“No. But they rarely do with catacomb suicides. Pretty sure that was deliberate, too. She wanted me to spend the rest of my life wondering if she was really dead.”
“Her final revenge.”
Drake’s smile could have been chipped out of glacial ice. “Yes.”
“Oh, man, you think she might still be alive, don’t you?”
“I don’t know.” Drake shoved his fingers through his hair. “That’s the hell of it. I just don’t know. In the course of our investigation, Harry and I pulled out all of the Sebastian, Inc. resources. Called in favors from the Federal Bureau of Psi Investigation and the local Guild boss. We found nothing that indicated that Zara Tucker might have faked her own death.”
“But nothing that proved she didn’t, either?”
“Right.”
“When did she disappear?”
“Nearly three years ago.”
“I dunno, Drake, that’s a long time for someone to stay lost while consumed with revenge. You’d think that if she was truly obsessed with you, she would have made some obvious move by now.”
“That’s what I keep telling myself.”
She watched him closely. “But in the meantime you haven’t registered with any more matchmaking agencies, have you? You’re afraid that if you do go into a Covenant Marriage and if Zara is still alive, she might reappear. You think she would be a threat to your wife.”
Drake gave her a long, considering look. “You’re right. That’s a very perceptive observation. The only other people who have figured that out are the members of my family.”
“Probably because they are the only other people who know the whole story.”
“Harry and the others in my family tell me I’m wrong to put my life on hold because of a threat that may or may not exist. They think that I’m the one who has become obsessed. They point out that if Zara is still alive somewhere, she’s probably in an institution by now. And if she did come out of the woodwork, my family has the resources to make her disappear again. For good this time.”
“But still you’re having a hard time moving on with that part of your life.”
Drake shifted in his seat, stretching out his legs. “Zara is my past. Let’s talk about yours.”
“What about it?”
He angled his head to indicate the folder on her lap. “Notice what is not in that file?”
She glanced down at the folder. “There’s not much here. What am I missing?”
“There is no information at all about Fulton Whitcomb beyond the fact that his body was found in his apartment. There’s no mention of your honeymoon from hell on Rainshadow.”
“Well, there’s no reason why Ethel would have gone into those details. She’s out to make my life miserable, not solve her son’s murder. As far as she’s concerned, I’m the killer. She wouldn’t waste time pointing an investigator in other directions.”
“True,” Drake said. “But everything in the case is linked to Rainshadow. You’d think that there would be something about that last trip in the file. If I were Ethel, I’d want to know exactly what happened on the island. And I’d also be asking questions about how Fulton was killed. Most of all, I’d want to know what was discovered that was worth murder.”
“You think like that because you are a logical, reasonable person. Trust me, Ethel is not logical or reasonable when it comes to her son’s death. Where are you going with this, Drake?”
“I’m not sure yet. But the focus on you makes me wonder if someone else is involved, someone who doesn’t want Ethel to look in another direction.”
A small shiver zapped through Alice. “The real killer?”
“It’s a possibility,” Drake said. “We need more information. And we’ll get it.”
“Okay,” Alice said. “Thanks.”
Drake studied her for a long moment.
“Do you know what I see when I look at that file?” he asked.
She smiled ruefully. “A misspent life? A person who can’t seem to focus on a career path? A woman who has been questioned in a possible homicide and declared unmatchable by a string of matchmaking agencies?”
“No,” he said. “I see a strong, intelligent woman who has managed to keep going in the face of some bad odds. I see a survivor.”
She thought about that. “Well, it’s not like a person has much choice.”
“There is always a choice,” Drake said. “And you keep making the choice to go forward. In my family we admire that kind of spirit.”
Chapter 9
RAINSHADOW MATERIALIZED OUT OF THE STRANGE MIST like a ghostly afterimage appearing after the real image has ceased to exist. A ring of dark fog encircled the island. The mist was crouched just offshore.
The island was always a forbidding sight with its sheer granite cliffs, darkly wooded interior, and craggy volcanic peak. To Drake it resembled some artist’s vision of an Alien fortress. But in the early and unnatural twilight that had swept over the island and the surrounding sea, it looked more surreal than ever, a landscape that could only exist in a dream.
“We’ve got a problem,” Drake said. He raised his voice to be heard above the roar of the cruiser’s engines and the mounting fury of a storm that had not existed until five minutes ago when it had erupted out of nowhere.
He was at the helm of the small, fast boat that they had picked up in Thursday Harbor a couple of hours earlier. He and Alice were both wearing life jackets. Alice stood beside him, holding her wind-whipped hair away from her face. Her expressive eyes were shielded by a pair of standard-issue sunglasses. She had put them on in Thursday Harbor to deal with the glare off the sea.
Houdini was perched on the ledge above the instrument panel, chortling gleefully as the craft rode up and over the crest of the raging waves.
“What’s going on?” Alice asked. She watched the island through the windshield. “Why does Rainshadow look so unreal? It’s like it’s in another dimension or something.”
Drake studied the bank of high-tech electronic navigation equipment in front of him. All of the displays were flat-lined.
“Or something,” he said. “Remember the mirage effect that I told you about? The optical illusions that make it impossible to get to the island by floatplane these days?”
“Yes, what about them?”
“Looks like the distortion has gotten worse since I last talked to Harry. There’s a lot of paranormal energy in the atmosphere. It’s knocked out my instruments. That fog must be the mist that Harry mentioned. It’s darker and thicker than he described it.”
Alice gave him an uneasy look. “The boat feels like it’s going faster.”
“It is. We’re caught in a current that is carrying us toward the island.”
“I understand now what you meant when you said there was some force stirring up the weather. I didn’t have a real fun time on Rainshadow the last time I was here, but it wasn’t this scary, at least not outside the Preserve.”
“The situation has obviously deteriorated significantly since I spoke with Harry four days ago. No wonder they told us in Thursday Harbor that the ferry service had been cancelled.”
He tried to ease the cruiser out of the surging current. The boat responded only minimally, making it clear they were not going to escape. He could feel the powerful energy of the water beneath the hull, forcing them toward the rocky cliffs. His job now was to keep the boat from capsizing before he could get close to a safe place to beach it.
“There’s no way we’re going to make it around the island to Shadow Bay,” he said. He kept one hand on the helm and used the other to open a leather-bound volume he had brought with him.
Alice peered at the book. “What’s that?”
“Nav charts of this area. Harry and I have both spent a lot of time exploring the shoreline around the island. In addition, the Foundation has a big collection of the old seafarers’ charts in the archives.” He flipped through the pages until he found the one he wanted. “Here we go. There’s a small natural harbor not far from here. Deception Cove. I’m going to try to get into it.”