Levi shook his head in resignation. “Miles texted. Mayan gave him Jonah’s address. It turns out it was a fake. He’d rented it from a couple while they were on vacation and there’s only one Jonah Samuels registered with any House in North America. Eighty-three years old with invisibility magic.”
“Fake address, fake name.” I ate another biscotti. “I’m not sufficiently caffeinated for this.”
“Come back after you meet with Rafael. Miles wants to debrief.”
“Later. I’ve got an idea worth following up about Jonah.”
“Okay. I’ve arranged for the limo to drive you.”
“Words never uttered by ninety-five percent of the world’s population. Well, relationships are all about compromise.” I snagged three more biscotti for the road. “If I kill Rafael, will you help me bury the body?”
Levi stole a biscotti back with a shrug. “Why not? I’ve got nothing better to do today.”
I pressed a sweet quick kiss to his mouth. “This arrangement is going to work out fine.”
Simon dropped me off at my apartment to pick up Mrs. Hudson and so I could change. Levi had graciously agreed to burn the dress, and I wasn’t giving Rafael more ammunition by showing up in Levi’s clothes. A padded envelope had arrived for me from the man at the fair company, sealed with a blood ward, ensuring that the envelope had not been tampered with.
I gently probed it with one finger to determine the contents. I couldn’t tell if the napkin was inside, but the lipstick tube was there. If I intended to take it to the lab, it would have to wait until Monday morning. I slid the envelope into my purse, unopened.
Fortified in all-black and with a wriggling puppy accompanying me, I drove over in Moriarty to my office to confront Rafael.
I’d purchased him a delicate jasmine brew from the fancy tea house on the corner as an olive branch. The helpful tea server said that jasmine promoted peace. Healing. A deep and quiet inner joy. Everything that Rafael needed more of, I figured. I’d almost gotten an entire pound bag of the tea leaves for him, but from Rafael’s grimace when I handed him the offering, you’d have thought I’d brought him a head on a platter.
“It’s in a take-out cup,” he huffed, all fussy and pissy in tweed.
I smiled tightly and drank out of the cup, keeping it for myself. “There. Problem solved.”
“Are you well rested now? May we proceed?” Rafael said bitingly.
I took another sip, needing all the peace and inner joy at this moment. “Yes. But before we do, let me just say that I’m grateful to have you in my corner. You’re irreplaceable and this fight is impossible to win without you. Nothing about our journey together has been as you expected and that can’t have been easy.”
I was shit at this kind of thing, which was why I’d practiced my speech on the way over. The heartfelt words were somewhat undermined by Mrs. Hudson under Priya’s desk, making disturbing squeaky noises with the cow, but I think I got my point across.
“Why don’t you tell me what you’ve discovered?” I said.
That took some of the wind out of his sails. He circled the desk, somewhat warily, and picked up the journal. “These are my father’s records. Adam took possession of the fake scroll and passport on the Thursday morning after your accident. The meeting with Gavriella was set for that same Thursday night.”
“We’re missing the critical hours of the afternoon and early evening. That’s where we’ll find our answers. When did Gavriella get the book with the message proposing the meeting?” I said.
“The day before. Wednesday. It was left on her café table while she’d gone to pick up her order. She never saw who left it.”
“So we’ll never know how he found her.”
“Through Chariot, I expect. Gavriella had to move a number of times as they closed in.”
Obviously, I’d suspected as much, especially after my visit with Uncle Paulie, but the matter-of-fact way that Rafael said it, reducing my dad to this sole identity, hurt. I wanted to tell Rafael about the man who could never get the lumps of raw batter out of his pancakes, or how he used to dance with my mom in the kitchen while I did pirouettes around them, but I didn’t, because to Rafael, only one aspect of my dad mattered.
Was the same true for himself? That the Attendant identity he’d been raised to live up to was the only relevant part of him? Sherlock Holmes had said, “We all have a past, Watson. Ghosts. They are the shadows that define our every sunny day.” Rafael was wrestling with his.
“Ashira?”
“Sorry. I was just thinking about my father.”
Rafael paused. “Don’t get attached.”
“To who?”
“Whom.” Off my eye roll, he added. “Anyone.”
I tossed Mrs. Hudson a treat. “Too late. I’m not being ousted from my life.”
“Can you live with the consequences should you endanger your loved ones?”
I’d been through this with Priya on my last case. She’d been kidnapped because of me. I’d tried to remove myself from her life but she wasn’t having any of it.
“That’s their decision, not mine.”
Rafael tsked. “That’s a very cavalier attitude.”
“Don’t you get lonely?”
He pushed his round, black frames up his nose. “This cause—”
“Is not human companionship, dude. It’s solitary and lonesome as hell. Let’s just be honest about it: it sucks big-time.”
“This from a confirmed misanthrope.”
I brushed a biscotti crumb off my sweater. “A former confirmed misanthrope. Despite all my previous inclinations otherwise, we need this team. Sure, there’s always the chance that someone could prove to be a liability or be used against me, but the usefulness of our combined skills will help in the end. Our friendships will make a difference. I know it.”
“Personal connections in a situation like this are a double-edged sword,” he said.
“Very rarely is anything totally good or totally bad. Even if you knew we were going to fail, do you really want to live in a bubble so you never experience hurt?”
I
