“Most people who see me like this want to get as far away from me as possible,” she said, her voice muffled by Slater’s leather jacket.
“What did you say?” Slater asked.
Mortified, she raised her head and took a step back. His hands fell away from her shoulders.
“Sorry,” she said, avoiding his eyes. “I don’t usually get that dis-oriented. I think the heavy atmosphere in here made the vision a lot more powerful than it would have been otherwise.”
“That’s not surprising.” Slater gave it a beat before he continued. “Do you think it affected the accuracy of the vision?”
She managed a wry smile. “You know, that’s one of the things I’m starting to admire about you, Mr. Arganbright. You’re very good at going straight to the bottom line. No, the energy in here didn’t affect the accuracy of the vision. It just made it stronger. Someone was murdered in here. Given that it was Royston’s body that was found, I think it’s safe to conclude he was the victim. I also picked up the hot prints of one other person.”
“Any chance there might have been two other people?”
His focus on the crime made it easier for her to pull herself together. He wasn’t freaking out. He wasn’t looking at her as if he was wondering if she should be locked up in an asylum. He was treating her as a qualified, professional investigator. That realization warmed her almost as much as the feel of his arms around her had a moment ago.
“You’re thinking about Marge’s clones, aren’t you?” she said. “I’m almost certain that there was only the one other person here inside the vault,” she said. “But there wouldn’t have been room for two killers.”
“Good point. It would have taken only one to do the job.”
Catalina opened her senses again and moved around the vault. “The killer was … excited.”
“By the kill?”
She hesitated, trying to analyze the energy. “No, that was an act of cold-blooded violence. I think he was excited because he found whatever it was he was looking for.”
“And three days later Olivia gets kidnapped.”
Catalina looked at him. “I think you’re right. Olivia was taken because of something the killer found here inside Royston’s vault. That means there is some connection to what happened in those caves fifteen years ago. But how could Royston have been involved?”
“Looks like he had the bad luck to acquire the wrong artifact,” Slater said. “So much for his safe room.”
“What safe room?”
Slater indicated the latch on the heavy steel door. “Collectors usually design their vaults to function as safe rooms in the event of a home invasion by freelancers or thieves. But that concept doesn’t work well if you invite the killer right into the vault. Evidently that’s what happened here.”
“That would seem to indicate that Royston knew his killer.”
“Not necessarily. The murderer may have forced him to open the vault.”
“How?”
“Something as simple as a gun to the head would probably do the trick.”
Catalina thought about that. “I don’t think so. Royston wasn’t afraid, not at first. He was … elated.”
“In my experience there are only a couple of things that get an obsessive collector like Royston excited—adding a new artifact to the collection or showing off a particularly valuable acquisition to a rival.”
“Maybe the killer posed as a collector or the representative of a potential buyer.”
“That might have worked,” Slater said. “But he would have had to be a very good actor to convince Royston. Collectors tend to be secretive and suspicious. We need to get to Fogg Lake.”
“What? That’s a three-and-a-half-hour drive. Four hours if the weather turns bad. We don’t have time to go to Fogg Lake. The kidnappers won’t be hanging out there.”
“We’ve got to find out what that original crime scene can tell us.”
You can’t go back into the caves. You will go crazy. You’ll throw yourself into the lake and drown.
Catalina pushed the old nightmare to the back of her mind and struggled to come up with a logical reason for avoiding the caves.
“If we go to Fogg Lake today we’ll be stuck there overnight,” she said. “You can’t get in or out of town after dark because of the fog.”
“We have to start at the beginning,” Slater insisted.
“There’s no way a couple of murderous sociopaths like those two clones could hide in Fogg Lake. That is still one very small town. Everyone knows everyone else. Strangers stand out.”
“I don’t expect to find them there,” Slater said, impatient now. “But with luck we’ll get some sense of whoever is running those clones.”
“But—”
“We don’t have time to argue, Catalina. I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to trust me.”
“Trust you? Just because you’re from the Foundation? We should be looking for those two men who grabbed Olivia.”
“I’m not going to ignore those damned twins. I’ll have Victor send someone to Seattle today to run down any leads that originate here in this gallery. The Foundation cleaners are good.”
“Yes, but they work for your uncle.”
“Believe it or not, I know what I’m doing here,” Slater said.
She had to give him that much, she thought. He was the expert when it came to chasing old artifacts, and it looked like they were after one. She had to trust him. Olivia’s life might depend on it.
“All right, I agree that you’re the expert,” she said. “If you’re convinced there are answers to be found in Fogg Lake, then I guess we’d better get on the road. It’s a long drive. We have to arrive there before it gets dark, otherwise we’ll end up sleeping in the car overnight while we wait for the fog to lift.”
Slater did not look thrilled by the reluctance of her capitulation, but he gave her a brusque nod.
“Thanks,” he said. “The sooner we get there, the sooner we can conduct the investigation. We’ll stop by your apartment so you can grab whatever gear you think you’ll need. I don’t suppose your hometown ever got around to allowing a hotel or a B and B to open?”
“Of course not. Fogg Lake has a long and proud tradition of discouraging tourism.”
“Yeah, I heard that.”
“Relax, we can stay in my parents’ house. They have a home here in Seattle and a condo in Scottsdale but they still spend some part of each summer at the lake. I think they held on to the Fogg Lake house in case I, uh—”
“In case you what?”
“In case I, you know, have kids and need to raise them in a safe environment.”
“Right.” Slater nodded. “Kids. Speaking of parents, where are yours now?”
“They’re away on a world cruise.”
“What about Olivia’s mother and father?”
“Olivia’s father died when she was just a baby. Her mother was killed in what the authorities called a hiking accident about a year and a half ago.”
“Sounds like you and Olivia aren’t so sure about that.”