I lifted a shoulder. “Tomato, tomahto. Have you seen it?”
“Why would we tell you if we have?” the blonde asked, looking down her nose at me. “It would mean either confessing or ratting out a friend, and we went to enough sorority parties together that we all trust that’s never going to happen, at least not to somebody like you.”
“Wow,” I said with a catty grin. Two could play that game. “With that attitude, I’m surprised you’re taking a plane rather than just hopping on your broom. A girl’s dead, and somebody stole from her. That’s pretty low no matter whose standards you’re using. Maybe it’s important to her mother.”
The third woman, another blonde, sighed. “Nobody here stole the diadem. It wasn’t worth anything other than a party prop, really, and I’ll personally vouch for everybody here. I’ve known them all since college. Check with the townies. That’s where you’ll find your thief.”
It said a lot about her that she didn’t think the diadem was worth anything, considering it had about four karats worth of gemstones, but whether she was that rich or that ignorant was irrelevant. I’d been in a sorority in college, and she was right. We weren’t going to get anything from these women, and none of them had it, so we were wasting our time.
“Thanks, then,” I said, smiling and giving the table a little knock as I turned to leave. “Happy flying.”
I made eye contact with Eli and Luther and motioned for them to come on.
“I assume you two didn’t find anything?” Luther asked once we were out of earshot.
“Not the diadem,” Eli said, giving me a knowing smile as we climbed into the car. “But you should consider yourself lucky you weren’t really here to pick up women, though. We found some stuff in a couple of the rooms that were ... specialized.”
He held up a hand. “I don’t want to know.”
“No,” I said, “he doesn’t.” That was definitely a dark alley I didn’t care to go down.
“So what now?” Eli asked as he turned out of the hotel.
“Now you go get ready for your mom’s presentation. Do you need any help?” I asked.
“You can come if you want, but I know it bores you to tears.”
That was true. Not because his mom was boring, but because it was targeted at tourists in town for the Pirates Day Celebration and I’d heard a variant of it so many times that I could give it myself. She didn’t even enjoy doing it, but it was good press for the college.
“Pass,” I said. “I need to get caught up on some work. You do that, and Jake and I will meet you at the Jolly Roger later.”
A couple minutes later, he pulled around behind the store. “If you hear anything or need help, call me. I’m no more excited for this than you are.”
“Will do,” I said, climbing out after Luther moved the seat forward for me. “Tell your mom hi from me.”
As soon as he drove off, I turned to Luther. “Do you need a ride back to your car?”
“Need a ride? No. But I’d like one,” he said with a small smile.
As always, I got the feeling that there was more to his words than I was understanding. It was time to put a stop to that.
“Fine, then come on.”
My Mustang was parked just a few feet away, and after we got in, I started it and kicked on the AC.
“Fancy,” he said, adjusting the temperature on his side of the cabin and turning on the seat cooler.
“I like it,” I said, “but not so much for the bells and whistles.” I reached forward and toggled the exhaust setting from normal to sport, and the noise increased by a couple decibels. The mean-sounding growl made me smile, and I goosed it as we pulled out.
“I get it,” he said, grinning as I fishtailed a little pulling out of the alley.
I was a responsible driver most of the time, but sometimes I liked to get a taste of what I was actually paying for.
“Yeah, I guess you do,” I replied, remembering that he drove the vintage equivalent. I felt a sense of kinship with him before I remembered that I was mad at him.
“I really am sorry for invading your privacy,” he said. “It’s just that I find you interesting, and that’s not something that happens to me very often anymore. In fact, I can’t remember the last time it happened.”
“Look,” I said after thinking for a few moments. “I get that you don’t want to just shout things about yourself from the rooftops, but if we’re going to be working together or even become friends, I need to know who I’m dealing with.”
I glanced over at him, and after what he’d done, I’m not ashamed to admit that I released a little magic of my own to see if he’d lie to me. “I think I’ve already worked out part of it. You’re a shape-shifter, right?”
He sighed. “That’s part of who I am, yes. But I’m also a mage, and I obviously have a few other gifts, too, as exhibited by what got me turned into a little pink pig earlier.”
“Is this your real form? I mean, are you ...” I wasn’t sure how to ask the question other than just coming straight out and asking him if he was born with dangly bits, but even I wasn’t that crass, mostly because it really wasn’t any of my business.
He smiled, and it went all the way to those beautiful green eyes. “How I appear right now is my natural form, though I do confess that
