Transparency: Bio-Tech Cavern Secrets Untold (19 page)

Halliday loaded up the trunk of the Saab with Laurel’s spelunking paraphernalia. He hustled down the basement steps twice for explanations from Laurel. He didn’t mention that several people were interested in her whereabouts. His mind spun on other issues, like how would they avoid being followed? Were there already personnel in place ready to pursue them?

Halliday remained skeptical. He had no choice. Laurel McKittrick loomed as a freak of nature, an unbelievable product of bad science. Or a ghost who refused to leave this world?

He raised the door out of the floor.

Her invisibility shrouded the well lit basement in mystery. “Laurel,” he called. “This house is on a cul-de-sac. Do you know of any other way to return to the highway except to head back down Hillside Lane?”

“Yes, but we don’t have to use any highways.”

Without a face, a reference point, her voice played tricks on him. “What did you say?”

“We don’t have to travel on any highways. We’ll use back roads.”

“Good, I’ll let you lead the way. First, I want to scout around the property to ensure we don’t have any visitors.”

A floating pillow attached itself to the back of the couch. “Is it dark yet?”

“Yes, very dark,” he said. “There’s no moon tonight.”

“I don’t know how to thank you for what you are doing detective.”

Again, the echo of her voice had him craning his neck.

“We’ll talk later,” he said. “You can call me John.”

“Thank you for all your help John.”

“Will you be ready to go in ten minutes?”

“Yes, I’m ready now.”

“What’s the dog’s name?”

“Elsie. Jillian cherished her.”

Halliday ensured that the golden retriever had plenty of food and water. He vowed to take care of Elsie if no one claimed her. He and the dog covered the property but found no suspicious white pickup trucks or snipers wielding night vision binoculars. An owl hooted as Halliday crossed the backyard, its hunting ground for rodents. Elsie stopped when she heard the noise.

The buzz of a portable generator a few hundred yards away cut the night air. The shadow of Jillian’s house caused Halliday to curse under his breath. The commercial power had failed. Pitch black veiled the area except for the residence that owned the generator, hidden by trees.

He hurried back to the house wondering if Genevive Labs had pressured a power company employee into shutting off the electricity grid feeding the area.

Halliday escorted Laurel from the basement out to the garage. He locked down the house.

He flipped the switch next to the steering column, disabling the Saab’s interior lights. Laurel’s semitransparent body floated into the passenger seat.

The garage door screeched. He lifted it just enough for the Saab to slide under then pushed the car out onto the driveway.

After a few minutes Halliday’s eyes had adjusted to the dark. Still freaked by Laurel’s appearance, he would have preferred to leave the car’s interior light. That wouldn’t be wise.

She huddled in the seat with green tendrils wrapped around her. “Are you cold? I can turn the heater on.”

“Yes, It’s a little chilly,” she said.

Halliday flipped the heater switch. In a lowered voice he said, “Which way should I go?”

“Turn to the right into the cul-de-sac. Make another quick right. You will see a NO TRESPASSING sign. Stay on the straight dirt road for a half mile. You will find a vegetable stand on the left. Turn left there.”

“How far is it to where we’re going?”

“Deer Meadow is about a forty-five minute drive. The cave is another hour.”

He started the engine with the lights off. “How’s your night vision?” He said, wondering if she had super heroine vision.

“I can see well in the dark.”

He maneuvered the Saab into the cul-de-sac.

“Look out!” Laurel cried.

A shadow scurrying across the road had caused him to slam on the brakes. “Just a scared rabbit. Relax, okay?”

“Okay.”

“No one besides me has seen you in this
condition
?”

“Only Jillian.”

The Saab cut through the murky darkness. Halliday wondered why he was the only person alive who had seen Laurel’s
transparency
. He had heard of ghosts haunting individuals. He had never heard of a living person touching a ghost.

“You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t have doubts,” she said.

Her eerie voice penetrated the weak spot in his armor. He could handle transparency, corrupt policemen, or evil corporations. The self-doubt that lingered from the past loomed as a far greater foe.

“What is it that drives a detective’s reasoning? Isn’t it to only deal with the facts? John, you are not losing your mind nor are you seeing ghosts. Imagine the difficulty I had in coming to grips with it.”

What else could he say?

Halliday followed Laurel’s directions. He proceeded slowly for two hundred yards. A dull glow emanated from distant homes anchored to land flat as a playing board. With the parking lights on, he picked up speed. A flicker of light dissolved in the black rear view mirror. He turned off his parking lights.

“Turn left here,” she said.

The paved road extended into the darkness. He glanced in the rear view. Headlights proceeded up the road two or three hundred yards behind. “Do many people use this road?”

“Only the local residents.”

He turned at the dark intersection. “I saw headlights in the rearview mirror.” He had to make a decision. “Do you know where that narrow lane to the left leads to?”

“I’m not sure. It might be a power substation.”

He backed the car down the narrow dirt road. He killed the engine at the end. “We’ll wait here a minute,” he said. “It’s probably nothing.”

She didn’t reply.

“Have you ever driven a car?”

“Never.”

Another set of headlamps shined from the direction he had been headed. “Dammit,” he muttered. The Saab had been sitting in the parking lot all day at the police station. Halliday knew they could have planted a transmitter on the car.

“Is there a problem?”

“I’ll let you know in a minute.”

Lacking any plausible options, he removed his Glock. In the rich black night two pairs of light converged on a point off in the distance. He judged the vehicle coming from the direction of Jillian’s house would arrive first followed by the other car a minute or two later.

“Get down so you won’t be seen,” Halliday told Laurel. He scooted down until he could just see out.

The vehicle from the direction of Jillian’s house stopped at the intersection. It turned in their direction, picking up speed. “A Chevy Suburban pulling a small trailer behind it.”

“Jillian’s neighbor. He uses this road to haul his produce to the market in Madera.”

“Good.” He didn’t have to worry about that one.

The other vehicle approached from the left at a high rate of speed. The driver had a better angle to see the Saab. Halliday counted on the dark night coupled with the guy’s excessive speed to cloak his presence.

The vehicle whizzed past them. The driver stomped on the brakes just before the intersection.

Halliday watched the driver attempt to negotiate the turn. He heard screeching brakes.

The pickup spun out of control, coming to rest on the other side of the road. The driver accelerated the vehicle in reverse. The wheels spun angrily. A few seconds later the driver righted the vehicle.

A cloud of gray chased after the truck as it sped down the pitch black road. Halliday could imagine the security man’s expletives.

“What was it?” Laurel said.

He stowed his Glock in the holster. “A white pickup truck is in a big hurry to get to Jillian’s house.”

Laurel navigated Halliday across the back roads of Santa Reina. They had driven for twenty minutes, lights out, across the flat terrain. He had grown confident that they weren’t followed.

Soon they were heading into the foothills. It kept him busy dodging potholes on the seldom used road. Laurel warned that boulders sometimes escaped the cliffs above. In the absence of moon light, and with no sign of any vehicles, he drove slowly. He kept his parking lights on to watch for rocks.

The narrow road snaked through the foothills. The ravine deepened below the road on the passenger’s side.

Her transparency still spooked him. When the parking lights reflected off a huge granite boulder Laurel’s body turned into a human soap bubble.

“Do you want to tell me about it?” he said as they began their ascent up the winding road along the Santa Reina foothills.

“Where should I begin?”

He wouldn’t delve into Laurel’s disappearance in the New Mexico cave. He had read that ghosts, when faced with the trauma of their demise, often pass on to the next world. She still had answers to offer. “So you and Jillian were a team determined to bring Genevive Labs and Brad Palmier to justice.”

“Yes, but we needed help. I used my revenge for Brad to get your attention. I never dreamed he’d go after Jillian. After what he and Genevive did to her, I want him to pay for all his crimes in the worst way.”

Halliday hugged the road on his side, away from the ravine below, as it got steeper. “Well, you caught my attention. Did Palmier commit any crimes outside the confines of Genevive Labs or before you were married, that you know of?”

Laurel left a long pause before she said, “Brad Palmier never recovered from his father’s suicide. Brad blamed his father for the hard times that followed. They didn’t have the funds to pay the huge mortgage. He left them penniless. It instilled a rage in Brad that few people have ever seen.”

“How did Palmier’s father die?”

“He hung himself.”

“Did Palmier confess any crimes to you?”

“No. Brad didn’t leave his previous employer Rand-Klein Pharmaceuticals on good terms, though. A few weeks after our marriage, he began receiving calls from a mid-level executive named Milland. I listened to an argument that ended with a threat. Brad hung up. He gave me an icy stare that gave me chills. A few days later, Brad took a trip to L.A. When he returned, the phone calls ended.”

“You suspected foul play?”

“I got curious and brave at the same time. I investigated Milland on my own. A car accident took his life during the same time Brad had visited L.A. I was afraid to confront Brad about it. Looking back, our relationship fizzled after that.”

Halliday made a mental note to investigate Rand-Klein’s Milland. “Do we have much farther to go?”

“It’s another fifteen to twenty minutes. This area is a reserve untouched by California’s land grabbers. The Foxworth family did a good job of steering off unwanted visitors. Jillian’s ancestors owned the fifty thousand acres from the mid-1800s until Genevive got their hands on it.”

“Genevive stole all of it?”

“The Foxworth family and the Miwoks both got screwed. Genevive Labs, with the federal government’s approval, offered the Foxworth family a twenty year lease of Santa Reina Hot Springs. The terms of the steep monthly payment were take it or leave it.”

“What about the Miwoks?”

She sighed. “Genevive Labs built a cheap apartment complex for them in Santa Reina Sur. Many of the tribesmen left the area rather than stay at the
Slums
. Those who remained suffered there. Jillian told me that Genevive built the apartment complex over an old dump facility. The drinking water became contaminated. Sounds familiar, huh? Jillian secretly fought for the rights of the Miwok. In her position, it was difficult. The Foxworth family had supported the Miwoks for decades.”

He needed to get the conversation back to Laurel. “So how did you find this cave we are headed to?”

“I explored these foothills during the time I worked for Jillian at Santa Reina Hot Springs.”

“You explore alone?”

“Yeah, you must think I’m a little weird. I had the valley to myself. Occasionally, Genevive security would show up. I learned how to avoid them. Talk about dumb.”

Halliday lifted his head at her giggle. He had forgotten. She was just a kid.

“They followed me one day. Just to razz them, I left a trail to the base of the cliff above Genevive Labs. I climbed the mountain as the skies rumbled. Silly me, I decided to descend the mountain on the opposite side. As I began to descend, thunder cracked across the sky. A lightning bolt scorched a tree that grew from the granite outcropping. It brought the tree crashing down, just missing me.”

He could picture her ancestors roaming free across the valley.

“When the storm subsided I saw the sun’s rays reflect off a slit in the rock. I spent hours hammering out an opening large enough to fit through. The opening led into a cave, the opposite end of which had a drop off. I tossed a rock down. Several seconds later it made a splash. At that moment I knew my destiny awaited at the bottom.”

“So you became a spelunker—a caver.”

“I joined a nature club to study caving. With Jillian’s blessing, I traveled to Utah to learn from the pros. When I got my act together I did some exploring. I didn’t find the transparency pool until I returned… from the dead.”

Laurel had become a real person until she muttered the last sentence. It made him question her existence once again. Halliday slowed the Saab. He massaged tired eyes.

“After my disappearance in the New Mexico cave I returned to Santa Reina. I went underground to help Jillian in her fight against Genevive Labs. The cave we’re headed to drops off into a large grotto. Underground streams lead to several caverns, including my transparency pool. Genevive’s refuse tunnel is directly above it.”

“So the battle began.”

“Jillian and I couldn’t fight them on our own. Toward the end, Genevive security watched her house 24/7. That’s when I took a chance. Against Jillian’s advice, I enlisted your help.”

“Did you or Jillian ever meet with extremists?”

“No, she believed the bio-extremists had lost their message. They were more intent on destroying the enemy than finding the truth. Besides, her fight had become strictly personal. Genevive’s sophisticated bay area lawyers had teamed up with nameless government officials to take away the family’s land.”

“I vaguely remember,” he said. “A judge ruled the head of the Foxworth family mentally incompetent. One of the money hungry kids convinced the rest of the clan to sell all their land to Genevive for pennies on the dollar.”

“A senator manipulated the land deed to get it reclassified. Jillian never explained the details to me. Anyway, Joshua Foxworth, Jillian’s cousin, betrayed the family after Genevive whispered big bucks in his ear. It wouldn’t surprise me if there had been a threat attached to it.”

The road leveled off somewhat as they traveled straight, between two ridges. Halliday increased his speed. “Was Jillian a caver, too?”

“Jillian didn’t have the heart for it. My cave has a severe drop from the ceiling to the floor. Even if you don’t have a problem with heights it can be a daunting experience. Caves are the loneliest, scariest places in the world until you get to know them.”

“Did Brad Palmier know that Jillian was a Foxworth?”

“Not until a few days ago. They’d upped the pressure on us since that time. Brad might have kept it to himself. That’s the way he operates. Jillian went to school in Switzerland. She married Todd Andrews in Zurich, though the marriage didn’t last. When she returned to Santa Reina she applied for the job at the hot springs under her married name.”

“Genevive Labs messed up on their background check.”

“They hired Jillian from over fifty applicants.”

His assumptions of Laurel’s ghostliness began to disperse now that he had a chance to talk to her up close. Halliday popped the big question. “What is it in the cave that makes you invisible?”

“It’s a result of coming in contact with the vegetation and the water in the pool. As I mentioned, it’s directly beneath the well where Genevive Labs flushes their refuse.”

Halliday shook his head. “Garbage.”

“The refuse is a mixture of dead animal carcasses, chemical waste, and, sadly, human remains.”

“My god.” He’d expected her to say that her transparency resulted from the energy emitted by some rare crystallized gem unique to the grotto. “Human remains?”

“It sounds unbelievable. I know for a fact Genevieve security has abducted an elderly homeless person. I heard the security chief discuss it with Brad.”

It confirmed what Gladstone had found during his investigation. Halliday said, “Why do you call it transparency?”

“I studied the physics of it. We see things because of the light in the visible spectrum reflecting off objects before it hits our eyes. Transparency allows light to pass through the object. Genevive Labs’ waste combined with the biochemistry in the pool beneath to create that phenomenon.”

She stoked his curiosity. “Why does the transparency allow light to pass through?”

“Light waves are similar to radio waves. Colors are different frequency spectrums. Think of it as millions of radio transmissions interrupted by surfaces. I believe the particles in the pond water are resonant to all frequencies so light passes through instead of bounces off objects.”

“That’s amazing. You’ve done your homework. ”

“The pond scum has concentrated amounts of the solution that can be harmful. My first experience came quite by accident. The banks around the pond beneath Genevive are covered with the slippery green scum. I’m such a klutz. I slipped and fell in. The green water went up to my waist. I didn’t realize anything had happened until later when I joined Jillian in the cave.”

He could imagine Laurel’s ancestors sitting around the fire telling fantastic tales of ten-foot bears that battled Miwok warriors who changed into wolves.

“We were sitting on our sleeping bags when Jillian freaked out. She screamed, ‘Laurel, your legs have disappeared.’ You can imagine my reaction when my legs had disappeared. When I put my arms around Jillian to comfort her, she couldn’t see them either. I had to calm her down with a Xanax that Brad’s quack doctor had prescribed for me.”

“Do Genevive Labs and Brad Palmier have any idea about your transparency?”

“Thank god, no. When I learned of the extent of Genevive’s evil doings, I felt transparency had become both my ally and my destiny. As you can see, transparency has negative effects. If I don’t replenish, I’ll shrivel up like a plant without sunlight. Each time the dosage must be increased, too. When I began, it took maybe five minutes to replenish. Tonight I will have to soak for a half hour or more.”

The irony of it all confounded Halliday. If Laurel exposed her secret, it would be safer in Genevive’s hands. Genevive might even find a cure for here, all in the interest of science.

If Santa Reina PD found her, he could imagine the consequences. She’d end up on display like a circus freak, the bio-extremists’ poster girl. On the other hand Genevive Labs would hide her away in building C14, bottle her transparency and sell it to the U.S. military for a fortune.

“Laurel, Brad Palmier and Genevive Labs would sell their collective souls to obtain the secret of your transparency. Do you think they are close to finding out?”

“I… I don’t know.”

Jesus, Halliday, she’s just a kid.

The silence lingered before he asked another question. “Why did you choose me?”

In the dark, her jade face held no expression. “The Santa Reina PD held a retreat out at Santa Reina Hot Springs.”

“Yes, I don’t recall seeing you.”

“My last day at work at the hot springs. I married Brad a few days later. I watched the policeman’s volleyball match from behind a tree. I remember thinking as the match heated up that policemen must be super competitive.”

He remembered that day. “I wish our investigations reached that intensity.”

“You spiked the ball hard. It hit an older woman smack in the nose.”

“Poor Betsy, I got a little overzealous.”

“You rushed under the net to comfort her. Everyone else stood around. Her nose bled. You tended to her. I heard you offer to take her to the hospital, although she refused. I never imagined a policeman acting so cool.”

“Betsy’s a good person. I hated to think I’d hurt her.”

“Look out, detective!”

Light flashed in front of the car. Halliday slammed on his brakes.

“Get down, Laurel!”

Halliday pushed her head down as he flipped the interior lights on.

Behind him another pair of headlights flashed to high beams. They were trapped. Halliday glanced over at Laurel. She had become invisible in the light. “Listen, Laurel, we don’t have much time. I’m going to open the door. I want you to crawl over the seat and follow me. Outside, stay behind me.” He pressed his phone into her hand.

“Get out of the car and put your hands up,” a familiar voice sounded in front of him.