Shades (12 page)

"A static electricity buildup?" Valenti asked when he'd finished.

"Yeah."

"Any reason why?"

"No."

"And no one but you and the victims saw the ghost today or that night?"

"No."

"Any ideas why not?"

Michael shot Valenti a look.

"Right," Valenti said with a sigh. "At least a static electricity buildup is something I can sense even if I can't see the ghosts." He flipped the file open again for an instant, then put Swanson's picture back in the folder.

They drove in silence for a time. Only the hum of the tires filled the truck cab.

"So don't you want to know where I'm taking you?" Valenti asked.

"I know where you're taking us," Michael said.

"You think so?"

"Wilkins's house," Michael said. "That's why you checked the address again."

Valenti grinned mirthlessly. When the mile marker on the highway came up, he turned right and followed a dirt road section line that had a clutch of chaparral and a truck full of kids selling farm produce with their grandparents at the corner. Valenti honked and waved.

"Know why I'm bringing you with me?" Valenti asked.

Michael glanced at the mirror mounted on the passenger side of the truck. A dust cloud whipped along in their wake, eerily remindful of the ghosts he'd seen. "Because I see dead people," Michael answered.

12

When he reached Roswell, Max stopped at a convenience store a couple blocks down from the Crashdown Cafe. Leaving the car, he crossed to the pay phone mounted on the front of the liquor store. The sun beat down into the town, baking the pavement of the streets and parking areas and heating the air into a convection oven.

He swiped his prepaid phone card through the phones reader and punched in Isabel's cell phone number. Anxiously he peered at the SUV with the news markings and the group of people standing in front of the Crashdown.

Isabel answered on the fourth ring.

"What took you so long to answer the phone?" Max asked.

"Max?" Isabel responded.

"Yeah. I heard about the Crashdown. About the ghost."

"How did you know?" Isabel asked.

"I've seen a few ghosts myself." Max didn't want to go into the whole story over the phone. "Is Liz okay? I heard she was at the hospital." A hurried conversation on the street at a stoplight with a guy he knew from school had netted him that information.

"Liz is fine," Isabel answered. "We need to talk."

"I know," Max agreed. "I don't know for sure what happened at the Crashdown, but these ghosts are real. Maybe they're not ghosts, but they're something."

"I know. I've seen one myself."

"Where?" Max demanded. "Were you at the Crash-down?"

"No. Somewhere else." Isabel paused. "We need to meet somewhere tonight, Max."

"We will. Where are you?"

"The hospital."

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine."

But she didn't sound fine, Max knew. He could hear the anxiety and uncertainty in his sister's voice. Those weren't qualities he usually attributed to Isabel Evans.

"Is Michael there?" Max asked.

"No. He had been at the Crashdown, but Maria called a few minutes ago to say that he'd gone off with Valenti."

"Where did Michael and Valenti go?"

"Maria didn't know."

Frustration chafed at Max. He knew he needed to be doing something, but he didn't know what he was supposed to do. He told Isabel that he was on his way, then hung up and climbed back into the Chevelle.

"So this guy was a uranium miner?" Michael asked as Valenti pulled the truck to a stop in front of Leroy Wilkins's house.

Valenti looked up at the three-story home. "Yeah. One of the more successful desert rats who ever lived that kind of life. His dad was a miner before him. Taught Leroy everything he knew about mining. The elder Wilkins did a lot of mining for uranium used by the United States government during their nuclear weapons testing back in the forties and fifties. There's an underground uranium mining museum over in Grants, New Mexico, that has some exhibits Leroy's father was responsible for."

Michael studied the house. Trees had grown up around the house, closing in on the structure. Peeling paint looked like diseased areas. Shingles lay in the overgrown weeds in the yard and left bare spots on the roof. If the roof weren't leaking now, it soon would be. The railing around the porch had come loose in some areas and was rotting in others. Maintenance obviously wasn't part of the house's routine.

"This doesn't look like success," Michael commented.

Valenti opened the truck door and got out. "This is past success. Leroy Wilkins was one of the last wildcat miners. Guys who bought up land rights and went hell-for-leather against the bedrock hoping they found enough to earn out the investment."

Michael watched a pair of hawks floating in lazy circles in the sky.

"Wilkins was successful enough to buy this property here and have this house built," Valenti continued. "He threw a lot of parties back in his day. He was also a high stakes gambler who spent a lot of time out in Vegas. He spent every dime he made. Barely had enough to keep from losing this house to back taxes."

Michael followed Valenti toward the front door.

"As you can tell," Valenti said as he stepped up onto the porch, "Wilkins didn't make a lot of lasting friends in spite of the way he spent his money."

Valentis boots thudded across the uneven surface of the warped porch.

"You said he killed his partner," Michael pointed out. "Maybe that had something to do with his lack of friends."

Valenti tried the front door, but it was locked. "I never said Wilkins killed his partner. I said Terrell Swanson disappeared."

"But he never managed the reappearance, did he?" Michael asked sourly.

"No."

"Why would Wilkins kill his partner?"

Valenti peered through the windows. "Because they found the strike that was as close to the mother lode as they'd ever found. Both of them had wills that gave their half of any mine to the surviving partner. Most of the business in those days done between partners instead of corporations operated like that. Strictly Old West rules."

Boredom settled in over Michael. He leaned back against a section of the porch railing that looked like it would support his weight.

Valenti glanced at him. "Don't get too relaxed. You're supposed to be the lookout."

"If I see a ghost," Michael said, "I'll scream."

"Yeah," Valenti said sarcastically, "that works for me." He walked from the porch down to the two-car garage around the side of the house.

The garage had been built into the hillside that provided the elevated foundation for the rest of the house. With the construction the way it was, the garage was on a split-level beneath the house.

Reluctantly, Michael followed Valenti. "What are we doing here?"

"Following up a lead."

"We have a lead?" Michael asked. "I must have missed the lead part."

"Swanson's ghost," Valenti said.

"That's a lead?"

Valenti halted in front of the garage door and looked at Michael. "How did you see Swanson's ghost?"

Michael blinked, not fully comprehending.

Valenti sighed. "Okay, listen. Wilkins came into the Crashdown claiming a ghost no one else can see is chasing him. But you can see the ghost. And you can see the ghost of Tiller Osborn's dad. Why?"

Michael didn't say anything. They both knew what the only reason could be.

"So I'm wondering why Osborn's ghost came to the campsite, and how much of a coincidence it is that Wilkins wandered into the Crashdown today."

"Liz said her mother was talking to her dead grandmother this morning."

Valenti narrowed his eyes. "Liz didn't mention that when I talked to her at the hospital."

Michael shrugged. "It's not something she wants to talk about."

"Yeah, well that still puts you at the eye of the storm," Valenti observed.

"Isabel saw a ghost too."

"Where?"

"I don't know."

"What about Max?"

Michael shook his head. "Haven't seen him since yesterday."

Valenti blew out his breath. "Three ghosts that we know of, then."

Michael didn't say anything. The math was obvious.

"But out of those three ghosts," Valenti said, "Wilkins's ghost is the only one we can investigate."

Michael looked at the house. "And the investigation is here?"

"It starts here." Valenti pulled at the Master lock on the garage door, then retreated to his truck and came back with a crowbar.

"Why here?" Michael asked.

Valenti set himself with the crowbar. "Because Leroy Wilkins hardly ever leaves his house. He has his food delivered. He has his booze delivered. I'm curious about what drove him out of his house and into the Crashdown." He swung the crowbar, connecting with the Master lock and tearing the mechanism from the garage door and frame.

"I think that's called forcible entry," Michael said. "Not exactly the letter of the law."

"I'm not exactly the law these days," Valenti said.

Michael couldn't miss the trace of bitterness in the man's voice.

"Give me a hand," Valenti said, squatting to shove the end of the crowbar under the garage door. He got into position and heaved up. The heavy wooden door rose a little with a prolonged creak.

Michael knelt down and slid his fingers under the garage door. For just a moment the image of something strange and horrifying waiting in the darkness on the other side of the door flooded his mind. Then he leaned his shoulder into the garage door and lifted.

The garage door rose, creaking and shrieking along the rusty tracks. An explosion of musty air twisted around Michael, clogging his nostrils with the stink and freezing his breath in his lungs for a moment. It was hard not to think of raising the garage door as opening a crypt.

The garage housed an ancient Willis jeep that had originally started out olive-drab green but had been painted orange at some point. The change in color hadn't taken well, because huge patches of green showed where the orange paint had peeled away. Shelves lined the wall opposite the basement door and at the back of the garage, filled with prospecting equipment and ore samples.

Valenti started to step into the garage, but the harsh blatting noise of a two-cycle motorcycle engine blared to life, approaching quickly.

Certain that the garage door was firmly lodged into place, Michael turned loose the hold he had and looked back out into the yard.

A dust-spattered yellow dirt bike roared into the yard and halted thirty feet away. The rider was thin and looked too small to handle the motorcycle. The helmet masked the features, gloves covered the hands, and a black riding suit clothed the rider.

"You see it too?" Valenti asked.

"Yeah," Michael said. "It's not a ghost."

"How sure are you?"

"Really sure," Michael replied. "When one of the ghosts arrives, there's the static electricity buildup I told you about."

"Not a ghost," Valenti repeated. "That's good." "It also means," Michael said, "that we've been caught trespassing." He glanced at the raised garage door and the crowbar in Valenti's hands. "And breaking and entering."

Max stopped at the doorway to the hospital emergency room waiting area and stared at Liz. She was so near physically, but as he watched her looking out the window, he realized that she seemed almost a million miles away.

Then, as if sensing him there, Liz turned and looked at him.

Max met her gaze and felt the same electricity that he'd always felt when she looked at him. Tess had never taken those feelings away; only muted them and confused him for a time, blinding him through his weakness of needing to know more about his true home. Max crossed to Liz, barely cognizant of the other people in the room.

Stopping in front of Liz, Max said, "I came as soon as I heard. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she answered.

Max nodded, searching desperately for something else to say. "Is your dad okay? I heard he was here too."

Liz nodded toward the other end of the room. Mr. Parker stood with a cell phone clutched to his ear.

"Nothing happened to anybody at the cafe," Liz said. Then she explained about Wilkins and the ghost that Michael had seen.

"I heard Michael was with Valenti," Michael said, trying to head off the uncomfortable silence he was certain was going to occur. "Do you know why?"

Liz shook her head. "I think he wanted to check on the ghost Michael and Wilkins saw. His name was Terrell Swanson, and he disappeared thirty years ago. Valenti's dad was trying to find him because he believed Wilkins killed him."

"So the ghost is real?" Max thought back to the phantom warrior he had seen with River Dog. River Dog had never met his ancestor, but Henry Callingcrow had been known to several of the Mesaliko tribe.

"Max," Liz said softly, "ghosts aren't real. They can't be real."

"I know," Max said, but he remembered the ghost he'd seen two Christmases ago. He'd let the man die after giving his life to save his daughter. For days afterward, the man had haunted Max, until Max and Michael had broken into the hospital so Max could heal all the children there.

"That was different," Liz said softly. She touched his cheek with her hand.

Max looked at her, amazed at how well she could sometimes just know what he was thinking. If they could communicate on things so disjointed as this, why couldn't she know how much he loved her?

She does know how much I low her, Max realized. She just can't trust that love. Not after Tess.

"You don't even know if he was a ghost," Liz said.

Max knew that was true. He'd never truly discovered if the ghost then was supernatural or inspired by his own feelings of guilt at watching the man die. "These things are real," Max stated.

Liz's eyes widened. "You've seen one too."

Max told her about the ghosts on the Mesaliko reservation.

"What were you doing out there?" Liz asked.

Max knew that she already guessed. She drew back from him, taking her hand away from the side of his face and moving back in her chair. Although they were only a few inches farther apart, the distance felt like a huge gulf.

"Looking for a way to find my son," Max answered. She knew, and she'd know if he tried to lie about it. Even though he was only trying to spare her feelings, she'd know that, too, and she wouldn't like it.

Pain flared through Liz's eyes. "Did you?"

"No."

"I'm sorry."

Max nodded. "That doesn't mean I'm going to give up trying."

Liz remained silent.

"I just wanted you to know that," Max said. Just so we can keep being honest.

Her voice was softer when she spoke. "I already knew that, Max. I wouldn't expect any less of you. But that doesn't make things any easier between us."

"I know," Max whispered, and that knowledge felt like it was going to kill him.

Isabel stood at the front of the hospital and watched Jesse drive away. He waved, and as he pulled out onto the street, it felt like a piece of her was leaving too. She'd had that feeling every time she'd had to step away from him, and the desolation of being left alone got harder and harder to face. She was afraid that facing the emptiness after Jesse left would one day be too much for her and she wouldn't be able to let go.

And what would she do then?

Isabel had no idea, and that both frustrated and scared her. She had always kept her life and her relationships neatly organized. School and home lives had been kept in neat little packages. She even had a special box for Christmas that only came out during those holidays. The secret to her life had been in keeping those boxes separate within herself. That way there had been no internal conflicts.