Autumn Whispers o-14 Read online

  As Albert opened the door and stood back, allowing us to enter, Menolly stopped at the doorstep. I glanced at her, puzzled, but Albert seemed to immediately understand because he crossed the threshold and turned around to face her.

  “Please, be welcome and enter.” His voice was surprisingly gracious and I suddenly understood. She had never been in the house and it was a private residence. It didn’t take the owner to welcome her in, but merely someone on the inside. Hell, a maid could unbar the way, or even a child.

  The prohibition to entry didn’t count if the place was a publicly or governmentally owned institution—like a frat house or a dormitory or a hotel, which was why we’d been able to break into Dredge’s room at the Halcyon Hotel and Nightclub, and into the fraternity housing Dante’s Hellions. Nor did the prohibition bar a vampire from entering an apartment building . . . he or she just couldn’t break into the personal residences. Nobody was really sure what caused the force field, but it was there, and it worked.

  Menolly crossed the threshold and Albert shut the door.

  The house had an odd, empty air to it. Not the sense of abandonment when a place was left to rot and ruin, but of a flurry of a home whose owner had whisked away on vacation, or an unintended trip. Everything was neat and in order, and plants filled every spare surface of every table and shelf. They grew profusely, vining out like crazed groupies, their foliage thick and lush and vibrant green.

  Camille lingered over one pot of flowers, gently fingering the leaves. “Violet is quite the gardener. Look at how beautiful and lush these are. Orchids like this are hard to grow for even experienced gardeners, but this one’s branching out like it is on steroids.”

  The flower had five big blooms on it, the color of twilight, and while I knew squat about orchids, I did know enough to understand that they weren’t the easiest plant to keep alive. But then again, for one of the woodland Fae, it wasn’t at all surprising that her houseplants were thriving.

  I glanced around. A cat was curled up on the sofa, staring at us. He was a gray and white fluff ball, with fur a lot longer than my own. Essentially, one gigantic tribble on legs. He yawned, and I smiled softly. This was his territory, and while my inner tabby let out a little hiss, the two-legged side of me that loved my own kind wanted to scoop him up and snuggle him and rub my nose in his belly. Camille did just that, laughing when he started to purr and lick her nose.

  “I love this little guy.”

  “He’s a keeper, all right.” I scritched him between the ears and he softly patted my hand with one paw, claws in. “You’re a well-behaved little munchkin.”

  I glanced around. The apartment was tidy. There were no dirty dishes, no scattered papers. Absolutely no sign of a struggle. As I crossed to the desk, Albert went into the kitchen and we heard the rattling of cans—most likely pet food. Tumpkins jumped out of Camille’s arms and headed in the direction of the sound of the can opener.

  A sudden thought crossed my mind and I turned to Tad. “The cat will be safe with Albert, won’t he? There won’t be any unnecessary . . . um . . .” Hallmark didn’t make a card asking an acquaintance to please avoid draining the cat of blood.

  But Tad got my drift. “Albert loves cats. Very few vamps manage to get close to felines, but he always does. They seem to know that he would never hurt them.” By the soft look in his eyes, I could see he was telling the truth and it made me feel a lot more kindly toward Albert.

  I slid into the chair at the desk and rifled through Violet’s desk drawers. Even they were organized in what appeared to be an almost OCD manner. It was obvious she wasn’t a smoker, nor did I find any booze or . . . I looked around. No books. There were no books in the apartment and no television. Oddly enough, the entire place felt devoid—except for the houseplants and the cat. In fact, now I knew what it reminded me of. It felt like a hotel room—impersonal.

  I looked for a calendar but couldn’t find one. “Do you know if she had a Day-Timer?”

  “Nah, she used the calendar on her phone and synched it to her laptop.” With a frown, Tad looked around. “Speaking of, I don’t see her laptop anywhere, or her tablet. She might have taken them with her, wherever she went.”

  “Maybe in her bedroom?” I often took my laptop to bed with me to play games or answer e-mail before I went to sleep.

  Blushing, Tad led the way. He stopped for a moment, staring at the bed as we entered. Covered with a gauzy spread, the bed was a king-sized futon, and a filmy nightgown made of spidersilk lay across the bottom. Two hooks had been drilled into the headboard, and velvet ropes hung down from them. One guess what they were for, I thought, trying to repress a smile. I’d seen Camille’s toy box often enough. I knew restraints when I saw them, just like I knew that my sister liked to be tied up at times.

  But Tad just stared at them, glaring.

  There was no sign of any computer anywhere, but I did find something under the pillow. A journal, written in an ES Fae language. I flipped through it, able to pick out a word here and there, but my command of the dialect wasn’t good enough.

  “Camille, can you read this?” She could read a number of dialects, so I was hoping this might be close enough to one of them for her to muddle through, but she shook her head.

  “No, but Aeval can. Let me take this, please. I’m due out at Talamh Lonrach Oll this weekend. I can ask her then if she will help me translate it.” She tucked it in her purse.

  Menolly was standing over by the window. “You know, her bedroom faces the park. And there are no curtains here. Anybody could hide out there in the bushes and watch her.” She turned back to us. “Before tomorrow’s over, somebody should check out there to see if they can find any footprints or signs that someone has been staking out her house.”

  The thought made me shudder, but I added it to my list of notes. “Right. I’d go out there tonight but we’d just mess up any prints in the dark. Tad, Albert . . . did Violet mention that there has been anything upsetting her? Anything out of the ordinary, at all? Think. Any little tidbit might be important.”

  Tad ran his hand over the nightgown and shivered. “She said something a few days back that struck me as strange . . . let me think for a moment to make sure I get it right.” He mulled over his thoughts, then snapped his fingers. “I remember—she said that she was getting friend requests from someone online who made her nervous.”

  “Really? She has a MySupe page?” MySupe was the equivalent to Facebook, even though most Supes used Facebook anyway.

  “I don’t know if it’s Facebook or MySupe or what. She didn’t say and I mostly hang out at Tech-Know-Katz, so I’m not sure.”

  “Hmm, we’ll look into it.” Camille frowned, then motioned for me to step out of the room with her. The look on her face set me on edge.

  “I hate to bring up this thought,” she said, once we were alone, “but, do you think Tad might have something to do with her disappearance? He’s in love with her and she has never expressed an interest in him. She’s dating someone he obviously dislikes. Maybe he broke . . . did something to her, and now is trying to cover it up? Or he feels guilty and wants to get caught.”

  At my expression, she shrugged. “Hey, it happens. Just saying . . .”

  “I know, I know but . . . I don’t think so. Maybe I still want to believe the best in people, but my gut tells me he’s just as worried as I’m beginning to get. I could buy her running off to someplace without telling them, but not leaving her cat. Or her plants. Woodland Fae tend to treat their plants like children. And a dryad—or one of her cousins—wouldn’t abandon her floral babies or fur babies.”

  She considered my point, then let out a sigh. “You’re right. But if she didn’t run off, then she was kidnapped. Or dragged away. What are the chances we’re going to find her alive?”

  I didn’t want to think about that possibility. If she’d been the victim of a violent crime, chances weren’t good that we’d find her alive. I already knew that much. But now I wanted to help.
r />   “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Let’s finish searching her apartment and then we’ll head to Carter’s. And tomorrow, we’ll come out here and search the park out back of the house. She has no fence dividing the lawn from the ravine. Anybody could have been lurking out there.” Another thought crossed my mind. “Can you do a Seeking spell to find her?”

  Camille considered the thought. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. Remember the harpy? There’s no guarantee and my Moon magic still fizzes out as often as it works. I’m willing to give it a go. I’d also have to gather the right components first. We’ll see how it goes.”

  With that, we finished our unfruitful search. Camille clutching the diary, headed out into the night. Albert found a carrier and took Tumpkins home with him.

  * * *

  After promising the guys we’d call them the minute we found out anything, we dropped Menolly off back at the bar—she had some things to attend to there—and Camille and I headed to Carter’s. The son of Hyperion, the Titan, and a succubus, the half Titan, half demon was leader of the Demonica Vacana Society, a group that watched over humanity and recorded interactions between the Demonkin and humans throughout the ages. Essentially, Carter was a demigod.

  He had shoulder-length hair the color of Menolly’s, and he cut a handsome figure, with horns that curved gracefully back like those of a ram’s. He was able to pass in society by masking his demonic heritage when he chose to, but mostly, he stayed in his apartment, content to be a recluse. He was friendly and polite to us, but we never made the mistake of forgetting just how powerful he could be.

  We parked outside the brick building that he lived in, and Camille stopped for a moment, closing her eyes.

  “He’s got his wards back up, strong as ever. His sorceress must have rebounded after Gulakah’s bhouts and spirit demons dispersed.”

  For a while, every magic-using person in the area—be they OW Fae or human—had been in danger. The energy-sucking spirits that the Lord of Ghosts had summoned had turned the city into their private feeding ground and nobody who used magic was safe.

  Now, things seemed to be returning to normal, although we’d learned that it would take quite some time before the increasing ghostly activity would scale back. Gulakah had spent eons increasing the connection between the angry spirits of the Netherworld and Earthside. The mess wasn’t going to balance itself out in a few months, or a few years, even though he was no longer a threat.

  As we clattered down the concrete steps leading to the basement apartment, the rain cascaded over the back of my neck. We seldom bothered with umbrellas because in Seattle, chances were good a rainstorm would be accompanied by windy weather. Umbrellas were sitting ducks for destruction.

  Carter seemed to have a prescience about our visits; as usual, we waited mere seconds before the door opened. He stood back, graciously ushering us in. As we entered, the familiar comfort of the room welcomed us with its overly lush Victoriana décor, the aging upholstery that was still clean as a whistle, and the warm glow of the incandescent bulbs lighting the Tiffany lamps.

  Carter was wearing his usual smoking jacket—this time a deep plum—and black trousers. Other than Roman, he was the only person we knew who could make a cravat look good. He waited till we were seated and then rang a bell.

  A woman gracefully entered, wearing a stiff maid’s uniform. She carried a tea tray filled with delicious bites of cake and cookies and scones, and then she brought back a tray with a chintz teapot and cups and saucers. As she poured, we took a moment to sink back in the overstuffed seats, and relax.

  Carter motioned for her to leave, then turned to us. “I’m glad you came. I assume you have some questions for me, but let them wait for a moment. I was going to contact you tomorrow anyway. I have news for you, and I’m not sure just how you’re going to take it.”

  One of his cats—he had three and adored them—jumped up on my lap. I had, when they were babies, attempted to drag them off in my tabby form because they were crying for their mama, but now Roxy, the cream and white fifteen-pound wonder who had been an adorable tiny kitten, landed in my lap with a thump.

  I grimaced—she managed to hit a trigger point to a sore muscle, but the minute she started to knead, a soft spot in my heart flared and I found my territorial nature softening. I wasn’t sure why, but lately I’d been more open to other cats. My hackles were less likely to flare.

  Camille immediately took control of the cat, sweeping it into her arms and snuggling it. I grinned at her. She was an ailurophile, and while she loved her spirit kitty Misty that I’d gotten for her the preceding Yule, I knew she longed to have a real flesh-and-blood cat for a pet . . . and that did not include me when I shifted form.

  Carter watched, an indulgent look on his face. After a few minutes, Roxy had had enough kisses on the head and snuggles, and leaped out of Camille’s arms, wandering off.

  I cleared my throat. “So, what’s the news you have for us, and why do you think we might have some issues with it?”

  Carter paused for a moment, then shrugged. “It’s just . . . in doing some research locally, I ran across . . .” He seemed at a loss for words, and that wasn’t like Carter at all. He was always eloquent, never tongue-tied.

  I decided to make things easier. “Just spit it out.”

  “Well, I’ve run across someone—two people—I think you need to meet. Their names are Hester Lou Fredericks, and Daniel George Fredericks. They’re brother and sister.”

  “Why do you think we need to meet them?” Camille looked as confused as I felt.

  “The fact is . . . they are your blood cousins . . . on your mother’s side.”

  As his words hit home, Camille and I looked at one another, incredulous. What we’d always hoped for had finally happened—our mother’s blood family had come to light. Only now, I wasn’t sure it was such a good thing.

  Chapter 4

  As Carter’s words fully registered, so did the shock of what he was actually saying. Camille stammered, but all she managed to spit out were a few little half-formed words. Surprised that for once I was the vocal one, I shook my head to clear my thoughts.

  “Are you sure? Mother said she was an orphan.”

  “Just because you’re an orphan, doesn’t mean there isn’t a record of your parentage. And just because someone tells you that you’re an orphan, doesn’t mean you really are.” Carter gave us a long look, and the realization of what he was saying began to hit home.

  Camille found her voice. “You mean . . . Mother wasn’t an orphan?”

  “No, she wasn’t. You do have her last name—D’Artigo. Her adoptive parents decided to leave her that much of her heritage, which is surprising given the time period when they took her in. But Maria’s parents didn’t die like her foster parents told her. And they weren’t best friends with Maria’s parents.”

  Carter was holding a blue file, a thick one, and he set it down on the table, touching it lightly with the tips of his fingers. “How much do you want to know?”

  I glanced at Camille. She gave me a short nod. “Everything, please.”

  The only thing we knew about our mother’s lineage is that she was supposedly orphaned as a child and her parents’ best friends had taken her in and raised her as their own. Our grandmother was supposed to have been a beauty, and our grandfather, a man of modest means but good character. Now, all that hung in the air, ready to fly out the window as the truth shed light on shadow.

  With a deep breath, Carter motioned for us to drink our tea. He leaned back, the brace on his leg causing him to wince. Menolly had alluded to knowing how he got the injury, but she hadn’t told us his secret and neither Camille nor I felt it our place to ask.

  After a moment, he said, “Your grandmother’s name was Theresa D’Artigo. She was fifteen when she gave birth to your mother. She wasn’t married, and she wasn’t engaged. In 1921, that was a big deal. Maria’s father—your maternal grandfather—was named William Jones. He was a
high school senior. His parents made sure their son never knew about Maria.”

  William Jones. The name hung on the tip of my tongue. After all these years, we were finding out about our mother’s side of the family, but this all-too-human name sounded odd. I began to feel my emotions distancing themselves from the situation.

  “Theresa was pressured into giving up the baby. In exchange for everybody keeping their mouths shut, William Jones’s parents quietly paid off her family. There wasn’t much she could do, I suppose. In human society, having an illegitimate child at that time was a tough row to hoe. Theresa’s family kept her home, never telling anybody she was pregnant so she wouldn’t be disgraced. Instead, they spread the story that she’d gone to visit relatives for a few months. Theresa had no choice in the matter—she was housebound and forced to obey. When she gave birth to Maria, her parents had lined up a couple wanting to adopt, and she gave in quietly. Theresa wanted her daughter to have a better life than she did. Back then, without the Net or even any prevalence of telephones, it was easy to keep secrets, and dirty laundry stayed buried.”

  “And that couple . . . they were the Wilsons? Maria’s foster parents?” Camille looked shaken. I wanted to know what was running through her head but right now, my own thoughts were racing too quickly to sort out anybody else’s.

  Carter nodded. “Yes. Theresa did manage a few moments alone with them. She asked the Wilsons to please tell Maria that they had been friends with Maria’s parents, and that the couple had died in an accident. Theresa didn’t want her daughter ever thinking that she had voluntarily given her away, and she didn’t want Maria to look for her.”

  “And they did what Theresa asked them to.” That had been the story we’d always heard. Our mother talked about how she’d been orphaned by a car accident, and her parents’ best friends took her in. She truly had believed every word.