Mementos I’d kept on top of the dresser were ruined as well. A pheasant feather I’d found when the family had gone camping—now wet and bedraggled. A little straw purse my dad had bought me on a trip to Mexico shortly after my hair turned white—now lying on the floor, some of the straw broken and sprung so that it stuck out forlornly.
I backed up across the room until the backs of my legs touched my bed and crumpled on top of the quilt a friend had made for me. The fabric felt damp on my skin. The quilt was ruined, too.
I lay there for long, cold minutes and let the tears roll down my cheeks. Lost. All that tangible proof of a life that was—gone now.
After a while I knuckled my eyes and sat up.
Don’t be stupid, Shay. Some precious things that can’t be replaced are gone, but the memories are still there. You haven’t lost any of those people. As long as you remember them, part of them lives.
I made myself get up and walk to the closet. Might as well see how the things in there had fared.
All my shoes were ruined.
Fuck a bunch a shoes. Who cared about shoes?
My photographs. My little straw purse.
Damn.
I could tell myself any number of comforting things about memory and how those people and the things that reminded us of them were remained in our heart—but it still hurt.
I sighed and pulled my blue, fit-in-the-overhead-bin suitcase from the high shelf it sat on and filled it with clothes. Underwear, seven or eight t-shirts, (I just grabbed. I didn’t count.) two sets of pajamas, and a warm jacket. The shoes I was wearing were going to be it for a while.
From the bath, I grabbed my electric toothbrush, even though I had a manual one at Lady’s, and my hairbrush.
I stood in the middle of the bedroom and looked around. It was going to be okay. Everything would dry out. I’d replace the couch, bed, shoes, clothing, and whatever else couldn’t be salvaged. I still had a home. Just not one I could use at the moment.
A thought struck me. It was mighty convenient for Lady that my house had flooded right when it did. She had me at her house, at her beck and call now, didn’t she?
My cell phone rang. I answered it with a weary hello.
“Hey Shay. It’s Drew Miller. I have a lead on the necklace. Can you meet me at Scotty’s in twenty minutes?”
Scotty’s was a local eatery on the Strand, the walk street that buffered the multi-million dollar beachfront homes and the actual beach from each other.
I told him I could.
15
One of the nice things about Scotty’s was that it had its own parking lot. Beach parking is a bear since there are only so many places to put your car on the narrow streets and you’re in competition with the eight million, nine hundred and thirty-seven other people who want that spot. On a nice day when beach-goers inundated the city, you could wind up having to park blocks and blocks from your destination. But with Scotty’s you just drove on in and parked your car. It was a little bit of Hermosa heaven, that available place to put your car.
I walked inside the restaurant and looked around. I always liked Scotty’s, with its salmon-colored walls festooned with fishnets and its blue vinyl booths. It had a friendly, homey vibe. I needed a bit of homey vibe right about now.
I spotted Drew in a booth at the back of the restaurant next to a window looking onto the Strand. A tall man with short, very dark hair, wearing a flannel plaid shirt sat with his back to me. Drew saw me and gave a little wave. I walked over, past the other person, and sat next to Drew in the four-person booth.
From the front, the man looked like what you might expect from someone wearing a lumberjack shirt. I thought he might be good looking under the very bushy beard and long mustache, but it was only a guess. His eyes, in contrast to his dark hair, were a vivid purple. So, unless he, like me, had been touched by the woodland sprits, he was probably not completely human. Maybe not human at all.
“Shay,” Andrew said, “this is my longtime friend, Bodie. Bodie, this is Shay.”
Bodie extended a large hand that was attached to strong wrists that lead to arms with muscles I saw bulging under his long-sleeved shirt. I took his offered hand and shook it, a bit worried he might be one of those strong guys who liked to show it off with a crippling handshake. But he wasn’t. He matched almost exactly the pressure and firmness I’d used.
“Hi,” I said and gave him my best, open smile.
“Nice cloud hair,” he said. His voice sounded like gravel running down a hillside.
“Thanks,” I said using my best non-committal tone. I’ve had this hair a long time. I’ve heard every remark that can be made about it. “Nice purple eyes.”
Bodie smiled at the mention of his eye color, I thought, or maybe at my not-so-subtle method of pointing out I didn’t think he was quite normal either. His eyes were a deep violet-purple that I imagined might put some people off, since it was so out of the norm. I thought they were fine.
The waitress, a young Latina, came to the table, her order book in one hand and a pencil in the other. This was another thing I liked about Scotty’s—no high tech punching in your order on a soulless tablet with a menu on it. Instead a real person came to your table and talked to you.
“Just coffee for me” I said.
The waitress made a quick squiggle on her pad and went off to fetch a cup and a coffee pot.
Drew put down the piece of toast he’d been eating, took a swig of coffee, then nodded toward the other man. “Bodie and I were talking a little bit of shop, he’s also in the recovery and salvage business, and he mentioned something I thought you’d find interesting.”
I turned my attention to the violet-eyed man.
“Lady Califia and Calypso and her tribe aren’t the only ones looking hard for the Mermaid’s Lament,” he said.
My heart stilled in my chest for a moment. There was something about his voice tone that made this sound like very bad news.
“Who? And why?” I said.
“I know of at least two independents—a shapeshifter, and a ghoul. I think the ghoul is working for a witch’s coven. I think it got the job I turned down.”
“Some witches approached you about finding the necklace?”
Bodie nodded. “I declined. No good can come to anyone stupid enough to get between Califia and Calypso, no matter how special the prize.”
I thought that was probably an accurate assessment.
“The witches and the shapeshifter must be aware of the pearls’ value,” I said, “to want it so badly.”
Bodie’s eyes sparkled with interest while the rest of his face hardly showed he’d heard what I’d said. My guess was he didn’t know himself what the necklace could do. I wondered if I’d just made a mistake alerting him to the special value of the pearls. Maybe he’d decide to look for it himself. Just what I needed.
“Well,” Bodie drew the word out, “I’d imagine they think they know. There’s a lot of conflicting information about those pearls.”
“Like what?” I said.
“Like they give the power of flight. Or they make the wearer invisible. Or they let the wearer travel seamlessly between worlds.”
His eyes held a hint of expectation. If he thought I knew and was going to blurt out the true power of the Mermaid’s Lament, he was wrong.
“Which do you think is true?” I said.
Bodie shrugged, his massive shoulders straining under the plaid shirt. “Take your pick. Anyone of them would make the pearls worth having.”
And eternal life could make them worth even more.
The waitress returned and set a cup and spoon on the table in front of me. She filled the cup with coffee, and asked, “Can I get you anything else?”
“No. Thanks,” I said and she moved off to help other patrons.
I poured cream into my coffee and stirred it idly, thinking. Lady had hired four experts in their fields to race for the Lament. She’d hired me to—what? Join the race to find it or simply retri
eve it once it was located? I thought that at first it might have been just for retrieval, but something had made her change her mind about me. Or maybe she was bored and I looked like a shiny new toy.
At least two outside forces were also looking for the necklace—the witches and the shifter. Three if I counted Saylor as an outside, rogue force, which I was beginning to think he was.
Another question—why was Drew sharing this information with me? He could have kept it to himself and let me blunder into the other forces if I was unlucky.
“Are you telling all of Lady’s hunters about this, Drew?”
He nodded. “I’ll find it first, but once non-humans get in the mix it’s only fair that everyone know.”
I regarded him. “You could have told me on the phone.”
Bodie cleared his throat. “I wanted to meet you. Everyone’s heard of you, but no one seems to actually have met you. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.”
I had no idea what to say to that.
“Nice to meet you, too,” I said, and felt like a ninny. “If you were to guess where the necklace is now, what would your guess be?”
Brodie shrugged. “I haven’t thought about it. I turned the job down; I’m not going to clutter my mind wondering about things that don’t concern me.”
I was about to say, “Fair enough,” when I caught sight of Saylor and four other men approaching the door into Scotty’s from the Strand.
Scotty’s had two doors, one on the Strand and one that lead to the parking lot. The doors were on opposite sides of the building.
I leaped to my feet. “We have to leave now. Go to the parking lot. Don’t take the beachside door.”
I threw a ten-dollar bill on the table, which was the only bill I had on me, and raced toward the door with Drew and Bodie right behind me.
In the parking lot, Drew grabbed my arm. “What did you see to send us racing out of there?”
“Saylor. And friends. Four of them. More than we probably want to take on here, especially if we ever want to eat at Scotty’s again.”
Drew tilted his head slightly to the side. “If they were coming for a fight. Maybe they were simply hungry, or on their way somewhere and just passing by.”
Had I overreacted? I didn’t think so. I looked in the restaurant’s windows and didn’t see Saylor inside, but I couldn’t see the entire inside from where I stood. I walked over to look around the side of the building but didn’t see Saylor and his companions on the Strand or on the beach.
But I’d seen Saylor’s face when he’d caught sight of us through Scotty’s window. It hadn’t been friendly.
16
Probably I should have headed straight back up to Lady’s and told her about seeing Saylor, but I didn’t. I decided to swing by my house again before heading up the hill.
When I drove up, my landladies were standing in the street speaking with a man sitting in a white truck. The side of the truck read, in large red letters, Jamison and Sons Plumbing. I parked my car a few houses back and walked up to join them.
“We were just talking about you,” Bella said.
Bella was the older of the two women, stretching comfortably into her late sixties. In contrast to Darci, who was forever changing the colors of her short-cropped hair, Bella had let hers go naturally steel gray and wore it in a smooth, shoulder-length bob.
“Good that you’re here, Shay.” Darci indicated the man in the truck with a rise of her chin. “Mr. Jamison was under the house today and fixed your broken pipes. He still has a bit to do though, and will be coming back Monday.
“So no running water until then?” I asked.
“No. I’m sorry.”
Today was Wednesday. I could stay at Lady’s or at the residence hotel for a few nights if I had to.
Except if I, or someone, didn’t find the Mermaid’s Lament and return it to Calypso by Saturday at dawn, if wasn’t going to matter anyway. My house would be flooded again, with seawater.
If I were Michael Rawlings, where would I be? More to the point, who would I tell my location to?
Bella touched my arm. “You’re a thousand miles away. Is everything all right?”
I pulled my thoughts back to the here and now.
“I came by the other day and got everything I needed,” I said. “I just dropped by today to see how the drying out process was going and see how you two are.”
The man in the truck cleared his throat. “If there’s nothing else—”
“Not today,” Bella said. “Thank you.”
Mr. Jamison started the truck’s engine and we moved from the street to the sidewalk.
“Will you come in for awhile?” Darci asked. “It only takes a minute to put the kettle on.”
I heard her words but my mind had wandered elsewhere again.
“If you were in trouble, Darci, who would you turn to?”
Her forehead creased in concern. “You can always turn to us, Shay. No matter what you’ve done.”
“Thanks.” Darci and Bella were on my side no matter what, even when I didn’t need the support. “I’m not asking for myself, though. Say you’d gotten yourself in a mess and people were after you, where would you go for help?”
Darci looked at her partner and smiled. That made sense, Darci and Bella had been together thirty years or there about. Of course one would turn to the other.
“If you didn’t have a partner?” I said.
Darci seemed to be giving it some thought but Bella immediately said, “My brother in Florida.”
Darci nodded. “I suppose my cousin, Nikolina. I’d do anything for her and I think she’d do the same for me.” Darci considered a moment more. “Yes. Definitely Nikki. Family sticks together.”
“Right. Family,” I said. “Thanks for the offer of tea, but I need to go see someone.”
Darci kissed my cheek and I kissed hers to say good-bye.
“Be safe,” Bella whispered as her lips brushed my cheek.
“Always,” I said back, then headed off to see the witch.
I’m good with directions. Once I’ve been somewhere, I can usually get there again even if I have a different starting point. Getting from my house to Miranda Rawlings’ had been easy. What wasn’t going to be easy was getting past her wards.
I didn’t know if she’d somehow sensed my coming or she’d put up protective wards after I’d left the first time, but they were there now and not little weakling wards either. I figured the best thing to do was to call her and ask her kindly to speak with me.
Yeah, that was going to work.
But I really didn’t have another option. I dug out my cell phone and then the piece of paper Drew had written her phone number on and given to me.
Of course she might not even be home.
I punched in the number and listened to the rings. On the third ring, she picked up.
“I did not ask you to call,” she said, heat in her voice. “I don’t want to talk to you. Take me off your list. Now!”
I almost laughed. She hadn’t recognized my number and thought I was a telemarketer.
“Miranda, it’s Shay Greene. Please don’t hang up. I have a proposition for you.”
There was a long, long silence before she said, “What sort of proposition?”
“One that will be good for everyone involved,” I said. “Are you at home?”
“No,” she said, and I could hear in her voice that she was curious about whatever I might have in mind. “Where are you?”
“Near your house.”
Another silence, this one shorter.
“I’ll meet you at the foot of the Hermosa Pier in fifteen minutes,” she said.
Ah. She wanted a public meeting place where neither of us was likely to set our magic on the other. Fine with me. But not the pier.
“Parking is hellacious this time of day. Meet me at Scotty’s.”
“Fine,” she said and hung up.
For the second time today, I drove to Scotty’s for a meeting.
I saw Miranda sitting at a window table when I pulled into the parking lot. She was looking out, watching for me. I gave her a little wave and pulled into an empty spot.
She hadn’t waved back and she didn’t smile when I sat down across from her. She didn’t reply to my, “Thanks for meeting me.” The look in her eyes could have frozen the flames of hell.
Thank goodness the waitress came immediately. I ordered a coke and a side of fries. Miranda went for tea with lemon.
“You know that your brother is in a lot of trouble, right?” I said, after the waitress left to put in our order. The restaurant was still fairly full, even though the dinner rush was over, and I kept my voice low.
“I know he went from being elated and proud of himself one day to being terrified for his life the next,” she said coolly.
“You know what he stole.”
Miranda fiddled with a sugar packet, her haughty demeanor gone.
“A necklace,” she said finally.
“And you know who he stole it from and why.”
She drew in a deep breath before she answered. “Calypso. To give to Lady Califia.”
“And you know Calypso isn’t one to let a thing like that go by.”
Miranda kept her face impassive, but nodded.
The waitress brought our drinks and my fries. I sipped my coke and ate a couple of fries before I continued.
“What if I could assure Michael that if he returns the necklace to me, I will guarantee no harm will come to him from Calypso or any of her agents.”
I’d thought she’d jump at the offer. She didn’t. Miranda drank her tea while she considered what I’d said. I ate a couple more fries.
Finally, she put down her cup. “How can you guarantee his safety?”
Honestly, I had no idea how I was going to pull off what I’d just promised. What I said was, “I have my ways,” and pitched my voice to make it sound like I did indeed have a secret method to make it happen. Trust me.
Miranda drummed her fingernails on the tabletop and glanced around the room. If I didn’t close the deal quickly, I was going to lose her.
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