Anyway, it wasn’t as though Cat could call San Antonio’s spirits to her defense if things got nasty. They wouldn’t, though. It would turn out that Robert Marquez was just a civilian who’d come to Santa Fe at the exactly wrong time, and that would be the end of it.
Well, except for the part where they’d be back to square one in terms of locating Miranda.
By now they were well away from the airport, moving along a street that was your standard American suburban sprawl — fast food places, nail salons, tire stores, chain restaurants. It made him glad that he lived in Santa Fe, that his hometown was the sort of place where you could tell from a single glance precisely where you were, rather than this homogeneity of twenty-first-century commercialism. Well, to be fair, some of the sections of Santa Fe farther away from downtown didn’t look that dissimilar from what he saw now, but he rarely ventured into those parts of the city.
The Ryde turned off the main drag and into a neighborhood of modest tract homes that had probably been built right around the year 2000. They were starting to look a little shabby now, but were still mostly well-maintained, the grass mowed, some late flowers still blooming in flowerbeds.
It didn’t really look like the sort of area where a warlock would be holed up. True, those of witch-kind tried not to flaunt their wealth, but they tended to live in nicer neighborhoods than this. Still, Rafe knew better than to make assumptions.
The self-driving vehicle slowed and then came to a stop in front of a one-story house with a faux-stone façade. The garage door stood open, and inside Rafe spotted a large red pickup truck. Next to it was a big American motorcycle — a Harley, he guessed, although he supposed it could also have been an Indian. A well-muscled guy was working on the Harley, engine parts neatly laid out on a tarp next to the bike.
The man’s back was to the street, so Rafe couldn’t get a look at his face. And from this distance, he wasn’t able to tell whether the guy was a warlock or not.
“Wait here,” he told the Ryde vehicle. Then he glanced over at Cat. “You ready?”
She pulled in a breath, her gaze shifting toward the guy in the garage before it returned to him. “Not really, but I’m not going to wait in here, either. Let’s go.”
They both got out of the van. The man working on the bike must have heard them approach, because he straightened up and looked over at them, expression clearly puzzled. “Can I help you?”
He wasn’t a warlock. Rafe wasn’t sure whether to be disappointed that apparently they were no closer to finding Miranda, or relieved that at least he wouldn’t have to get into a magical battle here in suburban San Antonio.
Cat stepped forward, and the man — who must be Robert Marquez, since his appearance more or less matched the photo Daniel had shown them back in Albuquerque — set down his wrench and stood up, expression shifting from one of puzzlement to obvious interest. Well, she was his sister, and so Rafe had never paid all that much attention to her looks, but it was clear enough from the male attention Cat tended to attract that she was pretty gorgeous.
“This is going to sound strange,” Cat said. “But were you in Santa Fe a day or so ago?”
“Yeah,” Marquez responded, still more interested than annoyed.
Smiling, she pulled out her phone and showed it to the man, who squinted down at the screen as she asked, “Have you ever seen this girl?”
At once he shook his head. “No.”
The smile gone, a frown pulled at Cat’s brows. “You’re sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure,” Marquez said. “I think I’d remember if I saw a girl who looked like that. Or like you,” he added with a smile, obviously doing his best to be charming.
Cat, however, was in no mood to be charmed. Frown still puckering her forehead, she asked, “But you were staying in an Airbnb downtown?”
“No. A cousin of mine lives in Santa Fe, so I couch-surfed at his place for a few nights.” Marquez stopped there, a frown of his own altering his otherwise pleasant features. “What’s this about? You cops or something?”
“No,” Cat said quickly. “We’re just — that is, the girl I showed you is our cousin. She’s missing, and she was last seen in downtown Santa Fe. We had reports that she might have been hanging out with someone named Robert Marquez.”
“Sorry to hear that.” The man scrubbed a hand through his thick black hair. “I never saw her. You got the wrong Robert Marquez.”
Well, shit. Rafe supposed he should have mentally prepared for this particular outcome, but he still couldn’t quite tamp down the wave of disappointment that passed over him. It seemed obvious enough now that “Robert Marquez” had just been an alias used by the dark warlock — or whatever he was — who’d been occupying the Airbnb above the wine tasting room. The guy standing here in front of them now had nothing to do with any of it.
“It’s all right,” Rafe said, giving a subtle nod at Cat so she’d know they were done here. In response, she began to move toward him.
“We’re really sorry to have bothered you,” Cat said. “Your name was the only lead we had.”
“It’s all right.” It seemed he’d noticed the way she’d stepped back to be with her brother, because he added, “I wish I could have helped you more.”
“No problem,” Rafe said. “We’ll let you get back to what you were doing.”
“Sorry,” Cat said again, and then the two of them were hurrying back to the waiting Ryde. They slid into the back seat, and Rafe shut the door behind them.
“Airport,” he said, his tone curt, but the Ryde had been programmed to ignore those variations in tone.
“We will be there in approximately twenty-five minutes, given current traffic patterns.”
“Great,” Rafe growled, and they pulled away from the curb.
For a moment, neither of them said anything. At last Cat ventured, “Well, at least he wasn’t a warlock. Because that could have turned into a real mess.”
“I know.” Rafe leaned back against the headrest and expelled a disgusted breath. “What a waste of time.”
“It wasn’t a waste,” she said, her tone a little too reassuring. Clearly, she wasn’t happy about how things had turned out, either, but she wanted to sound supportive. “At least now we know that the ‘Robert Marquez’ at the Airbnb was a fabrication.”
“And that’s all we know. We don’t know who took Miranda, we don’t know where she is…we don’t know if she’s okay.”
Cat reached over and patted his hand briefly, then returned to clutching the strap of her backpack/purse. “We don’t even know if someone actually ‘took’ her, Rafe. I mean, she sure teleported out of that chapel under her own power, you know? True, we haven’t been able to find her at any of the local hotels, but she could have gone farther than Santa Fe. For all we know, the dark magic you sensed downtown doesn’t even have anything to do with this. It could be a total coincidence.”
Yes, he supposed it could. He’d rather believe that, rather believe that Miranda had teleported herself off to someplace warm and tropical to recover from his rejection, than think she was being held captive by someone who meant her no good. Of course, that begged the question of what a user of dark magic would be doing lurking around downtown if he wasn’t trying to kidnap Rafe’s fiancée, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to think about that right now. His head was beginning to hurt.
“Yeah, whatever,” he said, but Cat didn’t appear offended by his tone.
“It sucks, I get it,” she said. “So we go home and regroup. I’ll try talking to some more ghosts.”
“Because that worked so well the first time.”
“It’s worth a try. Annalisa Jimenez usually hangs out down by Burro Alley. She might have seen something.”
If he recalled correctly, Annalisa was a girl from around the turn of the last century who’d found herself in love with a priest, and hanged herself in her bedroom out of despair. No wonder she was still roaming around downtown, her spirit forever restless.
; Rafe reflected that it must really suck to be a ghost.
“Sure,” he said, not bothering to hide the weariness in his voice. “Why not?”
Cat shot him a sideways glance but apparently elected not to reply. She always had been pretty good at being able to tell when he was in a mood.
The Ryde van turned off at the exit to the airport. Rafe wondered how long they’d have to cool their heels while waiting for a return flight; he hadn’t booked one because he hadn’t known how long all this would take, although Daniel had reassured him that there were three flights to Albuquerque leaving between five and nine p.m., so at least it wasn’t as if they’d be stuck here all night.
Well, no matter how long the wait, he knew he’d spend most of it in one of the airport’s bars.
They pulled up to the curb in front of the terminal where they’d arrived an hour earlier. Rafe was just swiping his phone over the reader built into the back of one of the seats when Cat suddenly grabbed his arm.
“What?” he asked irritably. Good thing that little bobble hadn’t screwed up the reader. He just wanted to pay and get the hell out of here.
“Witches and warlocks,” she said in an undertone. “Can’t you feel them?”
Now that he was paying attention, he could. That tingle at the back of his neck wasn’t his spider sense, but his witch blood telling him that there were more of his kind standing only a yard or so away. As his gaze traveled past the van’s windows, he saw a small group of men and women, five in all, clustered near the curb. They appeared to be mostly in their forties, maybe a little older. Clan elders? It was hard to say, because not all clans even had elders, and when they did, the term “elder” didn’t necessarily have anything to do with age. However, Rafe was pretty sure these must be some of the more powerful witches and warlocks in the Montoya clan, no matter whether they were elders or not.
“Guess we’d better see what they want,” he said.
“You know what they want,” Cat muttered, but she unbuckled her seatbelt with an air of grim resignation, as though she knew there wasn’t much they could do other than try to get this over with as quickly as possible.
They both got out of the Ryde. At once the group of witches and warlocks moved toward him and Cat. The witch in the lead, a woman around his mother’s age, stepped out a little in front of the others. She was dark, obviously of Hispanic ancestry just like Cat and himself, although her hair was dyed an improbable dark red. Arms planted on her hips, she said, “We need to talk, Mr. Castillo.”
Rafe didn’t bother to ask her how she knew who he was. Witches and warlocks had their way of ferreting out those sorts of things. “If it’s someplace where we can get a drink, I’m all for talking.”
A flash of irritation passed over her sharp features, but she said smoothly enough, “Certainly. This way, if you please.”
She headed into the terminal, and Rafe and Cat followed while the rest of her group brought up the rear. He had no idea if their little procession looked as odd to civilian onlookers as it felt to him, but he guessed probably not. Like most witches and warlocks, they were all dressed normally enough, the men in jeans and cowboy-style shirts, the two other women also in jeans, although the witch who led the group was wearing a long tiered skirt and a knit top, along with embroidered cowboy boots. Well, this was Texas.
They all trooped into the airport bar, heading toward one of the booths in the back. “You two go ahead and sit down,” said the lead witch.
Rafe could tell exactly what she was up to. If he and Cat sat down first, then the witches and warlocks would fill in around them, making it impossible for the two of them to attempt any kind of an escape. Not that he’d really planned to do any such thing, because doing something so foolish would only make the situation worse.
Still, he saw the flash of panic in his sister’s eyes and wished he could do or say something to reassure her. Unfortunately, surrounded by all those hostile faces, he wasn’t able to do much other than send her a quick smile as he slid into the booth. She followed suit, her body rigid with tension, and he hoped she would let him take the lead here. They needed to make sure they kept their stories straight.
The Montoya witches and warlocks took their seats next to them, although the lead witch grabbed a chair from a neighboring table and pulled it up so she could sit down on the opposite side of the table and face Rafe and Cat squarely. “I am Lupita Montoya,” she said. “And I am the prima of this clan. What are you doing here, you Castillos? I had no warning about your arrival, no contact at all from Genoveva, the prima of your clan.”
“I’m sorry about that,” Rafe said, offering her a smile that generally worked fairly well on the female half of the population. The prima’s expression remained stony, however, and so he decided that pouring on the charm probably wasn’t the best approach to take here. “I’m Rafael Castillo, Genoveva’s son, and this is my sister Catalina.” He figured it was better to use his sister’s formal name, since he got the impression that this Lupita Montoya was the sort of person who didn’t have much patience with whimsy. “We had to come here on urgent business and didn’t have time to ask for permission.”
“Urgent and quick business,” Lupita said. “Considering your plane landed only an hour ago and you’re already on your way back to New Mexico. Or is it more that you were hoping such a lightning trip might escape our notice?”
Actually, he’d been hoping that very thing, but he wasn’t about to admit that to the Montoya prima. “No, not at all,” he replied quickly. “It’s more that the business which brought us here didn’t pan out.”
“And what was that business?” asked one of the warlocks. His eyes were a startling blue, bright against his olive skin and black hair.
Rafe risked a quick glance at his sister. She nodded ever so slightly, indicating that she thought he should tell the truth — or at least as much truth as was safe to tell.
As he opened his mouth, though, he was interrupted by the arrival of the waitress, whose bleached hair was pulled up into a pouf of a French twist, and who wore dangling silver earrings in the shape of the state of Texas. “What can I get for y’all?”
Thank God. Lupita Montoya’s mouth pulled tight in irritation, but the warlock who’d last spoken said, “I’ll have a Heineken,” which set off a round of drinks ordering. Rafe asked for a Dos Equis, since he doubted that he’d be able to get one of his beloved New Mexico craft brews here, while Cat requested a margarita on the rocks. Even Lupita unbent enough to order a daiquiri, and then the waitress went off to fill their orders at the bar.
“Now that we have that out of the way,” Lupita said. “What were you going to tell us about your visit to San Antonio?”
“One of us is missing,” Rafe said. He wasn’t about to tell this hard-faced woman that the missing person in question was his fiancée, and the daughter of the leaders of the McAllister and Wilcox clans. Let the Montoya prima think they’d come here in search of a missing cousin. That should be good enough. “We had reason to believe that she might have been with a man from San Antonio. We went to talk to him, and it turned out he was a civilian who’d never even seen her. That’s it.”
Enough of this story was true that Lupita didn’t appear to find much fault with it. Still, her head tilted slightly as she regarded Rafe for a long moment. “I can understand the urgency, but I still think there was enough time to contact me and ask for permission…or for help. We could have gone and spoken to this person and saved you a trip.”
“We thought of that,” Cat interposed just as Rafe began to open his mouth. “But the thing is, our cousin took off with this guy without our mother knowing anything about it. We were really hoping we could find her and bring her back sort of under the radar, so to speak.”
“Ah,” Lupita said, a knowing glint in her dark eyes. “I can see why you might have wanted to avoid notice. But your cousin wasn’t here?”
“No,” Rafe said, relieved that Cat had been able to dive in with a plausible
explanation for why they would have come here without asking for permission. “Which puts us back at square one, I guess. We have another cousin who’s good at locating people and objects, but only within a certain range. We were hoping the reason why he couldn’t find her was that she’d gone out of state with this guy, but apparently that wasn’t the reason.”
The prima nodded but forbore from replying, since the waitress returned right then with their drinks. Once they’d all been handed out to their respective recipients and she’d headed back to the bar, Lupita said, “What will you do now?”
“Well, as you noticed, we’re going home. There isn’t much else we can do.” Rafe picked up his beer and took a swallow. “We certainly had no plans to stay longer in Montoya territory than necessary.”
“What does this girl look like?” the blue-eyed warlock inquired, adding, “Just in case she does happen to be somewhere around here, even if she isn’t with the person you thought she might have come here with.”
Cat’s gaze flicked toward Rafe for a second. He knew what she was asking with that brief look — whether they should describe Miranda, or provide a description of someone else entirely. Since he felt as though he was up against a wall here, he figured it couldn’t hurt to tell them this “cousin” was similar in appearance to his missing fiancée. If by some weird chance Miranda happened to wander into Montoya territory, at least they’d already be looking for her.
“She’s a little younger than my sister,” he said. “Long brown hair, green eyes. Slender, not too tall. When last seen, she was wearing a green leather jacket.” That part wasn’t quite true, of course, because when last seen, Miranda had been in a full-length silk wedding gown. But obviously he couldn’t tell this group of Montoya witches and warlocks that, and he figured the green leather jacket was probably the most distinctive item of clothing she owned.
The Witches of Canyon Road, Books 1-3 Page 35