by Lori Devoti
Wondering who the newest arrival might be, and not wanting her to wander into the shop by mistake, I jogged down the fire escape and waited for the vehicle’s motor to slow to blessed silence.
Dana unfolded from the driver’s seat. She stopped to jerk a very large duffel out of the seat beside her, then another. I could see more duffels and bags filling the back.
Crap. Now what?
I marched toward her.
She took one look at me and burst into tears.
Double crap.
“The baby. It’s a boy.”
I stopped. She stopped too, both hands at her sides, her arm muscles straining from the weight of the duffels. Her face was streaked with tears, and her eyes brimmed with uncertainty.
I did the only thing I could. I opened my arms. She dropped the bags and fell against me, sobbing.
Upstairs in the kitchen I drank coffee and watched as Dana went about slicing apples and mixing them with sugar for, yes, a pie. The whole baking thing seemed to calm her.
“Where’s the flour?” She scrubbed at tearstained eyes with the back of her hand.
I vaguely motioned to a cupboard. Harmony had bought some last year when she and Rachel decided to make a piñata as their part of a Spanish class Cinco de Mayo celebration.
Dana found the bag of flour and returned to the table. “Alcippe told me last night. I didn’t know what to do, don’t know what I will do.” She sniffed loudly. “What would you do?”
That was a loaded question and not one I thought I needed to answer-I’d already answered it ten years ago, quite visibly.
“What would Mel do about what?” Mother strode into the room, wearing Lycra and a thin sheen of sweat. She grabbed a dish towel from near the sink and rubbed it over her face. Then she looked at me.
I set down my cup. “This is Dana. We met the other day on my trip”-I glanced at Harmony’s door-“to Illinois.”
“Oh.”
“Dana’s expecting…”
Mother’s eyes started to glaze. Baby talk was not her thing. “A boy,” I finished.
“Oh!” She dropped the towel on the floor, and pinned me with a look. “You didn’t?”
“I didn’t do anything. Dana just…” I switched my gaze to the pregnant girl who was busy bending to retrieve the towel. She hadn’t exactly told me why she was here. I could guess…already had, but with Mother staring me down, I wasn’t placing words in Dana’s mouth.
Mother turned to watch the girl too. Apparently unaware of our surveillance, Dana turned in a circle, the towel held out in front of her. Finally she stopped.
“Is there…do you have…?” She held out the towel.
Realizing she was looking for a place to deposit the soiled cloth, I nodded to a small pile of dishrags and towels that had accumulated in a corner near the door. “In the basement. Just throw it over there.”
Looking unsure and slightly disapproving, Dana tossed the towel on the pile, then went to wash her hands.
“Dana,” I said, giving Mother a give me a chance look. “Why are you here?”
She turned, surprised. “Where else could I go? I knew you’d know what to do. What my options are.”
“Options for what?” Harmony bumped into the table, her pink backpack slung over one shoulder and a fresh coat of lip gloss on her lips.
I was going to have to start belling my family.
“Hi.” Dana smiled as if she’d just baked a perfect soufflé-at least I imagined that was what would produce such a euphoric expression. I didn’t have much insight into the mind of a hearth-keeper. “You must be Harmony. I’ve heard so much about you.”
She had? From who?
“You have? From who?” my daughter parroted my thoughts.
I was curious, but I didn’t want to hear her answer in front of my still innocent-to-the-existence-of-Amazons daughter.
“Dana’s your cousin,” I blurted out.
“Really?” Shock, then joy flowed over Harmony’s teenage body. “I didn’t know we had family outside of…” She graced Mother and me with a grudging look. I assumed Bubbe was included in the less than enthusiastic pronouncement.
“Distant cousin,” I added. “Dana found us on one of those genealogy sites online.” I flapped my hand randomly. “She’s just traveling through.”
“Oh.” My daughter’s face fell.
I hadn’t realized not having other family had left such a hole in her existence. Unfortunately for her, Dana was not going to be the answer to this apparent lack. Just as soon as I could get Dana settled down and thinking straight, she was heading back to northern Illinois or one of the other safe camps. Maybe realizing she didn’t have to go back to Alcippe would be enough to get her on the road.
She said she was having a boy but, according to what everyone had told me, in the millennia since Ares and Otrera had hooked up and the first Amazon was born, I was the only one who’d had an unwaverable need to raise a male child myself.
Why would Dana be the second? And if she was, it didn’t really involve me or my family, did it?
“Actually, I’m moving to Madison,” Dana announced, her fingers wrapped around a mass of pie dough, like a bride holding a bouquet.
A squeal erupted from Harmony.
Apparently urged on by my daughter’s enthusiastic response, Dana continued, “And I’m having a baby!”
“Oh.” Harmony turned, eyes huge in her face, and stared at me. I grabbed a granola bar from a drawer and shoved it into her hand.
“Better get to school.”
“But the bus-”
“Walk slow.” With a shove, I sent her on her way.
With Harmony safely on her way, I turned back to a confused-looking Dana.
“Did I…?” Dana started.
“In the human world teens having babies, especially unmarried teens, is not reason to celebrate.”
“But I’m…”
“I know-twenty-two.” I shoved my fingers into my hair.
Dana dropped the pie dough and beat a fast retreat from the room, brushing past an intrigued-looking Bubbe on her way.
Crap, all over again.
Without pausing to explain, I rushed after the upset hearth-keeper. She’d swung left and disappeared inside the door to one of the many rooms we didn’t actually use for anything besides storing dust.
I followed her.
She was standing next to the window, her palm pressed against the glass and loud sobs lifting her breasts.
“Dana.” I took a step in.
She turned further toward the outside view, hiding her face.
“I didn’t mean…it’s just…” I sucked at this. “Harmony doesn’t know we’re Amazons,” I finally blurted.
That got her attention. Her face jerked toward me. “She doesn’t? How can’t she know she’s an Amazon? It’s who she is.”
A throb was beginning in the area of my left temple. I lay two fingers against the spot. “She’s not an Amazon; she’s Harmony.”
Dana blinked, her blue eyes clouding with confusion. “But isn’t she your-”
“I mean, she is an Amazon, but I didn’t raise her as one and she doesn’t know about the Amazons, and I want her to be herself first.” Why did this all make a lot more sense when I said it to myself or my argumentative mother and grandmother? Saying it to Dana’s sweet, bewildered stare made it all sound…idiotic.
“She doesn’t know what she is? She hasn’t trained? Or apprenticed?”
Horror now. Great.
“No. I mean, there isn’t any reason…girls here…” I was blathering. Finally, I gave it up and grabbed Dana by the hand instead. “The point is, you can’t just say things around Harmony that you might back at camp.”
“But I am pregnant.”
I sighed.
“And I’m not giving him up. Alcippe wants me to, but I’m not. You understand that, right? You know how I feel?” Her hand shook in mine, as if her entire body was shaking with barely contained emotion.
“Of course I do, but-”
“I know it’s a lot to ask, and I just met you, but all the Amazons know who you are and what you did. A bunch of us always said if this”-she looked down at her stomach-“happened to us, we’d be brave like you. That we wouldn’t let anyone take our baby from us-even if he was a boy.
“But I’m not strong. Not like you. If you send me back there, I’ll give in. I know I will, and I’ll hate myself for the rest of my life.” Her shoulders heaved in a display more filled with drama than what I’d seen come out of Harmony in her entire fourteen years of life.
That was when I knew I was in trouble.
Chapter Sixteen
While Dana finished her pie, Mother agreed to help me carry her bags upstairs.
“Which room did you give her?” Mother asked.
“The one by yours.” I jerked a bag out of the compact’s rear seat and hurled it toward my loving parent.
“When’s the baby due?”
“Eight months give or take, and before you ask, no, I’m not switching with you. We have thick walls. You’ll be fine.”
Mother grunted, and I didn’t think it was from the weight of the duffel.
She looped her arm through the handles of three more bags. “Does Alcippe know?”
“That she’s pregnant? Yes. That she’s here?” I shrugged.
Mother shot me a look. “She isn’t going to like it.”
“See, a silver lining already.” I stacked another duffel onto Mother’s pile and started chugging up the sidewalk toward the front door. Mother passed me in two strides. I did a jog step to catch up, but only managed to drop two of the duffels I was attempting to warrior-handle onto the ground.
“What’s up?” Peter scooped up the bags and tucked one under each arm.
I thought about going all Amazon and insisting he hand over the bags, but in the interest of being more broad-minded, thought better of it. “There are more in the car.” I jerked my head back toward where the compact sat-the hatchback wide open.
As I did, my newest employee, Nick, wheeled into view on a skateboard. In a graphic T-shirt and torn jeans he looked a lot less like the clean-cut boy I remembered and a lot more like trouble.
I swallowed the thought. Same kid, different clothes.
He stopped by Dana’s car, glanced from it to Peter and me and our loaded-down arms. I dropped my bags at Peter’s feet, hoping he’d pick up my clue-and the bags.
“Nick, you’re earlier than I thought you’d be.”
He flipped the board up and grabbed it by the tip. “Sorry, I have somewhere I need to be.”
“You aren’t staying?”
He shook his head. His attention wandered past me. I turned, thinking Mother had reappeared, but there was no one there.
“You look busy,” he said.
“We are.” Again I looked at Peter, but he hadn’t moved, and seemed fascinated by my conversation with Nick. “But you’ll need to do some paperwork.”
“Sure, not a problem. I’ll stop by later.” Nick’s gaze was on Peter now.
Realizing I had committed some kind of etiquette faux pas, I introduced them. Neither jumped forward to greet the other. They just stood there, each sizing the other up, like two dogs whose paths had crossed in a neutral field. Neither declaring the territory, but neither backing off either.
I rolled my eyes and retrieved the bags I’d dropped. Nick wheeled off, and I didn’t bother to turn around to watch him leave, or to see if Peter was following me as I continued down the sidewalk.
I didn’t get far; Pisto in all her golden glory stepped out of the cafeteria door. Her gaze went first to Peter, then the car, then locked onto me. “Is that Dana’s car?”
“Could be.” I kept walking. There was something about Pisto’s stance I didn’t like. That was a lie. There was something about Pisto I didn’t like.
She stepped in front of me. “Is it?”
I heaved out a breath. Why did this have to be so hard? “You’re in my way.”
She crossed her arms under her chest. “What’s she doing here? And where are you going with those bags?”
I considered not answering again, because, seriously, she was getting on my last nerve, but again, in the interest of having a broader mind…“You’d need to ask her. And upstairs.” This time I shoved my way past her. The shocked look on her face as I bumped her from the sidewalk was beyond rewarding.
Unfortunately, the feeling only lasted about two seconds-the time it took for her to drop her hand on my shoulder and pull me back.
I dropped the bags and turned. I didn’t have a plan and I’m not sure what I would have done, but even in a flash of anger I couldn’t miss Peter’s six-foot-four frame looming up behind us or the unmarked police car pulling into the parking lot.
Pisto wasn’t as preoccupied as I was. She grabbed my hand as I raised it from my side. “I’m not taken in by you,” she murmured. “You may have Zery conned, but not me.”
A fan. How nice.
I wanted more than anything to knee her in the groin…thigh…whatever I could reach, or suck in a big lungful of air and blow her back to northern Illinois, but with my growing audience, neither was an option.
“There a problem?” Detective Reynolds and friend stepped onto the sidewalk. His tone was casual, but I could see the tension in his body.
Pisto tensed, a small move that no one but I noticed. “You knew we had company, right? A well-trained warrior like you wouldn’t slip like that…” I murmured the words, for her alone.
She pulled back her lip, showing her teeth. From a distance, it might have looked like a smile. Up close there was no missing the threat.
I pulled my wrist from her grip. “No problem.” I turned my back on the Amazon. I didn’t want to introduce her to the detective and hoped she’d be too dense to realize that’s what he was. Pretending she wasn’t glowering at my back, I moved forward, as far as the basement steps. “We can go in this way.” I motioned to the stairs. I wanted Detective and friend inside my shop, hidden from the Amazons as quickly as possible.
Reynolds arched a brow. “Aren’t you in the middle of something?” He glanced behind me. I followed his line of sight, hoping he wasn’t referring to Pisto. He wasn’t. The Amazon was gone, and his gaze was only directed to the duffels I’d left on the sidewalk.
Peter stepped forward and scooped them up. “I’ll get them.”
I looked back at the detective. He wandered forward, but his partner hung back.
“You can both come,” I prompted.
Reynolds looked behind him as if surprised to see someone there. “Blake’s not feeling well. He needs some air.” Then he glanced at Peter.
I was done with introductions. I turned on the ball of my foot and tramped down the stairs. I could hear Reynolds tap his hand against the metal railing a few times, as if deciding whether to follow-or maybe it was some secret police signal. Whatever, in a little while he stepped through the basement door behind me.
Bubbe’s door was wide open. I tried sidling past, but Reynolds came to an immediate halt next to it.
“What’s this?” he asked.
I stopped, turned, and immediately hoped Bubbe hadn’t left any wild woodland critters tied to the table.
The detective had half his body in the room. I walked over and pulled the door closed. He had the good grace to step back before it whacked him in the nose. “My grandmother’s business.”
He raised both brows in question.
“She tells fortunes.” I didn’t wait for a reply, just started walking.
I lost him outside Mother’s workout room.
“Some pretty heavy duty equipment you have there.” This time he was all the way in. I’d have had to put him in a headlock to get him out gracefully.
I ground my teeth together at the sheer annoyance of having him control our progress, but then realized something. As long as Bubbe didn’t stroll past, Mother’s workspace was probably the safest place for our ch
at.
He glanced around, apparently realizing I didn’t have a bowie knife tucked under a stack of weights, and turned to leave. I, however, had already plopped myself down on a weight bench.
“So, did you find another body?” The thought had just occurred to me. I didn’t really think he had-he would have approached me differently, but a piece of me almost hoped he had. Not that I wished another girl dead, but I definitely wanted to believe the killer had severed whatever tie he or she felt to me.
“Should we have?”
I pulled back, too surprised to hide my reaction. “That was aggressive.”
He took a step forward. “You haven’t seen aggressive.”
I almost laughed. I could say the same thing to him.
“Is something funny?”
I could see I’d tripped his trigger. I had to get better at hiding my expressions. I stood up. “No. Nothing about this is funny, especially the fact that you seem to suspect me of killing two girls. I told you before. I didn’t do it.”
“I never accused you of being the killer.”
I made a pfft sound with my lips.
“If anything, I accused you of knowing something about the girls, of doing their tattoos.”
“Well, I didn’t.” As far as I was concerned, our talk was over-or should have been. He wandered farther into the room, picked up a medicine ball, and tossed it in the air as if testing its weight.
“So, why were you at The Tavern?”
“Lunch? How about you?”
He smiled, a not-so-sweet stop bullshitting me turn of his lips. “It had nothing to do with the dead girls?”
“I like fried cheese curds.”
He laughed. “And I like brats with mustard. You didn’t answer my question.”
I hated to lie, but I’d served my time as a teenager-I knew how. “No. It had nothing to do with the dead girls.” I held his gaze, didn’t let mine waver, even when he took a step back toward me. Less than a foot away, he stopped and smiled again.
“You’re good.”
