Victor ended the call to Marge and phoned Olivia LeClair. She was eating breakfast in her apartment.
“Someone from Riverview is trying to grab Marge?” Olivia said. “She’ll be terrified. Getting sent back to the hospital is her worst nightmare. I know where that shelter is located. I’m on my way.”
“I’ll have the team that’s stationed in Seattle meet you at the shelter. They will drive Marge to Fogg Lake.”
“I’ll be in touch as soon I know Marge is safe and on her way to Fogg Lake with the cleaners.” Olivia paused. “You’re worried about this doctor from Riverview, aren’t you?”
“Got a bad feeling about him. Why would a doctor personally take the time and effort to search the shelters for a harmless woman like Marge?”
“Good question,” Olivia said. “I’m with you. It doesn’t sound right.”
Victor ended the call and looked at Lucas. “Did you get all that?”
Lucas had two mugs of coffee in his hands. He set one of the mugs down on the table in front of Victor.
“Sounded like Marge, the street lady who helped Slater and Catalina track down those kidnappers a while back, believes she’s in danger.”
“According to Catalina, Marge was held involuntarily at the Riverview Psychiatric Hospital for several months. The hospital is over on the coast. Marge escaped. Last night she picked up rumors that someone was looking for her. She says she spotted him yesterday. His name is Loring. Evidently he was the doctor in charge of her case while she was at Riverview. Marge is terrified of him. Says he used her as a research subject for his experiments.”
“I did a routine check on Riverview after Slater told us about Marge. The place appears to be a legitimate private psychiatric institution. Given her aura talent, it’s not surprising the staff at Riverview would have concluded she was delusional. Most doctors would have come to the same diagnosis.”
Victor grunted. “Technically speaking, she is delusional. She’s concocted a conspiracy theory that explains her time at Riverview. She thinks the hospital staff kidnap people like her off the streets, lock them up in Riverview and do experiments on them. Says the whole operation is run by extraterrestrials who are planning to invade Earth.”
Lucas drank some coffee while he considered that. “The staff was probably using drugs to try to cure what they considered her delusions. But she’s hardly a risk to herself or others. And she went missing a couple of months ago. Why would someone go looking for her now?”
“Shortly after Chandler Chastain is attacked because of an artifact,” Victor said. “It’s a coincidence, and you know how I feel about those. Take another look at Riverview, particularly a doctor who works there named Delbridge Loring.”
“Do you have a theory?”
Victor contemplated one of the Oracle paintings. All the pictures he had collected over the years had an eerie, ominous quality, suited to the subject. But this one never failed to raise the hair on the back of his neck. He had picked it up for just a few dollars at an auction. It wasn’t what anyone would call high art, but he was sure it was the most important painting in his collection.
Unlike many of the images on the walls of his office, it was a relatively modern work—mid-twentieth century. The Oracle was dressed in the traditional flowing white robes, a hood pulled up over her hair, obscuring her features. She was surrounded by a group of anxious onlookers, who appeared to realize that she was about to deliver a terrifying prophecy. But that was as far as the similarities with the classical pictures went.
The setting of the painting was not a cavern. It was a vintage twentieth-century laboratory. The uniforms, lab coats and eyeglasses worn by those gathered around the Oracle were clearly in the style of the late 1950s or early 1960s. But the most arresting aspect of the picture was the wealth of detail the artist had inserted into the scene.
Just as the Old Masters had used classical iconography to make certain the viewer understood the story the artist was depicting, whoever had painted the mid-twentieth-century Oracle scene had added symbolic elements that made it obvious the setting was one of the lost labs.
Victor recognized that much of the equipment and many of the instruments were standard-issue, clunky-looking mid-twentieth-century technology, but much of it had been radically modified. A chart on the wall was labeled Paranormal Light Spectrum. The logbook on a workbench was titled Determining Resonance of Waves Produced by Crystals with Paranormal Properties.
The most disturbing element in the scene, however, was a pyramid-shaped structure composed of glowing crystals. The pyramid was large enough to accommodate one individual. There was a door. In the picture the door stood open, revealing an interior that was lit with ominous energy. It was obvious that something very dangerous was about to emerge.
Victor was convinced the picture was an artist’s rendering of one of the lost labs—the only such image he had ever found. The details in it made him certain it had been done from a sketch or a photograph, or quite possibly from memory. The Oracle’s prophecy was written in elaborate calligraphy across the bottom of the picture: Here there be monsters.
There was no signature, at least not a traditional one. But the painting resonated with a paranormal vibe. He was certain the artist had been a strong talent who had infused the picture with a psychic signature.
When the labs were closed down the order had been given to destroy all the official photographs, drawings and related records. But an unknown artist who had evidently had access to a lab had succeeded in capturing and preserving a small bit of truth.
Victor was convinced the scene was the Vortex lab.
He turned away from the painting. “You know me, Lucas. I’ve always got a theory.”
“You’re thinking maybe Vortex wasn’t the only lab that may or may not have succeeded in weaponizing paranormal energy. You’re wondering if Griffin Chastain and Crocker Rancourt also managed to produce some weapons.”
Victor rose and walked to the window. He gazed down at the hotels and casinos that lined the Strip. It was early morning. The town was never closed, never completely silent or dark. But this was the quietest time of the day. It was the one time when a man could appreciate the vastness of the surrounding desert. It had a way of putting things into perspective.
“Tell me the truth,” he said after a while. “Think I’ve finally gone down the rabbit hole? That I’m a full-blown conspiracy theorist? That I’m ready to sign up for one of the Puppet cults?”
“No,” Lucas said. He got to his feet and joined Victor at the window. “I don’t have your computer brain but I’ve got damned good intuition. Given what happened in Fogg Lake a couple of weeks ago, and now this situation with the Chastains, I agree with you. We’ve got good reason to worry.”
“We’ve always believed that if the weapons development project was successful it was in the Vortex lab, not in Fogg Lake or elsewhere. But say Chastain and Rancourt were able to produce some lethal machines that operated on paranormal principles. That would have provided Crocker Rancourt with a motive for murder.”
“He killed Griffin Chastain in order to control the weapons?” Lucas nodded. “I’ll buy that. But if Rancourt made it out of Fogg Lake with paranormal weapons, where have they been all these years? You can’t just keep artifacts like that a secret, not for decades.”
“You could if they were well hidden.”
Lucas shook his head. “If the Rancourts had possessed serious paranormal weapons they would have used them to maintain control of the Foundation. Hell, they would have used them against us when we went after them.”
“You’re right. But what if Chastain was the one who hid them?”
“And took his secret to the grave?” Lucas considered that for a long moment. “Okay, that is an interesting theory. Either way, it looks like someone has found the artifacts.”
“We’ve got to get on top of this situation, Lucas. We’re running out of time. Right now we need to focus on Delbridge Loring and the Riverview Psychiatric Hospital.”
Lucas reached for Victor’s hand. Their gold wedding rings glinted in the early morning light. They stood quietly for a time, drawing strength from each other as they always did in a time of crisis.
“Give me ten minutes,” Lucas said.
He squeezed Victor’s hand and then he crossed the room to a desk and fired up a computer.