Taken Read online

  “How so?” He reached deeper, everything up to his elbow buried in the pouch.

  His face wasn’t touching my chest anymore, but he remained well within my personal space bubble. He smells good. Is that aftershave? Cologne?

  I stared at the sky, ignoring the blush heating my cheeks. “Apparently, when she imagined the world, she’d done so with the flair that only imagined places and people can live up to. She says the real world is washed out and faded, and she is not pleased.”

  “And the DVD ties into this how?” He grunted and straightened, pulling a DVD free of the pouch. It was sealed in a Ziploc bag.

  I grinned. “One word. Technicolor.”

  Andy scratched his chin as he studied the copy of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. “You pay her in old musicals?”

  I shrugged. “She loves them.”

  “I see.”

  The sound of a door opening silenced us both. Andrea stepped through the doorway, her slender arms crossed and the corners of her mouth tilted downward at a disapproving angle. She had smooth alabaster skin so pale it could only come from a redhead, and silver eyes that shone like polished armor. Her long red hair fell straight as a butcher’s cleaver past her shoulders to brush her waistline, and it swayed as she cocked a hip and stared down at us.

  “Do you plan to come in the house, or will you continue standing on my lawn making small talk?”

  “Don’t make direct eye contact,” I said under my breath. I beamed at our hostess. “Andrea, thank you for seeing us. I have something special for you today.” I motioned for Andy to give her the DVD. “Open the bag, but don’t touch it—let her pull it out.”

  Andy did as I instructed. Andrea’s shoulders gave up some of their tension as she dropped her forbidding pose to pull the DVD from the plastic. Her metallic silver irises glittered, as blinding as a mirror struck by full sunlight. “What’s this one?”

  I inched closer to the porch. “It’s called Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and it’s one of my favorites.”

  I waited for her to read the summary. My nerves eased when a smile raised the corners of her mouth.

  “You may come into the sitting room.” She glanced at Andy, then back at me. “You’ve explained the rules?”

  “I—”

  “Don’t touch anything you don’t have to,” she told Andy. “Stay on the strip of carpet. Once you’re in the room, you can touch whatever you like.” She turned and walked into the house. “Follow me.”

  “Andrea, if you don’t mind…”

  She glanced at me, taking note of the situation Peasblossom and I found ourselves in. “There is a bowl of warm, soapy water sitting on the coffee table, and you can change in the guest bathroom.”

  I wrinkled my nose and marched inside with Peasblossom struggling in my grip.

  “No one says hi to me,” she groused. “Drop me in the bath and forget about me, that’s what you want to do, isn’t it?”

  “Don’t be difficult,” I said. “She didn’t say hi to anyone.”

  “I’m not difficult!”

  I gritted my teeth, holding a polite smile in place as I crossed the porch and stepped onto the strip of carpet Andrea had laid out to lead guests to the sitting room. Her house was immaculate in the way only show houses could manage. I knew she had a special cleaning team in once a week. I’d seen them once, seen the panic on her neighbors’ faces when the team wearing hazmat suits had come in. Not for the first time, I wondered if anyone ever called the authorities to ask if there was a contamination issue in her house.

  Gold glittered from the chandelier as I passed through the large foyer, obediently following the grey strip of carpet to the right. The room was immediately off the foyer, keeping company from needing to pass through any more rooms than necessary. A pale blue couch with dark blue stripes took up the center of the room, with a polished mahogany coffee table in front of it. A serving tray on the table offered a selection of drinks along with disposable clear plastic cups. A bright red can caught my attention and held it.

  “You want a Coke, don’t you?” Peasblossom demanded. “You yelled at me for the honey not five minutes ago, and you’re already fantasizing about soda.”

  I jerked my attention from the drinks and plunked the pixie into the promised makeshift bath. Peasblossom landed with a splash, then came up sputtering for air.

  “Still trying to quit soda?” Andrea asked.

  I sat on the couch with as much dignity as I could muster, leaning forward to rinse the honey off my fingers with Peasblossom’s bathwater. “I’m cutting back.”

  “Malarkey!” Peasblossom spat.

  Andy entered the room, his arms full of the box of files he’d retrieved from the car. He paused and raised a questioning eyebrow at Andrea, who hadn’t yet crossed the threshold from the foyer to the sitting room.

  “You can put that on the floor,” she told him. “I’ll be right with you.”

  She vanished into rooms at the rear of the house, probably to set up Seven Brides for Seven Brothers to view after we left. I suspected she also needed time to mentally prepare for the task ahead of her. Andy settled the box on the carpet at the far end of the table, then sat on the couch. He said nothing, but his impatience was clear from the way he perched on the edge of the cushion, hands cupping his knees.

  “She won’t be long,” I promised him. “Andrea is a model of efficiency.” Which was a nice way of saying she wanted to get rid of us as quickly as possible. I stood and pointed at Peasblossom. “I’m going to change my leggings. Don’t leave that tub.”

  The pixie dove under the water, blowing a stream of bubbles after her in response. I stepped into the small bathroom connected to the guest room and changed into a pair of leggings with four different shades of purple intersecting in an abstract grid pattern. I shoved the sticky pair into my pouch and opened the door in time to see Andrea reappear and hesitate outside the room. She held her arms at her sides, lifted her chin, and took a defiant step over the threshold. “These are all cold cases, you say?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Andy confirmed. “But some are more recent. A few aren’t even a year old.”

  “And that qualifies them as a cold case?”

  “Most cases are solved within forty-eight hours. Some crimes go cold faster than others. A missing-persons case, for example.”

  Andrea stared down at the box for a few long seconds before kneeling with rigid formality. Her hands trembled as she turned the key Andy had left in the lock, then raised the lid. I held my breath as she lifted a file. Her eyes lost focus, reflective irises turning dull and cloudy. After a few seconds, she let out a breath and set the file on the carpet.

  Andy and I both remained silent, scarcely daring to breathe as we let the oracle concentrate on the task before her. She went through the box of files with quiet efficiency, lifting each one and holding it for a few heartbeats. A furrow creased the skin between her brows, and she stared into nothing.

  My heart rose with each file she lifted, but it wasn’t until she’d touched them all, held each one, that she huddled in on herself and took several slow breaths. When she straightened, she selected a file from the fan around her and held it out to Andy.

  “This one.”

  Andy opened the file and read through a few pages. I watched Andrea, noting the sweat at her temples and the way she kept swallowing as if her mouth had gone dry. I knew better than to offer her a drink. She wouldn’t touch anything she didn’t have to. The files she held had been handled by cops, maybe coroners. I didn’t want to know what touching them had shown her.

  “I appreciate this, Andrea,” I told her.

  “I have a way for you to make it up to me,” she promised, her voice thin, but firm.

  I hesitated. The DVD was the only payment she’d ever asked for in return for her help. Then again, I’d never asked her to touch criminal files before. Unease rolled through my stomach. It had never occurred to me to discuss payment beforehand. I wondered what it would
be. She couldn’t force me to do anything, or pay her anything. She’d accepted the DVD, and our history set the precedent that the DVD was sufficient. Still…

  Stupid for not clarifying that earlier.

  I shoved those thoughts from my brain and turned to Andy. “What’s the case?”

  “Bet it’s a murder,” Peasblossom piped up. She held a leg out of the water, scratching at a tacky patch of sugar on her ankle.

  Andy straightened the pages, the gesture oddly formal. “It’s a missing-persons case. Three kids.”

  Peasblossom fell silent and dropped her foot into the bath with a sudsy splash, her tiny face pinching with concern. “Kids?”

  “On April fourth, the program director of Constellation House called the police to report that three kids didn’t show up for an art show. Police interviewed people at Constellation House and the art show, and did a search of the areas they were known to hang around, but no one ever saw them again.”

  “Didn’t they interview the families?” I asked.

  Andy didn’t take his attention from the file. “Constellation House is a youth shelter. The kids were homeless.”

  “So that means you don’t search for them when they go missing?” Peasblossom asked.

  He set the file down and tugged at the cuffs of his shirt then smoothed his hands down the lapels of his jacket. “No,” he said. “It means it’s a thousand times more difficult to find them, to even classify it as a crime, let alone investigate. Homeless kids don’t have a schedule, or family, or homes. How do you know someone’s missing if they don’t have a place to be missing from?”

  “Well, there was somewhere they could be missing from, because someone filed the report,” I pointed out.

  He tapped a finger on the file. “The program director. Says here the missing kids were all participants in a fundraising project. The kids had the opportunity to create art projects, paintings and sculptures, and then those works were sold to raise funds for the shelter and other programs. The kids were supposed to attend a meeting to finalize the details of the show, but they disappeared.” He lifted the file and told Andrea, “Thank you. You’ve been incredibly helpful.”

  Andrea managed a small smile, though her face remained too pale. “You’re welcome.”

  I shifted uneasily. “You mentioned something about a payment?”

  Ceramic rattled. I swiveled in my seat, following the noise to the bookshelf behind me. The shelves held a variety of knickknacks and books, and I scanned the candleholders and figurines of different gods and goddesses. Something rattled again, and I fixed my attention on a small ceramic skull. The eye holes burst to life with green light.

  “Bugger,” I yelped, shoving myself into the couch cushions.

  Andy went still as a statue, his attention locked on the skull. “What is that?”

  The oracle followed our gazes and scowled. “That is the payment I mentioned. Mother Renard, you must do something about that pest. An exorcism, something.”

  I licked my lips, retaking my original seat. “An exorcism?” I pointed at the skull. “That’s a ghost?”

  “Not exactly,” Andrea muttered.

  The green light rose out of the skull, a beautiful miasma of emerald and new leaves. It drifted through the air without a sound, bobbing toward the couch.

  Without warning, it dropped, plunging downward—and into Andy’s head.

  “Eep,” Peasblossom squeaked, lowering herself in the water until only her face from the nose up was visible.

  Andy shuddered and rubbed his chin, then slid his fingers to press against his temples. “What was that?”

  “Andrea?” I didn’t move, afraid of stirring whatever had phased into Andy.

  “She won’t hurt him.” Andrea got to her feet, wrapping her arms around herself as if she wanted to leave the room, but didn’t want to be rude. “She’s a pest, but she’s harmless.”

  “I am not a pest.”

  I stared. Andy’s mouth had moved, but that had not been his voice. “Andy, are you okay?”

  He frowned at me. “Yes, but… That wasn’t me speaking.”

  Andrea pursed her lips and jabbed a finger at Andy. “Get out and sit in the skull.”

  “I don’t want to sit in the skull anymore,” the ghost protested. “You’re never in here, and I have no one to talk to.”

  “You don’t have permission to be in his mind. Get out!”

  “But it’s more interesting in here. He’s thinking of crimes. Murder, kidnapping, theft—it’s all here.” The ghost’s tone turned wistful. “Oh, the ballads I could write with inspiration like this.”

  “Excuse me,” I said. “My name is Shade Renard. Mother Renard. And you are…?”

  “Who I was is of little consequence. You may call me Echo.” She sighed. “It’s all I am now. Forced to repeat old work because I lack inspiration for new.”

  “Silence is an option,” the oracle snapped.

  Andy crossed his arms and jutted his chin out at Andrea. “You can’t ask an artist to stop creating any more than I could ask you to stop peeking into lives other than your own. We are what we are, and that is what we must be.”

  “And what are you, Echo?” I asked.

  Immediately, the ghost’s tone turned melodramatic, and I had a sudden image of a woman waltzing across a stage with one hand pressed to her forehead and the other extended out as she delivered a tearful monologue. “I am a voice with no body, a soul with no flesh. I was a bard once, a great and well-traveled bard. But now I am…this. A bit of spirit bandied about, unwanted and unsung.”

  “So dramatic.” Andrea edged another step toward the foyer.

  “How did you come to be here?” I studied Andy, searching for some sign he was listening, that he was still there. Deep in the center of his pupils was a tiny green flame.

  “I was ebbing about, wasting away from exhaustion, when I landed in Andrea’s mind. She was so interesting that I couldn’t resist staying a bit.” Echo sighed. “Then she got home, and I realized I was doomed to never leave. Hardly goes out at all, that one.”

  “Yes, because on one of the few occasions I dared to try such an adventure, I became infested with you,” Andrea said.

  “I could be grand company if you would talk to me!” Echo said hotly.

  Andrea dropped her arms, fingers curling into fists. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

  “Does this remind you of anyone else?” Peasblossom asked pointedly from her bathtub.

  I ignored her. “That sounds awful, Echo. I’d like to talk to you, but I have to say, it’s difficult to remember who I’m talking to when you’re inside my friend. Would you mind returning to the skull?”

  Echo hesitated. “You promise you’ll talk to me?”

  “I do. You have my word.”

  Echo-Andy sighed. “The word of a witch is as good as any. If I must…”

  The light rose into the air over Andy, and he jerked, throwing himself against the couch cushions and searching the room. His attention snared on the light, and he recoiled toward the opposite end of the couch as the emerald flame floated to the skull and sank inside.

  It was unnerving to see the skull watching me with those bright green flames, but it was better than hearing Echo speak through Andy’s mouth. I stood, then paused. “Is it all right if I touch the skull?”

  “Keep it,” Andrea said. “Keep it and the pest inside it.” She crossed her arms again, her gaze darting from me to the door.

  “Why don’t we finish this conversation in the car?” I suggested. “Echo, would you like to come with me?” I paused. “To be clear, you would stay with me. No more bobbing into Andy’s thoughts. In fact, I’ll need your oath you won’t leave the skull without my permission.”

  The eye lights dimmed. “I don’t know. You’re a village witch, aren’t you? That doesn’t sound very exciting.”

  Peasblossom chortled, and I pressed my lips together. “Actually, I’m a private investigator.”

  “An
d a village witch,” Peasblossom said.

  “A private investigator,” Echo repeated. The green flames flared again. “All right. I’ll go with you. But only if I can be part of the excitement.”

  “We have a cat,” Peasblossom warned her. “And he’s a great beast, soon as swallow you as say hello!”

  “A cat, you say? What’s the rule on riding in cats?”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said quickly. “He’s under a spell, and you might find him…crowded. I’d imagine it would be unpleasant to sit in that much magic.”

  Andy stood from the couch, keeping his gaze on Andrea as if she were the last sane person in the room. “Thank you so much for your help. It was nice to meet you.”

  “Nice to meet you as well. I hope you find the children.” She swallowed hard and fidgeted in place as if resisting the urge to bolt.

  “I appreciate how difficult this was for you,” Andy said, his tone serious. “I won’t—”

  Too late, I saw him meet Andrea’s gaze. His lips stopped moving, the words he would have spoken forgotten as he fell into the oracle’s stare.

  “Andy.” I gripped his shoulder but didn’t pull him away. He didn’t blink, didn’t move. He stood there, staring at Andrea as if his consciousness had pitched forward into the mirrors of her irises and left his body behind. “Andrea, what’s happening?

  “Sorry, Mother Renard.” Andrea didn’t move either, but not as if she were as trapped in the moment as Andy. More like she didn’t want to interrupt whatever was happening. “I wasn’t thinking. The vision will be over soon. Always best to let it finish.”

  A second later, Andy’s shoulders drooped. I tugged sharply, setting him off balance. He stumbled, and his shin hit the coffee table. I leaned my weight into him, keeping him from falling over the table, and he righted himself at the last moment. By the time he regained his balance, he was breathing heavily, and his pupils were dilated, his nostrils flaring.

  “What was that?” he rasped.

  “Andrea sees into the past and future,” I said. “If you look into her eyes for too long, you can get swept up in a vision.”

  He stared at Andrea, though I noticed he directed his attention at the space between her eyebrows. Quick learner.