“I do.” He gave her one of his rare smiles, the kind that heated his eyes. “You know, since I started hanging around you, I’ve begun to feel almost normal for the first time in my life.”
“There are serious grounds for speculating about a potential conspiracy here,” she told him.
“No,” he said flatly. “Three people running experiments on some antique weapons twenty-two years ago and the skeleton of a dead con man do not a conspiracy make.”
“Okay, what do they add up to?”
Fallon reached for his beer bottle. “A problem. One that can be easily solved.”
“Really?” Isabella waved her hands to get the crowd’s attention and raised her voice. “Fallon says there’s a solution to the problem of the skeleton.”
Silence descended again. Everyone in the room looked expectantly at Fallon.
“It appears to me,” he said deliberately, “that the simplest approach is to remove the bones from the shelter and dump them into the ocean off the Point. As you know, the currents are very strong there. I calculate a ninety- eight-point-five percent chance that none of the bones will ever wash ashore, at least not near here. Even if a few do, no one will be able to trace them back to the old bomb shelter.”
They all stared at him, expressions of dawning comprehension on their faces.
Henry pursed his lips. “Works for me.”
Fran Hitchcock nodded slowly. “Lasher was always talking about the forces of karma. This strikes me as a fine example of karma in action.”
“I like it.” Ben Stokes brightened. “I like it a lot.”
“Think of it as a burial at sea,” Fallon said.
“Oh, yes,” Isabella said. “That’s perfect.”
Marge nodded quickly. “Perfect.”
There were several more nods around the room.
“Let’s take a vote,” Henry said. “Those in favor of letting Fallon handle this problem, raise your hands.”
Every hand in the room went up with one exception.
Henry looked at Walker. “How do you vote, Walker?”
Walker stopped jittering for a moment. A ferocious expression crossed his thin features. Isabella was sure that his eyes got a little hot.
“Gordon Lasher was a b-bad man,” Walker said.
“I’ll take that as a yes vote,” Henry said. “It’s settled, then. The bones go into the ocean and those weird gadgets in the shelter go to the Arcane Society.”
There was a round of satisfied murmurs. Chairs scraped. People got to their feet and started pulling on their jackets and gloves in preparation for going out into the damp, misty night.
“Don’t look now,” Isabella said to Fallon. “But I think they just elected you sheriff of Scargill Cove.”
“And here my mom always thought I should go into finance.”
OUTSIDE FOG enveloped the Cove, the real kind that came with the scent of the ocean. There were no streetlamps in the small community, but the handful of lights in the windows of the inn and in the rooms above the shops infused the air with an otherworldly glow.
Isabella savored the simple pleasure of walking back to her apartment with Fallon. It was good to be with him. It felt right.
Fallon took his phone out of the pocket of his jacket and punched in some numbers.
“Rafanelli? Jones here.”
There was a short pause.
“What do you mean, which Jones? Fallon Jones. J&J.” Fallon sounded irritated. “I need a lab team capable of dealing with weapons-grade artifacts here in Scargill Cove tomorrow.... Yes, I said tomorrow. Something wrong with your phone? Found a cache of Mrs. Bridewell’s curiosities . . . Yes, those curiosities. The infernal devices. Some of them are still operational.”
There was another pause, much longer this time. Isabella heard an excited buzzing on the other end of the connection.
“No, I don’t know yet how they got here,” Fallon said impatiently. “But it looks like they’ve been locked up in an old bomb shelter for more than twenty years. Right. I know Dr. Tremont is the expert on glass, but I checked earlier and she’s on sabbatical in London. That leaves you. Besides, you’re the expert when it comes to decommissioning para-weapons, not Tremont. See you tomorrow. In the morning.”
He closed the phone.
Isabella cleared her throat.
“What?” he said.
“Sometimes you have a tendency to be a tad brusque with people,” she said.
He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “Brusque?”
He said it as if he had never heard the word.
“Short,” she said. “Crisp. Rude.”
“Huh. I like to be efficient on the phone. People tend to waste a lot of time chatting at me.”
“Chatting
“I’m not a chatty type.”
“Of course you are. We’re chatting right now.”
“No,” he said, very certain. “We’re having a conversation.”
“Oddly enough, people sometimes resent being ordered around, especially by a person who is not even their official boss.”
“You think I was brusque with Rafanelli?” Fallon sounded offended now. “I was doing him a favor. He’s been fascinated by Bridewell’s work for years. Taking charge of a cache of her inventions will be a huge thrill for him, not to mention a major career boost. He’ll write the definitive paper for the
“I understand,” Isabella said.
They walked a little farther.
“Well?” Fallon said. “What the hell should I have said to Rafanelli?”
“It’s often helpful to insert a few friendly comments into a business conversation. Asking about a person’s health or their children is always good.”
“Are you kidding? Get people started on their health and their kids and you never get them back on track.”
“Okay,” Isabella said.
They walked a few more steps. Fallon muttered something under his breath and reached back into the inside pocket of his jacket. He snapped the phone open and punched in some numbers.
“Rafanelli? Jones here again.
He snapped the phone closed.
“What did he say?” Isabella asked.
“Nothing. Not one word.”
“Probably stunned.”
“I outchatted him,” Fallon said proudly.
“I think so, yes.”
“Told you that personal nattering is a waste of time.” He flipped the phone open again. “That reminds me, I’d better call Zack. He’ll want to know about those curiosities.”
He punched in a code.
“Zack, it’s Fallon. Found a bunch of Bridewell’s inventions here in Scargill Cove. Rafanelli is bringing a team here tomorrow to dismantle them and transport them back to the L.A. lab. Thought you’d like to know. Give my best
