Downpour (30 page)

I tried to yank a shield between myself and the ghosts, but I couldn’t keep it in place and get to my feet at the same time. I’d already lost sight of Jin and Willow, so I gave up trying to follow them and concentrated on getting away from the ghosts of Tragedy Graveyard.

They had no flesh to push through, and their structures weren’t like the spells that had animated the ley weaver’s hands. I pushed at them, but my hands went through their forms without resistance. I’d pulled the hand-spiders apart, but I couldn’t even grab ahold of these, much less tear them apart. I had dismissed a ghost before, on an airplane, just swept it aside and it vanished....

I tried the flicking gesture that had sent my dead cousin away; the ghost nearest to my hand wafted backward, losing shape for an instant before it surged back together and wound itself again around my body.

“Damn you,” I spat.

I repeated the gesture, shoving outward violently, pushing the Grey the same way I’d slammed my force against it to bowl Jin backward. This time the flash was smaller, absorbed by the mist-shapes of the ghosts, but the forms and their tangled energies burst and scattered like leaves before an autumn gust until there were none left that menaced me. For an ire-filled moment, I considered blowing away the rest, just to be thorough, but they hadn’t come for me and most were nothing more sinister than loops of memory, replaying their misery endlessly. And even as I contemplated it, I could see the air and Grey matter moving in the distance; the ghosts would come back, however slowly. It appeared I hadn’t just lost something when I’d died—I’d gained a new trick, or accidentally applied an old one in a new way. I wasn’t limited to pulling things apart. I couldn’t make something out of the Grey or its energy, but I could push it around and pull on its lighter threads. But it did leave me feeling a little as if I’d been standing under a giant bell as it tolled.

I made my way back to the Rover, stumbling a bit on the wet, uneven ground and cursing Jin still more for stealing my umbrella, which would have been a useful prop against the fatigue that weighted my limbs after fighting first the ley weaver’s hands and then the cemetery’s ghosts. I needed to catch my breath and restore my energy. I’d hoped to talk to Elias Costigan before the sun went down, but the drive back from Beaver along the twisting thread of Highway 101 would take forty minutes and I’d arrive exhausted just as his powers were rising for the day.

I needed to regroup and think. And the closest place was Forks, just a few more miles down the road away from Port Angeles. Frustrated, I climbed into the Rover and headed for the once-sleepy little lumber town that had become a tourist mecca for dewy-eyed girls with vampire crushes.

TWENTY-FOUR

F
ood and a chance to dry out were welcome. While I was wolfing my meal—unladylike of me, but true—I kept turning things over in my head. Aside from the late Jonah Leung, the ley weaver had listed four mages: the nexus, the puppeteer, the child, and the rogue. Including the freaky, inhuman thing as well, that was five, not four as I’d expected. I’d been thinking in terms of four cardinal points and assuming the spell-flingers who occupied each virtual position
were
the anchors. But going from Willow’s reaction, the anchors were physical objects that lay in the lake itself—or had until one of them had been shifted in 1989, causing the magical energy of the grid at the bottom of the lake to break loose. So in a way, maybe I was right in thinking that Costigan’s house and Jewel’s were now holding down two of the points, but it wasn’t the way the system was supposed to work. What the hell had happened in 1989 and how had it moved the anchor? Surely an anchor was something pretty solid or magically resistant to change, something that probably dated back to whenever the landslide tumbling down Mount Storm King had dammed up the original valley and formed the lakes. It wouldn’t be something easily shoved aside. And where was it, whatever it was? Leung must have had it or had some control over it if it was the cause of his death, but Steven seemed to be the only member of the family who didn’t possess an iota of magical power. But he’d known about it....

I put the gnawed remnants of my meal aside, frowning and wondering if I was chasing my own tail. It would be nice to know what sort of object was causing all this carnage, because then I might be able to discover who had one, but if I just knew who killed Leung, or Strother, surely I’d be able to find the anchor among the individual’s effects. It was another chicken-and-egg problem—find one, find the other, but where to start looking . . .

The longer a crime goes unsolved, the harder it becomes to close, and the events of 1989 were now twenty-two years past. Clues were fading away. But now someone had killed Alan Strother, not just because I was in town—though that certainly was the catalyst—but because he was close to something that pointed at Leung’s murderer. He hadn’t been killed for the license plate, because no one knew I had it, not even Jin. No one would have confused Strother for me, either, so it wasn’t an accident of time and place. On the surface, there was no connection between Alan Strother and Steven Leung except the investigation of the sunken Subaru. But there was one link, now expunged from the records: Willow.

Seventeen years had elapsed between the time the anchor was moved and Leung disappeared. It wasn’t the wild magic that had taken him, as it had his son; it was a person who wanted to stop him from doing something with the anchor. Not Willow; she hadn’t known the anchor was the cause of the wild magic or her father’s death until I’d said something. Why had Leung waited so long to do something about the anchor? Hadn’t he figured it out sooner? Willow hadn’t, but she’d had other things to look after, as she’d said. Chasing and taming the yaoguai would be my guess. But Steven, alone in his house mourning his wife and son and missing his daughters, must have had a lot of time to think about what had taken them all away. . . .

And the anchor had sat wherever it was all that time. Could Leung have had the anchor all along and not known what it was? If he suddenly came to that information, would he think the anchor was the key to his problems and try to get rid of it or fix it? Jewel had indicated as much, and if she wasn’t jerking my chain, then what had Leung tried to do? And who had known his plans and tried to stop them? I was still betting on a neighbor; someone Leung had trusted enough to talk to when he must have been scared—at least scared enough to try something crazy. What had he done, who knew about it, and where was the anchor now?

I sat at my table, puzzling over it all for a few more minutes, getting nowhere. Now that I was actually in Forks, my cell phone had started working again and it flashed a light at me to let me know I had messages waiting. I hoped they’d be more helpful than my current ruminations.

The first was from Soren Faith. The department had found an electronic file containing the list of resident home owners around the lake on Strother’s computer. It had half a dozen names and addresses, going back to 1988. It looked as though Strother had been out trying to talk to some of them in person when he’d told Ridenour he wasn’t nearby. I guessed he was buying time for Willow to leave the greenhouse but hadn’t known I’d take his place and undo that gift. Faith seemed to think the list wasn’t that useful, but he told me to call him anyhow.

But there had to be something to it. If Strother had found something interesting, maybe he’d gone back to follow up rather than coming to look for me on the mountain. Of course, he didn’t know Ridenour hadn’t picked me up, so he’d have assumed I’d be at my hotel once the storm came in after dark. He’d had no way to know about the zombies or how long it would take me to get back to Port Angeles. But someone could have followed him down the mountain and to my hotel.

I let the other messages wait while I called Faith back and asked for the list.

“Well . . . it is the homicide of a fellow officer, now, Ms. Blaine. Not sure I should pass it on.”

“You know I’m not the one who killed him and he only made the list because I suggested it. My client wants some closure on the death of her father. I promise not to get under your feet. I just want to see the list.”

Faith sighed. I could hear an ancient desk chair creak as he leaned back into it. “I wish I was working with a dog on this. . . .”

“Excuse me?”

“Usually my partner and I spend most of our time with K-9 units, hunting down missing persons and dead bodies that float up off the Strait, chasing down marijuana smugglers, and picking up after idiots who drink and drive on the cliffs. No offense, but frankly the dog’s a lot easier to work with than you. I know you’re cooperating, but for God’s sake, lady, you’re kicking over rocks like you want to get yourself killed next. One freakin’ homicide a year’s more than enough. I’ll give you this damned list if you can get yourself into my office by four thirty. But after I do, you tell Mrs. Newman that any more carnage on this account will not be ignored. She is not going to wave this off with the smell of money.”

I found myself nodding at the phone. “Understood, Mr. Faith.”

“Ah, that ‘mister’ stuff makes me think I ought to wear a tie.” He said it as if he could already feel it strangling him. “Just ‘Faith.’ And you’re not here by four thirty, I’m gone.”

I didn’t get a chance to reply before he’d cut the connection. I checked the time and thought I could listen to the next message and still make it back across the hill if I started right away.

The other message was from Quinton.

“Hey, beautiful. Um . . . sorry about the other day. But I’m done with my project and I thought I’d better come talk to you so . . . I’m about to get on the ferry to Kingston. I’ll call again when I get to Port Angeles.” Strange—not only did he sound odd, but he wasn’t in the habit of checking in on me or randomly showing up while I was working.

The next call was also Quinton. “Hey. I’m in Port Angeles, but the clerk says you checked out of your hotel. I’m just sitting in the lobby for a while, staring at this pay phone. . . .” He rattled off the number. “I’ll wait here until four. I brought you something from Ben.”

He sounded worried and I guessed the sheriff’s department was still hanging around. Given his feelings about police agencies, I imagined he was nervous, and I wondered what had prompted his trip—I doubted that whatever Ben had given him was so compelling that he had to bring it to me immediately. He hadn’t called very long ago, so I tried the number.

“Hello?” It was definitely Quinton’s voice at the other end.

“Hey,” I said. “What brings you out this way?”

“Hey. Um . . .” He cleared his throat but didn’t say more.

“So . . . someone’s nearby whom you don’t want listening to this conversation?” I asked.

“That sounds right.”

“All right. I have to stop at the sheriff’s department. Do you want to meet me there?”

“Not so much. I met most of them already, I think.”

“OK. Go down to the Canadian ferry dock and I’ll pick you up there about four forty-five.”

“Will do.” He got off the phone without an endearment or goodbye, which was standard procedure for Quinton if he thought anyone might be too interested in what he had to say. Since having worked for a covert agency, he really distrusted phones.

I rushed to get back to Port Angeles before Faith’s deadline. In the steadily increasing rain, it was going to be tight.

But I made it and found Soren Faith standing beside a desk in the sheriff’s department, shrugging on his jacket. He looked up and waved me closer.

He picked up a file from the desk as I approached and held it out to me. “I don’t think it’s going to be much help.”

I took the folder anyway. “Why not?” I asked.

“Well, most of the folks on that list are already suspects. The rest aren’t around anymore. The 1990s were a good time for real estate investors, so most of the lake cabins were bought as vacation homes, not permanent ones. Aside from Elias Costigan, the Newmans, and a couple of Morganroths and Barnses whose families have lived here as long as Washington’s been a state, no one’s a year-round resident who isn’t accounted for. Alan’s car computer logged all his stops and times, so I marked up which houses he visited and when on that list. He pretty much covered everyone. The only thing that’s unusual is that he drove back and forth a couple of times.”

“Did he drive or did he stop?” I asked.

Faith smiled—a crooked, funny smile—as if I’d figured out something that pleased him. “That is the interesting feature, but I haven’t been able to figure out what he was doing yet.” He reached for the folder I held and I gave it back to him so he could spread the contents on the desk. He pointed to the car computer log, item by item. “Down here, he stops by Costigan’s place. Then he stops a few minutes later at the Newmans’. That’s not too strange since they lie along the same route. But then he goes back and stops at the Log Cabin Resort—isn’t that a strange coincidence—about four hours before you called us from there. Then he turns it around and drives out to Lake Sutherland and goes around the back side of it and stops at three different houses, including Steven Leung’s. All of them are unoccupied. He goes to Fairholm, around to Camp David Jr. and back, then heads to Lake Sutherland again. He was out of the car for about thirty minutes at that point, and he didn’t log what he was doing, so I assumed he was eating or having a piss, but the car wasn’t near any facility because all of them are still closed and there’s no one resident at the small lake who’d have let him.”

“So where’d he go and what did he do?” I asked, as expected.

“I don’t know. Nothing else on the list or the log points to anyone specific,” Faith replied, rubbing the scar under his hair.

I frowned and started to push my hair back, mirroring his movement until I caught myself. Faith gave me another of his crooked cat-smiles. “It points to no one,” I said, disappointed. “I was sure it led to something.”

A wry quirk twisted his mouth. “It does. We just don’t know what. And that’s why I’m giving it to you. I don’t want you getting into trouble, but putting the extra brainpower on the problem won’t hurt. You been up here most of a week, so I figure you might see something I’m missing.”