“Have you been inside?”
Niles shook his head, no.
She remembered where she was and what she was supposed to be doing. “I’ll just get Jazzy out and let you go about your business. Thank you for bringing me. That was quite a ride.” She smiled at him. “I’ve been leading a sheltered life. I had no idea what it felt like to be on one of these things.”
“Did you like it?” Niles went around to open the sidecar and lift Jazzy out. The little traitor snuggled up to him, burying his face in his neck. “You kind of have to get used to it. That’s why you were shaky getting off. You’ll be better next time.”
Next time?
“Here.” He gave her a piece of paper with a phone number on it.
“Just call when you’re ready to go home and I’ll take you back. You sure you don’t want to leave Jazzy with me?” Frowning, Leigh removed her dog from Niles’s hold and set him down. She put on his leash and gave it a firm pull. “Thanks for bringing us. If you’re sure you don’t mind, I will call.” After all, she did need a way back.
“I don’t mind at all.”
He was still at the curb when she and Jazzy went inside the building.
chapter NINE
LEIGH LOOKED at the card again. The shop address was the same, the name on the outside of the shop was the same, but this could not be the right place.
She had dropped into a leafy bower, or so it seemed. Surrounded by walls and a ceiling smothered with vines, Leigh resisted an urge to flee. Jazzy sniffed happily at the foliage sprouting all around him. Realistic trees crowded the big room, their branches and twigs used to hang hats, capes, robes in myriad colors, and masks in shapes that quickly got Leigh bending this way and that to see them properly. She assumed the profusion of sturdy sticks, many of them oddly shaped, that stood in buckets were the wands advertised.
On one side of the shop stood several large tables with products in various stages of completion. Thin shiny leather, pigskin, suede, heavy silk, feathers, spools of gold chain. There was too much to take in.
Leigh slapped a hand over her heart—little twinkling purple lights had popped on among the vines and branches, probably thousands of them. And they twinkled to the accompaniment of what sounded like chipmunks singing in Latin. Or was it “Greensleeves,” but distorted by the nuts in their cheeks?
She shook her head and turned to walk out.
Jazzy wasn’t leaving. He sat, transfixed, his chin raised to stare at a doll-sized four-poster bed heaped with small, soft blankets.
“C’mon, Jazzy,” she said. “Let’s go.”
The dog’s response was to loll his tongue from his mouth and pant happily. He stood up and whined.
From the nest of little blankets, a head appeared, a silvery-gray head with long whiskers and pointed ears with small tufts on the ends. In a smooth movement the smallest cat Leigh had ever seen emerged and sat with its paws in a precise row and a tail twice as long as its body curled in a tight circle around it. Silver all over with violet eyes, it transfixed Leigh. She got a prickling sensation up her spine. The cat was irresistible. Leigh had to reach out a hand.
The cat closed its eyes and purred gently while allowing herself to be stroked.
Jazzy whined louder and the cat jumped down to sniff him thoroughly. Jazzy grinned while the cat scooted to settle on top of his front paws.
“That’s weird,” Leigh muttered, the spine prickles intensifying.
“Leigh! I thought you might be coming but then I wasn’t sure I didn’t have my days all muddled up.”
She would have recognized that hoarse voice anywhere and swung around. “Sally? What are you doing here?” The second half of Gabriel’s kitchen staff slid from an opening in the vines.
“And Skillywidden,” Sally cooed to the cat, ignoring Leigh’s question. “Jazzy is every bit as special as we know he is. Skillywidden is a perfect judge of character—unless she’s protecting the weak. Everyone should keep their distance then. She has adopted Jazzy and he knows he is blessed. She will always look after him.”
“That’s nice,” Leigh said. “She’s still a kitten, isn’t she?”
Fluttering her hands, Sally said, “I’ve had her for years. I have no idea how old she is.”
“I see.” Whoa, she and Jazzy had gone through the looking glass.
“Gabriel didn’t tell me it was you who ran this shop.”
“He doesn’t know,” Sally said, fixing Leigh with a penetrating stare. “It would be better if he didn’t find out. Would that be all right?”
“I guess. But Cliff knows?”
Sally’s gaze didn’t waver. “No. I gave him that card you have there and said I’d make sure you were expected here. I’m sure you understand it’s a good idea to keep two very different sides of my life separate. Most people don’t understand any of this.” She raised her hands to indicate the shop. “Do you?”
Hesitating, Leigh looked around again. “Probably not, but I really like it. And I believe people have a right to privacy when they want it.”
“Oh, good,” Sally said, her voice rasping excitedly. “I own the place. Live upstairs. I never see someone I know from Gabriel’s because this wouldn’t be their cup of tea. Apart from my regulars, only a few tourists come in—and they go right back out most of the time.”
Leigh swallowed. “It’s lovely.”
Sally’s figure wasn’t shown to advantage by a floor-length pleated red robe with butterfly sleeves—and tiny white butterflies stamped all over. The gauzy fabric clung to all sorts of places probably better not clung to.
She let out a great sigh. “I know it’s lovely. But it’s working for Gabriel that lets me keep my home,” she said. “Every amateur theater, children’s play class, May Day Parade, Solstice celebration, fairy gathering, or what have you comes to me for their costumes. Masks and hats are my real love.”
“Do you need me to help you collect your bills?” Leigh said, threading her fingers tightly together. People would take advantage of good hearts. “I’m doing that at Gabriel’s and it’s working already. Some people will put off paying if you let them.”
“No, no, no.” When Sally shook her head, bells jingled in her red feather turban. “Everyone pays but I have to charge according to what I know they can afford and that’s not much when they don’t have much.”
Leigh managed not to groan.
Sally smiled. “I see your expression. You think I’m another pushover. Perhaps I am but for different reasons. I like to encourage imagination to flourish.
“What you’re doing to help Gabriel is wonderful. We all want him to succeed and the fates haven’t been with him. He needed you to organize him and give him some new ideas.”
The compliments brought more pleasure to Leigh than she supposed they should. “I’m having fun,” she said. “I used to design games for a living. Now I feel as if I’m playing games—productive ones—for a living.”
“I’m so glad you’re at Chimney Rock Cove,” Sally said. Without warning, she flung her arms around Leigh and hugged her. “You are special and you’ve come to a special place. It’s where you’re meant to be. Just trust that. No matter what happens, believe it’s supposed to. And all you have to do if you don’t understand something, is ask me. I’ll make you feel better about it. I already know that you have the capacity to be what you need to be and do what you need to do. Above all, do not ever be afraid.”
“Thank you,” Leigh said, feeling wobbly again.
Jazzy yipped and Sally laughed. “Look at that. I heard they liked each other.”
As if his legs had become springs, Jazzy jumped to meet Blue, whose feet thumped across the wooden floor. He sat beside Leigh and looked up at her. If a dog could look pleased with himself, then he did. His golden eyes crinkled up and a great many really large and very white fangs—no, teeth—showed all the way around an impressive jaw.
“Blue,” Sally said. “Well, I’ll be, if it isn’t Blue. What have you done with Niles?”
The miniature cat, who looked slightly cross-eyed, so intense was her concentration on the new arrival, strolled slowly closer to Niles’s dog.
“I reckon someone’s going to be in trouble,” Sally said. “No, I reckon someone’s already in trouble. Who’s a naughty boy? Who’s doing what he’s not supposed to do?”
Frowning, Leigh turned, expecting to see a child.
“It’s Blue I’m talking to,” Sally said. “He shouldn’t be running around on his own so far from—” She blinked fast.
“Niles?” Leigh suggested helpfully. “You’re right. He drove me to Langley and went to do some errands. I bet Blue got away and ran off. Wait till Niles finds out.”
“Leave Blue be,” Sally said, sounding irritated. “Why interfering people can’t mind their own business, I don’t know. You just sit over there, Blue. I’ll decide what to do with you later.”
Chastised—and confused—Leigh cleared her throat. “Signs?” she said. “Did anyone talk to you about a sign for Gabriel’s Place?”
Sally wrinkled her nose. “Maybe they did and maybe they didn’t. If you and I come up with something special it will probably be because we’ve both forgotten what anyone else thinks they want. Take a look at this.”
She moved scissors and brown paper pattern pieces from the top of a table, knelt down and struggled, and puffed, and wriggled a piece of sheet metal from beneath the bottom shelf of the table. It kept coming until Leigh got down to help and they wrestled the plastic-edged sign completely free.
“This will change the feeling people get when they drive near Gabriel’s. It’ll make them smile and they’ll want to stop.”
With one of them at each end, they hoisted it onto the table.
“Wow,” Leigh said. “It’s huge.” It had to be twenty feet long and twelve feet high. “How did you get it in here?”
“I had help,” Sally said airily. “I’ve been expecting a request for this, you know. But I knew it wouldn’t happen until you came. What do you think?”
To analyze every comment Sally made would be a big mistake, but Leigh couldn’t ignore the little references to knowing what she would be doing before she knew herself. Leigh had to step back to try reading oversized three-dimensional letters. The metal board was polished to a sheen but the letters were clear plastic like the rim of the board. She couldn’t make out a word, and didn’t know what to say. “Um,” was all she could manage.
“Silly me,” Sally said. “You can’t see it like that.” She grabbed a plug hanging from a cord on one side and stuck it into a socket strip.
The effect was dizzying. The sign itself appeared more pewter than steel or aluminum, and blood red light ran through the letters in an endless stream that stopped for a few seconds then flashed each time the entire sign was illuminated.
Stop!
Turn In Here For Gabriel’s Place
Eat Drink And Be Merry
For Tomorrow We Die(T)
chapter TEN
NILES LOOKED at his cell for a long minute then slammed it back to his ear. “You do know there’s a woman missing, VanDoren?” Niles said, pacing back and forth near the trees that shielded the doctor’s house from Gulliver Lane.
“Rose,” VanDoren said, still sounding as if he would rather be taking a nap. “I’m aware of that.”
“Look, are you sure I can’t come in? I’d really like to talk to you about this.”
“We are talking about it. I try to save a few hours in every twenty-four for myself.”
Saul VanDoren hadn’t answered his door, even though his medical offices were right there in his house. Niles tried calling him on a whim and the guy had refused to see him.
“Okay.” Damn the man’s attitude. “No progress has been made in finding Rose. The search parties are still going out from the cops in Langley. I only want to know if you’ve heard anything about her, any talk of someone hit by a car… anything.” Niles knew he was grasping at straws. Not one comment had been made about Rose since Sally disappeared with the body the night before.
His hounds had joined the search today, and they had been looking for the woman’s body on their own for days. He could keep the secret of her murder to avoid starting a panic, but he couldn’t allow her body to simply be lost.
“I would have reported anything of the kind to the police,” VanDoren said.
“Did Rose come to you for any reason recently?”
VanDoren didn’t comment.
“You still there?” Niles said.
“Uh huh. And no, she didn’t.”
Niles’s eyes smarted and he blinked. He was sweating along his hairline and the feeling he hated had started in the pit of his stomach. Anger mixing everything up. This still happened sometimes, intense irritation set him on the track back to when he’d lost Gary in that hellhole of a desert. He almost felt as if his dead brother hound were riding on his back.
He took a deep breath. “Okay, Doc. Thanks. By the way, I understand you were real good to Innes when he got hurt. It’s nice for all of us around here to know we have a good man to come to.”
“I’m always here for an emergency,” the other man said, sounding less uninterested.
Niles wanted to ask about the blood sample the doctor had taken from Innes. All Innes had been told was that there was no sign of abnormality, yet it shouldn’t be possible to examine a werehound’s blood and not find something really abnormal. VanDoren’s silence on the subject was almost worse than if he’d asked awkward questions.
“Are we done?”
Niles gritted his teeth and wiped a finger along his brow. “Thanks, Doc.” For nothing. “So long.”
The phone went dead and Niles walked slowly through the trees to the street. VanDoren was a convenient target for the anger but he wasn’t the right one. Niles knew he owned all of his rage.
The sight of his bike lifted his spirits—for an instant. He’d planned to unload on Sean, who could usually say some of the right things.
“Shit,” Niles said. “You goddamn sneaky bastard.”
Sean had taken the opportunity to desert the scene. He wouldn’t show up till he felt like it.
chapter ELEVEN
NILES RODE back through Langley to pick up Leigh and parked in front of the shop where he had left her.
The doorway was as far as he got before stopping to take in the scene inside. One look at Sean, giving one of his inscrutable hound stares, began to wind up Niles’s temper again. There was too much unanswered for him to have patience with his second-in-command’s unpredictable adventures.
A jolt of anger caught him off-guard. He hadn’t actually snapped since the time with Leigh at Gabriel’s and he didn’t want to lose control again. A couple of deep breaths calmed him but cold sweat popped between his shoulder blades.
Sean saw him standing outside and read his thoughts at once. “Back off, friend,” he communicated into Niles’s mind.
“Why the hell did you take off like that?” Niles responded in kind, grateful that the two women were too busy poring over a big board on top of a table to have noticed his arrival.
“I wasn’t comfortable leaving Leigh alone here,” Sean said.
“Did you lose your memory?” Niles asked. “Have you forgotten I’m the one with the longest sight? I could see Leigh here whenever I wanted to.”
“Did you think to take a look?” Sean asked. “Did you see who it is who runs this place? Leigh shouldn’t be here alone when we don’t know what the woman’s angle is.”
The second woman, dressed in a lot of red, half turned toward him but Niles could already recognize Sally. He was furious with himself for not knowing more about this place before leaving Leigh. Finding out when and how to expect the bombshell about Rose to drop had distracted him, and getting distracted was something he couldn’t afford.
“Welcome, Niles,” Sally said, meeting his eyes. “Leigh told me you had brought her. Now, don’t you be angry with Blue. You aren’t as pretty as she is and
he’s obviously smitten with her.”
“Right,” Niles said, forcing a laugh and smiling at Leigh when she turned toward him. “Hi,” he said, warmed in all the right places by her obvious pleasure at the sight of him. She turned a little pink and looked away. And Niles knew they were both thinking of those moments before he had left her outside the shop.
He hadn’t forgotten his carelessness in not making sure everything was okay with Leigh while she was here. “I should have looked,” Niles admitted to Sean.
“Be grateful they’re both still here,” Sean said. “We don’t know for sure this Sally isn’t demonic. If she is, she is too dangerous to take any chances with.”
“Yeah, but she found Leigh for us. And she managed to get her back on the island and working for Gabriel so I have a chance to… get to know her.”
Leigh was staring at him, and frowning. He tried to relax his face.
“You okay?” she said. “I didn’t expect you back so quickly.”
“Couldn’t be better. There’s nothing like a windy blow on my bike to clear the head. I got through with my business faster than I expected. Don’t let me interrupt you and Sally. There’s plenty to amuse me here.”
He could have sworn she was reluctant to return to whatever they were working on.
“We owe this fae woman a favor,” Sean said, inclining his big head. “She hasn’t asked for anything yet, but she will. That’s part of their lore.”
“I don’t need a fae lecture from you,” Niles shot back. “You shouldn’t have left without making sure we both thought it was a good idea.”
“C’mon.” Sean made a snorting sound. “Like you didn’t expect me to take off from that darn sidecar? I can’t wait till I have a chance to make you ride in that thing like an overgrown kid.”
“When Leigh’s finished here I’m going to suggest we go to the beach for Jazzy to get a run.” The little mutt watched him with adoration. “I told her I would. If you want to sit on the steps down to the beach, fine, but I don’t want you dogging us.”
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