Gabe’s mind swam. He wanted to ask another question; he wanted to feed an ego that he realized was starved. But his mouth wouldn’t move. The ache in his bad leg screamed. And the points on his arm, and shoulder, and neck pinged with sharp pains, over and over. He couldn’t focus on anything but the pain.
“What … why …?” was all he managed.
“Because I can.” Roman, laughing, was the last thing he remembered before sliding into darkness. “Gaia wills it.”
33
The ocean surged onto the pristine beach, washing over Junie’s bare feet. Cold, but refreshing, and much more comfortable in this small dose than when she’d been hip-deep in it after the sun went down.
Incredible that just over a week ago, this same gold-sanded stretch had been black with oil.
Her short, cropped hair, the same color, almost, as that poisonous liquid, buffeted around her face, leaving her ears uncovered in the brisk wind. She stared out over the grey-blue water as she pulled up her hood.
If she hadn’t been here, wearing gloves slicked with residue, sudsing a sea bird in hopes of saving another fragile life, she would never have believed it. A tier three oil spill, suddenly gone, evaporated within hours.
And her own illness.
According to the medical professionals, she’d been very ill, unconscious most of three days, and then she’d suddenly recovered. From what, they didn’t know. They’d been unable to provide a diagnosis.
And then there was the faintest memory of a dream … of a green-eyed man, who’d come to her in the hospital.
Junie shivered, but not because the wind from the ocean was cold.
Suddenly she became aware that she wasn’t alone on this lonely stretch of beach, this three-kilometer run of sand studded by harsh grey boulders, and edged with foaming sea.
A man walked toward her. He was dressed inappropriately for beach combing in a dark business suit. His shirt beamed a pristine white, topped by a dark jacket, a long black duster, and dark pants. A matching dark tie striped the shirt, bisecting the white with its mark. His hair, nipped short, along with the neat beard and moustache, was as black as her own; but his skin was several shades darker than her ivory complexion.
“Hello.” He greeted her with a short bow, then thrust his hands into his pockets, winging the open edges of the duster behind them. “A bit chilly here today.” Though his English was excellent, she heard the accent that told her he wasn’t a native speaker.
“Yes, indeed.” Though they were alone, she felt no sense of alarm; no instinctive heightening of the senses. “Though not so cold as it was during the evening hours last week, when I was trudging through that water.”
The polite expression on his face morphed into one of interest. “You were here? Did you see the oil spill?”
“I was one of the people using liquid dish detergent to wash the gulls,” she told him. “It’s amazing that it suddenly … dried up.”
The man nodded. “I find it hard to believe myself. Oil just doesn’t dry up.”
“It never has in my experience. And I’ve worked on three other spills.” Sensing that his interest hadn’t waned, she added, “I’m a zoologist and when something like this happens … well, I have to be here. It was very strange. I was working with the others all day, and into the night — well past midnight — and then we went to bed. But I couldn’t sleep, and I came down here by myself ….and the oil was gone. And then … and then I became ill.”
“You’re the one, then. How fortunate that I should meet you here. My name is Inspector Hamid al-Jubeir,” he explained, and thrust out his hand. “I’m investigating the murder of the man who owned the ship that spilled, and the company that produced and sold the oil.”
“Junie Peters,” she replied as she shook his hand, wondering why he wanted to talk with her. “The man who owned the ship was killed?”
“And in a most peculiar fashion,” the inspector told her. “He was injected with oil. But it wasn’t actually oil … which is why I am here. And pleased to speak with you.”
Junie stared at him. “It wasn’t oil?”
He shook his head gravely. “It was oil, and yet it wasn’t. Our forensics laboratory tested it, and determined that it was indeed oil, but it wasn’t aged. It was … new.”
“New?”
“As if it had just been created; as if the process had happened only days or weeks ago, instead of millions of years.”
Junie had to pull up her hood again; the wind had tugged it back. “How strange. I’ve never heard of new oil.”
“Neither has anyone else I’ve spoken with. And so I came here … I thought perhaps there might be some residue left on this site that we could analyze to see if it was the same substance. Since it evaporated so quickly, it can’t be the same oil we live on. When you were ill ….it’s my understanding that the illness came when you visited this locale.”
“Yes … when I came here alone and found that the oil was gone. I … passed out.” The vague image of the man in her hospital room swam abruptly into her memory. Perhaps ….“He told me … he apologized and said I wasn’t supposed to be around. No one was supposed to get hurt.”
The inspector didn’t seem confused with her staggering language; he didn’t seem impatient. He waited while Junie searched for what she wanted to say … what hung in the back of her mind.
“I think … I think there was a man who visited me at the hospital. Who caused me to get better. He put something in my nose that I inhaled ….like a nebulizer ….and then he left. But he said they didn’t mean to harm me, and that I would be well then.”
Al-Jubeir pulled a folded paper from his pocket. “Was this the man you saw?”
34
Marina didn’t know how long she was left in her room before the door finally slid open.
She remained seated in the large chair across from the entrance. Her father walked in.
“What’s going on? Where’s Gabe?” she demanded. And then she stopped, her words dying in her throat.
A second man walked in. Her father.
Marina gripped the arms of her chair and in her shock turned to look at the first man. The bald one.
“More lies, Dad?” she snapped.
How could she have mistaken the handsome, healthy man for her father? When they stood next to each other, it was so obvious they bore only the faintest resemblance. Dad, frail and slightly hunched, with sallow skin that hugged gaunt cheekbones … thick, messy hair that needed a trim … brows just as dark as the other’s, but scraggly and wiry like spider legs.
And the other man … handsome, confident, almost youthful.
“Lies?” the man repeated.
Marina glared at him, yet an uneasy feeling settled in her stomach. This man was not the easily manipulated persona of her father. “You must be brothers. Related somehow. That’s one.”
“Viktor, you never told Marina that you had a brother? A twin?” False surprise cloaked his words.
“Twins? So you are my uncle.”
“Roman.”
“Marina ….” Her father’s voice was thready, pleading. “I warned you to stay away.”
“An email? You sent me an email!” Now Marina stood; but she kept her voice steady and calm, though it threatened to crack. “If you had told me anything over the years, it might have prepared me to find out that our family hadn’t died out, and that it’s still alive and that I have an uncle … and perhaps other relatives. Now I need to know what you tried to warn me about. What is this place and what are you involved in? And how did I get here?”