Spirit and Dust - By Rosemary Clement-Moore Page 0,38

of a Ford Taurus. Also, Mrs. Hardwicke said she didn’t like them. They made her nervous. I guess for a reason. Kidnapping Maguire’s daughter? I mean, just writing the ransom note would take a pair of titanium cojones.”

It had been hard to really get a look at the three guys in the cemetery, what with the dark and the running for our lives and stuff. But my fleeting impression had been that they were young and would pass for college pranksters if not for a tangible air of menace.

“I joke because they scare me,” I said soberly. “I think they did something to Mrs. Hardwicke’s shade. And the remnants of Bruiser—I mean Walters—were … they weren’t right. I thought maybe it was the bullet to the brain that scrambled his head, but now I’m not sure.”

Carson took that in, expression neutral. “What else would it be?”

“I don’t know yet. I’m still figuring it out.”

He turned to look out the window. I watched his profile, not expecting to read much, and not disappointed. But my mind kept turning the puzzle pieces, and suddenly some of them clicked. Carson’s smile in the photograph with Alexis, the fact he called her Lex and seemed comfortable in her room and around her stuff.

I’d wondered about it before, but now it mattered. It didn’t make finding her any more important than a moment ago. It just made it more … just more.

“Are you and Alexis … um … close?” I asked, going for tactful and just managing awkward. “Romantically, I mean.”

He glanced at me, and whatever he read in my face softened the grim lines of his. “Not like that. She’s like a sister to me.”

“That’s pretty close.” I fiddled with my coffee cup. Living people were much more complicated than shades. “I’m sorry you thought I wasn’t taking this seriously.”

My apology took him by surprise, but he internalized it quickly. “It’s okay,” he said. “Now I know. Sarcastic equals scared.”

“Well, sometimes sarcastic just equals sarcastic.”

I didn’t like this subject. He didn’t need to know that about me. I turned back to important things, like our graveyard adventure. “Why do you think those guys followed us? It seems weird that kidnappers would ask for a ransom and then go looking for it themselves.”

He considered the question. “Did you hear what they said at the cemetery? They thought Alexis had told us where to find something. Maybe they thought following us would let them bypass Maguire. No messy ransom exchange.”

I shuddered. It was one thing to talk about this stuff, another to think about what it meant. Jump us, grab the Jackal, problem solved.

“Only the Jackal wasn’t there,” I said, turning away from dire could-have-beens. “At least they talked about Alexis in the present tense. If they didn’t find what they were looking for, she will be useless to them. So she’s still okay.”

Carson studied me for a moment, more unreadable than usual. “For someone so fond of skulls and black nail polish, you’re actually quite an optimist.”

“Don’t be insulting.” I put my clasped hands on the table in front of me, ready to move on. “Now. What can you tell me about the blown-out car window?”

Carson reached to refill his coffee mug. “That I seriously doubt Geico is going to cover replacing it.”

I snatched the carafe away, holding it hostage. “Enough, Carson. No more caffeine until I get answers.”

“Daisy, it’s four in the morning,” he said, utterly reasonable. “If you want coherent answers, you’d better let me have that coffeepot.” I set it down, then waited while he filled my mug, then his. He pushed the sugar and creamer toward me, and said, “Why do I need to explain this to you? Your family are witches, right?”

“Hedge witches. Herbs, potions, that sort of thing. Nothing like …” I mimed a big pow. “But you didn’t seem surprised by that.”

His brow arched. “Trust me. I was plenty surprised when that meathead blew out the safety glass.”

“But you weren’t surprised that he could.”

“No.” He might be laying his cards on the table, but he was obviously going to do it one at a time.

“Could you blow out a window?”

“Maybe,” he admitted. “Under the right circumstances. The problem is the power it would take. A light flare from a flashlight, for example, doesn’t have a lot of resistance. Kinetic force would be a lot harder.”

“So is what you do a spell?” I asked, wondering if it was more like what Phin practiced, or like my innate ability with