Prince Charming Doesn’t Live Here

by Christine Warren

  Danice sighed as she shuffled a stack of papers back into her polished chestnut leather briefcase. She harbored very few illusions about how this morning’s interview was likely to go. Her boss was counting on her not to return to New York without the name of the man who’d insulted his family’s nineteenth-century sense of honor. Her client had about as much interest in speaking with her as with Torquemada and the rest of the Spanish Inquisitors. The paternity and palimony cases were weak and probably all but unwinnable without Rosemary’s cooperation. And to make up for the time this trip to and from New Canaan would eat out of Danice’s schedule, she was going to have to work through this weekend’s Girls’ Night event with her four closest friends.

  Why was it that only international spies and war criminals got to carry cyanide capsules around with them for emergencies?

  The car slowed to exit the highway and turned onto the secondary road that would take them to their destination in the expensive and exclusive enclave of the rich and snobbish. In reality, Danice could think of few places she wouldn’t rather be, and few things she wouldn’t rather be doing. Mostly because she could see no way that this would work out well for her.

  Pulling off the road, through a set of wrought-iron gates, and down a long, winding private drive did very little to reassure her. Neither did the enormous brick structure at the end of the drive, which bore a closer resemblance to a seat of British aristocracy than to her idea of a casual “summer house.”

  Of course, for the daughter of an electrician and a manicurist, born and raised in Brooklyn, a summer house was a pretty radical idea to begin with. These days, Danice might dress in designer clothes and charge more by the hour than her parents had earned some weeks, but very occasionally the wealth of some people still astounded her. The Addisons now counted among those people.

  She thanked the driver for opening her door and nodded at his murmur about waiting for her in the car. It might be hot today—since it was August, there wasn’t much chance of it being anything else—but the humidity had broken last night, and for once the heat felt pleasant rather than oppressive. Danice didn’t even regret wearing trousers instead of a dress. Of course, it was only quarter to ten in the morning; her opinion could still change.

  Squaring her shoulders, Danice gripped the handle of her briefcase tight and strode briskly across the wide, columned front porch and up to the carved double doors of the quiet mansion. Despite the pleasant weather, the windows were closed, but she could see no lamps burning inside. With so many windows, though, she doubted anyone could complain about insufficient lighting.

  Raising a hand, she pressed the button for the doorbell and listened to the melodious chime sound within the silent house. She waited for several minutes and rang again, but everything remained silent. And still.

  And really, pretty deserted looking, now that she thought about it.

  Frowning, she leaned to the left to peer in the long, narrow sidelight that flanked the door, but she couldn’t see anything beyond a polished marble entry hall with a long, graceful staircase sweeping up to a second-floor balcony. She certainly didn’t see anyone who looked like Mr. Yorke’s twenty-six-year-old granddaughter. She didn’t even see a maid, a housekeeper, or a pet cat. The place appeared completely empty.

  Danice groaned. She knew she had arrived fifteen minutes early for her appointment with Rosemary, but after their conversation on the phone last night, it really would not surprise her at all if the girl had decided to punish her by making her wait for their meeting. Rosemary had probably gone out to get her hair done, or something, and would come roaring down the drive in a tiny convertible sports car just before noon, acting as if she were doing Danice a favor by deigning to show up at all.

  Not that Danice was cynical, or anything.

  Still, there had to be someone in the house, she decided. She couldn’t believe that in this town and with this family, there wouldn’t be a single maid or gardener or something around at all times. Especially not with the driveway gates left wide open and a meddling old martinet like Matthew Yorke IV as the head of the family. Someone had to be around to answer the damned door.

  Ringing the bell again, Danice followed up by lifting a fist to knock—okay, more like pound—a few times on the heavy wooden panels. To her surprise, her second thump elicited a soft clicking sound, and the left-hand door swung soundlessly open. Danice braced herself for the sound of a shrilling alarm.

  Nothing happened.

  Ooooooookay.

  Puzzled, she used the side of her briefcase to nudge the door a little farther open and leaned forward to peer into the foyer.

  “Hello?” she called uncertainly. “Is anyone here? I have an appointment with Ms. Addison. Hello?”

  No one answered.

  Something about this seemed a little bit weird.

  Glancing over her shoulder at the black town car, Danice could see the driver had the windows open, the seat pushed back, and his black cap positioned over his face while he relaxed and waited. She was only surprised she couldn’t hear him snoring. Clearly, he wouldn’t notice if she let herself inside.

  Her peep-toe slingbacks made a hollow clacking sound on the marble floor as she stepped through the door and eased it shut behind her.

  “Hello?” she called again. “Ms. Addison?”

  The house sounded almost eerily quiet. She could hear the shushing of her own clothing shifting when she moved and the muted sounds of the outdoors beyond the creamy, wainscoted walls, but she couldn’t hear anything that sounded like another person. Was the house really deserted and unlocked while the owners’ daughter was in residence? That wouldn’t make any sense.

  Taking a few steps to the right or left allowed her to peer into the rooms that opened up on either side of the entry hall. To her right, she could see what looked like a sitting room followed by a formal dining room that she guessed stretched back a fair distance. On the left, a more formal living area opened into a large, sunny room with a concert grand piano and several other instruments either hung on the walls or positioned in stands along the room’s perimeter.

  Still no people.

  She could see a hallway opening up straight ahead beyond the curve of the staircase, but without windows, the dim space offered no clues as to what might lie in that direction. It appeared, however, just as silent and deserted as the parts of the house she could see.

  Damn it, what the hell was she supposed to do now?

  Impatiently, Danice checked her watch again. Five till ten. The girl really should be here. She might be young and rich and spoiled, but she’d agreed to this meeting, and she’d designated the time herself. Could she honestly be rude enough not to be home to keep it? Maybe she was just in another part of the house and hadn’t heard Danice’s entrance?

  Danice recalled her first impression of the massive, window-covered edifice and stifled a groan. Did it really matter what part of the house the girl was in? The place was so big that if Danice tried to conduct a quick room-by-room search, not only would it take her the rest of her damned life, but there were so many places a person could go to hide that if Rosemary didn’t want to be found, odds were that Danice wouldn’t find her.

  So what should she do now? Sit down and wait? She certainly had enough work in her briefcase that killing a couple of hours while she waited for Yorke’s granddaughter to show up at noon wouldn’t pose a huge problem, but did she really want to start off this meeting in such a subordinate position? It wouldn’t do her any favors when it came to exerting influence over Rosemary if the girl knew from the outset that Danice was literally at her beck and call. And if the girl had decided to blow off the appointment entirely, Danice would feel pretty stupid camping out in the hall for however long it took for someone to wander by and inform her of that fact.

  On the other hand, she did not want to picture the look on Yorke’s face when he found out that Danice had driven all the way out to Connecticut and not only hadn’t gotten the name of Rosemary�
�s erstwhile lover, but hadn’t managed to get the girl to talk to her. Or even stand in the same room with her. That would not bode well for her continued employment, let alone her promotion.

  Shit, shit, shit, she thought.

  “Shit.”

  The curse echoed in the sterile environment, and Danice could have sworn the flowers that had been carefully arranged in a vase atop the round table in the center of the foyer gasped at the effrontery.

  Then her head snapped around, because she also could have sworn that she’d heard a soft thumping sound come from upstairs.

  Standing completely motionless, she strained to hear it again.

  Nothing.

  But she felt certain that a second ago, she’d heard a thump from somewhere over her head. Someone else had to be in the house. Who knew? Maybe the maid wore an iPod while she cleaned and hadn’t heard Danice. Either way, did Danice really want to face the consequences of heading back to Manhattan without even checking to see if anyone could tell her where Rosemary had gone?

  That thought decided her. Setting her briefcase down next to the flowers, she squared her shoulders and headed for the stairs. If there was a maid up there, Danice hoped to hell she spoke English. Because if she had to ask where Rosemary had gone and when she’d be back in Spanish or French or Russian or Martian, she might as well just give up now.

  Too bad Danice Carter had never been the type to give up. On anything.

  Four

  McIntyre Callahan had known from the beginning that taking this case was a Very Bad Idea. He’d seen the capital letters and everything. Unfortunately, he’d also seen that the size of the payment being offered was enough to run his small private investigation agency for the next six months, even if he didn’t touch another case during that period. And call him kooky, but Mac had a disconcerting fondness for paying his bills. So he’d taken the case, but he’d regretted it almost right away.

  Which was nothing compared with how much he was regretting it right now.

  Right now he stood concealed in the shadows across from the top of a stairway in the house of someone he’d never met, while trying to decide whether to tackle the woman climbing inexorably toward him and pump her for information, or blend in with the wallpaper and wait to see what she was doing here.

  That was the way it was supposed to go, anyway, but then the woman’s head and shoulders crested the stairs and Mac forgot all about what was supposed to happen. He became much too preoccupied with drooling.

  The woman took his breath away. Hell, she stopped his heartbeat, or at least made it stutter and skip in a way with which he was entirely unfamiliar.

  He couldn’t pinpoint the reason. For a man with Fae blood in his veins, for a man who’d experienced the awesome beauty of Fae women, he couldn’t call her the most gorgeous female he’d ever seen. Her features weren’t perfect enough for that. But they fascinated him, from her slightly almond-shaped eyes to her high, defined cheekbones, and the piquant shape of her chin.

  He didn’t think it could be the rich, dusky, honeyed tone of her skin, either, even if that skin looked so soft and fine that his fingers literally itched to reach out and stroke it. After all, Fae women might have skin that glowed with the pale luminosity of a pearl, but he lived in New York, surrounded by women with skin in every hue and shade and texture imaginable…and since he lived among The Others of New York, he could imagine an awful lot more than the average human.

  Even the shape of her as she moved toward the top of the stairs wasn’t anything he hadn’t seen before, or seen perfected on someone else. She appeared to be neither short nor particularly tall, but her figure curved beneath her slate-colored trousers and silky, sleeveless top in a way that made him want to measure her softness with his hands.

  From her dark, thick hair, neatly confined at the nape of her neck, to the red-polished toes peeping out of dainty designer shoes, nothing about this woman should merit more than a few appreciative glances and maybe the desire to ask politely for her phone number.

  Nonetheless, something about her called to him.

  Loudly enough that he found himself leaning heavily toward his tackling option, if only so that he could feel those curves and that skin pressed against him as he pinned her to the closest horizontal surface.

  Practicality, however, made him hesitate. He had heard her calling out as she came through the front door a few minutes ago, had heard her asking for Ms. Addison and announcing that her name was Danice Carter, so he knew she wasn’t his quarry. She hadn’t, however, announced what she was doing here, other than keeping an appointment. Judging by her expensively elegant wardrobe, she wasn’t applying for a job as a maid or gardener, but beyond that he couldn’t hazard a guess. Still, she was looking for the same woman he was, so he did need to know what she was after, and if she knew any more than he did.

  He could have, he supposed, taken her at face value, and assumed that because she had called out in the house, her actions provided evidence that she had expected someone to answer. By that reasoning, she could not be expected to have any more idea of the whereabouts of Rosemary Addison than he himself did. Mac, however, made it a rule to take very little of what he heard and saw at face value. Not only had it made him a better investigator, but it had kept him alive on more than one occasion.

  Maybe Ms. Danice Carter (if that was, indeed, her real name) had an appointment with Ms. Addison that she had expected the other woman to keep, and was simply confused about why no one had greeted her at the door. But if that was the case, why was she prowling around another person’s house uninvited? Especially if she was far enough removed from intimacy with that person to address her as Ms. Addison instead of by her given name? And if the woman merely wanted to ascertain whether there was anyone in the house, why had she headed directly upstairs instead of checking the rooms on the main floor of the house first?

  None of those actions guaranteed a nefarious purpose, of course, but none of them screamed out on the side of ignorant innocence, either.

  Mac had always found that even when it didn’t pay to be cautious, being cautious allowed him to stay alive long enough to get paid.

  With a little push of his will, he called up a tiny glamour to conceal himself from human eyes, ensuring that even if she glanced in his direction, her gaze would pass right over him without registering his presence. He might not have full command of Fae magic, but he often found it convenient to make use of what he had.

  The woman’s heels clicked softly on the wooden floor at the top of the stairs, then padded silently onto the thick runner that decorated the length of the upstairs balcony. Three doors led off the open area above the entry hall, and corridors stretched away in three directions toward the rear and sides of the house. Mac watched her hesitate for a moment, almost as if she were listening for something, before she muttered to herself under her breath and headed cautiously for the door closest to her.

  Mac had already checked this part of the house—and enough of the rest of it to be certain they were the only two people in it at the moment—so he knew the door led to a bedroom, and he knew that bedroom to be empty. He also suspected that it had recently been occupied by Rosemary Addison.

  But was it a coincidence that Danice Carter went directly into that room? Or did she know more than she was letting on?

  Falling soundlessly into step behind her, Mac decided to find out.

  He suffered a brief jolt when she glanced over her shoulder after stepping inside the room. It almost looked as if she knew he was watching her, but her gaze slipped easily past him, and he knew the glamour still concealed him. Which at least reassured him that she must be as human as she looked. Another Fae-blooded creature would have seen through the simple magic, or at least seen that it was there, and most other varieties of Others would have been able to sense the presence of something magical nearby if they had paid the slightest bit of attention. This woman, however, appeared nervous, but oblivious.

  She stopped a few feet
inside the room, looking tense and irritated and poised to flee at any moment. She also seemed to be searching for something or someone, craning her head from this side to that, almost as if she expected a crowd of partygoers to jump out from behind the furniture and yell, Surprise!

  He’d be the one surprised if that happened.

  But what was she looking for?

  He watched her open her mouth as if to call out one more time, then shut it without making a sound. He didn’t know if she’d realized she didn’t know what to say, or if she’d thought better of announcing her presence again.

  He did know, however, that her mouth had just made it onto his list of Top Ten Sexual Fantasies. Why hadn’t he noticed it when he cataloged her features earlier? It definitely deserved notice, with its plump shape and inviting curve and arousing mobility. Hell, it probably deserved to be immortalized in Italian marble. When he let himself imagine what she could do with it—

  He cut off that train of thought before it could leave the station and willed his body to relax. This really wasn’t the time for indulging in prurient daydreams. He could do that later.

  And had a feeling he would.

  At the moment, though, he really did need to find out what exactly she was doing here.

  Dissolving the glamour, he stepped forward, blocking the room’s exit with his body, and decided there was a very simple way to find out the answer to his question.

  So he asked it.

  And that was when she screamed.

  Ever since she’d reached the top of the stairs, Danice had experienced the deeply creepy feeling that she was being watched.

  It didn’t seem to matter how often she peered into corners or how many times she looked back over her shoulders. The house continued to appear completely empty, but the goose bumps on her arms and the tingling on the back of her neck insisted that someone had their eyes on her. The presence didn’t feel particularly malevolent, but that didn’t make it any less disturbing.