She pulled herself up to her full height. “Fine. Then maybe you should focus on your investigation and leave me alone.” She stormed off through the club.
It had been a terrible choice, Vanessa’s hurt versus the investigation. I wasn’t sure if I had done the right thing. Maybe I could have said something different, but it appeared to be too late. This might have been the final straw for our friendship.
Natasha looked between us. “Maybe Vanessa’s right. I’ll get Janice to cover your part from now on.”
As she left, I reared around on Vin. He was smug and confident, not even caring that he might have ruined my friendship with Vanessa. Even through his shield, I could feel his confidence that he was right. I couldn’t imagine what I ever saw in him. “I can’t believe I ever trusted you. If anyone dies, the blood is on your hands.” I raced after Vanessa, hoping to find her to explain my side of the situation.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
As I pulled up to the Golden Pyramid Casino the next morning, I passed the new pastry shop that had opened. For a split second, I thought that I was going to have to drag Vanessa to it, even though she hated one of the owners. I smiled to myself until I remembered for the thousandth time that Vanessa wasn’t talking to me. I hadn’t been able to catch her the previous night, and she refused to answer any of my calls or texts.
That morning, I had found a long text from Vanessa on my phone. She was beyond hurt and no longer wanted to train with me. In fact, she was leaving to go to Europe to clear her head. I had successfully pushed away both brother and sister. Guilt ate away at me in my belly.
I had called Bear when I returned, and we had a long, hard talk. He was going to take the vial with Legacy to Dr. Trout and suggested that we put the investigation on hold until we had some additional information.
I no longer had the comedy job as my cover. Bear had suggested that, instead, I take the day off. He was going to use what I had found and take over the investigation. He tried to be understanding, but I could sense his disappointment in the failure of his plan.
I had tried to argue, but that was when the final shoe dropped. Festival security had witnessed the exchange and wanted me fired. They had even gone so far as to have my name and likeness added to the “Do Not Admit” list kept at the entrance to the loop where the festival was being held.
I had been stunned to silence, and even as I pulled my car into a parking spot, tears trickled down my face. My whole world was falling apart. I had let down Bear and Vanessa, each in my own unique, screwed-up way.
But there was no way I was going to quit, even if I couldn’t investigate at the Magia. It was too important. Was I going to let someone else die while I sat around and twiddled my thumbs? Obviously not, but I needed a different way to search for clues. I had been wondering about Michael’s overdose, and since I was banned from the festival, I could look into something that had bothered me since the beginning.
I parked near where Michael had overdosed in his car. When I had tried to pick up a reading a year before, I hadn’t gotten anything. At the time, we had assumed that too long had passed, then later we decided that since he overdosed, there was no imprint left behind. But maybe our first thought had been correct. We had found the killer behind the other murders happening at the time, but maybe we missed something.
I stopped in front of the empty parking spot. It was too early in the day for much traffic, and it was silent all around me. Not like later in the day, when there would be a constant line of cars arriving and leaving as people sought out the hottest table, the cool clubs, and the freshest entertainment.
Patagonia sat at my feet, wrapping her long black tail around her toes and leaning against my leg. For as wild and destructive as she was most of the time, she was serious about magic.
I took a deep breath and tried to center myself. It had been a year, and it was unlikely that I could pick anything up, but I had to try. I closed my eyes and searched for a vision, but there was nothing. I could almost fool myself—maybe there was a whisper of something—but it was like when you were in the shower and thought you heard the phone ring. I really wanted it to be true, but nothing came.
I tried much longer than I would have under any other circumstances because I really wanted to find something. Though what, I wasn’t sure. I had seen the security footage, and I knew that no one approached his car from the time he drove up until he was found dead. It would have been nice to confirm that his experience with Legacy overdose was the same as what I had seen from the Magia victims, but I wasn’t going to get that.
I went into the casino, heading for the restaurants. I had called in a favor that morning and needed to finish the transaction.
I still had several rabbit paths to follow up on. I wanted to pull up files on Tony and Michael. We had pulled them during our investigation a year before, but I also wanted to look up Bert and see what I could find on the other people he mentioned: Little Petey, Nickel, and Mandy. Also, I wanted to find out what the records said about Legacy. Perhaps somewhere, they already knew the name of the dealer. I would need to get Olivia’s permission and had left a message with her secretary that I would be by.
I already had all of the files related to my father’s investigations for the casino, but I didn’t want to miss anything. The files had filled many boxes, and rather than having them clutter up my loft, I had locked them up in a closet connected to the training room Vanessa and I used. I had tried to read them but had hardly put a dent in them. Between training with Vanessa and Auntie Ann, training with Bear and Badger, reading all the magic textbooks, and studying Bear’s great-great-aunt Colleen’s journal, I was way behind on studying the files.
Despite the closed sign in the window and the dark interior, I knocked on the door of Italian Ristorante. It used to be called Issadora’s Ristorante, but after the owner’s murderous rampage, they had rebranded and renamed it. I thought they could have come up with something more interesting, but no one asked my opinion.
I knocked again, and a head poked out of the kitchen doorway. The woman held up a finger in a just-one-second motion and disappeared. When she returned, she was carrying a big white bag. She unlocked the door and handed me the bag.
“Two freshly made crème brûlées.” Amy was a cheery redhead with a dusting of golden freckles across her nose. She had taken over Beth’s job when Beth took a sabbatical. Her crème brûlées were Vanessa’s absolute favorite thing in the whole world right then and the perfect bribe to get her to talk to me.
Normally, she wouldn’t be in the restaurant for a few more hours, but I had the perfect lure. I slid two bottles of shampoo and conditioner out of my enormous purse and handed them over. It was my personal spell for making red hair glow and shine without orangey undertones.
The first time I met Amy, she had commented that my hair looked great, and I shared the secret, an ingredient- and magic-intensive shampoo that I mixed up once a week. Since then, I had traded her a bottle from time to time. I had promised her a four-month supply. Plus, I had mixed some conditioner, something I didn’t normally do since it just wasn’t worth the effort. I was going to need to eat one of the crème brûlées just to recharge my magical battery.
I headed for the elevators that would take me to Vanessa’s penthouse apartment. I would give her the food and explain to her that I had to do what I did and that she should understand. I would be kind but firm, because I was right. Surely she could see that, right?
I rounded the corner a bit too fast and had to backpedal wildly not to run over Gertrude and Ralph, the two seers that worked for the casino. My heart raced in both fear and excitement. I seldom ran into them, but in every investigation, I had received a key clue from them. Gertrude probably had a vision for me, one that would neatly solve this whole case.
Patagonia, a fan of the frail Gertrude, gently pressed her head against Gertrude’s thigh. Both Gertrude and her husband, Ralph, wore boots, denim jeans, and matching baby-blue checkered shirts. Ralph sported a white felt hat in
true cowboy fashion.
Gertrude dug around in her purse before pulling out a little bag of brown crispy treats. “Hello, Patagonia. I thought I might see you. I have a kitty treat for you.”
Patagonia stood on her back legs and carefully took the food from Gertrude’s gnarled fingers, the knuckles swollen and stiff. The two of them seemed to have a special bond, as Patagonia was as gentle as a kitten.
“How are you doing?” I asked both of them, nervous for Gertrude’s vision. It was always upsetting to watch her have one, but her visions had saved me on several occasions.
“Good, dear. And how are you?” Gertrude smiled at me, her blue eyes sparkling.
Ralph smiled but didn’t say anything.
We made a little chitchat about the weather and some events around town before I realized that no vision was forthcoming. Maybe I needed to nudge it along. “Any chance you have some advice for me?”
Ralph and Gertrude exchanged a look—it must be a common question—before Gertrude reached out and squeezed my arm. “If I had a vision for you, it probably would have come by now. But we can try to give you advice. What is the problem?”
“Oh… I guess I just assumed you would know?” I was unclear on how the gifts of the seers worked. I didn’t even have a handle on the magic I possessed, let alone others.
“I can have a vision and not know a single detail about the situation. They just come to me fully formed. But that is just one part of the gift. They wouldn’t need to keep us on staff if that were the case. Ralph doesn’t even have visions.” She turned to her husband and bumped into his shoulder with hers.
He smiled down at her, and for a moment, they looked exactly like teenagers who were first going steady. He wrapped one arm around her and kissed her on the top of her white head.
Tears stung my eyes, and I blinked them away. It was the sweetest thing I had ever seen and probably something they had been doing for decades, maybe even more than a hundred years. Maybe even closer to two hundred. I had never heard how old they were, but they looked even older than Granner, who was over one hundred eighty.
I had heard that Gertrude and Ralph had been advisors to emperors, kings, and queens under names that I would recognize if I scoured the history books.
“How do you do what you do?” I asked Ralph. I didn’t even have the right terminology for what I was trying to ask.
He smiled at me. He had probably been taller at one point, but now he stood about even with me. “I watch. I listen. I see things that others do not before they happen.”
“That is a lot like what Vin does.”
“In a way but different. Vin is more about identifying problems and fixing them. We mostly observe and pass on the information for others to do what they will. And Vin is blind to his own problems.”
“Such as?”
“That is not for you to know, though your fates are entwined. When the time comes, you will make a decision, but that time is not now.”
I ached to ask more, but Ralph carried a subtle sense of iron will and resolve that I instinctively knew not to press. “Do you have any advice for me, then?”
“Perhaps you should tell me of your problems,” he countered.
I hesitated again. Secrets upon secrets swam in my mind. I couldn’t even begin to figure out what I could share to explain enough without giving everything away. I was suddenly exhausted. “Thank you, but I can’t right now. Maybe I should be on my way.” I tried to give a cheery smile.
He nodded as though I had given a thorough explanation instead of trying to blow him off. “Of course. I know you have many secrets that you must protect.”
I gasped and struggled to deny it, but he held a hand up to stop me. “Part of that may be our doing. Gertrude did have the vision about you declaring yourself a Monza to protect yourself, but I probably should have given you some advice to go with it. You have to let some people in. You can’t keep everyone away.”
It was like a knife to the gut. That was what Vanessa was accusing me of. “I have to.”
He shook his head. “People love you and will fight alongside you. You don’t have to share all your secrets with everyone, but how can they help you if they don’t know you?”
Had I been looking at all of this backward? Just the thought that I could be wrong made me feel a bit dizzy. Patagonia pressed into my leg, her reassuring purring vibrating against my calf.
He continued, “We care very much for you.”
“Like family,” Gertrude added.
“But we are not the only ones. Vanessa and Ann Russo have adopted you like family. Olivia Santini might be very busy, but she watches out for you. And I know you must have others.”
I thought of Bear and Badger and how hard they were working. Maybe Thomas could be on that list someday. I nodded along. I understood his point, but it was a hard pill to swallow. That I had been wrong—that so many of my choices to push everyone away, to train all the time, to keep things to myself, that all of that had been wrong. That Vanessa might have been right.
He waited while I processed all this before continuing. “Mages have a long history of being secretive, but if you cut everyone out of your life, there is no one to have your back. Do you understand?”
I reached down idly to scratch behind Patagonia’s ears as she stretched out on her back legs to knead her front paws on my hip. I nodded to him. “I think I do.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I sat on a bench in the market section of the Golden Pyramid Casino. I was going to need something bigger and better than a crème brûlée to apologize to Vanessa. The stores were just starting to open up, and every variety of designer shoes, purses, and clothing were available. A store was selling art from all over the world. But Vanessa had enough money to buy whatever she wanted. She probably had more money than me. But telling her I was wrong wasn’t enough, or so I feared.
The electronic dance music of my phone erupted from my purse, and I dug around to find it.
“Hello?” The name on my caller ID was Magia Casino, and I was hoping it wasn’t security telling me that I was banned for life. That would be rubbing salt in the wound that was my day so far.
“Hey, Ella. It’s Emily.” She cheerily rushed along. “Thank you so much for getting me this job. It’s the total bomb diggity.”
“It’s working out, then?” I leaned back so Patagonia could crawl into my lap. She could ignore me for hours, but as soon as I got on the phone, she would be all up in my face.
“It’s great. I get an office and can wear something nice instead of that boring all-black bartender outfit. I’ve already gotten to do a lot of cool stuff. I owe you big time. Like, huge. Oh, hold on.”
Patagonia pressed her face to mine, trying to wedge her way between my ear and the phone. She meowed loudly into the phone then gave up to chew on a lock of my hair that was loose. That was the exact reason I often kept my hair up in a bun.
Emily’s voice was faint, as though she had turned away from the receiver but hadn’t covered it. “What’s up, boss?”
Thomas’s voice came muffled over the line. “Once you are done with the call, can you find Monza Ella Patagonia’s phone number for me?”
I could hear the smile in her voice as she spoke to me. “Monza Ella, will you please hold for Thomas?”
“Of course.”
She must have known he was going to need my number before he did. I waited until I heard the click of the call being transferred.
“Ella?”
“Yes, Thomas. So Emily is working out?”
He chuckled. “It is really unnerving when she does that, but so far, so good. Are you okay?” The last question had more meaning to it than an idle question. His concern was heavy in his voice, and it felt like being wrapped in a warm blanket.
“I am, though there is a lot going on.”
He hesitated, as though carefully picking his words. “I saw that the Cauldron Festival has banned you from the event.” He didn’t ask a question,
instead waiting for my thoughts.
“Don’t worry about that. It was a misunderstanding.”
“If it was unfair, I can talk to some people.”
I smiled. “I appreciate that, but please don’t. I’ve got it under control.” That wasn’t the case, or anything even close, but if he started poking around, he could overturn some rocks that shouldn’t be moved. “Really. But it means a lot that you offered.”
“What are you mixed up in?” He had said it gently, practically begging for me to answer him.
Maybe this was what Ralph had been talking about. That I should let Thomas in. I tried to shake off the idea almost as quickly as I thought of it, but it clung to my brain. He had really gotten to me.
He continued, “I got a key to those girls’ room. They were roommates, but something was weird. A security hold was on the room, and when I went to make a key, I got locked out the system.”
I sighed. “So no key?”
“Oh, I got the key, but I don’t feel good about this. I’ll ask again, what are you mixed up in?”
I wondered about Thomas’s age. Sometimes he seemed so formal and proper, but I could hear the warmth in his voice. I opened my mouth to lie to him, but I snapped it shut, knowing that I didn’t want to be that way with him. He must have sensed my momentary lapse of conviction.
“No, don’t lie to me. Please don’t ruin what we have by lying. If you aren’t going to tell me the truth, then promise me that you will consider calling me before you go to the room.”
I hesitated.
“Just consider it. And please consider going on a date with me. Nothing serious. I don’t want to rush you. We can have a nice friendly meal together, and I will keep my hands to myself. You can give me your answer when you come to pick up the keys. My office is near the check-in desk on the mage side of the casino. A gold door.”
“Thank you.” I hung up with him and slipped my phone into my purse. I wanted to race over to his office, as he might have both the physical and metaphorical key to breaking the investigation wide open. But there was at least one thing I needed to do first.
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