Looking up, Kirsten said in surprise, "Oh, sorry. You haven't slept with him yet. I thought the whole bed/couch thing was just you being private about it."

"Your brother's into one-night stands?" Laura asked.

"Not always," she said, but her face said it was a lie.

"Mostly?"

"How did you meet him again?"

Laura thought about it a moment, then admitted, "Justice Turnbull has me on his short list. I'm related to the women at Siren Song. Many of them are my sisters. Harrison was after a story . . . but he's been trying to protect me."

Kirsten stared at Laura in amazement. "Oh . . . sweet . . . Jesus . . . Sit down. We gotta talk."

CHAPTER 30.

In the afternoon Trey Curtis called Lang back and said that Kay Drescher was driving to the Tillamook County morgue to identify Stephanie Wyman's body because, even though Kay was just a friend, Stephanie was estranged from her only living relative, her father, who lived somewhere on the East Coast, anyway.

"Kay Drescher doesn't believe it's her friend," Curtis warned Lang. "Just won't believe it, but is concerned enough to make the trip. I think she thinks she'll get there and be able to tell you that the body is someone else."

Lang thought of the photo ID, and Drescher was going to be disappointed. The woman in the morgue was Stephanie Wyman or her identical twin. "I'll tell O'Halloran."

"Found her car yet?"

"Not yet. Got a few other things going around here." Lang sketched Curtis in a little about the double homicide at Bancroft Bluff. "Clausen and Delaney are on-site, and I'll probably be heading that way."

"Wow. All we got going around here is a TriMet bus driver in a wrangle with a bicyclist that's turned nutty. Fistfight. Threats on the Internet. Lots of play in the news."

"Is Pauline Kirby on it?" Lang asked with distaste. He'd had a wrangle with her himself not so long ago.

"Of course."

"She's everywhere," Lang said.

"Uh-huh. And she's really milking that story about those entitled teen criminals in Seaside. You got any part of that?"

"No. Different jurisdiction, thank God."

"I saw her on the news last night. She says they broke into their wealthy friends' houses and didn't so much steal as pretend like they lived there. Kind of like the teens that broke into the famous people's homes around Hollywood and just hung out."

"They stole a few things, too. I read Harrison Frost's accounts in the Breeze," Lang said. "And Clausen's stepson knew one of the victims."

"Sheeeit. And then you've got psycho Turnbull, who killed Stephanie Wyman."

"Allegedly. But yeah . . . he did."

"Maybe he's left your area," Curtis posed.

"I hope not," Lang responded grimly. "I want to get him." At that moment Lang's cell phone buzzed, and he picked it up and examined the caller ID to realize it was Savannah. "Got a call coming in. I'll check with you later." Hanging up the desk phone, he pressed the green ON button on his cell. "Hey," he answered.

"Burghsmith found a silver Nissan," she said tersely. "Looks like it was abandoned at that strip mall where Phil's Phins is. He ran the plates, but they belong to a Ford Taurus, not a Nissan compact."

"Turnbull switched plates?"

"Uh-huh. The Taurus belongs to a Gerald Moncrief, who's currently living at Seagull Pointe. Turnbull probably switched 'em out when he dropped off the Jane Doe and smothered his mother."

"So, it's like we thought. Then Turnbull attacked Jane Doe for her car, then left her dying at Seagull Pointe when he came to kill Madeline. Maybe he meant for her to die, maybe not. Either way, she's gone, and now he's abandoned her car. We have a possible on who she is. A woman named Stephanie Wyman from Portland."

"Someone coming to identify the body?"

"A friend," Lang said.

"Man . . . ," Savannah said on a sigh.

"I know."

"We gotta get this guy," she said, shaking off the moment and sounding determined.

"Yep. I'm going to update O'Halloran."

"I'm heading over to the double homicide," she said. "You coming?"

Lang considered, then said, "I think you've got it covered. I'm going to follow up on Turnbull. When you're finished there, come on back and we'll put our heads together and try to figure out what he's driving now."

Harrison pulled into the parking lot at the Breeze, climbed from his car, and turned his face toward a watery sun that looked like it could build up some real heat as soon as the marine layer burned off. He had gone to the Deception Bay Historical Society and asked for the history of the Colony and was given a once-over by a middle-aged woman wearing narrow-lensed glasses. She informed him that they possessed an undocumented history, and when he said that was okay, she led him to a bookshelf, where she pulled out a slim volume that was more a manuscript with a laminated cover than a real book.

She then told him that many people seemed to have an interest in the women who lived at the lodge and asked what his particular reason for searching into their background was. He thought about telling her that he knew one of them personally, then decided that was a bad idea. But when he said he was a reporter and was doing background work on a story, he thought she was going to rip the missive from his hands. And then, when he wanted to borrow it for a while outside of the building, she visibly paled, as if the thought of a world outside her control might make her swoon.

Before she could find a way to wrest the book from his grasp, he'd walked over to a chair by a window and sat himself down. She hovered nearby, worried, but he ignored her and concentrated on the book.

There wasn't much to learn. The narrative read more like a family tree than an account of their lives, and it stopped at Catherine Rutledge and Mary Rutledge Beeman, the last descendants of their family. There was a branch that included Madeline Abernathy Turnbull. Maddie's father, Harold Abernathy, was a cousin to Catherine and Mary's grandmother, Grace Fitzhugh Rutledge.

"Apparently, Mary was married to someone named Beeman," Harrison said aloud. "And she and Catherine are distant cousins to Madeline, who married someone named Turnbull." He glanced up at the woman, who had stayed within earshot.

She pressed her lips together, torn between freezing him out and bending an ear to gossip. Gossip won, and she came a few steps closer, taking off her glasses and polishing them. "There are no documented marriages," she said, warming to her story and, he thought, really wanting to let him know how much knowledge she'd accumulated. "Madeline Abernathy's mother was the daughter of a Native American shaman who moved in with Madeline's father, Harold, when she was only fifteen and against her father's wishes. She died giving birth to Madeline. Madeline's father, Harold, who by all accounts was a very strange man indeed, raised Madeline on his own, and she became the town oddball, a kind of idiot savant, actually. She began reading palms and telling people their futures as a means to make a living. She was in her late forties when she gave birth to Justice in nineteen seventy-five, but this account ends around nineteen seventy. You can see that pages have been ripped out of the back. That's the way it came to us."

"How do you know about Justice Turnbull, then?"

"Oh, I've volunteered here for years. Was told the year of his birth by Dr. Dolph Loman. He's a doctor who's lived around here forever, on the staff at Ocean Park, I think. Anyway, he gave us this account upon the death of his brother, Dr. Parnell Loman, over fifteen years ago."

"Maybe Dolph Loman has the rest of the book," Harrison suggested.

"Or maybe it's been lost." She shrugged.

"So, there's no record of Justice's father or this Beeman whom Mary married?"

"Not here."

Harrison thanked her, and she seemed a little more inclined to trust him after their talk, so she left him and moved back to her desk. Before giving her back the book, Harrison studied it a bit longer. There was definitely some intermingling with the Native American population, and there were several shamans listed, as if the Abernathy-Fitzhugh-Rutledge clan couldn't keep away from them, even though no marriages were listed.

There was also the mention of "dark gifts," which seemed to present themselves mainly in the female descendants of the Abernathy-Fitzhugh-Rutledges. There was even speculation on Loman's part that said female descendants found relationships outside their marriages with said shamans, but there was no written proof of these rumors.

Harrison closed the book thoughtfully, wondering if Lorelei truly possessed some of those "dark gifts" or if she'd been spoon-fed the idea of such a thing and the power of suggestion had taken over from there. Was he being too cynical? But what was the alternative? To believe she and Justice Turnbull shared a mystical bond of communication?

If not a mental, telepathic link, then at least some weird connection Harrison didn't understand.

He handed the slim volume back to the woman at the desk and said, "I met the chronicler of this account, Herman Smythe."

"At Seagull Pointe?"

"Yep. He seems a little foggy now, but he's the one who compiled this information?"

"His name's on the book," she pointed out, again puffing up with her specific knowledge of the area.

He left the historical society building and placed a call to Laura, glad when she answered right away. She was still at his sister's, but getting ready to go to work. From the sound of it, she'd had a wonderful morning with Kirsten, who had gone to work but was planning to take a break from the bakery to drive Laura to the hospital soon. Laura had tried to dissuade her, but Kirsten refused to listen. Harrison remarked that stubbornness was a trademark of his sister's.

"The police," he reminded her, but could tell, before Laura said so, that she was going to refuse him again.

"I have a dinner break. If you still think it's necessary later this afternoon, then I'll go."

"I don't want to talk to them again, either. But yeah, I think it's necessary."

"Okay," she agreed reluctantly, and they made a date for him to pick her up from work at her dinner hour.

Harrison then flirted with the idea of heading to Zellman's house and seeing if the good doctor was up for an interview, but the Deadly Sinners story still required a few final touches, so, though it chafed him, he decided to wait on that till later. Instead, heading for the Breeze, he put a call into Dinah, Herm's daughter, his curiosity about the Colony definitely on an upswing. But he reached her voice mail, as ever, and ended up leaving his name and number.

Buddy was coming out of the back when Harrison entered the Breeze offices. He signaled that Vic Connelly was in his office, and Harrison walked along a short hallway, then knocked on a frosted glass door and heard Vic's gravelly voice call, "Yeah?"

Harrison stuck his head inside. Vic's wild white hair was especially flyaway today and looked like pale cotton candy. "Just checking in," Harrison told the editor.

"You following up on those teen thieves some more? We're getting a lot of good feedback from that Kirby woman jumping on it. People want to talk to you."

"What people?"

"The ringleader's dad, for one. Bryce Vernon. The land developer? Thought he was gonna blow a gasket. Acted like you'd slandered his little darling. But then the little darling himself called for you."

"What? Noah Vernon called the paper?"

"Sure did," Vic said. "Buddy took the call but wasn't sure you wanted to give out your cell number. What the hell's that all about?"

Swearing, Harrison turned on his heel and strode to where Buddy was seated at a computer. Buddy, smiling, picked up a piece of paper and waved it at Harrison, who snatched it from him.

"I told you to give out my number," Harrison growled.

"Is that a full green light?"

"Don't be a pain in the ass. Yeah. Whatever. What time did Noah Vernon call?"

Buddy glanced at the clock. "About seventeen minutes ago. I knew you were on your way, so I thought I'd wait and give you the message in person."

Harrison was out the door before Buddy finished speaking, pressing the buttons on his cell phone once again, this time with Noah Vernon's number. It rang several times and then Noah himself answered with, "Yo. Who's this?"

"Yo. It's Harrison Frost. You called me."

A moment. Then, "Oh, yeah, the reporter. Well, I'm offering you an exclusive for a little cash."

Harrison laughed. "You don't need the money. What is this?"

"I do need the money. My old man's cutting me off." He sounded offended.

"I've got thirteen dollars and twenty-nine cents on me," Harrison said.

"You know what I mean."

"Noah, I'm not going to pay you for your exclusive. A lot of this tale's been told already. But if you want your voice heard, I'll put it in the paper. That's all I can offer you."

"I'm under eighteen, man," he said, testing.

"Until tomorrow."

"You're dialed in," he said, surprised.

"Do you want to meet?"

"I'm, like, under house arrest by my dad," he admitted with repressed fury. "But he's a dickhead and I could use a smoke. Can you pick me up?"

"What about being under house arrest?"

"My dad's at work. He can bite me, anyway. I don't give a shit. Come by the house." He rattled off the address, though Harrison already had scoped out where the kid lived. "He'll be pissed but that's his problem," Noah added with a certain amount of relish.

"I'll be there in fifteen," Harrison told him, and then made good on his promise by driving ten miles over the speed limit to pull up in front of a beautifully restored turn-of-the-century home on a sidewalk lined by trees on J Street, one of Seaside's alphabet letter blocks.

Noah must have been waiting for him, because he came through the front door as soon as Harrison pulled up to the curb. He wore pants that looked like they would fall off his hips and a long blue T-shirt that stuck out from under a black nylon jacket. A black watch cap was stuck snugly on his head, and if he wasn't careful, he was going to bake beneath the growing heat of the sun.

He slid into the passenger seat of the dusty Impala and said, "Nice car," with a smirk.

"Do you always dress like you took your clothes off a street bum?" Harrison rejoined.

"Yeah." He glared at Harrison through fiery blue eyes.

It was with a bit of surprise that Harrison realized Noah Vernon was an exceptionally handsome young man. It irked him that someone so blessed with looks, money, and an obviously caring family, no matter if Noah thought Dad was a dickhead or not, could thumb his nose at every gift he'd been given.

"I can't wait to hear why you're so messed up," he told the kid. "Really. It looks like life's really knocked you down." He glanced back at the immaculately groomed property.