“Mom? Are you okay? Is the baby okay? What’s going on?”
“We’re fine. Why are you shouting?”
The black car appeared behind me.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was.” I made an effort to calm my voice, and focus on the road. I needed to get to the highway, someplace crowded enough for cover, but not stopped with traffic. The car was gaining on me, getting closer.
“Do you take a vitamin every day?” Mom asked.
“I’m a little busy right now, Ma.”
“And I’m watching an infant for you,” she replied, with all the guilt only a mother can provide.
“No, I don’t take a vitamin, why?” A gun came out of the black car’s window and I swerved to make myself less of a target.
“I’m reading Gina’s wedding book and it says all young women should be on a prenatal vitamin.”
A guy leaned half out the window, trying to get a better line of sight. I took a sharp left, feeling the car go up on two tires. The cell phone slid to the other side of the seat.
“Did you hear me?”
“What? Why?”
“Because you could get pregnant and before you knew it the baby is already missing folic acid. Do you eat enough beans?”
The black car careened toward a mailbox, then swerved and went into a spin.
“I don’t know, maybe? Mom, seriously? Can we talk about this another time?”
“We’re talking about it now. Promise me you’ll start taking a vitamin.”
They came out of the spin by slamming into a brick fence. The driver’s door hung open, but no one got out to follow me.
“Okay, okay, Mom, what do you want me to do?”
“Start taking a vitamin.”
“Fine.” If I wasn’t going to die in a highway shootout, I might as well. “Does the magazine give a brand? Where do I get them?”
“Oh I’ll do that, honey!” Mom’s voice went from put-upon to pleasant in the time it took me to get on a highway on-ramp toward home. “I’m so glad you’re willing to be healthy. I want you to live a long time, you know.”
“So do I, Mom. So do I.”
I never got used to being shot at. I learned to take it and stay calm enough to do what needed to be done, but I could never just shrug it off. Traffic vacillated between medium and heavy, so I spent most of the drive checking my rearview mirror. I wished for a slowdown long enough to use my phone, certain that I could find Nala in a matter of minutes if I had the internet. Instead, all I could do was watch the afternoon sun in the sky. And then I remembered, Leo/Noah wasn’t just my problem, he was LaRue’s problem, which meant I didn’t need to work alone.
I called Douglas directly, but he didn’t pick up. My next dial was Calvin and he did.
“I’ve got a name and an address, I need you to get a phone number.”
“Anyone special?”
“The lion’s mother. I’d love a cell phone number, but I’ll take whatever you can get.”
“If you’ve got an address, why not just go there?”
“I did. People shot at me. Any other questions?”
Calvin laughed. “Sorry, Hicks, sucks to be you. Give me the details. Sam and I are up, we’ll have the information for you before sundown.”
I gave him everything I had, thanked him, and hung up the phone. For the rest of the drive, I checked my rearview mirror and centered my thoughts on one thing: where to go on vacation.
By the time I made it back to Osceola, a brown pill bottle was on the table by the front door of Mom’s house.
“Vitamins?” I asked Gina. She was dressed for shopping, on her way out.
“She got to you, too?”
“Yup,” I nodded.
“Apparently once you get married you don’t get a say in birth control. When I told her no kids for a while, she was all ‘that’s for you and Jeremy to decide’.” Gina sniffed, clearly annoyed.
“Could be worse,” I replied, thinking of the car chase.
“Yeah, look at you, you’re not even seeing someone and you’re stuck taking those things.” She gave me a look of pity and then headed out.
In the kitchen, Mom was making the airplane-spoon buzz along in the air toward the baby’s mouth. I’d seen the same performance used on Gina and I suspected it’d been used on me. Unlike most babies, he wore only a sunny expression, not a bit of food.
“I thought kids threw food around,” I wondered aloud as I grabbed a Coke from the fridge.
“If you let them feed themselves when they’re older, sure, but this little guy is still willing to open wide. Open wide,” she repeated to the child who opened his mouth in demonstration. “Did you see the vitamins?”
“By the front door, I did. They didn’t say prenatal.”
“No, they’re just multi’s. I remembered at the last minute how the prenatals treated my stomach. All that iron just gums up the works, you know?”
I didn’t know but I wasn’t about to say so. Besides, the sun had started to set as I drove up. If the baby blue onesie Noah wore was going to survive the night, it needed to come off now. I grabbed the kid and plopped him on the counter hastily unsnapping.
“Elisabeth? What in the world?” Mom asked.
But the change had already started. His magic tingled under my fingertips. One minute the baby kicked his legs up and down laughing. In the next, his diaper was shredded, his skin turned to fur, and a beautiful lion cub stared up at me.
“Wow,” Mom said.
“Yeah, wow.”
“Have you seen that before?”
“This is my second time. It’s still pretty impressive. By the way, it turns out his name is Noah.”
She shook her head. “You’ve got to get him back to his mother, Lizzie. I don’t think I’m feeding him enough. He only wants the meat flavored baby food, and he shouldn’t even be eating that yet.”
“I’m working on it, Mom, I promise. I got pretty close today.”
“Really? Are you sure?”
“The guys shooting at me thought so.”
“Lizzie!” she shouted.
“You asked!”
That silenced her. Our family had a long history of not talking about things. Mom deliberately knew only a little bit about my life, but if she was going to ask, I was going to be honest. On the counter Noah yawned.
“I always thought the next baby I took care of would be my grandbaby,” she said, softly. Then, because she was Mom, she started taking apart the highchair and washing it down.
“And this is bad somehow?”
“Of course, it’s bad! Neither of my girls have babies, you’re getting shot at, Gina’s marriage is off to a rocky start. This just—” She stopped to think about it for a second. “This isn’t what I wanted for you two.”
“But it’s what makes us happy.”
“Does it, Lizzie? Because you’ve seemed sad lately, distracted.” Ah hell, she’d caught on. I hadn’t told Mom about the kidnapping, the murders, any of it, but still she’d sensed something was wrong. I didn’t need this right now, not when I’d just had someone shooting at me and I still had Noah to deal with. “I thought you were jealous of your sister.”
I nodded, because it wasn’t that, but I wasn’t about to tell her what it really was.
“Gina’s always rushing into things. Remember her sweet sixteen party?” We both laughed. The party planning had begun on Gina’s thirteenth birthday. “You’ll find someone, and you’ll get married, too.”
“I know, Ma.” I gave her a long hug. When I touched most people, I felt glad or sad, frustration or elation. Mom always felt special, like love and comfort. Tonight, it was exactly what I needed to feel.
9
The war taught me trafficking organizations were like a hydra, many headed demons. Kill one head, another two pop up to cause trouble. Giving Noah back to his mom would only solve part of the problem. Where did my responsibility end? Because really, I wasn’t ready to start fighting the war again, no matt
er how strongly I felt about it. Mom was right when she noticed I’d been going through some big things lately. I wanted time to handle that, along with whatever was going on with Ted’s mom, Gina’s wedding, and all the rest of my normal life. I’d done enough time in the trenches to know that I wasn’t in the right shape to go back. I needed to get out of all this but I didn’t know if my conscience would let me.
My cell rang, and I picked it up expecting Ted or Jo. Instead I got Calvin.
“Three-two-three-six-six-five—”
“What are you telling me?” I interrupted him.
“Your werelion’s phone number.”
“Perfect.” I pulled into my parking space and grabbed a pen. “Is this her home or cell?”
“This is the cell, you want the home, too?”
“Yes.” He gave me both. I read them back to him to make sure I had it right.
“That’s it. Need anything else?”
“No, but should I ask how you got this?”
“That would spoil the trick.”
“Great. Well, tell LaRue I’m hoping to do the swap tonight.”
“Will do. Be careful out there.”
I thanked him, and headed upstairs to my apartment, more than ready to make a call.
When I got to my apartment, I immediately dialed Nala’s cell.
“Hello?” the woman’s voice sounded brittle, like a branch about snap in a cold wind.
“Nala Renji?” I asked.
“Who is this?”
I took that as a yes. “Elisabeth Hicks. I have your son.”
Before I could explain anything, the voice cried in my ear, a noise of frustration and pain. I waited through it, hoping she’d get back on soon. Instead, a man spoke next, his voice furious. “What do you want? What are you asking for to give him back?”
“Nothing,” I stammered. “Look, I didn’t kidnap him. I’m not holding him for ransom. I’ve been trying to track Nala down for days. I just want to get him back to you.”
“How can we trust you?” her again.
“I…I don’t know. I went to your house today trying to find you. I’ve been looking all over town. Did the guy from Animal Magic call you?”
“You’re the disabled girl?”
Ouch. That hurt. “Yeah, that’s me.”
“But you told him your friend had bought a baby lion and you needed—oh.”
“Exactly. My friend bought a lion cub, he gave it to me to watch. The next day it turned into a baby. I’ve been trying to get it back to its mother ever since.”
“We’ve been searching, too. Where are you? We’ll come now.”
My mouth opened to give them my address, ready to direct them to small town Osceola. But my brain stopped my tongue before I could do anything that stupid. If she came, the guys who were searching for her might come. If they found me, no problem. If they found Ted or William, they could deal. God knows LaRue could handle himself. But Mom, who’d watched the baby without a second thought, didn’t deal with this sort of thing every day. I wasn’t going to risk Mom.
“Are you still there? Miss? Please?” Polite but frantic, the mother on the other end of the phone needed an answer.
“It’s a farm house,” I started. “But now it looks like a French mansion.” I gave her LaRue’s address feeling a tiny bit guilty about it.
Nala and her husband agreed to meet me. They were searching about three hours away, which gave me a chance to get the lion back to LaRue’s and Jo out of the house. I started with her, calling her to see if she wanted to meet me at Flanagan’s. She agreed and we set a time in about thirty minutes. My next call was to Calvin. I gave him the details, not wanting to risk giving them to LaRue. The high and mighty master of the manor might say the werelions shouldn’t go to his place and I wasn’t about to call Nala back. Calvin understood the situation, and even offered to take the lion from my place while I distracted Jo. He’d take care of the swap and only call me if there was trouble.
So I ended up at a wobbly table across from the prettiest girl in the bar, thinking about what was going on at my apartment.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Jo offered. She’d already ordered a drink for me, and pulled a discreet bottle out of her voluminous bag.
“More than they’re worth.” I shook my head and clinked the neck of my beer with her drink.
“You sounded pretty messed up in your message and you look worse tonight. What’s going on?”
“Nothing you should worry about.”
She tilted her head to one side. “That’s usually something I hear from LaRue or Maman.”
“Sorry.” I swallowed a hasty drink, not sure how to handle this. “I just…I don’t want to involve you too much.”
Really, I didn’t know what to tell her. Letting her in on the secret might piss LaRue off. But lying to her ate at me, and I’d only been doing it for a few seconds. I glanced at the clock on the wall hoping it was time for this all to be over.
Jo had waited through my thoughts quietly, but now she reached across the table and put her hand over mine. “I’m your friend. If something is bugging you this much, tell me. Let me help.”
“I…” I swallowed more beer then caught a glimpse of a man at the bar. He looked a little like Vincent. Sure, it wasn’t the problem that was wearing on me most tonight, but it was the one I could share with her, “It’s about Ted.”
“Oh?” Her eyebrows went up.
I told her the story for the next hour, including every flourish I could think of, wishing it would take longer. Jo didn’t seem to notice.
Instead, after all my reciting was done, she asked, “Are you going to kill her?”
“What? How is that the logical thing to do?”
“It keeps Ted safe,” she sighed. “But he’d probably get upset if you told him.”
“I don’t know…”
“I do. There are times when I hated Maman. Loathed her. But I never wanted LaRue to kill her. Get me away from her? Hell yes. But if he killed her, I don’t think I would have stayed with him.”
“Okay, so what’s a better option?”
“Tough one…”
An hour later, empty bottles littered the table, a testament to the ground we’d covered. Neither of us had a solution. Jo waved her nearly empty bottle over the lot of them. “We’re looking at this wrong. You have to let him decide if he wants to help or not, then follow up on that, right?”
“Yeah, for now. But in the future how do I handle—” My cell phone cut me off and I checked it. Not a call but a text. The message said “Come now” but the number belonged to LaRue’s boys. I’d called it often enough trying to find the man himself that I recognized it. “Uh, shit, I have to, um, I have to go. But I’ll be back soon. Can you hang out?”
She looked at me like I was slightly crazy. “Is someone going to steal our table if I head home?”
“No, I mean it’s Flanagan’s there’s always room, but uh, I just thought, if you stayed here, I could meet you later.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Where’re you headed?”
“Um…” I’d had too much to drink to be quick and I hadn’t thought this part through enough.
“You know we were linked once, magically.”
“I know.” I licked my lips and swallowed hard.
“So I know you don’t want to tell me.”
I took a deep breath. “Right.”
“And I know you’ve been hiding something all night.”
“Yeah, about that…”
“Going to tell me?”
“Um, well…”
She folded her arms across her chest. “Because I couldn’t handle it?”
“No! I keep telling you, you can handle things. It’s not like you’re some invalid the way LaRue and your mother tell you. This is just different. If you could hang out here or at my place for just another thirty minutes, that would be great.”
“No.”
“Please, Jo.”
“Nope. In fact, wherev
er you’re going, I’m going, too. And whatever this big bad is, I hope it doesn’t mind that I didn’t do my nails.” She held up one perfectly formed nail, buffed to a high shine but devoid of polish.
Last ditch effort. “Don’t you need to go sing?”
“Not anymore.”
We drove in silence, Jo sitting beside me, not even commenting on the familiar landscape as it passed by the outside of the car. We drove through the orange groves that could have been luxury homes and on to the rural road with its pot holes and cracks. We were parked when she finally turned to me.
“Is this…I mean, Elisabeth, if that’s what you decided you don’t have to hide it from me.”
“If what’s what I decided?” I asked, completely lost.
“If you were coming here to sleep with LaRue,” she said. Her eyes were filled with sympathy. “I saw how you two were the other night. I just didn’t put things together. Look, if you want me to go…”
“Wait, you’re okay with me sleeping with your husband?”
She didn’t even hesitate. “Honestly, I never thought it would happen. I figured you and Ted were pretty tight, but if it’s going to happen, I can deal. I mean it’s not like you’d be my first friend to want a try, or anywhere near his first tryst. And goodness knows I’ve had my own fun. Jean-Laurent and I have been married over a hundred years, things aren’t the same as they were in the beginning. Mostly, I’m just sorry you felt you had to hide it from me.”
Missing, Suspected Dead: Elisabeth Hicks, Witch Detective Page 14