Five minutes later Suter stepped out the front door and thanked Mrs. Gonzales. She leaned out to wave good-bye to Bohannon. Her dejected husband had already made his way to the backyard.

Bohannon pointed his key fob at his car and unlocked it.

"Let's call it a day. Can you drop me off at my hotel? We'll regroup tomorrow morning out at the hangar. Pirelli texted me a while ago and says you've been approved to work with us for the duration. He wants to read you into some more details about the case."

"Details? What kind of details?"

CHAPTER 9.

DESPITE HER MOTHER'S protestations to rest after Abby had dropped her off, Mara worked on the rototiller Diana used to turn soil in her organic vegetable-and-herb garden. Sitting cross-legged on the covered back porch, Mara had splayed parts of the device in a fan pattern on the floor in front of her, inspecting and working on each in turn. Only the handlebars, frame and tines were recognizable to Diana as she stepped out onto the porch.

"Remember the first time I took this apart?" Mara asked, waving a piece of carburetor.

"Yes, you were eight. Grandpa had dropped it off the day before, and you were obsessed with it."

"You had a major meltdown when you caught me."

"What do you expect? Normal eight-year-old girls play with dolls and stuffed animals. They don't take tillers apart. You were covered with grease, and there were parts all over the place. I had to till manually that year."

"Only because you wouldn't let me put it back together."

"Who knew you were such a grease monkey? You eventually got it fixed."

"I had to break into the shed to do it. For years you thought Grandpa had rea.s.sembled it," Mara said. "Come out to give me a hand?"

"No, I've got some lentil soup and that bread you like on the table. Come on in and eat. You can work on that later. I won't be tilling for weeks yet."

Mara walked into the kitchen drying her hands with a towel, which she threw over the back of her chair before sitting at the round dinette table set off in a small alcove. Diana ladled soup into her bowl, pa.s.sed the breadbasket and sat down. She reached across the table and grasped Mara's chin with two fingers and tilted her head trying to get a look at the injury near her temple.

"It looks like that is healing quickly. How are you feeling?"

Mara pulled her chin away. "I feel fine. It doesn't hurt anymore, and I've been clearheaded since I woke up."

"Still you should take it easy, just in case."

"I've been taking it easy in the hospital for nearly a week. I'm ready to start moving around a bit. To tell you the truth, I'm feeling kind of antsy. Abby and I are going biking with Bruce tomorrow. He's going to give us a tour of some of the trails we've not been on."

"Mara, you just got out of the hospital. I don't think it's a good idea-"

"We're going to take it easy. Almost all of it is flat paved bike paths. I'll be wearing a helmet, and we won't even be on the roads most of the time. Bruce knows what he's doing. You remember Bruce, the bicycle mechanic at the shop, Mr. Mason's grandson? I promise to be careful."

"I just wish you would slow down long enough to absorb what has happened to you."

"I can absorb just fine while I'm pedaling."

"Well, make sure you charge up your phone and take it with you, just in case."

"Deal." She scooped up some lentils, stopped lifting her spoon halfway to her mouth. "Oh, I was thinking about that medallion or whatever it is we found in my pocket. Do you know anyone who can give me some pointers on how to repair it? I figured since it has crystals, you might know a New Age jeweler or metallurgist or something."

"That's not like you, to want to engage with my friends."

"I don't want to engage. It's more like a contract job." She slurped loudly. "Just business. No hinky hoodoo let-me-feel-your-chakra stuff."

"You sound like your father, and I'm not only talking about the slurping. Just because you don't understand something doesn't mean you should belittle it. You expect me to ask someone to help you while you make fun of them behind their back?"

"Sorry. I'll be good."

"Thank you. I really wish you would be a little more open-minded. Everything in Heaven and Earth isn't built with gears and powered by batteries."

"Mom, I said I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get you wound up. You got someone in mind?"

"I think so, but you need to be respectful."

"Mom, I got it. I'll keep the ridicule to a minimum."

"You'll keep the ridicule to yourself or no deal," Diana said. "And don't leave that bath towel in my kitchen when you get up."

Diana heard Ned Pastor's truck pull up out front, and she turned on the porch light for him. She then turned to Mara and gave her a stern "be good" look.

"As long as he doesn't try to read the b.u.mps on my head, I'll be cool."

Ned was a tall lanky man who could have been anywhere between sixty-five and eighty years old. Wiping rain from his flannel shirt, he stepped into the living room with the stride and presence of a much younger man.

"I hear you have something you want me to see." He looked at the old DVD carrying case in which Mara had placed the medallion. She opened it and handed the copper piece to him.

Ned accepted it, rotating it in his palm, feeling the texture of the etching with the pad of his thumb and finally flipping it over to look at the back. He was intense in his examination. After a few minutes, he said, "This is a unique piece. It radiates...something. Where did you get it?"

"We found it in my pocket when I was taken to the hospital after the crash," Mara said.

"Do you know what it is used for? It isn't jewelry. It looks like a compa.s.s or a sundial, but the markings are unfamiliar," he said, still turning it over in his hands.

"I don't know that it's used for anything. I a.s.sumed it was ornamental."

"It obviously was in a fire. It got burned in the plane crash?"

"Again I would a.s.sume so."

He placed the medallion between his palms, closed his eyes and tilted his head upward. He appeared to be meditating.

After a few minutes, Mara opened her mouth, about to fill the uncomfortable silence, when her mother placed a hand on her arm and lifted a finger to her lips.

Seconds later Ned opened his eyes. "If you'll let me take the piece, I can work on it in the morning, maybe have it ready Monday evening. The copper should clean up easily. The little crystals appear to be azurite. It looks like all but one of those were oxidized in the fire. They will have to be replaced if you want to restore it. The center stone, the sunstone, should polish up okay. I have some azurite I can cut to match these and then set the replacements. It shouldn't be that difficult to fix this up and make it look new," he said, starting to add something but stopped himself.

"What is it?" Diana asked.

"I don't know. I feel oddly awestruck by this object, like it's too significant for me to be fiddling with. Sorta like how I would feel if you gave me a bucket of paint and asked me to restore the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Isn't that strange?"

"I'd suggest you take it with you and sleep on it," Diana said. "If you have concerns in the morning, you can let us know. You think that would work, Mara?"

"Of course. Any help is appreciated."

CHAPTER 10.

BOHANNON DIDN'T UNDERSTAND what the big deal was. The guy sat on the floor, next to a chrome table, crouched over a white ball, rocking back and forth. He, Suter and two doctors, one older and one younger, looked through a window into what seemed to be an examination room at Westside Hospital, all white tile and silver fixtures.

Suter looked at each of the doctors and said, "I understand you have a problem with a..." He checked his notebook. "Mr. Peter Newsome. What I don't understand is why you called the police."

"You see that thing he's hugging?" the younger doctor asked.

"Yeah."

"That came out of him."

"What?"

"It came out of him. We think it's an egg or something. He took off his pants, squatted down and laid it, right there in that room."

Bohannon started to laugh but caught himself when he realized the doctors weren't joking. He glanced over at Suter, who rolled an eye and looked at the floor. To Bohannon, the FBI agent seemed more inconvenienced than surprised.

"Okay, I'm still not sure what I can do to help," Suter said. "You're the doctors. Examine him and see what's wrong."

"He won't let us near him, or, I should say, he won't let us near it. He appears to be highly protective of it and quite dangerous," the older doctor said. "See that examination table leg there?" He pointed into the room at the metal table behind Newsome. The indicated leg had melted, the wall behind it burned. "He spat at me, and his saliva did that. It melted the metal, as if it was splashed with a highly corrosive acid."

"Can't you give him a sedative or something?"

"We can't risk sending someone in there. He could blind or even kill someone if he spits on them."

A twitch fluttered under Suter's eye. He rubbed it with a finger. "What do you want us to do?"

"If you guys can subdue him somehow, we'll give him something to knock him out."

"I'm not going in there," Suter said, looking at Bohannon, who also shook his head.

"We could call animal control. They might be able to shoot him with a tranquilizer gun," Bohannon said. "I'm not sure how willing they would be to do it."

"If they have an empty dart, we could probably fill it with something more appropriate for a human," the younger doctor said.

It took forty-five minutes to get someone at animal control on the phone and another twenty to convince them that the call was not a joke. The a.s.sistant superintendent agreed to send someone over but only under the condition that both a law enforcement officer and a doctor sign a release stipulating they had authorized the shooting of a person with a tranquilizer gun.

Half an hour later, a burly man in an animal control uniform arrived at the hospital with a light rifle and a doc.u.ment needing signatures. Suter and the older doctor signed the doc.u.ment while the younger doctor filled the dart.

"You know, it doesn't matter how many pieces of paper you guys sign. If it gets out that I shot a dart into a guy in the hospital, we're all going to the pokey. You guys know that, right?" the animal control man asked.

Everyone shrugged, nodded. He walked over to the door of the examination room, looked back at the other men for a final go-ahead, got a couple nods, cracked open the door and poked the rifle barrel into the room, trying not to expose himself. Without formally aiming the weapon, he pointed it in Newsome's general direction, pulled the trigger, withdrew and slammed the door closed.

A dart hit Newsome in the right shoulder.

He spewed a thick stream of spit across the room, striking the door. The trail of saliva smoldered and sizzled as it oozed down to the floor. Newsome raised his face to the ceiling and screeched, rattling the window through which the men stared. The angry wail reminded Bohannon of a dinosaur's cry in Jura.s.sic Park.

The detective shivered.

"I hope what he's got ain't catching," the animal control guy said on his way out.

Newsome hissed and whimpered, hugging the egg.

After two minutes, he slumped over.

"I want out," Bohannon said as soon as they were on the road to the hangar.

"I don't understand."

"The man laid an egg, dude. I want out of this weird-a.s.s case. What these people are going through isn't the result of a plane crash. That's for d.a.m.n sure."

"Calm down. We don't know it's an egg."

"Who cares? It came out of him. That ain't right."

"We don't even know if what's going on with Newsome is related to the accident. You're reading too much into this."

"I'm calling my lieutenant as soon as I get done with you guys today."

Suter turned crimson. "You're not going anywhere. You're stuck with this case until it's done."

As if someone had flipped a switch, sweat dripped down Suter's forehead, flew off his brow as his head twitched several times. His cheeks inflated, deflated. His jaw jutted out, looking nearly unhinged. He c.o.c.ked his head at a forty-five-degree angle, causing an audible bony crackle. He looked at Bohannon, gritted his teeth and said, "You don't walk away from a case like this. We will ruin you. If you dump on us, you can kiss that shiny new badge good-bye, Detective."

They drove in silence for fifteen minutes.