Golem in My Glovebox (8 page)

Before we could tell him goodnight, he stepped into the opening, blended into the paint and disappeared as if he’d never been there.

I tilted my head at Riley. “Barking?”

He grinned and came toward me. “Maybe.”

* * *

The second day of travel was much like the first. Unremarkable, dull scenery. Weird souvenirs. Mile after mile of rocks that eventually turned to grazing cows and scrubby bushes. By the time we passed through the tiny town of Lebanon, Kansas, my eyes burned and my lower back was having a pity party. Riley slept in the dying light of twilight when I stopped the car across the road from a large metal plaque embedded in a small stone pyramid. A church not much bigger than an outhouse stood across the grass from the marker, with a few picnic tables under an overhang. A decorative sign declared
Welcome to the Geographical Center of the 48 States
.

This, I knew, was not exactly true. The real center was about a half a mile away. The story was that the center was located on a private farm owned by a cranky farmer who didn’t like tourists. In reality, it was located within a fence surrounding the compound headquarters for the Board of Hidden Affairs. The farmer story was only to cover it up.

“Rise and shine, handsome,” I said, stroking Riley’s arm. “I got us as close as I could. You have to guide me the rest of the way.”

Riley sat up and rubbed his face. “Oh.” He blinked to focus. “We’re here. Follow the road around to the right.”

Tires crunched as I guided the car over dirt. “How far is it from here?”

“Almost there. Turn left here and go straight for half a mile. Then stop.”

“There’s nothing here. There’s no road—just a field.”

“Exactly.” His face was deadpan, giving nothing away.

I gave him a cynical look, and followed his directions. The marker and its tiny outbuildings disappeared in my review mirror, but nothing appeared in front of us. Wide open space. The horizon. The setting sun.

A crow crossed our path a few hundred feet ahead—the first sign of movement I’d seen.

“Okay,” Riley said. “Stop here.”

“There’s nothing here.”

He didn’t say anything. A few seconds later, a crow flew across in the same spot.

I narrowed my eyes and glanced at Riley, and his lips curled in a half smile. We waited another minute. The crow crossed again in the same direction, same altitude.

“It’s got a bubble around it, like my back yard,” I said.

Riley grinned. “Yes.”

“So how do we know where to drive into it without bashing our car into the fence?”

“We don’t know. That’s what makes this place so secure.” He hit a button on his phone. “Art. We’re here.”

“I had no idea,” I said, amazed. The only time I’d been here before, I’d flown in and out. I’d never driven it. No wonder Bernice kept trying to get me to relocate. It wasn’t only about alarms and defense. It was about disappearing completely.

Two crows later, a gate swung out in midair, seemingly connected to nothing. A disembodied arm waved at us to come through.

Passing through the bubble in my car was no different than going into my backyard. Moving forward was an act of faith, knowing something was there you couldn’t see, but also believing you wouldn’t smack into something the minute you crossed the threshold.

We passed through the membrane without detecting so much as a change in air pressure. A man stood next to the car, his face impassive. I stopped the car and rolled down the window, mostly because I figured it was part of the procedure.

“Please proceed to the compound.” His eyes were disconcerting—empty and vague. I knew that look. Nobody was home. This was one of Bernice’s constructs. She created golems out of who knows what, and they ran the day-to-day tasks for her.

The road led around and ended in a circular compound surrounded by small, rickety buildings. We parked and slid out of the car, groaning and working out the kinks in our abused, cramped muscles.

The front door to one of the buildings swung open, and Art stomped down the steps. “Thank God you’re here,” he said. “We have a new problem, and Bernice is going out of her mind.”

Chapter Five

Art’s sweaty, balding head shone like a beacon in the dwindling light. He wasn’t as round as I remembered, and his clothes were far more casual than the vacuum-cleaner-salesman look he’d sported the last time I saw him.

“We’re great. Thanks for asking,” I said. “More importantly, how are
you
?”

He frowned at me. “Still just as flip and dismissive of authority as the last time, I see.”

Still just as humorless and dead inside
,
I
see.
You old fart.

“Lighten up, Art. It’s been a long drive.” Something about that guy set me on edge every time he opened his mouth. To be fair, something about me did the same to him. When he needed help, though, he’d called me. And I came. That said a lot about both of us.

Riley pulled our bags from the car. “Let us get settled, Art. Then we’ll be all ears.”

Art waved an arm, and another nondescript man appeared. He took the bags from Riley and headed into the building he’d come from. None of the buildings in the circle were what they appeared to be on the outside. I knew this from my last visit to the compound. This one, in particular, looked like a dilapidated, cracker-box house.

“There,” Art said, nodding toward the front door. “You’re settled. Follow me.”

I rolled my head back and groaned, mimicking Maurice from the night before. “Fiiine.”

We trailed behind Art, and he led us through the front door and down the hall. It was the same building I’d been in the last time. Impossibly big on the inside, the elaborate decorations, tall staircase, and exotic carpets made no sense when compared to the cracker-box, single-story wreck on the outside. More magic. More disguises. If I hadn’t known it was warranted, I’d think the entire Board throughout history had been paranoid.

Of course, it’s not paranoia if everyone really is out to get you.

Art took a right down the hall into what I remembered as Bernice’s study. She sat at her desk, gray hair mussed and eyes red either from lack of sleep or crying. Possibly both.

She looked up when we came in, and relief washed over her like a clean breeze.

“Zoey,” she said. “I’m so, so glad. Sit down by the fire. You too, Riley. Art, did you get them settled in their rooms? Get them something to drink. Are you hungry? Get them...something.” She came out from behind her desk and put her arms around me. “I cannot tell you how happy I am that you’re here.”

She let go and ushered us to a cluster of leather chairs pulled up to the fireplace. The spring weather wasn’t really cold enough for a fire, but the temperature in the room was comfortable, as if the fire were only for show. It probably was.

I didn’t know what to say. This was nothing like the reaction I’d expected. Art had called me behind her back about something she didn’t think was real. We all expected her to be angry—or at least dismissive. Her relief worried me. Whatever had happened since we’d left yesterday morning was going to be big.

Another of Bernice’s automatons—this time a woman—came in carrying a tray of iced tea, cheese and crackers, and oatmeal cookies. She placed it on the table between us and left without a word. Even when my walls were locked down, people projected a sort of emotional heartbeat or warmth. The lack of any sort of emotion emanating from Bernice’s golems gave me the squidgies. As an empath, it was like staring into an empty eye socket into some minor level of hell where everyone ceased to exist. They made my skin itch and feel too tight for my bones.

Art paced behind us, refusing to take a seat.

Bernice shifted in her chair and cleared her throat. “I suppose I should come right out and say it. No use trying to ease you into it at this point.” Her hands fluttered in her lap, and I noticed for the first time the wad of tissue balled up in her palm. “There’s been another body.”

Riley sat forward. “What do you mean another body? Like back when the board members were murdered? All staged and posed?”

Bernice nodded. “Yes. Just like the rest.”

Fear

Sadness

Anger

Devastation

Bernice’s emotions leaked from her pores and filled the room.

I looked from Bernice to the pacing Art and back again, frowning. “I don’t understand. The only board members left are here in this room. Unless...” I glanced at Art again, then shook my head. No. That was definitely Art, not a golem replica. He had way too much personality, and his emotions would be easy to read, even if I hadn’t been an empath. “Who?”

Riley reached across the space between our chairs and took my hand.

My eyes grew wide. “No. Not my mother.”

Bernice shook her head. “No, not your mother. But it was an Aegis.”

My skin went cold. “No. They don’t kill Aegises. Your sources are wrong. The Aegises were all fine when the Collector was in town, then they were captured and taken elsewhere. Nobody’s killing Aegises. No.”

Riley squeezed my hand. “Zoey.”

“No,” I said. “Board members only. And there aren’t any of those but you. So, end of story, nobody dies, as long as you two stay here. The Aegises were kidnapped, and we’re going to find them and bring them all home. You’ll see. It’ll all be fine.”

I was babbling. I knew it. They knew it. But I couldn’t accept that the killing had started again, this time with Aegises instead of board members.

Because if somebody was killing the Aegises, well, the next body could be my mother’s.

I took a deep breath, held it for a ten count, then let it out. “Okay. Let me take a step back. First, tell me who died. Was it another awful scene set up to freak us out?”

Bernice swallowed hard, her lips tight. “It was Dennis Bloom. He was an aquaphile, meaning—”

I held my hand up to stop her. “Meaning he could draw water to himself.” I closed my eyes and rubbed my eyelids with the tips of my fingers. “I met him in the Collector’s tent. She’d had him manacled to a desk. How...What did they do with him?”

Normally, when someone dies under suspicious circumstances, cause of death is one of the first concerns. But this was different. The person—or thing—murdering the board members had arranged them in macabre poses in bizarre, family-friendly settings. The fact that Bernice knew it was the same person who’d murdered Dennis meant there had been an elaborate scene with him, as well. I tried to prepare myself for the disturbing worst.

Bernice pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers. “They found him this morning in Texas, outside of Amarillo at the Cadillac Ranch.”

I frowned. “Isn’t that—uh—a whorehouse?”

Riley snorted. “That’s the Mustang Ranch in Nevada. You know, where it’s legal.”

I eyed him, wondering how he knew that. Then again, I was pretty close to getting it right and wasn’t sure how I knew about it. “Okay. So what’s the Cadillac Ranch?”

Art stopped pacing and joined us in a fourth chair. “It’s a landmark. A work of art to some, though frankly, I think it’s ridiculous. A bunch of cars out in the middle of nowhere are planted on their ends in a row, with their noses buried in the dirt. People come from all over the world to spray paint them.”

“What?” I said. “Just anybody can paint them? Or do you mean artists?”

He let out an annoyed chuff and waved a hand in the air. “Anybody. It’s graffiti. Tourists show up with cans of paint and leave their marks until somebody else comes along and covers it up with something new.”

“How weird.” I tried to imagine the point of such a thing. “So, what happened to Dennis?”

Bernice and Art glanced at each other before looking back at me. Art’s thumb twitched, as if clicking an invisible ballpoint pen—a habit that drove me crazy the last time I’d seen him, though at the time, he’d had an actual pen in his hand. “He drowned. Right there in the middle of the desert. They found him posed half in and half out of one of the cars, as if he’d been in an accident and was thrown from the vehicle. He held the remains of an ice cream cone, and ants covered his hand and arm. Someone had dressed him like a tourist in Bermuda shorts, black socks and sandals, and a Hawaiian shirt. Under that was a T-shirt that said
No Lifeguard on Duty
.” He paused and looked into the fire, avoiding eye contact with me. His thumb twitched even faster. “The killer put mirrored sunglasses on him.
Real
mirrors. And they’d shattered. Bits of glass were embedded in his eyes and cheeks.”

My stomach flipped, and goose bumps rose on my arms. “Was there...” I stopped, unsure if I wanted the answer to my next question. “Was there a note?”

Bernice shook her head. “Not a note, exactly. But there was a message.” She reached for her teacup, her hand shaking. It took both hands to bring the cup to her lips and take a sip without spilling. She set it back down and cleared her throat. “Sprayed in red paint across the hood of the car he was in were the words ‘Let’s play.’”

A violent shiver ran through me. Those were the same words written on the note from whoever took my mother. “The message was for me.”

Art and Bernice exchanged another glance, then fixed me with serious faces.

Art’s thumb went still. “That’s what we think, yes.”

We all sat in silence for a few minutes. I watched the heatless flames dance and crackle while I considered my options.

“Okay, Art,” I said. “Now tell me what brought us out here in the first place.”

Bernice clucked her tongue. “A ridiculous theory. The only reason I’m not angry is because he finally figured out a way to get you here. Now you’re safe, and I don’t have to worry about you.”

I ignored her. “Art?”

Art straightened in his seat. He folded both thumbs into his fists to keep them quiet. “About sixty years ago, the head of the Board of Hidden Affairs became increasingly...unstable. And then dangerous. People died. The rest of the Board members had to subdue her and lock her away in a cell where she couldn’t do anyone harm ever again.”