Black wings gray skies, p.3
Black Wings, Gray Skies, page 3
Now that he mentioned it, I wasn’t sure if Clay was in triage mode for Colby or his hairdo.
“Everyone knows about oleander.” I flung my hand toward the neat row of bushes. “What kind of witch misses that?”
“One whose thoughts were on the case and not on the hat tip to confederate tea.”
Tour guides loved to talk about how Southern women brewed oleander tea for Union soldiers. We’d had a close encounter with a ghost tour last night and overheard the tale. Had it been here, at the Battery, I might have put two and two together. As it was, I figured the plants had been grown in secret.
Apparently not.
“You have a lot on your mind.” His voice softened. “Your grandfather, your grandmother, your cousins.”
“Who am I that I have family drama?” I noticed more blisters forming on his hands and slowed to a halt. “Technically, I’ve always had family drama, but that was only the director and me. Now I have a psycho granny blowing bubbles in a marsh, a dead cousin’s ashes in my safe, and her brother living in my yard.”
“You’re also trusting Aedan with two of the most precious things in your life.”
“The girls,” I agreed. “Part of me wonders if they’re better off if I don’t come back.”
Factor in the online sales, and the store did well enough to support them both. Without me.
“They love you.” He stopped beside me. “They would always choose to have you in their lives.”
“We can’t know that.” I took his hand in mine. “They might never forgive me.”
For what I had done. For what I had let happen to them. For lying to them.
“They love you,” he repeated. “They would understand, in time.”
“Let’s hope we never find out which of us is right.”
“You shouldn’t touch me.” He stiffened when I tightened my grip. “You don’t want a rash or worse.”
“I like touching you.” I sandwiched his hand between my palms. “Hold still.”
Allowing my eyes to drift shut, I pushed healing magic pulled directly from my bond with Colby into Asa. A warmth built between us, soaking into his skin, but daylight nulled the usual light show.
“There.” I took his other hand. “Let’s give you a matched set.”
A soft curve to his mouth, he held still while I tended him, watching me the whole time.
“You’re staring.” I had my eyes shut, but I felt his intensity. “Take in the historic sights, why don’t you?”
“I prefer the view from here.” His breath coasted along my throat. “I never tire of looking at you.”
“Oh, you will eat those words.” I opened my eyes to find our noses almost brushing. “Now you have to see me every single day. You don’t get a vacation when a case ends or get to jet off when one begins. You’re stuck with me twenty-four-seven.”
“I know.” His smile turned wolfish. “It’s my new favorite part of the job.”
“Mmm-hmm.” I brushed my lips over his, tasting salt. “We’ll see.”
Ahead of us, Clay stood with his hands on his hips, one foot tapping. “Done yet?”
“Almost.”
I fisted my hand in Asa’s hair and hauled him back to my mouth, savoring every corner.
The growl that pumped through his chest was cut short when Clay bulled between us with a grunt.
“You’re worse than teenagers.” He opened the front passenger door. “Get in, Dollface.”
Once he had me shut in, he marched Asa to the driver side door and shoved him behind the wheel.
Twisting in my seat, I checked on Colby. “You okay back there?”
“The wig protected me.” She scrunched up her face. “I’m not sure it would have hurt me either way.”
As a creature forged from the soul of a fae girl? Or as an otherworldly moth with a pollen addiction?
“We can go to our new digs, shower, and regroup.” Clay rocked the SUV as he settled. “We need to get out of these clothes.” He pointed to the built-in GPS. “I’ve already put in the address.”
A hint of something lingered in his voice, probably having to do with the new digs he hadn’t mentioned securing earlier, but I didn’t stop to analyze it.
Clearly, he wanted to surprise us, and we were at his mercy.
Ten minutes later, Asa was pulling into a parking deck off Hasell Street. The area was pocked with restaurants, but I didn’t spot a hotel on the way in. Clay didn’t enlighten us either. Just smiled and loaded his arms with wig boxes then waited for us to take the hint and catch up to him.
The parking deck lacked an elevator on our end, so we took the stairs. As soon as Clay hit the sidewalk, he made a tight right turn and stopped before a set of double doors that led, I thought, into a barbeque joint. Except, upon closer inspection, the restaurant was gutted top to bottom. Closed for good then.
Clay punched in a code he read off his phone that unlocked the doors, then he called for the elevator.
“I’m getting horror movie vibes here.” I peered around him. “Where are we going?”
“You’re questioning Charleston’s quirky charm.” Clay nudged me back. “Just give it a minute.”
We gave it a minute and a half before the elevator arrived, and its doors slowly peeled aside.
Asa stuck to my side, his expression distant, his attention somewhere else. By some miracle, we all fit in the car together. And yes, I did the math to ensure our weight fell below the guidelines. Well below.
The ride up lasted another eternity, which gave me plenty of time to skim a printed note that informed passengers the ride was ninety seconds up and ninety seconds down. It advised us to enjoy the ride.
A geriatric ding announced our arrival on the top floor, and the doors opened onto a short hall.
We clogged the exit in a rush of sharp elbows and angled shoulders in our mutual eagerness to escape.
“This is unexpectedly nice for lodgings above a sketchy vacant rib shack.”
One thing was for certain. No one was going to stumble over us here by accident.
“Please sign the guestbook like that.” Clay chortled. “I’m sure the owner would love it.”
Another hint of that something had me asking, “Who’s the owner?”
“Frank Tally.” He wiggled his phone at me. “He’s the father of a cashier from Bridge’s Biscuits.”
I committed the name to memory—the restaurant, not the father—in case I needed another grits fix.
“A random cashier gave you a tip on where to stay?”
Granted, Charleston was a major tourist destination, and plenty of locals had their own side hustles to cash in on. Real estate was a big one. Lots of old buildings got chopped up and remodeled into vacation rentals.
“What can I say?” He grew wistful. “We bonded over a shared love of pimento.”
“She could tell he was a tourist from his accent.” Colby rolled her eyes at his dramatics, which she not so secretly loved. “She asked where he was from, what brought him to the Holy City, where he was staying. The usual chitchat. He said he hadn’t decided yet and asked if she had any recommendations as a local.”
Pretty standard, especially if she had a reason to angle the conversation in that direction.
“Her dad renovated the upper floor,” Clay cut in. “She texted me the address and told me to check it out on the VacayNStay app. She promised I wouldn’t find a better deal for easy downtown access, and I took her word for it. Her freckles made her seem trustworthy, and who am I to doubt a lady’s beauty marks?”
“You just wanted her number.”
“True.” He held up a finger. “But, as fate would have it, this is also a prime location.”
At this rate, he was going to sprain an elbow patting himself on the back.
“For once, your flirting paid off.” I noticed bronze plaques beside each doorway. “Which ones are we?”
“The Sweet Caroline and the Charleston Shuffle, but I rented all four to give us the entire floor.”
“Cute names.” I had to admire clever marketing. “How big are these suites?”
“Kitchen, breakfast nook, bathroom, bedroom, and living room. Our two have fireplaces. For ambiance.”
“Mmm-hmm.” I took Colby from him, purple beehive updo and all. “Meet back in thirty?”
“Sure.”
Asa, still in his head, didn’t say a word as he entered their suite then closed the door behind them.
“Any idea what that’s about?” I aimed for the table to set down the wig and begin extraction. “He was quiet the whole way here.”
“I dunno.” She climbed out and shook off her wings. “Where’s my laptop?”
Unsure what to do with the wig, I used a small trash bag from the kitchen to secure it for Clay.
“Hold your horses.” I carried her to the sink. “You’re taking a bath first.”
“Ugh.”
A bath for her involved a very gentle, very careful, very short sprinkle of water across her body while she was in her biggest form to give her wings the most stability.
To distract her, I asked, “Can you file the paperwork for me with the cleaners?”
“Sure.” She snorted. “It’s a waste of time, but protocol is protocol.”
Why the director didn’t bring Black Hat mainstream boggled my mind, given he held controlling interests in so many other organizations and collected patents on magi-tech advancements in the criminal justice field the way some folks collect trading cards.
We couldn’t remain a shadow organization forever. Not with modern technology making it near impossible to bluff your credentials. Used to be, you could flash a police badge or an FBI badge, and no one thought to question you. These days, you could buy either online, and no one believed you were who you said you were without first calling headquarters and having your badge number verified.
But he was the boss, and Colby didn’t mind the legwork. She had plenty of them, after all.
“Okay, smarty fuzz butt, not everyone has access to our resources. We have to play it cool.”
“Speaking of playing…” she flicked water in my face, “…I need to check in with my guild.”
The suite was decorated in soft blues and whites with a beachy vibe. The front wall must have been store windows at some point in the building’s history. It was easy for me to drag the small table into a thick ray of sunlight and plunk Colby down on a towel to air-dry while she chatted with her friends.
Soon fierce roars clashed with battle cries as orcs met their regularly scheduled doom.
With that familiar soundtrack in my ears, I began warding our floor to keep out uninvited guests.
3
We booked a sightseeing tour to Fort Sumter the next morning with the same company and on the same boat as our latest victim, Andreas Farmer, to give us a chance to nose around without arousing suspicion.
So far, the most peculiar thing we had encountered was the absolute lack of anything peculiar.
No gawking, no gossip, no speculation, no rehashing of the sordid details.
The total lack of interest, as if nothing untoward had happened yesterday, left me wary.
Without holiday fluff pieces to fill airtime, the local news had sensationalized the kidnappings before the Bureau reached in and pulled the plug on coverage. Even the retroactive media ban they slapped on the most damning aspects of the case couldn’t erase damage done by linking the victims in the public’s mind.
Cleaners worked fast, but they tended to cover up paranormal involvement rather than erase the crime. Phones made documentation simple, and social media shared breaking news as it happened. It was easier to spin a story than squash it when multiple human witnesses guaranteed the spread by word of mouth.
Yet there hadn’t been so much as a whisper about Andreas, or the other missing kids, in the ticket line.
“Ace and I will clear the top deck,” Clay said as we stepped on board. “You clear the bottom.”
Patronizing? A little. We were on a small boat, so Clay felt comfortable letting me hare off on my own.
The overall aesthetic of the Bo-na-na Fanna was steamboat, but its majestic paddlewheel was a decal on the side, a homage to its ancestry. The upper deck accommodated a bar selling snacks and sodas, as well as a couple dozen plastic lawn chairs for tourists to sit in during the crossing. But that wasn’t my domain.
No.
I had been relegated to the dining area, easy to examine through the glass, and the bathrooms.
“It’s always locked,” a woman said from behind me as I peered in. “Only the crew goes in there.”
“Looks fancy.” I turned with a smile for her. “Do they do those nighttime dinner cruises too?”
“What don’t they do?” She rolled her eyes. “Anything for a buck.”
“You sound like you’ve been on this boat before.” I kept the ball rolling. “Are you from here?”
“I’m Tracy Amerson. I teach at one of the local schools.” She angled her face, daring me to recognize her profile. “My student was…” She pinched her lips. “He was the boy in the news.”
There was no stopping a brief mention of a missing child discovered by a vacationing family in a popular tourist spot, but the disappearance had been reduced to a thirty-second sound bite on the local stations.
“Oh no.” I clutched my nonexistent pearls. “I skimmed the news on my phone, but it didn’t register.”
No one onboard had so much as said hello to us, yet here stood his teacher, eager for a chat.
Maybe I ought to take solo bathroom detail more often.
“I was supposed to watch him, protect him, but he disappeared.” She bowed her head. “I just thought…”
Performing my role to the hilt, I gentled my expression. “You need closure.”
“I must’ve been to Fort Sumter a hundred times.” She hunched her shoulders. “I’ve gone each year since I took up a teaching position. The kids are my responsibility, and I failed in the worst possible way. That I brought them here for the day program makes it that much worse.” Tears slid down her cheek. “They’re supposed to be safe with me while their parents are at work. Now the whole program is under review.”
Sympathetic noises on my end kept her talking while I puzzled over why she chose me to approach.
Had she been wandering the boat, the better to castigate herself, only to discover a type of solitary madness that might push her to speak to total strangers until recognition dawned on just one face?
There was something very wrong with this boat, and, I suspected, with her.
“Rue?” Clay ambled down the stairs. “Everything okay down here?”
Jumping at his voice, Tracy offered me a fleeting smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
“It was nice meeting you.” She edged past me into the bathroom. “Enjoy your tour.”
Once the door shut behind her, I joined Clay. “That was Andreas Farmer’s teacher.”
She hadn’t used his name, but that tracked if it hadn’t been released to the public yet.
“Really?” He raked today’s wavy blond hair out of his eyes. “That’s interesting.”
Together we climbed the stairs to the upper deck and found Asa holding us seats.
For the safety of our fellow passengers, his hair was braided tight to prevent any hand-chopper-offing.
When he saw me, he smiled, and the thick bar piercing his septum caught the light. Bone-white ceramic with gold veins mirrored in his hoop earrings. They looked good on him. But then again, as the man fanning his cheeks across the aisle would attest, everything was improved by Asa wearing it.
Plunking down beside him, I filled him in on my brush with Tracy Amerson.
“Killers often return to the scene of the crime,” Asa mused. “Do you think she’s involved?”
“Hard to say.” I replayed our conversation. “She approached me and waited to see if I would identify her before she brought up the boy. I can’t tell if she was that desperate for connection, or if she was that freaked out no one seemed to notice or care if Andreas was missing. It also makes me wonder if she’s para. She’s kept her head, and so have we, but everyone else on board is la-de-da.”
“We’ll keep an eye on her.” Asa put his arm around my shoulders to pull me close. “See what she does.”
“The island is small.” Clay, still standing, watched the boat’s wake. “It shouldn’t be hard to track her.”
“Are those…” Colby gasped, “…dolphins?”
Eyes bright in the shadow of his jacket, Colby peered around his lapel out at the water.
“Sure are, Shorty.” He moved to the rail to give her a better, and safer, view. “How many do you count?”
With the two of them occupied during our trip, I turned my attention to Asa. “Hi.”
“Hello.” The edges of his mouth twitched. “Come here often?”
A snort burst out of me. “I can’t believe you went there.”
“I’ve gone many new places since I met you.”
“Yes, well, I did steal your first kiss.”
“I didn’t mean it in the literal sense.”
Flames erupted in my cheeks, and I cleared my throat. “I knew that.”
Soft chuckles shook his shoulders while he watched me burn.
Grumbling under my breath, I fussed, “How did I end up the pervert in this relationship?”
“I like it.” Asa leaned over and captured my ear between his teeth. “You have such interesting ideas.”
A groan clawed up my throat, part pleasure and part embarrassment, and his answering growl made me shiver.
“Keep your teeth to yourself, mister.” I shoved him back. “There are kids present.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Depends.” I squinted at him. “Is it pervy?”
“No.”
“Oh, well.” I sighed dramatically. “There’s always next time.” I nudged him. “Ask.”
“Does the water call to you?” He gazed out at the ocean. “I wondered if it did, if it ever has.”
“No.” I joined him in watching the bustling harbor, filled with yachts and…a floating tiki hut? “I don’t have an affinity for it, as far as I can tell. I was surprised to learn I came from aquatic daemons. I thought I would feel something, but I don’t.” I rested my chin on his shoulder. “Can I ask you a question?”
