Wild Sign (Alpha & Omega #6)(43)

Eventually a deliberately mellow voice came on the line. “Ms. Cornick, this is Dr. Sheldon Underwood. Letty tells me that you are calling about Daniel Green?”

“That’s right,” Anna said. “Look, we were going through Carrie’s papers and found a check—” It had been enough to buy a new car.

“Has something happened to Carrie?” he interrupted, losing the mellow tones.

“We don’t know.” Anna managed to make her voice sound weary. “That’s what we are trying to find out. But no one has heard from her since this spring, and you know she lived out in the middle of nowhere. We can’t find her.”

There was a long pause. “Daniel is—well, if you are a member of the family, Daniel has good days and bad. But they were very close; she came here every month to spend time with him. We were concerned when she stopped. It is possible that she told him something. He told us, you see, that Carrie wasn’t going to be coming around anymore. He might tell you more.”

She opened her mouth to refuse—Daniel Green would know that she wasn’t related to him. But Dr. Underwood had continued speaking.

“Daniel’s memory isn’t good, and some days he doesn’t know anyone. But if you come in the morning on a good day, he’s very nearly himself.”

“I can come tomorrow,” Anna said. “I’ll bring the check. What time in the morning, do you think?”

“Tomorrow won’t work,” the doctor said firmly. “He’s having a procedure in the morning. Perhaps the day after?”

She hung up the phone having confirmed a time.

Tag said, “So why are we visiting an old man with a faulty memory?”

Charles replied before Anna could. “Because witchborn is a genetic condition. If, as we suppose, Wild Sign was a witch colony, then there is a chance that Daniel Green is also a witch. He might be able to tell us more about Wild Sign—and possibly what happened there.”

“He knew that Carrie— Do you suppose she was his daughter? Anyway, he knew that Carrie would not be visiting him anymore,” Anna said. “Maybe he knows why not.”

They were packing up the camp for a quick departure in the morning when Anna’s phone rang.

“This is Dr. Connors,” said a woman’s voice.

“Anna Cornick,” Anna returned. “We have some letters—”

“So you said,” interrupted Dr. Connors. “Who are you and what were you doing at Wild Sign?”

“Wild Sign was located on property owned by my family, Dr. Connors,” Anna said.

There was a little pause.

“Fair enough,” she said. “What was in the letters?”

“We have no idea,” Anna told her. “They were in code.”

“You did open them,” Dr. Connors said coolly.

“Your father and his friends built a town on my family’s land,” Anna said, her voice neutral. “Then they all disappeared—without reappearing anywhere else that the FBI can find them. Yes, we opened letters we found in a bag that had been discarded by the side of the trail.”

“Letters,” said Dr. Connors, and for the first time Anna heard something other than rigid self-control.

“Two from a woman named Carrie Green, both of them payments. Six from your father to you, dated sequentially from April fourteenth through the nineteenth. We didn’t try to break the code, but they seem to be identical letters.”

“I see.”

Anna said, “Look, we are going to be down here for a couple more days. When I get home, I can scan the letters and email them to you. Or you can give me an address and I’ll send them to you.”

“You are looking for them, too, aren’t you?” Her tone made it not a question. Dr. Connors gave a sigh. “I am staying in Happy Camp for the time being. Assuming you are still nearby, I can drive to wherever you are—or you can come here.”

Happy Camp, Anna remembered, was the town nearest to Wild Sign. They hadn’t driven through it on the way from Yreka, so it was presumably located farther down the highway.

“We’re camping tonight,” Anna said. “We can drive to Happy Camp tomorrow if that’s convenient?” She glanced at Charles to double-check and he nodded.

“Is there something other than my father’s letters you wish to talk about?” Dr. Connors asked.

What Anna could tell Dr. Connors really depended upon a lot of things that she wouldn’t know until they met face-to-face.

“Maybe,” Anna said. “Let’s meet and”—she chose Charles’s phrase—“we can play it by ear.”

“Fine,” Dr. Connors said. “Call me when you get to town.” And she disconnected without further ado.

“Hardball player, that one,” murmured Tag approvingly.



* * *



*

CHARLES FELT EDGY, uncomfortable in his skin. He had to work not to pace. Anna had tightened their mate bond back down when she realized that her inner turmoil was affecting Charles. He’d allowed it because she had enough to deal with without also brushing up against his agitation. She didn’t need to know that blocking the easy flow of emotional communication only allowed him to hide his own struggles more effectively. Let her believe she was helping him.