Brigid sighed in frustration. “So we’re stuck out here until tomorrow night?”
“I can stay here.” Daniel nodded down the narrow hallway. “There’s a bedroom here, and I know Jitters won’t mind me taking it, but you guys need like, the dark right? I don’t know where, but maybe at the church—”
“Don’t worry about us,” Carwyn said. “We’ll be fine. You keep your arse planted here until tomorrow night though. If you don’t…” He dropped his voice. “That would be a very bad idea, Daniel Siva.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
When he spoke, he looked far older than twenty years, and Carwyn was reminded that he’d been playing juice-box to an unethical vampire for the past week.
“Get some sleep,” Carwyn said. “And eat some more if you can find food.”
“I’ve got some beef jerky in the Bronco,” Brigid said. “Eat that before you go to sleep, and we’ll see you at nightfall tomorrow.”
Chapter Thirteen
Brigid stared at the star-filled sky from the window Carwyn had cut in the cave where they would spend the day. He’d cover it before the sun rose, but in the meantime, Brigid was enjoying the view.
Carwyn was still puttering and fussing with the design of the space. He’d cleared out a cave roughly the size of a small trailer just by sinking his feet into the desert floor. Sometimes in the bustle of the city, she forgot how mind-bending her mate’s power could be.
The earth loved Carwyn. When he manipulated the ground, there was no sense of struggle; it was as if he whispered to the earth and it danced for him.
He sank his feet in the ground, and as he stepped, the desert floor fled before his feet, walking down, down, down until the cool earth surrounded them and a comfortable-sized cave appeared dug into the desert floor.
Overhead, the earth was raw and rugged, but beneath her, it was packed down smooth. She spread their blankets and sleeping bags in the corner and tossed their duffel bags near the entrance.
She lay back on the rude bed, and as she did, a clear round portal appeared directly over her. “Look at that.” She watched Carwyn walk around the cave, his hands molding the walls into a safe and secure haven. “What a nice hotel room this is.”
“You know I prefer this to empty houses. Here, no one is going to find us.”
“I know, but as much as I don’t mind the cave sleeping, it would be a bit claustrophobic for the human.”
“I suppose so.” Carwyn lay down next to her and stretched an arm out to play with the soft ends of her hair. “You hardly scorched a bit this time.”
Brigid touched the fine hairs behind her ear. “One of these days I’ll master it like Giovanni has.”
“I don’t think he’s ever figured out how to protect his hair either.” Carwyn tugged Brigid’s arm until she was splayed across his chest. “He can’t keep it long no matter how Beatrice would have him grow it.”
“Good to know it’s not just me.” She was starting to feel the tug of the morning. It was winter and the nights were long, which meant her body was completely out once the sun came up. Carwyn could rouse himself during the day if he needed to, but Brigid? She’d sleep through an assassination attempt, which was why Carwyn liked to keep her safe underground.
“What are you thinking?”
Brigid blinked her eyes open. “About Lupe?”
“Yes.”
“I feel like… she’s close, but she’s not here.”
“I call María every night, but so far no one in the family has heard from her.”
“We know as of yesterday, someone was using the phone Daniel gave her, so that’s comforting.”
“As long as she’s the one making the calls.”
“We have no reason to think she’s not.” Brigid tilted his chin so she could see into his eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t have a good feeling about this one,” Carwyn said. “Part of me is wishing we’d gone back to Dublin.”
“Liar.” She tapped his nose. “You don’t wish that for anything.”
“Fine, not Dublin, but not this job.” He frowned. “I thought it would be an easy, satisfying little quest and you’d be happy and feel rewarded and think to yourself, ‘My husband is so brilliant.’”
Brigid snorted.
“‘So brilliant,’” Carwyn continued. “‘And wouldn’t you know? This was far more fun than coordinating security details for visiting vampires. Far more exhilarating than the day-to-day grind of protecting buildings and people and boxes of mobile phones.’”
“Yes, it was so exhilarating I should just keep doing what Carwyn wants me to do!” Brigid said. “And forget about asset protection and foreign-visitor protocols. I should go fight crime and rescue princesses with Carwyn like we’re vampire superheroes.”
His hand landed on her backside in an affectionate pat. “See? You’ve got it exactly.”
She smiled. “You had it all planned out, didn’t you?”
“Except it’s a far harder case than I anticipated.” He pursed his lips. “I blame Lupe of course.”
“How dare she be so hard to find after she wasn’t kidnapped,” Brigid said. “She should have just waited in the hotel for us to come rescue her.”
“It would be a lot more convenient. Instead of her trying to rescue herself—and a bunch of other people—on her own.”
“Damn those self-rescuing princesses.” Brigid shook her head. “I blame feminism and plucky animated heroines.”
“As you should.” He lifted her up and set her on top of his body, running his callused fingers up and down her back, over her bottom, pinching the back of her thigh as she squirmed. “Keep wiggling like that and your clothes are going to fall off.”
“They’ll just fall off?” She couldn’t stop her laugh. “I’ve never heard that before.”
“It’s well known that this is a thing that can happen to young female fire vampires.”
“Rather specific phenomenon then, isn’t it?”
“It’s true.” His fingers slipped underneath her T-shirt, and in one smooth motion, she was topless. “See? Look at that; you kept wiggling.”
She stretched her arms up and around his neck. “Whatever will I do without my shirt on?”
“I’m sure we’ll figure something out.” He ran his hands down the center of her back. “I’m so glad you don’t wear those nasty brassieres.”
“I barely have enough tits to fill one out.”
“And yet they’re the perfect size for my big mouth.” Carwyn rolled the two of them over and began kissing down Brigid’s body. “Astonishing.”
Brigid closed her eyes and luxuriated in his attention. “You always get so horny after you’ve been digging.”
“There’s something about a hard night’s work that gives me ideas.”
“So we’re just supposed to forget about the case, the missing girl, and the detention center until tomorrow night?”
He started unbuttoning her jeans. “If you haven’t forgotten about them in the next ten minutes, darling girl, I’m going to consider it a personal failure.”
* * *
They emerged from the earth at dusk and washed off as best they could with the water jug they’d bought in Palm Desert. Brigid called Beatrice to check on Lupe’s phone and see if there was any activity.
“I was able to grab a location yesterday morning,” Beatrice said. “Just a rough one. It looks like she’s back in the Palm Desert, La Quinta area again.”
“Okay. And she’s still calling?”
“Short calls only. She’s careful. No texting.”
“Someone has to be helping her,” Brigid said. “We found out they were going to try to rescue a group of kids from a detention center.”
“As in a government detention center?”
“Kind of? It’s government but run by contractors. Daniel said that the girl told Lupe they had the kids in this old military base or something, and one of the children had disappeared. That’s why Lupe
was determined to find them.”
“This is a nightmare. Let us know if you need any help. We have contacts in the area.”
“I’ll let you know, but for now we’re still trying to find her.”
“Kind of impressive,” Beatrice said. “She’s accidentally avoiding two of the best investigators in the world right now.”
“Sheer dumb luck and technical naivete?”
“Yeah.” Why was it so hard to track Lupe? Probably because she wasn’t following any of the rules of avoiding detection. She wasn’t trying to stay hidden, she just was hidden.
“She’s turning the phone on and off as she needs it,” Brigid said. “Probably trying to save battery.”
“Which makes it a pain in the ass to track too. Where are you right now?”
Brigid sat on the tailgate of the Bronco and looked at the lights of the Springs in the distance. “Some odd anarchist, counterculture, off-grid settlement in the middle of the desert. She was here three or four days ago.”
“Let me know if you make any progress.”
Carwyn emerged from the cave after settling the ground back into place.
“Will do,” Brigid said. “I better go.”
* * *
“You’d be surprised who shows up out here.” Didi was an older woman with silver-grey hair braided and tied on top of her head with a bandanna. She was thin and suntanned, her skin tight and freckled from exposure. Her arm muscles flexed as she stirred a large pot of what looked like a hearty chicken soup.
“People from the city come out for my food sometimes,” she continued. “People from the Corner come a lot. And all the folks around here that don’t want to cook. People just throw in what they can, you know? So I do all right. If there’s a concert out here?” She smiled, and Brigid saw three teeth missing. “I clean up those nights. I always cook something big.” Didi nodded to the giant glass jar filled with cash on the corner of her counter. “It’s a lot of work, but I don’t mind that. I love feeding people.”
“Were you a chef?”
Didi shook her head. “Nothing that fancy. Used to cook on a ranch a long time ago, back when they were still running cattle up north.”
“It smells amazing,” Carwyn said. “I’d love a bowl when it’s finished.” He threw a twenty into the jar. “Jitters said you might know where Lupe had gone.”
“Lupe?” Didi’s eyes turned suspicious. “What do you want with her?”
Brigid said, “Her mother hired us to find her. She didn’t tell anyone in the family she was leaving; she just disappeared.”
Didi frowned. “She a runaway? Didn’t strike me as no runaway.”
“Her family isn’t the trouble, if that’s your meaning,” Brigid said. “She followed a boy—”
“Daniel?” Didi smirked. “She asked about him a lot at first. How did I know him? Who did he hang with out here?” Didi shook her head. “That boy. He’s got a good heart, but he’s clueless about the girls. She’ll be banging her head on a wall over that one.”
“Did you direct her toward any of Daniel’s friends? Someone mentioned the name Wash.”
Didi scowled. “Nothing good comes from hanging with that man. He’s always yelling about one thing or another. He right threw a fit when I bought my truck.” She nodded toward a truck that had to have been twenty years old. “I told Lupe to stay away from Wash. Hell, I tried to get her to just stay here with me and cook. I’d have split the profits with her.”
“Did she talk about what she was doing out here?” Brigid asked. “Did she mention a camp or a detention center or kids that needed help?”
“Nope.” Didi kept stirring the soup and shaking her head. “Don’t know nothing about that kind of thing.”
“Are you sure?”
“She tried to talk to me, but I just told her I don’t know nothin’ about crossing borders or rescuin’ people.” Didi shook her head vigorously. “I figure you want to get people out of a situation like that, you gotta know how people get into it first. And I don’t know nothin’ about that.”
Brigid backed off. It was clear that Didi didn’t want to talk about the kids in the detention center. Lupe might have run into the same problem. Out here, everyone looked out for themselves. There wasn’t much room for compassion when you were living on the burning edge of survival.
“Where did she go?” Brigid asked. “When she left, where did Lupe go? Did she ask you for a ride?”
“Now, I can’t be gone for all day, like taking her back to Palm Desert like she wanted.” Didi shrugged. “I got people to cook for. I took her back to the highway. Left her at the truck stop there. She said she had a friend coming to pick her up.”
“A friend? Did she say who?”
Didi shook her head. “Nope. I didn’t ask. She knew her own mind. Seemed real sure of things, you know?”
“Thanks, Didi. Appreciate it.”
Brigid left Carwyn with Didi and wandered out to the front of Didi’s compound, which was a lot like Jitters’s compound next door. An old trailer, a line of cactus, and lots of tarps and makeshift shade covers. What set Didi’s apart was the large outdoor kitchen and the long picnic tables in front that someone had built from old lumber and car parts. There was also a line of signs pounded into the dirt that seemed to spell out the credo of Liberty Springs.
Life is hard. Don’t make it harder by being an asshole.
Don’t curse in Didi’s yard.
Mind your own business, but always help your neighbor.
Know when to ask for help.
Share. Dead men don’t need money.
There was a hint of menace to most of the advice, but they were still solid guidelines. Half a dozen people were already lingering around the picnic tables, ready for whatever the old woman was cooking.
Brigid saw Daniel in the distance, talking to a rough-looking blond man with Jitters at his side. She wandered over, close enough to hear what the men were saying without being obvious.
“…told you I’m sorry.”
“These two look like fuckin cops to me, Danny. You think anyone around here wants the cops around?”
“I don’t think they’re police.” Jitters was speaking. “Have you heard their accents?”
“Well, maybe they’re foreign police. Like Interpol or something.”
“I’m telling you” —it was Daniel again— “they’re not cops. And Lupe’s not here, so they’re gonna move on, okay?”
“What was that whole thing about, Daniel? That girl seemed to think you had some kind of private army out here. What the fuck?”
“I don’t know what I was thinking, okay?” The young man sounded chastened. “She just came to me and she knew… I mean she knew some stuff I’d told her, and she thought I would know how to help. And I was fucking pissed, Wash. From what that girl in LA said, I’m pretty sure they’re keeping these kids out at Miller’s Range, and then the girl said one of the little kids disappeared. Like a baby. I had to do something. I thought maybe Oso—”
“If they’re at Miller’s Range, you’re looking at miles of military reinforcements and fences and all that shit. If it was more accessible, I’d maybe try to put some people together, but not even Oso could sneak people in or out of that. Unless you have like a fucking tunnel machine or a helicopter, you’re not getting in there.”
“I know.”
“There are things we can do and things we can’t. Know your fucking limits and don’t start running your mouth off about shit you can’t handle.”
“I know that now, okay?”
Brigid walked back to find her husband. Miller’s Range. Lupe was looking for a place called Miller’s Range, Daniel didn’t have any super rescue group, and Carwyn and Brigid were back to playing catch-up with a resourceful seventeen-year-old girl.
Again.
Chapter Fourteen
“Darling girl, those humans may have been stymied, but you do have a tunnel-boring machine.” Carwyn spread his arms as he followed Brigid out to t
he edge of the Springs where they’d parked the Bronco. “Right here. Why wouldn’t we go get the children?”
“Because we were hired to find Lupe. Not take on the US government, possibly causing an international incident. We were hired to find a girl and bring her home.”
Carwyn had a feeling that clever Lupe Martínez was going to stay under the radar until she wanted to be found. Or until there was someone willing to help her finish the mission she’d committed herself to. “How much money does she have?”
“Daniel said he left her with three thousand dollars.”
Carwyn frowned. “Where did he get that kind of money?”
“He said his savings.” Brigid gave him a skeptical look. “I have my doubts.”
“As do I.” Carwyn unlocked the car and boosted Brigid up. “So Lupe has resources, and obviously she’s smart. If we go to the detention center, we might find her there.”
“Beatrice said her phone pinged in the Palm Desert area.”
Carwyn didn’t know what to think. “If she’s leaving this area, where the children are located, why would she go back to Palm Desert and not go home? That seems like she’s going backward but only halfway.”
Brigid was staring over the dashboard when Carwyn got in the driver’s seat.
“What is it?”
“Something Didi just said.” Brigid rubbed her stomach. “I need to feed.”
“You’ve blown up the only vampire bar in the area. You might have to hunt.”
“Fuck.” Brigid curled her lip. “I hate that.”
“Find someone obnoxious enough that it won’t make you feel guilty,” he said. “Or we can look for bighorns on the way back to the highway.”
“Fur in blood…” Her face was bordering on green. “Blood banks?”
Carwyn wasn’t pleased. “It’ll do for a stopgap, just don’t make a habit of it. Preserved blood is like fast food. It’ll keep you fed, but it’s shit for your health.”
“Blood bank it is.” She bent over. “Cramps.”
Saint’s Passage: Elemental Covenant Book One Page 11
