Conspiracies and Stuff: A Dreamland Junction Mystery (4 page)

“That would be the FIA,” he said, as if I were supposed to know what the heck he was talking about.

“The what?”

The FIA … Federation Intelligence Agency.”

I was officially confused. “Sorry … never heard of it.”

“You wouldn’t have.” He shrugged. “The important thing is that you don’t tell anyone else about it.”

I eyed him skeptically. “Why not?”

In a display of a lot more familiarity than I felt comfortable with, he placed an arm around my shoulders. “Please, have a seat. This might take a few minutes.”

I was more than happy to sit, if for no other reason than so I would have a minute to breathe and gather my thoughts. Being that close to him made me feel a little odd, like I had hot soup bubbling in the pit of my stomach and it was leaking into my veins.

“I can’t really tell you a lot, but what I can tell you is that much of what you’ve heard about Area 51, the black projects, aliens … is real.”

A tsunami of questions hit me all at once, but at the same time, I was drawing a blank. Was it possible to have so many questions that you couldn’t think of a thing to say?

“We believe the boy has been taken underground at Area 51, and we may need your help to get him out,” he explained.

“My help?” I echoed.

Levan nodded. “With your experience in this area … you’d have a better chance of getting in there than we would. They will be expecting interference from the FIA. They don’t look at you as a serious threat, therefore, they won’t be paying as much attention to you.”

Somehow I had the distinct impression that I’d just been insulted.

Glaring at him through narrowed eyes, I went off. “What do you mean they don’t view me as a serious threat? I was the one responsible for exposing the black projects in the
first place. True, the scientist I interviewed did go off on some story about alien life forms and all, but still, he did have a lot of useful information.”

Levan held up a hand to stop my onslaught. “I am completely aware of how successful you’ve been at bringing information into the open. What I mean is that you are one person, who happens to have a website and a talent for flushing stuff into the open.
They can always deny, and the public won’t take you seriously. They know this.”

He had a point. As long as the government continued to deny, the public continued to suck it up.

I was intrigued, but he wasn’t giving me near enough information to justify putting my ass over a roaster, which is exactly what I’d be doing if I jumped in the middle of some plot involving the black projects.

“Why don’t we start from the beginning and you tell me exactly what happened to Molly Peterson?”

He shook his head. “I am not sure how Ms Peterson died, but what I can tell you is that her son was some kind of experiment gone wrong. Sean Peterson’s parents were visiting this area when he was conceived six years ago. A couple of months ago, his father, Mathew Peterson, died under mysterious circumstances.”

“What do you mean, mysterious circumstances?” I interrupted.

“He was in the bathtub and somehow a plugged in hairdryer fell into the water. The authorities were not completely convinced it was an accident, but there wasn’t enough evidence to charge Molly Peterson with his death,” Levan explained.

“So as soon as she was cleared … she relocated here,” I filled in the blanks.

Levan nodded. “Why? She has no relatives here, and had only been through here once in her life, as far as we know.”

“I’m still lost,” I said, shaking my head. “So Molly was a suspect in her husband’s death, and she moves to a town where she doesn’t know anyone. It is strange that she would come here, but maybe she just wanted to go someplace where no one would know her.”

“Or maybe she was compelled to come back here for some other reason,” he offered.

“Like?” I asked, trying to get as much information as he was willing to give up.

“I’m not sure, but I believe that someone in Dreamland Junction is behind this. Somehow, the opposition has infiltrated the community.”

“Who do you suspect, and what do you mean by opposition?”

“I can’t give you that much information yet. The FIA has to be convinced of your allegiance before I can tell you too much.”

“Allegiance?” I frowned. “I’m not giving my allegiance to some organization I’ve never even heard of. As far as I know, you could be some nut job, and totally off your rocker.”

He nodded. “I can understand why you think this, but in time you’ll come to see that what I’m telling you is true.”

Sighing, I got to my feet. “Give me something I can verify, and then maybe I’ll get my contacts involved. I need a reason to justify putting their butts on the line.”

Levan’s eyes locked with mine, and almost instantly, I felt myself freefalling. I had the insane thought that he must be a vampire, and he was trying to weave his immortal spell over me.

Tearing my eyes away, I snorted, “Sorry … I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but it isn’t going to work on me.”

I don’t know exactly what I expected; maybe some tentacles coming out of his nose, reaching out to wrap around my throat, or possibly fangs, but it wasn’t laughter.

“Kat, I am not trying to do anything to manipulate you.”

My brows came together in disbelief. “It sure felt like you were.”

“I apologize if I’m doing anything to make you feel uncomfortable.” He gave me a smile that set my heart beating like mad.

This was getting crazy.

I decided that I really must have been reading way too many vampire novels. Now I was giving this guy superhuman abilities. If I kept it up, I’d be joining Spencer at support meetings, but mine would be something more along the lines of fangs anonymous.

“So do you have anything I can actually check your story against?” I asked again, but this time I made sure I wasn’t looking in his eyes.

It was ridiculous, but I always figure, better safe than sorry.

“If you check the records, you will probably find more than one incident like Molly Peterson over the years.  You will also find a common denominator.”

“Okay … and how do I contact you, or check your credentials?” I figuring that checking his credentials was the best way to find out if he was real, or just another crackpot.

Throughout the three years that I’d been investigating strange activity and conspiracies, I’d dealt with more than a few crackpots. I’d even had one lady claim the government had impregnated her with black spiders, and the
arachnid
s were eating their way through her stomach.

Although I’ll be the first to admit that just about anything is possible when dealing with black projects and conspiracies, at the same time, even the mention of black projects had a way of drawing the crazies out of the woodwork.

True, Mister Levan whatever, seemed way too cute to be crazy, but it had been my experienced that the cute ones could be the worst kind.

Take my ex for example. Johnny Reyes, whom I liked to refer to as Dick Head Reyes, wasn’t so hot, but he’d seemed levelheaded enough, at least until he convinced me to move in with him. I’d barely had time to unpack my bags and he did a complete turnaround. Suddenly, I felt like I was in some kind of communist, POW camp.

It wasn’t long before I figured out that the hotshot owner of Reyes Contracting, his up and coming company, so he thinks, was bat shit crazy. That nut job even had a habit of arguing with himself.

So how could I know for sure Levan wasn’t just as loony?

“Yup.” I nodded. “I’m definitely going to need to check your credentials.”

“Okay, if you insist.” Chuckling, he showed me the top of his hand. Suddenly, a strange symbol began glowing on his skin.

“How did you do that?” I asked, jumping back.

“It’s a birthmark of sorts. It means I am a son of the Royal House of Piam, but here, I am simply Levan Shaw.”

“Okay, so you’re Houdini,” I rolled my eyes. “So how do I
actually
check out who you are?”

Again, he put his arm around my shoulder. “I promise, one day you’ll know for sure that I’m telling you the truth, but for now you are going to have to trust me.”

I was two seconds away from asking him if he’d like to get a little closer when Tuke came storming out of the restroom.

“Okay Mister! I’ve had about enough of your horseshit!” he shouted, wagging his finger the whole time he was stomping toward us. “My sister don’t want anything to do with
you, if you can’t come up with some info she can use … and get your arm off her,” Tuke said, reaching up to knock Levan’s arm from my shoulders.

“Tuke!” I gasped. “You weren’t supposed to come out unless I was in danger.”

“Well you were,” he hollered, his eyes still fixed on Levan. “You were in danger of being suckered by this charlatan. I know exactly what he’s trying to say … without really saying it. He’s trying to say he’s an alien … and by the way, he wants to get into your pants.”

I’d already figured as much, at least about the alien part. Levan wasn’t the first person to insinuate he was alien, though he sure had been the most debonair. As far as the, getting into my pants, well I wasn’t so sure I was opposed to the idea, at least not near as much as Tuke was.

“I was wondering when you were going to make an appearance,” Levan smirked.

“Well I’m here now, so you can just knock off the bullshit.” Tuke was so angry that his face was turning red.

It had been a long time since I’d seen my brother so hopping mad. The last time was when he tripped over his own two feet and fell in front of our entire senior class during prom. That time I’d been smart enough not to let him see me laughing, but his date hadn’t been as tactful. Susan laughed so hard that she’d nearly fell too. Needless to say, they broke off their little romance the next day.

“It’s okay,” I told my brother. “He’s given me a little I can check out.”

Tuke continued to glare at Levan.

Ignoring him for the moment, I turned to Levan. “How can I contact you?”

“I’ll be in touch with you,” he said.

After giving Tuke a curt nod, Levan turned and walked away.

Tuke watched him get into the Lamborghini, a mixture of awe and envy on his face.

When Levan’s taillights disappeared, Tuke turned his attention to me. “I suggest you watch out for that guy, little sister. Now if you don’t have anymore harebrained ideas, I’d like to get back to my tube.”

Tuke and his TV. The only thing he liked more was a boy’s night out at the Green Man, and cute waitresses.

I hated the morning shift, but any other shift would have left me no opportunity to pursue my first love, mysteries. Mysteries intrigued me. All kinds of mysteries, from the basic who done it, to complex government cover-ups. I tended to pay more attention to the cover up kind of mysteries, which could have had something to do with growing up so close to Area 51.

Officially, I’d never actually seen a UFO. The one thing that I had seen, I wouldn’t call a UFO. In fact, I still had no idea what it was that I’d seen.

It happened just after my sixteenth birthday. Some of my friends and I were out at Jackrabbit Flats having a bonfire party. Mostly the cops didn’t bother with Jackrabbit Flats, so we were home free. The Flats were out of Dreamland Junctions jurisdiction, and the highway patrol preferred not to take their cars over dirt roads in order to get to the Flats.

It was a wild night to begin with, but then the sky lit up with a blinding flash. That was about midnight.

The next thing I knew, I was coming out of some kind of sleep, and I was flat on my back. My friends were all coming to at about the same time, and it was four in the morning. We had four hours of lost time and none of us remembered a thing in between.

Most of us got into big trouble that night. At least I know I did. Uncle Sonny grounded me for a week. I tried to tell him what happened, but of course he’s a cop. He figured someone had drugged the jungle juice. Sonny was so sure I’d been assaulted that he actually took me to the emergency room to get checked out.

The doctors did find some bruising on my arms, and my entire body was covered with some kind of strange rash, but other than that, there were no signs of assault.

The rash convinced my uncle that I’d been drugged, which meant he didn’t take my episode of missing time too seriously.

That was my one and only brush with the little green men, if in fact, that’s what it had been.

After my usual breakfast of toast with peanut butter, and a glass of orange juice, I dialed Uncle Sonny’s number. There was no answer.

That was definitely unusual.

Glancing at my beer clock, I saw that it was almost seven. I had fifteen minutes to get to work.

My uncle was a man of routine. I could almost set my watch by what he was doing. Between six thirty and seven on a Monday morning, he would be on his way to the office, but there would be a pit stop at the Landing for some breakfast and coffee to go. He would always treat himself to a 51 Jupiter Special, which consisted of a Sirius omelet with ham.

Sighing, I locked up the trailer and started for my car. Glancing at Spencer’s place, I saw that his lights were still on. He had a bad habit of falling asleep with his lights on. He claimed it was an accident, but I suspected he figured that if he left the TV and lights on, he wouldn’t have any nightmares, or abductions, as Spencer called them.

The parking lot at the Landing was packed, especially for the beginning of the week. With no parking near the building, I was forced to park between a Harley, and some chump’s RV, which just happened to be painted to look like a UFO.

We got all kinds of people at the Landing, but especially UFO enthusiasts.

I knew I shouldn’t be so harsh on those who believed, but most of their theories just left too many unanswered questions, like if there really were aliens visiting earth, why didn’t they just stop by the Landing for a cup of coffee, instead of all that cloak and dagger nonsense that seemed to be so prevalent?

The common answer for that was that either they’d made a deal with the governments of the planet to keep things under wraps, or that earth people were really just guinea pigs and the planet was one big science project.

I think I liked the first excuse better, though if I were to take either seriously, I’d probably opt for the latter. One day in Dreamland Junction would tell any sane person that something had to be up with the majority of the population. I figured that a good number of people in town either had their brains scrambled by some electrical force field, or they’d been probed and implanted. Either way, something was up.

Take my boss for example.

Every morning when I came to work, he was sitting on the roof of the Landing, his eyes fixed on the eastern sky.

As I walked toward the entrance, Rafe waved from the top of the building, and I waved back.

He claimed that the first rays of the morning sun energized him better than a cup of coffee and taking a double dose of old man vitamins.

I figured neither morning routine could be that good for him, but hey, what did I know? I’m just a college dropout, waiting tables at the ET Landing.

After taking my first couple of orders of the morning, I sent them back to the kitchen’s computer and then pulled Lavern aside.

“What’s up?” Lavern asked, as her eyes continued scanning her tables, so that she wouldn’t miss a tip when someone got up to leave.

It wasn’t unusual for customers to swipe our tips while passing recently vacated tables.

“Do you know anything about some kind of government agency called the FIA?” I wasn’t really sure why I was asking Lavern, but she worked a lot so I assumed she must hear a lot of talk from people who came through.

“Hmm … isn’t it Federal and have something to do with food and drugs?” she asked, still distracted by her tables.

“I don’t think so. That’s the FDA.”

Lavern shrugged. “I don’t have any idea, but you know the feds. They are constantly coming up with a letter agency to pound at us.”

“You haven’t heard anyone around here talking about something like that?” I persisted.

Half groaning - half sighing, she finally decided to give me her full attention. “What do you take me for, Kat Parker? Do you seriously think I eavesdrop on our patrons?”

“Pretty much.” I nodded.

“Fine then,” she came back, her face twisting into a sour scowl. That was Lavern’s way of admitting to something she normally wouldn’t admit to. “I’ve heard a few people talk about some kind of space alien police force. It might have had those fed sounding letters to it.”

“Really?”

“Well you know me. I try to brush all that craziness off, but every once in a while I’ll listen in. It helps pass the time.”

“What did they say about it?”

“Just that they enforced rules for some Intergalactic alien planet group, or something along those lines.” She shrugged.

I wanted to grill her some more, but then I saw her red lips twisting real funny like. When Lavern got that expression on her face, it meant something was up, and whatever that something was, it probably wouldn’t be too pleasant.

“Don’t look now but the Martians have landed … in your section,” she added, nodding her head in the direction of my work section.

Stepping around her, I chanced a look.

As soon as I saw him, I felt my stomach tighten, and my breakfast churning, ready to come back up.

There was Dick Head Reyes, sitting alone at a booth meant for eight, in a show of his typical narcissistic behavior.

Looking at him now, I couldn’t imagine what I could have been thinking to go out with him in the first place. He loved dressing like a cowboy, but really, the closest he’d ever come to a real cow was the double cheeseburgers he ordered at the Burger Bar. He had no chin to speak of, and his milky blue eyes bulged out like some kind of insect eyes.

I had to have been certifiable to even consider going out with him, let alone getting into a relationship.

But in my own defense, I had no idea just how sick in the head he really was until the day I decided to leave. He’d actually called the police on me and told them some story about me plotting to kill him in an effort to get me thrown in jail. That was his revenge for daring to leave him.

Unfortunately for him, he was the one who stockpiled guns, and the only weapon I had on me was a handbag with a concealed cell phone in it.

In the two years since I’d left, he’d dragged me into court countless times with frivolous lawsuits, trying to run me broke. It was working. These days I barely had two cents to rub together, but my attorney was getting rich. The last lawsuit had been so ridiculous, the
judge actually threatened to find him in contempt if he ever brought something so stupid into court again.

The subject of the lawsuit was that I’d used too much laundry soap on his clothes when I was living with him, resulting in chronic rash on his balls. I think it was more like, chronic stupid. He had no real balls if he weren’t hiding behind the police.

I admit to being bitter, but a girl could only take so much harassment, even when it was legal harassment.

“Oh Lavern … please take that table,’ I begged.

Lavern shook her head. “Not a chance girl. You see that over there. I have two tables of bikers, and they’re not exactly the kind you want to keep waiting for long. Besides, I can’t afford any of his bogus lawsuits.”

Before I could try and persuade her further, she was gone.

Taking a deep breath, I grabbed a menu and a glass of water. I thought about slipping some cyanide in the water, if only I’d thought to bring some of that along with me to work.

Okay, maybe I wouldn’t have actually brought poison, even if I’d had it to bring, but it was fun to think about.

Setting the water and menu in front of him, I took out my E tablet, which is what we used to take orders.

“What can I get you?” I asked, as if I hadn’t the slightest clue who he was.

“I’ll take a Roswell Wreck and some orange juice,” he grumbled.

After inputting his order, I turned to leave, but he reached out to stop me. “Kat … I thought we should have a discussion about some kind of palimony. You know you left me at the end of the month, just when the bills were due.”

Taking a deep breath, I gathered as much strength as was humanly possible. I would need it to keep from stabbing him with the closest sharp object.

It took a moment, but finally I was calm enough that I could turn back and face him, without looking like some wild-eyed animal,

“Mister Reyes, I think you should pull your head out of your ass and quit harassing me. We split up two years ago. It’s time to get over it.”

I walked away before he had a chance to reply. If I were right, he’d have the police pulling up within minutes. That was his game. He’d bait me until I told him what I thought of him, and then he’d turn around and try to get me into trouble, mostly with lies.

To my surprise, I actually managed to get to his table with the orange juice and the police still hadn’t made an appearance, but he was going to pull the next best thing.

“I think I need to talk with your manager,” he said, his thin lips pressed together in an angry white line.

“Whatever.” I shrugged.

It would be my luck that Rafe was just coming in from his morning sunbath. I motioned him over.

“Mister Reyes here has some bitching to do,” I said, without waiting around to see what he was going to bitch about. It didn’t matter. He’d make up whatever he wanted anyway.

A few minutes later, Rafe made his way to the waitress’s station, a look of utter frustration on his face.

“How did you live with that guy, without clobbering him?” he asked.

“It wasn’t easy. That’s why it only lasted a couple of months.”

“Next time he shows up, ask one of the other waitresses to get his table,” Rafe instructed.

“None of them want to.”

“I’ll have a talk with the other girls. Just stay away from his table, for the sake of the Landing, and yourself. If he brings up one of his bogus lawsuits against one of the other girls, we should be able to file our own and counter sue. That will teach him.”

“Well it was an idea, I just hoped it worked.”

* * *

Opening Spencer’s front door, I stuck my head in and called his name.

I’d already knocked once, but he had his music so loud there was no way he actually heard me.

“Back here!”

I turned down the volume on the stereo as I walked by. In the back room that Spencer used as a work area, I found him tearing apart an old CB radio.

“What are you doing?”

It was a useless question, since I already had a pretty good idea. He was always trying to modify radios so he could pick up ET transmissions. Spencer had actually figured out a way to use an old satellite dish for an antenna.

“I picked up this old radio that was used as a base. It needs some work.”

“How did your meeting go last night?” I asked, clearing a spot on an old chair so I could sit.

“A lot of people are talking about using regression hypnosis to recover their lost time. What do you think? Do you think I should do it too?” he asked, setting the radio’s innards on his worktable.

“Sure, why not? But I would be careful about who you have do it. Maybe we can talk with Uncle Sonny and see if he knows any reputable therapists,”