The Witches of Canyon Road, Books 1-3

by Christine Pope

  “I suppose you’re right,” Cat murmured in answer to her mother’s comment, although from the way she still frowned slightly, Rafe guessed that she was still far from convinced.

  “What now?” he asked.

  “There isn’t much we can do except watch and wait,” Eduardo said. “There are a few procedures they can try, but they’ll have to hold off on most of those until the test results come back.”

  “But you don’t need me or Cat here.”

  Annoyance flickered across Genoveva’s face. “No, I suppose not, although one would think you might show a little more concern for your cousin.”

  “I am concerned,” Rafe said evenly, doing his best to control his anger. Genoveva always did know the best way to provoke him. “But I also know that there isn’t a damn thing I can do to make him better. So I might as well focus on trying to locate Miranda.”

  “With Daniel’s help,” his mother responded, disdain clear in her voice.

  “Yes, with Daniel’s help,” Rafe told her. Part of him was annoyed that Eduardo would remain here as long as Genoveva told him to stay, which meant he wouldn’t be contacting any local hotels in the near future. Someone might as well keep working on finding Miranda. His gaze moved to Cat. “Do you want to stay here, Cat, or would you like to come down to Albuquerque with me?”

  Her relief at being asked this question was obvious, but she hesitated for a moment. “I — I don’t know. Mom, would you rather I stayed here?”

  “Oh, go,” Genoveva said irritably. “Like your brother said, neither one of you can do anything to help, and you would have had to leave when Sophia got here anyway. We’re already bending the rules by having this many visitors in the ICU.”

  Rafe hadn’t even thought about that, but she was right. Only immediate family, and two at a time, should have been allowed in Marco’s room. Then again, Genoveva always did manage to get her own way, whether dealing with her own family or the faceless bureaucracy of a hospital.

  Well, she almost always managed to get her way. The last few days had been clear proof that the universe didn’t always rule in her favor.

  “Then we’ll go,” Rafe said, his voice calm. “Call us if anything changes.”

  “We will,” Eduardo replied. From the way he had answered for his wife, it seemed clear enough that he didn’t trust her to make a civil reply.

  “Yes, call,” Cat said, then slipped out of the hospital room. Rafe joined her in the hallway, and together they walked over to the elevator. As she pushed the button, she said, “Thank God you got us out of there. I don’t know if I could have stood another minute.”

  “Hospitals are rough,” he agreed.

  The elevator doors opened, and they both got in. Luckily, they had the elevator to themselves. “Oh, it’s not just that,” Cat said. “I mean, hospitals are worse for me, because they do tend to be haunted, even if the hospital staff would never admit to it. And there’s hardly ever any romance or adventure about a death in a hospital. Just suffering.” She paused there, her hands jammed in the pockets of her jeans. “No, it’s that I was getting the most terrible feeling, almost like…pressure…bearing down from all sides. I’ve never felt anything like it before.”

  “You’re sure?” Rafe asked. “I mean, I can see how Genoveva might have that effect on you.”

  Cat made a face. “That’s not funny, Rafe. No, it was much more than Mom being her usual pain-in-the-ass self. It just felt…wrong.”

  “Do you still sense it?” Despite his attempt to keep his tone casual, he felt a flicker of cold move down his spine. His sister wasn’t exactly a medium or even psychic, in the way that most people thought of the term, but having a talent that allowed you to talk to ghosts had to make you more sensitive than the average person, or even the average witch.

  “Not as much.”

  The elevator doors opened, and they stepped out into the lobby. By unspoken agreement, they were silent as they crossed the space and went out through the glass doors that opened on the parking lot. After they got in Cat’s SUV, she sat there for a moment, making no move to turn on the ignition.

  “Are you all right?” Rafe asked, now feeling slightly alarmed. “Do you want me to drive?”

  She gave him a wan smile. “No, I’m okay. And it does feel better out here.” She pulled in a deep breath and pushed her long, sooty hair over one shoulder. “I don’t know what the hell that was.”

  “I have no idea, but I’m glad you can’t feel it out here.” He hesitated for a moment; she’d said she was okay, but was she all right to make the trip down to Albuquerque? Even with the vehicle doing most of the work, you still had to stay alert in case something came up that the car’s computer couldn’t handle. Heading to Albuquerque wasn’t quite the same as driving across town to go home, or even to get something to eat. People tended to speed on I-25, where it wasn’t mandatory to engage a car’s auto-drive function.

  “Really, I’m fine,” she said, clearly noting his concern, even though he hadn’t said anything further. “Even to go to Albuquerque. Actually, Albuquerque sounds like a great idea. Right now I want to get far, far away from Santa Fe.”

  Rafe had to agree with that sentiment. Maybe it wouldn’t look so great to the rest of the family that he and Cat had bailed to head south for the day, but on the other hand, there truly wasn’t anything they could do here. Neither one of them was a healer, or possessed any sort of talent that might be remotely useful in this situation, such as brewing fortifying potions. It seemed like a better idea to go see Daniel in person, do their best to make some progress in tracking down Miranda.

  Cat pushed the button to turn on the ignition, then backed them out of their parking space. It wasn’t very far from St. Vincent’s to the onramp for I-25, so within five minutes they were moving south, leaving Santa Fe behind them. As they were passing the National Guard Armory on the outskirts of town, she spoke.

  “I still think they’re connected.”

  “Marco’s stroke and looking for Miranda?”

  She nodded, hands clenched on the steering wheel, gaze fixed forward. “Maybe I’m being crazy. But it does seem like an awfully strange coincidence.”

  “Maybe,” Rafe allowed. At the moment, he wasn’t ready to pass judgment either way. “I mean, no one really knows exactly how we use our powers, how they affect us physically. It’s not as if any of us are going to volunteer to go into a lab for some testing.”

  “That’s for sure,” Cat said with a small chuckle. She was starting to look a little more like herself now that they were away from the hospital, the tension leaving her jaw and shoulders.

  “So what if Marco was straining to locate Miranda, really forcing it this time because the last time he tried this, it didn’t work at all? What if that strain made him blow a gasket, so to speak?”

  “I’ve never heard of anything like that happening before,” Cat replied, her tone doubtful.

  “Well, maybe not among our clan, but who’s to say it hasn’t happened somewhere else? You know the witch clans are terrible about trading information, which is kind of stupid, when you stop to think about it. There’s a lot we could learn if we were just willing to share.”

  His sister didn’t reply at once, but Rafe could tell from her thoughtful silence that she was mulling over his words.

  “Possibly,” she said at last. “Although in some cases, there were very good reasons why the clans kept themselves separate.”

  He thought of the rampage by Joaquin Escobar that had forced the bargain between his grandmother and Angela McAllister, and acknowledged that Cat might have a point. Still….

  “All I’m saying is that you could be right in that there is a connection, but only because Marco was working too hard — over-clocking his processor, you know?”

  “I suppose.” She was quiet for a moment. “Although that doesn’t explain the pressure I felt in his hospital room.”

  Which could have been anything. Nerves, or stress, or quite possibly the
unseen force of many ghostly presences pushing on her all at once. Rafe decided it was better not to point out all these possibilities, just because he didn’t want to sound condescending. His talent was utterly unlike his sister’s, and so he had no real frame of reference. It could be frustrating when he tried to understand what she might be experiencing.

  “No, it doesn’t. And I’m the first to admit that a lot of weird shit has been going on lately. I wish you could’ve felt that dark presence I experienced downtown by the wine tasting room — then you could’ve told me whether this felt similar.”

  “Maybe when we get back to Santa Fe, you should take me by there, see if I can feel anything.”

  That wasn’t a bad idea. She was more attuned to otherworldly vibrations than he, so possibly she’d be able to pick up nuances that he couldn’t. “And maybe ask the ghosts in the area if they’ve noticed anything out of the ordinary.”

  She nodded. “That’s probably what I’d have to do anyway. Even though I did feel something strange at the hospital, it wasn’t the usual strangeness of ghosts hanging around. This was something different.”

  Well, Cat wasn’t a medium, or a sensitive. She had a very specific talent, which was talking to ghosts. And he didn’t possess anything like her gift. Besides, it hadn’t been what he felt downtown, exactly, but what he smelled. Too bad the scent trail had died away before he could follow it to its destination.

  “We’ll try that.” His stomach growled, and he grimaced. In the seat next to him, Cat grinned.

  “Sounds like we need to get some lunch down in Albuquerque before we do anything else.”

  “Probably. We might as well, because Daniel doesn’t know that we’re coming. When I talked to him earlier, I made it sound as though I’d wait for him to call me. But it suddenly seemed better to go down and see him in person.”

  “I get it. We can call from the restaurant before we eat — that way he’ll have more time to get ready to see us.”

  And hopefully Daniel wouldn’t have any appointments he’d have to cancel to fit them in. He did seem to be pretty busy. However, Rafe figured that he and Cat could come up with something to keep the two of them occupied until their cousin could see them.

  “Sounds good.”

  They were quiet after that, each of them occupied with their own thoughts. Rafe was especially glad when they descended into the Rio Grande valley after passing the turn-off for Cochiti Lake; for some reason, he always thought of that as the demarcation point between Santa Fe and its environs and Albuquerque and its suburbs of Rio Rancho and Corrales, and he wanted to be well clear of Santa Fe for a while. In less than a half hour, they were inside Albuquerque’s city limits and headed downtown.

  Neither he nor his sister knew the city that well, but the car’s nav system gave them several options for restaurants near the high-rise where Daniel’s office was located. Since this would be breakfast for both of them, they decided on American diner food rather than New Mexican or something along those lines.

  “Thank God,” Cat said after the waitress had brought their food, a huge platter of eggs and bacon and hotcakes for her, an omelette loaded with meat and peppers and cheese for him. “I could really feel it those last few miles. All this stress on an empty stomach kind of sucks.”

  Yes, it did. Rafe knew he’d gone way past the point where he didn’t feel like eating because of said stress, and on to the other side where his over-tired body needed some fuel to keep it going. He’d called from the parking lot, and Daniel had said that his two o’clock had canceled and so Rafe and Cat were more than welcome to stop in. Despite the train wreck that the day had been so far, it did seem as though things were going about as well as could be expected.

  They ate quickly but not too fast, letting the food fill their empty stomachs and the distance from Santa Fe provide some much-needed relief. Neither of them mentioned Marco, although Rafe noticed how Cat jumped visibly when her phone buzzed. She picked it up, looked at the caller I.D., then shook her head ruefully and put the phone back in her purse.

  “That was just the dealership reminding me of my service appointment next week,” she said, then picked up her glass of iced tea and took a long sip. “I’d completely forgotten about it.”

  “Well, life has been a little crazy lately.”

  There was an understatement.

  “I know.” Cat swirled her straw around in the iced tea, watching as the slice of lemon floating there was temporarily submerged beneath the ice before it popped back up again. “Do you think it will ever get un-crazy?”

  He shrugged, about the only response he would allow himself right then. “I don’t know.”

  And he didn’t. Despite the friction between his mother and himself, Rafe knew his life had been fairly placid for the most part…until Miranda came on the scene. He didn’t think she had caused any of this havoc directly, but it did seem as though it liked to swirl around her, as if she was some kind of magnet for chaotic energy.

  “But,” he went on, hoping he could help cheer Cat up a bit, “I have a feeling things will get better once we find Miranda. Coming down here is probably the best thing we can be doing right now, no matter what Genoveva might think.”

  His sister’s expression did brighten slightly, which made Rafe feel better. “You’re right.” She glanced down at her phone where it lay on the tabletop. “It’s almost two. We should pay up and get out of here.”

  A plan he wholeheartedly endorsed. He flagged down the waitress and gave her a couple of twenties without even bothering to look at the check. It was close enough, and it never hurt to give a big tip if the service had been even halfway decent. He knew he would never have the patience to put up with demanding customers all day.

  Judging by the look of surprise and the bright smile their waitress flashed him, it had been a very good tip. Even better. His own day might have been shit, but that didn’t mean everyone else’s had to be.

  He and Cat left the restaurant and drove over to Daniel’s office. There was a parking garage next door, so at least they didn’t have to waste time looking for someplace to park on the street.

  When the two of them got in the elevator, they got a couple of sideways glances from the people who were riding up with them. Rafe glanced down at his faded jeans and hiking boots, and over at his sister’s ensemble, which wasn’t all that different, except that she wore black ankle boots and her jeans were in a little better shape. Still, they stood out in contrast to the two men in business suits and the woman in the silk blouse and expertly tailored knee-length skirt who also occupied the elevator, clearly professionals with offices here, or possibly some of their clients.

  Whatever. Rafe knew he wasn’t here to impress anyone. He supposed he should be grateful that his position in the Castillo clan allowed him to pursue an offbeat vocation. Actually, he didn’t have to work at all — his stipend from the clan would have kept him comfortable without any outside income — but he’d learned early on that an excess of sloth wasn’t necessarily a desirable thing. At least with the pre-visualization work he did for virtual reality games, he was able to keep himself busy with something he enjoyed.

  Daniel’s office was on the fourth floor. Rafe and Cat got off there, leaving the silently judgmental stares of their fellow elevator passengers behind. Once the elevator doors closed, she let out a chuckle and shook her head. “Maybe we should have gone home first and changed.”

  “Why?” he asked. “I’m not worried about what a bunch of strangers think about me.”

  “No, I guess you aren’t,” she said easily. “Most of the time you don’t seem to worry about what anyone thinks of you.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” he replied, holding the door to Daniel’s office suite open for her so she could enter the small reception area. Directly ahead of them was a gleaming stainless-steel desk, and sitting behind the desk was a pretty civilian woman probably around Cat’s age, just as well-groomed as the people who’d ridden in the elevat
or with them. However, unlike that group, this woman offered them a friendly smile.

  “Hello,” she said. “Rafe and Cat, right?”

  “Yes,” Rafe responded.

  “Daniel’s waiting for you. This way.” She got out from behind the desk and led them down a hallway that ended in a door. Opening it, she said, “Daniel, your two o’clocks are here.”

  “Thanks, Lisa.”

  Rafe and Cat went ahead and entered the office, which occupied a corner of the building and offered a panoramic view of downtown Albuquerque looking east, as well as a stunning vista of the Sandia Mountains. Daniel got up from behind his desk and came forward, offering a hand first to Cat, then to Rafe.

  “Good to see you, Cat,” he said. “And you, Rafe.”

  “I wish it were under better circumstances.”

  At that remark, Daniel’s smile faded slightly. He was thirty years old, dark like most of the Castillos, but with hazel eyes he’d inherited from his civilian mother. Attractive, Rafe supposed, although he’d never been all that good at judging other men’s looks, except possibly by the way women reacted to them. However, from the way Cat flushed a little at her cousin’s greeting, it seemed clear what her opinion of Daniel’s appearance must be.

  Maybe that connection was something Cat should cultivate. They were cousins, but not close cousins, at least three or four degrees of separation. It was hard to keep track of all that stuff, and anyway, he’d never had to worry about hooking up with a Castillo cousin, since he’d been intended for Miranda McAllister for as long as he could remember.

  Rafe shelved the idea of Cat and Daniel for further consideration later. The last thing he needed right now was to get distracted by his sister’s love life.

  “Did you find anything?” he asked.