Twisting the key out of the ignition, she grabbed her portfolio and bags and started across the blacktop toward her door. Already, she was mentally laying out the tools she’d need: jeweler’s loup; a piece of good French cane; silk thread; sheets of fish skin to plug leaks. Mr. Roehm, her high-school oboe teacher, had said that making double reeds was like fly-tying: an art and a science in which a thousand things could go wrong, and in which the tinkering was never done.
She unlocked the front door and stepped inside. Dropping her things, she leaned back against the door and closed her eyes wearily, too exhausted for the moment to turn on the lights. She heard the low growl of the refrigerator, a dog barking hysterically in the distance. The place had a smell she didn’t remember. Odd, she thought, how things can grow unfamiliar in just two days.
Something was missing: the familiar click-clack of nails on the linoleum, the friendly nuzzling of her ankles. Taking a deep breath, she pushed herself away from the door and snapped on the lights. Thurber, her ten-year-old basset hound, was nowhere in sight.
“Thurber?” she called. She thought of going outside to call for him, but changed her mind immediately: Thurber was the most domesticated animal on the planet, for whom the great outdoors was something to be avoided at all costs.
“Thurber?” she called again. Dropping her purse on the front table, her eyes fell on a note: Nora, please call. Skip. Reading this, Nora smirked. Must need money, she thought; Skip normally never used “please” in a sentence. And that explained Thurber’s absence. She’d asked Skip to feed Thurber while she was in California, and no doubt he’d taken the pooch back to his apartment to save himself time.
Turning away, she started to take off her shoes, then changed her mind when she noticed a scattering of dust on the floor. Gotta clean this damn place, she thought as she headed for the stairs.
In the bathroom she shrugged off her blouse, washed her face and hands, dampened her hair, and then pulled on her favorite reed-making sweatshirt, a ragged thing from the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. Walking into her bedroom, she stopped to look around a moment. She’d been so quick to judge Holroyd’s apartment, almost eccentric in its barrenness, its lack of personality. And yet, in its way, her own place was not that different. Somehow, she’d never had time to give much thought to decorating. If furnishings were a window into the soul, what did this jumble of rooms say about her? A woman who was too busy crawling around ruins to fix up her own place. Almost everything she had belonged to her parents; Skip had refused to take anything except her dad’s book collection and old pistol.
With a smile and a shake of her head, she reached automatically for the brush on top of her dresser.
And found it gone.
She paused, hand outstretched, motionless with perplexity. Her brush was always in the same place: the archaeologist in her insisted on keeping her possessions in situ. Her damp hair felt cool on the back of her neck as she mentally went through the motions of three mornings before. She’d washed her hair as usual, dressed as usual, combed her hair as usual. And replaced the brush as usual.
But now it was missing. Nora stared at the strange, inexplicable gap between the comb and the box of tissue. Goddamn Skip, she thought suddenly, irritation mingling with relief. His own bathroom was a solid mass of mildew, and he liked to sneak showers at her place when she was away. He’d probably dumped it someplace, and . . .
Then she paused and took a breath. Something in her gut told her that this had nothing to do with Skip. The strange smell, the dust in the hall, the feeling that things were not right . . . She whirled around, searching for anything else that might be missing. But everything seemed to be in place.
Then she heard a faint scratching sound coming from outside. She looked over, but the black windows only reflected the interior. She turned off the lights with a quick brush of her hand. It was a clear, moonless night, the desert stars spread out like diamonds across the velvet blackness beyond her window. The scratching came again, louder this time.
With a surge of relief, she realized it must be Thurber, waiting at the back door. On top of everything else, Skip had managed to leave the dog outside. Shaking her head, Nora walked downstairs and through the kitchen. She twisted the deadbolt on the door and yanked it open, kneeling as she did so for the anticipated nuzzle.
Thurber was nowhere to be seen. A skein of dust swirled on the concrete step, flaring into sharp relief as the headlights of a car approached along the back alley. The headlights swept across the grass, past a stand of pines, and silhouetted a large presence, furred and dark, springing back into the protective darkness. As she stared, Nora realized she had seen that movement before—a few nights before, when the same object had raced alongside her truck with horrifying unnatural speed.
She stumbled backward into the kitchen in a rush of terror, face hot, gulping air. Then the moment of paralysis passed. Filled with sudden anger, she grabbed a heavy flashlight from the counter and dashed for the door. She stopped at the threshold, the flashlight revealing nothing but the peaceful desert night.
“Leave me the hell alone!” she cried into the blackness. There was no dark figure, no prints in the damp earth beyond the door; only the lost sigh of the wind, the crazed barking of a distant dog, and the rattle of the flashlight in her shaking hand.
9
NORA STOPPED OUTSIDE A CLOSED OAKEN door labeled CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD, SANTA FE ARCHAEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE. Clutching more tightly to the portfolio that now never left her side, she looked carefully down the hall in both directions. She was uncertain whether the nervousness she felt had to do with the events of the night before or with the impending meeting. Had word of her shenanigans at JPL somehow gotten out? No, that was impossible. But maybe this was going to be a dismissal anyway. Why else would Ernest Goddard want to see her? Her head ached from lack of sleep.
All she knew about the chairman was what she had read, along with the rare newspaper photo and even rarer glimpse of his striking figure around campus. Although Dr. Blakewood might have been prime mover and chief architect of the Institute’s vision, Nora knew that Goddard was the real power and money behind Blakewood’s throne. And unlike Blakewood, Goddard had an almost supernatural ability to cultivate the press, managing to get the occasional tasteful and laudatory article placed in just the right venue. She had heard several explanations for the man’s tremendous wealth, from inheriting a motor oil fortune to discovering a submarine full of Nazi gold—none of which seemed credible.
She took a deep breath and grasped the doorknob firmly. Maybe a dismissal would be a good thing at this point. It would free her to pursue Quivira unhindered. The Institute, in the person of Dr. Blakewood, had already passed judgment on her proposed expedition. Holroyd had given her the ammunition she needed to take the idea somewhere else. If the Institute wasn’t interested, she knew she would find a place that was.
A small, nervous secretary ushered her through the reception area to the inner office. The space was as cool and spare as a church, with whitewashed adobe walls and a Mexican tiled floor. Instead of the imposing power desk Nora had expected, there was a huge wooden worktable, badly scuffed and dented. She looked around in surprise; it was the exact opposite of Dr. Blakewood’s office. Except for a row of pots on the worktable, lined up as if at attention, the room was devoid of ornamentation.