By the time Derek got to San Marcos the message on the windshield had evaporated.
Had he imagined it? If so, what the hell was happening to him?
Nothing made any damn sense. It was like his practical nature had run headfirst into a wall.
Maybe he should handle everything like an exposé he was writing. Perhaps if he used a little investigative journalism he could distance himself enough from the situation to look at it… His thoughts stopped. Look at it how? Like everything was normal?
Derek frowned, wished the traffic wasn't so congested, and that he didn't have things to do for the rest of the day. He would've preferred to return to his study, close the door, and go crazy all by himself.
An unfamiliar car was parked in front of the house when he got home. Instead of taking the road to the back of the house and the garage, he pulled up next to the car at the same time the driver left the vehicle.
Darla Jimenez was a striking Latina, nearly six feet tall and thin enough to be a high-fashion model. She had cheekbones like her Aztec ancestors along with distinctive gray eyes that always reminded him of a fox.
She and Breanna had been close friends. Close enough that they talked nearly every day. Derek had managed to avoid her at the funeral and she hadn’t returned to the Crow’s Nest after the ceremony.
In her hands she held a covered casserole dish. Yet another meal for which he’d have to write a thank you note. He was running out of ways to say thank you. Leave me alone wasn’t a good response. Or thank you, but for the love of all that was holy, stop bringing me food.
He had a refrigerator filled with non-disposable containers. Somehow, he was going to have to return the right one to the right person. Maybe the giving of food was a conspiracy, geared to force the grieving person to interact with other people.
“Darla,” he said. As a greeting it sucked, but it was all he had the energy for at the moment.
“How are you doing, Derek? I know the funeral was hard on you.”
He honestly didn’t have a response to that. Of course the funeral was hard on him. What else would it be?
“Yes, well. Would you like to come inside?” he asked, hoping she would decline.
She held up the casserole. “I brought you something. Breanna once told me that you loved cherry pie. It’s kind of a combination cherry pie tart thing my grandmother taught me how to make.”
At least it wasn’t another casserole. Something with broccoli, or a chicken rice combo, or ground beef and peas.
He forced a smile to his face and took the dish from her.
“Thank you, that was very nice of you.”
He turned and began to walk toward the front door, hoping that she would explain that she couldn’t stay. Unfortunately, she kept pace with him.
“It was all so terrible, Derek.”
He glanced at her and then away, wondering what she expected him to say. Of course it was terrible. Breanna died. It couldn’t get much worse than that.
“Yes.” It was all he could muster.
“I know Breanna would have wanted you to get on with your life.”
He stopped before he made it to the first step of the grandiose entrance to the Crow’s Nest. Turning, he faced her. Words failed him for a moment and he earned his living with words. Yet he wrote sentences of explanation, exposition that educated. He didn’t delve into emotions unless it was justifiable anger at some bureaucratic idiocy or political malfeasance.
He had never been faced with anyone saying something as stupid as what Darla had just said.
“What do you know about Susan?”
She blinked at him, obviously surprised.
Darla and Breanna worked in the same division. They often lunched together. Maybe Breanna had confided something in Darla that she hadn’t told him.
“About Susan?”
He nodded.
“Nothing, really. Why?”
He wasn’t going to answer that.
“Breanna never spoke to you about her?”
She shook her head. “No. Why?”
“Was she pregnant?”
“Susan?”
“No, Breanna.”
“Pregnant?”
The question was simple enough. Why was Darla having such a hard time with it?
“Was she?”
“I don’t know, Derek. She didn’t tell me if she was.”
“What did you talk about?”
The question was intrusive and he wouldn’t have asked it ordinarily.
“Our last conversation? That the rumors were that Breanna was up for the Edmond award. She’s going to get it, by the way. Posthumously.”
He didn’t give a flying fig for the Edmond award, even though he knew it was a great honor, given to those research scientists for their contributions to their respective field in the past year. Unfortunately, he didn’t know what Breanna had done to merit the prize. He wasn’t going to tell Darla that.
“So you’re saying that she never confided in you?”
She shook her head again. “I don’t understand what you’re asking. Breanna was happy. She adored you. She loved her job. And if she was pregnant she didn’t tell me.”
She glanced down at her watch. “Damn, I forgot about a meeting. I’m so sorry, Derek. Let me know what you think about the cherry pie. There’s no hurry getting the dish back to me.”
He wanted to hand it to her and tell her that he had no intention of eating anything she prepared, Grandmother’s recipe or not. He didn’t trust her and that development was about five minutes old.
She retraced her steps and got back into her car.
He’d made her uncomfortable with his questions, which was a red flag. Whenever he questioned a politician and the person didn’t want to answer, they claimed a meeting, a vote, some important reason to avoid him. Darla had done the same thing.
Even more important, her physical mannerisms had given her away. Her voice had changed, grown thin as she answered. She’d clenched her hands together in front of her. Her gaze had darted from the left to the right and back again as she’d hesitated.
She might not have been lying, but he didn’t believe she was telling the truth, either.
Ellie couldn’t take the corkscrew drive up to Derek’s house without being seen. She found a vantage point not far away, however, one that was elevated enough that she could see his house and its approach.
She’d never known anyone who lived in a mansion, but Derek’s house was more than that. Some people said that it was a grotesque example of too much money. Derek had once said that he couldn’t figure out why Lionel had called it the Crow’s Nest, but she could see it. The house, with its black brick and jutting angles, looked like a crow ready to fly.
Lionel Adams had been a real character, evidently. Lots of rumors still flew around about him despite the fact that he’d been dead for years. He was a man filled with rage and not shy about exhibiting it. He fired every member of his staff one day, demanded the phones of the replacements, and generally kept the tabloids busy with stories of his tyrannical behavior.
Breanna had been nothing like her father.
She’d been naturally beautiful. Breanna didn’t need makeup. Sometimes NASACA helped members obtain positions, but nobody had to give Breanna a leg up. She was smart on her own. Plus, Lionel’s fortune had paid for her expensive schooling, the trips to Europe, and the wardrobe from well known designers. Yet despite that, she’d been nice. She had a wonderful sense of humor and a ready smile, plus she was kind. She had a great deal of empathy and went out of her way to help people and animals.
True, there were a few people in NASACA who weren’t Breanna fans, but Ellie thought that was down to jealousy more than anything else. She had it all: wealth, beauty, a handsome husband who adored her, a great job, respect, and magic. Breanna was one of the most talented practitioners Ellie had ever met.
Men like Derek attracted beautiful women. He was tall, handsome, with black hair and piercing blue eyes. He and Breanna had been a striking couple. People turned and watched them as they walked into a crowded room. When they were together you could almost feel the chemistry, as if they struck sparks off each other. He would look at her sometimes and Ellie felt a surge of envy.
All of that evaporated the minute she learned of Breanna’s death.
Something was happening. It wasn’t just what she’d seen in Austin. It was what she felt: a thrumming kind of energy that was spreading out from the ugly house on the hill.
There were mysteries she still had to learn, secrets to penetrate that were obscured to her now.
If she was wise she’d go to the Elders immediately and tell them what she’d seen and what she was feeling. Her assignment was to follow Derek, find out what he was doing and monitor his activities. Nobody had told her why.
She had the feeling that keeping silent was going to cause her problems. For now she was willing to take the chance.
When Derek was eighteen years old his mother had asked him to meet her in the family room. Once there, she’d presented him with a red and black cardboard box about a foot square. Inside were those items she’d saved from his first days of life.
He hadn’t been abandoned. The adoption had been private, arranged between two attorneys. At least that’s what he’d been told. His birth mother hadn’t been anonymous, but her privacy had been closely guarded. In other words, Angie and Paul had been allowed to see some details about her life, but not all of them.
He’d been eighteen, soon off to college. His past hadn’t meant anything to him. In fact, he’d been a little insulted that Angie thought the mini-celebration of turning over the box to him was so important.
“You’re my mother,” he’d said. “Paul is my father.”
They’d never made a secret of his adoption. They’d framed it as a choice they’d made to include him in their lives. They’d picked him out of all the babies in the world. He’d always felt special because of the way they’d told him when he was six. That feeling had lasted his entire childhood.
Paul and Angie had been his parents. They always would be.
He’d always been good about digitizing his personal documents, but he’d never done the documents in the red and black box. It took him over two hours to find it. The Crow’s Nest didn’t have an attic, per se, because of the design of the house with its turrets and spires. They did have a climate controlled storeroom, however, located on the second floor of the north wing. Everything was categorized by item, then year, then more personal notes. His box was under Personal Papers, the year they’d been married, and his name.
Everything from his apartment had also been stored there, including his furniture, purchased piece by piece after college. It should have been donated. Instead, it was lovingly wrapped in plastic and tagged with his name.
Breanna had often told him of her father’s penchant for saving everything. Evidently, the acorn hadn’t fallen far from the tree.
His father called while he was reading his adoption papers.
"Sorry I bailed on you this morning, Derek," Paul said. "You know what they say about fish and visitors."
"You weren’t here three days, Dad. Besides, you're welcome anytime."
"I appreciate that. Are you going to take care of those things I left for you?”
“When I get a chance, Dad.”
“I’ve got a buddy you could call. He does home repairs, that kind of stuff.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Or you could sell that elephant of a house."
They'd had this discussion too many times in past week. He didn't want to think about selling the oil tycoon's house right now. Maybe later.
"God knows you don't need the money. With what you've got coming you could buy your own island, fill it up with people and have a party every night."
His father wasn't normally so brash about Breanna’s wealth.
"She could have changed her will, Dad. I haven't met with the attorney yet."
"Well, that's something I would do right away if I were you."
"I have an appointment tomorrow," he said.
“Well, good. That’s one less thing to worry about. How are you feeling?”
He didn’t know how to answer that question. Instead, he asked one of his own.
“Do you have any information on Grace Colson?”
He didn't expect the silence from his father.
“Why would you be asking about her now?” Paul finally said. “Because she called you?”
“That’s as good a reason as any. Do you have anything on her? Any documents I haven’t seen?”
“I don’t know why you’re dragging all of that up now, Derek. Your wife just died. What do you care about your birth mother?”
Paul was engaging in a classic deflection technique. If an individual didn’t want to answer a question he either abruptly changed the subject or he attacked with an entirely separate thought.
“I remember that Breanna just died, Dad. I don’t need to be reminded.”
“Well, evidently you do or you wouldn’t be involved in that shit.”
He’d pushed a button or stirred the pot, something to make Paul uncomfortable enough to hang up without saying goodbye.