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“Thank you,” I whispered. Though there was so much more I wanted to say, I didn’t think there was a single human language that could tell him what he’d done for me. He’d saved me.
“I love you too,” was his reply.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Maxime wasn’t the best at keeping a straight face. His smirk when Holden and I emerged from our bedroom spoke volumes about how much he’d heard. At least he had the common sense not to make any cute remarks. I don’t think I could have handled that.
“You guys ready to go?”
As a kindness to Holden I hadn’t worn the Yankees shirt, even if it was the most comfortable thing I had in my current possession. It didn’t seem right to wear something that smelled like Desmond after having mind-altering sex with Holden.
Which left the leather bustier as the next best option for a top. There was no way I was wearing any of the skirts Holden had packed, so I was back in the leather pants and my knee-high boots. With the leather jacket thrown on, I looked like a dominatrix for a biker gang. The jacket wasn’t optional, though. I needed to wear it to cover my gun holster.
Since we’d be driving to the mansion, I’d insisted on bringing my sword, even though I’d need to leave it in the car. Between a silver knife in my boot, two 9mm handguns, seven spare clips—the only reason I’d ever carry a purse—and a magic fae katana, I felt somewhat protected. I hadn’t fully shaken off the tension from the nightmare. Once I’d admitted I couldn’t lie in bed with Holden for the rest of my life, the reality of the evening ahead had sunk in.
Yesterday this had seemed like a basic search mission. Go to a haunted mansion, try a key in a few doors and maybe find a clue about my father’s whereabouts.
Now it didn’t feel nearly as simple. If I had been in my father’s dream—which seemed more and more likely—this was no longer about finding a missing object. I had to find him and this doctor he’d spoken about, before it was too late. And something told me I didn’t have a lot of time left.
“Let’s get this show on the road,” I said. “Moonlight’s burning. ” I was trying to make my tone light and cheery, but I didn’t have it in me to force emotions I wasn’t feeling. Holden—who had gotten to see the worst of it—placed a hand between my shoulders and rubbed up and down, giving me his support without saying a word.
According to Google Maps it was supposed to take about an hour to drive from downtown San Francisco to San Jose. Google Maps, as it turned out, was a filthy liar whose mother was a hamster and whose father smelled of elderberries. Close to two hours after we’d left our hotel, we pulled into the parking lot of the Winchester Mystery House. Between Google Maps, our GPS and Holden’s backseat driving, I was about ready to turn the car west and drive us all straight into the ocean. Adding insult to injury was the fact the parking lot was so crammed full of cars it took me an extra ten minutes to find parking.
I hadn’t expected moonlight tours through an old mansion to be so popular. Thankfully we’d given ourselves plenty of extra time for the trip, and had prepurchased our tickets online. That spark of genius belonged to Maxime, and seeing the snakelike line of tourists waiting at the ticket kiosk, I was glad I’d listened to him.
I’d have been a lot happier to bypass the tour altogether and just break into the place, but Maxime had shot my idea down in no time. Apparently the house was such a maze, many tourists a day would get lost in it, requiring retrieval. If we went in on our own without a tour guide to bring us to the Tiffany window, we’d end up spending hours going around in circles to find it. I had to admit onc
e he’d explained it, it made more sense to do this the human way.
We queued up in the prepaid ticket line behind a family from Florida. I knew they were from Florida because they all wore identical yellow T-shirts that proclaimed, Wilson Family Vacation Florida to California (or Bust!) in giant black letters on the back.
“Man alive, what a line,” the mother said, laughing at herself like our wait time was hilarious. “Just lines everywhere. ”
“Mmm,” I replied. I didn’t want to engage her in discussion. If we were going into the house to steal something, I didn’t want to stick out in anyone’s memory.
“Where y’all from?” Evidently I was wearing my Please talk to me hat today. I thought I’d burned that one.
“New York,” I said.
“Ohhhhh, New York. New York City? The Big Apple! City that never sleeps. Mad-hattan!” Again she laughed at herself as though any of what she’d said had been a joke. If she was angling for a prize because she knew eight thousand nicknames for the city I lived in, she’d be waiting for a while.
“Yup, that’s the one. ”
Undeterred by my obvious disinterest in our conversation, she turned around to look at me. She had a sweet face, round cheeks and a short bobbed haircut that screamed mom. In her mid- or late-thirties, she wore the roundness of someone who no longer tried to be skinny but clearly stayed somewhat fit chasing the three rugrats at her side.
“Oh my, you look so young to have a son. ” She gave Maxime a once-over.
We’d debated how best to sell Max to humans who might ask. I was twenty-three, but thanks to the blessings of my genetic makeup, I appeared younger. Young enough I’d still be getting ID’d at bars in ten years, and certainly too young to have a thirteen-year-old son.
“Younger brother,” I explained.
Her concerned expression faded. She gave Holden a cursory glance, and at first I thought she was going to ask what role he played in our weird family, but she got distracted by her cursory inspection and ended up not saying anything at all about him.
“Very nice of you to bring him out here. ” Her cheeks were flushed red, and she looked from Holden to Maxime. “Do you do a lot with your sister?”
My God this woman was chatty.
“I go where she goes,” he said with a shrug, playing the part of a bored teenage boy to a T. Instead of meeting her gaze and compelling her to leave us alone, he stared at his shoes and shut down any further questions she might ask him.
