The Yanti Read online

  “No one cleaned up anything. It was just gone.”

  Cindy shook her head, confused. “Are you saying that witch cannot only alter the way people see her? She can make her house change shape?”

  Ali considered. “It might be that nothing in the house has been altered—except our perception of it.”

  “Did she cast a spell on the police who went out to the house?”

  “Maybe. We’re not even sure if she was there.”

  “She must have been there. How was she able to cast a spell on you?”

  The remark almost sounded like an accusation, and frankly, Ali didn’t blame Cindy. Since returning from the elemental kingdom, Ali had done her best to keep her name unconnected to the events at Sheri Smith’s house. Her reasoning was simple—she had bigger fish to fry. Like saving the world. In a sense she was forcing Cindy to take all the heat.

  Now Ali could see why Sheri Smith was determined to draw her into a legal battle. She tried to explain the woman’s motives to her friend.

  “Smith’s not interested in you. She wants to tie me up with the cops so I don’t have time to return to the elemental kingdom.”

  Cindy got tense. “You’re going back? I didn’t know that.”

  “We haven’t had a chance to talk. Listen, at this meeting, you have to keep things simple, like you did before. Say that Sheri Smith invited you to lunch—you and Steve—then put bags over your heads and tied you up and threw you in a room that you thought was a basement. Then explain how she killed Steve—how she stabbed him in the heart. Don’t expand on the story. The more you talk, the more details you supply them with, the more ammunition they’ll have to trip you up with.”

  The advice made Cindy uneasy. “But it was Karl who stabbed Steve.”

  “I told you, Karl cannot be brought into this. That’s exactly what Sheri Smith wants. She’s trying to muddy the water. When it comes to Steve, she should be on the defensive. I mean, she’s being accused of murder. That’s not a small thing. But already she’s put us on the defensive by focusing the police on the fact that Karl disappeared last month while he was camping in the woods with us.”

  “You don’t know that for sure,” Cindy said.

  “I spoke to Garten. It was obvious he’s using what happened in Toule to tie us to Karl’s disappearance.” Ali added, “He went out of his way to tell me Sheri Smith was going to be at the meeting.”

  Cindy paled. “She’s coming here? To Breakwater?”

  “Yes.”

  “Doesn’t that worry you?”

  “Well. . .”

  “But she murdered Steve! Why don’t they arrest her?”

  Ali shook her head. “Right now, it’s your word against hers.”

  The information that she would be seeing Sheri Smith again in a few hours shook Cindy. “I can’t be in the same room as that woman,” she muttered.

  Ali tried to soothe her. “I’ll be beside you the whole time, and there’ll be plenty of cops standing guard. I’m sure she won’t try to physically harm us.”

  “After what you said about her house, it sounds to me like she could cut out our hearts and eat them and the police wouldn’t even notice.” Cindy added anxiously, “Maybe we should just tell the truth.”

  Ali had been afraid she would say that. “Exactly how much of the truth do you think we can tell?”

  Cindy wouldn’t meet her eyes. “I’m not saying you have to say that you’re a fairy. But it would be easier if you could back me up some.”

  “How?”

  “Well, tell them you rescued me from Karl.”

  “Then they’ll want to know where Karl is.”

  “Tell them you don’t know.”

  “Somehow I don’t think that will go over very well.”

  Cindy glanced up, hesitated. “Where did you . . . put him?”

  “It doesn’t matter, no one’s going to find him. And I’m never going to admit to killing him, nor are you going to talk about him. I hate to be so hard on this point, but we have to keep our stories straight here. Karl’s dead but he can still put us both in jail.” Ali paused. “Do you understand?”

  There was a lengthy silence. There were no two ways about it, Ali was giving Cindy an order. However, Cindy glanced over at Nira, then straightened up and nodded. Ali heard the resolve in her voice.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t give you away,” Cindy said.

  Ali hugged her. “With all this running around I’ve been doing—flying around—I haven’t had a chance to tell you how brave you and Steve were, going after that witch. If it wasn’t for what you guys did . . .”

  “Steve would still be alive,” Cindy interrupted.

  “No.” Ali hugged her harder, then took a step back, brushing Cindy’s curls from her weary blue eyes. “You mustn’t think that way. Remember, it was Steve, using Karl’s computer, who first connected Smith to the Shaktra. He read all her e-mails to Karl. He knew what a monster she was. He knew the risk he was taking by going after her, but he did it anyway. That might sound melodramatic, but it’s the truth. Steve didn’t die in vain. You didn’t suffer at the hands of that witch for nothing. Finally, she’s been exposed for what she really is, and she’s worried. That’s why she’s moving so fast on the legal front, trying to corner us. But she’s got problems on her own end.”

  Cindy looked at her hopefully. “What kind of problems?”

  “Before you were taken captive, you guys had a long talk with Hector, and you revealed your suspicions about Smith. You also told him you were going to have lunch with her the next day, and then, by coincidence, you guys disappeared. Toule’s almost as tiny as Breakwater. He must have heard about your disappearance, it must have troubled him.” Ali added, “That’s one of the reasons I want you to call him right now.”

  “At six in the morning? Are you out of your mind? I hardly know him. Why am I calling him?”

  “To tell him that Sheri Smith killed Steve. Also, tell him you managed to escape from the witch’s dungeon, and that you have Nira with you.”

  “Ali . . .”

  “Listen. Hector’s ex-girlfriend, Patricia, used to babysit Nira, before she was mysteriously killed by what looked like the same SUV that killed Freddy Degear. You and Steve used that coincidence to get in his door, remember? But now you have lots more to tell him about Sheri Smith, and he’ll want to hear it.”

  “How do you know?” Cindy asked.

  “Because he hates her. I heard it in his voice.”

  “You’ve never even spoken to him.”

  “I heard it in your brain.” Ali added, “Trust me, that’s why you have to get him over here.”

  “I told you, Hector hardly knows me. He’s not going to drive over here just because I ask him to.”

  “He will when you tell him that you’re afraid to let Nira go back to Sheri Smith.”

  “Why do you say that? She’s her mother.”

  “When he spoke to you about Nira, his face brightened, didn’t it?”

  “Maybe, sort of, I don’t know. That still doesn’t mean he’s going to drive over here to see her at the drop of a hat.”

  “He has to come. I need him.”

  “What for?”

  “To take care of Nira while we’re at the police station.”

  “The man builds houses for a living. He’s not a nanny.”

  Ali pointed to the phone. “When I scanned your memories, I saw that you and Steve got his number from information. He’s listed. Get his number again, and call him and explain the situation. I think he’ll agree to help with Nira.”

  “But how do you know this?” Cindy insisted.

  “I don’t know it for sure. But . . . think of it as a test.”

  “What kind of test?”

  “A test of his devotion to Nira.”

  “I think you scanned your fish in your fish tank—their brains, not mine—when you had me in your bedroom.”

  “You would be amazed at what I saw.”

  Cindy gave her
a look. “Even if he does agree to come—when he gets here—I won’t be here. I’ll be at home, and then I’ll be at the police station.”

  “It doesn’t matter, he’s coming for Nira.” Ali added, “Plus I need to talk to him.”

  “About what?”

  “Many things,” Ali said.

  In the end, Cindy agreed to call Hector Wells. She was on the phone two minutes with the contractor before she set down the phone and nodded—bewildered—in Ali’s direction. It appeared Hector was driving to Breakwater to help with Nira.

  Before Cindy left, she told Ali she would be the one to call Steve’s parents and tell them—without question—that their son was dead. Ali protested, said to her friend that it was too much to ask. But, with a tear in her eye, Cindy insisted.

  “It should be me. I was there when he died,” Cindy said.

  CHAPTER

  4

  Breakwater’s police station was located at the far end of the town’s Main Street, near Harry’s Haircuts. The latter spot was significant to Ali because just before entering the elemental kingdom, she had bumped into an odd customer sitting in Harry Idaho’s place of business. At the time, Harry had been asleep in one of his chairs—which was strange since Harry was not known for sleeping on the job—and the customer had been sitting in the rear of the place waiting for Harry to wake up and give him a haircut.

  The old guy certainly needed one. His hair and beard were so long and white, he looked like a wizard. Extremely thin, almost to the point of emaciation, he had cold blue eyes that appeared to see right through her—once they started talking. Plus he wore long white gloves, which he explained he needed to protect his hands.

  “I don’t wear them to keep warm or cool. No, I hurt my hands some time ago, burned them actually. Now I have to wear these to keep away infections.”

  The man said his name was Shane Bumpston, and they were not talking long when he brought up a gentleman Ali had healed from a serious injury not long after she had learned she was a fairy—a certain Ted Wilson. The reference was strange because Ali had healed Ted while he was unconscious—even Ted had not known who had helped him. But Shane Bumpston seemed to know all about her abilities.

  Then, out of the blue, he asked to see her Yanti.

  “I see the string. You must be wearing . . . something. Please, Ali, let me see it.”

  When she said no, and asked for some type of identification, he got angry and vanished—in a blinding flash of light, that literally knocked her to the floor. Later, when she came to understand Sheri Smith’s ability to hide her scarred figure, she assumed the wizard was Ms. Smith in disguise. Yet she was never a hundred percent sure of the fact.

  But as Ali neared the police station, on foot, it reassured her to think that she had survived at least one encounter with the witch. Also, her talk with Hector Wells had given her what she felt was ammunition she could use against the woman. Right now, Hector was fixing Nira breakfast.

  Hector had been everything she hoped for and more.

  It relaxed Ali to know Nira was in safe hands.

  Nevertheless, her heart continued to pound in her chest.

  Only minutes now . . . and she would be face-to-face with the enemy.

  The police station was as tiny as the town. The building housed only three law enforcement officers: Sheriff Terry Mackey, Deputy Brent Houser, and Deputy Mike Garten. Not so long ago the structure had been a meeting place for the Women’s Club, but it had been converted into the station when the aforementioned club’s membership had shrunk to less than five members. Apparently the ladies of Breakwater had better things to do than sit around, play bridge, drink coffee, and gossip.

  Yet the building’s conversion had been poorly executed. It was a local joke that anyone locked in the station’s jail cell could escape by standing on a chair and forcing open a rear window. Walking toward the station, Ali hoped she would not have to leave the place through that same window. There was always the possibility that Garten would try to arrest her for something. She really should try to be nicer to him, she told herself. At least for an hour.

  Ali was fifteen minutes early and was surprised to see only one person present, standing outside the station. It was Mike Havor, the most unlikely of all candidates, she thought, to be early. He worked as a software designer for Sheri Smith’s company, and he was totally blind. He stood alone near the south corner of the redbrick building, with his white cane in hand, his dark sunglasses on his pale face, his dark wavy hair badly combed. He couldn’t have been more than thirty.

  Recalling his gentle smile and kind manner, Ali was pleased to see him, although puzzled at his lack of an escort. She could only assume he had arrived on the bus. There was a bus stop ten feet from where he stood.

  Ali had enjoyed the time they had spent talking in his office in Toule, arguing about the different direction they imagined mankind was heading in. Havor believed that human beings—to survive as a species—had to radically improve themselves by boosting their physical and mental capabilities with implanted technologies. He was convinced that in the next generation, every person on Earth would be walking around with microchips in their brains—to squeeze IQ points out of their craniums.

  For her part, Ali had found his views too unnatural, yet his vision fascinated her just the same. From everything she had heard about how demanding Sheri Smith was of her employees, she had no idea why such a nice man worked for her—except for the fact that she probably paid him a ton. Ali knew it had been Havor who had designed the company’s bestselling game—Omega Overlord.

  She called to him as she approached. She used her fake name just for fun.

  “Mike Havor, it’s me, Lisa Morgan. How are you doing?”

  He smiled as he heard her speak, turned in her direction. His glasses were so dark, she could not actually see his eyes, and she recalled that he had not always been blind. He had told her something about an accident that had struck at an early age, but had not gone into detail. Like when they had first met, he stared in her direction, but was just an inch or two off with his aim, so that she was left with the impression he was talking to the air, and not exactly to her.

  “Now come on, Lisa, your secret’s out of the bag. I know your real name, Alison Warner. And I must say, I like the real one better. But I’ve heard you like to go by Ali. Is that true?”

  “Yes, call me Ali. All my friends do. May I still call you Mike? Even though I lied to you when we first met?”

  He nodded, pulled his dark coat tighter around his long-sleeved white shirt, although the morning was not cold. “Sure. I hope you don’t feel I’m here to prosecute you. To be honest, I didn’t want to come at all, but Sheri Smith said I had to appear and testify that you entered Omega Overtures under ‘false pretenses.’ I know, I hate the phrase as much as you, it sounds silly.” He paused and added, “Understand, it’s not my desire to get anyone in trouble here.”

  Ali shook her head, although she knew the gesture was wasted on him.

  “I’m afraid there’s going to be plenty of trouble at this meeting. My friend, Cindy Franken, will be along in a few minutes, with her parents. She’s here to testify that your boss, Sheri Smith, stabbed and killed a close friend of ours, Steve Fender.”

  Havor lost his smile, then he shook his head. “That’s where you guys are wrong. As I told you in Toule, I’ve known Sheri Smith for years. She’s not that kind of person.” Havor paused, then asked, “You didn’t actually see this murder, did you? Nor have you seen your friend’s body? At least this is what I’ve been told.”

  “I didn’t see anything,” Ali lied. “But I know Cindy—know her better than you know your boss. I assure you that when the truth comes out, Sheri Smith will be found guilty. I realize this must be hard for you to believe, but she’s not the woman you think she is. Everything about her is false.”

  Havor looked grim, and yet, not as shaken as she would have imagined. Did he secretly harbor doubts about the woman, Ali asked herself.
When he spoke next, it was in a rather calm voice.

  “If this crime did happen, then why are the police saying there’s no evidence? I hear there’s no body, no bloodstains, no weapons.” He paused. “This murder—it’s supposed to have occurred in Ms. Smith’s home, right?”

  “No. There’s a maze of caves beneath Toule. They’re related to the old power plant you guys used to have, and the gas mining that went on before the explosion burned down the plant. Cindy says Steve died in one of those mines—one beneath Sheri Smith’s house.” Realizing she was altering their agreed upon story, Ali added, “But Cindy had a bag over her head a lot of the time she was captive, so she’s not exactly sure where they were when Steve died. Only that Sheri Smith committed the murder.”

  “But why would she murder your friend?”

  Ali hesitated. “I don’t know the answer to that.”

  “Why did you visit our firm that afternoon?”

  “I wanted to find out more about you guys.”

  “But why us in particular?”

  “Because your boss came out of nowhere, and, in five years, turned a tiny software company into a billion-dollar conglomerate. It made me wonder what kind of person could do that.”

  “So you were doing more than writing a paper for a class?”

  “Yes.”

  “You have to admit, that sounds pretty thin.” When she didn’t answer, he added, “You’re old enough to know that being successful doesn’t automatically make one guilty. Certainly not of murder.”

  He was saying all the right things to defend his boss, but there was no passion in his voice. He had brought up the fact that she had used a false name when she had visited his company, but had not jumped on her for it, like one would expect.

  Ali decided to take a chance on him. If he could support her even a little in the upcoming meeting, then it might make her life easier over the next few days. From what she could gather, he was the creative backbone of Omega Overtures. Sheri Smith might lighten up on her legal attacks on Ali—if only on a superficial level—to appease him. Having any type of ally at the firm would be a plus.