Chapter 8 #2
Of course it wasn’t…for her. This was just another case of the residents of Silver Hollow sticking together.
As far as she knew, there hadn’t been anything criminal or supernatural about Victor Maplehurst’s death.
It was just another commonplace tragedy, the sort of bolt out of the blue that could strike a person anywhere or anytime.
I knew better, though. There had been absolutely nothing natural about the man’s death…and I had to make sure the FBI never learned the truth about what had really happened to him.
Even before the kiss, Ben and I had made plans for him to come over for dinner that Friday night.
A real dinner, too, not just takeout or leftovers from the stash my grandmother had left behind in the freezer.
Chicken paprikash from a recipe I’d gotten from my mother, and rice and salad and red velvet cake for dessert.
All right, I didn’t make the cake, had instead picked it up from the bakery on my way home from work, but still, that was a lot more cooking than I usually did.
In a way, I was glad of the work, glad I could find something to distract myself.
During the process of making the food, the electricity glitched again, long enough that I started to wonder if it was going to come back on at all, but luckily, the oven was gas, and that part of the process didn’t get interrupted.
Just as I was about to grab my phone and check the Pacific Gas & Electric outage map — Silver Hollow had its own municipal system but connected to PG&E’s grid — everything came back on, the oven clock blinking again.
Right then, I wondered if I should bother resetting it.
However, habit wore out, even as I couldn’t stop myself from wondering what this more extended outage meant.
I still couldn’t help thinking it had something to do with the Ogham symbols we’d seen in the forest, although I didn’t think I could have cogently explained why.
Like everything else that had been going on around here, a lot of this didn’t seem to make much sense at all.
Hopefully, Ben would be able to shed some light on the situation.
We hadn’t talked much today, mostly because he’d driven into Eureka to run some errands and make use of the much larger public library there.
Although I’d thought he should be able to do most of his research online, he’d only told me there were still some things it was better to investigate in person.
But he’d be at the house in a few minutes, and I knew I had to content myself with that. Funny how I found myself craving his presence after only a couple of kisses.
Actually, scratch that. I’d already wanted to be around him as much as possible, although I’d managed to convince myself that was mostly because he was the only person in my life who knew the entirety of what was going on in Silver Hollow, the only one I could really talk to about all this stuff.
I knew it was much more than that, however.
Ben knocked at the door just as I was pulling the casserole dish of paprikash out of the oven. I set it down on the stovetop and hurried over to let him in.
“Did you get that last one?” he asked without bothering with a greeting, although he did bend down to press a kiss against my cheek.
“The outage?” I replied, and he nodded.
“I think that was the worst yet.”
“I got that impression, too,” I said. “But we can talk about that in a minute. Could you open the wine while I bring in the food? The bottle’s already on the table.”
“Sure.”
He headed into the dining room while I went to the kitchen to fetch the paprikash and then the salad and rice and the basket of dinner rolls, also a purchase from the bakery.
“This looks amazing,” Ben said as he pulled the cork from the wine, a Hungarian Bull’s Blood that I’d gotten from the BevMo in Eureka. “When did you have the time to put all this together?”
“It wasn’t as hard as it looks,” I told him, then sat down in my chair. “But I figured it was Friday night, so what the heck.”
He smiled, then poured wine into my glass and into his before he took a seat at the head of the table. “Then let’s drink to Friday night paprikash.”
We clinked glasses and each had a sip. The wine was wonderful, dark and rich, bold enough to stand up to the heavily paprika-laden dish. A minute or so went by as we helped ourselves to the various goodies and had a few bites.
But then Ben set down his fork and sent me a serious look. “This latest outage…it’s not good.”
“I kind of figured that,” I replied. “What do you think is going on?”
“I don’t know for sure,” he said. “I talked to Marjorie today and she said the energy fluctuations still seemed erratic, but obviously, none of them was big enough to cause any real trouble.”
“Until six o’clock tonight.”
“Right.”
Expression still sober, he cut off a piece of chicken and put it in his mouth. Clearly, while he might have been worried about all the various weirdnesses happening in and around Silver Hollow, they weren’t enough to prevent him from enjoying his meal.
“Did you know there are federal agents here asking about Victor Maplehurst?” I said abruptly, and Ben set down his fork.
“What?”
Briefly, I told him about Tory’s visit to the pet store and the information she’d passed along. “It’s weird, right?”
Ben’s brows drew together, and I could tell he wasn’t very happy to hear about any of this. “Very weird. And hearing this, now I’m worried that the electromagnetic anomalies Marjorie Tran found are being picked up by instruments way beyond Silver Hollow.”
I didn’t like the sound of that at all. “Do you think that’s why they’re here? Some of the government’s scientists realized something strange was going on, and they sent their agents to investigate?”
“That makes as much sense as anything else,” Ben replied. “Although I’m not sure why they would connect the electromagnetic anomalies to Victor Maplehurst’s death. On the surface, they don’t seem related at all.”
No, they didn’t. “Maybe,” I said slowly, wishing right then I had the late Lou Whitaker’s penchant for watching police procedurals.
Possibly then I’d have a better feel for why the FBI would think the two things were related.
“Maybe a second autopsy, one we don’t know about, picked up something strange in his cell tissues.
Or maybe evidence of the goring by the unicorn turned up after all? ”
Problem was, I could go around and around in my head and still not get any closer to the real truth.
Ben didn’t look too thrilled with either of these possibilities.
“If they did a second autopsy, one by a private doctor rather than by the county medical examiner, then there’s no chance we’d ever learn what they found.
But I know this sort of thing can happen, especially if a family isn’t satisfied with the results of the first examination. ”
And certainly Victor Maplehurst’s widow would have the means and the connections to make something like that happen.
“If that’s really what’s going on, then this isn’t good,” I said. “You need to warn Marjorie to stay away from anyone in a suit. In fact, it might be better if you asked her to go back to Davis now.”
This suggestion was met with a pair of lifted brows and a curl of Ben’s lip. “Have you ever tried to tell Marjorie Tran to do something she didn’t want to do?”
Considering I’d never even met the woman, no, I hadn’t. “Stubborn?”
“More like single-minded. She’s found something here she can’t explain, and she’s determined to get to the bottom of it.”
That was just great. Although I supposed I should be glad of her focused dedication to the pursuit of science, the last thing I wanted was for her to spill the beans to the feds about the true extent of the anomalies affecting Silver Hollow and its environs.
“Okay, so you probably won’t be able to get her to leave before Sunday,” I said. “But can you at least warn her about the feds? Maybe spook her by saying they’ll try to take over the investigation if she tells them what’s going on?”
Ben’s hazel eyes glinted with amusement. “That angle could work. Let me send her a text.”
He extracted his cell phone from the pocket of his jeans, rapidly typed in a message, and then set the phone down on the tabletop near his place setting. “Okay, she’s been warned. Here’s hoping she takes it seriously.”
I nodded, and just as he was about to pick up his fork and return to his meal, the phone pinged.
“She says ‘duly noted,’” Ben told me after a quick look at the screen. “Which I suppose can mean anything, but I suppose we have to hope she’ll take the situation seriously enough to try to maintain a low profile.”
About all I could say was, “Yes, here’s hoping.”
We went ahead and finished our dinner, and I got out the red velvet cake for dessert.
Once we were full and knew we couldn’t eat another bite, Ben helped me clear the dirty plates and store the leftovers in the fridge.
Just as I was done filling the empty casserole dish with hot water and some soap, the lights flickered again.
Ben glanced upward and frowned. “The outages don’t usually happen this close together, right?”
“Not usually,” I replied, worry rising in me again, sharp and uncomfortable. “What does it mean?”
“I don’t know,” he said. He came closer, and I went gratefully into his arms, glad to lose myself for a few minutes in the strength of his embrace and the delicious taste of his mouth.
How had I denied myself this for so long?
Because you’re an idiot, I told myself.
Maybe so, but at least we were together now. Even with FBI agents crawling around Silver Hollow and the electrical disturbances apparently increasing, I still felt utterly at home in those arms, safe and comforted.
Whatever happened next, we’d deal with it.
…mostly because we didn’t have any other choice.