beliefs.
I was older and wiser now, however. “I don’t think ‘mingle-mangle’ is technically a word, and don’t try to change the subject. We need to be focusing on how to find the entrance to Anwyn, and no”—I held up my hand with the paper in it—“this isn’t it. The entrance to heaven isn’t in a Krispy Kreme shop.”
“Have you ever had their cocoa?” Mom Two asked. “It’s pretty close to heaven.” With a hurried look over her shoulder at my mother, she added, “If I believed in such a thing, which of course, I don’t.”
“Anwyn is not in a Krispy Kreme,” I said firmly.
“How do you know? Have you been there?” my mother asked.
“No, but—”
“Then I don’t think you have the right to say harsh things to Mrs. Vanilla about her lovely map.”
“Mom, it just doesn’t make sense. She’s either kidding, or . . .” I made a circular motion with my finger.
“I don’t think she is either. She seems to know where the entrance is. Perhaps she has been there herself.”
Mrs. Vanilla made her peculiar squeaking noises and fretted at the seat belt.
I looked up and over to Mom Two, shaking my head as I said, “This is crazy.”
Mom Two smiled and patted my hand. “I’ve always said that crazy is in the mind of the beholder.”
“Yes, but we can’t indulge in that when so much is at stake.”
“Drive,” my mother ordered, tapping me on the back of my shoulder. “We’ll see when we get there.”
“Oh, for the love of all that’s shiny and sparkly!” I took a deep breath and pulled out onto the road, mentally plotting the fastest route to Mrs. Vanilla’s nursing home. “Fine, we’ll go to Krispy Kreme, although the mall is sure to be closed at this time of night. First, however, we’re going to take Mrs. Vanilla back where she belongs.”
Both mothers opened their respective mouths to protest, but as I stopped at an intersection, waiting to turn onto the road that led to the nursing home, two police cars suddenly zipped across our line of vision.
I swore under my breath and jerked the wheel in the opposite direction, pissing off the car behind me. “Right. Krispy Kreme it is. But when we get there and it’s closed and there’s no entrance to Anwyn, you guys will owe me a great big apology. And a hot chocolate. With extra whipped cream.”
THREE
The fireworks were over, but Gregory Faa felt as if he’d been caught up in some sort of residual whirlwind that left him baffled, intrigued, and with an overwhelming sense that he’d just been duped.
“And I don’t like that feeling,” he announced after arriving at the spot where his cousin’s wife, Kiya, was sitting on a small woolen blanket.
“What feeling?”
“That someone has just pulled the wool over my eyes. A lot of wool. At least three or four sheep’s worth. Perhaps a small flock.”
Kiya scrunched up her nose, pursed her lips, and looked thoughtful. “That’s kind of odd, isn’t it? I mean, you’re not the easiest person to pull the wool . . . over . . . on. That got mangled. How should I end that sentence?”
“—‘on which the wool can be pulled.’ At least, that seems a fairly grammatically correct version.” Gregory scanned the area, but didn’t see his cousin. “Where’s Peter?”
“He went to the north gate to watch for the lady you guys are after. I’ve been stationed here with this”—she showed him the blurry printout from a security camera that showed a short, round woman stuffing a tiny elderly woman into a blue sedan—“and strict instructions that if I see either woman, I’m to call Peter immediately and not attempt to talk to the lady myself.”
“I take it you haven’t seen anyone?”
“Lots of people, but none who look like this lady.” She studied the picture for a moment. “She doesn’t look like a kidnapper.”
He continued to scan the crowds of people moving to and fro in the night, many of them beginning to drift out of the park now that the fireworks were over. “Finding her would be so much easier if it was daylight. There would be fewer people about, for one.”
“Ah, but then your canny kidnappers seldom flee to parks with their victims, since they would be noticeable there. In fact, I think it’s downright odd that she came here to begin with. I mean, why? Why would you go to the trouble of kidnapping an old woman out of a nursing home only to take her to the park?” She narrowed her eyes. “Are you sure she really kidnapped the woman?”
“I’m not sure of anything yet. The only thing we know is that a police report came across the radio, and they gave her name as being attached to the car.” Static and unintelligible conversation burst out of the small electronic device concealed in his pants pocket. He pulled out the police scanner that all Watch officers used when a case involved someone who wasn’t a denizen of the Otherworld, listened for a moment, then shook his head. “The mortal police are still trying to find her car. Thought they had spotted it, but it turned out to be someone else.”
“So she’s still in the park?”
“To the best of our knowledge, yes.” He made another visual sweep of the area, mentally cursing the fact that he and Peter had been there when the call came through that one of “their” cases had suddenly come to the attention of the mortal police.
Why hadn’t he left Wales two days ago, after arresting the man who had killed Gwen? The memory of that day rose up in his mind again, just as it had done approximately every hour for the last two days, the sight of the broken, bloodied body on the rocks before him driving him to do the unthinkable—steal time.
His shoulders slumped.
“You’re not still brooding over what happened, are you?” Kiya’s voice penetrated both the soft night air and the dark, twisted cloud of his thoughts. With a gesture of surrender, he plopped down on the blanket next to her, leaning his arms on his knees while staring glumly into the darkness. Pools of artificial light drove away some of the night, but the park was too big, and it was too late to find someone if she wished to stay hidden. “Gregory?” Kiya gently patted his arm.
“If I am brooding, it’s because I have every right to do so. If Peter ever wishes to disguise himself as a fish, he would be absolutely indistinguishable from a piranha. He certainly chewed me up and spat out my shredded remains just as good as any piranha.”
“That’s because you did something seriously illegal,” she said with a calmness that pricked his skin. He liked Kiya, he truly did, but he didn’t always appreciate her frankness. Not where his slipup was concerned. “Not that I think stealing a little time here and there is a big deal, especially since you saved a woman’s life while doing so, but still, you knew the rules about Travellers joining the Watch when you signed up.”
“I did, and I make no excuses now. I’m simply saying that when Peter found out what I’d done, he could have taken down a full-grown bull moose in about ten seconds flat.”
She laughed. “Now you’re being a drama queen, and that’s the last thing I ever pegged you for. Peter’s been very good to you, and you know it.”
“I do know it. He didn’t tell the Watch what I had done. He covered up the incident with Gwen. He read me the lecture of my life and came close to tearing off actual strips of my flesh with his tongue, but I’m still employed, and for that I’m truly grateful.”
She gave him a long look out of the corner of her eye. “Peter never told me just exactly why you saved that lady’s life. You didn’t know her, did you?”
“Not then, no.” He thought of how the light from the electric torches had shone in Gwen’s black hair. There was something about her that went beyond the appreciation that a mere buxom, pretty woman stirred in him. She was . . . mysterious. There were hidden depths in her, an undercurrent of tension that she tried to belie with light banter and smiling eyes, but he was no stranger to female wiles, and she was up to something. Just what that was, he had no idea, but he was a bit surprised to realize how determined he was to unveil her secrets one by one.
