Chapter 2

Derek was pushed into the kitchen, still dazed.

"You will pluck chickens" the overseer told him "and if you don't, you'll feel the knout at your back."

Jessica grinned at that. So Derek Pearce had paid too. Let him see what he had brought. Let him see how much he liked being a bond servant for Russian aristocrats.

After the third chicken Derek dared to ask. "How did it happen?"

"We are inside the egg, the one you found on the ship. You should have left it in the water."

"That egg? Patterson did not steal it, after all?"

"Patterson is here, opening and closing doors for them. And Roger Collins had been made into a jester."

"I was in my room and then there was this silvery dust falling around me, and this man and this woman, and the room began to spin..."

"And then you stepped into the egg, and either the egg has grown, or you have shrunk, because there is plenty of room of all of us in it. And now, if you don't want to be beaten, you will pluck chickens for them, and do whatever else they set for you to do."

"Now, it is Derek who disappeared."

"Derek?" Barnabas asked.

"I paid a call on him and he was not there."

"He might have left town, now that he has struck it rich."

George shook his head. "I found his money. He would not have left it behind."

He let that sink in, then continued.

"I did not believe it at first when Carolyn said that Roger's disappearance as connected with Patterson's and the Kings', but now..."

"Patterson might well have skipped town."

"As Jason McGuire skipped town"?" George reminded him. "I know, it is a subject of which the less said the better. But you know that he did not precisely skip town.

"You think that Patterson might be dead?'

"Derek is no murderer. And with other people missing at the same time, I wonder what they might have in common."

"Derek and Patterson have the egg." George said calmly.

"And Patterson was on an anti-gay crusade, as Zeb was until recently."

"And that's all they have in common. I can't imagine what Roger might have in common with any of them."

"So we have to find the common element."

"I will ask around. Someone might have seen anything, or heard anything. You too. ask around too. Some of your sources might have the information we need. And fly around trying to overhear. Ask Julia for time off to do this. I think that this is more important. If people are disappearing for no reason, we have to stop it from happening again."

Well, Amy thought as she entered her small room, she had applied for a job at the local paper. If she was going to stay at Collinsport, she needed an income. Oriana's recommendation helped a bit. And she had written a few things that might interest the editor...

If worse came to worse, she could ask to be taken for a trial period without pay...

She was going to carve a life for herself here.

George decided to check again on the cabin where Devlin had been staying. I had been cleaned, of course, all sings of the struggle cleaned up, and anything that could be connected to the case bagged and taken to the lab.

There really should be nothing there to see. But there might be something there. Something that could explain the disappearances...

Maybe it was a spell that Devlin had set and that had not died when he did. If he could find anything to point the way.

Devlin had hated Roger. He could have had something to do with his disappearance.

But why the Kings? Why Derek and Patterson?"

So, leave Derek and Patterson out... unless Devlin coveted the treasure... hadn't the Faberge egg disappeared with both Derek and Patterson accusing each other. Let's suppose it was Devlin who took it. And then put a spell to removed those two..

And what about the Kings... how did they fit?

There could be other reasons for Derek's disappearance. Owing too much to gamblers? Not with the treasure in his possession... Running from the Mob? It has been years since Elmer Urrey's presumed death. No one could connect Derek with a long buried dead man.

So, Derek is unconnected... Burke might have hated Patterson, too... Or Patterson might have tried to blackmail him once he could no longer blackmail George.. But he would have been quicker about it...

And where did that leave the Kings?

And how could five people banish like that?

Maybe he should call Angelique and Megan. The lock that Angelique had put on him not to contact them was about to expire. And they could use the help of both of them.

In the meantime he had made phone calls to Sebastian Shaw and to Amy Jennings. Maybe they could help. Tomorrow he would meet with Sebastian... maybe bring him here to see what he could pick up.

Alma had not seen anything. Barnabas suspected it. She had been too busy worrying about Elsa to pay attention to anything else. Apart from the blood he had gained nothing by going to her. For the first time in their relationship he had found himself irritated by her chatter. All those things that hse had to talk about, and none of them of use to him. Nothing that would let him find the missing.

"What is it, Nastassia?" the elegantly attiered man asked her.

"I see danger ahead. They are asking questions, wondering where those who are missing went."

"They have questions but no answers."

"They are calling on thsoe who can. "

"Then they will have to be removed."

"There is someone called Sebastian Shaw. He has the sight. He can find about us more thatn he should."

"Then we bring him here, with the others."