Richard Castle - Wild Storm

Jones had been typically taciturn when Storm had shared his thoughts about the laser beam and the missing scientist who might be behind it. “Sounds like we need to get you out to California,” was all Jones had said.

The flight chased the sun across the country, making good time in empty airspace. It landed just as the Bay Area was purging itself of morning traffic. In an unmarked vehicle borrowed from the air force — another underpowered Chevrolet, unfortunately — Storm drove out to Hercules, a small town just north of Berkeley.

William McRae’s onetime home was a large brown ranch with tan shutters set on a pretty piece of land near the top of a hill. Storm could see a deck on the back of the house that provided a commanding view of the valley spread below. On a clear day, he bet some of the tall buildings of San Francisco were visible. It was what realtors would call a million-dollar view. While Storm was no professional appraiser, he would not be surprised if the house would fetch something in that neighborhood if it was ever put on the market.

The lawn was immaculately maintained. The gardens were likewise spotless. There was an orderliness to the layout that suggested a logical mind was behind its creation.

An American flag hung by the front door. On an oak tree next to the driveway, someone had tied a yellow ribbon.

Storm parked on the street and walked up the driveway, hoping he might find some answers inside the house at the top of it.

He climbed the five slate steps that led to a small patio in front of what appeared to be the main door to the house. He pressed the doorbell button. It responded with an arpeggio-like chime. No one came to the door. He rang again. Nothing.

It wasn’t like he had an appointment. Then again, he also didn’t have time to wait for one. He descended the steps and looked around. No sign of anyone. He walked back toward a garage he had passed on his way up. One of the garage doors was open. There were two cars inside.

He kept going, rounding the corner of the house and into the backyard. There, he found a white-haired woman hunched on her knees, digging in a well-mulched flower bed with a small trowel. She wore floral-patterned gloves with matching gardening clogs.

“Alida McRae?” Storm said.

“Yes.” She looked up at him with steady blue eyes.

“My name is Derrick Storm. I’d like to ask some questions about your husband. Do you mind talking with me?”

“Are you with the state police?”

Storm wore a blazer and button-down shirt with jeans underneath. She was mistaking him for a plainclothes cop.

“No, ma’am.”

“The FBI?”

“No, ma’am.”

She jammed the trowel in the ground. “Then who are you, exactly?”

“I’m a contractor for the government. It’s best I don’t say which part.”

“And what is your interest, exactly?”

“Same as yours. I want to find your husband and see that he is returned home safely.”

She stood, pulled off her gardening gloves, and let them drop to the grass. She drew a cell phone out of her pocket and began punching numbers.

“Ma’am?” Storm asked.

She didn’t answer. She took a few steps farther away but spoke loudly enough that Storm had no trouble hearing. “Yes, Chief, this is Alida McRae. A strange man claiming to be from the government has shown up at my house and wants to ask me questions about my husband. Could you please send an officer out to the house immediately?” She waited for a reply. “Yes, I suppose you can send two if you’d like. The more the merrier. Thank you.”

She hung up and faced him. Storm knotted his fingers in front of his body, thought about whistling. Jones had protocols in place to handle this sort of thing — numbers that could be called, cover stories at the ready, people who would vouch for Storm. He just wished he didn’t have to waste the time right now.

“The police are coming right out,” she said. “I’m going to have them check you out before I say a word.”

“Okay.”

She stood there, staring at him sternly, her fists jammed on her hips. “I’m sure they’re going to ask for ID.”

“Okay,” Storm said again, rocking back on his heels.

“Their response times are quite good. They’ll probably be here in three minutes.”

“Good,” Storm said.

“Good?”

“Yes, good. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can get on to finding your husband.”

She stared at him just a bit longer. “And you said your name was Storm?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Why don’t you come up on the back deck. I’ll make us some iced tea. We can talk there.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to wait for the police?”

She scooped up her gloves and gardening trowel. “I didn’t really call the police. They’ve been no damn use to me anyway. I just wanted to see how you’d respond. I figured if you were legitimate you’d stay and if you were a con man you’d run.”

Storm smiled. He liked Alida McRae already. “I’m legitimate enough,” he said.

“To be honest, I don’t really care who you are or which part of the government you work for. If you’re trying to bring Billy home, you’ve got my full cooperation.”

OVER THE NEXT TWENTY MINUTES, Storm sat on the McRae family deck, iced tea in front of him, the Alhambra Valley laid out beneath him, and made Alida go through her version of her husband’s disappearance.

There were no surprises. Her husband was gone. She didn’t know why. None of his routines had changed in the days or weeks prior to it. Nothing in his behavior suggested he was going anywhere.

Storm asked some questions but didn’t sense he was extracting any new insight out of her. Most of what she said had already been reported in the paper.

When he was satisfied she had nothing more to tell him about the mysterious vanishing of William McRae, Storm changed subjects. He told her about his suspicion, now twice-confirmed, that a high-energy laser beam had been responsible for knocking planes from flight over Pennsylvania, and his belief that the people responsible might have been forcing her husband to do their bidding.

Alida’s face became graver the more he spoke. “He had done a lot of work on high-energy lasers,” she said quietly.

“I know. I saw his name splashed across the literature. Would he know how to make one?”

She just nodded.

“The only paper Bill published in the last three years was about the feasibility of a promethium laser beam,” Storm said. “Do you know anything about that?”

“I guess you could say so. I helped him write it.”

Storm must have looked curious, because Alida answered the question he didn’t even ask. “I helped him write all his papers. Billy is a scientist, through and through. Even with all the papers he’s published, words have never been his strong point. I was an English major. I’ve been ghostwriting for him since graduate school.”

“No shame in having a ghostwriter,” Storm said. “Some of the best books published every year are penned by talented writers whose identity the public will never know.”

“I enjoyed it. Bill’s research is everything to him. If I wasn’t conversant on it, there would have been whole decades of our marriage when we wouldn’t have had much to talk about. Some of the other wives at the laboratory just throw their hands up and say they can’t understand any of what their husbands do. I feel like they’re giving up on a big chunk of their partners’ lives. It’s really not that incomprehensible once you get into it.”

“Do you think you could explain it to me, Mrs. McRae?”

“First of all, call me Alida. When you call me Mrs. McRae it makes me feel like an old lady. Second of all: of course I can explain it to you. I wasn’t asleep when I was writing all those papers, you know.”