Deep Waters (21 page)

“You're not going in there alone.”

“I need you outside to keep watch.”

That sounded reasonable. Charity couldn't think of a good counterargument. “Well, what should I do if I see someone?”

“Knock once on the outside wall of the motor home.” Elias took one last look around the fog-shrouded scene as he removed a pencil-slim flashlight from the pocket of his jacket. “I'll be right back.”

“If you don't come out of there in five minutes, I'll come in and drag you out.”

Elias's teeth flashed briefly in the darkness. “Okay.” He moved toward the door of the motor home.

Charity leaned around the corner to watch as he went up the steps and let himself inside.

A chilling silence descended when Elias disappeared. It seemed to Charity that the fog grew heavier. She told herself that was a good thing because it helped conceal Elias's shockingly illegal activities.

The chants from the beach intensified. The drums and flute played louder. The shouts and laughter of the watching teenagers drifted across the campground.

There was no sound from inside Swinton's motor home. No light was visible at the windows. Whatever Elias was doing, he was doing with great discretion. Charity shivered, partly from the chill and partly from increasing anxiety. The oppressive sense of impending danger thickened together with the fog.

Down below on the beach, the drummer went into a lengthy riff that carried clearly up the side of the bluff. The throbbing, pulsating chants of the excited Voyagers echoed loudly. Someone honked a horn. The teenagers' raucous laughter grew more strident. Charity heard the snap and pop of firecrackers.

After what seemed hours, the motor home door cracked open. Relief washed through Charity when
she saw Elias jump lightly to the ground. He came toward her, moving with swift, silent grace.

“Come on, let's get out of here.” He took her arm.

She didn't argue. “You were in there forever. Did you find anything?”

“Maybe.”

She glanced at him as he hurried her through the maze of silent recreational vehicles. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“I got some bank account numbers. Ever notice how people tend to let their bank statements pile up in a desk drawer?”

“No.” Charity hesitated, recalling the stack of statements she had filed in a desk drawer at home. “On second thought, maybe I have noticed. What of it? What good are the account numbers?”

“I don't know yet.” Elias paused at the intersection of two lanes of campers. “But with an operation this big, you know everything is going through a bank.”

“Hmm. You're right.”

More firecrackers popped in the darkness. The Voyagers' chants reached a feverish pitch. The rowdy males who had gathered to drink beer near the bluff path began calling loudly down to the people on the beach. The younger set jeered and shouted.

“Things are getting exciting,” Elias remarked as they moved out from behind the last row of vehicles.

“It's almost midnight.” Charity glanced around. “And surprise, surprise, not a spaceship in sight. Let's go find Newlin. I want to be with him when the time comes, just in case Arlene doesn't rush into his arms.”

“Right.”

They made their way along the bluff to where Newlin had parked his pick-up. The battered truck was located in the outermost section of the makeshift parking lot. Nearly everyone else who had driven out
to watch the spectacle had parked much closer to the campground.

The pickup was almost invisible in the fog. Charity went to the window on the driver's side and frowned when she saw that Newlin was not inside.

“He must have gone to the fence to wait for Arlene to come back from the beach,” Elias said.

“Yes.” The brief, sharp blast of an automobile horn made Charity jump. Someone cursed.

She turned and saw that there was one other vehicle parked a short distance away. Another truck. The passenger door was open, but there was no light inside the cab. The sound of the town's one and only rock station spilled forth into the night.

“Damn it,” someone muttered from inside the truck. “I told you to be careful. You want someone to hear us?”

“The guy in the pick-up just left.” There was a muffled giggle from the interior of the vehicle. “Speaking of careful, I hope you remembered the rubber. Because if you didn't, I swear to God, Kevin, you can go fly a kite tonight.”

“Yeah, yeah. I've got it here, somewhere. Hang on.”

Charity turned quickly back to Elias and cleared her throat. “Let's see if we can find Newlin.” She grabbed his arm and started to lead him back the way they had come.

There was enough light reflecting off the fog to see Elias's amused expression, but he did not resist the forceful tug on his arm.

Charity pulled him toward the group that had gathered at the rail.

An eerie, startling hush descended on the group down on the beach. The flute and drum fell silent. The chants of the Voyagers ceased.

“Midnight,” Elias said softly.

“Hey there, Charity. Winters.” Yappy hailed them as they went past the tailgate refreshment stand. “We're gettin' ready to close up here. Want some hot coffee?”

“No, thanks,” Elias called. “We're looking for Newlin.”

“Saw him about an hour ago. Took some coffee over to his truck. Haven't seen him since.”

“Everyone's gone to the fence to see the grand finale,” Bea said as she packed a stack of unused paper cups back into a box. “Check over there. Sure hope Arlene comes to her senses tonight. If she doesn't, I don't know what poor Newlin's going to do with himself.”

Charity turned toward the large crowd that was hovering over the fence, watching the scene on the beach. “Elias, I'm worried. I don't see Newlin anywhere.”

He wrapped his hand around hers. “We'll find him.”

That was going to be easier said than done, Charity thought. An air of confusion was building swiftly. Between the fog and the throng of excited, curious onlookers, things were becoming chaotic. Derisive shouts went up from the beer drinkers. The teenagers hooted as some of the Voyagers began to climb back up the beach path.

Charity and Elias moved through the clustered townsfolk, searching for Newlin. There was no sign of him anywhere.

“Hey,” one of the beer drinkers yelled to the returning Voyagers, “Maybe the aliens meant Eastern Daylight Savings Time, not Pacific Daylight Savings Time.”

The dispirited cult members filed past without acknowledging the taunts.

A high, shrill scream ripped through the darkness
just as Charity was about to suggest that they start looking for Arlene among the returning Voyagers.

The piercing shriek had the same impact on the crowd as a sky full of alien spaceships. Everyone, Voyagers and onlookers alike, froze.

Charity glanced around wildly, searching for the screamer. “One of the disappointed Voyagers, do you think?”

“I don't know. But it didn't come from the beach.” Elias's hand tightened on hers. “It came from over there near the far end of the campground.” He started forward.

A second cry reverberated through the night.

“What's going on?” Someone yelled. “Who's screaming?”

For the second time that night Charity allowed Elias to draw her into the maze of campers, motor homes, and trailers that littered the old campground. The screams were replaced by shouts for help.

“Someone call an ambulance,” a man yelled. “For God's sake, hurry.”

Charity and Elias emerged from between a row of camper trucks and saw that a handful of Voyagers who must have been among the first to return from the beach had gathered at the entrance to a large blue and white RV.

“That's Gwendolyn Pitt's motor home,” someone said.

As she and Elias drew closer, Charity saw that light blazed from the open door of the vehicle.

Elias forged a path through the small crowd.

“It was because the ships didn't come,” a woman dressed in Voyager's garb moaned. “She did it because the ships didn't come.”

Charity saw Newlin and Arlene standing arm-in-arm
at the edge of the small cluster of people gathered outside the motor home. “Newlin.”

He glanced at her. There was a peculiar expression of stunned shock on his face. “Charity. Mr. Winters. You aren't gonna believe what's happened.”

Arlene buried her face against Newlin's shoulder. “It wasn't her fault the ships didn't come.”

Elias released Charity's hand. “Wait here.” He went up the steps to look inside the motor home. He came to a halt in the doorway, gazing intently at something inside.

Charity followed him up the steps and glanced past him into the interior of the motor home.

She took one look and immediately wished that she had followed Elias's orders to wait outside.

Gwendolyn Pitt was sprawled on the blue carpet. Her blue and white robes were drenched in blood. Rick Swinton was pressed back against the built-in desk, staring down at the body. He looked up and saw Elias and Charity.

“We just found her like this,” he said in a shaken voice. “A few of us came back here to see why she hadn't joined us down on the beach. And we found her like this. I sent someone to call an ambulance. Not that it will do any good.”

Without a word, Elias crossed the short distance and crouched beside the body. He pressed his fingers against the side of Gwendolyn's throat and shook his head.

“You're right,” Elias said quietly. “It's too late.”

“She must have killed herself because the spaceships didn't come,” someone whispered.

Elias met Charity's eyes. “This wasn't suicide.”

9
 
 

Blood in the water clouds the reflections on the surface, making it difficult to see the truth.

—“On the Way of Water,” from the journal of Hayden Stone

“Murdered.” Radiance leaned over Yappy's shoulder to read the article on the front page of the
Cove Herald.
“But last night everyone was saying that it was suicide.”

Bea gave Charity a meaningful look as she handed her a latte. “Not everyone.”

Yappy frowned as he scanned the article. “It says those who reached the scene first assumed Gwendolyn Pitt took her own life because she was despondent over the failure of the ships to arrive at midnight. But Hank Tybern states that it was obvious to him from the start that it was murder.”

“It was obvious to Elias, too.” Charity sipped her tea and glanced at the faces of the others who were
gathered around the small table inside the Whispering Waters Café. “Besides, none of us really believed that Gwendolyn Pitt actually expected the ships to arrive. We all suspected the whole operation was a scam. So why would she kill herself because of despair and disappointment?”

“Good point. Things went just the way she had planned.” Ted scratched his broad belly, which today was partially concealed behind a gray T-shirt decorated with the words
What Goes Around, Comes Around.
“She was into that cult thing for something besides a tour of the galaxy. Pretty clear she was murdered. But who would have killed her?”

“Seems to me Chief Tybern has himself a whole slew of suspects,” Yappy said. “Starting with all those disappointed Voyagers who must have realized at about one minute after midnight last night that they'd been conned.”

Charity and the others nodded solemnly in agreement and sipped their morning lattes.

They had congregated inside Bea's café because it was too chilly to be outdoors. The fog that had descended on the cove showed no signs of lifting. It cloaked the entire town and the shoreline for several miles.

It was nine-thirty. The pier shops wouldn't open until ten, but all of the shopkeepers had arrived early by unspoken consensus to rehash the previous night's events.

All but one, Charity thought. She glanced out the window. There was still no sign of Elias. She hadn't seen him since he had left her at her door at two o'clock that morning. He hadn't even kissed her good night. He had been back in his cryptic mode, distant, remote, self-contained.

Of course, she hadn't been in what anyone could
call a cheerful mood herself last night. Her short stretches of restless sleep had been poisoned with instant replays of the horrifying scene inside Gwendolyn's motor home. Every time she closed her eyes, she was forced to endure the image of Elias crouched beside the blood-soaked body.

She was becoming increasingly uneasy by his failure to show up early at the pier. She wished she had followed her first impulse and stopped by his cottage on her way to work. The two of them needed to talk. They had to get their stories straight.

They had both spoken to Hank Tybern, the town's chief of police, last night, but the conversation had been necessarily brief. Hank had had his hands full securing the crime scene and warning the confused, anxious Voyagers not to leave town. There hadn't been time to take complete statements. He had instructed Charity and Elias to come by the station later today so that they could give him the details of what they had seen.