Vortex Page 2

  Still smiling, Karen’s eyebrows rose high, she locked her fingers together and rested her chin on her knuckles. “And this is somehow connected to the job you have for us?”

  “I’ll get to that,” Burgess said. “I think Crystal’s sitting on a good book. This mystical history of Mt. Shasta, I mean. And she can write. That’s what’s so amazing.”

  Crystal gave Burgess a look that Karen suspected would have most men reaching for the defibrillator.

  “Marty’s been very supportive,” Crystal said. She leaned over and kissed him.

  Burgess seemed incapable of simply dating a woman. He made her his personal assistant or his book tour manager or, in this case, became her writing mentor. At least he wasn’t marrying her. Karen turned to Gavin, expecting to exchange a knowing glance—they’d both seen this before—but he was watching Crystal.

  This is going to be a long assignment, she thought with slight annoyance.

  But there was more to it than mere annoyance.

  She looked at Gavin again, saw the faint smile on his lips as he watched Crystal, and found that she was annoyed with herself.

  Ridiculous, she thought. You’re too old to feel jealous of a man you’re not even involved with, Karen.

  “Crystal’s got something that publishers love,” Burgess said. “She’s gorgeous. They look for that, you know. Somebody who can promote a book and looked damned good doing it. The book itself is—ah, the food’s here!”

  Two waitresses entered the banquet room, each pushing a rattling cart of aromatic food into the banquet room and began putting the platters on the table. They made small talk for the next several minutes as they filled their plates from the dishes spread out over the table.

  As they began to eat, Gavin said, “So, Martin, what have you got for us this time?”

  Burgess said, “There’s something strange going on in Mt. Shasta and I want you two to look into it.”

  Karen swallowed a mouthful of food and dabbed her mouth with the red linen napkin. “I thought something strange was always going on in Mt. Shasta. Isn’t it a mecca for—” She stopped herself from saying new age crackpots and crystal-rubbing wingnuts and paused long enough to glance at Crystal. “Uh, well... people with nontraditional beliefs and philosophies?”

  Before Burgess could reply, Crystal smiled and said, “Its okay, I know most people think were nuts.”

  Karen said, “No, I didn’t mean—”

  “Really, it’s okay,” Crystal said. She sounded sincere. “To be honest, I think most of it is nutty myself. You don’t have to tiptoe around it, Karen. I won’t be offended.”

  “Oh. In that case, um... yes, a lot of it is pretty nutty.”

  “There are people who believe Mt. Shasta is a filling station for flying saucers,” Crystal said. “I’m serious. Whenever a lenticular cloud forms over the mountain, there are people who honestly believe it’s being used as a cover by a flying saucer while it refuels on top of the mountain. So, yeah, a lot of them are nuts.”

  “What’s going on in Mt. Shasta that you consider strange, Martin?” Gavin asked.

  “Actually, Crystal is the one who brought it to my attention. How long have you been living there now?” he asked her.

  “A year and a half.”

  “She’s been noticing a change in the people there.”

  “Well, some of them,” she said.

  “Tell them about your friend in the antique store.” Crystal bit into an egg roll and chewed for a moment. “My friend Sarah owns a little antique shop in town. I do a lot of walking and I walk by her store every day, so I, like, drop in and say hi. I walk at night, too. I’m a night owl. I’m more creative and productive at night, y’know? I walk through town pretty late and it’s, like, empty. There’s nobody out in Mt. Shasta after 10. Even before 10 it’s pretty dead. The streets are, like, empty. I like to walk down to my office and do some writing.”

  “Office?” Gavin said.

  “I have a little business in town. I told you I’m very sensitive. I do psychic readings. I’ve been doing that for a few years, but since I’ve moved to Mt. Shasta, it’s been pretty successful. Anyway, one night, I was walking through the middle of town and Sarah drove by in her pickup truck. As she passed me, she slowed way down and looked at me. But it wasn’t just a normal look, it was really, like, intense. Like she didn’t know me. At all. I waved and smiled, but she just sped up and drove on. When I saw her the next day, I asked her where she was going and she didn’t know what I was talking about. She said she’d gone to bed early and slept the whole night until she got up at six that morning. She insisted she hadn’t left the house all night. And I believed her. I mean, I believed that she meant it.”

  “Do you think it was someone else you saw?” Karen asked.

  “Oh, no, it was Sarah.”

  Karen frowned. “Then you think she forgot that she went out? Or...”

  “I don’t think she was aware of going out. It’s happened to other people, too. Somethings going on at night in Mt. Shasta. People are up and, like, doing things. I mean, in the middle of the night. And early in the morning.”

  Gavin frowned and put his fork down. He leaned forward slightly. “What do you think they’re doing?”

  “I don’t know. That’s the thing, see, I just... I don’t know.”

  “But there’s more,” Burgess said.

  Gavin turned to him and said, “More of what?”

  “Crystal told me she’s noticed some unusual people in town lately. People who stand out.” He turned to her. “Tell them.”

  “Well, it’s a small town, so everybody kind of knows everybody else,” Crystal went on. “I know most people by the cars they drive. But there’ve been new people in town, and I’ve seen some of them at night. They drive new, expensive cars. Like, SUVs. They wear expensive clothes. They’re not around too much, but I’ve seen them. They’re there. And now it looks like people are disappearing.”

  “Disappearing?” Karen said. “You mean, they’re being... taken? Kidnapped?”

  “No, not that. At least, it doesn’t seem like that. There’s Rhonda Burkett. She’s been talking about leaving her husband because he’s an abusive creep. Then one day, she’s just... gone.” She shrugged her shoulders, picked at her food as she continued. “Her husband, Rick, says she left him, but I don’t think she’d just take off without telling anyone. Her other friends agree, too. She didn’t say anything about where she was going, nobody’s talked to her. She doesn’t answer her cell phone or return calls.”

  “You said her husband was abusive,” Gavin said. “Is it possible he did something to her?”

  “That’s what we all thought at first. Then he gets a new pickup truck. And a new boat. Rick’s an electrician. He can’t afford stuff like that. A friend of mine asked him if a rich relative left him some money. He was, like, half-joking, y’know? And Rick says, ‘Yeah! How’d you know?’ Now Rick’s put his house up for sale and plans to leave town.”

  “Did you go to the police?” Karen said.

  “I didn’t, but a friend did. She told them she was worried about Rhonda and thought maybe Rick had done something to her because he’s been violent in the past. The cops talked to Rick and he said Rhonda left him. They believed him.”

  “You said others have disappeared, too?” Gavin said. Crystal nodded. “A little boy. There’s this woman named Wendy Folkes. She lives on the wrong side of town, if you know what I mean. A single mother of two kids, one of them autistic, the little boy, Joel. She’s, like, a party girl. No job, on welfare, there are always lowlifes hanging around her house, which is a dump. She doesn’t have a car and some days, she walks into town with her kids, Joel and his sister Tammy, and gets a few groceries. I know her to say hi, but that’s all. One day, I see her in town, but she’s got a car now. But she didn’t have Joel with her, only Tammy. A couple days later, I see her again, and Joel’s still not with her. I stopped her on the way into the grocery store and said hi and asked he
r where Joel was. She said he’d gone to live with her mother. ‘She can take better care of him than I can,’ she says. I congratulated her on the new car and she laughs and says, ‘Yeah, ain’t it nice? It was a gift.’ Then she goes into the store.”

  “Has anyone gone to the police?” Karen asked.

  “I don’t know. I thought about it, but didn’t because I think they’re in on it.”

  “Who?”

  “The police.”

  “In on what?”

  “I don’t know. But whatever it is, I get a strong sense that they’re in on it.”

  Karen and Gavin exchanged a suspicious look, then turned to Burgess.

  “This sounds like something for law enforcement,” Gavin said. “I’m not sure why you’d want us to—”

  Burgess held up a forefinger and smiled. “Wait, hold it.” He turned to Crystal. “Tell them.”

  She ate in silence for a moment, then cocked a brow and cast a challenging look at Karen. “You’ll probably say I’m crazy, but there’s something... different in town. Something new.” Karen frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not sure what it is yet, but I can feel it. It’s disrupted the mountain’s energy.”

  Karen resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

  Crystal smiled and said, “You’re trying not to roll your eyes, aren’t you? That’s okay. It’s still true. Something’s come to Mt. Shasta. Somehow, it’s, like, connected to the mountain. But I don’t know how yet. Whatever it is, it’s bad. And it’s got something to do with the disappearances.”

  “And you think the police are aware of it?” Gavin said. She nodded. “I think they’re protecting it. I suppose I could be wrong. But I feel that’s the case.”

  “But you don’t know what it is?” Karen said.

  A shadow seemed to cross Crystal’s face as she looked down at her plate. “No. Only that it’s something bad. And it scares me enough to think about leaving Mt. Shasta.”

  “But before she does that,” Burgess said, “I wanted you two to look into it. I had Crystal write down the license plate numbers on those strangers’ vehicles she’s been seeing around town. I gave the numbers to a friend of mine who owed me a favor. Are you familiar with Km Services?”

  “The mercenary company?” Karen said.

  “A private military company,” Burgess said. “Of course, that’s just a euphemism for ‘mercenary company.’ They’re scary as hell, if you ask me. They do a lot of work for the government and—well, you know all that, I’m sure. They’re on their way to becoming another Praetorian Guard. The founder is a far-right-wing Christian who believes homosexuals should either be cured of their homosexuality or thrown in prison along with women who have abortions. He thinks doctors who perform abortions should be executed. And he has his own personal army, which has become the personal army of the government. Scary, huh?”

  “What about them?” Gavin said.

  “The vehicles belong to Km.”

  Karen said, “What are they doing in Mt. Shasta?”

  “Were not sure what they’re doing yet, but we think we know where they’re doing it.” He nodded at Crystal.

  “I have a new client named Gertie Mahler,” she said. “She has problems that are, like, out of my league. I’ve tried to gently suggest that she see a therapist, but I don’t think that’s gonna happen. She’s in her fifties and lives with her parents. At first, she seems slow. You know, like, retarded, or something. But it’s more than that. Bad self-esteem, no self-confidence, and I think she’s, like... damaged. I sense a lot of pain in her—from old emotional wounds. Anyway, her parents came here from Germany and I think she was raised to be suspicious of psychologists. But she’s very open to psychics and the paranormal. She started coming to me two weeks ago. She seemed worried about something during her first session.”

  Crystal stopped to sip some tea then picked at her food as she continued.

  “Marty and I had been talking about all this other stuff for a while by the time Gertie came to me. I wasn’t sure what was on her mind, and she never brought it up during that first session, but right away, I had this feeling there was a connection. That whatever was bothering her was, like, related to what had been bothering me.”

  Burgess nodded. “She told me about it and said this woman—this Gertie—was somehow connected to whatever it was that had come to Mt. Shasta.”

  “She was worse when she came the second time,” Crystal said. “Something was eating at her. I got a strong feeling that it was, like, an intrusion. Something had... invaded her life. I asked about it that time. She was cautious, but she opened up a little. She said some people had come to her house to investigate something. They’d set up some kind of lab on her property and had been there for weeks. She wouldn’t say what it was they were investigating, but right away, I knew I was right, that it had something to do with this ... thing that’s come to town. She said they were supposed to be researchers, but she wasn’t sure she believed them. I asked what they were researching and that made her uncomfortable. She squirmed a lot.”

  Karen was getting impatient. “What did she tell you?”

  “That she wasn’t supposed to talk about it. She wouldn’t say why. But she was worried because whatever these people were doing on her property, it was involving other people, she said. And children.”

  “How does it involve children?” Gavin said.

  “I don’t know. Talking about it made her so nervous that she left before her session was over.”

  Burgess said, “I think—and Crystal agrees with me on this—that the people from Km Services are either the ones on the Mahler property or they’re behind it.”

  “But why?” Karen said.

  Burgess said, “I suggested to Crystal that Km Services was what she was sensing, the bad thing that’s come to Mt. Shasta. But she thinks they’ve come because of the bad thing that’s come to Mt. Shasta.”

  “To use it,” Crystal said.

  Karen turned to Gavin and said, “To use what? How?” Burgess smiled. “That’s what I want you to find out.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  The black Cadillac Escalade Burgess provided them drove well and even though he wasn’t a fan of SUVs, Gavin found himself wishing he had one. In the passenger seat, Karen smoked a cigarette and held her iPhone, reading the material Burgess had provided about the lore of Mt. Shasta. Crystal was ahead of them in her metallic red Prius as they drove north on Interstate 5.

  “Mt. Shasta sounds like Crazy Central,” Karen said.

  “It always has been.”

  “I get the feeling that Crystal is right at home there.”

  From the corner of his eye, he saw her looking at him and turned to find her smirking. “What?” he said, turning to her.

  She chuckled.

  “What?”

  “I thought your tongue was going to hit the table and knock over the bottle of soy sauce.”

  Gavin rolled his eyes.

  “Come on, admit it. In your head, you were doing her right there on the table, weren’t you?”

  He resisted the urge for a moment, but finally laughed. “Okay, look, I’d prefer this not get around, but I admit it—I’m a raging heterosexual.”

  “I promise not to tell any of your friends.”

  They said nothing for a while.

  Burgess had informed them that a cottage awaited them in Mt. Shasta, fully furnished and stocked with food. They were writer friends of Crystal’s, mystery novelists who’d decided to set their new book in Mt. Shasta, so they’d rented a place there to get a feel for the town and the area.

  “I’ve emailed you everything I’ve been able to learn about the people from Km Services,” Burgess had said, “as well as everything you need to know about the company itself. There’s also information about the mountain and some links, a kind of summary of the strange history of the place. And I’ve got a couple of books for you, too, if you’re interested.” Burgess always made sure they were well-prepared fo
r whatever job he had for them. He had first hired them six years ago after conducting a search for two private investigators that suited his needs. He chose them. Prior to that, Gavin, who was based in San Francisco, and Karen in Los Angeles, had never met. Burgess wanted them to investigate the possibility that vampires were living in Los Angeles. Both of them had been deeply skeptical, but they couldn’t turn down the money Burgess offered. What they’d found had put an end to their skepticism—and it had nearly put an end to their lives. Still, that skepticism seemed to creep up on them with each assignment Burgess gave them. Over the course of several jobs for the writer, Gavin and Karen had developed a comfortable relationship.

  Karen was very attractive in many ways. Gavin found himself thinking about her between jobs, when they weren’t together. But... he tried not to. He’d had some pretty bad luck with relationships in the past and for that reason, it had been a long time since he’d been in one. He liked Karen. He didn’t want to ruin a good thing.

  The early November sky was filled with dark clouds and the freeway was wet, but it wasn’t raining at the moment.

  “Have you ever put chains on tires before?” Burgess had asked him.

  “It’s been a while since I’ve done it, but yeah.”

  “You might have to again. They’re in the Caddy There’s been no snow yet, but we’re getting early rain and all the bonehead experts say it’s going to be an early winter, and a heavy one. So you might get some snow while you’re up there.”

  Gavin wasn’t crazy about snow, but after the generous advance Burgess gave them for the job, he decided he could live with it.

  Burgess had said, “Give me a call when you have an idea how long you might be there.”

  Gavin had shrugged. “You know how it goes. It might take us a long time to get anywhere, if we do at all. Then again, we might get there and fall on our faces right in the middle of whatever it is we’re looking for. If we’re dealing with snow... who knows.”

  The sky grew darker as they drove north on Interstate 5 behind Crystal.