“That I did not,” he said. “Where, then?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
His face was neutral. “I heard the same thing everyone did, I imagine. It was an overdose at the Chateau. If that’s not the case, it’s news to me.”
Then he twitched and reached for his pocket to pull out a phone. He checked a message, and his face tightened. He glanced to Barrie.
“Could I just sit you down for about ten minutes? I have a drummer passed out up there and...”
“Oh, no,” Barrie said in outraged sympathy. Artists. Universal flakes. “Don’t worry about me. Go. Good luck.”
He escorted her out of the office and back into the main room where he found her a barstool. He nodded to the bartender, who had the shaggy-around-the-edges look of a were, and indicated Barrie’s drinks were on him.
He started off, then turned back to her and stepped close to her so she would hear him but no one else could. “Barrie...be careful on this one. It’s dangerous territory you’re treading into. A whole studio lot full of skeletons that a lot of people won’t want unburied.”
Even with the raucous, jostling crowd around her, Barrie felt a shiver. “I’ll be careful,” she promised him. But as a Keeper he knew as well as anyone what the job was—which was whatever it had to be.
As the bartender turned toward her, she shouted over the music for a vodka tonic, then sat on the stool watching the dancers and brooding over what Declan had said.
The band finished its set to cheers, and recorded music came up over the speakers for the break. It was a classic funk tune Barrie loved, and she found herself looking around the room for potential partners.
And even as she thought it, she saw the Elven who’d noticed her as she came in heading purposefully toward her.
He stopped in front of her, towering and blond, and smiled. “Want to?” he asked, not quite shouting over the din.
Normally she would have been up on her feet in a second, especially for such a danceable song, but something about the Elven, his intensity, made her hesitate. Then she put her hand in his, and he led her out onto the floor.
He was a surprisingly fabulous dancer. Not many Elven really were; it was hard to compress all that height into the economy of movement that’s such a pillar of good partner dancing. Barrie had always considered herself lucky that shifters were in general the best dancers of the Others; their natural talent at mimicry extended to physical movement. But this Elven was doing fine, more than fine, and she found herself relaxing into his expert lead. He was comfortable enough with himself to play around with the song, and she found herself laughing as she alternately followed and challenged him.
And then their eyes locked.
They were looking deep into each other’s eyes, and try as she might Barrie couldn’t look away. She felt fire through her whole body, and an almost paralyzing desire—not just desire but a longing so powerful she couldn’t breathe....
Then she realized something was wrong.
The Elven was looking straight into her eyes and she wasn’t reading his thoughts.
And then she understood. The being in front of her wasn’t Elven at all.
She stopped still on the dance floor, jostled from all sides by the crowd, and forced the words out. “What are you playing at, shifter?”
She saw the jolt in his eyes, and before he could flee, she grabbed his wrist and held on.
She was unnerved by the strength of the shift; she had to focus her whole being on keeping hold of him until he began to shimmer....
And then Barrie jolted back in shock as the Elven resolved himself...
...into Mick Townsend.
For a moment she was more stunned than angry. First that Mick was a shifter at all, and second—she’d never seen a shifter duplicate an Elven, or any other Other, so well. But the anger came soon enough—anger at herself for not having seen it, anger at him for being so good at it. Not only had she not picked up that the Elven was a shifter, much less Mick, she’d never picked up that Mick was a shifter at all. It was an appalling failure on her part. She felt shame, humiliation and white-hot rage.
She turned and pushed her way off the dance floor. He followed her. “Gryffald, wait!”
Barrie darted through the dancers, but he was fast. He caught up with her at the door to the back hall and grabbed her arm, and she spun to face him in a fury. “Wait for what? So you can shift into a were or a leprechaun and trick me all over again?”
“I wasn’t trying to trick you.”
“What were you trying to do, then?”
“At the moment I was trying to dance with you.”
That silenced her, at least momentarily. The dance had been really good, she had to admit. Which she didn’t want to think about. She wanted to stay mad and storm off.
But there was one thing she needed to know, and that kept her there out of pure professional curiosity.
“How do you do it?” she asked grudgingly.
He seemed startled at the question, but he knew what she meant because he grinned. “Years and years of practice.”
She felt another flare of resentment. “Well, now you have proof of how good you are. You fooled a shifter Keeper.”
“I fool everyone,” he said. “Is that why you’re mad?” He suddenly grabbed her hand and pulled her into the back hall and out the exit door.
The quiet of the alley was deafening after the din of the club; Barrie was disoriented. Mick held her wrist, a maddeningly erotic touch, and forced her to face him. “Barrie, almost no one ever knows I’m a shifter.”
It was probably the first time he’d ever said her first name, and she had to admit that it gave her a little thrill. But that disappeared as she registered what he’d said after her name.
“You’re passing?” she asked in sheer disbelief. Of course, all Others were passing as far as humans were concerned, but she rarely came across an Other who was trying to pass as human to other Others. It was startling, it was unnerving, it seemed... Shifty was what it was.
“Most of the time,” he admitted. “I don’t usually reveal myself to anyone at all,” he added.
That struck her as odd, in a strangely thrilling way. “Then...why me?” she managed.
“I wanted you to know,” he told her, and a thick silence fell between them.
Barrie found it unnerving and had to move away from him to look out at the cars cruising by on Sunset at the end of the alley. He moved up behind her, but thankfully not as close as he had been.
“I thought it would make it easier for you to agree to team up with me if you knew I was an Other.”
She glanced at him. She didn’t want to admit it, but of course he was right on the money; she had virtually decided against doing any kind of work with him at all because it would be so hard not to break the Code.
“I do feel like an idiot for not seeing it,” she said.
He suddenly grinned at her. “Hey, I’ve been doing it for so long even I forget I can shift sometimes.”
In spite of herself, she laughed. She was still mad at him, but too curious to walk away. She looked at him quizzically. “But I don’t understand. Why? Why would you want to hide it?”
It was his turn to step away, his face darkening even in the shadows of the alley. “You’re a shifter Keeper. I don’t have to tell you about the excesses of my kind. Being a shifter makes it easy to fool people. It makes you think you’re powerful when really you’re just conning people, taking advantage of their trust.”
Barrie knew too well what he meant. Shifters were very much like actors: born chameleons and tricksters. It was their very nature to be inconstant.
Mick continued, and his voice had an edge; he sounded haunted.
“There have been things I’ve done that I’m not proud of. When I quit—some of the other stuff, I realized if I were really going to start over, I had to...not shift. I wanted to experience my life as just one person. So, I set out learning how to do that, to j
ust be myself.” He smiled ruefully. “Hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
Barrie was moved by that; it took a lot of guts and commitment not to abuse the power that shifting offered. It was a brave thing to do...and a lonely one, too. She felt herself melting, and that was the last thing she wanted to do.
“Well, you haven’t lost the talent. That was a pretty damn good imitation of an Elven,” she said grudgingly.
He smiled slightly. “What gave me away?”
“Looking at me the way you did,” she answered automatically, and then blushed, suddenly remembering their moment on the dance floor, remembering how very thoroughly he had looked at her, how his look had stopped her dead with a feeling of desire so strong it had taken her breath away. It did it again now.
“I couldn’t read your thoughts,” she managed to say. “That’s how I knew.”
“You couldn’t read my thoughts?”
Barrie couldn’t speak. The truth was, she had been able to read his thoughts at that moment—all too well. Just not in an Elven way.
Mick looked down at her as if he knew exactly what she was thinking, Elven or not, and his voice was suddenly husky. “I’m glad that much came through, anyway.”
She moved away from him, trying to keep her head. “You have been following me, haven’t you?”
“Well, maybe a little.”
“A little? How do you follow someone a little?”
“Barrie,” he said, and again she felt that thrill at the sound of his voice speaking her name. “I’ve been up front with you, haven’t I? I’ve said that I want to work together, that I think we should team up.”
“Why are you so keen to work together?”
He looked at her steadily. “Because no one cares as much as you do about that kid who died. And no one will work harder to do right by him.”
She felt a little shaky, as if somehow he’d looked directly into her heart, and she had to turn away. “How do you know that?”
“I’m a shifter, aren’t I? Even if I’m not living as one, I keep my hand in. You’re the newest shifter Keeper. I watch these things.”
She nodded distractedly; it made sense.
“And knowing you a little now...” He touched her face briefly, but the touch shivered through her. “I’d have to be blind or an idiot not to see that you care.”
All kinds of unwanted feelings were welling up inside her, and she found herself dangerously close to tears. She stepped back from him abruptly to break the connection.
“So, if we were going to work together,” she said, making sure not to indicate any kind of commitment or anything, “where were you thinking of starting?”
“Johnny Love,” he said instantly.
“What about him?” she asked, maybe a little too quickly herself.
“He’s the center of all of this.” He paced in the alley, as if unable to contain his urgency. “There’s a fifteen-year-old mystery about his death.... A talented young shifter is killed while playing Johnny for the sexual pleasure of the producer of the original movie who is planning to remake that movie. And both the shifter and the producer are killed with the same exotic drug cocktail that killed Johnny.... It’s the obvious center of the investigation.” He stopped his manic circling and turned to face her. “If we want to know what’s happening now, we have to start with the past. So, we have to find out what really happened to Johnny Love.”
Barrie felt a different kind of thrill now, because of course it was exactly what she had been thinking.
“And how would you want to proceed on that?” she asked coolly.
“Johnny didn’t die in L.A.”
Barrie felt dazed with shock. He knows. How does he know? Aloud she blustered, “And I suppose you know where he did die.”
“Catalina,” Mick said with absolute certainty, and Barrie stared at him, stupefied. He’d already tracked down the real place of death. Catalina was an island just off the coast, a resort oasis and the setting of the final scenes of Otherworld. Even as he said it, it had the ring of truth. She tried to focus through her excitement and gather the facts.
“How...how do you know that?”
“Sources,” Mick said. “And I think we should go out there and find out what really happened to him. Now. Tonight.”
Barrie knew she had no choice but to go with him if she wanted to be in on this case.
“All right,” she said, forgetting all about waiting to talk to Declan. “Let’s go.”
* * *
The car the valet brought was a stunning silver Bentley, so polished and shining Barrie could see her own reflection in the hood, an unbelievably classy classic car. And way too nice for a reporter’s car.
As the valet ran to open the passenger door for her, she was roiling with envy and suspicion and desire.
Who is this guy?
As she dropped into the passenger seat, she had a momentary flash that she was doing exactly what she’d just promised Declan she wouldn’t do.
Oh, come on, he’s a coworker, she told herself. Even so, as Mick stood outside the car and tipped the valet, she took out her phone and texted both her cousins using code to let them know where she would be.
Mick went back to the trunk before getting into the car, and when he dropped behind the wheel he was carrying a coat, which he handed to her. “Not that I want you to cover those legs for any reason, but you’ll need this out on the water,” he said, and she blushed, pleased with the compliment and surprised at his thoughtfulness.
The coast road was gorgeous under an almost full moon as they drove down PCH, the Pacific Coast Highway, toward Marina del Rey where the ferry to Catalina docked.
Catalina was a small island off the coast, home of the town of Avalon, created as a resort in the 1920s. Barrie thought back to the last scene of Otherworld; Catalina had stood in for the fictional island depicted as the heart of the Otherworld kingdom. That part of the story was totally make-believe. There were certainly Others on Catalina, but not a large population, and they tended to be reclusive, mostly weres who wanted the wide-open spaces the island offered or who had a taste for bison, which roamed there in herds. Elven hated Catalina because of the water. Elven had a pathological dread of water; it was often lethal to them—a fact the movie never went into.
Barrie felt a stir of significance at that last thought, but before she could pursue it, Mick spoke, looking out the windshield at the almost-full moon.
“Weres will be out on the prowl any minute,” he joked, and she laughed and realized how comfortable it was to be with someone who just knew, who she didn’t have to hide things from or struggle to keep the Code.
Her romantic history wasn’t exactly a disaster, but she’d never been in love, real love, either, and it had started to feel like she was missing out on a rather large and essential part of life.
She wasn’t like some Keepers who thought intermarriage between mortals and Keepers, or marriage between species, should be banned. That attitude smacked of miscegenation, and there were always couples—not many, but some—who could make it work. It just seemed to her a sensible policy to keep a professional distance from the species she was entrusted to protect.
But it was hard living between two worlds. It was hard to date Others because she knew their foibles too well, and they were, after all, a whole different species. And it was hard to date mortals because she couldn’t talk about her life’s work without breaking the Code. If she were ever to find that...One, then she would of course tell him everything about who she was and what she did, without reservation. The trouble was, she hadn’t found him yet. Or he hadn’t found her. And she was getting a little tired of waiting.
She envied her cousins, who seemed to have found their soul mates so easily. Rhiannon and Sailor hadn’t even been back in town for six months before they’d run straight into the loves of their lives: Rhiannon wasn’t having any trouble at all making it work with an Elven, and Sailor’s fiancé, Declan, was a Keeper himself, as well as entrenc
hed in the entertainment business, a perfect match.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Mick said beside her, and Barrie jumped...then reddened. She couldn’t very well tell him.
“Oh, I was just...wondering why Johnny was out on Catalina after the movie was wrapped.” And then she realized what had been bothering her about it. “He was Elven. They hate water. Of course he’d tolerate it for the movie, actors do whatever it takes. But why would he ever voluntarily be on the island after they’d wrapped?”
Mick’s face tightened, but he didn’t answer; they’d arrived at the ferry dock, and the dark water of the Pacific spread out before them like a velvety carpet. “We’ll have to hustle to make that last boat.” He veered into a parking space and parked.
* * *
The boat to the island was a high-speed catamaran, and the trip was about an hour over the water. And of course in the grand old resort tradition, the party got started on the boat.
Barrie hadn’t been out to Avalon in a long time, and she’d forgotten how luxe the night ferry was. The music was classic forties jazz, and the bar was cozy, with big wide couches and club chairs to sink into, and a sweeping Art Deco bar. Mick ordered perfect icy martinis and they found a booth against the wide windows looking out on the moonlit sea, a stunning view of dark ocean and receding city lights.
It was so romantic, in fact, that she had a sudden suspicion that he was just getting her out on the boat—and out to the island—to seduce her. She was immediately mortified for thinking it...and more...for wanting it.
She refocused herself on business. “Why do you think Johnny was out on the island?” she asked again.
Mick was lounging very enticingly against the booth and looking at her in a most distracting way.
“Maybe he liked the area. Or maybe he’d gotten to know someone out there.”
“A lover, you mean. Was he gay?” she asked abruptly. There had been all kinds of stories of Johnny and various starlets, but in Hollywood being seen in female company was hardly proof of sexual preference. “I mean, I always wondered. The three of them, the Pack, were so close.”
Now Mick glanced away. “I’m not sure who’d be able to answer that. I’m not sure Johnny knew himself. He was sixteen. That age, you’re still finding yourself, and it’s not easy when you can have whatever and whoever you want, anytime you want it. And of course when drugs are involved, the boundaries are even less clear.” He stared out the window at the ocean sparkling under the moon. “He may never have had a chance to really know.”
Keeper of the Shadows (The Keepers: L.A.) Page 8