Curse (Blur Trilogy Book 3) (23 page)

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Nicole Marten didn’t know what to make of everything that was going on.

Ever since this morning when she found out Daniel was missing, she’d been worried and been praying—thinking about him pretty much the whole time.

The pit in her stomach felt sort of like the one she’d had last winter when he was seeing the blurs of the girl who’d died on that island in Lake Superior.

Was she concerned about him now?

Oh yeah.

Did she trust that God was in control?

Yes, she did.

So how did those two things work together—worry and faith?

Who knows.

But it was what it was.

Right now she was sitting in the passenger seat next to Mia, who was guiding them up further into the mountains.

They were almost to the Marly Weathers Great Smoky Mountains Educational Center, which was a lot more out-of-the-way than Nicole had expected. Kyle was in the back checking something on his phone.

Thirty minutes ago, Mia had swung through Rascal’s Burger Hut.

They didn’t serve veggie burgers, so Nicole had gone for a Mega-size Curly Fries, and then filled out her supper with some of the granola bars that were left over from the drive down to Georgia.

Kyle ordered the
Mongo Burger, and Mia got a Western Rodeo Burger with extra bacon, and a “hand-spun” pineapple milkshake, which was taking forever to melt.

Now they’d all finished their meals, except for Mia, who was still working on her shake. She took a loud sip of it as they entered the educational center’s parking lot.

There were so man
y
cars that she had to park on the grass.

“Isn’t this place supposed to be closing right about now?” Nicole asked.

Kyle looked up from his phone. “That’s what I thought.”

“I wonder what’s going on.”

Inside the center, people were lining up for trolley rides that departed from the back of the building.

Along the walls, Nicole counted sixteen glass-encased taxidermy animals showing the diversity of wildlife found in the Great Smoky Mountains—from black bears to timber rattlesnakes to different species of owls.

It sort of bugged he
r—a
nimals are not on this planet for people to gawk at or be amused b
y—
b
ut she could understand that the center was probabl
y
just tr
yi
ng to help visitors appreciate nature more. She decided to give them a pass.

However, those animals weren’t reall
y
the main attraction.

The fireflies were.

The entire center was decorated with firefly stuff—from hats and jackets to stickers to cuddly stuffed animal fireflies with working lights.

A little boy was holding one of them, making the light go on by squeezing its tummy. “So why do their butts light up?” he asked his mom.

“It’s their abdomen.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s sort of, well, the part on the end, there.”

“So, their butt?”

“Joey.” She helped him put it back on the shelf. “C’mon. Let’s go find your father. It’s almost time for the trolley to leave.”

Mia had brought her shake with her and kept trying to get the rest of it up the straw, but the pineapple pieces were too big and she ended up super-sucking the straw, lifting it out of the cup with the pineapple suctioned to the other end, then turning the straw around and biting off the hunk of pineapple.

Mia being Mia.

Kyle slipped off to use the bathroom and while he was gone, Nicole’s phone rang.

At first she wondered if it might be the cop from campus security again, but when she checked the screen she saw that it was Daniel’s dad.

What if something was wrong? What if Daniel had been found and he was hurt? Or worse?

Apprehensively, she answered, “Hello? Mr. Byers?”

“He’s okay, Nicole. Daniel is.”

“What? How do you know? Did the cops find him?” She grabbed Mia’s arm and whispered to her, “Daniel’s alright.”

Mia almost choked on her pineapple chunk. “What? Who is that?”

“His dad.”

Mr. Byers went on, “I spoke with Dan on the phone. He can’t call you, but he’s okay.”

“Where is he?”

“Right now I just need you not to worry about him. He’ll be in touch with you guys tonight around nine. How are you doing?”

“We’re fine. So, but—
y
ou’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“I wish I knew where he was.”

“Listen, it’s important that you don’t call anyone. Not the police. Not anyone else.”

“Why would I call the police? Now you’re getting me worried again.”

“No, you’re—look, I have another call coming in. I’m checking on some things here, so this might be important. I have to go. I’ll talk with you later.”

And then he was off the line.

“What is it?” Mia said.

“I don’t know exactly. His dad says he’s alright and not to call the cops.”

“Not to call the cops?”

“Yeah. Weird, right?”

Kyle returned and they quickly filled him in.

“So now what?” he asked.

Mia looked around. “I guess since we’re here we might as well try to figure out what’s going on.”

“Definitely,” Nicole agreed. “Everything is just way too suspicious. Daniel’s disappearance. All of this. His dad is gonna call us later. Until then, we should see what else we can learn.”

A perky, twenty-something woman who was wearing one of the center’s embroidered baseball caps approached them cheerfully. She sported a T-shirt with what looked like glow-in-the-dark fireflies and the words, “Light up the Night—Together!” emblazoned on the front. Her nametag read: “Tiff.”

She tilted her head and smiled. “Do you have your tickets? I can get you on the next trolley.”

“Tickets?” Kyle said. “No, we don’t have any tickets.”

Tiff looked genuinely disheartened. “I’m afraid if you don’t have tickets already, you’re out of luck. They’re usually plucked up within a few minutes of going on sale.”

“What exactly is all this? The trolleys? The fireflies?”

“You’re not here for the firefly viewing?”

“We don’t know anything about the fireflies. I thought your website said you closed at six thirty?”

“Oh. Well, this week we have special hours. It might not have gotten updated on the site.” She spread out her arms in a welcoming manner. “We’re open late all week for the Synchronous Firefly Event!”

“Which is, what, exactly?”

“The Great Smoky Mountains are home to nineteen different species of fireflies, but the most special of all are the
Photinus carolinus
. For one week of the year, here in nearby Cades Cove, they blink on and off—” As she said that, she opened and closed her hands in a blinky manner. “—all together, all at once. It’s one of the only places in the world that it happens, and only during this one week.”

“But how?” Mia asked. “How do they know when to blink?”

Tiff tilted her hands palms-up and smiled again. “No one really understands why it happens. They say it has to do with mating rituals.”

“No, I mean,
how
do the individual fireflies know when to blink, if they all do it at the same time?”

“One of nature’s great mysteries. And that’s what everyone is here for . . . although tonight might not be the best showing. It’s looking like rain, so our little friends might not be as active as they usually are.”

“Actually,” Kyle said, “that’s all really interesting, but we’re here because we . . . Well, we’re looking for our friend Daniel Byers.”

Tiff shook her head, still smiling. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“This may sound strange, but does a Dr. Waxford work here by any chance?”

Another head shake.

“Malcolm Zacharias?” Nicole asked.

“Well, yes, now that you mention it. I mean, he doesn’t work here, but Mr. Zacharias comes by sometimes to pick up packages. We have one in the back for him right now, I believe.”

“From Marly Weathers?”

Tiff stared at her, slightly puzzled. “How did you know that?”

“Because . . . Marly is my dad. He told me to come by and get it.”

“He did?”

“Yes. I just—we just—flew in from Philly. Mr. Zacharias can’t make it and Dad didn’t want it sitting here tonight.”

Tiff didn’t quite look convinced.

“My dad has an unlisted number and he doesn’t like me giving it out to anyone, but I can tell you his email address if you need to verify everything.” She fished her phone out of her purse. “I have it right here, if you want to check.”

“Um . . . well . . . that won’t be necessary. Let me go get that package for you.”

After Tiff stepped away, Mia asked under her breath,
“How’d
yo
u know Marl
y
Weathers’s phone number
wouldn’t be listed?”

“I figured that a reclusive billionaire wouldn’t want his number out there.”

“Huh.” Abandoning the straw, Mia tipped the cup to her mouth, gulped down the remaining pineapple globs and deposited the empty cup in a trash can nearby. “But he would let you give out his email address?”

“I wasn’t sure about that part, but we got what we were looking for. Right?”

“Not yet, but—”

Tiff returned, carrying a sealed package about the size of two shoeboxes. “Here you go. Now, they need me to help corral people onto the trolleys, so . . .”

“Sure.” Nicole accepted the box. “Thanks.”

“I hope you do get a chance to see the fireflies while you’re here in town. Somehow.”

“Yeah. That’d be nice.”

“It’s a remarkable experience.”

“Right.”

Tiff swept off toward the trolley line, and Nicole led her two friends outside to open the box and find out what Marly Weathers had sent to Mr. Zacharias.

Dr. Adrian Waxford got a text from General Gibbons that she was on her way up the mountain.

He’d requested that she contact him when she turned onto Forest Service Road 141, since that was the last place where there was cell reception.

He directed Garrett Marion, the guard who was currently on duty at the Estoria, to drive down and unlock the gate so the general would be able to get through.

Nicole set the package on a picnic table nestled in a small copse of trees off to the side of the building.

K
yl
e offered to open it in case there was an
yt
hing weird in it. She took “weird” to mean “dangerous” and didn’t argue, but just slid it toward him.

He started working at the tape.

“It says to open the other side first,” Mia pointed out.

“I’m living dangerously. Can I borrow your knife?”

She drew out her butterfly knife, skillfully flicked out the blade, and passed the knife to him, handle first.

“Man, every time you whip that thing around I think you’re gonna cut off one of your fingers.”

“Practice makes perfect.”

“It also makes for nicknames.”

“Nicknames?”

“Yeah. Like ‘Lefty.’”

“Ha.”

He carefully slit the tape, then tipped open the cardboard flaps, and removed the box’s contents: a book about haunted places in Tennessee, a pile of overstuffed file folders, some maps of the mountains, and a stack of printed web pages with federal government letterhead.

“Divide and conquer,” Nicole said.

They split up everything and got to work.