Excerpt: The Cortez Obsidian

“Bye, Javier. Have a good day,” she said almost automatically but with warmth, turning and going inside with the package, remembering to lock the door behind her again. She tossed the rest of the mail on the table, rummaging in the kitchen drawer for scissors – Never can find them when I need them, she thought in mild frustration, though she did turn up a small calculator battery and wondered absently if it would work in the garage door opener. She’d have to remember to try it, she thought, and put it on the counter, still rummaging for scissors. Giving up, she closed the drawer and grabbed a kitchen knife, slitting the tape to unfold the envelope, then yanking the tab.

She reached in and pulled out a book, one of the type of journal you could get at most bookstores or stationers for anywhere from five to twenty dollars, depending. This one looked to be at the upper end of the scale, with a hinged spine so it would lay flat, and a nice, heavy, solid cover, even if it was still the pasteboard covered in cloth that was so standard these days. The cover of this one, though, seemed to bulge a bit. Not only was there a paper tucked inside the front cover, something thick and heavy, but there was something else inside as well. Carla opened the book, running her fingers down the cover lightly before grasping it at the edge and turning. She saw what she expected to – inside, resting in the fold of the spine and held in place by the cover, was a folded paper, parchment really, that looked a great deal deal like the one she’d caught a glimpse of in Nathan’s hands the other day, at dinner. She drew it away, and set it to the side on the table; she’d look at it in a minute.

When she moved it, two other things showed up. The first was fastened in place to the inside cover of the book, and was the thing she’d set the parchment paper aside to look at. It was a small envelope, made by folding a scrap of paper into a rectangle and taping it. She tore it gently from the cover, knowing from the size and feel what she’d find before she opened it. And sure enough, it was a key. Two, actually, the second one small, almost lost against the first; she only knew it was there by the weight of the packet when she’d drawn the first one out. The first looked like a door key, or maybe a room, but some type of doorknob lock. The other maybe went to a strongbox or safe of some type. Both were relatively new, and looked as if they’d been used. Not keys that he’d just had made, then; these were his, and unless she missed her guess, the only copies.

She set these aside as well, on top of the parchment, making a mental note to get a keychain for them, or maybe just a separate loop. Though perhaps the best way to hide them would be to attach them to her own key ring, and hope when she needed them, if she did, that she could tell them apart. Setting that thought aside with the keys, though, she turned her attention to the other item that captured her attention, the one revealed when she moved the parchment out of the way. A small envelope, a real one this time, of the type one would buy in any office supply store, was taped to the cover page, her name scrawled in Nathan’s almost illegible handwriting on the outside. She knew the writing from the countless notes, post its and memos she’d seen from him in grad school. She removed it even more carefully than the packet of keys, her hand trembling, and opened it with a quick jerk of a finger under the flap. Just the tip of the seal had been stuck, and it came open easily. Tucked inside was a small page, apparently torn from this very journal, with his handwriting scribbled across it as well. She opened the folded note and began to read.

‘Carla,’ it began – and she could hear his voice, suddenly, in her head, and started to cry once more, soft, quiet tears that leaked from the corners of her eyes and onto the table to fall, unheeded –

‘Carla -

‘I was followed in San Antonio again. I lost him at the airport here in Los Angeles, but I probably haven’t much time. These keys are to a room in my house, hidden behind the basement bookshelf. A flight of stairs from that room leads up to the building across the back alley, so if you need to get out, you can do so that way. The smaller key opens a fireproof box in the lower right hand drawer of the desk there. That has a bigger book – all the accumulated history and information on the Obsidian. Find it, if you can. It may be the only thing that will save me. I don’t say this lightly, Carla, and I’m sorry to give this all to you. I’ll take the attention off you as much as I can. Good luck, and my love.

Nathan’