35
Isabella and Fallon sat in the front of the black SUV. Walker rocked gently in the rear seat. They watched the sheriff and two deputies load Sylvia Tremont’s body into a van.
In her mad flight from the cabin, Sylvia Tremont had fallen from the top of the bluffs onto the rocks below, breaking her neck.
“You knew she would run off the top of the bluffs,” Fallon said quietly. It was not a question. “That’s why you told me not to stop her.”
“Yes.” Isabella shivered. The full shock of what she had done was hitting her now. “I knew that would take her to the top of the bluffs.”
Fallon took his right hand off the steering wheel and gripped her left hand very tightly.
“First time you’ve ever used your talent like that,” he said. Again, it was not a question.
“I told you, I’ve encountered my share of dead bodies.”
“But you were never the one who made them dead.”
“No,” she agreed.
“You didn’t want me to do it,” he said.
“No.”
“Because you thought I’d have a problem with killing a woman?”
“No.” Isabella shivered. “Because it was my responsibility. I’m the one who brought her down on us. If I hadn’t insisted on taking the Zander house case—”
“She would have found another way to get J&J involved in digging up the cache of curiosities,” Fallon said. “The artifacts were highly volatile, unpredictable time bombs just waiting to go off. She needed us to get into the shelter, stabilize the objects and ship them safely back to the lab. Once they were well secured in L.A., she would have been able to arrange to steal them and let Rafanelli take the blame for the theft.”
“Think so?”
“I know so,” Fallon said. “Sylvia Tremont was a very determined woman. She killed Sloan in cold blood, and she was prepared to kill you and Walker, as well.”
“Yes,” Isabella said. “You’re right.”
“Should have let me handle it.”
“No,” Isabella said. Time to change the subject, she thought. “Any sign of the bodyguard?”
“Not yet.”
“He’s probably still walking,” Isabella said. “I told him to get lost. He’ll do just that.”
“Alien drugs,” Walker muttered. “Poison.”
Fallon glanced at Walker in the rearview mirror. “What drugs?”
“I told you,
Isabella looked at Fallon. “The bodyguard looked like a steroid freak. Walker thinks Vogel was using drugs.”
“I knew it.” Fallon tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “Nightshade.”
36
They sat side by side on the lumpy sofa, feet propped on the small coffee table, and drank some whiskey together.
“We’re decompressing again,” Fallon said.
“Yes.”
“Twice in one week.”
Isabella studied the contents of her glass. “It has been a very complicated week.”
“It has,” Fallon said.
“What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that one of the remaining Nightshade circles decided to try to acquire some para-weapons. When they got into that market they encountered the broker, Orville Stone.”
“Who, in turn, led them to Sylvia Tremont,” Isabella said, “who was busily selling off para-weapons from the Arcane museum basement. It must have been obvious that if she was already willing to risk stealing from Arcane, she was ripe for recruitment. Someone in Nightshade made her an offer.”
Fallon turned the glass between his palms. “Tremont was thrilled because her new business associate promised her a lab of her own and unlimited funding for her experiments in glass psi.”
“Yep.”
“Operating a state-of-the-art lab costs money. Sounds like at least one of the Nightshade circles is still going strong. We need to find it fast.”
“Any idea where to look?” Isabella asked.
“Maybe.”
“You never say maybe.”
“A connection to Portland, Oregon, came up not long ago when Jack Winters and Chloe Harper nearly got themselves killed in Seattle. One of the Nightshade people who died, a guy named John Stillwell Nash, was the CEO of a vitamin and health supplements company named Cascadia Dawn.”
“A company that sells supplements and vitamins would make an excellent cover for an illicit drug lab. Did you check it out?”
“I’ve had people watching it. A new CEO took over shortly after Nash died. She used another name, but I think she might have been Victoria Knight. Before that I think she was Niki Plumer.”
“Who was Niki Plumer?”
“A Nightshade operative. Figured in the case in which Zack and Raine were involved. She wound up in a psychiatric hospital. Supposedly she committed suicide but I’ve had my doubts.”
“You think she became Victoria Knight.”
“If I’m right, she’s the para-hypnotist who showed up in Las Vegas in the Burning Lamp case a few weeks ago. My talent tells me she was the new CEO of Cascadia Dawn. But the first thing she did was sell the company and disappear again.”
“Why sell it?”
“She probably realized that we were aware of the company. Also, she needs money. I think she sold a very profitable business, pocketed the cash and went somewhere else to fire up another circle. I’ve been waiting for her to pop up again. I believe she may have done just that.”
“That fits. I told you that Sylvia mentioned that her new business associate was a woman who thought I should be neutralized.”
“I realize it would have been very hard to poison you,” Fallon said. “You would have detected the bad energy in the vicinity of the stuff. But I am very grateful to Walker. I owe him.”
“We all do.”
“We lost Knight’s trail, but we know one thing for certain,” Fallon continued. “Like everything else that has happened in the Nightshade case, the weapons procurement operation was centered here on the West Coast. For whatever reason, the organization, or what’s left of it, appears to be based on this side of the country.”
“Maybe because this is where Craigmore established it?”
“That could be it,” Fallon said. “But I’m starting to wonder if perhaps it has something to do with the natural energy grids that run from Washington down through Oregon, California and Arizona. There aren’t many nexus points as strong as the Cove, at least not that have been mapped, but there are a number of vortex sites like those in Sedona. Maybe there’s one in Portland that hasn’t been charted.”
“You think Dr. Hulsey is trying to use the power of the grid to enhance the formula?”
