The Vanishing Stair (Truly Devious #2)(51)

“I know,” Slater said. “Nice, quiet little town you’ve got here. But sometimes stuff happens, even in places like Fogg Lake.”

Bev ignored him to focus on Catalina. “What brings you and your friend to Fogg Lake?”

There was no point in trying to conceal the reasons she and Slater were in town, Catalina thought. There were few, if any, secrets in the small, closely knit community.

“Something has happened to Olivia LeClair,” she said.

“What?” Bev looked appropriately shocked. “Is she ill? Hurt?”

“We have reason to believe that she’s been kidnapped,” Catalina said. “I’ve asked Slater to help me investigate.”

“This is horrible news,” Bev said. She darted a quick glance at Slater. “I suppose that does explain why you’re here.”

Slater slanted a veiled glance at Catalina. “Yes, ma’am.”

Bev turned back to Catalina. “Olivia doesn’t have any family left here in town. She’s not rich. Why on earth would someone kidnap her?”

Slater rested one hand on Catalina’s shoulder. “This looks like it goes back to that murder Olivia and Catalina witnessed in the caves.”

Bev stared at him. “But that makes no sense. There was no murder. Everyone agreed that the girls experienced some sort of hallucination. All that old energy in the caves, you know. People who spend a lot of time in there often see and experience strange things.”

“We are going to try to verify whether or not someone died in the cave fifteen years ago,” Slater said. “If we can come up with a lead, it may help us find Olivia.”

“This is just so awful,” Bev said, stricken. “We never have any crime here in Fogg Lake. Are you absolutely certain Olivia was kidnapped?”

“Yes,” Catalina said.

“Has there been a ransom demand?” Bev asked.

“No,” Slater said.

“Then how can you be sure?” Bev shot back.

“We’re sure,” Slater said. “Now, if you don’t mind, Catalina and I need to get to work. Time is critical in a kidnapping case.”

“Yes, I understand,” Bev said. “Will you be going into the caves?”

“That’s one of the reasons we’re here,” Catalina said.

Bev started to retreat back down the front steps. She paused, glancing from Catalina to Slater and back again.

“Then the two of you are not … a couple?” she asked.

It was clear she was trying to be diplomatic, but a blunt question was a blunt question.

“We are a couple,” Catalina said. She did not have to be psychic to know that Slater had gone very still. She smiled at Bev. “A couple of investigators working a case together.”

“A couple of investigators?” Bev nodded quickly. “I see. Well, then, I’d better let you two get to work.”

Bev hurried down the steps and walked briskly toward the center of town, a few short blocks away.

Slater closed the door and looked at Catalina.

“A couple of investigators?” he said.

“It was the best I could come up with on the spur of the moment. It has the benefit of being true, not that it matters.”

“It doesn’t?”

“Nope.”

“You don’t think they’ll believe we’re just colleagues working a case?”

“Oh, I’m sure they’ll believe that part.” Catalina hefted the picnic hamper and turned to go back to the kitchen. “But they’ll leap to other conclusions about our relationship.”

Slater followed her into the kitchen. “What kind of conclusions?”

“In small towns, two people sharing space in the same house equals a couple.”

“Is that a problem for you?”

“No. What happens in Fogg Lake stays in Fogg Lake. Unlike, say, Las Vegas.”

“About yesterday.”

She froze for a split second and then very deliberately took an egg out of the hamper and cracked it into a bowl.

“Nothing happened yesterday,” she said. “Aside from the fact that someone tried to kill you and kidnap me, that is.”

“Something very important did happen for me,” he said evenly. “I’ve spent the past several months wondering what that radiation had done to me. Yesterday in Royston’s safe house I got the answer.”

She picked up another egg. “This is about the icer thing?”

Slater crossed the small space to stand directly in front of her. “A lot of people who understand just what that means would panic if they knew exactly what I have become.”

She cracked the egg into the bowl. “Maybe later. I’m a little busy at the moment.”

Energy whispered in the atmosphere.

“I’m trying to thank you for taking my new talent in stride,” he said. “For acting as if I’m normal, or as close to normal as people like us get. You are making this a lot harder than it should be.”

She turned to face him. “Neither one of us qualifies as normal, but neither one of us is crazy. Neither one of us is a blank. Neither one of us is a monster. What’s more, we are both in control of our talents. There is no need to thank me for affirming that state of affairs. I’m sure that in time you would have figured it out on your own.”