Laced With Magic Part 7

"You need help, Karen," I said. "I'm going to drive you down to Boston tomorrow and see if we can find a doctor."

"Not until we do something about Steffie."

"She's dead." My neutral cop persona was starting to crack. "There's nothing we can do."

"She's reaching out to us." Her eyes were wild with grief and hope. "She sent me to find you, Luke. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

If I had believed a word she said was true, it would have meant everything, but I didn't.

My daughter was dead and I was the reason why.

That was the only thing I believed.

It was the only thing that mattered.

I pushed back my chair and stood up. "See you in the morning, Karen."

7.

CHLOE.

I tried to eavesdrop on Luke and his ex-wife from the bedroom, but the astral static was so strong I couldn't hear a word they were saying. When that didn't work, I tried to send Pye into the kitchen to pick up the vibes and report back to me, but she seemed to like the redhead about as much as I did and refused to leave my side. Dinah, Lucy, and Blot weren't any help at all. The three of them were sound asleep on the window seat, oblivious to the turmoil I was going through.

Why was I pacing like someone in solitary? It was my house. I didn't have to stay locked away in the bedroom like a prisoner. I could stroll back into the kitchen, take my seat at the table with the man I loved and the woman he'd married, and find out what was going on.

If I didn't, there was the distinct possibility that I might go crazy.

I smoothed down my hair, wished for the thousandth time that small b.o.o.bs would come back in style, then casually ambled toward the kitchen.

They weren't there.

They also weren't in the living room.

Or (insert loud sigh of relief) the guest room.

The familiar sound of the truck's engine turning over grabbed my attention. Okay, it didn't grab my attention exactly. What it did was grab me by the throat and practically throw me to the ground. I raced out onto the front porch and straight into the ex, who was sitting on the top step, knees under her chin, smoking a cigarette. Relief almost knocked me flat.

"He left," she said before I had a chance to say a word. "He said he had to fill out a report at town hall or something."

"Did he say when he'd be back?"

"h.e.l.lo," she said. "This is Luke we're talking about."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"He hasn't pulled the disappearing act yet?" Her bitter tone unnerved me. "Well, give him time. He will."

She was grieving her daughter's death, and blaming Luke was one of the ways she eased her pain. I understood that, but it didn't mean I liked hearing it. Their marriage wasn't any of my business. I intended to keep it that way.

The night was moonless and foggy. The glowing reddish orange tip of her cigarette punctuated the darkness like a beacon. She was the stranger, but suddenly I was the one who felt like I didn't belong.

"The guest room's at the end of the hallway," I said. "I left some towels and an extra toothbrush on the bed."

She nodded. "Thanks."

That was the best she could do?

"Sorry about the eggs. There's a stash of Chips Ahoy in the cabinet over the fridge if you get hungry."

"Thanks."

I had one last thing to say, and after that, I was through with polite conversation.

"I'm sorry about your daughter."

She tossed the cigarette down, and it made a soft sizzle when it hit the mud. "So am I."

"Okay then," I said. "Good night. I have an early day tomorrow but if you need anything-"

"No problem," she said, not bothering to look up at me. "I'm fine."

I turned to leave, and from the corner of my eye I saw a shimmering silver thought probe slithering through the mud toward the ex. To be honest, I wouldn't have minded watching her expression when the nasty little gizmo started nibbling at her ankle like a thought-hungry piranha, but there was no way I was going to let the entire town find out her story before I did.

I held my hands up and out in the stop position and racked my brain for the words to halt the probe's progress. I knew that defensive spell inside out. I had used it at the town hall. And how many times had I deflected thought probes as they tried to sneak in my bedroom window while Luke and I were-well, you get the picture. Let's just say more than my yarn shop would be an Internet sensation.

"Come on," I muttered. "You knew it a few hours ago."

The ex turned slightly in my direction. "Did you say something?"

I ignored her. I could hear the rhythm of the defensive charm but couldn't a.s.semble the words in the right order.

" . . . walls of stone, walls of fire . . . " I waved my arms in the air.

The ex turned all the way around. "What are you doing?"

I finally had her attention exactly when I didn't want it.

The thought probe was winding its way through the mud toward her right ankle. I had maybe five seconds before it made contact. A vision of the Book of Spells danced before my eyes. The pages flipped and a beam of golden light landed on the Doomsday quick-and-dirty solution for blocking thought probes.

I threw myself on the probe a split second before it made contact with the redhead, covering the p.r.i.c.kly, glittering missile with my body like a bomb blanket.

I don't even want to think about how I looked, sprawled at her feet. You know that dream where you're naked at your high school reunion and everyone else has had liposuction and spa treatments while you're standing there with your cellulite shimmering under the spotlight?

This was worse.

The probe was nipping at my thigh, but I didn't dare move or it would slip away and sink itself into the redhead's memory bank.

The redhead rushed over to me. "Are you okay?" She looked different, stronger somehow. She even sounded different. More engaged. More sure of herself.

I tried to talk, but like I said before, magick didn't come easy to me and it was taking all my powers of concentration to shut down the probe. I had nothing left over for conversation.

For some reason this seemed to worry her.

"Don't move," she said. "I'm a trauma nurse. I'm going to see if you have any injuries."

It kept getting better and better. Just my luck that the incredible fainting woman turned out to be a trained medical professional.

"Don't touch me!" I warned as I struggled to wrangle the probe into submission. If she touched me, the probe would use me as a conduit to get to her.

"I won't hurt you," she said in a soothing tone of voice. "I just need to see if you broke anything."

"You're the one who keeled over in the church," I reminded her. "Maybe you should be checked for a concussion."

"I'm fine."

"So am I."

She moved closer. I pinned my knees more tightly together. Thought probes had the nasty habit of gaining power just before they went dormant, and I was feeling the heat.

"I'd feel better if you let me check you out," she said.

"I'd feel better if you'd pretend I wasn't here."

"That would be a lot easier if you'd quit twitching."

"I'm not twitching."

"Yes, you are. In my line of work, twitching isn't a good thing."

The probe unleashed its last burst of energy, sending sharp arrows of heat through my body, then went dormant. I breathed a long loud sigh of relief.

Which, as it turned out, was a big mistake because the redhead thought I was having respiratory problems. She flipped me over on my back and started doing weird things to my chest. Unfortunately I'm insanely ticklish and she hit one of those spots on my rib cage and I started laughing and then she started laughing and the next thing I knew she lost her footing and ended up in the mud next to me.

Who knew mutual embarra.s.sment could be a bonding experience?

"I'm Chloe," I said, extending a muddy hand.

"Karen." She had a strong grip.

Too bad she was my human boyfriend's totally human ex-wife. I was starting to like her.

LUKE.

Karen's arrival had knocked me on my a.s.s, but that was nothing compared to the way everyone else in town was freaking out. I stopped by the town hall on the way to take another look at the rental car. I figured I'd lend a hand with the repairs, but there was nothing a human male could do that a sprite couldn't do a thousand times faster and better.

Midge Stallworth and her husband were there, brewing coffee and making sure the collective blood sugar didn't drop. Renate and Colm. Lilith and Archie, Frank and Manny and Rose from a.s.sisted Living. Paul Griggs and his clan. I sensed rather than saw the spirits, a pulsing heartbeat hanging in the heavy air. With the exception of Renate and Colm, I had come to think of them all as friends. People I could turn to if I needed something. People who knew they could turn to me.

Okay, so maybe "people" wasn't the right term, but when it came to Sugar Maple, my vocabulary was still limited by my human experience.

I hadn't expected the conversation to stop cold the second I entered the vestibule or the literal icy wind blowing in my direction when I said h.e.l.lo.

"You gotta get rid of her." Aging vampire Frank never minced words. Usually I found that trait admirable. "The dame has bad news written all over her."

"Pay your back alimony!" The usually cheerful Midge glowered at me. "Maybe then the woman can afford some food."

"One human's enough around here." Coming from Archie, the troll who ran the electronics repair shop near the bridge, this was no surprise. "Two is going to tip the balance. Mark my words."

Renate from the Inn fixed me with one of those chilly stares the Fae specialized in. "We need to consider our options." She paused. "Without strangers in our midst."

Even I knew what that meant. They wanted me gone.

"See what you did," Midge chided the others. "You're making Luke uncomfortable. Tell him you don't consider him a stranger. He's one of us now."

"The h.e.l.l he is." So Deno from Pizza Haven was on the other side of the issue too. "No human has ever been one of us and we're not about to start now."

"Hold on a minute!" I didn't have to take this c.r.a.p. "Chloe's father was human. He was one of you."

"Never!" Renate swelled to full-size human form and stared me down from across the room. "We were born of the need to escape human treachery. That will never change."

"This is no life for a man like you." Colm was turning on the one-of-the-guys charm. "You're a police detective in a town without crime. You can't be happy here in our quiet little hamlet forever."

"Of course he's happy here." Midge sprang to my defense. "He'd be happy anywhere with Chloe."

"I don't give a fig if he's happy or not," Frank chimed in. "Just knock her up, pal, and let's get on with it before Isadora grabs the whole shebang. We're not getting any younger. We want security."

Midge sidled closer to me. "You don't have a"-she lowered her voice-"problem in that area, do you?"

I knew bearing a child was part of Chloe's destiny but it wasn't something we had discussed. I had been hoping to postpone the conversation indefinitely.

"I won't be in my office tomorrow," I said, tamping down volcanic anger. "If anyone needs me, call me on my cell."

I strode toward the door, hoping I'd reach the street before I blew.

"Wait a second, Chief," Wayne, one of the itinerant house sprites, called to me as I pushed open the door. "Grayson found this in the back and figured it belonged to your ex."

He tossed a worn navy blue leather wallet to me from the top of the extension ladder where he had been working.

"Thanks, Wayne. I'll see she gets it." Karen had had that wallet for as long as I could remember. I pocketed it and took one last look around the meeting hall. "Great work. You guys could revive the housing industry single-handed."

Wayne's grin was infectious. He looked like George Cloo ney circa ER ER, and I had to remind myself he was a house sprite revealing himself in a form that my human brain could process.