Silence.
“Ronan?”
“She really, really wants to, ma’am. I won’t let anything happen to her.” His voice rang with sincerity.
“Let me think about it, and I’ll get back to you ASAP. Okay?”
Downstairs I hunted for Larrimer. While it was my decision, mine and Lulu’s, I’d like his take on it.
Nobody was in the living room, and as I headed for my office, the phone chirped again. The Cranadnock paper. I declined.
And again it bleeped. I sighed. There was something to be said for the days before we attached cell phones to our navels.
A text this time. From a number I didn’t recognize.
3 p.m. at the diner if u want to learn about The Master. Sit at the counter. Come alone.
I reread the text. “Huh.” My calls stirring the rumor pot had done their work.
When I looked up, Larrimer stood before me, silent, one eyebrow raised.
“I heard your ‘huh,’” he said.
The guy was a phantom, I swear.
Could he be the shadow? I had no way of knowing, since every time I probed his shields, they were laced tighter than a Victorian corset.
I filled him in on the text and didn’t even argue when he said he was coming with me. In fact, I felt positively saintly.
Late February at the Midborough Diner defined slow. The day was cold and damp, nasty, with just a hint of spring to come. We parked next door, at the Truffles Bookshop, and I walked to Station Square’s silver diner. In spring, they’d bring out the round umbrellaed tables. Today, a few desultory piles of snow banked the split-rail fence that fronted the sidewalk. The tang of woodsmoke and almost-rain sang to my senses.
I left Larrimer in the parking lot. We’d agreed he would wait five minutes before following.
I slipped beneath the green awning, and when I opened the door, a bell tinkled. As I stepped further onto the checkerboard tile, a suited customer in a booth to my right, briefcase open, studied paperwork while he ate. To my left, two girls, high-school age, texted as they sipped what looked like ice-cream sodas in a corner booth. No one at the counter.
Like I said, winter-slow.
Adrenaline bubbling, I slid onto a counter stool and plucked a menu from its stand, my ears tuned to the noises coming from the kitchen.
Minutes later, a six-foot chocolate-skinned woman stood before me. I’d guess in her thirties, she wore leggings and a black t-shirt printed with the diner’s logo. Ebony hair fell to her shoulders in wild curls, lush lips and arresting sloe, blue-black eyes far older than her apparent years. Those eyes stared at me, deeply curious.
“May I help you?” she asked, her voice smoky, each word enunciated with precision, as if English wasn’t her first language.
I didn’t need to “read” her. Intensely strange vibes poured off her like a waterfall. “I’d like a coffee and the strawberry-rhubarb pie, please.”
Her closed-mouthed smile climbed to those exotic eyes. “Of course.”
She retrieved a cup and saucer, poured my coffee, and vanished, and I wondered how that uncommon creature had landed in a rural New Hampshire town. Seconds later, she set down a large wedge of pie in front of me.
“Thank you.” I held eye contact.
A gleam. She touched her chin with a long, elegant finger and leaned forward. “Are you Clea?”
The bell tinkled behind me, and she looked up, eyes cat curious. Larrimer.
“Yes,” I said, drawing her attention back to me. “I am.”
“One second.” She came around the counter and headed toward Larrimer’s booth. Much as I wanted to watch their interaction, I kept my focus on the pie and coffee. It was delicious pie.
I’d eaten half when she returned. “More coffee?” she asked.
“Sure.”
She poured. “It’s my break. Meet me in the alley beside the diner.”
“Here would be better,” I said. “Less notable.”
She puckered those lush lips. “But I need a smoke. Drop your wallet to the platform where you rest your feet. Then meet me outside.”
My wallet—insurance that I’d return inside. When she disappeared, I glanced sideways. From where he sat, Larrimer could see the small alley. Good.
I waited a heartbeat or two, while a sandy-haired man replaced the woman behind the counter. I lay several dollars next to my cup, dropped my wallet to the foot support, and walked out. As I left, I finger-waved Larrimer to stay.
If he trusted me, he would.
nce I made it to the alley, I spotted the woman standing in shadow by the rear entrance. She punched a cigarette from a pack, lit it, and inhaled deep. I walked over, feeling a pygmy compared to her tall elegance.
“The Master,” I said as I faced her. Too quick, but I was in no mood for small talk.
“Ohhh, the niceties. You are Clea. I am Anouk.” She leaned against the diner’s outer wall.
“I apologize,” I said. “I didn’t mean to be—”
“—quite so precipitous? But you can be, can you not?”
I smiled. “Sometimes.”
“Yes, I see that.” She drew out the words, her acerbic tone laced with irony.
A damp gust slithered beneath my coat. She wasn’t wearing one, her skin smooth, unpebbled with cold.
“Much as I’d like some girl talk,” I said. “I need information. Not games.”
Her smile meandered across her lips, all sharp canines. “All right. Perhaps another day we will play. The Master is all about control.”
The way she’d said it, as if it were a title. “What kind of control?”
“He seeks to be a big player in the unfolding game.”
“Game of what?”
A quick shake of her head.
She was going to dole out info in her own time. Talk about a game player. Fine. “He lives around here?”
“I do not believe so. But he has based himself in this area.”
“He’s importing—”
“Yes, importing.” She waved a hand. “You were going to say what? Dangerous things? Illegal commodities? Drugs? I know you would never tell a lowly waitress about the endangered animals.”
Lowly waitress, my ass. More like an Amazon warrior.
Smoke curled from her lips. “Think what you will, but those poor creatures are not his end game. He is looking for treasure. Searching for it with his web of contacts, which is extensive. It will be very bad if he finds it. You must not let him find it. It will be the queen on his game board. It will change everything.”
“He killed Dave Cochran,” I said.
“Of course.”
“What kind of treasure?”
“So hasty.” She inhaled a puff, exhaled it through her nose. “Ahhh. The sin of smoking. Not money. No.” Silence.
“Anouk.”
“I am unsure if I will tell you.”
Dear gods, I would scream. “You want to.”
She flared her nostrils. “Magic treasure. Millennia ago, the two—”
“He wants to control the magical treasure?”
“The magic,” she hissed.
I crossed my arms. How could anyone control the magic? “Right. The Magic. So how come everybody doesn’t know about it, see it?”
She chuffed a laugh. “How would they see what they do not believe? And we who are here are proficient at disguise.”
“Sounds like more hoo-ha to me.”
She curled her upper lip. It might have been a smile. “Does it? You fought the Cardillo with the wolves.”
“You know about that thing?”
“How many do you think would have seen her? As they say in your realm, it takes one to know one.”
“Gimme a break.”
“You are young. Attend me. Simply listen. Many thousands of years ago, the two essences—what you see as the ‘real’ world and what is the magic world—were intertwined, much like the braid on a woman’s hair.”
“Really? A history lesson? I need to know a
bout the treasure.”
She pinched my cheek, her lips an inch from mine. “In good time. You want to be ready? This matters. Whether you think it does or not.
I nodded, and she released me. “Apologies. I’ll try to be patient.”
“Be patient. All right. Where was I? Yes, the braid on a woman’s hair. Your ‘real’ world and the magic world, together. An upheaval—”
“What upheaval?”
“By Garuda’s wings! An upheaval, where the magical and your world unwound, the binding fabric shredded.”
“Why?” I waited.
“You are as annoying as they said. I am giving you thousands of years of history and events in a few short sentences. Deal with it!”
I laughed. “And here I thought you hadn’t a sense of humor.”
“The magic and the ‘real’ world began to unravel,” she said. “Until the braid, as you were, became two separate locks. The Guardian lost the chest—”
“The magic treasure?”
She blinked. “Which chose your real world. And no, we do not know why. We paid little attention—much to fury of some of us—because in the ‘real’ world, the chest was inert. We grew accustomed to—many even relished—the separation. And so it was lost in the mists of time and place.”
“Who are ‘we?’” I asked.
A sound at my back. I twirled, went for my gun. A man, reaching inside his jacket… to pull out a pack of Marlboros.
“Hey,” he said. “Hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course not.” Anouk dropped her cigarette and ground it out, then pocketed the butt.
“I must get back.” She turned toward the rear entrance.
“You’re not done, not by half,” I said.
“I am. For now.”
“I’ve got your number,” I said. “We’ll text.”
She shook her head, but I caught her soft laughter. “Naturally I used a, what do you call them? A burner phone.”
“Dammit, Anouk.”
“I will be in touch.”
When I reentered the diner, Anouk stood behind the counter. Larrimer dutifully manned the booth.
“I forgot my wallet,” I said as I walked up to her, seething at her peremptory dismissal.
She nodded.
Movement in my peripheral vision, and I leapt across the counter, pushing her down in the process.
A flashing pain in my neck, then more gunshots as a blur of Larrimer pursued the man who’d fled out the side door.
My neck burned, and liquid warmth oozed down my neck. Blood. I pressed my hand to my neck as I eased back from my awkward position and thumped onto a counter stool.
Anouk glided to her feet in one smooth movement, her eyes glowing amber. I blinked. No, they were blue-black and furious.
“You protected me.” Her eyes flashed amber again. Right.
Wet seeped through my fingers.
“You!” she said. “You protected me.”
She sounded indignant.
I shrugged, pinned like a butterfly by her angry stare. “Um, would you get me something for my neck?”
She did so, and as I waited, I hoped Larrimer had caught the shooter, thought about the businessman with the open briefcase that artfully concealed a gun.
Three days. Three attacks. A bit much, goddammit.
A sound. I looked up, expecting Anouk, but the man who’d been her replacement handed me a warm, wet towel. He put a dry one on the counter.
“I called the cops.”
“Good. Where’s Anouk?”
“She left.”
Got out of Dodge. But I knew what I seen. Her eyes gone amber. I’d seen those eyes before. They’d glowed as they’d woven between the white of the trees at Mount Auburn Cemetery.
Seconds later, Larrimer stood beside me, doing a slow burn. “Let’s go.”
“Did you—”
He clamped his hands around my upper arms and lifted me away from the counter.
Startled, I didn’t fight him. But, geesh, he was annoying.
“Later,” he said.
“You don’t get—”
“Christ almighty, woman.” Icicles. “Later.” He tore the towel off my wound, grabbed some fresh napkins, and pressed them to it.
Not in a talking mood, eh? I took over the napkin holding duty. Damn, but my neck ached.
We didn’t wait for the cops, and when we arrived home, Bernadette patched me up, again, tut-tutting all the while and readjusting that bizarre turban.
Larrimer had peeled out after he handed me off to Bernadette, and the screech of tires prompted my snort when he’d zoomed down the driveway.
Apparently, it took a bullet to ignite Mr. Dragon Dude.
Surrounded by Gracie, Mutt, and Jeff, their warmth making me drowsy, I waited on the couch for Larrimer’s return. And waited. And waited.
Finally, I dragged myself upstairs, long after Lulu and Bernadette had gone to their rooms.
The world chorused to the beat of my injured neck and a blazing headache, so I downed four ibuprofens. I squeezed out a cool washcloth, got in bed, and laid it on my forehead. It felt good. Not much else did.
I closed my eyes, desperately eager for sleep. Except my thoughts raced in a hedged maze. Anouk. Who was she? What was she? My senses said nothing I’d ever seen, ever touched before. She couldn’t possibly be a cat, a panther. Could she?
Calico Kitty jumped on the bed, her eyes, happily, a normal green.
I felt like a stranger in my own personal strange land. One of mystery, of magic, of things my mind couldn’t grasp.
I hadn’t missed how she’d asked if I wanted to be ready. Oh, no, hadn’t missed that one.
The Master. Anouk said if The Master found the magic treasure, it would change everything. What was everything?
The Storybook. It all seemed to come back to the Storybook and its magical box. Had to be Dave’s chest. Didn’t it?
Great, I was living inside some hellish Disney movie.
Anouk said the worlds were twining together again, which reinforced that vision I’d had of my Da. What had happened to him? To Mam?
Why couldn’t I remember, dammit! And why did the world look the same as always. Where were all those magic critters, hiding under rocks? What were they?
Anouk. A panther? Could she be the black cat I’d seen in the road? No way. Way?
Fairies? Succubi? Dryads? Vampires? They were magical, right? Were they? Trolls. Unicorns. Witches. Dear gods, how was I supposed to know? I needed a guidebook. Anouk would give me one. Of course she would. Along with my new magic wand and a pair of sparkly red slippers.
I blew out a breath. Ouch. My head killed.
Again, I closed my eyes, and Loki’s and Lofn’s corpses wrapped in slithering tentacles appeared.
Larrimer. So grounded, so present, he’d help sort things out. When I needed him, where was that contrary man? How could I possibly miss him? Because I liked running things by him, hearing his take, his sharp mind knifing, his carved body…
A tap on the door. Larrimer. Finally.
“Go away,” I said, wanting him to have to work for it.
“Clea?” Lulu’s voice was soft and reed thin.
I sighed. “C’mon in, kid.”
The dark felt so good, I kept my eyes closed for a few more moments. Soft footsteps padded across the wood floor.
A hand touched mine. “Are you angry at me?” Her voice was tentative, scared.
“Angry? No. Not even a little.”
The wet cloth disappeared from my forehead, replaced by an icy bag that sounded like pebbles. Peas?
Deliciously cool, it softened the stiletto in my head. “Playing nurse, are we?”
“Agent Larrimer said it would help.”
So he was back, and I stifled my disappointment that he hadn’t come to check on me. “It does. It’s not bad, really.”
“But it could have been bad.”
“Well, yeah.” I cranked my eyes open. Lulu looked panicked, pale eyes
fearful. I inched a hand over to grasp hers. It trembled. “I’m fine. Just got a lousy headache is all. I thought you were asleep.”
She chewed her lip. “I couldn’t. I asked Agent Larrimer, and he said it would be okay if I sat with you for a while. If something happens to you… I… I want to stay here. With you. You make me feel safe. Please?”
I smiled, even if it did hurt. “Of course you’re staying with me. That’s what kids do with their guardians.”
She punched out her chin. “I’m not a kid.”
This time, the smile was easy. “I know.”
She skimmed a hand across my hair. “It’s longer. Fast growing and sort of curly, too.”
“Weird, huh.”
“I like it. It’s pretty.”
I relaxed back into the pillow, frozen peas soothing. “Thank you, Lulu. And thanks for sitting with me.”
And she began to sing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” her voice low and impossibly sweet. Beyond Adele. Beyond anyone I’d ever heard. A magic voice. Oh, I was so not going there.
She segued into “What a Wonderful World,” and tears burned my eyes at the beauty of it.
On her final heart-stopping note, emotion filled me so completely, I couldn’t speak.
“Did you like it?” she asked.
I nodded.
“My dad,” she said. “He called it a talent. I don’t sing for most people.”
“I’m so glad you did for me.”
“Me, too.”
As sleep embraced me, a girl held my hand and stole my heart.
The next morning, creaky body and all, I did some stretches, then began typing a quick report to Bob about yesterday’s diner “episode,” leaving out the magic stuff from my convo with Anouk. My fingers slowed, became deliberate. I double-checked each word I lay down on the page. My trust in Bob Balfour—my old friend, my FBI mentor—had begun to erode. This care I took with something that used to be second nature showed just how much.
Task complete, I trotted to the barn, further loosening my cranky bod and mulling over Larrimer. Again. Him not filling me in the previous night, that stung! He hadn’t even come upstairs to give me the once over.
Was I sulking? Dear gods.
I made sure all our animals were safe, no more corpses. Except someone had fed and watered them. Not Bernadette. I’d passed her baking pies in the kitchen. Lulu still slept.
Chest of Bone (The Afterworld Chronicles Book 1) Page 13
