“Better I come there, Jack. Or you’re going to start asking a helluva lot more questions and Cliff and Abi don’t have time for me to give you all the answers.”
I brushed my teeth, gathered my keys, phone, and cross-body bag, and let Wes and Christoph know where I was going. Raised eyebrows and nods were all the response they gave.
At the station, the five seats in the corner of the waiting room were occupied. The two clerks behind the chest-high brick-and-glass divider juggled paperwork, ringing phones, and an impatient family trying to see their uncle, who was drying out in a holding cell.
Jack was waiting. He waved me in, covered the sign-in sheet with his broad hand, and steered away one of the clerks with a, “Personal business, Helen. I’ll be about fifteen minutes.”
His tiny office continued the theme begun in the hallway: gray concrete block walls, a gray metal desk, and mismatched chairs. He positioned the chair in front of the desk to face mine and sat. I grimaced at metal on metal.
“Talk to me, Calliope,” he said, leaning his elbows on his knees. His hand circled the smartwatch on the opposite wrist, worrying it in one direction then the opposite. “And please don’t lie. I really, really hate it when friends try to pull one over on me.”
I started at the beginning, laying out the story from my first visit to the Pearmain orchard, and why I was there in the first place, all the way to my Blood Ceremony and the celebratory party and its aftermath. I was adrenalized from being inside the station, in front of Jack, and the words spilled out. Judicious editing occurred simultaneous to the telling. He didn’t need to know about Tanner and me and our awkward mating dance. I kept the details focused on the orchards, the hidden folk, and Abi and Cliff.
I also left out the whole thing about speaking with the dead while in magic-cloaked burial mounds. There was only so much I had time to share. When I finished, I gripped the arms of the chair and took a deep breath. And another, in through the nose and out through the mouth.
A distinct, commercially-produced smell greeted my nostrils. I recognized the fake pine woods of a deodorant Harper had once tried and Leilani had nixed within the first fifteen minutes of application. Either the station’s cleaning crew used a pine-scented soap, or Jack used the same deodorant.
“Calliope?” He leaned forward and tapped one of my hands.
“Sorry,” I said. “I just noticed a smell, and it distracted me.” I had the wherewithal to blush at being caught sniffing the air around an officer of the RCMP.
“I’m on hour twenty of a twenty-four rotation, Calli. Do I need to shower again?” he teased.
I shook my head. “No, not at all. The scent just got me wondering about shifters and their heightened sense of smell.”
“And you wonder if we have a heightened body odor to go along with that?”
“I’m sorry this conversation is veering off course…” I started.
“We can,” he said, “when our hind brain kicks in because we’re being threatened. Or aroused. Or when it’s been a long summer day and we’ve been chasing criminal elements all over the island.” He leaned away from me. “Shall we get back to the purpose of your visit, or is there more you’d like to know about shifter physiology?”
Now I was sweating and, I was sure, putting out the scent of someone trapped in a cage of their own making. Jack shut down his grin the moment it tried to change his neutral expression.
However, one more question wouldn’t stay unasked. “Do you recall smelling apple pie last night?”
Jack gave me a look that said I was clearly crazy. Then his facial features softened. “She used a lure on me.”
“What are you talking about?” Even as I asked the question, I already knew the answer.
“Some Magicals purposefully emit a scent that’s meant to mask their actions or intentions or seduce whoever they’re going after.”
“Is there a way to avoid the effects of the lure?” I’d never met anyone who could resist the smell of fresh apple anything.
“Plug your nose?” he said. “Chew something that counteracts the lure, like garlic or mint leaves.”
And that explained why Tanner’s natural scent always carried whiffs of mint. “Thanks, Jack.”
He glanced at the notepad he’d scribbled on. “Getting back on track, you said this Jessamyne person is not related to the Pearmains.”
“Correct.”
“Do you know where she might have taken them when they left the hospital?”
“The nurse I spoke with said Cliff and Abi were on their way to a private clinic. The only one I know of that caters to Magicals is the—”
“Grand St. Kitts,” Jack said, finishing my sentence at the same time he sat up straight, tossed his pen to the side, and opened his laptop. He found the clinic’s website and punched the number into his phone. After identifying himself, he asked if they had any information on an incoming elderly couple. Any reservations would have been made by their granddaughter, Jessie Pearmain, he added.
“We did,” the man on the other end said. Jack had him on speakerphone. “But their stay with us was cancelled less than an hour ago.”
Asked if he had any more information, the man at the clinic answered in the negative, and Jack thanked him for his time. He drummed his fingers on the desk.
“I don’t suppose you have any idea where they might be off to next?” he asked, staring at his laptop.
“I might,” I admitted.
Jack gave me a wolfish look that was very different from the face he wore in his official capacity as an officer of the law. He didn’t have to tap his nose for me to know he was on high alert for any dissembling I might be tempted to try.
“But I can’t tell you.”
Truth was, I didn’t know what the Apple Witch wanted with Cliff and Abi or where she could possibly be taking them.
