Connor took out his phone and made a brief call, saying we’d be there in about five more minutes. “She’s expecting us.”
Of course she was. I wondered what she might have to say about Connor’s and my latest display of power. “Are we going to tell her?”
“Tell her what?”
“About Indio.”
For a few seconds he didn’t say anything, only kept his gaze fixed on the street, eyes hidden behind his sunglasses. “Should we?”
“I think — I think yeah, we should. Maybe she’ll have some insights.”
“Or maybe it’s better that she not know the extent of our powers.”
“Now you sound like a Wilcox,” I said, annoyed.
The barb hit home, I could tell. His gaze flickered toward me briefly before returning to the road. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just that you tend to be a little paranoid. I meant that as the general ‘you,’” I added, when I saw his lips begin to compress. “Maya de la Paz has been nothing but helpful, and you know it. She has her own kingdom down here, so to speak. She certainly doesn’t have any designs on McAllister or Wilcox territory. So why not take advantage of her age and experience and see if she has any advice to offer?”
At those words, his expression relaxed somewhat. After a brief pause, he replied, “You’re right, of course. Sorry. All those years with Damon….” He let the words die away, but I thought I knew what he meant. Growing up with Damon Wilcox as your older brother would make even the saintliest person suspicious of everyone’s motives.
I nodded but didn’t say anything else. Just as well, because we pulled over then, coming to a stop in front of a sprawling Santa Fe–style adobe house with stately saguaro cacti planted in the front yard, along with several varieties of lower, more sprawling succulents blooming in vivid hues of yellow and hot pink. I undid my seatbelt and got out, glad of the chance to stretch my legs at last.
The heat hit me like a wall, though, feeling almost like a physical weight on my chest. True, I’d been to the Phoenix area several times before, but those McAllister expeditions always happened sometime between November and March, either after the endless scorching summer or before it had a chance to begin. Not that we didn’t get hot in Jerome in the summer, but not like this.
Connor seemed singularly unaffected by the heat, though, moving smoothly around the rear of the SUV to join me on the sidewalk.
“How come you’re not even breaking a sweat, Flagstaff boy?” I asked as we headed up the front walk.
“I lived down here for four years, remember? I’m used to it.” He paused and amended, “Well, used to be used to it. I’ll admit that I don’t miss the heat too much, now that I’m back in Flag, but I can live with it.”
I didn’t know why anyone would want to, but I just shrugged, reaching out to push the doorbell. About a minute later, a tall young man around Connor’s age appeared at the door.
“Come on in,” he said. “She’s expecting you.”
The enormous door of carefully aged wood, banded in black iron, didn’t open onto an entryway as I’d expected, but rather a large courtyard laid with red sandstone flags. A fountain splashed into the hot, still air, and vivid flowers bloomed from hanging containers of brightly painted Mexican pottery.
We followed the young man — who I thought I recognized as one of the “bodyguards” Maya had brought with her to Connor’s gallery opening in Sedona — through the courtyard and on through a second, equally enormous door into a high-ceilinged foyer. In here the air was cool and friendly, obviously the product of a very hard-working air-conditioning system. From the entry, we went into a large living room decorated with heavy hacienda-style furniture. Faded Persian rugs covered the red-tiled floor.
Maya rose from one of the leather couches and came toward us, hands outstretched. “Connor, Angela, so good to see you…together.”
From her emphasis on the last word, I gathered that she’d known about our separation. Who exactly had been her informant, I didn’t know, although I had a feeling it was probably someone in the McAllister camp and not the Wilcox clan. “Thank you for letting us stop by,” I said, not wanting to jump right into Connor’s and my relationship status.
“It’s no problem, and not too much out of the way for you, I hope.”
“No, not at all,” Connor said. “We’ll just get on the 101 Loop and head home from here.”
“Ah,” she replied, dark eyes twinkling. “And where exactly is home for you two?”
Trust Maya de la Paz to get right to the heart of the matter. But I wasn’t going to let her distract me from the true reason for our visit. “Jerome, Flagstaff,” I said shortly. “You know. Actually, though, Maya, I wanted to ask you something.”
“And it must be important, or you could’ve simply asked on the phone, rather than driving all the way here. Ah, here are the refreshments,” she put in, smiling as the young man returned with a silver tray laden with a pitcher of lemonade and three heavy hand-blown glasses, rims tinted cobalt blue. “I thought you might be thirsty after your long drive.”
“Thanks, Maya,” Connor said, reaching out for one of the glasses and handing it to me, then taking one for himself.
“It’s nothing. I’d invite you to stay for supper as well, but I can tell from the look in Angela’s eye that she’s on a mission, and will want to be on the road once your business here is finished.” Her dark gaze sharpened, even as she took a sip of her lemonade. Setting the glass down on a sandstone coaster, she asked, “And did you find what you were looking for in California?”
“Sort of,” I hedged. Yes, I’d lectured Connor about being truthful and not hiding things, but now, with Maya’s shrewd eyes studying my face, I wondered how much I should really tell her. After all, this was Wilcox and McAllister business. The de la Paz clan really had no stake in this game. Then again, we probably wouldn’t have even been able to go to California if Maya hadn’t put in a word for us with the Santiago family there. Beside me, I could feel Connor shift, hear the leather squeak faintly under his weight, and I could tell he was waiting, too, wondering how much I planned to reveal.
Well, nothing for it. The story would get out sooner or later.
“I found out my father is a Wilcox,” I said boldly.
That did seem to surprise her; she blinked, and the strong black brows — unmarked by gray — lifted slightly before she replied, “Indeed? Well, that does put a different…perspective…on things.”
“Just a little,” I remarked, my tone wry. “And I was thinking — well, hoping, I guess — that you might know what happened to him.”
“Why on earth would I know that?”
She’d replied coolly, with only a hint of question in her voice, and so it was difficult for me to gauge whether she really didn’t know anything or whether she was stalling me for some reason. “Well, Connor told me on the drive that a while back you’d taken in some refugee witches and warlocks from California, and so I thought maybe….” I let the words trail off as she continued to stare at me blankly. Then her mouth, still full and pretty, twitched a little.
“Oh, my dear, that was only a few years ago.”
“I know, but — ”
“That was the first time I allowed anything like that,” she cut in, the interruption so gentle that I couldn’t really be upset by it. “And — no offense to you, Connor — while I did allow Connor to have a residence here for a few years while he was going to school, there is no way I would allow a Wilcox to live in my territory permanently.”
“Maybe you wouldn’t have even known he was a Wilcox,” I said, desperation beginning to seep into my voice. “He was using the last name of Williams at the time. Andre Williams.”
She shook her head. “My dear, I would have known he was a Wilcox at once. I’ve been prima of this clan for more than thirty years. There isn’t much that gets past me.”
No, I supposed there wasn’t.
Connor laid a hand on mine. Just
that gentle pressure made me feel a little better, even though it couldn’t erase all my frustration. “And would you know if a Wilcox passed through your territory, even if he didn’t stop and ask to stay?” he inquired.
“Of course. I could sense when you were here in the valley, although your presence was not at all disruptive. It was more like…a small blip on a radar screen, I suppose. And much stronger when your brother came here last November.” She paused then, a small frown tugging at her brows. “Now that I think of it, there might have been something, many, many years ago.”
“Long enough ago that I would have still been a baby?” I asked eagerly. If Maya had sensed my father moving through her territory, at least it would tell me that he had come back to Arizona after leaving California.
“It might have been around then.” Another hesitation, one she attempted to mask by picking up her lemonade and drinking some more of it. Then she went on, “I reached out to some of my clan members, our defenders, to investigate, but whoever it was, they were gone from our territory before we could catch up with them. And since pursuing someone beyond the borders of our clan lands is not something we would ever do, we let the matter go.”
Maybe it had been Andre — my father — driving through Phoenix and its bordering communities as quickly as he could, knowing he didn’t have a lot of time before the de la Paz contingent figured out he was there. A speeding ticket would probably be preferable to getting caught by a group of hostile witches and warlocks. In my mind I saw him racketing down the highway in a beat-up Jeep, black hair blowing in the wind. Silly, I supposed; that Jeep of his could have been brand new back then, and of course I had no idea whether he cut his hair short or wore it long.
“Heading north?” I asked.
“I don’t recall. Probably.” She set down her tea and made an odd little wave with her hand — a gesture of frustration, maybe. “At the time I was just glad that I did not have to force a confrontation. Your brother, Connor, was difficult enough to deal with, but your father…no.”
Of course. This had been so long ago that Jackson Wilcox would have still been in charge of that clan. Damon would have only been a kid in junior high.
But I didn’t like to think about that, because pondering Damon’s past only made me realize he’d been a boy once, full of his own hopes and dreams for the future, before the dark fate hanging over his clan had twisted him into the man he became. A man who should have been in the prime of his life, and was now dead.
Something very like the first beginnings of tears seemed to tighten my throat, and I swallowed. I couldn’t possibly be weeping over Damon Wilcox, could I? I could blame my emotions on pregnancy hormones, but I thought there was more to it than that.
Maybe I was just worried about what would happen to Connor if he lost me to the curse. Would he pick up his life and move on, focus on raising his child, or would he succumb to the same black plotting that had taken over Damon’s life?
Connor seemed to sense something of my roiling emotions, because his fingers slipped around mine, intertwining, bringing with them that sense of warm strength I always got from him. “Are you all right?” he murmured.
Managing a nod, I raised my chin and tried to meet Maya’s gaze. “Well, I knew it was a long shot. I just figured I would ask.”
Somewhat to my surprise, she reached out and gave me a sympathetic pat on the knee. “I can only imagine how difficult it must have been for you to never know your own mother. And then to learn something of your father, but not know where he is, or what happened to him?” Her gaze sharpened, and I knew she must have seen something of the beginnings of those earlier tears in my eyes, although I had a feeling she couldn’t begin to understand their true cause. “I would be more surprised if you hadn’t asked. But truly, I know nothing else beyond what I’ve told you.”
I nodded, then said, “And there’s something else….”
“I had a feeling there might be.”
Now it was my turn to hesitate, and once again I felt Connor squeeze my hand gently, telling me it was all right to go ahead and relate the story of what happened in Indio.
So I did, speaking quickly, just giving the straight facts of what had transpired, not embellishing anything. When I was done, Maya sat quietly for a long moment, clearly weighing what she intended to say next.
“There are many bad elements over there now,” she said at last, her tone heavy with worry. “Some are good people, of course, merely displaced and looking for somewhere to call their own. This is why I took in those whom Connor mentioned to you. But there are many troublemakers, and I fear Simón Santiago is not quite as in control of things as he believes. There is little I can do, though, save protect my own. And this other thing….”
“Have you heard of anything like that?” Connor asked, clearly hoping that Maya, with her far greater experience of the witching world, might be able to offer some insight, some advice.
“No.” She lifted her shoulders, and although I knew she was not a young woman, had to be in her early sixties at least, this was the first time she looked old to me, old and tired, as if for the first time in a very long while she had been confronted by something she didn’t understand. “You realize that what you have now — the joining of a primus and a prima — this has never happened before, at least in no history that I have ever read, or had told to me by she who was prima before me. So it is not so surprising that you would be exploring new strengths, new powers, that no one else has yet seen.”
“But what are we supposed to do with them?” I asked.
Another shrug, not of indifference, but of uncertainty. “That, I suppose, is up to you.”
8
Double Jeopardy
We drove out of Phoenix with the lowering sun blazing strong and hot orange, casting long shadows from the saguaro and ocotillo cacti on the side of the road. After we left Maya’s house, neither Connor nor I said anything, only got in the Cherokee and headed back to the freeway. My thoughts kept darting this way and that, and as the suburbs of the various valley communities flashed by, I couldn’t help wondering if my father had taken this same route so many years ago. Where had he been heading? Where had he gone?
I didn’t know, and I was feeling the beginnings of a headache. The heat, probably, and it frustrated me that I couldn’t ask Connor to pull off at a drive-through so I could get a Coke. That had always worked for me in the past, and a glass of wine would have been even better, but I knew that I had to watch the caffeine consumption, and alcohol was really out of the question.
It wasn’t until we were almost completely out of the Phoenix sprawl, passing by the outlet stores at Anthem, that Connor finally spoke. “You doing okay?”
“I guess so. Just tired, probably.”
He looked over at me quickly, then returned his attention to the road. “Should we have stopped to get something to eat?”
“No, it’s not that.” Well, maybe it was, in a way. I could feel the beginnings of hunger pangs starting, and I knew there wasn’t much between Phoenix and our turn-off on the 260. On the other hand, I really didn’t want to delay getting home. There were a few places in Cottonwood that stayed open past nine. We could stop there if we needed to. Fidgeting with the cap of the water bottle that sat in the cup holder next to me, I said, “It just seems like every time we go asking questions, I end up with about a million more.”
“Such as?”
“Well, the whole Wilcox thing, for one. I’m not saying my mother was a strong enough witch to sniff out a Wilcox the way Maya can, but she should have known my father was a warlock.”
“Maybe she did. It’s not exactly the sort of thing they would’ve been discussing around Linda Sanderson, after all.”
He had a point. Even so, I felt like I should press on. “But if my mother had known he was a warlock, wouldn’t she have wanted to know more about his family? I mean, part of the whole witch thing is your clan affiliation and all that.”
“Maybe he lied and sa
id he was with the Santiagos or something.”
“Maybe,” I repeated, my tone dubious. Of course, I had no idea what my father had really looked like, except he was tall and dark-haired, so maybe he could’ve passed for one of the Santiagos. As I mulled that over, another thought struck me. “That could have been what their fight was about.”
“That she found out he was lying?”
“Yes, especially if she somehow discovered he was a Wilcox. I can’t think of too many other things that would make someone so angry that they’d kick out the father of their baby only a few days before the child was due.”
Connor didn’t reply immediately, but instead tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, apparently considering what I’d just said. “That makes sense, I suppose.”
“And it also explains why she would never say anything to my aunt about who my father was. I mean, if he really had been a Santiago or just some beach bum she’d picked up in Newport, then it wouldn’t have been so important to conceal his identity.”
No arguing from Connor on that one. He only gave a grim little nod, as if acknowledging his clan’s poor reputation. Now I knew it wasn’t that clear-cut, that there were people in the Wilcox family who were just as honorable as any McAllister, but twenty years ago the lines had been pretty clearly drawn. East was east and west was west, and all that. Those twain definitely didn’t meet…until my mother and Andre got together.
Would Aunt Rachel have agreed to take me in, raised me, if she’d known I was half Wilcox?
I wasn’t sure I wanted to think about that. I tried to tell myself of course she would, that she would never abandon her sister’s child…but I just didn’t know for sure. And maybe my mother had known, or at least guessed, and so made sure to keep her mouth shut.
Darkmoon (The Witches of Cleopatra Hill Book 3) Page 11