The Hidden Family

“Right.” She nodded jerkily. “So what are we going to do about it?” She watched him like a hawk.

“I think—” He came to some decision, because he took a step toward her. “I think you’d better come with me. I’m going to take you to Angbard in person and we’ll sort out this out in person—he’s over here now, taking personal control. We can accommodate you at Fort Lofstrom, a fully doppelgangered apartment, round-the-clock guards—”

She pushed his hand away. “I don’t think so.”

“What do you mean, you don’t think so?” He looked surprised.

“I can look after myself, thank you,” she said coolly. “I’m making arrangements. I’ll get this sorted out by Beltaigne. One last question. Do you have any idea who might be trying to kill me?”

“Lots of suspects with motives, but no evidence.” Puzzlement and worry mingled in his expression. For a moment he looked as if he was about to say something more, then he shook his head.

“Well then, that means I win because I do know roughly who’s trying to kill me,” she said, gloomily triumphant. “And I’m going to flush them from cover. Your clue is this: They’re not part of the Clan, and a doppelgangered house on the other side is no defense—but they can’t get at me while I’m here.”

“Miriam,” he rolled his eyes. “You’re being paranoid. I’ll get your mother’s house checked out immediately, but you’ll be a lot safer if we put a dozen armed bodyguards around you—”

“Safer from what? Safe from some blood feud that was ancient before I was born? Or safe from the idiots who think they’re going to inherit my mother’s estate if I can be declared incompetent next May, in front of a Clan council? Get real, Roland, the Clan is nearly as big a threat to my freedom as the world-walking assholes who shot Olga and booby-trapped the warehouse!”

“Booby-trapped—” his eyes widened.

“Yeah, a claymore mine on a tripwire in the doorway. And nobody cleared up the night watchman’s body. Do you begin to get it?” She began to back away toward the door. “Someone set up the bomb, someone inside Angbard’s security operation! And,” she continued in a low voice, “you were in the right places at the right times.”

Roland looked angry. “Miriam, you can’t mean that!” He paced across the room restlessly. “Come on, look, let me sort everything out and it’ll be okay, won’t it? I’ll vet your guards—”

“Roland.” She shook her head, angry with him, angry with herself for wanting to give in and take him up on an offer that meant far more and went far further than words could express: “I’m gone. If you know where I’m going, the bad guys will find out—if you aren’t one of them.” She kept her hand in her pocket, just in case, but the idea of shooting him filled her with a numinous sense of horror.

He looked appalled. “Can’t we just…?”

“Just what?” she cried. “Kiss and make up? Jesus, Roland, don’t be naive!”

“Shit.” He stared at her. “You really mean it.”

“I am going to walk out the door in a minute,” she said tensely, hating herself for her own determination, “and we are not going to see each other again until next May, probably. At least, not in the next few days or weeks. We both need time out. I need to get my head together and see if I can flush the bastards who’re trying to kill me. You need to think about who you are and who I am and where we’re going before we take this any further—and you need to find whoever’s wormed their way into Angbard’s confidence and whoever shot Olga.”

“I don’t care about Olga! I care about you!” he snapped.

“That is part of the problem I’ve got with you right now,” she said coldly, and headed for the door.

A thought occurred to her as she pulled the door open. “Roland?”

“Yes?” He sounded coldly angry.

“Tomorrow I’m going to get lost again, probably until Beltaigne. Keep checking your voice mail—there’s no need to hold this room any longer.”

“I wish you wouldn’t do this,” he said quietly. She shut the door behind her and departed, her heart infinitely heavier than it had been when she arrived.

Ring ring. There was a breeze blowing, and the park was bitterly cold: Miriam sat hunched at one end of a bench.

“Hello? Lofstrom Associates, how may I help you?”

“This is Miriam. I want to talk to Angbard.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Lofstrom is unavailable right now—”

“I said I’m Miriam. If you don’t know the name, check with someone who does. You have five minutes to get Angbard on the line before the shit hits the fan.”

“I’ll see what I can do. Please hold—”

beep beep beep

“Hello?” A different voice, not Angbard’s, came on the line.

“To whom am I speaking?” Miriam asked calmly.

“Matthias. And you are?”

“Miriam Beckstein. I want to talk to Angbard. Right now. This call has been logged by the front desk.”

“I’m sorry, but he’s in a meeting. If—”

“If I don’t get him on the line right now I’ll make sure the Boston Globe receives a package that will blow your East Coast courier line wide open. You have sixty seconds.” Her fingers tensed on the handset.

“One moment.”

Click.

“Angbard here. What’s this?”

“It’s me,” said Miriam. “Sorry I had to strong-arm my way past your mandarins, but it’s urgent.”

“Urgent?” She could almost hear the eyebrows rising. “I’ve never seen Matthias so disturbed since—well. Unpleasant events. What did you tell him?”

“Oh, nothing much.” Miriam leaned back, felt the cold bench bite through her coat, sat up straight again. “Listen. I told you something about my mother. That if anything happened to her I would be really pissed off.”

“Yes?” Polite interest colored Angbard’s voice.

“I’m really pissed off. Really, really pissed off.”

“What happened?” he demanded.

“She’s gone. There’s a dead man in the Dumpster behind her house, killed with a shotgun. She had time to phone me to say she was going on a journey—I don’t know if anyone was holding a gun to her head. Roland didn’t know this. Apparently it happened at the same time that Olga was shot. And my house has been burgled and stuff taken, and somebody booby-trapped the front door.”

“Come here immediately. Or if you tell me where you are I’ll send a carload of guards—”

“No, Angbard, that won’t work.” She swallowed. “Listen. I am about to vanish more deeply than last time. Don’t worry about Brilliana, she’s safe. What I want you to do…look for my mother. By all means. Raise heaven and earth. I am going to visit Olga tomorrow and I do not expect to be stopped. If I don’t leave that meeting and reach a certain point, unhindered, later tomorrow, unpleasant letters will go in the mail. I am serious about this, I am pissed off, and I am establishing my own power base because I believe that civil war you told me about is not over and the faction who started it is trying to fire it up again, through me.”

“But Helge, that faction—” he sounded coldly angry—“they’re your father’s side of your family!”

“That’s not the faction I’m thinking of,” she said dryly. “The people I have in mind never signed on to the cease-fire. Listen, I will be in touch ahead of the Beltaigne conference. I’m going to have some really big surprises for you all, including…well, anyone who tries to declare me incompetent is going to get a really nasty shock. I’m going to keep in touch through Roland, but he won’t know where I’m hiding. So, if you find my mother tell Roland. More to the point, don’t trust your staff. Someone is not telling you everything that happens in the field. I think you’ve got a mole.”

“Explain.” The terser he became the better Miriam felt.

She thought for a moment. Tell him about Roland? No, but…“Ask Roland about the warehouse warning I phoned him. Find out why instead of cleaners calling, someone turned up and booby-trapped the place. Looks like the same style as whoever planted the bomb behind the front door of my house. You didn’t