by Rachel Caine
No arguing with that one. Mom really had.
But Sarah kept going. “That doesn’t mean I don’t love you, Jo. I always have loved you. I hope you still love me. I know I’m a bitch, and I’m shallow, but we’re still, you know, sisters.”
It would have been a warm, tender moment if I’d jumped up and thrown my arms around her and burst into tears. We weren’t that kind of Hallmark Card family.
I thought it over and said, “I don’t really know you, Sarah. But I’m willing to get to know you.”
She smiled. Slow, but real.
“That sounds… fair.”
We shook hands on it. I stood up and watched as Sarah unzipped the suitcase and started unpacking. It was a pitifully short affair. She’d left most of the good stuff behind, and what good stuff she had left was horribly wrinkled. We made a dry-clean pile, a “burn this” pile, a Goodwill pile, and a keeper stack. That one was short. It filled exactly one drawer of the dresser.
“Makeup?” I asked. She pointed to a tiny plastic case that couldn’t have held more than lipstick, mascara, and maybe an eyebrow pencil. “Shoes?”
She pointed to the battered running shoes and held up a pair of black, squarish pumps, something suitable for a grandmother, so long as Grandma didn’t care much about appearances. I winced. “The bastard didn’t even let you keep your shoes?”
“He cleaned out the house and gave everything to the Salvation Army,” she said. “All my clothes. Everything.”
“Jesus.” I had a sudden flare of suspicion. “Um, look, Sarah, not that I’m doubting you or anything, but wasn’t Chrêtien the, um, guilty party… ?”
She had the good grace to look just a little ashamed. “He found out about Carl.”
“Carl?”
“You know.”
“Nope. Really don’t.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine, if you’re going to force me to say it… I wasn’t exactly guiltless. There. I admit it. I was having an affair with his business partner.”
“Jesus.”
“And the donkey he rode in on,” she finished, just the way she’d always done it when we’d been in school. “But he didn’t have to get so personal about all of it. He cheated on me, after all. You’d think he’d at least understand that it was… well…”
“Recreational?” I supplied dryly.
“Yes! Exactly!”
“Should have joined the bridge club, Sarah.”
She gave me a helpless, angry look. “I’m not saying I was guiltless, but… he gave me a couple of hundred dollars and told me to buy replacements. In my new price range. God, Jo, I didn’t even know where to shop!”
I took a deep breath and said, “Tell you what? I was going to the mall anyway with a friend, so if you want to get ready—”
“I’m ready,” my sister said instantly.
I picked up the phone and called Cherise.
Cherise had, of course, changed clothes in the interim. She’d gone to a magenta see-through mesh shirt with lime green tie-dyed patterns, over a lime green camisole. It all matched the lime glitter toenail polish, which evidently she liked enough to accessorize to.
“Ten,” I said instantly when she got out of her red convertible. “Maybe a ten point five. You blind me with your magnificence.”
“But of course. Man, Jo, I knew you were a saint, but you gave up your hottie for your sister? Damn. I’d have blown off taking my grandma to dialysis for that man!”
Sarah came out of the apartment behind me, wearing her wrinkled khaki walking shorts and badly fitting button-down shirt. Cherise’s perfectly made-up eyes widened into something usually seen only in Japanese animation.
“Oh my God,” she said, and looked at me in horror. “You told me it was bad, but damn, this is a seven point five on the fashion disaster scale. And what’s with her hair?”
“Cherise,” I said. “I know it’s hard for you, but please. Sarah’s had a bad time. Be kind.”
“I was being kind. That is way worse than a seven point five.”
Sarah said, “Jo? Did she just say you have a boyfriend?”
Trust Sarah, of course, to blow past Cherise’s fluff to get to the potentially disastrous part of the conversation.
“Not just a boyfriend,” Cherise said. “Boyfriends are Ken dolls. Boyfriends are safe. Her guy is the kind of hottie who needs to keep a fire extinguisher around, just to hose down any passing women who spontaneously combust.”
I stared at her, amazed. For Cherise, this was, well, poetic.
Sarah was, meanwhile, frowning at me. “And you didn’t tell me about him?”
I didn’t want to bring up David yet. That was going to be a strange and difficult conversation, with somebody as earthbound-normal as Sarah, and I couldn’t really mislead her too far. Trying to keep him secret would only lead to low comedy and farce. Not to mention put a serious cramp in my love life.
“He had to leave,” I said. Not a lie. “I’ll see him later.”
“I should have known you’d have a boyfriend,” Sarah said. She sounded bitter. “What was I thinking? When do you not?”
“Kind of a ’ho, isn’t she?” Cherise asked. Sarah nodded wisely.
“Hey!” I said sharply. “Watch it!”
“Oh, come on, Jo. Your libido isn’t exactly on the low end of the curve. I’ve seen you checking out the boys at work,” Cherise said. “Even, you know, Kurt. The anchor.”
“I would never! That man is made of plastic!”
“Oh, the plastic ones are the best,” she said, and gave me a wicked look. “They come with D-cell batteries, off switches, and you never have to meet their folks.”
Cherise worried me sometimes. “Please tell me you haven’t—not with Kurt—”
“Please. I have standards,” she said. “He may be an anchor, but he’s a morning anchor. Hardly worth the investment.”
“Now who’s your boyfriend?” Sarah began again. I hustled her toward the car.
Cherise broke ranks, rushed back, and flipped switches in her convertible. The canvas top whirred up and locked in place.
“Marvin says it’s going to rain,” she said.
“Marvin doesn’t know his—” I bit my tongue to keep from saying something that might get back to him. “His meteorology from a rain dance.”
Cherise looked up at the cloudless blue sky, shrugged, and slid on her dark glasses. “Yeah, well, easy for you to say. You don’t have to wet-vac. And you know all about the Percentage.”
Yes. They liked to use that in advertising: Trust the Percentage. Because Marvelous Marvin really did have the best percentage of forecast accuracy in our area. Not that it was anything but blind luck. I’d asked him to walk me through the calculations for his rainy-day forecast two days ago, and he’d happily brought out the charts, the National Weather Service models, the radar images, all the good stuff… and proceeded to come to exactly the wrong conclusion.
But he was 91% percent accurate over the last two years.
Hard to argue with that, but I lived in hopes that today, at least, would be the beginning of the end of Marvin’s reign of meteorological omniscience.
We piled into the Viper and headed for Shopping Nirvana, otherwise known as the Galleria—150 shops, with everything from Sak’s to Neiman Marcus. I both loved and hated living so close to it. It was like a diabetic with a sweet tooth living next door to the fudge factory. We cruised along, drawing envious stares from teenagers in gleaming low-riders, faded Yuppies in Volvos, soccer moms in enormous SUVs. Mona was a sexy car. I still pined for my beloved Mustang, but I had to admit, the throbbing growl of power from the Viper was seductive.
Even doing something as tame as crawling from one red light to another on this cloudless suburban day.
We’d only gone about three blocks when Sarah suddenly said, “Did you know you’re being followed?”
We were heading down East Sunshine, and the traffic wasn’t exactly light; I looked at her in the rearview (she’d been relegat
ed to the back) and studied her carefully. “Okay, you’ve been living in California way too long. This is Florida. We don’t get tailed in Florida.”
She didn’t look behind her as she said, “Chrêtien had me followed for six months; I know what I’m talking about. There’s a white van with dark-tinted windows and a magnetic sign that says it’s from a flower shop. It pulled out of the apartment parking lot when you did. It’s three cars back.”
I blinked and focused on the traffic. She was right, there was a white van back there. I couldn’t see anything about the sides, but the windows were dark-tinted.
“So? He dropped off some roses. Unfortunately, not to me.” And I so deserved it, for putting up with Sarah.
“Change lanes,” she said. “Watch him.”
Couldn’t hurt. I spotted an opening and did one of those sports-car levitation glides laterally from one lane to another, no signal, and then sped up and whipped back over two lanes. Cherise yelped and grabbed for a handhold; Sarah turned to look back, just a quick glance.
“He’s following, but he’s trying to look casual about it,” she said. I nodded.
It wasn’t easy to do in traffic, but I split my attention and sent part of myself up into Oversight, to see what was going on in the aetheric.
It wasn’t a Warden behind us, at least. Nothing but normal human stuff happening, not even the faint smear I’d come to recognize as a Djinn who didn’t want to be spotted. I dropped back into my body, put my foot down, and felt Mona respond with a fast, eager purr. “Hang on,” I said, and whipped the wheel over hard at the next light. Cherise yelped again, higher-pitched; Sarah grabbed for a handhold and tilted without making a sound.
“Hey!” Cherise blurted. “This isn’t the way to the mall!” She was much more panicked about the idea of missing her shopping appointment than any sinister, faceless stalker we might have picked up.
Hey, I never said she was deep. Just fun to be around.
“Back entrance,” I said. The van turned the corner, a block behind me, and accelerated. I eased back down to a regular street speed, mindful of any cops that might be lurking and itching for a chance to ticket a Viper, and made another turn, to the left.
I took the turn into the Galleria parking lot. It was a typical day, which meant busy; I cruised around for a while, watching for the white van. It was still back there. When I pulled into a space, so did it, several rows away.
All very sinister, suddenly. I didn’t like it at all.
“Cherise, you take Sarah and go on to Ann Taylor,” I said, and popped my door open. “I’ll be right behind you. Sarah, you’ve got my Mastercard. Just—don’t buy big ticket without me.” I realized that Sarah’s standards of big ticket might vary from mine. “Um… that means anything over a hundred dollars.”
She looked briefly shocked, probably at the low-limit amount. Both of them started to argue, but I slammed the door and kept walking, fast and purposefully, heading for the white van that was parked and motionless several hundred yards away. I made sure to stay blocked from it as much as possible by giant SUVs—who the hell needs a Hummer the color of a yield sign, anyway?—and the ubiquitous Gran-and-Gramps-do-Florida RVs, and came at it from the passenger side.
I knocked on the dark-tinted window. After a few silent seconds, a motor whirred and the glass glided down.
I didn’t recognize the man in the driver’s seat. He was Hispanic, older—forty, forty-five maybe—and he had graying hair, fierce, dead dark eyes, and a windburned complexion.
Looked damn intimidating.
“Hi,” I said, and gave him my best, most confident smile. “Want to tell me why you’re following me? If this is about Sarah, tell Chrêtien that he can stick it up his French…”
“You’re Joanne Baldwin,” he interrupted me. No trace of an accent.
“In the flesh.” Scars and all, which had fortunately faded with a little help from silicone patches and the tanning salon.
“Get in the van,” he said.
“Oh, I really don’t think—”
He produced a gun and aimed it at my head. “No, I really do.” I wasn’t good with guns, especially not identifying them, but this one looked big and serious about its job. “In the van. Now, please.”
I felt an overwhelming impulse to do exactly what he said, but I also knew better than to climb into some stranger’s van. Especially in Florida. I tried to focus past the gun and hold his stare. “It’s broad daylight in a mall parking lot. You’re not going to shoot me, and I’m not getting in your damn van, either. Next subject.”
I surprised him. It passed over his face in a flash. Blink and you’d miss it, but it was definitely present. He cocked one eyebrow just a millimeter higher.
“Why exactly do you think I wouldn’t shoot you?”
“Security cameras everywhere, pal, and my sister and my friend both have really good memories for license plate numbers. You wouldn’t get back to the main road before the cops cut you off.” I forced myself to smile again. “Besides, you don’t want me dead, or you’d have shot me already and been out of here, and we wouldn’t be having this lovely conversation.”
For a long, long second, he debated it. I held my breath, and let it slowly out when he shrugged and holstered the gun again, with a move so deft it might as well have been a magic trick.
“You know my name,” I said. “Want to tell me yours?”
“Armando Rodriguez,” he replied, which took me by surprise; I hadn’t expected a guy who’d just pulled a weapon to introduce himself so readily. “Detective Armando Rodriguez, Las Vegas Police Department.”
Oh, dear. I felt goosebumps shiver up the back of my arms.
“I’d like to ask you a few questions about the disappearance of Detective Thomas Quinn,” he said. Which I’d already figured out.
Too bad I knew exactly what had happened to Detective Thomas Quinn. And there was no way on earth I could talk to this guy about it.
“Thomas Quinn?” I didn’t want to out-and-out lie, but the truth was a nonstarter. “Sorry, I don’t think I know the name.”
Rodriguez opened up a folder stuck in the side pocket of his driver’s side door and slid out a collection of photos—grainy, obviously off of surveillance cameras. Me, in a black miniskirt, being escorted by Detective Thomas Quinn.
“Want to try that one again?” he asked.
“I hear everybody has a double,” I said. “Maybe you’ve got the wrong girl.”
“Oh, I don’t think so.”
“Prove it.”
“You drive a blue Dodge Viper. Funny thing—we had a report of a blue Dodge Viper driving away from an area in the desert where Quinn’s SUV was found burned.” His dark eyes kept their level stare on me. “His truck was destroyed, like somebody had loaded it up with dynamite, but we didn’t find any trace of explosives.”
I lifted one shoulder, let it fall, and just looked at him. He looked back.
After a moment, he let one corner of his mouth lift in a slow, predatory smile.
It didn’t soften the harsh, hard eyes.
Quinn had managed to look coplike and friendly at the same time. Rodriguez just looked coplike, and didn’t bother with any warm-and-fuzzy bullshit to make me feel better.
“Quinn was a friend of mine,” he said softly. “I intend to find out what happened to him. If anybody did him harm, I’m going to see that that person suffers for it. You understand me?”
“Oh, I understand,” I said. “Good luck with that.”
Any friend of Quinn’s was definitely not going to be a friend of mine.
I pushed off from the car and walked away, heels clicking, hair ruffling in the breeze. It was hot and turning sticky, but that wasn’t what was making the sweat run cold down my back.
In retrospect, becoming a television personality probably hadn’t been the best career choice I ever made, when a cop was missing and presumed dead, and I’d been the last one to be seen with him. Guess I should’ve thought of that. I’
d spent too much time in the Wardens, where things got taken care of, and frictions with the rest of the mortal world were smoothed over with influence and cash and—sometimes—judicious use of Djinn.
Shit. I wondered about the Viper now. Since I’d actually stolen it off of a car lot in Oklahoma. Was it listed as hot? Or had Rahel, my friendly neighborhood free-range Djinn, taken care of erasing it from the records? She hadn’t bothered to mention it. I wasn’t sure how important she’d have found that, in the great scheme of things.
Hell, she’d probably think it was kind of funny if I got arrested. Djinn humor.
Very low.
I needed to take care of that, soon. I had the bad feeling that Armando Rodriguez wasn’t going to just go away, and if there was anything he could find as leverage, he’d start pushing. Hard.
Just as I started to think my day couldn’t get much worse, I heard a rumble from overhead, and saw that a thick bank of clouds had glided over the top of the mall while I was worrying about how not to get myself thrown in the slammer.
I stretched out a hand. A fat, wet drop hit my skin. It was as chilly as the water that the stagehands had dumped on me in the studio.
“No way,” I said, and looked up into the clouds. “You can’t be happening.”
It peppered me with a couple of drops more for evidence. Marvelous Marvin had been right after all. Somebody—somebody other than me, most certainly—had made damn sure he was right. Looking up on the aetheric, I could see the subtle signs of tampering, and the imbalance echoing through the entire BrowardCounty system. Worse than that, though, was the fact that as far as I could tell, there weren’t any other Wardens anywhere around. Just me. Me, who wasn’t supposed to be doing any kind of weather manipulation at all, under penalty of having my powers cut out of me with a dull knife.
I was so going to get blamed for this.
And, dammit, I didn’t even like Marvin.
Interlude
A storm is never just one thing. Too much sun on the water by itself can’t cause a storm. Storms are equations, and the math of wind and water and luck has to be just right for it to grow.