Keeper of the Shadows - By Alexandra Sokoloff Page 0,35
dock, not turning around until the boat back to the mainland was in sight. She paused, panting, staring back into the dark....
He hadn’t followed her.
And despite everything, she wished he had.
Chapter 8
From the ferry landing in Marina del Rey she took a cab back to the Snake Pit for her car. Once again, it was well after 3:00 a.m. when she finally arrived back at home.
Her cousins’ houses were both dark as she drove through the main gate and up to Gwydion’s Cave.
I’m bringing new meaning to the idea of the night shift, she thought.
Her own kitchen light was the only one burning besides the outside lights of the estate; with her odd hours, she’d learned to leave a light on for herself. She was relieved and grateful that no one was waiting up for her; she couldn’t possibly have explained where she had been or what she had been doing, or especially what she felt, since she didn’t know that herself. But the feeling of Mick’s kiss, of his arms pulling her against him, of the urgent fire of her own response, was making her dazed and light-headed.
She opened the front door and threw her keys in the bowl on the side table. Oddly, Sophie didn’t come padding out to greet her as she almost always did. Barrie moved down toward the bedroom, frowning.
And then she heard a scuffling noise in the kitchen and froze.
Someone’s here.
She took two noiseless steps forward to the panic button the Keepers had installed in every room in the house and hit the silent alarm to wake her cousins. Then she grabbed an umbrella from the coat stand to arm herself.
She crept toward the front door, holding her breath as she approached the archway into the living room. Two shadows loomed up in the darkness...and she came face-to-face with her cousins. All three of them screamed.
Barrie dropped the umbrella, going limp with relief. “You guys! You scared me half to death!”
“You’re the one coming home at three in the morning!” Rhiannon accused.
“We were worried!” Sailor said on top of her. “You send us some text about going off to Catalina in the middle of the night.”
“With some guy.”
“In the middle of a murder investigation.”
“What were we supposed to think?” Rhiannon finished.
Barrie looked at both of them, a little overwhelmed. Then again, maybe she hadn’t been clear enough. “Well, he’s not just some guy, he’s on the Courier.”
Sailor and Rhiannon looked at each other. “All right, you’re starting from the beginning,” Rhiannon said, and herded them all into the kitchen to make tea.
Barrie filled them in over steaming cups of her favorite, black currant. Truthfully, in her own kitchen, with her cat purring in her lap, it was hard to be as spooked as she had been out there on the island, in the dark, with the feeling of the movie all around her. “Mick Townsend is a new hire on the paper,” she started.
“That is so not the point,” Barrie said murderously, and Rhiannon gave Sailor a warning look. Barrie continued warily. “He’s been following the connection between Tiger and Saul Mayo, too. And tonight we went out to Catalina to talk to this old fisherman from Otherworld—”
“The one in the boat scenes?” Rhiannon interrupted. “He was great.”
“He’s for real,” Barrie said. “As real as it gets.”
She quickly filled her cousins in on their interview with Captain Livingston, and his startling insistence that Johnny Love had died during production.
“Oh, my God!” they exclaimed at once.
“I know,” Barrie agreed.
“So, that’s why I haven’t been able to find out anything about the Elven Keeper who handled Johnny’s death,” Sailor said.
“Exactly. He didn’t die in L.A.,” Barrie said. “And I think the reason no Elven knows the real scoop about his death is the water. It happened out on the island. There are no Elven out there. It must have been excruciating for Johnny to be out there filming.”
“I can’t believe he did it,” Rhiannon said.
“He was an actor,” Sailor argued. “A role like that? Anyone would have done it, excruciating or not.”
“I agree,” Barrie said. “But for sure there wouldn’t have been any other Elven out there with him. So, if he did die out there—on set or off—there was no one of his Kind out there to help him or attest to what happened.”
The cousins fell silent, contemplating this. Finally Barrie spoke.
“The thing is, I think Mick already knew. Not just that Johnny died on Catalina, but that he