I ask what the man said. It hadn’t made much sense to Ani at the time. He knew she was a curse weaver, and she hadn’t argued the point. We aren’t vampires or some other impossible creature. We fall under the same blanket as psychics and mediums. For those who believe in our powers, we’re a valuable addition to the parapsychology world. For those who don’t believe, we’re harmless entertainers or deluded new-agers, neither anything to fear.
So when this guy called Ani a curse weaver, she didn’t argue. She figured he wanted a curse woven and that’s why they’d been kidnapped—the Bennetts are known as reluctant weavers. But no, he wanted an unweaving. That’s when she set about negotiating.
Negotiating made sense. She unweaves curses for a living. Just give her more information, and they could settle on a price. If he’d refused to pay, well, she would have argued, but in the end, she was smart and reasonable, and she would have agreed to exchange an uncursing for their freedom. The conversation never got that far, though. When she tried to negotiate, he decided they’d chatted enough. He knocked her out, and she woke up in the shack.
We finally arrive at the gas station. Or what used to be a gas station. It closed recently enough that the fuel price on the old sign is still accurate. But from the looks of the place, it’d been on life support for decades before they pulled the plug. Its death can be squarely blamed on a new highway five miles west. With no reason for drivers to come this way, it’s an empty road in the middle of nowhere.
Connolly barely pulls into the weed-choked gravel lot before I throw open the door. He manages to call a warning. I’m gone, though, staggering out as soon as it’s safe to do so. Then I’m running along the front of the boarded-up station, shouting for my sister.
There’s no one here.
We’re too late.
Ani’s captors didn’t abandon her in that shack. They stashed her temporarily, came back, found it empty and knew she’d gone looking for a phone. She’d been watching for me. Instead, she got her kidnappers.
Why did I tell her to wait here? Why didn’t—
A shadow peeks around a corner. Then that shadow becomes my sister, and I run to her and launch myself into her arms, as if I’m a toddler again, my big sister home after an endless day of kindergarten.
I hold her as tight as I can, clinging and inhaling the herbal smell of her. She hugs me back and smooths my hair and whispers words of comfort, and for one moment, she isn’t Ani. She’s Mom. Her hair is the same texture as Mom’s, falling onto my cheek as I hug her. Her soft and fierce embrace feels like Mom’s, as does that gentle hand in my hair and those words in my ear.
I kinda lose it then, as I did when I heard her voice on the phone. I break down, sobbing, and it doesn’t take a shrink to tell me this has been about more than my sisters being taken. It’s about losing my family, the dull pain from Dad’s accident and the raw pain from Mom’s death. I hadn’t allowed the thought to form, but somewhere in my deepest despair, I’d seen a vision of a life where I am the only Bennett left, and that rushes out, the fear and the relief.
I sob until my throat hurts, and then I pull back, snuffling. Ani does look like Mom, more than any of us. I have our mother’s skin tone and her dark hair and eyes, but it’s Ani who has her curls and her curves and her features. Through my tears, her face blurring, I could mistake her for Mom.
“I look like hell, don’t I?” she says.
I shake my head. “You look perfect.”
She blinks, as if she’s misheard. There might be only two years between us, but it always feels like more. I am the annoying little sister always ready with an insult.
Ani’s face softens, and she pulls me into another hug. Then she glances over my shoulder, and I twist to see Connolly walking toward us.
“Ah,” Ani says, looking him over. “Now I know why Kennedy hasn’t come home for two weeks. Something you forgot to tell me, K? Someone new in your life?”
“What?” I look from her to Connolly. “Ack! No! Definitely not.” I catch his expression. “I mean, umm, no, we’re not— No. We just met. Like yesterday.”
“You caught a lift with a guy you met yesterday?”
“What? No. Well, yes, but not like that. Geez, Ani. What do you take me for?”
“Umm, the girl who showed up after her first week in Boston, dropped off by some guy she met the night before.”
“Hey! That’s not fair. If you’re implying that I slept with some dude to get a free ride—”
“Of course not. You met him. A neighbor or something, I recall, and you start chatting, and you mentioned going home to Unstable the next day, so he offered you a lift. As guys do.”
She looks at Connolly. “Sorry, Red. If you thought you were racking up points, you don’t know my sister. She presumed you were being nice. Because, golly gee, guys are just so sweet about stuff like that. Or they are if you’re Kennedy.”
I sputter. “That is not—”
“Blame small-town living,” she continues to Connolly. “She’s used to people doing nice things for no reason other than being neighborly. Not that she’d take advantage of you. She’ll totally owe you one—which means she’ll dog-sit for you, maybe run an errand or two. Anything else is off the table.”
Connolly’s gaze has gotten increasingly cool as Ani talks. I expect him to tell her off. Instead, he turns that icy gaze on me.
“You accept rides from young men you’ve barely met? That is extremely unsafe, Kennedy. You could end up—”
“At a closed gas station?” Ani says. “Miles from the nearest town?”
“Precisely. You—” He stops as his gaze lifts to the storefront sign. “You mean me?”
Now Connolly is the one sputtering. I cut in with, “It isn’t like that, Ani. This is a business arrangement. Remember that woman who tried to hire you yesterday? That’s what he did.”
“You’re the guy with the tea caddy?”
“No, no, he shooed him off. Connolly—Aiden—tried hiring me for a job, only he was really testing me with a cursed object. I snuck back to unweave the curse, and he admitted it was a test. I got angry and stormed out, but not before he said something about you and Hope. When you two disappeared, I went back to him.”
“He threatened us? After he tricked you?”
“It wasn’t like—” Connolly clears his throat. “Yes, it was a bit like that, but I have admitted my mistake, and Kennedy and I are partners in this venture.”
“Partners, hmm. Great. So, whatever you people are trying to uncurse, Kennedy gets half of the profit, right?”
Connolly’s mouth opens. Stays like that for a moment before he closes it and adjusts his tie. “I would be open to renegotiating a fair—”
“Half.”
I shake my head. “I already told him I don’t want his money.”
She stares at me and then cradles her forehead against one hand. “Oh, K. Of course, you did.” She wheels on Connolly. “You are taking advantage of my sister’s kindness—”
“It’s not kindness, Ani,” I say. “The deal is that he helps me find you and Hope, and in return, I uncurse an object. I don’t care what he does with it after that. I only care about finding you two.”
She pulls me into a one-armed embrace. “All right. Understood. But now that I freed myself, I think we can agree that whatever deal you had with him isn’t necessary.”
“Hope is still missing,” Connolly says. “And I’m still your best chance of finding her. I’ll renegotiate the terms of our deal, but you need me—”
“I don’t need you. I don’t know you, and after you tricked my sister, I don’t trust you.”
Connolly looks over, as if expecting me to step in. How can I? Ani’s right that I’m a little too trusting, but I’m not gullible or naive. There have been things Connolly has done that I appreciate. But there are even more things he’s done that make me wary.
And if a little part of me says this is a man that I’d like to know better, I’ll chalk it up to my tas
te for gingers, even if I know it’s more than that. I keep thinking I have Connolly figured out, and then he says or does something that suggests I don’t, and that intrigues me. This isn’t the time to be intrigued by a guy, though. It really isn’t.
“Ani’s right,” I say. “I appreciate your help, Aiden, but I think we can take this from here. I’m sorry.”
His jaw works, and I brace myself. Then he says, “Don’t be sorry. I’ve given you reason to mistrust me. I do, however, honestly believe I am your best chance of finding Hope.” He turns to Ani. “Fifty percent.”
“I don’t even know what this is about.” She lifts her hands against his explanation. “And I don’t want to. Kennedy, you say he mentioned us before we were kidnapped, and he says he’s your best chance of getting Hope back. Does that not suggest he knows exactly where to find her . . . because he’s part of this?”
“Set a price,” Connolly says. “A bond, if you will, surety that I am not involved in your sister’s kidnapping.” He glances around and then points at his car. “If I’m lying, you may have that.”
I shake my head. “I don’t want your—”
“I know. You don’t want my money or my car. However, I am loath to part with either as you may have guessed. My family is wealthy. I’m personally comfortable but not to the point where I can blithely hand over the keys to a seventy-thousand-dollar vehicle.”
“Seventy—” I choke. “Who spends seventy thousand dollars on a car?”
“Successful young Boston entrepreneurs.” Ani looks at Connolly. “My sister is more accustomed to guys who inherited their dad’s Ford pickup.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” I murmur. “I appreciate frugality.”
“Fine,” Ani says. “Sign a bond on the car—”
I clear my throat. She understands my meaning right away, but it still takes her a moment to hand over the reins.
“I’ll take the bond,” I say. “First, because, as you said, the car means something to you. Second, I don’t see the point in you continuing a charade of ‘helping’ me find someone you kidnapped when I’ve already agreed to lift the curse. Third, I had Jonathan run a basic background check on you, and it came up clean.”
“As it should. My reputation—” Connolly stops. “Wait. Background check?”
I look at Ani. “Also, Jonathan says to tell you he was right behind us, coming to your rescue, but he got a flat tire. Truth is he took Ellie for me and went home to investigate the scene of the crime.”
“As he should. I’m far more impressed by him doing the practical thing. Men.” She shakes her head.
My phone buzzes. “Speak of the devil.” I whisper, “Flat tire, remember?” and then hit Accept.
“K?” Jonathan says before I can speak. “K, tell me that’s you.”
“No, sorry,” Ani says. “Kennedy’s busy. You’re stuck with me.”
“Ani? Ani!” Jonathan’s voice rises in a way that makes my heart soar. “Oh, thank God. I pulled off to get gas and saw a message from Kennedy saying to call her right away, and then I saw I’d gotten a call from an unknown number, no message. I had this image of you at a phone booth in the middle of nowhere, using your last quarters to call me when my damn phone’s auto-set to Do Not Disturb while I’m driving.”
“Which is the sensible thing to do.”
“Not when your best friend’s been kidnapped.”
“Well, you were oddly right about the payphone in the middle of nowhere. Are you sure your mom isn’t really psychic? Wrong on the last quarters, though. I was kidnapped from my couch. I grabbed the fire poker, not spare change. Which, in retrospect, was a bad call. Anyway, I was phoning collect. When you didn’t pick up, I moved on to Kennedy.”
“Wait,” I say. “I was your backup choice?”
“You don’t have a car. Purely a practical decision.”
I grumble and wave at her. “You two catch up. Connolly and I will scout around.”
As we walk away, Connolly whispers, “What are we scouting for?”
“Hell if I know. I’m just giving them a few moments alone.” I glance back to see my sister clutching the phone to her ear, her face glowing as she talks. “They’re adorable, aren’t they?”
“Are they . . . together?”
“Not yet. But I’m working on it. I’m always working on it.”
He looks back toward Ani. “So, you and Jonathan aren’t . . . ?”
“What? No. Eww. Where would you get that idea?”
“You seemed close.”
“Uh, yes. Because he’s been Ani’s best friend forever.”
Something like a smile warms his eyes. “Also, I apologize for saying she left Hope behind. Ani didn’t hear that, did she?”
I shake my head.
He continues, “Even if she had left her, it’d be understandable. Practical even. Get away and phone for help.”
“Maybe. I’m not sure I could do it, though.”
We walk to the edge of the parking lot, and he squints against the sun, his eyes dazzlingly green but distant.
“I’d like to think I would,” he murmurs. “But I’m not sure I actually could.”
“You have a brother, right?”
“Younger. Maybe that’s the key. Younger siblings. I swear I’ve spent half my life getting mine out of scrapes. I wouldn’t dare leave him behind. He’d leave me, though.” A wry twist of his lips. “No doubt about that.”
“Maybe,” I say. “Or maybe he’d think the same about you. When I left for Boston, I figured my sisters would be happy to see me go. I can be a bit . . . much.”
That twitch of his lips, his eyes warming. “I can’t imagine.”
“Right? I figured they’d welcome the break, and maybe they did, for a week or two, but now it’s all about how to get me back to Unstable. Whether it’s moving away or fleeing a kidnapping, sometimes logic says you should strike out on your own, but it’s hard. It’s really hard.”
“Well, in my brother’s case—”
“K!” Ani calls, waving. “Let’s hit the road.”
I motion that we’re coming and then glance at Connolly as we walk. “You were saying?”
“Nothing important. We need to get your sister home. She’s had a shock.”
I snort. “If you think she needs a bed to swoon in, you haven’t been paying attention. It’ll hit her later, but for now, she’ll want to move forward. Step one, I believe, should be checking out that hunting shack.”
“Good idea.”
Chapter Twelve
On Connolly’s GPS, Ani pinpoints the rough area of the hunting cabin. It’s in a forest, not surprisingly. While we don’t see a road, presumably, there’s one close to it if they carried Ani from the car. We analyze the region using satellite imagery maps and spot the area we’re looking for.
Along the way, I explain the situation to her—Necklace of Harmonia, auction in four days, multiple interested parties all jockeying to hire curse weavers. Also, before she dismisses it as nonsense, I tell her Jonathan has investigated and declared it legit.
We arrive at the road to the shack. Calling it a road, though, grossly overstates the matter. It starts off as gravel, and then becomes dirt and finally narrows to two grassy tracks into the forest. That’s the point where we abandon the car, to Connolly’s obvious relief. This is why I respect guys with second-hand pickups. There are enough stressors in life without fretting over every scratch and ding.
Ani spots landmarks that tell her we’re on the right track and help her gauge distance. It’s a testament to her level-headedness that, while fleeing captivity, she’d had the presence of mind to note landscape features. That doesn’t keep Connolly from asking, “Are you certain?” every time she recognizes something.
“You could go search on your own,” I say.
“That seems unwise.”
“Cell service works out here. You can call us if you find it first.”
“You shouldn’t be alone in the forest, especially when
there could be kidnappers nearby.”
It’s a lovely excuse, but I suspect he’s the one who doesn’t want to be alone. He walks along the hard dirt paths as if they’re quicksand, sucking at his designer leather shoes, and he bats aside every twig as if it’s crawling with spiders.
“The dirt will come off your shoes,” I say. “Guaranteed. Also, those branches aren’t poisonous. Not the vines, either.”
“I noted three leaves on that last one, which I believe indicates poison ivy.”
“Poison ivy is that right over there.” I point to a patch. “The vines are Virginia creeper. That tree is a yellow birch. That other one is a white ash. The bush is hawthorn. Beware of those. They won’t rip your shirt, but they can scratch.”
Connolly eyes the vine. “You’re certain this isn’t poison ivy?”
“Yep.”
“Listen to my sister,” Ani calls back from up ahead. “She spent two summers as a park ranger.”
“Caught the bug in Girl Scouts.” I glance at him. “I’m going to guess you were never a Boy Scout.”
“No, my parents said that was for the mid—” He stops short.
“Middle class? Along with hiking and camping and all outdoor activities, I’m guessing.”
“We did sail,” he says. “And I row.”
“Rowing? Ooh, I love shooting rapids.”
“There . . . aren’t many rapids where I boat. I’m on a sculling team. A group of us continued after college.”
“Harvard,” I say. “For business, right?”
“Yes. How—? Ah. Jonathan must have found that in his research.”
“Nope, just a wild guess.”
Ani glances back and looks between us. “I have nothing to worry about.”
“What would you worry about?” I ask.
“Nothing,” she says with another look from me to Connolly. “Nothing at all.”
Connolly is actually the one who spots the cabin first. I think his brain sees a familiar shape and screams “Civilization!” His steps definitely lighten. Then he gets a good look at the building.
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