The Kay Sister Read online

  Ian shook his head. “No, Agent Reis. I am saying that the Kay family has suffered a lot and trust very few as a result. In fact, I do not think they truly trust anyone at all, not to the fullest extent. Those they do trust, like me, have earned our place.”

  Agent Boone cast Reis an amused glance, and he had to school his expression again. He doubted the young pastor heard the innuendo in his own words and was doubly sure that Ian hadn’t meant to imply anything romantic between him and Camelia.

  “Thank you. I would also like a record, of all who have come by your mission in the last two months.” Agent Reis said, getting back to business. He could figure out the mystery of how to get the Kays to cooperate later.

  5

  Rosa stared at the phone Lucia had left her. It had vibrated with a message half-way through supper, and now, two hours later, she was finally alone and able to read it.

  Yep, the son of Pedro is still looking for a good campsite. Come set up base tomorrow at nine, don’t worry about the book. Remember to keep those CO2 emissions down!

  Rosa groaned and rolled so that she was lying on her back across the duvet cover. Lucia had said that this would be the real ‘scroll’ or final clue, so she hadn’t really expected it to be in straightforward language, but the time, at least, was clear. Tomorrow at nine. Which meant she had less than twelve hours to figure out what the rest of the clue could possibly mean.

  “The son of Pedro,” she muttered to her ceiling, an image of her cousin coming immediately to mind. But that made no sense. Pedro was fifteen and definitely not a father. His father was not named Pedro, neither was her mother’s father. “So it’s got to mean something else. Son of Pedro. Why Pedro…Why not Peter, if the rest of the message was in English?”

  An obscure piece of knowledge came back to her about the origins of surnames, and she sat up straight, feeling sure she had it.

  She shifted her weight to access her pocket and pulled out her own cellphone, far more advance than the little flip phone Lucia left. Quickly she typed in the phrase ‘son of Pedro’ and then had to hold back a triumphant laugh. The Spanish surname, Perez, literally meant son of Peter.

  She chuckled and looked at the rest of the message, her mind making quick work of the rest of the clue, making her certain she got the first bit correct. The clue was actually simplistic. Something she felt sure almost anyone would have been able to work out if they knew it was not meant to be taken literally.

  A man called Perez ran a little store, totting trinkets to the few tourists that bothered to come to their town. It was intimately linked with the second clue about setting up a base. There was only one reason why a tourist came here at all, and that was to visit Camp Naco, an abandoned army fort. So she was meant to meet whoever this was at Camp Naco, tomorrow morning at nine. The ‘Perez’ part of the clue was to let her know she was expected on the northern side, farthest from the main gates but closest to the little store.

  She shook her head at the last line. Remember to keep those CO2 emissions down! If she wasn’t supposed to take the car, then she was probably meant to take a long route around, avoiding people. Rosa sighed, pressing a hand to the hot, sunburnt skin on the back of her neck. Another trip in the blazing summer heat was not exactly desirable. Still, she was positive she would not get the chance for answers again. If she missed the meeting, whatever it was that Lucia had asked this person to pass on would be out of her reach forever.

  ****

  “You found a what?” Agent Reis asked, looking at Dr. Fell in disbelief. Fell had called them just as they were leaving the mission center, saying the bloodwork was in as well as another find.

  Agent Reis hadn’t been sure exactly what he had expected the ‘other find’ to be, but an old fashioned seal ring most certainly was not it.

  “A seal ring,” said Dr. Fell, holding out an evidence bag. “In Agent Monterra’s stomach.”

  Reis took the bag, though the actual object was not strictly necessary. Projected on the wall behind Dr. Fell were four close up photographs of the ring, showing it in far greater detail than he could make out from the gold ring in the plastic bag.

  “I thought you weren’t going to look through his organs,” he said, handing the bag back, feeling a little sick.

  Dr. Fell shrugged. “Well, you were so determined, I thought I would run a scan while waiting for the blood analysis. That turned up and gave me a reason to go further.”

  “I see,” Agent Reis said, glancing over at the Sheriff, who was squinting at the bagged ring as if it might suddenly come to life and tell him exactly how it had ended up in the stomach of their victim. Reis, however, posed that question, Mark. “How do you think it got there, Dr. Fell?”

  “He swallowed it. Of his own volition,” he said, shrugging again. “There were no signs in or around his mouth, or on his teeth to suggest that he was in any way forced.”

  “Do you recognize these symbols?” Reis asked, pointing at the magnified image of a scroll with an inkpot and quill behind it.

  Both Mark Fell and Sheriff Hardy shook their heads. Reis sighed. Another useless lead. What was with this town?

  Agent Reis pushed away his annoyance and moved back into the realms of science. “What did the blood work tell you?”

  Dr. Fell straightened, his blue eyes losing their thoughtful edge as he scooped up a clipboard. “It looks like Agent Monterra stopped taking his medication at least a week prior to his death, but no more than two weeks. He ingested a large dose of sedatives, around the same time.”

  Reis’s eyes flashed up to the light blue ones watching him. “You think that’s when he was taken, then? About a week to two before his death?”

  Dr. Fell nodded. “I did a test on his muscles after finding minor traces in his blood. It proved that he had been given a sedative in a large enough quantity that it had actually caused damage to his muscles. He would have been completely immobile for at least a day or two and then very weak and in pain, suffering from muscle spasms for at least a week after. Unfortunately, of the compounds that are left, there is no way to narrow the field down enough to track exactly what sedative it might have been.”

  Reis swore, and the Sheriff sighed. “Anything else, Dr. Fell?”

  “No, Sheriff, but I believe the casts of the footprints we found are still being processed.”

  Reis raised an eyebrow and turned a barely concealed glare on the Sheriff. “Is there some reason your people are taking so long? Perhaps they need some encouragement.”

  Sheriff Hardy stood, bristling around the edges. “Now see here, Agent Reis. You may well be FBI, but this is still my town. We are working as fast as we can, even if it isn’t going how it usually goes in your fancy big cities.”

  Reis uttered a humorless chuckle. “I wasn’t comparing your people to those in the cities. I was comparing them to Dr. Fell. He has completed a full blood workup, analyzed muscle tissue, scanned the body for foreign objects, and collected said foreign object in a single day. Yet your men have had the casts for almost a week and have come up with nothing yet?”

  Dr. Fell shifted and hid most of his face behind a folder, but not before shooting Reis a ‘keep-me-out-of-this’ glare. Reis smirked and turned his eyes back on the Sheriff.

  Hardy’s face turned an ugly puce, but he managed to keep his tone level. “I am glad that our Dr. Fell is up to standard. As for my men, I assumed you did not want to deal with the many dead ends the casts would undoubtedly provide. After all, they were taken from a golf course, frequented daily by many people. None may be usable.”

  “That’s not exactly true,” said Dr. Fell, glancing over the top of his folder, looking like he hadn't actually meant to speak his contradiction out loud.

  Reis swung around, placing the Sheriff in his shadow and drawing Mark’s eyes to him. “What are you thinking, Dr. Fell?”

  The other man sighed but finished his thought. “Umm, just that the course was shut over the Independence Day holiday. It wouldn’t have been freq
uented at all. Only ground-keepers should have been moving around. The quality of the casted footprint might help us to determine the more recent ones. It might at least narrow the field a little, or it will be exactly as the Sheriff was saying, implicating almost everyone in town.”

  Reis nodded in thought, and even the Sheriff pursed his lips in reluctant approval, then he flashed Mark an ugly grin. “As you are clearly the expert, Dr. Fell. I will send you the casts so that you can determine which we should pursue first.”

  Reis clapped the young Dr. Fell sympathetically on the shoulder as the Sheriff spun on his heel and left the room.

  6

  Rosa stopped at the entrance to the mission and turned to Cam.

  “Have a good day, then.”

  Cam knocked her shoulder against Rosa’s. “Don’t say it like you’re dropping me off at school!”

  Rosa managed a chuckle then turned to leave, but Cam caught her arm.

  “Hey, Rosa, is everything alright? You’ve been really distracted lately. I mean,” Cam lowered her voice and stepped closer. “You found that letter from Lucia, so we know she’s okay and will be back soon, right? What’s left to worry about?”

  Rosa just managed to hide her wince. She had debated how to get Cam to stop asking if she’d found out anything else about Lucia. In the end, she decided to follow Lucia’s lead, their father and mother’s lead, and never tell anyone anything unless they absolutely had to know. So she forged a letter from Lucia, saying that she was dealing with important books out of state, then hinted that it was likely to have something to do with Pedro and Joanna. Camelia had perked up immediately, asking how much she could tell Pastor Ian because he was worried about them.

  “I’m fine, don’t worry,” Rosa said, smiling. “Look, Pastor Ian is waiting for you,” she added, waving to him over Cam’s shoulder.

  Cam’s face immediately went from concern to excitement, and she turned a brilliant smile on Ian as he joined them.

  “Good morning, ladies.”

  Rosa offered him a distracted hello, checking her watch. It was already quarter past eight. While nothing in this town was far from anything else, if she was going to get there without being seen, she’d need a good half hour at least.

  “Camelia, Mrs. Goodwin is waiting for you,” he said, giving her a warm smile, then glancing back at Rosa.

  “Okay, no problem. See you later, Rosa!”

  Rosa felt her small pang of guilt at lying to her sister vanish. Since their family tragedy, only Camelia had any real emotions. If allowing her to be happy meant continuing the family tradition of secrets within secrets, then so be it.

  “Pastor Ian,” she said, as he made to take his leave. “I may be held up a little today.”

  He raised an eyebrow, looking at her closely as if he could sense a secret. “Aren’t you taking some vacation time right now?”

  Rosa nodded. “Yes, but with Lucia away, there’s stock and such to take care of,” she said, wondering why he always had to be so astute. She guessed it was a result of his upbringing. Trained from youth to be a pastor, it was no wonder he was hardwired to notice people’s difficulties; how else was he meant to help them?

  “I see.”

  Rosa looked away from his scrutiny. “So, well, if I am not here on time, would you please drive Cam home? She has her key.”

  Pastor Ian watched her a while longer. “No problem. But don’t work too hard, okay?”

  Rosa chuckled. “Sure.”

  She left and walked the expected route home, collected a folder with the logo from her father’s store on it, and left, taking a busy street on purpose. She greeted people and knew that they would now tell anyone who asked after her that she had been heading to the store looking happy and unconcerned. That paired with Cam’s no doubt gushing account of how they’d been silly and merely overlooked Lucia’s note would settle the town again and stop the gossip.

  That done, Rosa turned and began a winding route that would take her back towards Camp Naco and let her approach it from the north. She made her way cautiously, knowing that while people here most often stuck to their routines like glue, that did not in any way prevent them from falling ill or merely having a late start. She reached the deserted army base stood and found a broken down car and a clump of bushes that would be a decent place to wait without being observed from the road.

  Rosa glanced at her watch. Five to nine. Now that she was no longer concentrating on playing a role or dodging her fellow townees, she felt her chest constrict with anxiety. She knew that Lucia would not deliberately put her life in danger, but she couldn’t quite get rid of the fear that came with waiting to meet an unknown person, to get unknown information. She did not even know if she was waiting for a man or a woman.

  She turned her head at the sound of someone walking towards her. It was a man, the very last person she would have expected to be her sister’s contact. His hair was a greying auburn and fell in waves to his shoulders, flashes of red and silver catching the sunlight as he moved. She knew that if he took off his sunglasses, his eyes would be a strange turquoise blue.

  Rosa straightened, trying to figure out what she could tell him if he wasn’t here to meet her. She only knew him about as well as everyone else did. He was a wealthy big shot who had swaggered into town twenty-five years or so ago. He’d bought a massive plot of land on the eastern outskirts of town and built a grand house where he lived alone, if you didn’t count his small army of servants.

  “Ms. Kay,” he said, something about his voice seemed to pull on a memory, but Rosa didn’t pursue it , concentrating on deciphering the situation.

  “Mr. Melbourne,” she said, dipping her head politely and taking in his loose-fitting clothes that looked like vintage hippie chic. Not what one would expect a rich man to wear..

  He took his sunglasses off, openly eyed her, then smiled, flashing a row of perfect, brilliantly white teeth. “You’ll be pleased to know that Pedro’s son found a good house.”

  Rosa started then had to hold back a chuckle. She gave him another nod and removed her own sunglasses, letting her face shift from the cautiously polite look it had held to one full of questions.

  Diego Melbourne smiled again, but it seemed shaded by sadness. “Let’s go.”

  He replaced his sunglasses on his face and walked at a fast pace. Rosa followed suit, wondering where they were going, but hoped that it would be somewhere in the shade, as the day was already heating into another scorcher.

  Her anxiety returned full force when they rounded an abandoned house, and he pulled open the back door of his Jeep.

  “Stay down. I’ll be taking the back roads, but better to be safe.”

  “Where are you going to take me?” she asked, not moving. In her mind, she had sudden visions of being kidnapped and Camelia being left utterly alone and clueless in the world. A girl just didn't get into a virtual stranger's car out in the middle of nowhere without a darn good reason.

  He cocked his head to the side. “You want answers, right? Well, I’m not answering anything here. It isn’t safe.”

  “Where are you going to take me?” she repeated, a little steel in her voice now, although it was mostly to cover the fact that he was right. She knew the answers she sought would likely not be bandied about in an open setting like this.

  “I see you got more than just your father’s eyes,” he said, another sad smile tilting his lips, but the smile held a bit of respect too. “You have to decide whether to trust me or not. I’ll leave here in one minute, with or without you.”

  Rosa felt her spine stiffen automatically at the challenge, then sighed inwardly. Lucia had left her a trail of clues to find this man. What the town’s personal millionaire could possibly have to do with anything related to the Kay family was beyond her, but she also knew that her sister was smart.

  She got in the car, crouching on the floor, and he snapped the door shut behind her.

  “Remember to stay down there. I’m supposed to remain al
oof from you common folk,” he said, laughter in his tone.

  Rosa gritted her teeth and nodded as he gunned the engine.

  ****

  “Dr. Fell,” Agent Reis said, entering a small room crammed with tables, all of which bore several casts of footprints. “Your message sounded urgent,” he pressed when the other man continued to ignore him.

  “Here,” Dr. Fell said, finally looking up from the laptop he’d propped on the window ledge. “I’ve narrowed it down to five footprints. They all seem relatively recent and that one,” he pointed to the only cast that was bagged. “Has blood on it.”

  “Whose?” Reis asked, unable to keep the urgency from his voice. “Still running it against the town’s samples you ordered taken.”

  “Then what am I working with?”

  “The cast with the blood is from a shoe that had a metal bull hammered into the sole.”

  Agent Reis grinned. “I’m guessing you know who that might belong to?”

  Mark Fell nodded. “Sure do. There’s only one person in town with shoes like that. Frank Connor.”

  7

  “Morning, Frank,” called Sheriff Hardy, taking off his hat as he entered the main building of Turquoise Valley Golf Course behind Agents Reis and Boone.

  Reis watched Frank Connor eye him and Boone, then return the Sheriff’s greeting somewhat reluctantly. “Can I help you?”

  “We just want a word,” Agent Reis said, cutting neatly across the Sheriff, who gave him a sour look. “If you can take us to somewhere we won’t be interrupted.”

  Frank sighed, glancing at the computer screen as if he could still see the message from his boss, telling him to co-operate fully with the police and FBI.

  “Fine, but I gotta find someone to cover for me first.”

  Agent Reis frowned as the man stomped off through a ‘staff only’ door.