Keeper of the Shadows (The Keepers: L.A.)

by Alexandra Sokoloff

  Mick was watching her face. “Sooner or later—and I think sooner—something is going to blow up, and it could rip the lid off the Otherworld. You know what I’m talking about.”

  She did; he meant the Shattering. A full disclosure of the existence of the Otherworld.

  She tried to slow her racing thoughts, groped for journalistic detachment. What she needed right now were answers, not emotions.

  “So...just back up. What is all this?” She indicated the offices. “What is it you do here? Exactly?”

  “We fund organizations and charities that have a specific focus on helping Others. Microloans for Others in poverty who are trying to start their own businesses. Shelters like Out of the Shadows that help get young Others off the streets.”

  As he continued the list, detailing the work of the various organizations, Barrie was struggling with herself. There was no way she could fault the work that he was doing. It was almost the opposite; he was practically a saint.

  On the other hand, he was essentially going rogue, leaping over the long-established systems for keeping the peace and becoming his own fixer. As right as he was that the system was—well, that it needed fixing—she hated to hear it.

  And he’d lied to her. Repeatedly. So, what guarantee did she have that the whole saint act wasn’t some front for...something?

  He must have sensed she was wavering, because he jumped in. “Barrie, why do you think I want to work with you? We want the same things. While the L.A. Keepers are fighting bureaucratic turf wars, Others like Tiger are slipping through the cracks. It doesn’t have to be that way. I know how committed you are to protecting Others who need help finding their way. That’s what I want, too.”

  He was so passionate and, all right, so gorgeous, that she found herself melting. And he must have sensed that, too, because he moved in closer, and the force between them was magnetic; she could barely stand. As he leaned in toward her, she summoned just enough strength to put a hand on his chest and push him away. She felt her blood rushing and realized she hadn’t felt so giddy since she was a teenager. She didn’t know if that was good or disastrous.

  “I...need to think.”

  “Okay.” He sounded breathless himself. He walked in a circle, as if trying to compose himself, and then said, “Okay. But I’m still picking you up at seven.”

  “Picking me up?” she repeated, feeling a fresh surge of outrage coming on. “Oh, no. Tonight is definitely off.”

  “Even if I said I have tickets for DJ’s premiere?” he said with a gleam in his eye that almost made her lose her professionalism and grab him. “That was what you were hoping for, wasn’t it?”

  “You can get in?” She felt light-headed.

  He shrugged. “Connections.” He glanced at his online calendar. “Seven o’clock, and we can talk about everything then. It’s black tie, by the way.” And then he gave her a look that turned her insides molten. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  Just business, she told herself.

  Yeah, right.

  Chapter 11

  Barrie was having trouble keeping her feet on the ground as she got out of her car in the drive of the House of the Rising Sun and headed for her house.

  Just business, she reminded herself sternly. But she was feeling distinctly unbusinesslike.

  And then Mick’s words came back to her.

  Black tie.

  She felt a flutter of panic. Oh, yike. Black tie at a major Hollywood premiere. That’s going to require a major dress.

  She sped up toward the house.

  * * *

  Two hours later Barrie sat in her bedroom in the middle of piles of discarded clothing, flushed, worn out and in complete despair. It wasn’t that she didn’t have some wonderful dresses. It was just that for a DJ premiere at which she actually expected—needed—to talk to DJ herself, it had to be not a dress but the dress.

  And okay, yes, maybe she was thinking a little of what Mick would think when he saw her. A dress that would have the desired effect. Which would be to drive him wild. In a professional sense, that is.

  Borrowing from Rhiannon or Sailor was no good; they were much taller than she was. And besides, as lovely as they both were, her style was just different.

  She needed something amazing. Something old Hollywood.

  What she needed was something like her mother used to wear.

  “That’s it!” she told Sophie, who was having great fun playing hide-and-seek with herself in the piles of dresses.

  A minute later she was pounding on the door of Castle House.

  Sailor pulled open the door. “Hey! How’d it go with Darius?”

  “Darius?” Barrie repeated, puzzled. “Oh, right, Darius. Not so well, actually.”

  “Oh no, really? Tell.” Sailor opened the door wider, pulling Barrie inside.

  “Okay, but you have to come up to the attic with me. I need to go through some of my mom’s trunks.”

  “Ooh, I sense a story.”

  As the cousins climbed the mahogany stairs toward the attic, Barrie recapped the meeting with Darius. “He flat-out laughed at the idea that Johnny died during production.”

  “Well, it is kind of crazy.”

  “No crazier than anything else about that movie.”

  “True.”

  “But the weirder thing was that he acted like he couldn’t get me in to the premiere tonight. Now, since when can Darius Simonides not get anyone into anything he wants to? So, why doesn’t he want me there?”

  Sailor frowned. “It doesn’t mean he doesn’t want you there....”

  They had reached the top landing, and Barrie was breathless from their rapid-fire conversation. “No, but I got the distinct impression he didn’t want me talking to DJ.”

  “Darius has always been super-protective of his clients. By the way, why are we going up to the attic?”

  “Because I need a dress for the premiere tonight.”

  “I thought you said—”

  “The plot thickens.”

  * * *

  By the time they’d made it up the narrower attic stairs and located the trunk Barrie was thinking of, she’d told Sailor all about Mick and the Circle Foundation. Well, not absolutely everything. She left out the kissing and the way her heart couldn’t seem to stop racing whenever she was with him.

  “My, my,” Sailor marveled. “So, as well as being brilliant and gorgeous, he’s loaded and a powerhouse philanthropist. That’s wonderful! When can we meet him?”

  “Sailor, you’re missing the point,” Barrie chided her. She didn’t need her cousin going further off the deep end than Barrie herself was already.

  “What’s the point?”

  “The point is I have no idea who this guy is anymore. Not that I ever did. He’s created a shadow Keeper organization of his own, completely outside regular channels. He’s got all of this money from who knows where. And everywhere I go, he’s there.”

  And I’m falling for him so hard I can’t see straight, she thought but didn’t say.

  “I wouldn’t say he’s got a shadow Keeper organization,” Sailor said, pondering. “He raises money for charities that help Others. I think it’s kind of great. In fact, I think you may be trying to create this sinister backstory because you’re afraid to fall for him.”

  As usual, her cousin was right on the money.

  Barrie hauled out the trunk to avoid having to respond to Sailor’s observation. “Here it is.”

  “Oh, I get it,” Sailor said when Barrie opened the lid. “These are your mom’s things. She always did dress like a total star.”

  It was true. Rose Gryffald might not have become the star she’d come to Hollywood hoping to be, but she’d always managed to look like one. Barrie’s memories of childhood included a constant feeling of inferiority, the sense that she could never possibly become half the woman her mother was.

  As she and Sailor pulled out one plastic-sheathed confection after another, exclaiming over silks and sequins and chiffo
ns, Barrie couldn’t help feeling a pain in her heart. She remembered her father and mother, dressed to the hilt, going out to premieres like the one she would be attending tonight, a beautiful, magical couple. But her mother’s insatiable desire for fame, for stardom, started to twist in her heart with every year that went by when she didn’t “make it.” And then the fighting started between her parents, her mother attacking her father’s profession, unfairly, Barrie thought, attributing her failure in Hollywood to the secrecy of his life. It made no sense to Barrie, but the fighting escalated, ending inevitably in divorce. And Barrie, at fourteen, was still young enough to believe that she herself had somehow caused the split, or simply had not been enough: strong enough, interesting enough, loved enough to keep her parents together.

  Her mother had remarried within the year, to a wealthy older businessman who had already raised two separate families from two previous marriages and had no desire to do so a third time. Barrie was more than happy, if that was the word for it, to stay with her father. Who was so brokenhearted by her mother’s departure that he never, to her knowledge, had a relationship with a woman again.

  Sailor turned to look at her and said, “Hey,” in a voice so concerned that Barrie realized she was crying.

  She quickly brushed at her eyes. “It’s nothing. Nothing but memories, anyway.”

  Sailor put her hands on Barrie’s shoulders and looked her square in the face. “Barrie Gryffald, you are nothing like your mother. You never have to worry about that.”

  Of course I’m not like my mother, Barrie thought. My mother was beautiful and unforgettable. I’m just...me.

  “I know I’m not,” she said aloud. She held a midnight-blue gown up to her chest, eyeing it. “But I sure wish I had her cleavage right about now.”

  Sailor squeaked and dove into the trunk to pull out another dress. “Hah! This is the one. This will look stunning on you.”

  It was a shimmering copper creation, embroidered in beads and sequins, exactly matching the lightest highlights of Barrie’s hair. Sailor held it up against Barrie and turned her to face the oval standing mirror. And Barrie stood, arrested by the vision of herself and the dress.

  * * *

  Sailor and Barrie took the dress downstairs to Sailor’s bedroom, which included an impressive mirrored dressing room. Sailor, a longtime expert at last-minute wardrobe alterations, went to work fitting the dress to Barrie’s figure. Barrie was shorter and less voluptuous than her mother, but otherwise there wasn’t much to be done.

  “This could have been made for you!” Sailor enthused as she taped and pinned and stitched.

  A voice came from the dressing room doorway. “What’s all this?”

  Sailor and Barrie and their reflections turned to see Rhiannon standing in the doorway.

  “Barrie has a date to DJ’s premiere with the hot shifter,” Sailor answered cheerfully.

  “It’s business,” Barrie insisted.

  Rhiannon was already frowning. “Now wait a minute. I just heard back from Brodie, and he wasn’t able to find anything at all on a ‘Mick Townsend.’”

  Barrie sighed. “That’s because he doesn’t exist,” she admitted.

  Rhiannon looked about to hit the roof. “If you think I’m letting you go anywhere with a nonexistent shifter—”

  “No, I mean he’s someone else. It looks pretty legit.” But even as she said it, Barrie felt a little flutter of anxiety. “Anyway, I’m not going to be alone with him. Much. And it’s my chance to get into the premiere.” She could see Rhiannon wasn’t convinced, so she told her, “You can meet him and decide for yourself. He’s picking me up. And it’s not like he’s going to...I don’t know, abduct me or anything. Not when both of you see us leaving together.”

  Rhiannon finally relented. She even got into the spirit of things and ran across to Pandora’s Box for a coppery gold wrap and an evening bag to contribute to the overall effect.

  Of course Merlin showed up for the unveiling, and Sailor coaxed him into the dressing room to see Barrie reflected in all the mirrors.

  “Oh, my,” he said reverently. “You are a vision, my dear. Absolutely stunning.”

  Barrie looked at herself in the mirrors, glimmering in copper. The dress brought out the shining highlights of her hair, her eyes.

  Merlin cleared his throat. “I don’t want to interrupt your preparations, but I have been asking around the afterlife after your two young men.”

  Barrie whirled to face him and didn’t bother to correct him that they weren’t her young men. “Merlin, you’re a doll. Is there anything you can tell me?”

  “I have to say, it’s perplexing,” the elderly ghost admitted. “The one you call Robbie Anderson... I haven’t been able to find a trace of him. Are you sure he’s passed on?”

  “I’m not sure of anything,” Barrie admitted.

  “My own guess would be that he has not,” Merlin told her. “Johnny Love is a different story. But he is not fully present in the afterlife. There is no place I can reach him there.”

  The cousins looked around at each other, mystified. “Not fully present in the afterlife? What does that mean, Merlin?” Rhiannon asked.

  “When someone dies tragically, a suicide or some other traumatic death, the soul often retains an attachment to the earth that makes it difficult for the soul to fully pass into the afterlife. It’s different from visiting earth in the way that I do. Visiting earth is one thing. Clinging to it without fully accepting death is a half existence, very sad.”

  “Does that mean Johnny committed suicide?” Barrie asked intently.

  “Not necessarily,” the ghost explained. “It can happen with any traumatic death—suicide, murder, a fatal accident so sudden that the soul has no time to assimilate its situation. Even death that’s accompanied by an emotional shock like betrayal. I’m sorry I can’t be more specific.”

  Barrie bit her lip, thinking. “No, no, you’ve been incredibly helpful. Thank you, Merlin.”

  He excused himself so “you girls can get back to your primping,” and Barrie sat on the edge of a divan and tried to process what he’d just told them. “I’m not sure I know anything more than I did before,” she admitted. “I think we all knew Johnny didn’t die peacefully.”

  “You don’t have to think about it now,” Sailor said, and turned to her, lifting her enormous makeup kit. “What you need to do is hold still.”

  Barrie rarely wore any makeup besides lipstick and mascara, but actress Sailor had mad skills with the stuff. “Just a little,” Sailor coaxed. “Remember, you’ll be under spotlights.” And so Barrie held still as her cousin dusted and painted and powdered.

  Somehow the whole afternoon had dissolved, and the cousins were interrupted from their oohing and aahing over Barrie when the security panel in the kitchen buzzed, indicating a car at the gate.

  Barrie felt her heart drop. “He’s here.”

  Rhiannon and Sailor looked at each other, and Sailor even rubbed her hands together. “Well, let’s look him over.”

  It was senseless to plead with her cousins to be discreet. Barrie started to follow them downstairs, but Sailor turned around and stopped her. “No way. You’re going to make an entrance. Go powder your nose and wait till we call you.”

  So, Barrie trailed back upstairs, so nervous she could barely make her feet move.

  On the landing she crouched beside the stair railing and listened over the thudding of her heart as the door opened and her cousins’ voices mixed with another, a low male rumbling that sent waves of desire through her.

  Mick’s voice.

  I can’t do this, I’m going to faint, she thought wildly.

  And then Sailor called, “Barrie!”

  Barrie gulped a breath and pulled herself up to her feet. She focused every ounce of will she could muster on walking steadily down the stairs.

  Her cousins and Mick were standing in the entry hall. Mick was in a tux, and Barrie’s breath was knocked out of her as he looked up toward
her. He really did look like a movie star himself, too gorgeous to be real.

  The look on his face was dazed.

  “You look amazing,” he murmured as she stopped on the stair in front of him. He had flowers in one hand, a spray of coral roses.

  They couldn’t stop looking at each other.

  “I’ll just put those in water for you,” Rhiannon said, and took the flowers from him. Sailor snagged one and tucked it into Barrie’s hair.

  “There. Perfect.”

  “Well,” said Rhiannon.

  “Well,” said Sailor.

  “It was a pleasure to meet you, Mick,” Rhiannon said, and Barrie had the distinct impression she was having trouble keeping a straight face.

  “You two have a wonderful time,” Sailor chimed in.

  “Hope we see you again soon,” Rhiannon added.

  Sailor kissed and hugged Barrie goodbye, whispering, “Dreamy!” in her ear. On Barrie’s other side, Rhiannon’s whispered evaluation was “Perfect!”

  Mick offered Barrie his arm, which she took gratefully; because even though she nearly melted at his touch, she also needed the support to walk.

  Then they strolled past her cousins and out the door.

  Chapter 12

  Mick had not brought the Bentley but an actual limo, with an actual driver behind the partition, so they glided down the canyon and onto Hollywood Boulevard like actual movie stars. There was jazz on the stereo and champagne chilling in a bucket in the built-in bar, and Mick casually poured it into two beautifully carved flutes as the limo cruised the curving road.

  Barrie took hers and drank too quickly, nervous as she was.

  “Your cousins...” he said.

  “I know, they’re out of control,” she said.

  He smiled. “I was going to say they’re charming. You must have a lot of fun.”

  “We do,” she said, and laughed, which relaxed her. The champagne was probably helping, too.

  “You three remind me of—” he said, and then stopped.