“What trail?” Tony demanded.
“Ignore him,” Nyla said. “Can’t you see he’s just trying to rattle you so that you’ll get careless? Speaking of careless, one of you search him for a gun. Hurry.”
“Hands on top of your head,” Jared said.
Slater raised his hands. “Under my jacket.”
Jared found the pistol and took it. Catalina felt a new chill in the atmosphere and knew that Slater had raised his talent. But he made no move to try to ice Jared.
“Let’s get going,” Tony muttered. “It’s fucking cold out here. Feels like the temperature dropped about twenty degrees.”
“Follow me,” Nyla said. “Keep a close eye on both of them. And try not to lose sight of me, all right? If you do you’ll get lost within about thirty seconds in this fog. I do not have time to look for you.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Jared said. “Let’s get going before it gets any colder.”
Nyla took off, setting a brisk pace. Catalina and Slater followed. The two triplets brought up the rear, guns and flashlights firmly fixed on their captives.
The fog was very heavy now, but it was infused with the ambient glow of some of the foliage in the woods. Here and there fluorescing creepers and vines climbed trees and rocks, providing Fogg Lake’s version of streetlights.
Catalina kept her senses only partially elevated, trying not to waste energy that she might need later. But she could feel the heat, old and new, on the path they were walking.
“You’ve come this way many times, Nyla,” she said quietly.
“For more than fifteen years,” Nyla said. “Ever since I found the infirmary.”
“What infirmary?” Catalina asked.
“You’ll see. I realized at the time that I had discovered a small chamber that originally had been connected to the main facility of the Fogg Lake lab. I have been searching for the rest of the lab ever since.”
“You thought John Morrissey could find it for you,” Slater said.
“Morrissey worked for the Foundation, but he had a nice little drug operation going on the side. He used to purchase specimens from me.”
“Are you trying to tell us you and Morrissey were business colleagues?” Catalina said.
“More like competitors,” Slater said. “Right, Trevelyan?”
“Yes,” Nyla said. “But for a time our interests were aligned.”
“You became allies?” Catalina said.
“Morrissey certainly thought so,” Nyla said. “But it would be more accurate to say that I found him useful. Morrissey wasn’t a botanist. He got into the drug business to finance his private research. He was convinced he had found a way to tune a kind of paranormal compass so that it could be used to navigate the caves. He was sure he could find the main lab facility here in Fogg Lake with it.”
“But unfortunately the person who accompanied him that night fifteen years ago acted too quickly,” Catalina said. “He murdered Morrissey and then he realized there were witnesses.”
“You and Olivia,” Nyla agreed. “I should have gone into the caves myself that night, but I didn’t want to take any chances. I stayed with the boat.”
“You did not want to leave a hot trail behind inside the caves in case someone from the Foundation showed up to investigate,” Slater said. “I knew there had to be a local connection.”
“For nearly two decades I’ve been trapped here in Fogg Lake,” Nyla said. “I’ve been afraid to leave for more than a few days at a time because I’ve been terrified the bastards at the Foundation would realize I didn’t die in that lab fire that killed my bastard of a husband and his girlfriend.”
“Well, damn,” Slater said softly. “You’re Alma York, aren’t you? The chemist who murdered her husband and two women in one of the Foundation labs twenty years ago.”
“He was fucking that bitch,” Nyla said, her voice tight with fury. “I trusted both of them. Helen made me believe that she was my best friend. I actually thought Greg loved me. The three of us had a nice little drug business going.”
“You’re in this for the money?” Catalina said, shocked. “You’re a scientist.”
Nyla reacted with genuine outrage. “The street drugs were supposed to finance our real work after the three of us left the Foundation. We knew we had to get out while we could because the Rancourts had found out about the drug business and wanted a cut. Helen and Greg and I had a plan. We were going to disappear and set up a lab on a private island. We would do brilliant research in the field of paranormal drugs. Then I found Greg and Helen in bed together. They were planning to set me up. They said they didn’t need me. I acted first. Self-defense.”
“But you botched the job,” Slater said. “I’m told the explosion in the lab was impressive, and so was the fire that followed. You even made sure the remains of three bodies were found in the wreckage, one male and two females. Who was the other woman, by the way? Uncle Victor and Uncle Lucas opened an investigation after they took over the Foundation, but they were never able to identify her.”
“She was just an addict who had been living on the streets for years,” Nyla said. “She was about my size and age. I didn’t think your uncles would go to the trouble of running a DNA test. The Rancourts certainly didn’t give a damn.”
“You don’t know Victor and Lucas very well,” Slater said. “They told me they were suspicious from the start. But the case had gone very cold by the time Victor became director. He and Lucas didn’t have a lot to go on.”
“I thought I could just disappear,” Nyla said. “I had cosmetic surgery to change my face. I got a new identity. But I never felt safe. All these years I’ve been looking over my shoulder, watching for those damn cleaners.”
“So you sought refuge in Fogg Lake,” Catalina said. “The one place you assumed the Foundation would probably never think to look for you.”
“And even if they did send someone, you would have plenty of warning,” Slater added. “Because this is a close-knit community. Everyone knows everyone else, and the community as a whole regards the Foundation with deep suspicion.”
“You created the perfect cover for yourself,” Catalina said. “You became the local healer.”
“I hate this town,” Nyla said.
“What was in that tisane you made for Olivia and me?” Catalina asked.
“A hallucinogen that had the benefit of making users confuse their memories with dreams,” Nyla said. “I tried to add a hypnotic suggestion, too. But there was no way to know how long the effects would last.”
Catalina sensed the strange stillness that signaled the fog-bound lake. She was very glad Nyla was in the lead, because walking along the water’s edge was dangerous enough in the daytime. At night it was foolhardy.
Nyla stopped in front of a mass of vines that glowed with a faint blue sheen. She pulled the greenery aside as if it were a curtain. Catalina saw the rowboat.
“Be careful when you get in,” Nyla said. “If you go overboard it’s very unlikely that you’ll come out alive. In fact, they probably won’t even find your body.”