The Dark Rift: Ascension (The Dark Rift Book Series 1) (13 page)

"Sure, great idea. I guess dinner can wait a few minutes."

Jodie went inside the cabin, telling Bob what her plan was and grabbed a bottle of wine for the neighbor. Nick drove up the forest road about a mile and turned off where Jodie directed him. A small deserted-looking cabin sat before them.

"Doesn't look like anybody's home," Nick said.

"I'll go check. If he's not here, I'll leave a note about the truck. He's such a nice old guy, he won't mind," Jodie said. She walked up to the cabin and knocked several times. When there was no response, Jodie leaned over and peeked in the front window. The place appeared deserted. She went around the back to see if anyone was in the garden. It looked well tended, but there was no sign of her neighbor, so she left a note and the bottle of wine sitting by the front door. Nick and Jodie headed back to her cabin, watching Hunter run through the forest.

"So, Jodie, is your life always this exciting?"

Jodie laughed. "To tell you the truth, this isn't excitement to me. I'd rather sit in the woods and watch deer and butterflies. Now, that would be exciting." And very welcome at this point, Jodie thought. She felt unsettled in a way she didn't understand. Maybe it's just exhaustion, she told herself. But something was very strange. It was almost as if someone was watching them.

"I see your point. I love being out in the woods, watching all the wildlife," Nick said.

"What's your story, anyway? Why hasn't some Mountain City beauty grabbed you up and made an honest man of you? Not that you need another person to do that, but you seem like such a family man." Jodie hoped she hadn't said too much.

"Yeah, I know what you're talking about, but I never found the right girl."

Jodie noticed his face was starting to flush.

"I was kinda wondering, though, what do you think of Christy? I mean, not that she'd want a guy like me. But, God, those amazing green eyes with the little gold flecks are makin' me crazy."

Jodie smiled and felt comforted by the thought that some things never changed, regardless of the situation people found themselves in. "I don't know. I just met her, too. I understand her husband was killed in Iraq, so you might have some pretty big shoes to fill. Good news on that is, you've got amazingly large feet." Jodie was embarrassed at her lack of tact for a moment until Nick let loose with a hearty laugh.

The cabin was in sight. They continued walking, scanning the forest for any signs of something out of the ordinary, looking for movement. Under different circumstances, it would have been a wonderful day to spend in the woods. But today, Jodie found herself glancing back as she walked up to the front door of the cabin, wondering if she hadn't led them all into a trap. She paused on the porch and looked out into the dim light. "It’ll be getting dark in a few hours. After dinner, I have this feeling we better be ready for company."

Jodie wished she could turn off her thoughts. They shared a wonderful dinner, her first good meal in longer than she could remember. She glanced around at Nick and Christy sitting with Noah, Hunter begging for scraps, Leah and Bob laughing at the table, swapping recipes, and Mei sitting close to her on the couch, watching the fire. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought this was a celebration, a gathering of friends and family, like normal people had. It was years since she felt this kind of warmth from a group of people.

"Jodie … Jodie," Mei said, tapping gently on her shoulder. "You know, your phone is ringing."

"What? Uh ... oh, yeah. Thanks." Jodie took the call and excused herself, went into her bedroom and closed the door behind her. "What did you find out?" She waited as Isaiah went through the list of matching dental work and other evidence found on the body. She sat on the bed and felt the tension momentarily release from her body. "Thank you so much, Isaiah. Say, can you check on a few other things for me, kind of off the record?"

"Sure, I can do that. What do you need?" Isaiah said.

"There was a military facility up the mountain from my cabin. I was wondering if you could find out if it’s still being used and what for. We’ve got some strange concurring evidence from two separate sources pointing to that installation. Whatever you can find out would be great."

"Will do. Given we don't have to worry about Nelson any more, I can get on that right away. I’ll call you as soon as I have something. Give my regards to Bob, won’t you?"

"Sure. We’ll wait to hear from you." She walked over to Bob in the kitchen, where he was looking over maps with Leah. "Isaiah called. It was him."

Bob stood up and turned to Jodie. He pulled her toward him, putting his hands on her shoulders as the others in the group looked on. "One chapter closed, another begins," Bob said softly.

"What is it?" Mei asked.

"John Nelson, the serial killer Jodie was looking for, was verified dead," Bob said.

Jodie slowly pulled away, even though she really wanted someone to hold her right then. "I told Isaiah where we are and what's happening. The San Francisco field office is going to follow up with the State Police and see what they can find out about the coroner and the missing bodies. Isaiah is going to make a casual inquiry about the facility at the top of the mountain. He said he'd call us back when he finds out something."

"I take it we don’t need to worry about the psycho killer anymore, but who’s responsible for everything else?" Christy asked.

Good question, Jodie thought. She walked into the living room, wiped out, but energized at the same time from finally obtaining the closure she needed. Like Bob said, close one chapter and open the next, she thought. "Well, let's see. We've got three bodies. A man, the woman I found, and the coroner - and a missing family - Noah's friend, Tim, and his mom and dad. Technically, we don't know if the dad is missing because he supposedly went away on business. Is that right, Noah?"

Noah nodded. "His name is Fester, though."

"Right. Noah calls his friend Fester. Sorry, Noah. Fester was with Noah in the river and took a watch from a deceased man. He found numbers inscribed on the back. We've all agreed those numbers represent coordinates of an area northeast of here. Plus, the woman I hit on the forest road coming up here had the same coordinates. The coroner made notes of what condition she was in--" Jodie stopped mid-sentence, realizing she shouldn't describe the woman's condition in front of Noah. The same thing might be happening to Fester and his family. "Then, we've got a Gypsum Aeronautics business card. Taken by itself, it may not have any significance to the case whatsoever, but it was the only piece of evidence collected from the man in the river, other than the numbers on the watch. It's hard to say what else could have been gleaned off of the body. I guess we'll never know."

"What is Gypsum Aeronautics? Does anyone know?" Mei asked.

"All I know is my parents worked with them for years," Jodie said. "I recognized the logo from paperwork my father had when I was a little girl. So, obviously, they've been around a while now. I called my dad to ask him if they have an office around here. He said they did, but it's been closed for decades."

"I can look into them and see what I can find," Christy offered. "What kind of work did your parents do?"

Jodie was a bit embarrassed that the FBI couldn't provide more answers than an investigative reporter could. "They're aeronautical engineers. They worked on weapons guidance systems, the space shuttle program, and just about anything dealing with navigational components for space exploration. To be honest, I'm not really sure exactly what they did at Gypsum."

Bob stood up from the kitchen chair, stretching. "Christy, what does your research say about that military facility?"

"The little information I have shows it was built there in the 1950s, and was shut down and abandoned sometime in the early 1990s. You know, about the time the cold war era came to an end. From what I found, it was very, very expensive to construct. It likely reaches almost a mile down and is probably about five square miles wide, all underground. There are tunnels all over up there, extending out for miles."

"Good God. What would they have used something like that for?" Mei asked.

"I don't know, but there are theories that many of these installations or facilities, or whatever you want to call them, exist and they're all connected by a rail system that travels at Mach 2 or more. But, I want to make something clear. You might already know that information on the internet can steer you in a completely wrong direction. The military might have used that area for storage or maybe even mined materials out of it. Some underground areas were built to hide technology from satellite view, like the one under the Nevada Test Site. You know, next to Area 51?" Christy added.

The entire group stared at Christy. "I think everybody knows experimental aircraft were hidden in above ground storage buildings at Area 51, but I had no idea there were tunnels," Leah said. "I don't understand. How come this isn't public knowledge? Why is it that only you know about it?"

"That's not entirely true. This information is public and accessible in many forms. You just have to piece it together. Some documents are declassified, but so much text has been redacted that you can't figure out what it was or where it came from. Other documents are released on a staggered schedule, so that you'll never have enough of the full story in your lifetime to figure it out. Much of what people think they know about these underground areas is conjecture, but I can tell you they're very valuable facilities. So much so, that the U.S. government sold some of the smaller installations in the past decade to reduce the military budget. Some of the smaller ones were purchased by survivalists, others by large corporations. For what reason? Who knows."

"Well, Christy, that's very enlightening," Jodie said, sighing, wondering if the information they had would ever explain what was happening to them. "What you're telling us is, if this installation is still being used, it will be for classified reasons and we'll likely be very unwelcome. If it's not in use, we'll probably come to a dead end."

"That's about it, in a nutshell. But, given we've got two missing bodies, each of which had the coordinates of this facility, I think it's likely they're still in business," Christy said.

Noah got up to use the bathroom. After he closed the door behind him, Christy said, "There are some things in this discussion I don't want him to hear. He's so upset about Tim and his family. Please be discreet when he's around, okay, everyone?"

"Sure. Of course," Jodie said. "He seems like such a little adult, I think we all forget what he's been dealing with. Let's keep going while he's out of the room. Then, there's the car with the tinted windows. It followed us earlier on the way to the coroner’s office. When I arrived at Christy's house, the same car was already there. You remember, Christy, the one you thought I ordered for protection?" Christy nodded. "I don’t know if we're safe on our own and I don’t trust Wending. He was the only person who knew exactly where I was going when I went to see Christy and Noah. So, whoever was in that car was there for me or for some other reason we don't understand yet. Either way, we can't prove the person in that car was a danger to us, but there's too much going on here to second guess that hunch."

"By saying some other reason, you mean Noah, don't you? Now you’re really scaring me. I’m glad you called your field office for help. I've also got a really bad feeling about what might have happened if you hadn't brought us here," Christy said. Nick walked over and put his hand on her shoulder.

"Christy, like we discussed, we don't know what, or even, if, anything will be up there on the mountain. While I prefer to take all precautions, it might just be a coincidence that we saw that strange car twice in the same day. We need to be vigilant and wait for news from Isaiah to sort out things."

"So, your theory, if I understand it correctly, is whoever took the bodies was trying to hide evidence that this facility still exists," Bob said. "No one knew Fester took the watch, except his parents, who are now missing, and Noah. Jodie, only you, Isaiah and me knew that Wending took evidence from the coroner's office. Then, there's the coroner. He was likely killed because he found some sort of evidence on the bodies. Maybe something more than the coordinates. And there are three of us who have radiation burns who are now evidence of something. Leah got it the worst, but, presumably, never came into contact with anything other than her cousin's shoe. Noah was exposed to the man in the river and actually touched him, yet his burns aren't as bad as Leah's. Jodie briefly touched the woman she hit and is the least affected. None of that makes any sense to me."

That makes two of us, Jodie thought. "Now that I hear you say it out loud, it seems more likely that Wending could be completely in the dark about what's happening," Jodie said. "He wouldn't have given me access to the evidence bags if he knew what the numbers meant. At the moment, he's got the State Police and God knows who else involved. They might all be up there already, for all we know."

Christy's face was reddening. "I know I don't have to tell you this, but we sure haven't gotten any help out of Wending."

"I just hope Isaiah can give us some answers soon," Jodie said. The amount of information required to get the answers they needed was mounting to an extreme level.

"So, what you're saying is that people who came into contact with the two dead bodies seem to be mysteriously disappearing or dying," Mei said.

"Who's Isaiah?" Noah asked, appearing out of the hallway.

"Noah, you've been eavesdropping this entire time, haven't you?" Christy said. "Honey, you shouldn't be thinking about that, but it seems there's no way to keep you out of this conversation, is there?"

Noah shook his head.

"I don't know if it's a good idea for you to be involved in figuring this out, but maybe you're more grown up than I like to give you credit for. If you're going to join us, you have to talk to me if you're scared about something. Deal?"

Noah nodded. "Should Isaiah be scared too? He knows about the numbers," Noah said.

Everyone remained quiet for a moment. Jodie wondered why she hadn't thought of the same thing. Isaiah could be in danger, too, even though he was back at the Bureau in San Francisco. Obviously, the pace of events over the past few days and the lack of sleep were taking their toll on her.

"Isaiah works with me and Jodie at the FBI," Bob said. "Say, Jodie, just for kicks, I'm gonna go in the other room and give Isaiah a call and see if he's made any progress on finding out anything for us."

Jodie nodded, knowing Bob was going to warn Isaiah of the potential danger. "There's something we all need to discuss," she said, walking over to the table and sitting down. "I'm not sure why we're in this situation or even what it is. Bob and I brought you here because we needed to compare our notes, but I'm not sure what the safest place for any of us would be right now. You all have a decision to make. If you'd like to get out of here, we'll help you go wherever you want, but you need to realize that the Bureau has divorced itself any involvement and I don't think we can trust local law enforcement. Even if we could, their capabilities might not be adequate to deal with what we're talking about. Military issues are beyond the scope of the FBI. I need to know your thoughts on this."

"But we need to find Fester," Noah said.

Jodie noticed fear on his face for the first time. She knew it wasn't for himself, though. It was for his friend.

"I couldn't keep him away if I tried," Christy said.

"I'm in, Jodie. I want to know what happened to me. And, maybe I'll find out what happened to Kari, too. Who knows what it will take, but I'm in," Leah said.

"We're not going anywhere," Nick said. He looked over at Mei, who nodded in approval.

"I just want you to understand if you want to get out now, we'll try to make whatever case we can with the Bureau to protect you," Jodie said, still wondering what the right decision was. She was starting to think they would be in danger no matter what path they decided to take. There was no clear direction to move in.

"How long would that take? Fester's already been gone for two days," Noah said.