Out of Mind coa-2

by Stella Cameron

  An officer near the stairs cleared his throat and said, “You might want to know the chief’s been on TV again, sir. I hear he just got off. He commented about a possible new suspect.”

  “Shit,” Bucky Fist said with feeling. “Molyneux held another press conference? That bastard’s tongue needs to be cut out.” He cleared his throat and the expression from his face. “You want me to check with the chief before we carry on, Nat?”

  If Bucky’s face showed little emotion, Nat’s had taken on the clear unconcern of a choirboy. “That won’t be necessary. This is all in a day’s work.”

  “We’ll call off the celebration,” Val said. He held Vanity’s hand. “It can be done when all this nastiness is cleared away.”

  “It never will be if we don’t go ahead now,” Vanity said, her voice rising. “The invitations are out and we’re going ahead. We owe this to Chloe.”

  Willow moved closer to Ben again. “This is out of control,” she said quietly.

  “You’ve got that right,” he said. “Best to stay quiet and let them work it out.”

  “Vanity,” Willow said, looking only at her friend. “You shouldn’t talk to any of these people. Not at all.”

  Ben muttered something unintelligible under his breath.

  From behind them, Willow heard the kitchen door open and turned to see the Potted Ladies sliding buckets of red roses over the tiles with the aid of a cloth runner.

  “Not now, please,” Willow said.

  “Good,” Vanity said at the top of her voice. “Wonderful. You’re every bit as versatile as Willow says you are. Put them here in the foyer, ladies.”

  Preston Moriarty, who had appeared comatose, stepped forward and helped with the flowers. Willow didn’t hear what he said, but the Potted Ladies disappeared back the way they’d come.

  Preston gathered himself visibly. “Let’s calm down. Vanity, sometimes we have to put up with being just like everyone else. Follow the rules, dearest, and go answer their little questions.”

  Nat actually smiled warmly at the man. Bucky was already in the sitting room setting up recording equipment, and Vanity started to follow, very slowly, very reluctantly.

  The kitchen door slammed open and banged against the wall this time. Rock U., sans shirt, his multihued and muscular torso glowing with sweat, swept in, his black leather pants clinging even tighter in the heat.

  “Are the cops bothering you?” he asked Willow.

  She almost laughed. When had she gathered such an army of sympathizers? “I’m fine,” she told him.

  “They’ve been spreading the so-called news about Vanity,” he said as if the woman weren’t standing there. “Apparently, she was at the dance hall and at that bakery shop, too. Billy Baker’s.”

  “This is bloody wonderful,” Nat said. “We’re going to have to take this downtown.”

  “Zinnia called me,” Rock said. He looked around until he located Vanity. The big breath he took suggested he didn’t relish dealing with her. “Zinnia’s Willow’s office manager. She’s somethin’ else—a really good woman. And she knows a load of crap when she sees it.”

  Vanity’s lips curled a little, but she struggled to obliterate the disdain. “Does she? That must be useful.”

  “That chief of police is a publicity hound. He’s afraid of losing his job so he’s looking for a patsy, and you’re it.”

  Vanity seemed about to have hysterics.

  “There, there,” Rock U. said, as if she were a sad child. “You’ve got sensible friends all around you. We’ll take care of you.”

  “Why would Vanity be at some dance hall anyway?” Preston Moriarty said. “When was that supposed to be?”

  “The night of the party here,” Willow said, remembering her last conversation with Chris, and meeting Vanity for the first time a while later. “You got held up at a shoot, Vanity. You said that.”

  “Oh, my.” Vanity’s face cleared a little, but her eyes were troubled. “Of course. I talked to Val and Willow when I arrived. And you, Preston. I got here late and felt so bad because I’d told Chloe I’d watch over things. Not that I needed to with Willow here.”

  Willow gave a weak smile of thanks.

  “The shoot was at the dance hall, not that I knew something awful was happening in the building,” Vanity said. “Isn’t that the pits? We use all kinds of backdrops. It was one of those funky collections—Saber Song—everyone knows Saber Song’s designs. They did a lot of poses on the bar. It went beautifully. Tear-away stuff. Very sexy. It’s all about the underwear—what there is of it.”

  Preston laughed. “It’s all about license for public nudity, Vanity, baby. I bet the house was packed.”

  She glowered at him.

  Nat puffed up his cheeks and stared at Willow, then Ben. “Think we could meet for dinner later?”

  The invitation struck Willow as bizarre, but she heard Ben agree, and felt him squeeze just above her elbow.

  “The marquee’s finished, ma’am,” Rock said to Vanity. “They need your advice on the swags of red velvet, Willow.”

  If I can make it until the day after tomorrow, I may not lose my mind. Willow said, “Yes.”

  “I told the guys from the prop shop the space is big in here, but not that big,” Rock said. “They want to know if they can set up the bridge and the palace facades in the garden. The fence is going to have to come down anyway to get everything in, but they’ll make sure it all goes back. You won’t even know anything was different afterward.”

  “Thanks,” Vanity said stiffly. “Will you be here tomorrow evening?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it,” Rock said, showing all of his strong teeth. “No way would I miss seeing the gondola put into the pool.”

  Chapter 28

  Sykes avoided his uncle Pascal’s probing gaze.

  They were behind the shop, in the Court of Angels, and Sykes was doing mental jumping jacks trying to sort out the mess he had made for himself. He should have dealt with it before leaving the Brandt house. Ben was not going to understand that impulsive decision.

  Sykes looked at the square of very blue sky over the courtyard. I multitask really well. He thought about that one and tried it again: I multitask really well. I didn’t need to stay at the Brandt house to know what’s going on there.

  How would that sound to Ben? “I knew you could handle it, Ben, and I could always get there fast. Seriously, I knew you’d rather I got back to Royal Street and tried to figure out what that key is for.”

  One glance at Pascal and he knew he shouldn’t have practiced his speech aloud.

  “So that’s it?” Pascal said in a voice loaded with disbelief. “One of your sisters is stuck being grilled by the police, so you decided you’d slide out and come back here to play sleuth. You like the idea of working it out on your own, don’t you? Why is everything a contest with you?”

  “Give me some credit. I got bored hanging around is all.”

  Pascal didn’t look convinced. “You want to find out what that key fits. You’ve admitted it.”

  “If it fits anything at all,” Sykes said. He’d had a hell of a day and felt reckless. “But okay, I’m guilty. I’m a curious guy—who wouldn’t want to figure the thing out?”

  His decision to return to the Court of Angels was partly for self-protection—his mind had been about to explode with the inane babbling Uptown—and partly because he couldn’t think of anything for long except the key.

  “I’d better get over to that house,” Pascal said. “Ben must have had a reason for wanting you there. I’ll take your place.”

  Sykes inclined his head and counted slowly and silently to ten before he said, “No, Uncle, that’s a lousy idea. There are too many people there already. It’s a crowded scene. And I’m still watching and listening.” Which he was. “Ben asked me to stay until he got there himself. He’s there now.” Hey, that was true. Just showed you how the simplest explanation was usually the best.

  Pascal and Sykes stood in the planting
bed where the little red griffon had hidden so well for a century or so. Sykes doubted they could be seen from the shop and only someone on one of the high balconies around the flats would have a chance to catch sight of them in the dense foliage.

  Marley’s Winnie and Willow’s Mario sat, side by side, like two more conspirators in conference. Winnie kept staring at Mario, whose concentration on the griffon never wavered.

  Persuading Pascal to stay in the shop and let Sykes deal with his search on his own had gone nowhere, and now Sykes was really frustrated with the audience.

  “Anthony isn’t happy about all this upheaval,” Pascal said. Anthony was his personal trainer. “You know how he worries about my blood pressure.”

  “Yeah, I do. So let me do the worrying for all of us. It was supposed to be my…job,” he finished weakly and bent way forward to look at his feet. Damn his big mouth. He had always avoided showing any bitterness over being usurped by Pascal, but now he had carelessly hurt the man.

  Pascal’s big hand descended consolingly on Sykes’s shoulder, and he breathed more easily again. He was grateful for this understanding uncle.

  “You know I think it’s garbage, don’t you?” Pascal said. “The curse. I know all about the old stories, the disasters that happened in Belgium and London, the fear that the family could lose everything here in New Orleans and be forced to move on and start over again. Bunk. We’re not in the seventeen hundreds anymore—if it was even relevant then.”

  Sykes shook his head slowly. “I don’t think we should go into that. You’re in, I’m out and that’s the way it’ll stay.”

  Pascal grumbled to himself. He’d never made any secret of how he resented getting stuck with a responsibility he had never expected to have. “I won’t be around forever,” he said darkly.

  “How do you think the dog figured out where the key was?” Sykes said, mostly to change the subject.

  “Who says he did? Dogs dig. They always did, Sykes. This time a dog happened to find a little key that probably doesn’t mean a thing.”

  Sykes grinned at him. “Very good. Lots of passion there. That dog—” he pointed at Mario “—wouldn’t leave this spot until he had Ben digging in the dirt with him and defacing that damn griffon. Explain that away as dogs dig.”

  Pascal chuckled. “You said you wanted to concentrate on looking for this angel of Willow’s.”

  “Yeah, I did.” And he still hoped he’d have the luck to be alone if he found her and, in addition, have a chance to try communicating with the fickle inmates of the courtyard. Ben’s accounts of interacting with all these carvings was driving Sykes to extremes. He had started hallucinating about carrying on meaningful dialogue with some loose-lipped, superinformed stone buddies of Ben’s, who were just dying—well, maybe it was too late for that—to lead him to the great truths that would clear up any Millet mystery questions for good.

  And while they were at it, they could explain the real reason the Embran had singled out the Millets for their deadly attention.

  But he wasn’t comfortable chatting up the stones with Pascal watching him. Ben was the only one who had ever suggested he could communicate with the angels—something Pascal wouldn’t know about.

  “You don’t want me watching you?” Pascal said, startling Sykes. “I wonder why.” There had never been any doubt about Pascal’s abilities, but Sykes had just been careless with his shield and that wasn’t like him.

  “No, you weren’t careless,” Pascal said, smiling broadly. “You forgot one of those pesky little exceptions to the rules.”

  Sykes rarely thought about the rules at all. “I’m a natural, remember? Completely. I don’t have to think about exceptions. I just know my stuff.”

  “Unless the Mentor decides to intervene,” Pascal said, only slightly smug. “I think we can take it that we’re in serious trouble, nephew, because you just got opened up to me.”

  Sykes squinted in the dappled light. “You’re telling me the Mentor is pulling strings around here?”

  “That’s what I said. I couldn’t get into that armored mind of yours if you didn’t want me to—not without help. The Mentor thinks we should be working together. What else can it mean?”

  “Damned if I know.”

  Pascal scowled. “You heard the proof. For once, do as you’re told.”

  Sykes pretended to be in pain. “Can’t,” he moaned. “Compliance messes with my mind.”

  He quit the act as suddenly as he’d started. Bamboo canes clicked lightly together, their leaves rustling. The sound grew a little louder. Mario cocked his head to one side. Winnie got up and turned in rapid, tight circles.

  “You’re right,” Sykes told Pascal. “Something has intervened. I can feel it. What else could it be but the Mentor? Let me hang around out here a bit. I need to think. I’ll be in shortly.”

  Suspicious was a weak word for the expression on Pascal’s face. He opened his mouth, and Sykes prepared for argument, but his uncle swept silently past him, snatching up Winnie as he went. Everyone knew Pascal had a very soft spot for the Boston terrier.

  Sykes paused, concentrating on first one, then another angel. “Are you having a nice day?” he said, and checked quickly over his shoulder to make certain he was alone.

  He caught sight of two small figures and stooped to see them. Fairies. “Do you have anything to say?”

  Damn, he was being watched. Hair stood up on the back of his neck and he turned around again.

  Mario stared at him—into his eyes—unblinking and without a hint of subservience.

  “You’re a dog,” Sykes said. “What’s with you?”

  Watched by a dog!

  Mario dropped to his stomach and rested his head on his paws. His ears and whiskers wiggled back and forth.

  The small compartment in the base of the griffon was shut again. Sykes crouched and pushed it open. It surprised him that it moved easily when it was so old and unused. The sophistication of the action impressed him. As a sculptor he knew the intricacies of working with stone and had never even considered concealing anything inside one of his pieces.

  He put a forefinger into the space and felt around. The griffon was made of a red stone, North African, he thought, and the inside had been smoothed. His fingernail caught on a ridge and he scraped at it.

  His heart beat harder and faster, and he gradually slid out another key. About an inch long. Minutely inscribed with Bella on one side and Angelus on the other.

  Identical?

  From his pocket, he took the one Ben had found and put it, side by side, with the second one, then he lay one on top of the other.

  Not quite identical. This one had a different configuration in the serrations.

  Ben would be pissed he had missed the second one.

  If he had.

  Sykes poked around inside the griffon again, using his fingernails to dig for other treasures. There were none. He put Ben’s find in his right pocket, and his own in the left.

  He had better not forget what Pascal had said about the Mentor and working together. He stood up. Ben would have to know about the new find, too. But Sykes would rather work on this his own way, in his own time—and without help.

  “Sykes, are you out here?”

  It was a woman’s husky voice, familiar, although he couldn’t place it. He’d rather know who she was before he committed himself.

  “Oh, there you are.” Poppy Fortune batted her way through the bamboo to join him in his supposedly hidden bower. She pulled up when she saw him. “I’m interrupting something. Sorry. I didn’t really want to see you anyway.”

  “Hey, hey.” He dodged to cut off her exit. “It’s fine. I was…finding the dog.”

  She glanced at Mario. “You were hiding,” she said. “The dog just happened to be here.”

  He barely stopped himself from gaping. “Why would I be hiding in my own backyard?”

  “Because you’re up to something secretive, and you don’t want anyone else around. It’s fine
, really. I know how you feel. Happens to me all the time.”

  Sometimes hanging out with paranormal people could be a drag—especially when you got so accustomed to them that you forgot they might not be what Willow liked to call “normal.” It had never struck him to wonder what Poppy’s particular talents might be, but now he knew she probably followed body heat to its source—which would be how she found him—and she was very intuitive. Knowing the Fortunes, that was only scratching the surface of her powers.

  Tall and really nicely shaped, Poppy had grown from an angular little girl with eyes too big for her face, into a gorgeous, exotic-looking woman. If he didn’t know otherwise, he’d wonder if she was Italian, or Eurasian, maybe. He liked the purple leather vest she wore—laced down the front—over a tight black T-shirt and with equally tight black leggings. The higher on the vest, the more widely the laces parted, to allow for the full breasts she’d developed while he wasn’t looking.

  Hmm.

  She frowned. “What’s wrong?” she said.

  “Not a thing that I can see,” Sykes told her. “I was just thinking we’ve known each other a long time—sort of. We don’t really know each other at all, though, do we?”

  Her gaze slid away. “Sometimes you seem very familiar to me. Other times you’re a stranger. I figure that’s how you like it. Man of mystery.”

  He started to laugh.

  Poppy cut him off. “I came to make a confession, and you won’t be laughing by the time I’m finished.”

  That sobered him. “I don’t hear confessions. Not my purview.” He thought for a moment. “Did you do something I’m going to regret?”

  “That wasn’t my intent, but yes.”

  “Huh.” He shook his head. “Do we need to go somewhere for this? We could use my flat.” He thought some more. “That probably wouldn’t be such a good idea. Can I offer you a step on those stairs over there? We’ve got plenty of them.”

  “I just want to get this over with.”

  He held back a bush for her to pass and followed her into the courtyard. Poppy went to the fountain and sat on the edge. Sykes almost warned her about the spray, but thought better of it. He perched beside her instead.