Chrystal Bones (Finding Home Book 1) (3 page)

They had found pieces of the ship weeks later, hundreds of light years away and hope had died for Shillidon. No one blamed him but he blamed himself. He should have known something was wrong. There had been a traitor on his ship that time too and he had not even suspected.

Because he had wanted to give Aaliyah an adventure before she was stuck on Shillidon for the rest of her life, she was lost to them all. He had lost his precious baby sister. The one person he had loved above all others.

He looked at the glowing chrystal he held in his hand with a mixture of hope and dread. The chrystal had only glowed when Aaliyah was close and he just did not see how that was possible. They were in the middle of nowhere, there was nothing around them at all for as far as the sensors could detect.

The com interrupted his thoughts and Sparks said in a very calm, very serious voice, "Jayden you better get out here. I know where we are and you are not going to like it." Jayden and Idris looked at each other in alarm. Sparks only got that calm when things were bad. They stood and hurried into the control room.

"We are in an area of space called appropriately the Dead Zone,” Sparks began. "It was discovered hundreds of years ago. Several ships have disappeared from this area over the years but only one has ever come back that we know of. About seven hundred and fifty years ago a Captain Jabrel claims his ship got pulled through an anomaly to uncharted space. He stayed in the same general area where he was spit out and was able to return through the same anomaly when it reappeared seven days later. His was an older ship and did not have very sophisticated equipment so there is not much information on the anomaly or what’s on the other side. He was able to do a survey while he was stuck waiting. He discovere nine planets revolving around a single sun. Only one of these planets was inhabited at the time, though there was evidence of dead civilizations on a couple of the other planets. The inhabited planet was pretty primitive. According to Jabrel’s instruments no evidence of any type of technology was found. That is all we know other than some bits and pieces on the types of planets and moons.

There is no information at all on the anomaly. He claimed that something had pulled his ship towards it. All of his instruments went dead as soon as he entered the anomaly. They did however come back on when he exited on the other side.There is no other information on this part of the universe.

Smart captains avoid it seeing how the few ships that came here to explore never came back. The thing that bothers me, well one of them, is there is no way we should be here. Even traveling at hyper speed it should have taken at least two months to get here from our last position. Yet we did it in just over an hour and that is not possible,” Sparks finished.

As the rest of them digested what he had told them Jayden asked, "Any sign of the anomaly?"

"No, still not a damn thing out there. I have never seen such a huge dead space. It is giving me the jitters."

"Can you tell what direction we are being pulled in?”

"Straight ahead,” Sparks replied.

"Stay here and watch for it, Idris and I will go see if we can help Jos with getting the engines online. Maybe we can break free." Jayden asked Vihan, "What is the status on the stealth system?"

"It is fixed. Someone loosened a couple of the wires. If Idris had not been here I would have had to take the whole thing apart to find them and that might have taken me days. Instead it only took a couple of hours to find and fix. I put a shield around it keyed only to you, me and Idris." The men’s faces turned grim at the reminder of the traitor they still had to find.

Jayden said to Idris, "We will have to finish our discussion later, right now let’s see what we can do to help Jos." Idris nodded and followed him to the engine room.

Chrystal Bones Billie Jo Hanlin

Chapter 4

When Blue opened her eyes three hours after they had closed, the sun was just peeking over the horizon. She was surprised that she had slept without dreaming. She hadn’t had much sleep this last week and she was going to need more than three hours before she felt normal.

Leo's head was still in her lap and hers was resting on his back. They were curled around each other as they had done many times. She sat up and gently nudged his head off her thighs. She stood and stretched her cramped muscles, before heading to the kitchen to make a fresh pot of coffee.

Blue was about to go shower when Riley bounced into the room. "I'm making breakfast this morning what do you feel like?" she asked. When she got a good look at Blue she stopped abruptly. "Wow, you look like crap, beautiful crap, but still crap. Were you out in the storm last night? You do know normal people need more than two to three hours sleep a night to function right? How come your chrystal is glowing? It's never done that before."

When she paused to take a breath Blue held up a finger, “One, just coffee and it is already made. Two,” another finger went up. “Though it wasn't a question, yes I know I look like crap as you sooo elegantly put it. Three.” Another finger joined the others. “Yes, I was out enjoying the storm last night. Four,” another finger. “Yes, I know normal people need more than three hours sleep but I'm not exactly normal and neither are you. And last but not least,” she covered the chrystal at her throat with her hand. “I have no idea why it's glowing, it started during the storm. Any other questions before I go shower?" she asked sarcastically, then immediately felt bad. "Sorry, I'm a little on edge right now."

"Yeah, I imagine you are,” Riley said quietly.

Blue stared intently into her friend’s eyes. "Do you feel it to?" she asked.

Riley stared back and simply said, "Yes."

The two women continued to look into each other’s eyes for a long moment. They had been watching each other’s backs for nineteen years. They both knew their lives were about to change drastically very soon.

"Whatever happens it will be okay, I feel it,” Riley finally said. They both knew Riley's feelings were worth their weight in gold. Just then Leo gave a big yawn and stretched, grumbling loudly at them as he stalked out the door. The women burst out laughing, breaking the tension.

Leo was not a morning cat and hated being woken up. Blue took a deep breath, "Well whatever is coming we can’t change it so we will just deal with it when it happens. Now I'm going to get another cup of coffee and get in the shower. Then we can discuss what I found on the new case."

Twenty minutes later she stood in front of the mirror studying herself. What she saw was a slender woman, five foot six inches tall with a small waist and long legs. High firm breasts, not too big, not too small. There was nothing remarkable about her body. Her face was a different story.

She had the requisite two eyes, nose and mouth. There was something just a bit off about them. Her eyes were the first thing that anyone noticed and the one thing that told everyone that she was not from this world.

They were big and surrounded by a forest of long, thick lashes that needed no mascara to enhance them. The irises were a brilliant blue dotted with bits of icy blues and pinks. If that was all it would not be that big of a deal but the pupils, they were a mass of swirling clouds of pink.

Those clouds were constantly moving, giving the illusion of looking into a storm. Riley thought they were beautiful but to Blue they were just one more thing she had to hide. She always made sure to wear a pair of sunglasses from her large collection whenever she had to leave her home. She had tried contacts but they bothered her too much to wear them for long.

She had a nice wide forehead and her nose was long and slender with a slight upward tilt and high sharp cheekbones. Her lips were nice and full nothing wrong there except instead of pink they were a light sky blue. It was easy to pass the color off as lipstick. Thank goodness the punk look was in she thought. All of this was framed by a mane of thick dark chestnut hair with highlights of so many colors that when the light hit just right it looked like a rainbow.

There was not an inch of fat on her body. It was honed to pure muscle from years of running and a brutal workout routine she forced herself through every day. She was long and lean and despite everything she had a delicate look about her.

She finally let her eyes focus on the chrystal embedded at the base of her throat. It was small and smooth about the size of a dime but oval in shape. It was a clear icy blue, and for the first time in her life that she remembered it was glowing softly.

It was a part of her, just another organ like her heart. Faint scars surrounded it from when the doctors at the labs had tried to cut it out of her. As soon as they had started cutting around it her body had shut down and flatlined. They hadn't tried again, didn't want to lose their specimen she thought forcing her mind away from the memories and back to studying the chrystal. She touched it lightly feeling the slight heat coming from it.

“Why are you glowing and what does it mean?” she asked herself softly.

A small voice answered in her mind, whispering the long buried hope. Maybe someone was coming for her and she could go home, wherever home was. She knew she wasn't from this planet. She didn't remember much from before the labs which was odd since she had a very good memory but she did have her dream and she remembered every day she had spent in the labs. She never spoke and the scientists had talked freely in front of her, not knowing that she could understand everything they said.

Physically she was not that much different from the humans around her, just enough to make her stand out and caused people to take a second look. That was why she stayed behind the scenes and let Riley deal with the clients when she could and when she couldn't there were hats, sunglasses and makeup. She could blend in when she had to. Today was one of those days when she had to.

Fortified with coffee and cheesecake Blue and Riley sat on the couch in the living room. Blue pointed her fork at Riley and told her, "You are evil, pure evil. You know I can't resist cheesecake."

"I know,” Riley said smugly before dissolving in a fit of giggles. It was true Blue never turned down cheesecake, ever. She had been known to pack it through jungles with bullets flying around them. “Okay," she said sobering up. "What have you found out so far?"

"Our target is a seven year old boy taken by his father six days ago as a way to extort money and get even with his ex for having the brains to finally divorce his lying cheating ass,” Blue began. "She had the good sense to be born to a wealthy family who owns their own law firm. They insisted on a prenup before they would give their blessings to the happy couple. They also handled the divorce,” she said with a sardonic smirk.

“The lying cheating ass, who will be referred to from now on as the LCA, received only what was agreed to in the prenup. Despite his and his lawyer’s, who he was sleeping with by the way, best efforts to get more. He claimed he needed spousal support and a bunch of other crap that the judge didn't agree with. He did walk away with a cool half million dollars. He proceeded to go through that in less than two years.”

Riley broke in, “Let me guess. Gambling?”

“Right the first time. He tried to use his charm to get more from the gullible ex and when that didn't work he disappeared with the boy on one of the few times he bothered to show up for his court ordered visitations. Visitations he fought so hard for, but hardly ever managed to show up for.

Anyway, when the ex went to pick up the boy all she found was a note telling her he would be in touch and not to call the cops. She freaked out and called big brother, who in turn called our friend Jake. Who just happens to be one of his childhood friends. Jake in turn called you yesterday." Blue paused.

Jake was with the FBI and was one of the few who knew how to contact them. Blue was just a voice on the phone but Riley had met and worked with him several times. Whenever the government in any form was involved in any of their cases Blue stayed behind the scenes, way behind the scenes. She would not take any chances on being captured again.

They didn't usually take cases involving custodial disputes unless they thought the child was in danger. But Jake had asked them if they would help as a favor to him. Since they owed him a couple of favors, Riley, of course, said yes.

"The LCA is being smart.” Blue continued, "No activity on his credit cards or bank account and his social security number hasn't popped up on any database. I have the facial recognition software running through the system at both the Seattle and Portland Airports. I will get tagged if he tries to leave the state that way. But I don't think I will find him there.”

The program was her own work and was significantly better than the ones used by both the government and private security businesses around the globe. It had been child’s play for her to hack into the airport’s network and attach her program to theirs without any one finding it.

“According to the private investigator’s report from the divorce proceedings he does gamble a lot. You hit the nail on the head with that. I am also checking with all the casinos. Vegas was his destination of choice then and I am betting it still is. If he leaves the state that is where he will go,” Blue finished.

Riley was silent for a couple of minutes digesting the information Blue had found. It always amazed her just how much information could be found when the right person went looking. She was pretty good. In fact, she was better than most. Blue was better. When she did speak it was to say, "We are meeting with the ex and big brother this afternoon. We can get more of a feel for the situation then."

“No," Blue said emphatically. "You are meeting with them. Jake is going to be there remember? I don’t want to be anywhere near him if I can help it. I'll go talk to the LCA's neighbors and go through his apartment while you meet with the clients.”

Riley sighed but didn't argue. It would do her no good. She and Blue had this argument before many times. She understood Blue’s reasoning, even if she did think her friend was more than a little paranoid.
You would be too if you had gone through what she did.
She told herself.