“Creepy.”
“The original is often exhausted after the split, so they spend a lot of time napping. Naturally, this provides even more opportunity for the double to take their place when they cancel social events or call in sick to work.”
“Those sneaky doubles!”
“I know,” she said breathlessly. “You may have encountered one and not realized it. For example, when a friend says they can’t make it to an event because they’re under the weather, but then they do show up and they’re the life of the party. I always chalked such occurrences up to really good cough syrup, but now I have to wonder.”
“How many carbon copies of people are running around right now? Does the book say?”
“The warrior monks numbered exactly one thousand, before they were wiped out during a volcanic eruption.”
“So, anywhere between zero and a thousand fractured warrior monks might be roaming around looking for great lives to jump in on. I guess I’m lucky my life isn’t that glamorous from the outside.”
I heard the snap of a book being closed. “What doesn’t add up is that this fellow never claimed to be Chet.”
“Maybe he sensed I was a witch, and he could tell by talking to me that I was no dumb bunny. He knew I was too clever for his tricks.”
“I doubt that,” she said.
“Thanks a lot.”
“No, it’s just too convoluted. What are the chances? It’s far more likely that he is who he says he is. A long-lost twin. Maybe Chet’s mother knew her boys would be better off raised apart. Parents of magical offspring do have their own unique concerns.”
“Fair enough. So, he’s just a regular guy looking for his family? And he didn’t kill Jo Pressman?”
“If she was experimenting with love potion, she might have accidentally poisoned herself. I’ll try to talk to Griebel about the potion, but he’ll probably be avoiding me, thanks to your little altercation.” There was the unmistakable stink of blame to her words.
“He started it,” I said.
There was a knock at the door of the suite. I quickly said goodbye to Zinnia, told her not to give black forest ham to the cat under any circumstances, and went to answer the door.
Rob stood in the hallway. He was alone. He was dressed in “combat casual” and glancing around nervously.
“Zara, I need to ask you for some help with something.”
“You guys want me to be the bait for a trap?”
He blinked twice. “What makes you say that?”
“Come in,” I said with a sigh.
Chapter 32
30 MINUTES LATER
The second I walked into the hair salon, the handsome, dark-haired man in the stylist’s chair nearest the big window gave me a huge grin.
“Hey, stranger,” Archer Caine said.
“Hey, yourself.” I forced a friendly smile. He had no idea what he was in for. No idea I was there to bait the trap that would lead to him being exterminated. Rob had assured me there was a fail-safe. The process used to melt a parasitic twin back to primordial goo would have no effect whatsoever on a being who wasn’t a magical parasite. Rob had been very convincing. But now, as I stared into the eyes of someone who might be an innocent human caught up in a heap of trouble he didn’t deserve, I didn’t feel very convinced. And my hands were aching even worse than before, throbbing with pain in rhythm with the beating of my heart.
His hairdresser, a middle-aged woman with a stick-straight body, snubbed nose, and an asymmetrical blond bob gave me a friendly look. She wrapped the hair-cutting cape around Archer’s shoulders and fastened the neck.
“You can sit right here,” the hairdresser said to me in a friendly yet tired voice, waving to the empty chair next to Archer’s. “It doesn’t cost anything to watch, but I do accept tips.” She gave me a knowing wink.
I took the chair and swiveled it a few times. I recognized the hairdresser from Jo’s memory in the wine cellar. Her name was Patty, and she popped Mexican diet pills like they were Tic Tacs. She’d been married four times, divorced three, and widowed once. Patty was currently dating the man she hoped to make Bad Choice Number Five. She and Jo had bonded over their shared attraction to bad boys. And there was something else, too. In the vision, Jo had thanked Patty for fixing her broken leg. But Jo didn’t have a broken leg when she died, and she hadn’t been at the castle very long, so I wasn’t sure what that meant.
I pulled out of the memory before I got lost, and turned from her to Archer. What did I have on him? Not much, other than he was a good kisser, according to Jo’s memories. I felt my cheeks flush as I took another twirl on the chair.
Archer asked, “What brings you down here?”
“No TV in my suite, so I thought I’d come down and try watching the hair-cutting channel.”
Patty raised an eyebrow my way as she combed through Archer’s damp hair.
“Sounds like a plan,” Archer said.
I waited for him to apologize for running off so abruptly at lunch, or at least to acknowledge it, but he said nothing.
Morganna Faire came over to our row of chairs, her gauzy layers of clothing swishing. She put her hands on her hips and tilted her head as she looked at me. “Zara? Anything wrong?”
“Hi, Morganna. I’m actually just hanging out. Everything’s great. The conditioner treatment you gave me this morning still feels wonderful.”
“Good.” She looked at Archer and asked, “And what are you up to?”
“Just a trim, ma’am,” he answered.
“Ma’am?” She looked from him, to me, and back again.
“I’m just a spectator,” I said.
Morganna gave me a slow nod. She touched Patty’s elbow lightly and said, “Careful with this one,” indicating Archer. “I’m going for my dinner break, but I will be back.”
Patty gave her a joyless smile. “Have a good one,” she said.
As soon as Morganna was gone, the hairdresser gave me a raised-eyebrows look. “That woman is so weird. I don’t get her at all. Do you think it’s a generational thing?”
“Maybe.” I shrugged.
“She’s always calling me a Daughter of Amora. Should I be insulted?”
I shrugged again. “Old people say the darndest things.”
Patty chuckled and started trimming Archer’s hair, starting at the back.
Without turning his head, he looked at me through the mirror and asked, “Something on your mind, Zara?”
Just one very important thing. Might as well spit it out. “Your brother wants to meet with you.”
He barely paused before replying, “I’m ready for that.” He glanced up at the snub-nosed woman trimming his hair. “Or at least I will be after this haircut.”
She said nothing, but she didn’t pretend she was deaf.
I said, “Really?” I’d expected to have to try a little harder to convince him. Archer had practically flown like a startled bird at the suggestion when I’d seen him at lunch time. Now, just a few hours later, he was ready and willing.
“That’s what I’m here for,” he said. “Just tell me when and where, and I’ll be there.” He flashed me his megawatt grin. “But only if you promise to be there as well.”
“Of course I’ll be there.” Because I’ve agreed to be the cheese in this particular rat trap. Lucky me. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” I gave him the time and location. “Would you like me to write it down for you?”
He winked at me, still grinning. “I have an excellent memory.”
The hairdresser watched me steadily. For all I knew, she could have been a DWM agent, there to make sure I followed through with the plan.
Archer asked, “Anything I should know about this brother of mine?”
“Plenty,” I said.
He quirked an eyebrow my way.
“But you won’t get a single word out of me. I have been sworn to secrecy.” That part was true.
We both watched as the hairdresser worked quickly, snipping away
at Archer’s dark-brown hair. The movement of the flashing scissors combined with the snipping sounds was soothing, almost hypnotic.
The hairdresser picked up a can of cola from her work surface. Patty said, “I apologize for being so rude, but my throat is dry. Do you mind if I have a sip of my poison?” She jiggled the can. “Diet soda. I know those artificial sweeteners are terrible, but I’m addicted to the caffeine.”
Not as bad as you’re addicted to Mexican diet pills, I thought.
Archer told her to go ahead and soothe her throat. “Patty, I’m not keeping you past your dinner break, am I?” He seemed genuinely concerned.
“No, not at all,” she said, which all three of us knew was a lie. Everyone else had gone for dinner, and we were the only people in the salon at the moment. The courtyard garden beyond the big picture window was lit in the golden tones of a summer sunset.
Patty lifted the can of diet cola to her lips.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Archer as he watched me in the mirror. Something was off. I couldn’t tell what it was, but something was definitely wrong. I had to do something. I had to do what I’d been thinking about doing since before I’d even walked into the salon. I had to save Archer from becoming a puddle of goo.
As Patty tilted the can back, her lips delicately parted in thirsty anticipation, I nudged the can. I pushed up at the bottom, causing its bubbly brown fluid to spill over the rim. She gasped and stepped back as brown cola flooded down the front of her blouse. She swore, apologized to both of us for swearing, and then swore some more. If my father had been there, he would have clapped and asked what she did for an encore. He was that kind of guy. She probably would have laughed, too.
Archer handed her a towel from the counter and craned his neck around to watch her patting herself. “Now you’re just moving it around,” he said, suddenly serious, just like Chet would have been in that situation. “You’ve got to dab. Dab, dab, dab.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t get any on you,” Patty said to him.
He glanced over at me, and the grin returned. “I’m not worried about myself,” he said. “Just your poor shirt.”
She sighed and tucked the towel into the top of her blouse, wearing it like a large necktie. “I can finish your hair like this, so I don’t get any on you.”
“Nonsense,” I said. “Go change your shirt. I’ll keep him company while you’re gone.”
She eyed me warily, but she left, muttering under her breath about her clumsiness.
I quickly looked around the salon to make sure we were alone.
“Archer, there’s no time to explain, but you need to get out of here,” I said. “You’re in grave danger.”
He turned his head from side to side, examining his reflection in the mirror. “A little diet soda doesn’t scare me.”
“Archer, I’m dead serious.” I gave him my most dead serious look. “You need to leave this castle and never come back. There are people here who think you need to be eliminated.” I paused to let it sink in. “If you meet with them, you won’t be walking out of here.”
He frowned. “Do you mean my brother?”
“Yes. He works for a top secret agency, and, long story short, you’re a security risk. It’s very complicated, and I can’t get into it, but you have to trust me. If you don’t leave immediately, you’ll be eliminated.”
He grinned and glanced around at the ceiling. “Where are the hidden cameras?”
I might be able to convince him, but I didn’t have the time. “Sorry,” I whispered, and I cast my bluffing spell at the highest power. Then I got to work convincing him, and I didn’t let up until he agreed to leave the castle immediately. He didn’t even stick around for the finishing touches of his haircut.
Five minutes later, the hairdresser came out wearing a new shirt and carrying a fresh can of diet soda with a straw. “Where’d he go?”
“Snip and Dash,” I said. “Didn’t they teach you that at hairdresser school? It’s like Gas and Dash, but with haircuts.”
She scrunched her already-short nose. “I must have been sick that day.”
“I’m paying for his haircut.” I got out my wallet. “It’s the least I can do.”
“Does he really have an identical twin brother?”
“Yes, he does. And the other brother is here at the castle right now.”
She nodded. “That would explain why I kept seeing him around everywhere.”
“Did you happen to see him anywhere interesting?”
Her cheeks flushed. “He hit on me a couple of days ago, but he must have forgotten, because he was all business today.” She looked at herself in the mirror. “Or maybe I’m not as cute as I think I am.”
“You’re adorable,” I said, and paid her for the haircut plus a tip.
As I left the salon and made my way to the DWM temporary headquarters in the wine cellar, the reality of what I’d just done began to sink in.
I’d sabotaged my first official secret mission. My career as a consulting agent was off to a terrible start. This was so much worse than when I’d thrown out my boss Kathy’s lunch on my first day.
I hoped Archer was already traveling off the grounds. The law enforcement agents had a few roadblocks set up on the parking lot exits, but it would only take a big, strong guy like Archer Caine a few minutes to clear an escape route. The blockades were just deterrents.
Had I made the right choice? I’d find out soon enough.
Chapter 33
The wine cellar was empty except for Rob and Knox. The two men were playing a dice game on a folding table when I walked in.
“It’s done,” I said, feeling a bit dramatic.
Rob swiped up the dice and dropped them into a wooden cup with a clatter. “You set up the date?”
“It’s not much of a date,” I said. “I’ve invited Archer Caine to meet me at sunset in the bell tower, so you can exterminate him, or erase him, or melt him like candle wax, or whatever you guys plan to do.”
“We’re not exterminators,” Rob said.
“We’re the good guys,” Knox said.
“Keep telling yourself that.” I looked around the wine cellar, making sure I hadn’t missed a wolf hiding in the shadows on my first perusal. “Where’s the original, anyway? Where’s Chet?”
The guys exchanged a glance.
Rob said, “He’s out stretching his legs. He likes to shift and go for a run to discharge nervous energy before a mission.”
Knox wouldn’t meet my eyes. Good. I wanted him to feel guilty about exterminating an innocent person, even though I knew it wasn’t going to happen.
Rob said, “Take a seat. We can play a dice game.” He pointed at me. “No using your witcher-i-doo to cheat.”
“Really? We plot an innocent man’s murder, you insult my powers by calling them witcher-i-doo, and then we’re going to play a dice game?”
Rob shook the cup of dice. “That’s how we roll. We trade insults, capture supernatural pests, play games of chance, and we do it all over again tomorrow.”
Knox nodded, his expression as earnest as ever. “And some of us work out at the gym.”
All right, then. I walked over to one of the computers and sat on the chair. It wasn’t a plastic office chair, but an old wooden one. Thanks to Jo’s memories, I recognized it as having come from the castle’s largest dining room.
I smiled to myself as I remembered a funny story. Jo actually broke one of these old wooden chairs on her first day working at the castle. She was using it as a stepladder, which she’d known better than to do, and lost her balance. The chair toppled, causing her to topple down on top of it, and the ancient wood cracked under her weight. She’d sat on top of broken chair parts in stunned silence, absolutely certain that the loud crack she’d heard had been a bone. Her leg hurt, but she didn’t dare look down. A few minutes later, Patty had come through the dining room on a break from the hair salon. She’d rushed over to help Jo off the ground. The two women had a confus
ing yet comical exchange about a broken leg—Patty had meant the leg of the chair, whereas Jo felt certain it was her own leg that she’d heard snap. Patty said the leg was “snapped right off” and likely couldn’t be reattached, which had caused Jo to burst into tears. A few emotional minutes later, all had been explained away, and Jo began to laugh through her tears. Then she was crying again, harder, hugging Patty and blubbering about how much she missed her father. Perry Pressman would have known how to fix the antique chair. He was a cheapskate, sure, but the man was a wizard at fixing broken things. But now he was gone, and Josephine had never been so broken.
The loss was overwhelming. People kept trying to offer comfort in the form of words and hugs, but those didn’t do anything to brighten the darkness in Jo’s heart. Her father was gone. Who loved her? Nash did, but he wasn’t reliable. She needed someone she could count on. Someone who could take away the darkness.
Knox touched my shoulder. “Zara?”
“I miss my father,” I said in Josephine’s voice. Then I coughed and pushed her back to the shadows. I was in the wine cellar with two DWM agents. Now was not the time to let the ghost take control of me. There was no good time for this particular ghost to take over. The last one had given my back yard an extreme makeover, but Jo was no gardener.
Knox was staring at me. “You miss your father? Even after he left you for dead in that greenhouse? You are a forgiving person, Zara.”
I got up from the chair and flipped it over. Sure enough, there was a metal plate fixing the leg to the chair. This was the exact same chair Jo had broken on her first day working at the castle.
“That was my ghost talking,” I explained to Knox. “She had an emotional connection to this particular chair, so when I disappeared on you guys just now, it’s because I was experiencing one of her memories.”
“Weird,” Rob said, shaking the cup of dice but not tossing them. “Does that happen a lot?”
“It was strongest when I was by her body,” I said. “Then I had another strong vision when I was in the stairwell leading here.” I turned the chair over and sat again. “The visions seem to be stronger here in the underground rooms. Maybe it’s the proximity to where she died?”
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