Secret Unleashed

a place where the sun would never reach it. When Tiffany’s mistress found out what Sarah had done to the window, she was furious. She believed this window might have been the one to finally achieve what she’d asked Tiffany to do for her, and to discover it was being squandered made her livid. She begged Tiffany to buy it back, but he refused. After his death, she attempted to get it from the Winchester estate, but they were unwilling to sell it. Since then she has spent decades trying to get it back, and after so many failed tries at going through official channels, she got tired of waiting.”

“It’s Eilidh, isn’t it?” I asked. Only a vampire in her position would be able to send a warden out to steal a window.

“Yes. After we left San Francisco she has spent a great deal of time and energy working to retrieve the window. She’s made generous offers to the restoration team, as well as to the museum that now exists there.” The way he said museum was so dismissive he seemed offended to be using the phrase.

He opened the web browser again and pulled up a website for Winchester Mystery House. I could tell what had made him sneer. Sarah Winchester’s house had been turned into a bizarre hybrid of museum and amusement park. Guided tours were offered through specific areas of the house, while others were off-limits to tourists because of structural damage from multiple earthquakes.

The place even offered moonlight ghost tours.

“Is it actually haunted?” I’d had some run-ins with ghosts. Enough exposure to believe in them without a shadow of a doubt. I wasn’t worried my expedition might be hindered by spirits, but it was better to know when a transparent specter might jump out at you. Kept the girly screaming to a minimum.

“Who knows. A house that old, with so many people dedicating their lives to working there. Work that never, ever ended? I’d wager one or two spirits are lurking in the halls. Sarah died there.”

I looked at the website, which offered fewer photos and less history than I’d gotten from Maxime, and put it together with what I’d learned during my meeting with the Tribunal.

“There’s something you’re not telling me.”

“What makes you say that?”

“If Eilidh sent Sutherland to get her the window, that’s all well and fine. But he didn’t get it. There would have been some news about it going missing if it’s as valuable as you say. So, there’s more to this. They told me they were afraid the item might fall into the wrong hands. Sutherland doesn’t have the window, which means they’re worried about something else entirely.”

Maxime and Holden both stared at me. I was a little offended by their shocked expressions. This was hardly the first time I’d made an astute observation.

“As far as I know, the window was the Tribunal’s endgame. Eilidh wanted it, and she sent Sutherland to get it.”

I shook my head. “Then we’re all being lied to. They want me to find Sutherland because he went to get the window and found something else. And whatever it is he found, that’s what they’re really after.”

Chapter Sixteen

I hated being lied to.

I liked being used even less. Having been a pawn to one council for most of my adult life, I didn’t appreciate another council treating me like one now. I was their equal, but they sought to use me in some master scheme.

They thought I was foolish enough to charge ahead without asking questions because the quarry was my father? How stupid did they think I was?

I didn’t want an answer to that.

I took the laptop from Maxime and asked him to leave Holden and me alone. I wasn’t sure why I needed the computer. It wasn’t as if I was going to be able to hack into the Tribunal’s master files and glean their secrets. I could barely file an online tax return.

Taking a second look at the photos didn’t tell me anything new, nor did an Internet search on Sarah Winchester or Charles Tiffany. If the item we were hunting belonged to the home owner or Eilidh’s former lover, the Internet wasn’t offering me any clues.

Maxime’s story about Eilidh’s obsession with the sun was all we really had to go on, which made me think this item we were looking for was related.

“Have you ever heard of anything that could grant a vampire the ability to walk in the sun?” I asked Holden.

“Aside from a death wish?”

I shot him a venomous glare. “Be serious.”

“I am being serious. I’ve never heard of anything that could make what you’re talking about possible.”

“Do you think I’m being paranoid? Maybe this really is just about the stupid window.”

“No. I think you’re right. They’re freaking out because Sutherland is missing, and if the window isn’t gone, they’re worried about something else.”

I pursed my lips and did a quick perusal of the other files on the computer. It didn’t seem to be Maxime’s personal laptop because nothing on it was related to him. My best guess was it was a general-use computer, and as such there was nothing of any value on it.

I took a last look at the photo of the window, zooming in to see if there were any clues within that might tell me what I was searching for, but there was nothing. It was just a window. A pretty one, sure, and I could see why Eilidh hated that it wasn’t able to face the sunlight, but it wasn’t anything other than a window.

“Well, it’s as good a place to start as any,” I said with a sigh. According to the website there would be a guided moonlight tour two nights from today, which would be an ideal way to get in after-hours without resorting to a B&E. “Maybe once we’re there, we can get a better feel for what’s missing. Or find Sutherland’s trail.”

“You want to go all the way to San Jose to see what the Tribunal is lying to you about?”

“They asked me to find my father. I’m going to do that. Whatever else I find along the way is fair game. I don’t know Sutherland, so I have no idea if he’s honorable or not. He might have gone rogue, and I’m prepared to deal with that if it comes to it, but in the meantime I want to know what he might have gone rogue for. You don’t up and decide to betray your government one day without a mighty good reason.”

“Unless you’re mentally disturbed,” he reminded me. “Which most government traitors are.”

Closing the laptop and setting it down on the table, I angled myself on the couch to face him. “Are you coming with me or not?”

He seemed surprised by the question. “Of course I’m coming with you. I think we’re beyond the point of that even being an option anymore. I’ve followed you to another frigging plane of existence, for Pete’s sake.”

I had to smile. “Look how well that turned out.”

Since it was still early in the evening, with hours to go before sunrise, we were able to arrange for the jet to take us from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Virgin Air had planes jaunting all over California at a moment’s notice, meaning we could have flown in a passenger jet instead, but Holden put the kibosh on that plan straightaway.

“No. We are not putting three vampires on a plane with a hundred humans. Worst possible idea.” He’d been adamant. I tried to convince him it would be fine as long as he and Maxime had eaten.

I wanted to fly in a real plane.

I’d been on jets before and understood I should be grateful to have avoided a genuine travel experience, but I still wanted to try it. I didn’t get to do a lot of standard human things, and sitting side by side with bored, irate travelers seemed like fun to me for some reason.

It was just so undeniably normal, which was something I didn’t get to experience often.

Too bad it wasn’t meant to be.