Spirit And Dust Part 6

"There's nothing," said Carson. "I looked." He set down the tray and peered over my shoulder. In another situation, his breath on my ear would have been very distracting.

"You're blocking the light," I said, though really I just needed him to step away so I could concentrate. There was something. My psyche caught the whiff of dirt and ash and the hollow sound of metal and stone. I needed both hands, so I looped the strand of pearls around my neck. Then I reached into the safe, feeling along the shelves and sides.

I tapped on the back and it rang hollow. With a press of my fingers, a panel slid away, and a cold piece of metal fell into my hand. The psychic vibration ran up my arm like a live current and knocked me backward into Carson, who caught me around the waist as the object fell to the carpet with a heavy thunk.

"Honestly," said Mrs. Hardwicke, tutting in disapproval, "the way you girls throw yourselves into a man's arms these days. No finesse."

With a little groan, I struggled to get my feet under me. "Next time I'll try for a dignified swoon."

"What was that?" Carson asked, steadying me until I stopped wobbling.

I gestured to the floor. There lay an old-fashioned key, about five inches long including the st.u.r.dy filigree on the end. "Alexis hid that. It must be important."

"No, I mean that jolt you got," he said, still hovering. "Are you okay?"

"Fine." Waving off his concern, I crouched to retrieve the key but first had to work up the nerve to touch it again.

"Let me," said Carson, grabbing it before I could. He held it up to catch the lamplight on its dull bronze surface. "I'm guessing this has got some ghostly kick to it?"

Mrs. Hardwicke's shade peered over our shoulders, a very human move. "Well, it should," she said. "It's the key to a mausoleum."

I turned to her in surprise. "How do you know?"

She sniffed, and went to her "foolish mortals" tone. "Because it's the key to my mausoleum, of course."

Long-standing remnants could be awfully pragmatic about their state of being. It made a nice but startling change from the recently dead wig-out by Bruiser's shade.

"What now?" Carson asked, sounding frustrated with the one-sided conversation.

I blinked him into focus and he raised his brows to reiterate his impatience. Ingrate.

"You are very pushy." I stalled, because knowledge was gold and I was still processing this nugget. "Agent Taylor never rushes me while I work."

He gave a satisfying twitch of annoyance, then held up the key between us. "What. Is. This?"

Alexis had hidden the key from everyone-including Maguire. That was important. So whatever the key opened-the mausoleum-had to be important, too.

"What sort of girl-detective game are you playing, young lady?" demanded Mrs. Hardwicke as the silence lengthened. Her aura was keen and protective. "I've seen this young man"-she nodded at Carson-"with Alexis. But who are you?"

Behind Carson was the picture from the sorority dance, and I saw that Alexis was wearing the pearls. That explained how Mrs. Hardwicke had seen him-she seemed to be tied to the jewelry. Otherwise she would have called to me as soon as I entered the room.

"I'm here to help Alexis," I told Mrs. Hardwicke. That was the rock-bottom truth. There was no debate about whose side I was on. Maguire had bound me, but Alexis was my priority.

Where did Carson fit into that? He was still waiting for me to answer him about the key. Where was his loyalty?

Before I could answer him, something caught his attention. If a guy could p.r.i.c.k up his ears like a dog, Carson would have alerted like a Doberman pinscher.

With startling speed, he palmed the key and shoved the tray of jewelry into my hands. "Stow that and close the safe," he ordered in a murmur, then stepped around me, heading across the suite just as the door flew open.

"The cavalry is here." Lauren's voice carried around the bookcase that hid me, and the safe, from view. "Time for Elvis to leave the building."

9.

I COULDN'T EXPLAIN why I jumped to do what Carson said, except that I trusted Lauren less than I trusted him. Blocked from her view, I whisked the velvet-lined tray into the safe. I started to put the pearls back as well, but Mrs. Hardwicke's voice stopped me.

"Take me with you."

What? I asked her silently, my hand poised at the back of my neck. Why?

"I know what you are," she said, in a weird mix of plea and direct order. "You must help Alexis. I can help you do that."

From the other side of the suite I heard Carson say to Lauren, "It took them longer than I thought to get a warrant."

He meant the FBI, and a lightning strike of hope lit my heart. Agent Taylor-the cavalry-was on his way.

I closed the safe and swung the painting to cover it, my brain running double time. If Lauren's spell was working, Taylor still thought I was asleep on that smelly couch in the office. I needed to give him some kind of heads-up. Not for myself, but for my family. If anything happened to me, he would have to protect them from Maguire.

Could I leave him a clue and get my message across? Taylor hadn't ever shown any sign of ESP, but he had instincts that were almost as good. While I had the chance, I unlooped the pearls from around my neck and unfastened the chain I was wearing in the same movement. The pearls I slipped into my skirt pocket, feeling Grandmama Hardwicke fade to a bare psychic stirring. My own necklace and pendant I hid in my hand, just as Lauren called to me.

"Stop stalling, Red," she snapped. "If you haven't found anything by now, you're not going to."

I dropped the necklace-Saint Gertrude's medal gleaming up at me-beside the bureau and hoped the detectives were thorough in their search. Then I hurried toward the door before Lauren or Carson came looking for me.

"Where are we going?" I asked warily. Maguire needed to stash me while the FBI was there, and I did not put it past him to have a dungeon.

"Out," said Carson, giving me a nudge.

I followed Lauren into the hall. Carson lagged behind, and I hoped he still had the mausoleum key. Surely he would know it was important even if I hadn't yet told him why.

"You two are going to check Alexis's dorm room again," Lauren told me. "Just don't get caught. You can't find Alexis if you're in federal custody."

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," said Carson, sliding out of the bedroom and closing the door firmly. Lauren gave him a talk-to-the-hand wave and disappeared to tend to her own duties, which worried me for Taylor's sake. She'd better not put another spell on him.

Carson, meanwhile, took my arm and hustled me toward a back staircase, which led down to an enormous kitchen. Bertram was waiting with two coats and a set of keys. "It's got a full tank," said the butler, "and a six-pack of soda in the back, as you requested."

"Thanks, Bertram." Carson pocketed the car keys and slipped into one of the coats. He grabbed the second one, and when I didn't move fast enough, wrapped it around me and shoved me toward the back door.

We froze at a sound from the front of the house-one of the goons answering the door, then the familiar murmur of Agent Taylor's voice and the harder crack of Gerard's demand.

I drew a breath to yell to him. Drew it, held it, my tongue making the T in Taylor. Then the geas jerked on my leash with boot-to-the-chest force. My shout came out as nothing but air and a grunting wheeze.

Black fireworks splashed over my vision as I tried to make my diaphragm work, to pull breath back into my lungs. I grabbed at a wall to keep from falling over, but it turned out to be Carson. "Daisy?" he asked, sounding genuinely alarmed.

This was why Maguire had bound me to a task I would have done freely. I couldn't call out to the agents because they would stop me from looking for Alexis. If Taylor didn't ship me back to Texas for my safety, Gerard would arrest me for interfering with a federal investigation.

By accident I staggered toward the door, and the iron band around my chest loosened. I took another step and was able to gasp, "Let's go."

Carson didn't argue, just ushered me out. The biting cold of the Minnesota night s.n.a.t.c.hed away the breath I'd just caught. I stumbled into the garage with Carson, wrestled my arms into the sleeves of the coat, and fell into the pa.s.senger seat of a sedan as soon as he unlocked it.

"A Taurus?" I asked as he started the engine. There were four other cars in the garage and all of them were more ... well, more everything than the beige Ford.

"We're going for unremarkable." He hit a b.u.t.ton on the remote clipped to the visor and the garage lights went dark. "What would you pick?"

Not the one that looked like a car from Tron, I guess. He was right; blah was better.

Another b.u.t.ton, and the door in front of us lifted. Headlights off, Carson pulled out of the garage and crept the car along the unlit drive as it curved through the surrounding woods. I could see the front of the house through the trees, and the two uniformed officers posted there, leaning against a squad car, watching for anyone sneaking away. Like us.

I could have jumped out of the car and made a run for it, or rolled down the window and shouted to the cops. But the memory of the geas's donkey-kick in the kitchen kept me still and silent, sunk low in the seat.

Once we'd reached some distance from the house, Carson put his foot down and the Taurus slipped along the dark drive like a moon shadow. It wasn't until we'd reached the county road and turned onto it, free and clear, that the knot in my chest finally loosened.

I sat up and looked out the window, realizing how bright the night really was. Full moon, beige car ... "How did those officers not see us?"

Carson turned on the headlights and settled into a more comfortable position behind the wheel. I could make out his silhouette, and he seemed to debate his answer before admitting, "That was a little sleight of hand on my part."

He said it so calmly that it took a second for me to realize what he meant. "Hang on," I said, rearranging my brain to fit in this new information. "You do magic, too?"

Another pause, another debate. I'd a.s.sumed it was a yes-or-no question. "Not spells or anything like Lauren does," he explained, sounding almost sheepish. "It's more like a talent."

Okay, I didn't even know where to put that in my file cabinet of supernatural information. "You mean like Jedi mind powers? 'This is not the Taurus you're looking for'? That kind of talent?"

"Not exactly." He was definitely looking sorry he'd admitted anything. "Not mind powers."

"Does Maguire know about this?" I asked, gnawing on the question like a dog on a bone, trying to get to the marrow of it. Or maybe just of him. I had to know how much to trust him.

I could see his knuckles flex on the steering wheel. "This has nothing to do with finding Alexis. Let's stick to our job."

"How about this, then." I didn't like unknowns, especially where they intersected with me. "Maguire has his normal resources, his criminal ones, plus you and Lauren, the Wonder Twins. Why do you need me?"

He let slip a millisecond of uncertainty before answering. "The boss is one for covering all bases. Maguire saw you on the news, and it was too good an opportunity to waste."

"So he sent you to pick me up like a loaf of bread from the market." I sank into my seat, not even bothering to get indignant over well-trod indignities.

"What the boss wants, he gets."

After the guillotine finality of that statement, we drove the next mile in silence. I spent the time trying to sort out my tangled thoughts. G.o.d knew what Carson was thinking. But after a few minutes he broke the quiet. "Can I ask you a question?"

I sighed and answered, "I was born this way."

"That explains a lot, but it wasn't my question." We'd reached a state highway, and cruising speed. "Who is St. Gertrude?"

I fought a wary fidget and played it cool. "The patron saint of the recently dead. And of people afraid of mice, oddly enough. Apparently she had a lot of cats."

My worry was justified. Carson reached under his coat into his shirt pocket and pulled out my necklace, Saint Gertrude's medal dangling in the dashboard light. "Then you might miss this."

It was too dim to make out the saintly nun in her habit, cat cradled in her arms. But I imagined her scowling in disapproval, not because I'd blown the chance to send Taylor a message, but because I'd almost forgotten whose side Carson was on.

I s.n.a.t.c.hed the pendant from his fingers, furious with him and me both. "Jacka.s.s."

A muscle flexed in his jaw, but I didn't know him well enough to know what that meant. I found out an instant later, when he swerved onto the shoulder, stopped the car, and twisted in the seat. Suddenly he was in my s.p.a.ce, with a hand on the dash and another on the headrest, beside my ear. He moved so fast I hadn't even seen him unbuckle his seat belt. I drew back against the pa.s.senger door. It didn't occur to me to open it; I was that sure he'd stop me if I tried. But really it was the leashed anger in his gaze that trapped me there.

"Yeah," he said. "I am a jacka.s.s. But let me tell you about the guy I work for. If your Agent Taylor interferes with the boss's plan-any of his plans, but especially any involving Alexis-Maguire will make him wish he'd never been born."

Hearing their names in Carson's whipcord threat raised their specters in the cold darkness of the desolate road. My pulse beat so hard that it was difficult to swallow, but I had to before I could speak. With courage as thin as my breath, I challenged, "If you mean a long swim in the river, just say so."

"The big man doesn't kill people very often. He just makes them wish they were dead." Bitterness honed the razor edge of his voice. "At the very least, he will make sure your boy loses his career before it even starts."

I got his point. Maguire needed me alive and cooperative. But Taylor was expendable, and I had put him in danger by trying to leave him a clue. Worse, Maguire would add him to the list of ways to punish me if I p.i.s.sed him off.

I have a big family. It's a long list. Carson couldn't have struck closer to my heart if he tried. I started to think maybe I should be worried about how well he aimed.

Warm air poured from the car vents, but my insides were icy. "If he's such a bad man," I asked, "what does that make you for working for him?"

I'd shot blind, but scored a hit as well. The specters in his gaze flinched, though he didn't move for a long moment. Then, wordlessly, he took the necklace from my hand and fastened it around my neck.

He clasped the chain over my hair, getting it on the first try, before I even thought of protesting the invasion of my s.p.a.ce. Before I thought anything, other than that he smelled really nice for an apprentice criminal.

When he sat back, he was cool and in control. "It makes me a bad man who doesn't want anything bad to happen to you." Mood shifting, he turned and put the sedan in gear. "So let's get to work."

That was the best idea I'd heard all night. I exhaled my own tension, happy to have a goal. Or the idea of a goal, since I didn't know what to do next.

"I didn't read anything at Alexis's dorm," I said, dropping the oval pendant under my shirt while Carson pulled back onto the empty state highway. And when I say empty, I mean empty. I'd seen no other cars while we were stopped. "Her bodyguard didn't have much useful to say. He was escorting her out to the car to take her to a party and"-I didn't go into detail, just made a fake gun with my fingers and a pistol-shot noise-"that's all she wrote."

Carson drove like he knew where he was headed. "I don't know why Walters-that's the bodyguard-was driving her last night. He was taken off that duty after Alexis complained about him. I always figured he would go down in a bar brawl if the c.o.ke didn't rot his brain first." He glanced at me with chagrin. "Not that I'd wish a bullet on anyone."

I didn't think he would. There was iron determination under his surface calm, but no stone-cold killer. And no accusing remnants, either. Whatever haunted him was figurative.

"Any chance Walters was in on it and got double-crossed?" Carson asked. He might not be stone cold, but he was pragmatic.

"No," I answered. "His surprise was genuine."

"He couldn't have been lying? Walters wasn't exactly a stand-up human being."

I shook my head, then realized he was looking at the road. "Trust me; deception was not the last thing on his mind."

And yet I was sure I was missing something really obvious. It nagged at me, and I sifted through all the pieces of the long, confusing day trying to find it.

Think, Daisy. What would Taylor do? The investigators would go through the mountain of paper and avalanche of books in Alexis's dorm room, looking for clues. They would interview her dorm mates and friends and review video from the security cameras.

What could I do that they couldn't?