.”
She gave him a severe look. “You started this with that business about the CIA taking over the town.”
“I never actually said that, either.”
She blinked. “You think this is amusing, don’t you?”
