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The women had given her a lot of information, she reflected. Not all of it worthwhile, but definitely interesting. It was when she’d learned that their ultimate destination was also Santa Monica that she’d tuned in. Hour upon hour, they’d discussed the best bars and restaurants, the best places to shop for clothes, even the best street in both of their biased opinions—Montana. They couldn’t live without a daily trip to Starbucks, and standing in line at coffee shops was the best way to meet interesting people and guys with good jobs. Finding these same guys with good jobs at bars was iffy. Men in line at a coffee shop were a much better bet, but that didn’t mean that you stopped going to bars. You just had to know what you were looking for.
Well, huh.
Halfway through the trip was when Mr. SoCal had boarded the train and seated himself across from Ravinia. His gaze had studied her with frank admiration and she’d wondered what the hell he was seeing because she was in her dungarees and sweatshirt and well, it had been a while since that last shower. But he was in long shorts and a sweatshirt, too, and he’d stuck out his hand and introduced himself as Doug.
With nothing else to do in the slow-moving line, Ravinia’s thoughts wandered back to the man she’d named SoCal and her life since arriving in Santa Monica.
He wanted to know all about her, but all she told him was that she was on a trip to visit her cousin. Mr. SoCal—Ravinia just couldn’t think of him as Doug—told her he worked at a restaurant hot spot in Santa Monica as a bartender, though mostly it sounded like he was a kind of beach bum. He shared a place with two other guys who also worked in the restaurant business. By the way he’d talked, she sensed every night was a party . . . and maybe every day.
“Where’s your cousin live?” he asked her. “You got a ride, or do you need a lift?”
“I might,” she said, then changed the subject quickly before he could ask for an address. No way she was giving out more information than she had to. Until she knew whom to trust, she was sharing as little as possible, and one thing she knew for sure was that she wasn’t going to tell anyone about her and her sisters’ “gifts.” Aunt Catherine had pounded that into her head before she left, though that was a “no-brainer” as Mr. SoCal would say. The people around Deception Bay who knew skirted the women of Siren Song. Besides, her own gift wasn’t all that spectacular—she could look into the heart of a person and know if they were good or bad.
She looked inside Mr. SoCal as a matter of course and got a squishy feeling, like he was made of jelly instead of stone, weak and prone to take the easiest path rather than to fight for what he wanted. Not criminal qualities, just not worth knowing.
She left Mr. SoCal and the college student and the twentysomethings at the train station, then went in search of transportation to Santa Monica. Mr. SoCal had a car, and the twentysomethings took a taxi, but the price was too prohibitive so Ravinia eventually learned which bus would take her toward the ocean.
Once she was inside the Santa Monica city limits, she was able to ride a Big Blue Bus and figured out how to maneuver her way around the city without having to walk everywhere. She found a place to sleep in the park and hung out at Starbucks. Her investigation was stalled in her search for Ralph and Joy Gaines because she didn’t have a smartphone or a driver’s license, two very important pieces. She tried looking up their names in telephone books, but that hadn’t worked out. Few phone booths were left and very few of them had books that hadn’t been ripped off. The best way to find out information was the Internet, but she had no way of accessing it just yet.
“But soon,” she told herself as the line moved forward a bit.
The danger to Elizabeth was real enough, as it was to the rest of them. But Elizabeth had no concept of what was coming for her. It was Ravinia’s job to inform her and find a way to keep her safe.
Chapter 6
“Can I help you?” a cheery voice asked.
Ravinia was pulled out of her reverie and found herself at the register where a girl about her age with a broad smile was ready to take her order. The woman in line ahead of her was still texting as she moved farther along the counter to the spot where she’d pick up her order.
“Yeah,” Ravinia answered, nodding and finally making a decision. “Sure. How about black coffee, and uh, maybe a bran muffin and water . . . not bottled?”
To hell with bottled water. Why pay when Starbucks would give her a plastic cup filled with water for free? The whole bottled water phenomenon was beyond her. Siren Song lodge had a well, as did most of the Foothillers, the descendants of mainly Chinook Indians who lived in an unincorporated town nearby, and everybody just drank out of the tap.
Not so in Santa Monica.
After carefully meting out her change, Ravinia carried her drinks and muffin through the crowded seating area where she found a small table that had been recently vacated. Listening to people’s conversations had proven interesting and sometimes even fruitful, but only a man reading a newspaper was seated nearby. Pulling her phone from her pocket, she made a face, realizing it was nearly out of battery power. She needed to get a room to take a shower and charge up the phone, then add more minutes unless she could find a way to get a smartphone.
She sipped from her coffee and made short work of her muffin. Still hungry, she considered getting in line again, but decided to wait.
Glancing around the room, she marveled a bit that she was so far from home, a
world away from the cosseted life she’d known.
Of course, she’d been the one to leave. She’d always been the most vocal and outwardly mutinous of her family. Maybe it was because she was the youngest of Mary’s daughters, at least the youngest living at the lodge. But she wasn’t the only one who had been outside the gates. Some of her sisters had escaped by being purposely adopted before the gates slammed shut, and the boys Mary had given birth to were immediately dispensed with by Mary herself, adopted to families unknown . . . at least unknown to Ravinia.
The only boy allowed to stay had been Nathaniel, Ravinia had heard, a son who’d never been right, apparently. He was long dead.
Ravinia wondered about that, but then, she’d wondered about a lot of things. What was truth? What was fiction? Why all the secrets?
According to Aunt Catherine, Ravinia’s mother had given herself to man after man, but she hadn’t trusted her own boys, hadn’t wanted to raise sons. Maybe there was a reason for that. Maybe there was a bad seed within those male offspring. Maybe Mary had been protecting her daughters. Certainly there had been evidence enough of evil lying in wait, something dark and insidious and wanton. Ravinia’s skin crawled with memories of sensing his presence.
So, because of Ravinia’s rebelliousness, her experiences beyond the wall, and her ability to sense the evil ones, Catherine had reluctantly sent her on her mission. To save Catherine’s only daughter. The girl known as Elizabeth Gaines who had been adopted out as a baby.
“Let me know she’s all right and keep her safe,” Catherine had said to Ravinia as she’d sent her on her quest.
Keep her safe.
Aunt Catherine had her reasons. Good reasons. Reasons Ravinia understood better than she ever had. One of them was Ravinia’s half brother, one of the boys Mary had dispensed with, who’d returned intent on revenge. That he was currently missing was no reason to feel safe. Aunt Catherine believed he was just lying in wait, planning another attack on her family. That’s why she’d sent Ravinia to find Elizabeth and at least warn her.
