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“Time-out? What did she do now?” Maggie had reached the stage where she was getting into anything and everything. Sometimes the only way to make her realize there were boundaries was to give her a time-out.
“She bit me,” Delilah said, holding up her index finger. A sturdy white bandage was wrapped around it. “The little dickens snapped at me when I tried to put her back in her playpen after giving her breakfast. She’s got to learn no biting or eventually she could take someone’s finger off.”
“No kidding.” I stared at her finger. “How’s the bite? Any infection, you think?”
“No. It’s clean and Roz spread some of his wonder salve over it. So what’s on the agenda today, as if I didn’t know?” She slipped into a chair and grabbed an apple from the bowl on the table. “Iris, what’s with all the fruit lately? The farmer’s market having a run on apples and oranges?”
“It’s good for you. You eat far too much junk food.” Iris turned around from the sink where she was finishing up the dishes. She put her hands on her hips and stared down Delilah’s irritated grunt. “If you want doughnuts all the time, you’re going to have to get them yourself. You’re addicted to sugar and it’s not healthy.”
“I can handle it,” Delilah muttered, but bit into the apple anyway.
I spooned up my yogurt. “I guess today we plan out our strategy. Asking Aeval to help us with Stacia isn’t going to be a lot of fun.” I really didn’t want to go there but we had no choice. We needed help and we needed it soon.
Delilah crossed her arms on the table and rested her chin on them. “Do you really think Father’s sleeping with Tanaquar?”
She sounded so wistful and sad that I put down my spoon. “What’s the matter, Kitten?”
“I just . . . he always said he couldn’t forget Mother . . .”
So that was it. I reached across the table and patted her hand. “He loved Mother more than anything, but he has to move on. I just wish Tanaquar hadn’t gotten her claws on him. I think she’s using him and I doubt if he knows it. I think he wanted to tell me about it while I was there, but chickened out.” As I bit into the English muffin, a burst of buttery goodness melted into my mouth and I closed my eyes, enjoying the flavor.
“I know he has to move on. I want him to. But . . . it just seems . . . he’s sleeping with the Queen. That’s just so wrong and I can’t tell you why I feel that way.” Morosely, she tossed the rest of the apple in the compost bin and rooted through the cupboards until she finally pulled out a bag of generic potato chips. “I knew we had to have something good in here.”
Iris finished putting away the dishes and crossed her arms. “Fine, I give up. I’ll buy the damned junk food next time I’m grocery shopping but when you break out or realize that it’s sapping your energy, don’t come running to me.” The phone rang just then and she picked it up. After a moment, she handed it to me. “Camille, you’d better take it. Henry’s on the line.”
Wiping my hands on my napkin, I took the receiver. “Henry? What’s up?”
“Camille?” Henry sounded shaky. “We’ve got a problem. I’ve called Detective Johnson and he’s on the way. I think you’d better come down to the shop right away.”
“What’s going on?” I frowned. If Henry said there was a problem, there was. He wasn’t prone to exaggeration.
Henry lowered his voice and it sounded like he’d cupped his hand around the receiver. “There are two men and a woman prowling around the shop. I’ve never seen any of them before. Camille, they frighten me. I asked if I could help them and one of the men growled at me.”
Shit! My first thought was that they were from the Freedom’s Angels group or maybe the Brotherhood of the EarthBorn.
“I’ll be down there in twenty minutes, fifteen if traffic is with me. Meanwhile, you hang tough. And get out of there. Don’t worry about anything in the shop—don’t stop to take the money or anything else. And, Henry . . .” I paused, wanting to warn but not knowing what to warn him against. We could have demons down there, or anti-Fae humans running around, or even somebody who had a personal grudge against us.
“What is it, Camille?”
“Henry—”
I didn’t get a chance to finish my thought. A loud explosion of some sort echoed in my ear, and Henry cried out. The line went dead.
“Motherfucking son of a bitch!” I tossed the receiver on the table.>“Sit, please. Everyone.”
He moved over to his desk—a mammoth oak affair—and returned with a file folder and a sheaf of papers, which he handed to Vanzir, who took one, then passed them on. I glanced at the blank papers when the stack came my way. Carter had made enough for everyone and I took several for the others at home.
“I take it this is password protected?” I asked.
He nodded. “The keyword is rutabaga.”
“Rutabaga?” Menolly cocked her head, glancing at him.
Carter grinned. “Would that be the first word you’d think of when trying to view a demonically sealed document? You want me to change it to open sesame perhaps?”
With a snort, she shook her head. “You’re okay, Carter.”
As I whispered the word, writing appeared on the paper—notes about Stacia Bonecrusher, and a map of directions to her safe house. Her house happened to be an elaborate mansion according to the printout picture, located in one of the wealthier suburbs on the Eastside.
