No Rest for the Wicked - Chapter 11
Max had texted Bobby last night to arrange a meeting. It was time to provide an update on what he’d found out about Devine and the recent addition of Audrey as a client. Bobby was working and couldn’t meet until later tonight. Their rendezvous was scheduled for 8 p.m. at a Denny’s on Sunset.
Settling into his worn leather desk chair, steam rising from his third cup of coffee for the day nestled in his grasp, Max prepared to dive into some research. The familiar hum of his laptop filled the room as he opened a browser and typed “Davenports” into the search bar. The screen glowed with articles and reports detailing the family’s affluence and power, prominent figures etched into the city’s history. However, he was captivated by peculiar details as he clicked through the links: descriptions of their extensive and diverse art collections, and mentions of the quiet rumors surrounding strange, inexplicable occurrences at their enormous estate. Most of these rumors focused on how the Davenports never seemed to age, and how odd it is that they have a family cemetery on their property. One tabloid even claimed the cemetery comes alive once a year with the reanimated bodies of the Davenport elders. In addition to Devine’s paintings they are also collectors of antiques and ancient artifacts that they often donate to museums from their private collection.
It would appear they were amateur archaeologists. Articles in various science rags discussed trips to the Middle East, Asia, and Eastern Europe to excavate various sites all funded or even attended by this or that Davenport.
This seemed to be the closest connection yet to the Davenports and Max’s parents, but even that was a stretch. Archeology is a science, for sure, but hardly in the same wheelhouse as his parents. His dad was a Geo-scientist and engineer. His focus was on geothermal energy programs. Mother had been a pretty straight forward computer scientists. Her work was focused on building models and analysis.
Max sat back in his chair and pondered these dinners his parents were invited to at the Davenports. It can’t be a coincidence that my parents knew the Davenports, he thought.
Max’s parents disappeared after working on a secretive project out in Indian Springs. The assumption he had made given his father’s work was that they were building some sort of energy device. The work had been funded by an organization called The Eidolon Group. From the little Max had been able to discover about the group they were focused on mass transportation initiatives. Max believed that whatever it was his parents were working on likely had to do with the military since Indian Springs houses a little known drone base. Perhaps the device was a way to transport troops or supplies more expediently. Despite the official account of his parents’ accidental deaths at their workplace Max uncovered no evidence to corroborate it. No reports, no debris. It’s literally as if they just vanished into thin air.
What had always haunted Max was the sense that they had expected their fate. Just prior to their disappearance, they meticulously arranged for Benny’s takeover of his care, including the paperwork and finances, a clear indication of their anticipation of the worst.
Mad had always seen them as unremarkable scientists, not as people who mingled with the elite. His eyes shifted from his computer to the closet, filled with boxes of his parents’ belongings and his own investigation into their vanishing. Wondering if there was something he had missed in those boxes linking them to the Davenports he decided to take a break from the laptop and go through some of the old boxes again.
Hunched over a stack of old cardboard boxes, the musty scent of aged paper filled the air as he sifted through the boxes labeled “Dad’s Office.” Each folder he opened revealed the same dull contents; stacks of DOE forms, routine employment documentation, and yellowing pages of radiation decay tables. Max traced the edges of the notebooks with his fingers, all stuffed with his father’s hurried scribbles, a jumble of lecture notes and meandering to-do lists. Flipping through a second notebook, a photograph fell out and fluttered to the floor.
Max recognized the photo instantly: his father, standing beside a chalkboard crammed with complex equations. But this time, something new caught his eye. Snatching the photograph from the floor, Max hurried to his desk and clicked on the lamp. The light illuminated a minor detail he had previously overlooked. A pin on his father’s lapel. It was a gold beetle, gleaming under the lamp’s glow, identical to one he’d seen just yesterday on Audrey’s bag.
Max looked from the photo to the images of the Davenports at various events on his computer screen. Zooming in he scrutinized each one. Repeatedly, the same gold beetle pin appeared, adorning the lapels of the men and the stylish bags of the women, just as expected. The pin is obviously more than just a fashion statement. It must be some sort of club insignia or something.
Max took another hesitant sip of coffee and typed in the search bar “gold beetle pin”, only to see links to jewelry stores and antique dealers. Nothing that looked like what his dad was wearing in the photo or the Davenport’s. Rubbing his forehead he typed “Davenport Gold Beetle”, still nothing. On a lark he tried “Gold Beetle Organization,”. This time he found something. A link popped up for a website detailing secret societies “past, present, and imagined”. The Beetle’s Eye was on the list that included such groups as the Illuminati and the Freemasons. Clinking the linked name took Max to a sparsely populated page that contained a picture of the same pin and a brief blurb about The Beetle’s Eye.
The page claimed those who wear the pin of the group are included in hidden wisdom and are charged with the duty to “watch over time”.
Max picked up the package he had received from his mysterious Fourth Axis Theory contact and pulled out the writings from his mother. What could these coordinates and dates mean, and why does it seem like the Davenports and his parents were involved in more than just dinner parties…but something to do with time itself?
