Out of Mind

Chapter 24

Sykes answered Ben’s telepathic alert immediately…and emerged from his flat looking as sleekly saturnine as ever.

Ben went to meet him. Why hadn’t he assumed Sykes would sleep in the flat while his house was occupied? Then he smiled. He hadn’t done too much straight thinking the night before.

The two men faced each other. There wasn’t a lot of need to talk. Sykes held out his hand and Ben placed the key in his palm.

Sykes turned it over and over again. He looked at the shop and Ben nodded. They needed to get the thing under a microscope so that they could get a good look at it.

“Wait.”

Willow’s voice stopped Ben, and he turned to see her run down the steps with Marley. Red hair, in two extraordinary shades, and green eyes, also different one from the other, were the only real physical similarities between the sisters, other than their small stature. Marley was much paler than Willow.

“A visual premonition,” Willow said, puffing, but with anxiety not fatigue. “Marley explained what I saw.” She had changed into jeans and a T-shirt she must have borrowed from Marley.

Sykes’s flaring brows rose. “Premonition?”

Willow explained her vision at Sykes’s house the night before, while Marley stood by, shifting from foot to foot.

When Sykes didn’t answer, Ben dug him with an elbow.

Sykes started. “Yeah,” he said. “When you get into the act, you really get into it, Willow. Aren’t you the woman who’s normal?”

“No, dammit. And you don’t have to look so pleased about it.”

“I got a call from Nat,” Ben said. “Can we go inside the shop? I don’t think we should risk being overheard.”

“You’re afraid that monster bird’s going to show up,” Willow accused. “Who’s going to hear us out here?”

No one argued with her, but Marley quickly let them into the gloomy interior of J. Clive Millet.

Behind the counter, Pascal had an office visible through windows on three sides. The four of them hovered outside until they heard footsteps coming down the stairs, and eventually Pascal appeared, swathed in one of his favorite green velvet robes.

“Good idea,” Pascal said, to no one in particular, obviously knowing exactly what was going on. “If we put the shop lights on we’ll have people at the door. Come on into the office.” He let them into the unlocked room and turned on a subdued, green glass-shaded lamp on the desk. It shed a narrow but surprisingly bright pool of light on gleaming wood.

Leather and mahogany suggested a smoking room. Pascal would never willingly put smoke in his body, but he liked the ambience.

“Where’s Gray?” he asked. “He’s part of this.”

“He knows,” Marley said. “He’s got a deadline on an article so he’s working here today. He’ll come down if we need him, otherwise I’ll fill him in later.”

Marley glanced surreptitiously at Willow, who pulled her eyebrows together.

Ben wondered what they were up to.

“Show me,” Pascal said, flipping a folded jewelry display pad open on top of the desk. He moved its white velvet side squarely under the light.

Sykes put the key there. Pascal took a loupe to his eye and bent over to look closely. He flipped the piece over and stared some more. “Take a look,” he said, passing the loupe to Sykes.

“Now we need to find my angel,” Willow said after taking her turn.

The only one who didn’t look bemused was Ben. He said, “Could be.”

“What’s the connection?” Sykes said.

“I don’t know for sure,” Willow said, knowing that wouldn’t satisfy her brother or the rest of them. “But there is one. See what it says here on one side of the key? Bella. And on the other, Angelus. Beautiful and angel, in Latin. The man I saw in my office showed me a picture of a stone angel and said she was very beautiful. Beneath her picture it said Angelus.”

“So where the hell is she?” Ben said.

The shop doorbell buzzed. And buzzed.

Willow pursed her lips so Ben wouldn’t see her grin. She couldn’t help thinking, saved by the bell.

She left Pascal’s office and let her grin stretch when she saw a Mean ’n Green van pulled partway onto the sidewalk. She had been expecting one of her employees to pick her up, but not quite so quickly.

By the time she opened the door of the van, she wasn’t so cheerful. “Rock U.? What are you doing here?”

“You’re welcome, girl. Do you think I close up shop and come runnin’ to help out any good-lookin’ female?”

She winced. “Sorry. I was surprised to see you is all.”

“We gotta go now,” Rock U. said. “Zinnia said that lady who called from the Brandts sounded like she was losing it.”

“Zinnia’s staying on top of this. She already spoke to me about it this morning.”

Rock U. looked away. “Could be she’s worried about business,” he said, and avoided Willow’s eyes. “She talks a tough line, but I don’t think she’s got anyone else to pick up the slack if her job goes south.”

Why hadn’t she thought of that? “I don’t want any of them worrying.” Willow looked over her shoulder, directly into Ben’s assessing eyes. “Okay, Rock. I want you to come in just for a second. Whatever I say, you say, yes, or something similar. No personal opinions or ideas. Got it?”

Even in poor light Rock’s tattoos were a shock to the eyes. He shrugged and stepped inside.

“Thank you so much for doing this,” Willow said. She had been in Marley’s flat when she got the call from Zinnia. Marley had heard everything and made it clear that either she went with Willow to do what she could to help at the Brandts, or Marley would join in with the protests that were bound to come when the family found out about the plan.

“Fabio said he’ll catch up with us later,” Rock said. He whirled his ever-present hunk of keys and tools on their chain. “Could be he’s not keen on going over to that house at all, but I said I’d lend a hand.”

“You’re a prince,” Willow said and kissed his cheek. “What’s Fabio afraid of?” she whispered while their faces were close.

“Rabid bats? Voodoo? Disappearing like Chris did? Getting sucked into the case at all? Who knows? He’s a good guy.”

Willow liked him even more for his defense of Fabio. “Sure he is. It’s natural to be nervous around all this.”

“Well, you people have had plenty of practice,” he said with a smile that sent friendly crinkles from the corners of his eyes. “Me, I never could stay away from the action—any action. Er, we do have an audience, kid. They don’t look happy to see me. Who’s the dangerous-looking guy?”

“Which one?”

Rock U. raised one corner of his mouth. “The one sitting on the desk. I already know Ben Fortune when I see him.”

“The other one is my brother, Sykes. And he is dangerous, but only if he’s got a reason not to like you.”

“Uh-huh. Okay then, I’m fine. I am so likable it hurts sometimes.”

Willow led him to Pascal’s office and ushered him inside. “This is my friend, Rock U. He’s a tattoo artist.”

“Really?” Sykes said, and Willow admired how straight he kept his face.

“His shop is in the building with my offices.”

“Yeah,” Ben said. “We walked through it to get to you, remember?”

In fact, she had completely forgotten. “That’s right. Rock’s taking Chris’s place on a job for me this morning.”

Rock said, “Yes.”

Willow looked sideways at him. “I’m really sorry, folks, but I’ll have to leave now. I’ll try to get back as early as possible.”

Marley stood up. “Have they said what they want you to do—exactly?”

“No.” And Willow didn’t appreciate Marley opening the door to questions, not that Marley did so deliberately.

Willow couldn’t avoid looking at Sykes’s deep blue, very suspicious eyes. “What is this job that’s so important you have to leave in the middle of everything?” He looked significantly at the delicate key on its white velvet bed.

“As much as anything else, it’s duty,” Willow said. “For some reason, Chloe Brandt trusted me. She wanted me to take over running her home and that isn’t a decision you make lightly.”

“She seemed to,” Ben said neutrally.

Willow ignored him. “Her best friend, Vanity, called Zinnia and asked to get hold of me. Vanity’s the model. Zinnia thinks fast so she put her off and contacted me directly herself. Evidently, Vanity was even closer to Chloe than I knew. She’s going to pieces and begging me to go over there to manage things in the coming days.”

“So now you’re a funeral director?” Sykes said.

Willow stared at him, and he had the grace to pull in one corner of his mouth in a rueful way.

“If anyone can help them, you can,” Ben said, surprising Willow. “You’ll stay with her, Marley?”

“Of course. And no one’s talking about arranging a funeral, Sykes—that won’t happen anytime soon, will it?”

“Probably not,” Sykes said, already back to being cynical.

Ben glanced at Rock U. as if he wished the man would disappear. “We’ll be around,” he told Willow, with emphasis on around.

“You’re kidding me,” Sykes said. “You’re going to let her go back into that house?”

“I can’t stop her if she wants to go,” Ben said, although Willow wasn’t fooled by his innocent expression. She wanted to know his angle.

Pascal had been silent to this point. He stirred. “You really think this is a good idea, Ben? I don’t believe you like it any more than I do. If that’s true, put your foot down.”

Rock U. whistled tunelessly and Ben laughed. “If that means you’d like to see me try stopping Willow from doing what she wants to,” Ben said to the man, “I can’t oblige. I pick my battles. And I always avoid sure losers.”

“Yes,” Rock U. said, catching Willow’s narrow stare.

“I don’t like it that I’ve got something to prove,” Willow said. “It’s not the only reason to go in there and do the best job I can, but I’m a pragmatist. Nothing will convince people I’m not part of some sort of killing campaign faster than if it gets around that I am in the Brandt house at Vanity’s and Val’s request. People don’t ask murderers into their homes.”

“Mrs. Brandt was killed in that house,” Pascal said. He folded his arms over his broad chest. “You may not be allowed back there. Have you thought of that? It’s a crime scene. Do you want to be filmed for the news being turned away by the police?”

Willow had already thought of this slant. The risk was worth taking. “Got to go now, folks. Keep a TV on so you don’t miss any action.” They deserved better from her than sarcasm. “That wasn’t funny. Sorry. Please don’t worry about us.”

Walking away from them wasn’t easy. Willow and Marley did it anyway.

Rock didn’t interrupt their thoughts, but drove quietly Uptown.

Willow turned the pieces of information they had over, tried to fit them together from different directions.

“Embran,” Marley said from behind her. “They aren’t giving up.”

“How many of them are here?” Willow thought aloud. She remembered Rock was listening and didn’t say any more.

“That’s what Gray was talking about last night,” Marley said. “It’s not knowing that makes us vulnerable.”

Willow nodded. “I shouldn’t have waited so long to be part—”

“You’re with us now,” Marley said. “And remember, none of this is your fault.”

“I’m being used.”

“We’ll find out why,” Marley said.

Willow swallowed, sickened by her next thought: would they find out why she had been singled out before the Embran got what they wanted?