“Here,” Azriel said softly. “Drink this.”
I opened one eye and discovered a can of Coke hovering a few inches from my nose. For normal people, Coke would probably be the very worst thing they could drink to ease a less-than-stable stomach, but I’d grown up on the stuff, and it pretty much ran through my veins.
“Thanks.” I plucked the can from his grasp, then sat up. After consuming several mouthfuls of the brown fizz, I silently filled him in, then added, He’s going to contact a ghost who apparently knows how to stop a maenad. Just in case we need to.
As I believe you said, it never hurts to be prepared. He squatted next to the sofa and brushed some hair away from my cheek. His caress was warm against my skin, and all I wanted was to be taken into his arms and have his heat and strength and love wrapped around me. But that wasn’t a desire I could indulge in right now.
“Perhaps later,” he said, voice wistful. “When we do have the time.”
“When we do have the time,” I echoed, with mock fierceness, “I expect you to do a whole lot more than just hold me.”
“That you can be assured of.” He leaned forward and kissed me. It was a promise, a hope, and one I could only pray the fates would let us fulfill.
My phone rang, and the tone told me it was Stane. I tugged it out of my pocket and hit the Answer button. “Hey,” I said. “Does the fact you’re calling mean you’ve pinned down a possible location for the key?”
“Not as yet, unfortunately,” he said. “Who knew there were so many places in Victoria that were using—or had used—the word ‘palace’ in them?”
“Meaning there’s not even a short list yet?”
“There’s a short list of a hundred. I’m still whittling them down.” He shrugged, his expression bemused. “I can and do provide computing miracles, but some of them take longer than others.”
I half smiled. “I know, and I really do appreciate the effort.”
“So you should,” he said, grinning. “Although it’s not like I’m actually doing anything harder than programming. Speaking of which, another of your requested searches has come up trumps.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Which one this time?”
“It was the one looking for any other property connections between Lauren Macintyre, Genevieve Sands, and John Nadler.”
“I vaguely remember that one.” It had come about after a search on Pénombre Manufacturing—the company that supposedly owned the old warehouse in Maribyrnong in which we’d found a sorceress’s lair—hadn’t revealed any actual connection to either Macintyre or Sands. It had, however, revealed a different connection between the two women, in that twenty-eight years ago, Sands invested in a property that Macintyre subsequently purchased. Then, five years ago, Sands had sold the property, and it had ended up in the hands of one John Nadler—another of the identities Lauren had taken. As Tao had noted at the time, around and around the circle went.
“Well, it revealed a number of properties across both Victoria and New South Wales that at least two of Lauren’s aliases have owned over the years.” He hesitated, grimacing. “Unfortunately, it also revealed a connection between several of them and another name I think you might be familiar with.”
Kiandra’s warning—that someone in my life was not what they seemed—rose like a ghost to taunt me. I’d hoped against hope that she’d read things wrong, that there was no wolf in sheep’s clothing hiding in the closet of anyone I knew. I guess I should have known better.
Resignedly—wearily—I said, “Familiar how?”
“As in, it’s one Michael Judd.”
It took a moment for the name to register, simply because Michael Judd was not a name I’d ever used for him. He’d always been simply Mike—the accountant who looked after all the tax stuff for both me and the café, as well as my mom’s former lover.
But he couldn’t be the traitor. It had to be a coincidence. He’d loved my mom, damn it, and he’d been with her for as long as I could remember—for as long as I’d been alive.
And yet . . . I remembered the uneasy feeling I’d gotten when I’d read his note inviting me to dinner. Remembered the steely calculation so evident beneath the outrage when I’d gently suggested that maybe he was seeking to fill the void of my mother’s loss with a deeper—though not sexual—relationship with me.
Damn it, no! It couldn’t be Mike. Mom had been a psychic of formidable power and there was no way in hell she would have been fooled for long if Mike was not what he’d claimed.
Do not forget we are dealing with a powerful sorceress, Azriel noted softly. Even your mother could have been fooled by one such as Lauren.
Mike isn’t Lauren. Surely to god we hadn’t been that fooled.
I’m not saying he is, but if there is a connection between them, then the possibility of it being a coincidence really is only slender.
Because chance hadn’t played a very major part in this whole mess so far. I briefly closed my eyes, then said to Stane, “What sort of connection are we talking about?”
“Legal only, at this stage,” he replied. “At least from what I can see. He acted as a financial adviser to Genevieve Sands—”
“The real Genevieve or the fake one?” I cut in.