He ignored all of them and went at once to kneel by his wife. Only after touching her hand and apparently reassuring himself that she was still alive did he look up at Tony. “You found her like this?”
“Yes. But Yesenia says she should be okay here.”
The man’s dark gaze immediately flicked up toward the healer. “Is that true?”
“For now,” the woman — Yesenia — said gently. “And now that you’re here, we can move her to her bed.”
“Of course.” He glanced over at his son. “Tony?”
Without speaking, Tony came forward and knelt as well, and then the two men lifted Sophia from the rug and carried her out of the room. Yesenia began to follow them, then paused, her dark eyes taking in Cassandra as if really noticing her for the first time.
“You were here when he found her?”
“Yes,” Cassandra replied. She hesitated, wondering how much the healer knew about the books, if anything. Zoe had made it sound as though their presence here in Santa Fe was a secret shared by only a few, so she guessed it was probably better to say as little as possible. “I’m — my name is Cassandra Sandoval. I’m here from the de la Paz clan on the prima’s business.”
“I assume that ‘business’ has something to do with what happened to Sophia?”
About all Cassandra could do was nod and pray that Yesenia wouldn’t try to probe any further.
But part of being a healer was knowing how to keep secrets, and so the older woman didn’t say anything else, only gave her another considering look before she excused herself and hurried out of the family room. Since she didn’t know what else to do, Cassandra trailed along in her wake, following her to the sweeping staircase that led to the house’s second floor.
As soon as they got to the upstairs landing, Yesenia hurried through a pair of double doors to their right. This was clearly the master bedroom; Tony and his father had laid Sophia down on the bed and removed her shoes, then pulled the white comforter over her.
It seemed better to wait near the door, so Cassandra stayed there, watching as Yesenia went over to Tony’s father and murmured something to him. The older man’s face was bleak, calm, as if he’d already resigned himself to the worst, but Tony stood on the other side of the bed, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans, the shocked expression he wore now appearing to shift to one of anger.
Well, Cassandra could understand that. She knew she’d be on a rampage if someone had attacked her own mother in such a way. A flicker of fear went through her, but she told herself that there was no reason for anyone to go after her parents. They were safe in the heart of de la Paz territory. Anyway, this attacker was clearly after the books, and since all of her clan’s pilfered grimoires were now in this strange witch or warlock’s possession, there probably wasn’t much left in Phoenix or Tucson to even tempt them.
Tony went over to his father and said something in an undertone, and the older man nodded, then placed a hand on his son’s shoulder for a moment before he turned back to the unconscious woman in the bed. After that exchange, Tony came over to where Cassandra was waiting.
“We should go,” he said, his tone quiet, as if he was somehow worried that his comatose mother might be able to hear him.
“All right,” she replied, glad of an excuse to slip away. She felt far too much like an interloper here, an unwilling spectator to an unexpected tragedy. As soon as they were headed back down the stairs, she added, “We should really go talk to Miranda and let her know what happened.”
Tony looked a little startled at the familiar way she’d referred to his clan’s prima, but then he seemed to brush the matter aside, maybe reminding himself that Miranda and Cassandra were distant cousins. “I can call and talk to her,” he said. “But she’s not really receiving visitors right now.”
“Why not?” Cassandra demanded. “This isn’t exactly dropping in to have tea and cookies. She needs to know what happened.”
“And we’ll tell her,” Tony replied, his tone equally brusque. “But her baby’s due in seven weeks, and she’s been confined to bed because she fell last week and had a few issues, and Yesenia doesn’t want her to exert herself.”
Oh, hell. Talk about putting your foot in it. She hadn’t heard anything about Miranda’s unfortunate mishap and wondered if even Zoe knew. The two primas talked to one another fairly frequently, but it seemed there were some matters Miranda didn’t wish to share. “Sorry,” Cassandra said. “I didn’t know.”
“Well, it’s not exactly the sort of thing we’re advertising to the other clans. I mean, obviously Miranda has talked to her parents, but I doubt they’re spreading the story all over the place, either.”
No, probably not. Still, this was an unsettling and unwelcome turn of events. At the back of her mind, Cassandra had been thinking they could call Miranda in to offer assistance if necessary, but it sounded as though she was sidelined until the baby was here. “So what do we do now?” she asked, wishing her voice didn’t sound quite so plaintive.
“We can go to my place and regroup.” Expression somber, he went on, “And you’ll probably need to call the airline and cancel your ticket.”
Right. She hadn’t even thought about that, but it seemed obvious now that she wouldn’t be heading back to Tucson any time soon. Maybe it was pointless for her to stay here, since her whole job had been to protect the books while she ferried them into de la Paz territory. Something inside her told her that she needed to stay, though, to help the Castillos figure out who was behind this attack. If they could discover who had stolen the books, then maybe they’d also be able to find out where they had been taken.
“Okay,” Cassandra said. “Let’s go to your house.”
Tony’s place wasn’t what she’d been expecting. It looked as though it had been built sometime in the late 1800s, and the furniture was just as old, matching the architecture of the house. Not exactly the home of a bachelor warlock, although he explained a little of the decor as he ushered her into the kitchen.
“The house is haunted,” he said cheerfully, going to the refrigerator so he could extract a couple of bottles of a local microbrew, then pop the caps using the bottle opener bolted into the cabinet next to it. “Her name is Victoria.”
“Really?” Cassandra took the bottle he offered her, fought a losing battle with her conscience, and said the hell with it. Obviously, she wasn’t going anywhere soon, and a beer might help to relax her jangly nerves. “Did she introduce herself?”
“Not in so many words, but she let my uncle — he owned the house before I bought it — know that she wasn’t a fan of his foosball table or any of the other ‘improvements’ he tried to make.”
After a swallow of beer, Cassandra asked, “Is that why the place looks like a museum?”
Despite everything that had happened during the course of the afternoon, Tony appeared remarkably cheerful. Maybe the beer was already helping. “What, you don’t like my decorating style?”
“It doesn’t feel much like you,” she said frankly. “Not that I know you very well, but — ”
He grinned. “No, the downstairs is pure Victoria. Well, except the kitchen. She didn’t make too much of a fuss about me modernizing that space. And she let me do what I wanted with my bedroom.”
“Oh.” Cassandra wasn’t sure how to reply to that remark — something felt weird about discussing bedrooms with a guy she’d just met — and so she only said, “I guess that’s not so bad, then.”
For a moment, they were both silent, sipping their beers. She did take a few surreptitious glances around, confirming that the appliances were new and shiny, the countertops a pale grayish granite to match the whitewashed cabinetry.
“You actually cook in here?” she asked. The kitchen seemed spotlessly clean, and visits to the abodes of several of her male cousins had provided the knowledge that the kitchens of most men in their middle twenties didn’t look quite so much like something out of a magazine.
Another grin. Ye
s, he was really good-looking, with that devilish lift on one side of his mouth and the way the eyebrow on that same side would cock at precisely the correct rakish angle. “Does making coffee count?”
“No.”
“Then I don’t.”
She’d thought as much. Another sip of beer, and then she said, “So…what do we do next?”
“I don’t know.” The grin disappeared, and Cassandra found herself wishing that she’d stayed on a lighter topic, if only for a few more minutes. She liked how Tony looked when he smiled, but now the somber expression had returned. “I can call Rafe and Miranda, but, like I said, there’s not a lot Miranda can do right now.”
“Is there anyone in your clan with the gift of detecting magic…you know, what I was doing, except hopefully stronger, more accurate?” Cassandra asked the question without any real hope that Tony would reply in the affirmative, and was surprised when he nodded.
“Actually, Louisa is really good at that.”
“She’s the one who was supposed to be your prima, right?”
Now his dark eyes were sharp, focusing on her face like a laser beam. “You know about that?”
“Well, yes,” Cassandra admitted. “Don’t worry — it’s not like it was an open topic of conversation in the de la Paz clan. But my father is my prima’s uncle, and they talked, so we talked. I don’t know all the details, though.”
Some of the tension seemed to go out of Tony’s shoulders. “I guess that’s not so bad. But yeah, Louisa is Genoveva’s oldest daughter, and should have been our prima, only once she went up against Escobar, she realized she really didn’t have what it took to win against him. So she handed her powers over to Miranda. Luckily, though, her own individual powers — the ones she had before she became prima when Genoveva died — are still in place. And that means she’s probably the best person to help us.”
“Maybe you should call her first, then.”
“No, I’ll call Rafe and Miranda. They’re the heads of the clan, so they should be the first to know what’s happened.” Tony’s shoulders lifted slightly, and he took another sip of beer. “I’m sure they’ll come to the same conclusion about having Louisa look into it. In the meantime….” He stopped there. “I hope your plane ticket is refundable.”
“It is,” Cassandra assured him. Even as she spoke, though, she found herself reluctant, as if calling the airline to cancel her ticket would put her on an irrevocable course, one that would force her to see this through to the end. But wasn’t that what she’d already determined to do? Zoe had entrusted her with this mission, and she needed to stay with it, no matter what happened. She hated knowing that it was the negligence of her fellow clan members that had led to the books being stolen in the first place, and even though Cassandra realized she’d had nothing to do with their failings, she wanted to do whatever she could to restore the de la Paz clan’s honor. “I’ll call now.”
She pulled her phone out of the purse and brought up the app that contained her electronic ticketing information. A swipe of her finger, and then she was on hold, waiting for the pablum music to go away so she could talk to a real person. Why this part of the operation wasn’t automated, she didn’t know, except that maybe the airline didn’t want to be liable for people fat-fingering something and canceling a ticket when they really didn’t mean to.
As she waited, she saw that Tony had gotten out his own phone and was talking to someone in a low voice. Rafe, or possibly Miranda? Probably. They needed to be brought into the loop, even if there wasn’t a whole lot they could do to help, except maybe allocate any necessary clan resources to assist in the search for Sophia Castillo’s attacker. For all Cassandra knew, they’d decide her unique magical gift wasn’t going to be of much use, given what had just happened, and they’d send her home anyway. Which meant that making this phone call might turn out to be sort of pointless.
However, the operator picked up just then, and Cassandra took a breath and told the woman that her stay in Santa Fe had been extended indefinitely, and so she had to cancel her ticket. A few minutes later, she was off the phone, feeling oddly at loose ends.
Well, that’s not so strange, she thought. You’re here in Santa Fe with the clothes on your back and a travel-size tube of toothpaste and a travel toothbrush in your purse and not much else. Didn’t really stop to think that everything might not go exactly to plan, did you?
Maybe not. But it wasn’t as though she was marooned in the middle of nowhere. Once they’d decided on their next step, she could take a break to go and buy a few changes of clothes and some toiletries. There was a mall here in Santa Fe, and plenty of other shopping. She could get whatever she needed if it turned out her stay was going to be extended for an indefinite amount of time.
Tony was still on the phone, his back turned slightly toward her, so Cassandra couldn’t hear what he was saying. Since she knew she’d have to make the call anyway, she lifted her phone and said, “Call Zoe.”
It had been a toss-up whether she should call her clan’s prima or her parents, but Cassandra guessed it was probably better to contact Zoe first. She needed to know what had happened here. And her parents, well, they hadn’t been thrilled about her being sent to Santa Fe on her own, but they hadn’t argued with Zoe’s decision. Cassandra was a grown woman with her own condo and a job at a local advertising agency. True, the agency was owned by a de la Paz cousin, and she knew she probably wouldn’t have her graphic design position if it weren’t for that family connection, but still. She didn’t live at home anymore, could make her own decisions about what to do and where to go.
Apparently, Zoe had been expecting her to call, because she answered right away. “Hi, Cass. Are you on your way back to Phoenix?”
“Well, no,” Cassandra replied. “There’s been a complication.”
“‘Complication’?” Zoe repeated, her tone sharpening.
No point in trying to make this sound any better than it was. “Someone attacked the witch who was guarding the books and managed to steal them.”
“Seriously?” Zoe demanded, sounding aghast.
“Seriously. She survived, but she’s in some kind of coma. And right now we don’t have any clues as to who could have taken the books, or where they are now. I guess Tony has a cousin who might be able to help, but — ”
“Who’s Tony?”
“The warlock who picked me up at the airport. It’s his mother who was attacked.”
“Oh.” A pause, as if Zoe was trying to figure out what she should say next. But really, what was there to say? At the moment, it seemed as if they were all pretty royally screwed.
“I’m going to stay and help with the search,” Cassandra continued.
“I don’t see how that’s going to help.”
Well, thanks. Cassandra made herself take a breath and count to five. All right, her cousin had a point — Cassandra’s talent wasn’t the kind that, on the surface, seemed as if it would be of much use, given the current situation. But that didn’t mean she was entirely without resources. “My dad’s a cop, remember? He’s taught me a lot about investigating crime scenes. There are other ways I can help besides just using my talent.”
Silence for a moment. All right, maybe it had been a stretch to say that Jack Sandoval was a cop, since he’d quit the Scottsdale P.D. before Cassandra was even born, but once a cop, always a cop, at least when it came to a certain type of mindset. And he had taught her a good deal of what he knew, as well as making sure she was a crack shot with a pistol and a rifle, and also knew how to defend herself against an armed assailant.
All of which might or might not stand her in good stead when it came to open conflict with a powerful witch or warlock, but it was probably better than nothing.
Another pause, and then Zoe said, “Maybe you’re right. I don’t know.” She let out a small sigh of a breath, then added, “I suppose I could order you to come back to Arizona.”
“And I could ignore your order,” Cassandra said cheerfully.
She wasn’t too bothered by the threat, mostly because she knew that Zoe wasn’t the type to throw her weight as prima around. Although she’d held that title since the time when she was around the same age that Cassandra was now, she still didn’t always seem comfortable with the position, as if even now, more than twenty years later, she expected someone to come along and tell her that it had all been a mistake and she wasn’t really supposed to be prima.
“Yes, you could…and Jack would probably back you up. All right. Go ahead and stay, but make sure you keep me posted if you find out anything.”
“I will,” Cassandra replied. “I’ll talk to you again soon.”
She ended the call there and turned slightly to find Tony leaning against the kitchen counter, phone idle in one hand. “That was your prima?”
Cassandra nodded. “I needed to let her know what was going on. What did Miranda say?”
“Actually, she was resting. I talked to Rafe.” Tony ran a hand through his thick dark hair, pushing it back from his forehead.
“And?”
“Well, he wasn’t happy to hear what had happened, but I guess none of us are.” Tony set down his phone and picked up the half-drunk bottle of beer waiting for him on the countertop. After taking a swallow, he went on, “But he said he’d get in contact with Louisa and have her come up to the house, take a look around.”
“Good,” Cassandra told him. “Because I should have done the same thing. I guess I was so shocked by what had happened that I forgot my training.”
“Your training?” Tony asked, now looking almost amused. “Are you a cop or something?”
“No,” she replied. “But my father was. He taught me a few things. It never hurts to look at things methodically, even if you’re not performing a formal investigation.”
This response only made Tony lift an eyebrow, but at least he otherwise looked as though he was willing to take her words at face value. “Well, then, finish your beer and we’ll head back out.”
She did just that, not exactly chugging the remainder of what was in the bottle, but drinking it faster than she normally would have. When she was done, she put the bottle down on the counter next to Tony’s.
An Ill Wind Page 3
