Now he was humoring her. She tried not to grit her teeth. She could put up with a lot if the trade-off meant finding her mother’s killer.

“What do an invisible island with no name and an invisible town with no name mean?” she asked.

“A secret government town set up on a secret government-owned island.”

She thought about that while she munched some toast. “I get that the Bluestone Project was a clandestine government operation, but why wouldn’t the island and the town have names?”

“They probably did have code names, but those identifiers would have been highly classified. It was a common strategy. In World War Two, secret government towns were built to house the people who worked on the Manhattan Project.”

“How do you keep an entire town a secret?”

“You make sure it doesn’t show up on a map,” Harlan said. “Given that most maps are produced by various government agencies and departments, it wasn’t that hard to control the information, not in those days.”

“But anyone flying over the island would have noticed a community that suddenly appeared on a previously uninhabited island.”

“Not necessarily,” Harlan said. “Believe it or not, it was actually common to camouflage naval installations, harbors, aircraft production facilities and small towns during wartime. The techniques and technologies would have been familiar to the people who established Bluestone. And it wasn’t as if they had to conceal a whole town; just a few trailers. The lab itself would have been underground or in a cave system to block as much para-radiation as possible.”

“So we’re looking for an island and an old trailer park that don’t appear on any maps?”

“The trailers would have been demolished or sunk when the word came down to destroy all traces of the Bluestone Project. The building that looked like a convent or monastery might still be there, though. It obviously predated the trailers. And you can’t get rid of an entire island.”

“How do we find it?”

“We delegate. Arganbright and Pine can do the research. The old monastery is a solid clue. It indicates that at one time the island was occupied by a religious order. There will be tax records—unless those were also destroyed.”

Olivia drank some coffee. “What about the last part of the recording?” She refused to call it a prophecy. “To stop the monsters you must quench the lightning in the mirrors.”

“Beats me,” Harlan said.

“What?” She looked at him. “I thought you were the hotshot chaos talent who sees all and knows all.”

“I’m good, but I’m not a magician. I need data.”

“I am, of course, devastated to discover that you have limitations.”

“Arganbright and Pine said you are a very good aura reader.”

“Yep.”

“Any limitations?”

“Sure.”

“Can you tell the difference between normal and not-normal auras?” he asked. He sounded as if he was feeling his way.