The Vanishing Stair (Truly Devious #2)
Jayne Ann Krentz
To Frank, as always, with love.
CHAPTER 1
Fogg Lake, fifteen years earlier …
Catalina Lark saw the murder take place about four seconds before it happened. Maybe five seconds. She was still getting used to the ominous visions. They always caught her off guard.
She’d had flashes of bizarre scenes for the past couple of years, but a few months ago, shortly after her sixteenth birthday, they had started occurring more frequently. She was trying to convince herself that the visions were merely hallucinations. Tonight, at least, she had a reasonable explanation for the murky vision. She and her best friend, Olivia LeClair, were deep inside the vast cave system surrounding Fogg Lake. Everyone in town knew that those who went into the Fogg Lake caverns often experienced hallucinations and other inexplicable sensations. That was, of course, why every self-respecting teen in the small community made it a point to sneak out of the house and spend a night in the caves at least once before graduating from the one-room high school. The adults didn’t approve, but Catalina had heard some of them refer to it as a local “rite of passage.” Most of them had done the same thing when they were in their teens.
Tonight was the night that she and Olivia had decided to brave the caves. They had brought sleeping bags, a camp lantern and a couple of flashlights. Their day packs were crammed with bottled water and snacks. An underground river ran through the caves, surfacing in various caverns before it vanished again into the rocky depths. The water was clear and safe to drink, but it was dangerous to get too close to the edge. The wet, slippery rocks were treacherous and the current in the river was strong.
They had heard the two men arrive just as they were trying to decide where to set up camp.
The sounds of footsteps and low voices had echoed in the underground labyrinth. She and Olivia had turned off the camp lantern, grabbed their sleeping bags and rushed to hide in one of the many side tunnels.
They had been startled when the two men—strangers—showed up with a camp lantern and a large black case.
The small community of Fogg Lake didn’t get a lot of visitors, nor did it welcome the few who did manage to find their way into town. Most kids are taught to be wary of strangers, but in Fogg Lake, parents took that instruction to extremes. Catalina and Olivia had been raised with a degree of caution that bordered on paranoia, which was why it did not occur to either of them to reveal their presence to the two men. Instead, acting on their ingrained training, they had retreated deeper into the narrow side tunnel. Once safely concealed in the darkness, they had gone very still, hardly daring to breathe. Like baby rabbits confronted by a snake, Catalina thought. The analogy was annoying.
The two men had not quarreled. There had been no demands, no violent threats; just some tense, muffled conversation. The shorter of the pair was middle-aged and a little overweight. He wore black-framed glasses and looked like an engineer or a scientist.
His companion was younger—midtwenties, Catalina decided—lean and fit. His head was shaved. He was the one who had carried the black case into the cavern.
Both men were dressed for a trek in the woods.
A short time ago the man with the glasses had opened the case and removed what appeared to be a sophisticated lab instrument. Catalina could have told him he was wasting his time. Computers, cell phones and other high-tech devices did not work well in the vicinity of Fogg Lake, if they worked at all.
The man with the glasses was clearly frustrated by whatever he saw on the screen of his fancy instrument. He leaned over the device to tap some keys. That was when Catalina got a dark vision of Shaved Head reaching into a zippered pocket on the side of his pack. She saw him take out a syringe, yank off the plastic cap and plunge the needle into the other man’s neck.
Catalina was still struggling with the vision when reality struck, disorienting and shocking all her senses.
Shaved Head took the syringe out of his pack, removed the cap and stabbed the needle into his companion’s neck.
The doomed man cried out and sank to his knees. His aura weakened rapidly. He gazed up at his assailant in disbelief and confusion.
“What?” he managed. Then understanding descended. “You stupid bastard. You don’t understand how my invention works. It’s tuned to my frequencies and only mine. I’m the only one who can activate it. You’ll never find what you’re looking for without me.”
The killer waited. His aura did not blaze with rage or with the spikes that indicated mental instability. The energy around him was hot but all Catalina could detect was satisfaction and maybe a sense of anticipation. She wasn’t sure of her reading, though. Olivia was better at interpreting auras.
The man who had set up the odd instrument grunted and col-lapsed on the floor of the cavern. Shaved Head crouched beside him and began to search the dying man’s pockets.
“Why?” the victim managed in a voice that was thick with the effects of whatever had been in the syringe.
“You served your purpose,” the killer said. “You’re no longer needed.”
“Stupid, stupid fool,” the victim muttered.
In the next second his failing aura sputtered and died.
Catalina blinked a few times in a desperate attempt to suppress the images—she was getting better at it, even though the visions were becoming stronger—but the horrible scene did not disappear. The man who had fallen to the floor of the cavern was very real and very dead. His attacker casually checked for a pulse.