His eyes lifted back to mine as I beamed him with an incredulous look. “Here? In your club? That’s a question you need to be answering.”
“In New York.” His voice dropped a full octave and I sensed he was losing patience. Rude, considering I had no say in any of this. I didn’t walk through that door, and I certainly didn’t ask to be moved in.
“I was born here. Thought I’d move back. That’s all.” I lied. “Now, why don’t you tell me why you brought me here and drugged me up. Then you can explain what happened to me in the park a week ago.”
My eyes focused on the untouched glass in front of me. The vibe in the room wasn’t exactly calm to start with but now it felt restless, like a simmering pot about to reach full boil. The glass was vibrating just enough for an alert observer to notice. I did my best to look unconcerned as a small tremor spread across the room, and my instincts told me to dive for cover.
Greer looked at the glass, then back at me. “Where is it?”
“Where is what?” I legitimately didn’t understand the question.
Whatever “it” was must have been really important, because his next move scared the Hades out of me. He launched off the sofa without the aid of his arms and sent his glass sailing across the room like Cy Young incarnate. My eyes shot in the direction of the door as I instinctively bolted for freedom. I thought I’d made it as I reached for the handle, but I jerked sideways as Greer grabbed my wrist and dragged me back toward the stairs.
We headed for the mezzanine level to a closed room. Greer unlocked the door and steered me into an office filled with typical leather chairs and an even more typical keyhole desk. Other than a pen and a pad of paper, the desk was empty.
“Sit.”
I sat without further commentary because I was already scared shitless of what he’d do if I provoked him.
He unlocked the top drawer of the desk and plowed through a stack of folders before pulling out a 5x7 photograph. He handed it to me and watched my reaction as I stared at the glossy image of my mother. The image was exactly as I remembered her. The vivid auburn hair framing her beautiful face accentuated the striking green color of her eyes. I’d never met anyone with eyes as green as hers. Mine were blue. I’d inherited everything about her but the eyes.
“The necklace, Alex. Where is it?”
I couldn’t take my eyes off the picture or the rectangular silver necklace resting just above her cleavage. My hand went to my neck where for twenty-one years it laid against my skin. “I took it off.” I recalled the night an invisible pair of hands tried to rip it off of my neck. “I never do that. I never take it off.”
“Where is it?”
“In a box…in my suitcase.”
By the time I looked up he was gone. The door was wide open, and that strange tremor was running through the floor again. Something sounding like distant thunder rattled the walls. It got closer until the ceiling shook like a pair of sumo wrestlers were hitting the floor above me. It suddenly occurred to me that my room was somewhere on the floor above the mezzanine.
He’s ripping the room apart.
“Greer!” I shouted as I took the stairs two steps at a time. “That necklace is mine!”
Adrenaline was the only thing keeping me upright. Sedatives or not, I was the equivalent of a bear protecting her cub.
When I got to the room, Greer was sitting calmly on the edge of the bed with my suitcase split open on the floor. A small box balanced on his thigh. He lifted his eyes to mine, and it didn’t take words or a psychic to know what they were saying: You fucked up.
“Where is it?” I said as I stared at the empty box in disbelief.
“Are you absolutely sure you put it in this box?”
God, he looked feral. Why the hell did he care about a necklace? “Tell me the damn truth, Greer. You said you’d never lie to me.”
“Answer the question, Alex.”
“I’m done here.” My arms shook as I pulled my scattered clothes back into the suitcase. I was leaving. First stop, Den of Oddities and Antiquities. “Patrick must be wondering what the hell happened to me,” I muttered.
“He knows exactly where you are. How do you think—” He looked away and placed the empty box on the bed before planting his elbows on his knees. “Fuck, Alex.”
I froze, because that was the last string left to unravel. Like a Roman Polanski film, the image of something far more insidious than coincidence made me want to collapse on top of the pile of clothing heaped in front of me.
“Okay, you win,” I whispered. “Whatever your game is, I surrender. I’ll do whatever you want. Just tell me what’s happening.” I was smart enough to know when I’d met my match. I’d gotten off that plane and stepped smack dab into a hornet’s nest, and I’d be damned if I wasn’t going to play the game to win back what was mine. I had nothing more to lose.
A clicking sound echoed off the terrazzo floor like a well-calibrated metronome. The woman strode into Crusades and pulled off her sunglasses and scarf with the flair of Grace Kelly. If the club had been open for business, I had no doubt every head in the place would have turned to watch her move across the room.
Greer agreed that we needed to have a lengthy conversation about what the hell was happening. It didn’t take much convincing, seeing how I refused to answer any of his questions or move off the floor until he provided some disclosure of his own—quid pro quo, baby. He agreed but said he was bringing in a colleague first, hence the goddess making a beeline for the bar. She grabbed a glass and studied the row of spirits before selecting a bottle of Scotch. Bracing one hand on the bar, she lifted her right calf in a backward motion and reached for the back of her pump. “Damn these things. You’d think they’d be more comfortable for the investment.”
“That’s some colleague, Greer.”
“Judgmental. And you haven’t even met her yet.”
“I’m just sayin’.”
She peeled off her coat and revealed a camel colored dress that hugged her curves as if knitted directly onto her body. As a fellow redhead, I conceded that they didn’t get much more smoking than this one. At around five foot ten, she could easily compete with the thousands of much younger models saturating the streets of New York. Not a speck of vapid or vain lived in those eyes, though.
She lowered herself like a cat onto the sofa next to Greer and brushed her full lips against his temple. Half-mast emerald eyes shot up and leveled me with the precision of a raptor. Had the dinner bell been rung? Was she staking her claim on Greer?
Oh honey, nothing to worry about, I almost snorted out loud.
“Is she intelligent?” she asked without taking her eyes off of mine.
“Hey! I’m right here,” I said.
“Appears to be. I’d expect no less from Maeve’s line. Awake for less than a day, and she’s already got my hair trigger cocked tight.”
The outer edges of her eyes showed a few light creases when she smiled, just the way a thirty-something face should look. No Botox in that expression. She didn’t need it. She was beautiful. God help the man who told this one she was getting old.
Without warning, she propelled toward me. Her delicate but strong hands braced both sides of my face as she kissed my right cheek. “I’m Leda.”
I wasn’t sure if I was offended or charmed by her boldness.
“You’re right. She does look just like Maeve, except for the eyes. She’s a one percenter.”
“A what?” I asked.
“Red hair and blue eyes. It’s the rarest genetic combination on the planet. One percent of the population.”
“Huh,” I said, basking in my own rarity for a moment before getting back to business. “You knew my mother?”
“We all knew Maeve.”
“We?”
“Hasn’t Greer told you?”
He rested his hand on her arm. “We haven’t gotten there yet,” he said before shifting the conversation to something that would change everything I thought I knew. It was that pi
votal point in one’s life when you stopped believing in the Tooth Fairy—or in my case, you started.
The conversation started placid enough—Greer trying to extract the details of my movements after arriving in the city, along with just about every memory I could recall since birth. I refused to cooperate until he brought me up to speed on why my life was being thrown sideways at two hundred miles per hour.
“Well?” I looked back and forth between the two of them and waited for the disclosure to begin.
“How much do you know about your mother?” Greer asked as he relaxed into a leather armchair.
We were back in his office behind a closed door. I’d guessed the information we were about to exchange warranted privacy, although I couldn’t imagine why. There was nothing unusual about our life. In hindsight, I realized Ava’s shop was a little bit out there, but it was Greenwich Village. What wasn’t?
“She was my mother, Greer. What kind of question is that?”
The two of them stared at me, Leda with her head cocked and Greer with a skeptical glare that suggested I was being read for bullshit. It was obvious a conversation was taking place when they looked at each other and then back at me.
“Didn’t you find Ava’s shop just a little bit odd?” Leda asked. “All those herbs lining the walls, and all those eclectic customers. What did they buy, Alex?” She got up and sat next to me on the sofa. “Maeve didn’t go to work every day like other mothers, did she?”
It’s funny how an aha moment can kick you straight in the head. I couldn’t remember my mother having a job. We spent every day together at the shop. Mom, Ava, and I would spend our days looking through books and fiddling with recipes—so what.
“What are you saying? My mother was doing something illegal?” I got up and headed for the door. My chest felt tight, like I couldn’t get enough air in my lungs.
Greer’s titanic frame blocked the door. “Sit down, Alex.”
Fight or flight kicked in as I smashed my fist into his chest. I pulled my arm back and gawked at it like I’d never seen it before. Did I just do that? He didn’t move an inch. I hit him again, this time not thinking twice about it. “Get the hell out of my way, Greer.”
“Stop, Alex.” He absorbed each blow without flinching. As I slid toward the floor, he lifted me back up and carried me to the sofa.
“Damn it, Greer,” Leda said as he dropped me next to her. “Take it easy on the poor girl. She doesn’t understand.”
He walked back to the desk, poured a drink, and handed it to me. “I don’t want it.”
“You’re going to need it.” He shoved it closer to my face, inducing a gag reflex from the pungent smell of peat, and I finally took it.
“She’s not a child, Greer. Just get to the point. If she’s anything like Maeve, she can handle it.”
He began pacing the room. “Did Maeve ever tell you about your family?”
“Family?” The question was legitimate but pointless. “I never knew my father. She said I didn’t have one.” Of course I knew some man had an equal part in my conception, but my mother never felt the need to bring him into the picture, and neither did I.
“I’m not talking about your father. Did she tell you about her family? Your heritage?”
“No. I just assumed they were all dead.” My mother told me she was all the blood I had.
Greer sat back down in the chair and exhaled the lungful of air he’d been holding in. “You have a family, Alex.” He was most intimidating when he was calm like he was now, and I had a feeling I was about to meet the real Greer. “A rather large family.”
“What?” My response was so quiet I wasn’t sure if I’d said it aloud or muttered it in my head.
“You come from a powerful lineage. One of the oldest clans in Ireland.”
“Your line can be traced back to the Tuatha Dé Danann.” Leda added. “Pretty damn impressive.”
“Tooa what?” I babbled in utter confusion about what my ears and head were trying to process. I was still stuck on the fact that I had a family.
“In time, Alex. For now, all you need to know is that your immediate people on your mother’s side are alive and well—a dangerous force to be reckoned with.” He leaned over and pulled something from the top drawer.
“Why should I believe any of this?”
“Why shouldn’t you?” Leda said. “What reason would Greer have to pull a complete stranger off the street, move her in, and feed her with lies?”
“I’m going to need a little more proof than that.” Leda made a good point. Why would they go to all this trouble to deceive a stranger? I was no one. I had a little money in a trust, but not the kind of money people like this would lift a finger for. These people had money stamped on their foreheads. I could smell it on them.
A manila envelope sailed across the desk and landed on the sofa next to me. Leda’s head snapped up as she narrowed her eyes at Greer. “You’ll have to excuse our host’s bad manners, Alex. I don’t think he had his civility donuts this morning.” Greer glared back at her. The standoff continued, and I felt like an interloper as the exchange between them shifted into something intimate. His pupils dilated, and it was obvious by the grin forming across Leda’s mouth that the battle had been settled.
“Go ahead, Alex.” She nodded toward the envelope. “Take a look.”
The flap was secured shut by a red string. “Have a look,” I muttered several times before releasing the string and opening the flap. Inside, I could feel a stack of photographs.
The first photo showed a group of men and women posing for what looked like a family portrait. The back of the photo was dated 1981. I flipped through the rest of the pictures, absorbing the faces as I carefully examined the details of each photograph. Was it possible that I had an entire family that I knew nothing about? Why would my mother lie? Halfway through the stack, I froze. The room seemed to disappear, and I was completely oblivious to Greer and Leda or anything other than the face I was looking at. She had chiseled black bangs and large brown eyes just like she did the day I first saw her. The woman in the picture was the same woman who’d escorted me up the elevator to room number 913 the day I arrived at the hotel. Standing next to her was my mother.
My eyes shot to Greer’s. “This is a trick. This isn’t possible.” I looked at the photo again and tried to debunk what I was seeing. Maybe the woman just looked like the one from the hotel. This one was dated 1988—the year before I was born. “If these are real, this woman has aged remarkably well.”
Leda glanced at Greer. “Why do you say that?”
“Because I met her ten days ago. She hasn’t aged a day.”
“Alex—”
“Don’t,” I said.
I flipped through the rest of the photographs. I was past the point of shock when I saw the black robes. The next photo showed thirteen people in black robes standing in a circle around a large stone table. An assortment of objects too small to make out from the photograph sat on top of the stone. On either side were elaborate holders with lit candles. At the rear was a large statue of a bird with its wings spanning the width of the table. I was no expert on religion, but I knew the table in the picture was some kind of altar. Standing in front of it was my mother.
Without saying another word, I placed the pictures on the desk and looked at Greer. No one in the room spoke.
“Maeve Kelley was a witch,” Greer finally said. “A very powerful one. So was her mother.” He took a deep breath before finishing. “And as her blood daughter, Alex, so are you.”
My eyes traveled back to the picture on the desk. The necklace hung from her neck, partially concealed by the folds of fabric wrapping around her body like a kimono. The image of my mother draped in a long black robe was startling but beautiful. I remembered the fireplace mantle in our apartment lined with similar things, easily identified as ordinary decorative objects. Visualizing them now made me understand why my mother always grabbed the star and placed it in her pocket whenever the doo
rbell rang.
“The necklace isn’t just a piece of jewelry,” Leda said.
Greer stood up and towered over the desk. “We need you to tell us everything that’s happened from the moment you stepped off that plane.”
“And if I don’t?”
“You will, unless you like being locked in a room.”
“That’s kidnapping,” I said.
“Aye.”
No one would miss me if I disappeared, and he knew it.
“I’ll talk, but if I do I want my freedom.”
“You have my word.”
“One other thing. The necklace is mine. Got that?”
He smiled. “It most certainly is.”
“Good. Now, let’s start with a little disclosure. You still haven’t told me who you are.”
“I think we’ve already had this conversation.”
“Yes, and you still haven’t answered the question.”
“Which one?”
“Who you are.”
Convinced I wasn’t about to bolt, he sat back down. “I’ve already told you my name.”
I resisted the urge to tell him what an ass he was being and tried a different approach. “Okay. What are you?”
He looked at Leda. The conversation between them went on for about a minute before he spoke. “Think of me as a consultant,” he said before breaking eye contact with her and looking back at me.
“You own a club in Manhattan and you’re a consultant?”
“Did I say that?” His brow twisted as he looked at me like I’d just repeated someone else’s absurd hearsay.
“That’s what you just—”
“This isn’t difficult, Alex.” He took a deep breath and ran his hand over the top on his head.
“Why do I feel like I’ve been reverse psychoed?”
“You’re going to have to trust me, Alex. If I could make this easier, I would. But for now, you need to trust me.”
“You’re asking me for a hell of a lot, Greer.”
He gave me that look that suggested I should cooperate and stop giving him such a headache. Fifty questions later I had a feeling I’d still be asking him who he was.
The Amulet Thief (The Fitheach Trilogy Book 1) Page 5
