She came awake to the muffled sound of pounding rain and booming surf. It took her a moment to realize that she was lying on a hardwood floor. She was cold and stiff. When she tried to move, she discovered that her hands and ankles were bound with duct tape. Mercifully, there was no tape across her mouth. Unfortunately, the obvious conclusion was that the kidnappers were not worried about her screaming. That, in turn, implied that the cabin was a long way from any source of help.
The music was still playing, but it was fainter now. She turned her head and saw the still shape of Walker lying beside her. He, too, was bound hand and foot.
She finally spotted the Victorian music box. It sat on a nearby table. The dancing figures were barely turning. The clockwork mechanism was winding down. Probably the reason she had awakened, she thought.
First things first. She rolled awkwardly across the floor until she reached the table. She levered herself onto her back, brought her knees up into a bent position, planted her feet against one leg of the table and pushed out with all of her strength.
The old table went over easily enough. The music box slid off and landed on the floor with a satisfying crack of glass and a clunk. The last notes of the waltz stopped abruptly. The dancing figures popped off and rattled across the floorboards until they fetched up against the wall.
To make certain the device was inoperable, she inchwormed her way to the broken artifact, turned her back to it and managed to grasp it in her bound hands. She slammed it against the floor a few times. Pieces of the mechanism fell out.
“That takes care of that problem,” Isabella said softly. “Walker? Are you awake?”
There was no response.
She studied the shadowed interior of the cabin again, looking for anything she might be able to use to hack through the duct tape. She considered the small kitchenette. The place had obviously been uninhabited for a very long time, but with luck someone might have left a knife in one of the drawers. She started to work her way across the small room.
“Walker?”
This time she got a groan in response
“Walker, it’s me, Isabella. Wake up.”
Walker groaned again and stirred. His eyes opened. He looked straight at her.
“It’s okay,” she said gently. “Fallon will find us.”
To her surprise there was no panic in Walker’s eyes, just a bleak acceptance.
“She got p-past me, didn’t she? I tried to s-stop her.”
“I know, Walker. But she used a secret weapon on both of us.”
“One of the alien weapons?”
“Yes, but don’t worry, it’s out of commission. I smashed it. Now we have to get free. I don’t suppose you carry a pocketknife.”
“Found a real n-nice one in the trash out behind Jones & Jones a few months ago,” Walker said. “You wouldn’t believe w-what people throw out.”
“Do you have it on you?”
“In my new c-coat. Inside pocket. Can’t imagine why anyone would throw away such a good coat.”
“That’s wonderful, Walker.” She changed course and started to work her way toward him. “Turn onto your side. Maybe I can get the knife out of your coat.”
He did as she instructed.
“Left pocket,” he said hoarsely. “Hidden zipper.”
It was tedious work trying to manipulate the interior zipper with her hands tied behind her back but she managed to get the pocket unzipped.
Footsteps sounded on the front porch just as she was probing for the knife. She froze, aware that Walker had done the same.
The door of the cabin opened. Norma Spaulding came into the room, a gun in her hand. A heavily bulked-up man who looked like he ate steroids for breakfast, lunch and dinner loomed behind her.
“Let me take a wild, flying leap here,” Isabella said. “Your name isn’t Norma Spaulding, and you’re not in real estate.”
“Good guess. I should introduce myself. Sylvia Tremont. I’m a curator at the Arcane museum in L.A.”
“Well, that certainly explains a few things,” Isabella said. She looked at the man. “Who’s this?”
“His name is Vogel. Sort of an odd-jobs specialist. He was assigned to me a couple of days ago by my new associate when I said I was going to need a little assistance cleaning up a few loose ends.”
“I s-saw you,” Walker said urgently. “I s-saw you both last night. You were t-trying to sneak into the Cove.”
Sylvia glanced at him. “I know you saw us. That’s why you’re going to take a very long swim this evening.”
“What were you doing trying to sneak into the Cove?” Isabella asked.
“My new business associate concluded that you were going to be a problem because you are an unpredictable factor at Jones & Jones. She thought it would be best to neutralize you, as it were. She gave me a vial of a new experimental drug that affects the psychic senses in such a way as to make an individual behave in a dangerous and erratic manner. Jones would have assumed that you were going crazy. You would no longer have been any use to him. But when you showed up to check on this nutcase today, I realized that plan was no longer viable. Now I have no choice but to get rid of both of you.”
“Killing us will be the biggest mistake you ever made,” Isabella warned.
“It wasn’t my first choice, believe me. I know Fallon Jones will search for you. That is not a good thing. But I’ve been very careful. I’m sure that, in the end, he will conclude that you just took off as you have been known to do in the past.”
“He’ll find you,” Isabella promised. “He won’t stop looking until he does.”
“When this is over, I will disappear so completely that not even Fallon Jones can find me.” Sylvia glanced at the pieces of the music box. “You would have to break it. I don’t suppose you have any idea what that thing was worth in certain quarters?”
“Speaking of money, you owe Jones & Jones five hundred bucks,” Isabella said.
Sylvia smiled. “And you’re here to collect?”
“That’s right.”
“Good luck with that.” Sylvia glanced at her watch. “It will be dark in a few hours. You and he will be going over the bluffs into the sea as soon as night falls. I was planning to wait until midnight to make sure no one notices, but I don’t think there’s any need to hold off, not with this storm. No one will notice one more tourist stopping at the blowhole turnout to dump a couple of bags of trash.”
“Since we’ve got all the time in the world,” Isabella said, “mind telling me how you located the Bridewell curiosities?”
“I’ve been looking for them for years,” Sylvia said. “To some extent, I was able to use the resources of the museum, but I had to be extremely discreet. I did not want to draw the attention of my colleagues or J&J. But after a certain point, I decided to fund my own search.”
“And to do that, you needed money. A lot of it.”
“More than I could afford on my salary from the museum, certainly.”
“You set up a profitable little sideline selling off the odd paranormal weapon to Julian Garrett and Caitlin Phillips, using Orville Sloan as the broker.”
“Sloan knew the world of paranormal arms dealing,” Sylvia said. “It’s a highly specialized field, as I’m sure you can imagine. He was the one who suggested that we work with Garrett and Phillips. The arrangement was quite successful for several months. Then I got a solid lead on a cache of curiosities.”