by Tami Dane
“No.” Hell no. Absolutely not. “I need to ask him for a favor.”
The twinkle vanished. “Hmm. Before you do that, I should warn you, the Sluagh are notorious for demanding a high price for their help.” He went back to fussing with the wires. “They make damn good spies, though. I’ve employed one or two in the past.”
“What kind of price?” Considering how frustrated I was about this case, I was willing to pay a pretty hefty amount. Elmer was the only one I knew who could pull off what I had in mind. “Like cash?”
“Oh, no, nothing like that. It’s different for each Sluagh. They love to collect things. Whatever Elmer would want to collect, that will be the price he’ll ask you to pay.”
“Things? Like old coins?”
“No, they generally collect things that are ... unusual. Valuable. At any rate, to call a Sluagh, you need a slab of rotten meat, a pentacle summoning grid, some bat’s blood—”
“‘Bat’s blood’?”
“Yes, or a cell phone. I have his phone number.” My father grinned and chuckled.
“You are impossible. I have no idea how Mom is going to live with you. What’s the number?” I asked, giving him a playful scowl. I pulled my phone out and readied my dialing finger.
He fished his phone out of his pocket and poked some keys. “999-551-6347.”
“That’s a strange area code,” I said, dialing.
“It’s the area code of the Sluagh.”
I checked the time. “Can he use his phone now, during daylight hours?”
“Sure. During the day, his powers are limited, but he can answer a phone.”
“Okay, thanks.” After checking in on JT, who was being grilled by my mother, I found a quiet room to make the call. Elmer picked up on the third ring. I gave him a rundown of my plan. He agreed to help me, asking for an unnamed price (to be negotiated later), and then clicked off.
That was that.
Now I just had to hope His Royal Undeadness would find something useful.
And I had to pray that the price he would ask would be reasonable. Considering the trouble I was going to in an effort to find him a wife, I told myself it had better be reasonable.
JT poked his head in the door, startling me as I was shoving my phone into my pocket. “Whew, that was ... fun. Ready to go to your doctor’s appointment?”
“Yes.” I adopted my exaggerated waddle, one hand resting on my pregnant belly. “If you ask me, this undercover operation is getting us nowhere, but I’m willing to do just about anything to stop this creature.”
“We’ll get her,” JT said.
“I hope so. I’m worried that by now her ex-husband might have warned her we’re on her trail. She could be halfway to Timbuktu by now.”
“Or she could be waiting just around the corner,” JT said as he escorted me to the door.
Mom met us in the foyer. She and JT exchanged a weighted look. I was pretty sure I didn’t want to know what that was all about. “Good-bye, Sloan. Be careful.” She gave JT another sidelong glance.
When written in Chinese, the word “crisis” is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.
—John F. Kennedy
24
My phone rang as JT and I were leaving the doctor’s office. I hit the button, answering the call, then slumped into the passenger seat. “Hello?”
“I think I found something,” Elmer said, sounding quite pleased with himself. “You said you wanted me to look for addresses, somewhere Onora Dale might hide. I found some pictures of the two of them in a drawer. One was taken in front of a house. The address was plainly visible. And it says on the back, ‘Our new home away from home. Ocean City.’”
My heart jumped. “Great! What’s the address?”
My new handy-dandy Sluagh spy rattled off the address, and I jotted it down. Then he said, “Now, about my price—”
“Sorry, Elmer. I have to go. We’ll talk about that later, after we catch this monster.” I clicked off, slightly worried what that price might be. But I told myself it couldn’t be too unreasonable. After all, I hadn’t asked him to perform some miracle, only do a little illegal snooping.
To JT, I said, “We need to turn around and head toward Ocean City.”
“Why?” JT’s eyes turned squinty. “And how did you come by this information?”
I snapped my seat belt. “It’s probably better if you didn’t know.”
He grimaced. “Sloan.”
“All I got is an address. That can’t get us into trouble, can it?”
JT gritted his teeth. “Hmpfh.” He navigated through the thick traffic, exited the freeway, and then reentered, traveling in the opposite direction. “So what’s going on?”
“My ... er ... secret informant has told me he has reason to believe our suspect is hiding out in the Ocean City vicinity. I’ll put in a call to Hough, asking her if she minds doing a little work from home, see if she can identify the property’s owner. I’m hoping it’s Lucas Dale.”
JT maneuvered the car into a tiny gap between a minivan and a semi. “Then we’re driving to Ocean City, all because of a hope?”
“No, more like a hunch. A strong one.”
“It’s a three-hour drive one way. That’s a six-hour round-trip. If we’re wrong, we had better hurry back. Hough’s alone... .”
“I know you’re worried about her. I am too. But I feel very strongly about this, JT. Onora Dale’s our killer. And she’s at this house. Besides, we have plenty of time to make it back before sunset. Oh, and we’ll need to stop somewhere to pick up some salt. Assuming we see her, I’ll just throw it at her and see what happens.”
“Okay.” After a moment, he said, “If salt burns her skin, she’d have to be mighty desperate to go to a seaside town to hide out. She’s practically inhaling salt.”
“She is desperate.”
“Or she’s not our unsub.”
I said, “I’m thinking it’s the first. I’m praying it’s the first.”
“I guess we’ll see. After you talk to Hough, you’d better call McGrane and tell him everything you know. Just please leave out the part about how you got the information. . . unless he asks.”
“What if he asks?”
JT hit the gas, pushing the car’s speed up to eighty. “I’m sure you can think of something.”
We rolled up to Lucas Dale’s vacation home (Hough confirmed ownership) five hours later.
Five. Freaking. Hours.
It had taken us nearly twice as long to get there than it should have because there’d been an accident on the freeway and all lanes were shut down for two hours. We were caught between exits and had no choice but to sit and swelter in the car.
Feeling sticky, grouchy, and anxious to get this whole thing over with, I grabbed the plastic bag of salt I’d prepared—a bag was much easier to conceal than a big carton—and scrambled from the car.
Lucas Dale’s Craftsman bungalow had a killer view of the canal across the street. Absolutely breathtaking.
“Could you imagine waking up to that every morning?” I asked JT as we both stood on the front porch, staring at the water with our mouths slightly agape.
He pointed at the FOR SALE sign in the front yard. “This place is for sale. Maybe your folks will buy it. You could come out here to chill out and relax.”
I hadn’t even considered that option. “Maybe they will. Then again, I wonder how much chilling out and relaxing I’ll be doing this summer.”
JT shrugged and knocked while I went down to the plastic-covered box nailed to the signpost to grab a color flyer.
“No answer,” he said.
“She’s here. I know it. Keep trying.”
JT knocked some more. I walked across the front of the house and tried to peer inside some windows. “See anything?”
“The living room is very nice. I like the floors. I think they’re bamboo.”
“I mean, do you see any signs of Onora Dale?”
“No. Wait.” I cupped my hands around my eyes, shading them from the glare. “I see a purse sitting on a table.” I tried a few more windows before returning to JT. “I heard some movement inside. Somebody’s in there. Somebody who doesn’t want to answer the door.”
JT turned around. “Let’s wait to see if anyone comes out.”
We went back to the car. I munched on the snacks I’d picked up at the store when we’d made our salt stop. JT called Hough to check in with her.
A while later, a black Lexus turned into the short driveway in front of the house. Lucas Dale got out, glanced at our car—we’d both ducked down and were peeking out the window—then ran inside.
“Did you see that?” I asked. “Could he look any more suspicious?”
JT dug into my Doritos bag. “He does look like he’s nervous about something.”
“We have to get to her somehow,” I said as I stared at the bag of salt in my hand. “How do we get her to come out?”
“You mean, besides waiting for her to go hunting?”
I checked the seal on the salt bag. “I’d rather deal with Onora Dale in her human form.”
“She might be easier to detain as a bird,” JT suggested before he crammed the Doritos into his mouth. Crunching loudly, he rummaged in the snack bag for more food. The man had already consumed two sandwiches, some grapes, a prepackaged salad, half a bag of Doritos, and a pack of Ding Dongs. And he was still hungry?
I moved the Dorito bag out of his reach. “Maybe. But she’ll be a whole lot harder to catch in her bird form. And there’s no way to follow her once she takes flight. No, we need to get to her now, before she’s changed. But her ex-husband is going to be a problem... .” The door to the house swung open. Lucas Dale dashed to his car and pulled away. “Wow, could it be our luck is finally changing? We need to get in that house. Now.”
“No way.” JT ripped open a snack-sized bag of potato chips. “We can’t break in. We have no proof, no search warrant, nothing.”
“Darn it! I feel so helpless.” I stared at the house; then I grabbed my phone and called the number on the sign. A sales agent answered and I gave her a fake name, telling her my husband and I were sitting outside and would like to see the house immediately.
Apparently, the property had been languishing for a long time. She was all too eager to accommodate us. After promising to meet us in twenty minutes, she clicked off.
I gave a little hoot. “Success. We’re getting in the house within a half hour, and we’re doing it legally.”
As a reward, I helped myself to some more Doritos.
A half hour later, we were strolling through the front door. I had the bag of salt stowed in my purse, ready to go when I found Onora Dale, wherever she was hiding. JT had a second bag in his pocket. We toured the first floor. I marveled at the glorious views, the open kitchen, and the lovely original woodwork. When we headed upstairs, JT quietly slipped away, pretending to be fascinated by the gorgeous mosaic tiles in the foyer.
He was actually waiting for Onora Dale to try to make her escape.
On the second floor, I oohed and aahed over the hand-painted mural in the media room at the top of the stairs. I gushed over the charming bedrooms and had a little moment of house lust when I stepped into the master bedroom’s en suite bath, with its soaker tub and skylights. Despite snooping in every single closet and built-in cupboard, I found no evidence of Onora Dale. But I had noticed her purse was no longer sitting in the living room.
Just as I was about to give up, I heard a huge thud downstairs, then the sound of banging and thumping.
I wasted no time hauling my butt downstairs to help JT. He was on the floor, losing what appeared to be a pretty ugly wrestling match with a supernaturally beautiful blonde.
Then Onora Dale kneed him in the crotch.
I grabbed the bag of salt, opened it, and flung it at her.
She screeched.
She clawed at her skin.
She turned toward me with hatred in her eyes.
Behind me, I heard the real estate agent say, “Oh, my God!” Then I heard footsteps retreating up the stairs.
Onora Dale charged me, fingers curled into fists. Her beautiful face was a mask of fury; her eyes were narrow slits. An odd smell, like burned hair, wafted from her.
“Who are you?” she spat. Her gaze flicked to my fake stomach.
I took a couple of steps back and tried to think my way out of the pickle I’d just put myself in. Gauging from JT’s defeat, I was guessing Onora wasn’t just supernaturally gorgeous. She was also supernaturally strong. “I’m just here to look at a house,” I said, lifting my hands, palms out, in the universal stay-the-hell-away-from-me sign. I knew JT had handcuffs on him, but until we had something—a confession, a reason to believe she was the killer—I didn’t want to show her our hand yet, so to speak. “We were told the house was empty.”
Onora Dale squinted at me. “You threw salt on me.”
“You kneed my husband in the crotch. That pissed me off. I sort of need those bits to stay in good working order.”
“But why salt?” She grimaced as she brushed some of the crystals off her arms, revealing tiny red marks that looked like little burns.
“I ...” Shit. “I crave salt, now that I’m pregnant.” My hand came to rest on my stomach. “I always carry some with me.” I leaned closer, studying the marks on her skin. “Are you allergic?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve never heard of a salt allergy.”
Onora Dale sniffed the air. Her expression darkened. “You’re not pregnant.” Before I could react, she charged into me like a bull. The force of her blow sent me sailing backward. I slammed into something hard and saw stars for a brief second. I tried to blink them away, but I couldn’t. By the time my vision was clear, she was gone.
So was JT.
More than a little shaky, I half-ran/half-staggered out the door.
I saw a large man-sized lump lying on the sidewalk in front of the house next door. I recognized the colors of the lump.
Sprinting on wobbly legs, I dashed to JT and knelt down. He was curled into a fetal position.
“Did she get you again?” I asked.
Red-faced, he whimpered and nodded.
I stood, took a look around, then accepted defeat. “We lost her.”
JT groaned a second time. “Call McGrane. He’ll send some men out here. I’m going home. Gotta protect Hough.”
Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.
—James A. Baldwin
25
Mom was crying.
I was crying.
The lady we didn’t know, who happened to be in the country club’s powder room with us, was crying too.
Talk about estrogen overload.
“Your mascara’s running,” my mother pointed out to me. “You have the world’s worst raccoon eyes.”
“I’m pretty sure yours are worse,” I said, leaning into the mirror, a tissue at the ready. I blotted at the black smudges.
Mom checked her makeup. “Damn, you’re right.”
We both cried some more.
Finally I said, “Enough of this damn crying. What are we bawling about, anyway?”
“I’m hormonal,” Mom said. “What’s your excuse?”
“I’m menopausal,” the strange lady said as she dabbed at her eyes.
“I don’t have an excuse,” I said. “Other than exhaustion. And frustration. And ...” I did a strange little laugh-sob thing. It sounded like I was choking. “We spent all night waiting for that damned”—my gaze shot to the stranger—“bird to come back.”
“You’ll catch it, Sloan. I believe in you.” Mom took a few deep breaths. “Okay, I think I’m done. I’m ready. How do I look?”
“You look beautiful,” I told her. That wasn’t a lie. I swear, she was radiant. Unlike me. Her face was flushed a pretty shade of pink. My face was a blotchy red mess. Her dress was absolu
tely gorgeous. Mine, a yellow-and-black disaster. She looked happy. Full of life. I looked half dead.
“You look lovely,” the strange lady said.
“Thank you.” Mom preened. I think she was surprised by how fabulous she looked. “Maybe it’s the hormones,” she said, checking her face more closely. “My skin looks smoother.” She ran her fingers down her neck. “My jaw seems firmer.” She raised an arm and shook it. “And look, no more triceps flop.”
I was wearing a sleeveless dress. Wouldn’t hurt to check my arms. Not floppy yet. But I could see some signs of future flop.
I made a mental note to renew my gym membership at the end of the summer. I hadn’t stepped foot in the place since my first day with the PBAU, and I had a feeling I’d be too busy to work out until September.
“Whatever it is you’ve been using, can I buy some?” the lady asked. “Is it a cream? Or have you been exercising?”
“No, it’s not exercise. I’m pregnant,” Mom told the lady.
“You’re pregnant?” the lady said, failing miserably at hiding her surprise.
“Yes, I’m five weeks today.” Mom ran her hand down her flat stomach. “I haven’t been exercising much since I found out. I don’t think I should be.”
“Congratulations.” The lady took one last look at my mother, in her white wedding gown, then at me, and left.
Abandoning my efforts at fixing my makeup, I threw away the tissue and stepped back from the mirror. “Mom, pregnant women work out all the time.”
“Really?” She looked shocked. “Back when I was pregnant with you, the doctor told me no running, no lifting, no jumping ... pretty much no doing anything.”
I fluffed my hair. It was humid today. Humidity did nothing for my hair. “At my gym, there’s a water aerobics class for pregnant moms. They all seem to like it.”
Mom’s brows scrunched. “Are you trying to tell me I need to exercise?”
I fluffed harder. “No, of course not. You look amazing.”
“Then why would you say such a thing?”
Allegra Love came into the powder room, saving my butt. I’d have to thank her later. She had excellent timing. “Are we ready?” Dressed head to toe in gauzy purple material that was both translucent and opaque at the same time, her hair adorned with pink and purple feathers, Allegra Love gave Mom an exaggerated up-and-down look. “My, don’t you look lovely! Something looks different. Did you do something with your hair?”
