Ben frowned and clicked another line of three-way toggle switches, eight of 'em, self-test position. The board showed blinking amber lights for about half a minute and then solid green again — all sensors active, no circuits open or shorted.
He settled back in his chair and studied the ranks of closed-circuit monitors, the gray and red enameled panels filled with switches and indicator lights, the opened junction boxes and conduits filled with neatly-bundled color-coded wiring.
Nothing there that didn't belong, either, no "black boxes" added to intercept signals or introduce lies into the logic. Everything checked out, same here in the old stone tower as on the parallel control board up in the house.
But someone had slipped past the cameras and dumped a body on Dan's memorial. Ben stared at the cool rough granite of the tower walls, and thought.
He could spoof the system. Gary had fooled it, escaping from under Ben's eye and risking his life to gain his selkie birthright. Both of them had access to the control boards and manuals and circuit diagrams, though. They worked within the laws of physics and computer programming.
That corpse — that smelled like the brujo sneaking past all the alarms right into Maria's bedroom, bewitching her into jumping off the cliff into the sea. Murder disguised as the suicide of a distraught widow, even though Maria knew Dan was still alive. The bastard had made sure Dan got the news. And then the Peruvian had kidnapped Ellie and Mouse, threatened to hand them over to the two-legged beasts he used as muscle. Rape and torture and finally blessed death after all that, unless Dan gave up the Dragon.
Witchcraft, not physics. As another example, Caroline seemed to be able to slip into and out of the tunnels at will, flipping her middle finger at the cameras and sensors.
And now Alice was teaching Dan's daughters to vanish, as well. Ben wondered if that was really a good idea, teen and pre-teen girls being the explosive creatures they were. But the Haskell Witches never had asked anybody for a second opinion on the way that they raised children.
Law unto themselves, just like Gary romancing that girl of his. Damn the boy.
Ben stared at the files by his elbow, the ones he'd been avoiding with great care. Three of them, copies only, from three different sources. They'd cost a hell of a lot, but that didn't matter. The real cost came when you read them.
That girl is a cold-blooded killer.
Cops were good at their job, no question — smart and persistent. Morgans hadn't dodged jails for centuries by underestimating cops. But he didn't think the police could ever have fitted this particular set of jigsaw pieces together to make a picture.
Cops could get the DHS files, the ones on Jane White as a ward of the state, if they knew enough to ask for them. But they were looking at a pair of unsolved murders, without her name handed to them on a plate. Ben had come at the case from the other side, tracing her.
Mr. and Mrs. Alan R. Sweeney, RR 5 Box 183, Benton Corners, Maine. Foster parents. Jane White had lived almost a year with them, aged 11 and 12, between parental bouts in divorce court and cross-accusations of child neglect and her own rite of passage into juvenile justice. Ran away, never sent back.
But Ben had spent a few days and dollars tracing connections, and he came across those names again in the newspaper archives. He stared at the sheriff's file lying next to the DHS file.
His brain translated cop jargon into plain English: Mr. and Mrs. Alan Sweeney of Benton Corners, found dead in their cellar by the sheriff's patrol after the neighbors complained of a howling dog. No sign of struggle, no sign of forced entry. Each corpse had a single bullet wound to the back of the head, .45 caliber slug. Executions.
Slugs said two different guns, presumably two different killers. The case was still open, cold, no suspects, family all had alibis that looked solid, motive assumed to be burglars surprised in the act. The couple was known to keep large sums of money in their house, had valuable jewelry, all missing.
Date of that crime was four years after Jane had lived in the house. And had probably had a key.
The third file was one he'd never expected to find, given Gary's estimate of that girl's poverty. Bank records. Again, the cops could get them just by asking — if they knew enough to ask. The same week as the Sweeney bodies were found, they showed a cash deposit in Jane White's account to the tune of five thousand and change.
And how the girl got a solo account three years before that was anybody's guess. No parent or guardian listed. Social Security number correct, P.O. Box address in Naskeag Falls. Damned idiot used her real name. The account now held over thirty thousand dollars. And she wasn't drawing money from it, not in the last couple of years. Deposits, instead, irregular and large.
Circumstantial evidence, all of it, nowhere near enough for a conviction. Coincidence. Ben knew other ways you could explain things, other ways she could come by that much cash. But couple that with the way she behaved, the things she'd said to Gary . . .
Damned good thing the boy still trusts you enough to pass along detailed reports. Enjoy it while it lasts.
Ben stood up and prowled the floor, three paces across, three paces back, and stared at the security monitors without seeing them. He'd done a lot of pacing in this room in the old tower, wearing a path in the heavy plank floor, what with Caroline and Gary and the chaos of the battle with the Pratts.
And now both the Pratt mystery and that girl had cranked things back into the "Clear and present danger" range on the threat meter. Defend yourself, defend your family. What could be more basic? In the face of that, nothing else counted. Morgans had lived by that rule for centuries.
That damned girl should have had the sense to wear gloves. A dozen pages of photographed prints in the police file, even after eliminating matches with the Sweeneys and their neighbors. Prints just ticking away, waiting to explode. Get her fingers into a police station, that was the end of that.
Time bombs, all of them, girls, older and younger. Even Caroline and Alice. Ben shook his head and stepped out of the room, heading up the stairs to the top of the tower. He'd start at the top and work his way down, passing Dan somewhere in the middle. This would be his third check, looking for things he'd missed on the first and second passes. It put off thinking, put off deciding.
Dan had agreed, they had to sanitize this place. Too many nosey-pokers poking their noses around, looking for clues to that murder, that body on Dan's memorial. The cops might find other awkward stuff. Like stumbling on an entrance to the tunnels, during a detail search. Couldn't leave anything here that might get Gary into trouble.
That included disarming all the traps, after just setting them a day ago. Pain in the ass, but that was Dan's end of things. He had the fresher memory.
Ben's territory was illegal weapons or traceable booty. He climbed. Dark and musty, narrow enough that his shoulders brushed both walls, steep, the stairs curved up inside the granite wall of the round tower. They ended side-on to a raised stone threshold and heavy oak door with equally-heavy oak bar. Opening it released him into flooding sunshine and cool salt wind. He blinked and stepped out on the flagstone roof.
The contrast always stunned him, claustrophobia replaced by sweeping views over the roofs and steeples of Stonefort village and the pincushion masts of the inner harbor. Up here, a man could believe he ruled the world. Castles did that for you.
Ben walked the ring of the battlements and tried to see old memories with fresh eyes. Four bronze cannon peered out through the crenellations from iron carriages, long heavy monsters green with age but tompions in place and touch-holes sealed because Morgan tradition said to keep your guns loaded. Always. Those were legal, Dad had filled out the paperwork for the Federal licenses.
But Ben made sure he'd left no trace of the recoilless rifle or the mortar mounts. Hard time explaining them to a nosy cop, but he'd cleaned that stuff out the same day that he'd used the recoilless. Too much chance that someone could tie the tower into the blasts out on the bay, the speedboat that blew up and the lobster boat that vanished into the fog.
Defend yourself, defend your family. Five Morgans had been out there on the Maria that day — Dan and Mouse and Ellie, rescued from the Pratts' tunnels and the brujo. Gary and Caroline, the rescuers. Ben had to count his daughter as a Morgan, whatever name she wore. And the thugs on the Pratts' speedboat had fired first. No one threatens Morgans and lives.
Back down in the top floor, dim and dusty again, he prowled through the two bedrooms and storage there, pulling out drawers and poking into hidey-holes, finding two legal guns, finding and pocketing a diamond brooch and matching earrings he couldn't remember. Might be traceable, might be not. Better safe than sorry.
Which described his dilemma with regards to young Gary and his vanished moll.
Middle floor, bright fluorescents, smell of working electronics, the security console, nothing illegal there. It mirrored the system in the house. Computers — Ben kept them sanitized at all times. Radios — Gary had the ham "Extra" class license to cover them, including some modifications only a micro-electronics engineer would understand or even see. Library, "clean" workshop, all legit. Same with the second floor, old loot that nobody could trace centuries after the crime.
The ground floor couldn't be reached this way, and it always sat empty except for the stairway down to the Dragon lurking in her pool. And a couple of traps Dan would defuse in his rounds. Ben started in on the tunnels.
The tunnels were easy, mostly bare cold granite — hidden exits to the false back of the mausoleum and the dry-well in the middle of a lilac clump and the second cellar of the house and a couple or three body-sized holes in the sea-cliffs that you'd never spot unless you already knew where they hid. Ben checked for live booby-traps as he went, backing up Dan's effort.
Two rooms worth of fallout shelter, legacy of the 'fifties and 'sixties, stocked with cartons of food and canned water, legal weapons, airtight doors, filtered ventilation, a diesel generator in its own sealed room with its own vent system.
But the rooms were clean. And ready, just in case. Best assume the Pratts had the same worries, the same setup.
Ben's "dirty" workshop, familiar smell of grease and machine shop and solvents taking over from raw stone, tools and legal guns again, illegal stuff already gone, reloading bench and indoor firing range and bullet trap to justify any nitrate residue that showed up on detailed forensics. Ben froze, stared at a shelf, winced, and shook his head.
Damn damn damn diddly damn. All his life, this place had been a deep dark secret beyond the reach of the law. He'd never had reason to care what he'd left lying around.
Sitting in plain sight, on metal shelving next to the workbench, lurked two short olive-drab cardboard cylinders a couple of inches in diameter. With black lettering, military jargon and numbers that translated into "boom" — fragmentation grenades, still in their packing.
He picked them up, the heft telling him that the packages still held their original contents. Well, he'd noticed them this time . . . he slipped them into a carry sack and slung it over his shoulder. And shook his head again.
Well, Dan will double-check me, just as I'm doing the same for him.
Ben preferred to act. He hated re-acting with a passion. This whole situation left him rushed, short on sleep, dancing to someone else's tune. He made mistakes that way, inevitable. Like missing those grenades. Like puzzling over the Pratts' tunnels and the brujo that Alice might not have killed.
Like the question of Gary's succubus. That damned girl was rushing Ben into a decision he didn't want to make.
Footsteps whispered on the granite floor, and Dan slipped into the room. Like all the Morgans, you pretty much had to know he was there to notice him. Useful family trait. It probably made Alice's job easier, teaching Peggy and Ellen to vanish in plain sight.
Ben nodded to his brother, watched him prowl the room and then vanish back into the tunnel. Not a word spoken by either of them. Ben felt a dull ache tightening his chest. They were both trying so hard to act casual.
He might never see Dan again. Morgan rules — once they left the tower and compound, they wouldn't ever be in the same place until they'd won this fight. He wouldn't know where Dan was, Dan wouldn't know where Ben was. Gary had hideouts of his own, secret from both men. Ellen and Peggy had already vanished into Elaine Haskell's Naskeag Mafia, probably even Lainie didn't know exactly where they were.
Morgan rules — the family must survive. They had ways to talk, ways to pass messages without talking, but they'd never give their enemy a chance to frag the whole heart of the clan with one grenade. Even if they had to make up a strike team, they'd hit different targets.
Ben shivered and rubbed his eyes, clearing sudden fog from his head. He wasn't getting enough sleep. He made bad decisions when things rushed him like this, but a bad decision could be better than no decision.
The family must survive. He had to do it. Ben gritted his teeth, climbed the weary flights of worn granite steps curving around and around through damp musty darkness, and opened the heavy oak door out onto the tower battlements once more. Bright sun made him squint again, increasing his frown. He pulled out a cheap cell phone. He punched in a number from memory — his, not the phone's.
Two electronic buzzes, and then a voice. "Cleaning Services."
Get it over with. "This is Mid-Town Management. I need a cleaning crew. Six seven Oak Street, Naskeag Falls, basement apartment. Bare walls, everything to SERC. We don't expect the tenant to show up, but if she does, keep her quiet. If you see her boyfriend, back off. Got it?"
The voice came back, flat business tone of an everyday transaction. "Thorough cleanup, basement apartment at sixty-seven Oak Street, Naskeag Falls. Contents to the incinerator. Don't argue with the tenant, avoid the boyfriend. What about the other residents?"
"Just doing your job. Identify them, then ignore them."
"Got it. Scheduled for this afternoon." And the line clicked dead.
By tonight, Jane White's apartment would be the next thing to sterile — no furniture, no papers, no fingerprints, no hairs, no bedding with copious splashes of Gary's DNA smeared into the sheets. By tomorrow night, everything from that apartment would be stack gas at the Sunrise Energy Recovery Company plant, generating a few watts of power for the grid.
Ben pulled the battery before sliding the cell phone back into his pocket. That number, that account, was now dead. Never used again. As dead as Jane White would be, if she showed up while the "cleaning crew" worked on her apartment. That's what "keep her quiet" meant. The silence of a grave somewhere out in the Maine woods. She might be armed and dangerous, but "Cleaning Services" were pros. Expensive, but worth every penny.
He didn't know which way he wanted this to turn out — that she'd stay vanished, or not. He'd really rather not have his son trying to kill him. Gary dead, though, that would be much worse. If that girl had just had the sense to wear gloves. Morgans could use another computer wizard, but not one that made mistakes.
Even children knew about fingerprints, dammit. And too many people connected to Jane ended up dead. Not just Tina and the foster-care couple, but others. Dan had found traces of at least three other street kids dead. God knows that was a rough life, Jane might not have been the cause, but . . . the Morgans must survive. He'd be as ruthless as that required. As ruthless as she seemed to be.
Ben turned back into the stairway, pulled the door shut behind him, set the heavy bar across it, and descended into darkness. He still had half the tunnel complex to check, and the weight of those grenades to remind him to be thorough. Then he'd pick up the carrying case with that Mayan flint on the way out. He could feel it calling to him, all the way up here. He wanted to touch it, hold it, dream it to life. Dreams. It woke in his dreams, moving, whispering, grinning fangs at him, remembering blood and sun. Wouldn't want the cops to get their hands on that.
He hoped Jane White wouldn't force him to make any more phone calls.