Then again, the fact that the piece had been swallowed was a clear clue that it had been hidden successfully from whoever had killed the woman. If they had buried the rest she would not have gone to such lengths to conceal it. Nina gave up the search to find more of the coins — in this area, at least.
“Come, Jo, let's get back to the cabin,” she suggested, peering through the tall tree trunks for signs of detection. The place was getting exceedingly creepy as time wore on and she realized why Joanne had been so uncomfortable being there. It felt spooky, as if the dead woman were screaming so loudly to be heard that everything else in the woods became mute. “Jo.”
“Okay, I'm coming,” Joanne said, and stumbled out of the bushes to join Nina on the path back. Their walk back was a lot faster than their approach had been. “You can feel it too, right?”
“Shut it,” Nina snapped softly in her rush to get as much ground between her ass and the recently relieved grave. Had Joanne not been so anxious herself, she would have laughed at Nina's response. It was quite funny.
When they finally made it back to the solace of their cottage, Joanne made a fire while Nina unpacked her laptop for a bit of research on the historical significance of the area. If she found anything worth investigating, she was going to dislodge Sam from whatever he was busy with and drag him along.
“Hey Nina, I just remembered,” Joanne noted, “I could get you pictures, maybe, of the corpse.”
Nina looked sternly over the top of her laptop screen, the blue-white glow giving her a decidedly luminous quality. “We are not breaking into the local morgue, Joanne,” she jested.
“No, man,” she laughed, “I could ask Lisa, the girl who found the hideous pile of bones. That’s how she found the corpse in the first place, while taking pictures of the woods! I bet she would still have the shots. You know kids; she would have sent it to all her pals by now.”
“Do you have her number?” Nina asked, perking up at the prospect.
“I think I do. Let me check,” she replied, and switched on her phone to check her contacts. “I have Pam's. I can ask Pam to get Lisa's number pronto.”
“Excellent. While you do that, I'll see if there was any reason someone would kill in Canada for something connected to a conqueror from centuries before Christ,” Nina said.
Chapter 14 — The Snare Set
Purdue was relieved to have made it all the way to Oban without even a question about his identity. It had been a very strenuous journey from his hiding place in the Unites States, but he could not find a way to save Nina while he was so far from her ground zero. He had arrived at her house by taxi (he had returned the rental to its agency in town) in order to not draw attention to her house with the movement of an unknown vehicle. The place was void of the action he had expected. It was almost as if the citizens of Oban did not realize that she’d been taken, or that they did not care.
Confounded by the murky circumstances, Purdue gained access to Nina's house by means of a gadget he had invented years ago. In short, it was a device that used electromagnetism to mimic the unlatching edges of a key.
Using it, however, presented a peculiar feeling for him. Simultaneously he had to use his master technology in such circumstances where he was suddenly thrust into an alien world of having to get by like an ordinary person. Two opposing worlds — his own, with boundless technology and limitless resources where he could usually just board his private jet — and his present misfortune of having to keep track of the money he used, utilizing public transport and means to get to where he needed to be.
Nina was gone without a trace, yet pedestrians passing by on the sidewalk or people driving by turned their heads to look at the infamous residence as if they knew she was absent. Still, nobody deigned to spy if she was indeed gone and nobody came to call on her home in reverence, at least.
“Why does nobody want to know that you are gone, my dear Nina?” he asked as he wandered the darkness of her house with Bruich on his heels. Purdue looked down. “Where is she, old man? Did you see who took her? Did you hear her cries?”
But his innate positivity stopped him from asking any more morose questions. He was a problem solver, a go-getter who did not relent until the end, and he was not going to allow nostalgia and assumption to bring him to a level where he could not but expect the worst. Kidnappers normally abducted for money or some kind of vindictive revenge, not for murder. She had to be alive and whoever had her had to keep her healthy and well if they wanted to trade her.
The question was, who had abducted her and why? If he was the target and they took Nina for a ransom, because he had unlimited wealth, why have they not made contact yet?
Oh yes, because you are presumed dead, you imbecile! he thought immediately.
But this brought up another possibility, which made even less sense. Consider that they had also heard the news of his demise and assumed that he was dead. Why would they kidnap her then? A hundred questions hammered Purdue's sense of logic and deduction until he was sure he had nothing to do with her abduction at all. The whole endeavor simply remained a mystery to him, but nevertheless, he decided to stay in Nina's house for the time-being while he investigated her affiliations over the last few days. Any discrepancy should shed light on what she could have been involved with, he figured.
It was all so muddled up, twisted and back to front that it left Purdue's brain to do just one thing with it all. “The answer is ridiculously simple and right before my eyes,” he announced as he glared out the bay window in Nina's bedroom, overlooking the town's roofs and some of the ocean beauty to the left. “I just need to stop thinking and regard the first, most ludicrous simplicity to know what it is.”
Suddenly there was a knock at the door, a sound that Purdue found both uncanny and unbelievable. With the veil of secrecy surrounding Nina's disappearance, the billionaire was reluctant to answer the door, even just to avoid questions as to his identity, which could prove detrimental on all levels. Quickly he calculated the risks between his options and with the second sounds of knocking he had still not decided what to do.
Keep still and watch first. If they really want to come in they will come back, his safer reasoning suggested. There was no reason to rush into problems until he knew better. Purdue had to combat his erratic side, the part that wanted instant answers and progress, even in the face of the unreasonable and perilous. A brush at Purdue's leg in the pitch dark room practically made his heart stop and he kicked wildly at the slithering sensation on his calf. A heavy thump sounded a few inches to his side and he knew it had not been his imagination.
Outside the man at the door gave up and started down the old cement pathway toward the road. Only then did Purdue see that it was a police officer that had called at Nina's door, but in the dark room it was more important to determine what manner of reptile was accosting him and the tall explorer pulled a small, but deadly dagger from his boot with great care and silence. He kept his blind eyes to the direction of the thump and waited for a moment, perking his ears for any movement.
An offended meow came from the darkness and the sound of a glass getting knocked over. Purdue switched on the light and found Bruich wet and agitated in the corner, having knocked over the standing vase of water and dead flower arrangement Nina had bought herself last. “Oh geez, old boy, I'm sorry!” he consoled the confused and very unnerved feline in between helpless laughter at the pitiful sight of him. “I thought you were something else, Bruich. Please forgive me.”