“I’m sure you realize this is not a cause for celebration, Mrs. Bennings,” Detective Crowne said.
Dad, talking to Mr. Grouseman, bristled. “Forgive us for making everyone a little more comfortable, Detective. I’ll be sure to call you for the proper social protocol the next time a disaster strikes.”
I did love my parents.
The officer flushed, but he ignored the comment.
Leo and Kevin arrived with their parents a little while later. While Detective Crowne gathered all the adults in the den to explain how he intended for everything to work at Town Hall, I stayed in the kitchen with the boys. Viola was left to watch us. Based on the scowl she sported, babysitting us wasn’t her first job choice. Good. Better to let her fume at them and pay less attention to us.
I turned to the boys, taking them to the far corner of the kitchen under the pretense we were searching the pantry for junk food. I opened the door, blocking my face from Viola’s view.
“Listen, I know where Diana is,” I said.
Leo stared. “Why aren’t you telling your parents?”
This is where it got tricky. I licked my lips. “Because I’m the only one that can hear her. And because he said he’d kill her dad if he felt anyone tampering with his magic.”
Kevin groaned and covered his face with one hand. “You’re nuts. I knew it.”
“Oh, shut up. Someone enchanted a hidden room in the bottom of the tower. It’s behind the cleaning pantry. I talked to Diana earlier, but she doesn’t know who kidnapped her. We have to get her out of there when Detective Crowne leaves with our parents.”
Leo wanted to believe me, I could see it in his eyes. But he frowned. “Caroline, let’s pretend it doesn’t sound totally crazy that you’re the only one who can hear her. Wouldn’t the kidnapper take her with him?”
I shook my head. “Diana says he didn’t plan on it. He’s smart enough to know if he reveals where she’s at, they can just take him out.”
Kevin looked between the two of them and smacked his brother’s arm. “You aren’t really considering this, are you?”
“I found the door to the room outside this afternoon, but I’m not sure how to open it. If it’s just a latch, I can get that. If it’s magical, I need you two.”
Leo smiled and jerked a thumb at his brother. “No. You need Kevin. He specializes in locked doors.”
Kevin crossed his arms and glared at his brother. “Why should I?”
I grabbed his arm. I could hear Viola stirring on the other side of the room. We’d been hiding too long. “You’ll do it because I’m telling the truth. If I’m wrong, you can laugh at me all you want. If not, you’ll be a hero.”
Without giving him time to answer, I shut the cabinet, a package of candy in one hand. As we walked back to the table, Kevin leaned forward and hissed in my ear.
“A hero? Talk about cheesy lines.”
We dumped the bag of chocolate on the table. The boys got up and poured themselves glasses of O negative. I got milk and even remembered to be polite enough to offer something to Viola, though she refused. I glanced at the clock on the microwave. Ten. Only a few more hours left.
I dug a pack of playing cards out of the junk drawer. We only got a few rounds of Spit in before the door to the den opened. We saw the adults filing into the hallway from our position at the table.
Cards abandoned, we moved silently toward them.
Mom wrapped her arms around me, stray willow leaves falling all over my head and shoulders. I didn’t say anything. Dad ruffled my hair and dropped a kiss on my forehead. I wrapped my arms around his waist and squeezed my eyes shut. No crying. I knew better than them that things weren’t as bad as they seemed. I hoped.
The quiet they left behind was eerie. For the first time, I understood why some people thought the house was a little intimidating. Viola pointed toward the den.
“Come on, munchkins. If we’re stuck together, we might as well make the best of it. How about a movie?”
I bristled at the pity in her eyes.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “We’ve got a mission.”
“If this is some sort of weird superhero game, I have to tell you, you’re a little old for it,” she said.
To my surprise, it was Kevin who stepped up and solved the problem. He touched her shoulder and whispered something under his breath. Viola dropped like a stone.
“What the heck was that?” I asked, my heart pounding.
He shrugged. “First, I am not a munchkin. Second, we really don’t have time to waste if you actually do know where Diana is.”
“Is she alive?” I whispered, grabbing one arm. Leo took the other and we dragged her into the living room. As an afterthought, I put a pillow under her head.
“I didn’t kill her, stupid.” Kevin looked genuinely shocked. “I put her to sleep. It won’t last long. I found it by accident in Dad’s library and don’t know the whole spell.”
I was impressed; I could admit it. “How long have we got?”
“Maybe five minutes, give or take.”
We moved to the front of the house, opening the door and slipping outside. Another officer was supposed to be watching out front, but he paced the driveway on his cell. In the darkness, we rounded the corner and I showed the twins where it was.
“Wait a minute,” I said. I knocked softly on the wood. “Diana? Are you there?”
For a few moments, there was nothing. Then I heard a loud rap. I turned, grinning, to find the boys watching me like I had grown another leg.
“What are you doing?” Kevin asked.
“You didn’t hear it?”
Leo shook his head.
“Whatever. She’s in there. We’ve got to get the door open,” I told them, moving around to the bushes.
Kevin already bent close to the door, running his hands over the crack and mumbling. “I don’t feel any spells. There’s lots of magic. But nothing locking the door.”
It wasn’t that easy, was it? I moved forward, pressing my palm to the dirty spot and pushing. I expected a keyhole to open, a knob to come out, sparks to fly–something. Instead, the door clicked and popped open.
“Holy cow. You weren’t kidding,” Kevin said.
Leo stepped around me, leading the way. I followed behind him. He pulled out a tiny metal flashlight from his pocket. I opened my mouth and he chuckled. “I came prepared. You didn’t think we were just going to sit in the house, did you?”
Kevin moved to come with us into the darkness and I pushed against his chest. “You stay here. If we get caught inside, you have to get help.” If they believed him. I didn’t voice the last thought.
He wasn’t happy about it, but he didn’t argue.
The room was tiny, filled with a thin army cot, a nightstand, and a warped shelf with several cans of tuna. Several more were empty and neatly stacked in a paper bag. Another door was closed at the back, and we took two steps, turning the key that stuck out from the lock and opening the door.
Diana sat on a wooden chair, blindfolded, her hands loosely tied together in the center. Her body tensed and I rushed past Leo, shouting her name.
“Caroline?” Her breath blew past my ear, her voice thick with tears. “Thank God. I wasn’t sure anyone was going to find me.”
I slid her blindfold off, and then squeezed her in a hug. Tears slipped from the corners of her eyes, and she sniffled. I pulled away and started working at the knots on her hands.
Leo looked like he might cry too. “Glad you’re okay, Diana. Really glad.”
Her eyes went wide. “You didn’t use magic, right? My dad—”
“He’s fine,” I said. “We didn’t have to use any magic. The outside door wasn’t even locked.”
Her shoulders slumped. “Thank you. I don’t know what I would have done if something happened to him.”
The knots came away easily under my fingertips. Whoever put her here wasn’t aiming to hurt her.
That, at least, made me feel a little better. If it was Edmund, and I couldn’t see who else it would be, I was related to him. If I had to be related to a criminal, at least it wouldn’t be a cruel one.
“Are you okay?” I asked, offering her a hand and helping her to her feet.
“I would kill for a real bathroom and something other than tuna right now.” She could only muster a half smile to match her attempt at humor. “But I’m okay. He didn’t hurt me. Just scared me. A lot.”
“You’re going to have to wait on that meal. We have to get to Town Hall and put a stop to this. Something bad is about to happen”
Diana stretched. “Okay,” she said, wiping at her face. “We can do this.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Getting close to Town Hall wasn’t an issue. Getting inside, on the other hand, looked like it would be impossible. At every entrance a police officer lounged against the doorframe. We crouched behind the corner of the library, watching.
“Now what?” I asked. “Anyone else got any ideas? I’m out.”
Diana shifted, her eyes searching the streets around us. It was hard to make out much in the dim streetlights. I knew she was still nervous after everything that happened. So was I. “The guy who kidnapped me mentioned an underground entrance. Which makes sense, considering it was built by a bunch of supernatural beings in a time when they weren’t supposed to exist. It was supposed to be a hiding spot, but it was tunneled out later.”
She turned and moved to the back of the library, into dense shrubs.
“Why would he tell you all that?” Leo asked. “It doesn’t make sense.”
Diana didn’t look at him, taking his flashlight instead, running the beam over the ground. “Because I cried a lot and acted pitiful and begged him not to kill me.” She paused. “It wasn’t much of an act, really. In any case, he told me his plans to make me more comfortable. I think he needed to talk it out and get it straight in his head.”
“Diana, you’re my hero,” I said.
She stopped and pretended to flex a muscle, flashing a strained smile. “I know.” Taking a few more steps, the beam of light revealed a round iron grate that had been moved to the side. A set of rough stone steps, mossy and damp, marched down into the darkness. “Ah. This is it.”
“You guys do this often?” Kevin asked.
“Only on the slow days,” I replied.
I thought I heard a choked snort, but he might have just coughed.
We filed into the hole, Leo in the lead with the flashlight, hands fisted in each other’s shirts like some kind of weird caterpillar. My free hand grazed the wall and I yelped, the feeling of squishy earth and something that crawled made me shiver. Kevin was behind me and laughed. “You storm into the lair of a kidnapper without a qualm and scream at a little slime?”
“It wasn’t a scream. More like a squeak.”
“Whatever.”
Diana shushed us from behind me, her hands twisting into the back of my shirt.
I’m not sure how long we were really in there, but it felt like forever. Sweat beaded on my upper lip as we shuffled through, and I tried not to feel like we were being buried alive. Tight spaces had never bothered me before, but I wasn’t prepared for this. Or the horrible images my mind kept conjuring of what lay in wait at the other end.
What we got wasn’t quite what we expected.
We emerged in a tiny, dim room at the back of the building. I had no idea where to go, but Leo seemed to know where we were. I straightened, muffling a groan.
“Come on. There’s a back entrance to the main foyer, which is where they’re supposed to meet.”
Diana stopped him, brushing dirt from her hair. “How do you know all this?”
He huffed. “You two aren’t the only ones with brains, you know.”
Kevin snickered.
“My parents were talking about it in the car on the way over. And Dad works upstairs. We used to play Hide-and-Seek in here before he got Mrs. Henderson for a secretary. The woman’s a menace.”
He looked around and switched off the flashlight, sliding it into his pocket. “Are we ready?”
“As we’ll ever be,” I said.
We followed him out into the hallway, being careful to take small steps. The echo of voices bounced around us, but it was hard to hear what was being said. Whatever it was, it wasn’t happy.
A few turns later and Leo stopped us, pressing a finger to his lips and leaning in. His voice was barely a whisper. “This part is all you, Caroline. Once we turn this corner, we’ll be in the room. If we crawl, we should be behind a set of bookcases, but they only go about four feet into the room. We’ll follow your lead.”
I waited for Kevin to make a smart comment, but he just nodded with Diana. My stomach clenched and I resisted the urge to turn tail and run. Sucking in a huge breath, I dropped to all fours and crawled into the bright light of the foyer. I stopped just before the end of the short shelves and sat, my back against the rows of books.
An unfamiliar voice spoke. We’d entered the middle of the conversation.
“This is a ridiculous line of inquiry, Detective. I didn’t come here to answer questions, but to have them answered. So far, no one has given me anything worthwhile. And if you refuse me, there is a price.”
A man’s voice, scratchy and hoarse cursed and made a strangled noise. There was a strange shuffling noise, and mumbles that sounded like Detective Crowne. I glanced at Diana and she pointed to herself. Her lips formed the words, “My dad.” Tears glittered in her eyes.
“You aren’t listening to me.” It was Mr. Grouseman this time. His voice sounded thick and sharp. Almost like the words were torn from his throat. “I couldn’t have done what you say.”
“That’s yet to be seen. Someone had to do it, and you had the most opportunity. I can forgive you your nature, William, especially after spending the last few centuries as a beast myself, but I cannot forgive you for murder.”
“Be reasonable, Edmund,” Mrs. Sanderston’s velvet voice smoothed over the room. The tones were so soft, I thought if I held out my hand I would feel them brush past. “This affects your own descendants now, you know. The girl you’ve taken is your great-niece’s best friend. How do you think she will feel about all this?’
I held my breath. It was Edmund. I hoped, for everyone, he gave in to her persuading. My heart fell when he spoke again.
“You’re tricks don’t work on me, Genevieve. And I am sorry, but I think it’s time I carry through on my threat.”
I heard a step come toward us and I stood, grabbing the shelf for support. Edmund, with the same dark hair and broad shoulders as my dad. There was no denying he was part of my family. But I’m not sure who was more shocked. He stood there, his jaw hanging open and staring.
One hand reached out and he breathed Elspeth’s name. “You look so much like her, I thought you were her, sent to torment me.”
“I think–” My mouth didn’t want to form the words, so I had to clear my throat and try again. “I think I can explain this. To everyone.”
A vein throbbed in Detective Crowne’s forehead. Angry didn’t even begin to describe his expression. “Child, I don’t know how you got in here, but you have no business here. Leave.”
I crossed my arms. “No.”
Surprise and something else flickered through Edmund’s eyes. He was close enough that if he wanted to grab me as a hostage, he would have already done it. I nodded to him. “You want to know what happened to Elspeth, right?”
He stiffened, shaking his head. “I already know what happened. I only want justice for it now.”
I shook my head. “You think you know what happened. But I think you’re wrong. Elspeth isn’t dead.”
You could have heard a pin drop.
Edmund’s voice was rough. “This won’t save your friend, my dear.”
I looked down and nodded at the others. “I’m not worried about that.”
Diana stood with Leo and Kevin and pandemonium broke out. Diana’s father, already restrained by my dad, threw him aside like he weighed nothing. I’m pretty sure his feet didn’t hit the floor. He swept Diana into his arms, his hands stroking her hair and tears, pink with blood, traveled down his face.
Edmund didn’t move when Detective Crowne grabbed his arm. He just turned to me and extended one hand. “If you found her, then maybe you do know what happened to my sister.” He looked at the detective. “Please, I’m not running away. I just have to find out.”
I think Crowne would have refused, but Mr. Grouseman took possession of Edmund’s arms, grabbing them in one of his huge hands. “I’ll see that he doesn’t get away, Crowne. Let’s see what Caroline found out.”
The detective sputtered. He was all set to refuse, but Mr. Sanderston moved forward. “Crowne, get in the car. So far, she’s done more than any of your men. Although, I look forward to find out just how they got away from Viola.” His intense gaze honed in on Kevin, who gulped and looked away. “I’m sure it will be quite interesting.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Our little procession returned to my house quickly and efficiently. The only one who didn’t seem to want to go was Ms. Widdershins. I noticed several times that she hung back, only to be pulled forward by my mom or one of the officers. More than once her eyes turned to me, and the coldness I saw there made me shiver.
We all gathered in front of the birch, as I asked, and Detective Crowne staked up to me, every muscle in his body tense. “We are all ears, Miss Bennings.”
I’m pretty sure it hurt to get those words out. I moved next to the trunk, and even before I touched the surface, I could feel warmth rolling off it. When my fingertips touched her, the heartbeat was clear as day.
“Are you Elspeth Bennings?” I asked.
The branches jerked violently.
Edmund’s face made me want to cry. He looked torn between misery and anger. “All this proves is that you can train a tree. You’re a Bennings. That isn’t a difficult thing for a dryad.”
I stomped my foot. “I’m not a dryad. I’m not magical at all. Why can’t anyone get that through their thick heads?”
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