Scowling, he went out to the garage, threw his two duffle bags in the back seat of the Wrangler, then opened the garage door and backed out. The house had come with a security system, but he never used it. Not much point, when pretty much everyone in Santa Fe knew to leave the properties that belonged to the Castillos severely alone.
Would Miranda’s spell of protection keep out ordinary civilian burglars? For that matter, was the spell even still active? Since Rafe wasn’t the one who’d cast it, he couldn’t feel the thing, couldn’t sense it working. Miranda had made it sound as though it was the sort of spell that would keep working until she nullified it, but he didn’t know for sure. She could be so far away that the energy which kept it alive had been attenuated to the point of uselessness.
No, somehow he knew that wasn’t the case. For whatever reason, Simon Escobar seemed compelled to hang around in the greater Santa Fe area. You’d think that now he had his prize, he would have taken off, but if he did that, he wouldn’t be close enough to carry out his threats of revenge should Miranda get out of line. The dark warlock was holding her hostage with those threats, and that was yet another aspect to the situation that Rafe really hated. Simon wanted to hurt the Castillos, or else he could have just grabbed Miranda and taken off. She must know that as well, which was why Rafe feared she might bend to Simon’s will, just to protect her new family.
By now it was mid-afternoon. Cat had texted him a few minutes ago that Genoveva had been interred without incident at Rosario Cemetery, the same place where generations of Castillos had been buried. Rafe couldn’t even feel anything about that particular piece of news, except to experience a certain weary relief in knowing his mother’s body was safely buried. There hadn’t been any interference. No one had known who’d gone into that hole in the ground, because of course the headstone wouldn’t be ready for several weeks. Eduardo had sent instructions to make sure the flowers that had rested on her casket were placed on her grave, but that would be the only marker to show that Genoveva Castillo, former prima of the Castillo clan, now rested there.
Rafe pulled up into the driveway of the big house and parked the Jeep; he no longer had a remote to open the garage door. No matter; even a Castillo might get a parking ticket if their vehicle remained on the street overnight, but the Santa Fe police couldn’t ticket people for leaving their vehicles out in their driveways, even if the cops might want to.
After pulling his two bags out of the back seat, he locked the car and let himself in through the garden gate, following the path that led through the dry and dreary gardens to the door off the patio. As he went along, he tried not to think of how he had walked here with Miranda, how he had done his best to push her away. Thank God he hadn’t been successful.
Then again, maybe that wasn’t such a good thing. If he hadn’t allowed Miranda McAllister to enter his heart and soul, maybe he wouldn’t be hurting so badly now.
A touch on the handle of the French door that opened onto the back patio, and he let himself into the living room. Voices came to him from the direction of the kitchen, so he turned that way, even though some part of him wanted to head upstairs and put his things away before he had to face his father and sister.
Cat and Eduardo were sitting at the kitchen table, both of them with mugs clutched in their hands. From the sweet-spice smell in the air, Rafe guessed they were drinking the strong cinnamon tea that Genoveva had liked so much. She’d drunk that tea all through his childhood and youth, and breathing in the aroma seemed to take him back years, to the time when the only thing he had to worry about was his next argument with his mother. He wished he could go back in time and apologize to her for being such an ass. Unfortunately, the time for such apologies was now past.
“Hey,” he said as he came in.
“Hi,” Cat replied.
Eduardo responded, “Rafe. I’m glad Cat convinced you to come stay here. Do you want some tea?”
“No, thanks.” While he appreciated the scent of the tea, it was too sharp and spicy for him. Right then, he thought what he could really use was a beer, although he knew better than to ask for one now. Maybe later, if he and Cat had the opportunity to talk alone.
Instead, he went and got a glass of water from the pitcher in the fridge — no one in the house had ever trusted the stuff that was piped through the refrigerator door — and then came over and sat down at the table, across from his father and next to Cat.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Not really,” he replied tightly. Then he added, “Is everything else quiet so far?”
“So far,” Eduardo replied. His fingers tapped against the creamy stoneware of the mug he held. “Yesenia made sure Louisa was home and safe. Her condition hasn’t changed, but Yesenia is still hopeful that she’ll wake up soon. In the meantime, their children are going to stay with Rosalie and Luis down in Corrales. They always enjoy visiting there, and it will be one less thing for Oscar to worry about.”
“And Malena?”
“The same,” Cat said. “Although John doesn’t want to send Elenia to stay with relatives, even though Yesenia said she thought it might be a good idea. I guess if the situation continues for much longer, he’ll have to decide if he really wants to keep running after a two-year-old while watching over his wife, but we’ve all decided to stay out of it for now.”
Which was probably a good idea. John could be prickly, although he was a decent enough guy. Right now, it didn’t seem as though Malena needed a lot of care, and John was probably more stressed at the idea of not being able to watch over his child than at the thought of having to keep up with her.
“But nothing else is going on.”
“That we know of,” Eduardo said. “The word has gone out, so everyone knows to get in touch with me if they encounter anything out of the ordinary, but so far all seems to be quiet enough.”
Good. That meant Rafe and Eduardo and Cat could focus on tracking down Simon Escobar. He said as much, and Cat nodded.
“I already called Daniel and asked him to look into anything in the La Cienega area that might have been rented in the past few weeks, anything that could have been offered on Airbnb or one of the other vacation housing sites,” she said, then sipped at her tea. “He’s on it.”
“Maybe more than that,” Rafe replied. “I’d have him look into recent sales of property in the area, too.”
“You think Simon would have bought a house there?” Eduardo inquired, looking vaguely surprised. “He’s very young.”
“I don’t think that makes a difference if his money is good,” Cat said dryly. “Knowing him, he could’ve stolen a chunk from somewhere and is using it to finance all his activities.”
“Probably using faked identification and any other paperwork he needs to cover his tracks,” Rafe added. “You know he’d make sure his real name didn’t show up on anything that could leave a trail.”
Eduardo frowned. “Which will make it harder to track him.”
“Well, we knew this wouldn’t be easy.” Even as he spoke, however, Rafe sensed a glimmer of hope within himself. It felt good to have Cat approaching this so methodically, like a puzzle that needed to be solved, rather than being panicked and running off in all directions. That was what Rafe had felt like doing ever since Miranda disappeared with Simon, even though he knew such an approach wouldn’t have helped at all.
“No,” she said. “On the upside, I know Simon isn’t going to hurt Miranda, Rafe. I saw how he was looking at her.” Rafe winced, and she went on quickly, “I’m not saying that to pour salt in the wound or anything. But if he’s trying to work on her, trying to convince her he isn’t the bad guy — ”
“Seems like a waste of time,” Rafe cut in, annoyed. “Since we all know he’s the bad guy.”
“True, but….” She trailed off for a second, then said, “You know that old saying about how everyone’s the hero of their own story? Well, I’m sure Simon feels the same way. He’s probably trying to convince her that the world
has wronged him somehow, and he’s just trying to get his own back. I’m not saying Miranda is going to fall for it, but if that’s his approach, it means we should have some time to figure all this out.”
“And then we will catch up with him before anything can happen,” Eduardo said.
That all sounded hopeful. Maybe too hopeful. Still, Rafe could see what Cat was driving at. Simon wanted Miranda to love him, and so he would be careful about what strategies he employed to bring her around to his side. The last thing he’d want to do was alienate her…although he’d already made a pretty good attempt at that, considering the demon attack in the church and its aftermath. Then again, Simon would probably be quick to explain that he hadn’t killed anyone else, which was true enough. Cat was fine, and while Louisa and Malena definitely weren’t, neither were they at death’s door.
“You could be right,” Rafe allowed. “That doesn’t mean we should drag our feet on this. Besides, even though we’re focused on La Cienega, there are other places that aren’t too far away where he could have gone.”
“Not a lot,” Cat said. “I mean, there are plenty of isolated properties in Santa Fe County, but if you and Miranda thought he’d also be looking for a place that backed up to a river or a creek because it would be more defensible, then that narrows it down a good bit.”
True. La Cienega sprang to mind first, but there was also tiny Cerrillos, where the Rio Galisteo wound its way through the old mining town. But no, that didn’t make a lot of sense. In a place that small, the arrival of someone like Simon would be sure to attract attention. Maybe Pecos? It seemed a little too far out, but if they were going to start casting their net that wide, then they’d also have to consider possibly Española, or farther upstream, in one of the little hamlets that clustered along the banks of the Rio Grande as it wound its way down from Taos…Velarde, or Dixon, or Embudo.
No, none of those possibilities felt right to him. Maybe downstream, in Rio Rancho, or the northern semi-rural part of Albuquerque, where wineries had sprung up in the last few decades or so. He knew there were properties that backed up to the river in that part of the world. Problem was, once you started looking outside Santa Fe proper, there were just too many places where someone like Simon Escobar could have gone to ground.
He expelled a breath, then said, “Well, we’ll stay focused on La Cienega for now, and if that doesn’t turn up anything, we’ll start looking at other options. It’s probably best not to have Daniel scatter his resources too much anyway.”
“True.” Cat reached into her backpack purse, which had been hanging off the ladder-back chair where she was sitting, and pulled out her new phone. She went to the list of her recent messages, then typed out a rapid-fire message — to Daniel, Rafe presumed, to let him check the property records in La Cienega and environs for any recent sales.
It was probably a long shot. Even paying cash, you just didn’t buy a house overnight, which was basically the timeframe they were working with. Unless Simon had been planning for a backup hideout all along, knowing that the situation in Tesuque wouldn’t last forever. Although Rafe hadn’t had a chance to ask Miranda all the questions he’d wanted to — so much had been going on, they’d barely had a spare moment to catch their breaths — he knew that Simon had been watching Miranda for a long time. The chances of him plotting all this out well beforehand were fairly high.
“Ask Daniel to check the records going back a year,” he said, and although Cat arched an eyebrow at him, she didn’t miss a beat, just kept on with her texting.
“Do you really think Simon Escobar might have been planning this for that long?” Eduardo inquired after taking a sip of his cinnamon tea.
Rafe shrugged. “At this point, I’m not willing to dismiss anything out of hand, just because I know that Simon has been obsessing over Miranda for a lot longer than I really want to think about.” If he’d been speaking only to Cat, he might have added, “the fucker,” but he knew the profanity wouldn’t go over too well. Eduardo was far more patient and relaxed than anyone who’d been married to Genoveva Castillo for more than thirty years had any right to be, but even he had his limits.
“That’s troubling.”
There’s an understatement, Rafe thought. “Yeah, it is. I guess he started thinking they were supposed to be together because they’re both children of a prima and a primus, some weird kind of soul-mate situation. To someone with Simon Escobar’s twisted logic, I suppose it makes some kind of sense. But of course Miranda doesn’t feel that way — could never feel that way.”
“You love her very much, don’t you?”
The question made Rafe pause. He was uncomfortably aware of his sister sitting next to him. Yes, she appeared to be busy with her text convo with Daniel, but still. Although he knew that Cat must be aware of how he felt about Miranda, it was hard to come out and say it so baldly. They weren’t a family that was comfortable with showing emotion. A lot of that had been due to Genoveva’s iron rule, but still….
And she’s not here anymore. You need to mourn her, but you also need to recognize that she doesn’t control you anymore. You, or anyone else in this family.
“Yes,” Rafe said, hands cupped around the glass of water in front of him. “I love her a lot. And that makes me an even bigger jerk, because I spent so much time trying to figure out how to get out of being married to her. Now all I want is for her to be my wife.”
“She will be,” Eduardo replied, his voice strong with conviction, his expression far more serene than it should be. “You will find her, and you will make a happy life together.”
Rafe wished he could be that confident. At the moment, all he could think about was how it would be so easy to hide Miranda away somewhere obscure, a place where none of them would ever bother to look. And they didn’t have Marco anymore. There was no one else in the Castillo clan with the ability to find missing people.
Unless…unless they reached out to another clan. The McAllisters were completely off limits, thanks to the dark spell Simon had cast to keep them all penned in New Mexico’s borders, but what about the Montoyas? After all, their prima had said to ask if they needed any help with their missing “cousin.” And Miranda was still missing, even if this was a different circumstance than the one that had sent Rafe and Cat to San Antonio, looking for any leads that could help them find his vanished fiancée.
It would be taking a hell of a risk, though. He supposed someone from the clan could simply attempt to inch their way across the border — even if they crashed into a barrier, they wouldn’t cause too much damage beyond a dented bumper at those low speeds. But….
He sat up suddenly, an idea racing its way across his brain. “Dad, are there any Castillos near the Texas border — maybe in Clovis — who have civilian spouses? I can’t keep track of everyone.”
Eduardo’s head tilted to one side as he stared up at the ceiling, obviously pondering the question. After a moment, he nodded. “Yes, your cousin James’s wife is a civilian. Lorena.”
“Perfect. Can you call him and see if Lorena would mind driving over into Texas? Just across the border and back.”
For a moment, Eduardo stared at him, mystified. Then he said, “Ah — you want to find out whether the barrier Simon put up will keep out civilians as well, or whether it’s somehow keyed to our witch blood.”
Even as Rafe nodded, Cat set down her phone and said, eyes shining, “And if Lorena can get across, then she can go into Texas and see if any of the Montoyas will help us.”
“Exactly,” Rafe replied.
“A good plan,” Eduardo said, although he frowned almost immediately afterward. “But won’t the barrier keep the Montoyas out?”
“That’s what we need to test next, if it turns out that a civilian can get through. Maybe the spell is sort of like a membrane, permeable on one side but not the other.”
“There’s only one way to find out.” Eduardo pushed back his chair and stood up. “All the contact information for the clan members
is stored on Genoveva’s computer.” Sorrow flickered in his dark eyes, but his voice was firm enough as he continued, “Luckily, I have the password. Give me a moment to look up James’s phone number and make the call.”
He went out of the kitchen, leaving Cat and Rafe alone. She didn’t exactly smile, but he could tell she was hopeful that maybe they’d come up with a way to make an end run around Simon Escobar.
“Do you really think the Montoyas will help?”
About all Rafe could do was lift his shoulders. “I hope so. I mean, it’s in their best interests to make sure that a dark warlock doesn’t set up shop in the territory next to theirs. It’s the same reason why we Castillos got involved in the fight more than twenty years ago.”
“I hope this one will turn out a little better,” Cat replied, suddenly looking much more subdued.
Considering that their mother was dead and their two sisters were currently in comas, Rafe wasn’t sure how it could get much worse. But then, Cat was still all right, and so was Eduardo. It could get a lot worse if Simon took it into his head to go on a rampage. About all Rafe could do was hope that, whatever might be happening with Miranda and the dark warlock, she was cooperating enough that he would have no reason to lash out.
What if that cooperation includes sleeping with him? he thought suddenly, blood going cold. Are you still going to think it was all worth it?
He didn’t know. He couldn’t know. Having sex with someone you hated would be terrible, but it wasn’t as horrible as murder…not by a long shot.
But he trusted Miranda. She was smart and strong and capable. If it came to that, she might capitulate, just to make sure no one else was sacrificed, but Rafe thought she would do everything she could to keep stringing Simon along, to make sure she never completely extinguished his hope but also never gave her body over to him. They just had to make damn sure they found her before the situation reached that boiling point.
“I hope so, too,” he said, realizing that Cat was watching him, clearly waiting for him to reply. “Simon is strong, but his father had years to practice his craft, to hone it into a horrible weapon. Simon’s not that experienced.”
Mysterious Ways Page 15