over my vision as I tried to make my diaphragm work, to pull breath back into my lungs. I grabbed at a wall to keep from falling over, but it turned out to be Carson. “Daisy?” he asked, sounding genuinely alarmed.
This was why Maguire had bound me to a task I would have done freely. I couldn’t call out to the agents because they would stop me from looking for Alexis. If Taylor didn’t ship me back to Texas for my safety, Gerard would arrest me for interfering with a federal investigation.
By accident I staggered toward the door, and the iron band around my chest loosened. I took another step and was able to gasp, “Let’s go.”
Carson didn’t argue, just ushered me out. The biting cold of the Minnesota night snatched away the breath I’d just caught. I stumbled into the garage with Carson, wrestled my arms into the sleeves of the coat, and fell into the passenger seat of a sedan as soon as he unlocked it.
“A Taurus?” I asked as he started the engine. There were four other cars in the garage and all of them were more … well, more everything than the beige Ford.
“We’re going for unremarkable.” He hit a button on the remote clipped to the visor and the garage lights went dark. “What would you pick?”
Not the one that looked like a car from Tron, I guess. He was right; blah was better.
Another button, and the door in front of us lifted. Headlights off, Carson pulled out of the garage and crept the car along the unlit drive as it curved through the surrounding woods. I could see the front of the house through the trees, and the two uniformed officers posted there, leaning against a squad car, watching for anyone sneaking away. Like us.
I could have jumped out of the car and made a run for it, or rolled down the window and shouted to the cops. But the memory of the geas’s donkey-kick in the kitchen kept me still and silent, sunk low in the seat.
Once we’d reached some distance from the house, Carson put his foot down and the Taurus slipped along the dark drive like a moon shadow. It wasn’t until we’d reached the county road and turned onto it, free and clear, that the knot in my chest finally loosened.
I sat up and looked out the window, realizing how bright the night really was. Full moon, beige car … “How did those officers not see us?”
Carson turned on the headlights and settled into a more comfortable position behind the wheel. I could make out his silhouette, and he seemed to debate his answer before admitting, “That was a little sleight of hand on my part.”
He said it so calmly that it took a second for me to realize what he meant. “Hang on,” I said, rearranging my brain to fit in this new information. “You do magic, too?”
Another pause, another debate. I’d assumed it was a yes-or-no question. “Not spells or anything like Lauren does,” he explained, sounding almost sheepish. “It’s more like a talent.”
Okay, I didn’t even know where to put that in my file cabinet of supernatural information. “You mean like Jedi mind powers? ‘This is not the Taurus you’re looking for’? That kind of talent?”
“Not exactly.” He was definitely looking sorry he’d admitted anything. “Not mind powers.”
“Does Maguire know about this?” I asked, gnawing on the question like a dog on a bone, trying to get to the marrow of it. Or maybe just of him. I had to know how much to trust him.
I could see his knuckles flex on the steering wheel. “This has nothing to do with finding Alexis. Let’s stick to our job.”
“How about this, then.” I didn’t like unknowns, especially where they intersected with me. “Maguire has his normal resources, his criminal ones, plus you and Lauren, the Wonder Twins. Why do you need me?”
He let slip a millisecond of uncertainty before answering. “The boss is one for covering all bases. Maguire saw you on the news, and it was too good an opportunity to waste.”
“So he sent you to pick me up like a loaf of bread from the market.” I sank into my seat, not even bothering to get indignant over well-trod indignities.
“What the boss wants, he gets.”
After the guillotine finality of that statement, we drove the next mile in silence. I spent the time trying to sort out my tangled thoughts. God knew what Carson was thinking. But