To Dance with the Devil

4

I went out on the beach for a while and stared at the waves. I felt very alone. Late as it was, I could’ve called Bruno or any of my friends, and they would’ve come. But I didn’t want company, wasn’t ready to talk about what had happened, not even to the people closest to me. Besides, it just seemed wrong telling someone else before I told Gran. Eventually, I went back inside and back to bed.

When morning came, I checked to see if Gran had called. She hadn’t, so I tried to call her again. I wasn’t going to call Mom. First off, I wasn’t positive the prison hierarchy would let me talk to her. If I pulled rank and used the whole “princess” thing and said it was a family crisis, they might. Though I wasn’t sure that what had happened qualified as a crisis. Ivy had, after all, been dead for years. Mostly, I just wasn’t in the mood to deal with Mom and the inevitable fallout. I hadn’t willingly spoken to my mom in a very, very long time, not since the day she’d tried to exorcise me as if I were a demon. She’d let loose with the kind of invective I wasn’t capable of forgiving. I’d tell Gran about Ivy. Gran could tell Mom.

Of course to do that I needed to actually talk to Gran. I’d tried the telephone without success, maybe I should try telepathy.

Closing my eyes, I concentrated on an image of my grandmother’s face—and tried to contact her. No luck. My thoughts hit a shield that was solid enough that I couldn’t get through. That was … odd … and a little worrying. In the end I decided to call my great-aunt Lopaka’s assistant and ask if she could get in touch with Gran and have her call me. It was a roundabout way of doing things and I really didn’t have the authority to ask for that kind of favor. But Hiwahiwa didn’t seem to mind, telling me cheerfully that she’d “get right on it.”

I spent the rest of the day puttering around the house, putting boxes back in the closet, cleaning out the refrigerator, and waiting for the sun to go down. I could’ve put on sunscreen and used a beach umbrella, but the day was just too bright—too cheerful—for the mood I was in. Still, I longed for the ocean.

The hours passed slowly. I didn’t cry. I was too numb. I didn’t answer the phone either. When Lopaka, queen of the sirens, tried to reach me telepathically, I shielded her out. She probably could have forced the issue, but she didn’t. I was glad. Lopaka was family, and I’m sure she was concerned—I’m sure her assistant had told her something was up. But I still wanted to talk to Gran before I spoke to anyone else, even mentally.

Eventually, the sun set and I gathered up a few things and went out onto the beach.

One of my favorite memories was sitting around a campfire on the beach—me, Ivy, and Grandpa Peahi, eating s’mores under the light of the stars. I couldn’t eat them now, but I could light a fire in the portable firepit, sit on the beach, and watch the waves and the flames. So I did. Only after the tide had turned and the fire was long guttered out did I pack up my things and head indoors to bed. I’d kept my phone with me the whole time; my grandmother did not call. I was starting to worry.

At nine thirty the next morning I was awakened by the buzz of the intercom. Someone was at the front gate and wanted to be let in.

I stumbled out of bed, cursing, and shuffled over to hit the switch. “Yes?”

“Celia, it’s me, Alex. Let me in. We need to talk.”

Heather “Alex” Alexander was a detective at the Santa Maria de Luna Police Department. She had been the lover of my best friend, Vicki Cooper, until Vicki’s death. We had been friendly acquaintances—we socialized well enough when we were with Vicki but never sought each other out otherwise. While we both loved Vicki dearly, mourning her hadn’t brought us closer together. If Alex was here without an invitation, it wasn’t a social call.

Crap.

I hit the button to turn on the camera. It was Alex, all right. She was alone and looking both businesslike and cranky. With a sigh, I hit the switch that sent the signal to open the security gate, then went back into the bedroom to throw a robe over the worn T-shirt and men’s boxers I’d worn to bed.

By the time she reached my front door, I was decently if not glamorously covered.

I greeted her as pleasantly as I could manage, even offering her a cup of coffee.

“No, thanks.” She brushed past me, taking a seat on the living room couch without being asked. I didn’t mind. I’d have liked to be closer, but it just never seemed to work out, perhaps because we were both so strong-willed and stubborn. Those two qualities had helped Alex to rise to detective in the competitive boys’ club atmosphere of the police department. They’d helped me make a success of my business, guarding other people. They probably also made us too much alike to ever be completely at ease with each other.

Alex was dressed for work in a black pantsuit with a faint pale blue pinstripe that matched her prim cotton blouse. The jacket didn’t quite manage to conceal the weapons she carried. I suppose that was understandable. On a public servant’s salary she wasn’t likely to be able to afford special tailoring or concealing magics. She’d inherited a bit from Vicki, but I knew that money had gone into her retirement fund and to charity.

“You haven’t been answering your phone.” She fingered the anti-siren charm at her neck when she said it. The charm had been made using my own hair, giving her special protection from me personally as well as other sirens. She hadn’t asked, but I’d had it made for her. She’d needed to be able to prove I wasn’t influencing her on the job. It had taken a lot for me to give it to her. A person’s hair can be used to do some pretty serious bad magic to her. I had to trust that Alex didn’t wish me ill and wouldn’t let anyone who did get hold of the charm. I had to trust that she’d destroy it before she’d let it be used against me. Vicki had trusted her like that. I still wasn’t sure I did.

Had she tried to call? I must have slept through it. There was a hint of accusation in her voice, an edge to her voice that made it more than a simple observation.

“I’ve had a lot on my mind.” I took a seat on the chair facing her. Looking into those intense blue eyes, I knew that something big was up. So it wasn’t a surprise when she started grilling me.

“What do you know about a woman who called herself Abigail Andrews?”

“Look, Alex, I just woke up. Can we do this in the kitchen? I need some coffee, and I need to eat.”

“Fine.” She rose. “This could take awhile.”

She followed me into the kitchen, pulling up a chair as I puttered around, starting a big pot of coffee and choosing my baby food breakfast. I didn’t rush. There was no point. I knew Alex well enough to know that she wouldn’t budge until she got the answers she was looking for.

“In answer to your question, I don’t know Ms. Andrews well at all. I met her at La Cocina the other day. She was thinking of hiring me to guard her daughter, but we didn’t hit it off. I thought she was lying through her teeth and hiding things from me. She thought I had an attitude problem.”

Alex snorted, her mouth quirking in a grin she couldn’t quite manage to suppress. “You? An attitude problem? Surely not.”

I didn’t argue. It was not, after all, an argument I could win and we both knew it.

“Then what?”

“She left. I ate lunch, had a drink, and left.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. You can check with Barbara if you’d like. She’ll confirm it.”

Alex nodded. I got the impression that she’d known what I’d say, that I was just verifying information she already had. That was odd, and it made me worry, just a little. So I volunteered more information than I might otherwise have. “I did a little research on the Internet later, just from idle curiosity. Couldn’t turn anything up on Andrews or the guy she said I’d be guarding her daughter from. I’m not surprised. Like I said before, I could tell she was lying. Then again, a lot of folks do.”

Alex gave another amused snort. “Don’t they just. Anything else?”

“No, why?”

“I take it you haven’t turned on the television or checked out the news online?”

Uh-oh. That sounded ominous. “Not in a couple of days.”

Alex looked at me as she said, “Abigail Andrews was abducted off the street in front of her apartment last night by a pair of masked men. We found the van they used a couple of blocks away. Ms. Andrews’s handbag was in the back, near an empty syringe that contained traces of a sedative. Your card was in her bag.”

Oh, hell and damnation. I hadn’t liked the woman, but still I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. “Do you want me to come down to the station and give an official statement?”

“No. Not yet, anyway. Neighbors and people on the street saw the abduction. The perps were two men and a driver, all in masks, all male. Nobody thinks you’re involved, but we’re hoping she may have told you something that can be of use.”

“Okay. I’m glad to help, but it isn’t much.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

I started at the beginning. The story didn’t take long to tell. After all, it had been a short meeting. “In all honesty, I got the impression that a lot, if not all, of what she told me was bullshit.”

“So she didn’t hire you,” Alex said, bringing me back to where we’d started, going over familiar ground to see if something new might pop into my memory. I’d been questioned similarly before. While the technique can be annoying as hell, it does sometimes work.

“Nope. Like I said, she stormed out of the restaurant.” Well, stormed as much as a woman in a wheelchair could. “If Barbara hadn’t been able to cancel the order I would’ve had to pay for it.” I paused, thinking about what Alex had … and hadn’t said. The phrasing she’d used was curious. “You said she ‘called herself’ Abigail Andrews. That wasn’t her real name?”

Alex’s expression grew pained. “I was hoping you hadn’t caught that.”

“Sorry.” I wasn’t really, and she knew it. After giving me a long, level look, she apparently decided to tell me what I wanted to know.

“No. It wasn’t her real name. She’d been using it for close to twenty-three years. But it was a fake.”

Close to twenty-three years. That rang a bell. A loud one.

She gave me a hard look. “You’ve remembered something else. What is it?”

“The man … Jacobs, she said he’d been in prison a little over twenty-two years. I think she was lying about the name. But I got her pretty rattled with my questions. Maybe she didn’t think to lie about the time line.”

“We’ll look into it.”

“Do you want me to…,” I started to offer, but Alex was shaking her head before I could finish the sentence.

“No. Really, no.” The expression on her face was stern and more than a little pained. “It’s nothing personal, Celia, but every time you get involved in something, everything goes to hell in a handbasket. I know it’s not your fault, but please, just let us handle it.”

Ow. That hurt. Nothing personal, my lily-white ass.

My displeasure must have been written on my face, because Alex winced. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it to sound like that. But that curse mark of yours…”

Ah, yes, the curse mark. Damn Stefania. She’d been a queen of the sirens. Her psychic had seen something in my future she didn’t like, so Stefania put a death curse on my baby sister, Ivy, and me when we were children, hoping we wouldn’t live to cause her trouble. Ivy hadn’t. I, on the other hand, managed to live to adulthood and helped send her on her way to hell. About once a week I wish I could do it again, just for grins. “Fine, let me know if you need anything else from me.”

“I will.” She started to rise, then seemed to reconsider. “Do you want to explain why you’re avoiding the phone?” She settled back in her seat as if she was willing to wait until doomsday for an answer.

I hadn’t been, really. But I didn’t say that. Instead, I said, “It’s not connected to the case.”

“Don’t care,” she said, shaking her head. “You look like hell, Celia. I know we haven’t been close, but I do care about you. If you’re in the middle of another shit storm, I’d like to know. Maybe I can help. Even if I can’t, I’d like to think you know you can talk to me about whatever it is.”

I was touched and shocked in equal measure. Without Vicki as a buffer between us, Alex and I barely saw each other unless we were involved in a case together. Now she was extending an olive branch, or lifeline, without hesitation or reservation.

I’d wanted Gran to be the first to know. But Alex had lived through both Vicki’s death and the passing of her spirit months later, when she’d completed the thing she’d stayed on this plane for. She was in a unique position to understand what I was going through.

“Ivy’s gone.”

Alex blinked at me for a second. Then her brain processed what I’d said. “Oh. Oh, Celia … Oh, God. I’m so sorry. What … how?” The hard professional veneer cracked a little, giving me a glimpse of the much more honest, and vulnerable, woman beneath.

“I had a breakthrough in therapy. I finally accepted that what happened wasn’t my fault. Apparently that’s what she was waiting for.”

“You’re sure?”

I nodded, suddenly unable to speak because of the lump in my throat. My vision blurred with tears. I closed my eyes, trying hard to breathe evenly, to not sob, and felt Alex’s arms around me.

“I know you miss her, and how much it hurts. But it’s better for her.”

I nodded, unable to say a word, and took comfort from one of the toughest women I’ve ever known.