Page 14
Felicia was on cloud nine while she was getting ready for this evening’s party at the Del Coronado.
The dress hanging on the wardrobe door was a deep orange.
With her light brown skin and dark hair, Felicia would look lovely.
Casimir, the grigori she’d met this afternoon, had told her he’d be there, too.
But I knew the big attraction was seeing Hans, which was a sure thing.
Felicia was as full of what-might-be as any girl could ever hope.
Eli and I had planned some more that afternoon, in our short time together and alone. We hadn’t had much of that lately when we weren’t asleep.
“I’m going to be a little late,” I told Felicia. “I’ll catch a cab. You and Eli will have the car.”
If I’d supposed my sister would be curious about my mysterious errand, or worried about what it might be, I’d have been disappointed. Felicia hardly listened. She said, “Okay,” to acknowledge that I’d spoken, while not taking her eyes from the mirror on the dressing table.
Her hair was being done again. I wondered how many other heads this Abigail, a scary young woman with bright red lips and shingled hair, had been attending to all day.
She might make enough this week to last her through the year.
I’d decided I didn’t need her this evening, and my own hair was falling in its natural curls to just below my jawline.
I was wearing a black evening dress. There wasn’t much at the top, and it fell in beautiful lines, and it fit.
“You look pretty,” Felicia said, to my surprise.
“Thank you. That dress is going to be a great one on you,” I said.
“Thanks. I’ll see you at the party, then.”
Maybe she knew there couldn’t be any pleasant reason for me to be late, and she didn’t want her bubble burst.
Felicia and Eli left at seven o’clock, because it would take a while to reach the hotel on Imperial Island. There would be other parties at the Del Coronado, and the ferry would be a crush.
Eli patted my shoulder as he left. He had been brought up to keep what he felt to himself, but he tried, sometimes, to let me know he understood when I had to do something I really did not want to do.
When they’d been gone for ten minutes, I was sure they wouldn’t return for some forgotten item.
I grabbed the fancy black stole Veronika had loaned me.
I paused in the doorway to the living room.
“I’m going out,” I said. Veronika and Alice looked up from their books.
Veronika just nodded. Alice said, “Have a good time, and tell me all about it tomorrow!”
“I will,” I promised. I made myself smile.
I wouldn’t.
I’d telephoned Felix earlier. His car was parked down the block where he’d said it would be. Lucy was in the driver’s seat. “Felix is waiting for us at home,” she said. “He was afraid driving might pull his arm. It’s almost healed.”
“Lucy,” I said. “You’ve picked up a new skill.”
Lucy looked proud and happy. “I go to the store and pick my own groceries,” she said. “I take our dry cleaning to Wong’s.”
“You do your own cooking?”
She nodded. “I do. I bought a cookbook. I’m learning so many new things.”
So even a marriage without sex could work if people were getting other needs met. Lucy seemed quite pleased with her current life.
When we reached their little house, Lucy parked behind it on the gravel apron. Since it was her house, we entered through the back door leading into the kitchen.
“I’m home,” she called.
“In here,” Felix answered.
We threaded our way through the little dining room into the living room. Felix was sitting on the couch having a drink. He was glad to see us, from his smile. “Maria” was tied to a straight chair in the middle of the floor, by her elbows and ankles. Lucy ignored her.
“How’s the wound?” I asked Felix.
The grigori grunted. Mr. Manners. “Not back to normal, but much better. I knew it wouldn’t take long to heal if Felicia put her hands on it. And Lucy has been a great help.”
Lucy gave her husband a pat on his good shoulder and without further comment went into the guest bedroom and shut the door.
They’d made it into a reading and hobby room.
I could not imagine what hobbies Felix had.
Lucy liked to sew. Felix had bought her a sewing machine for a wedding present.
I heard the whirr of the machine as she started it up.
“Maria” wasn’t bleeding and she was conscious. This was better than I had expected. I sat down opposite the prisoner.
I figured Maria was eighteen at the most. She had black hair, brown eyes, and brown skin. No surprise there. Someone, I assumed Felix, had removed her shoes, which were good ones, brand new. Her bare feet were evenly brown. This girl had been shoeless in the sun for a good long while.
Since Maria’s elbows were secured to the chair, I bent from one side to the other to have a good look at her hands.
As I expected, they were rough and the fingernails were not filed.
In fact, they weren’t very clean. Maria’s teeth were crooked.
She had a scar on her neck. I’d seen a lot of scars.
This one spoke of a very serious attempt to kill her.
So, a poverty-level upbringing and a dangerous life.
Maria was wearing a dress that was brand new, just like the shoes. (That was how she’d managed to blend in almost long enough to reach Felicia.)
Last, I looked into Maria’s eyes. However tough the girl was, she was pretty antsy now. She didn’t like me looking her over, not speaking.
I said in my slow Spanish, “Who gave you the dress?” That was why I was here instead of Eli. He could speak only a little Spanish, and Felix spoke none. He’d called the Savarov house to ask me for help.
Maria answered so rapidly I couldn’t understand every word. I got the gist of it, though. “A woman was standing outside the Spanish Mission for Women on Camilla Street when Maria came out after a free meal,” I told Felix. “This woman offered Maria a job and a new dress and shoes.”
“What did this woman look like?” Felix asked. I translated and told him what Maria said.
“She was in her forties. Her hair was all gray, but she had few wrinkles.” I listened a little more. “She had money. She took Maria to a department store and bought her this dress and these shoes.”
Felix raised his eyebrows. “Where was this?”
“What store?” I asked, in Spanish and then in English so Felix could follow.
Maria looked confused.
“The name of the store?”
“Walker Scott,” the girl said clearly.
Even I had heard of Walker Scott. Veronika bought things there. The black dress I was wearing had come from Walker Scott.
“It was a white building, many floors,” Maria told me. For a moment the girl looked as awestruck as she’d been to enter that store. “So many pretty things,” she said quietly.
I relayed that to Felix.
“Walker Scott’s at Fifth and Broadway,” Felix said quietly. “About four blocks from the Mission. Short distance, big difference.”
“This woman gave you these clothes and told you to kill my sister?” I said in Spanish.
“She did not tell me to kill your sister.” Maria did not meet my eyes. “I swear,” she said, nodding vigorously, as if that would make me believe her. “This lady said that she was testing the defenses around the girl, and she needed to make sure the girl’s bodyguards were reacting quickly.”
“You believed that.”
“Who knows what witches will do? She gave me enough money to eat for a week, and the clothes. At the moment I didn’t care,” Maria said, giving every sign of frankness.
I told Felix all of this.
“But Maria had this spell,” Felix said. “I called an acquaintance of mine who specializes in analyzing spells. In her opinion, if Maria had hit Felicia with the little pouch in her hand, it would have exploded. A pretty drastic way to test Felicia’s defenses.”
That changed everything. I had felt some pity for the girl, but it faded in that second. Maria well knew there was nothing innocent in the pouch, and she hadn’t truly believed the woman’s story from the get-go.
I switched languages again. “Did the woman give you the little pouch? Tell you to hit the girl with it?”
Maria nodded. Tears began to trickle down her face. “I was supposed to tap her on the chest with it. But I couldn’t do it,” she said. “I couldn’t. The girl was so young and beautiful, and you were so frightening. I didn’t even see the grigori until his spell hit me.”
Her only words I believed were in the last sentence.
She hadn’t known Eli was waiting for us.
I looked to the side, to Felix, while I told him what Maria had said.
He grimaced. He would have said he was only impatient, but I knew better.
It irritated Felix to need my help. Felix knew death, and he knew interrogation, but he didn’t know Spanish.
“Make sure she’s telling the truth,” he said.
“Do you have sisters, Maria?” I was going for the best threat I could think of.
“I do. Three.”
“The girl you tried to kill is my sister.”
“Oh, please, don’t harm them for what I did!” And for the first time, I believed her absolutely.
Tears and snot ran down her face.
“She understands Felicia is my sister, and she has sisters who must be in this area, too,” I explained to Felix. I couldn’t stand looking at her face.
“Felix, loose her bonds,” I said in English. “But if she rises from the chair, kill her.”
Felix understood that clearly enough. I thought Maria did, too.
He untied the girl’s elbows while I went to the kitchen. But he stood to her side with his hands at the ready, a pinch of something from his vest between the forefinger and thumb of both hands. He made sure Maria could see that.
I fetched a wet rag and a towel from the kitchen and offered them to Maria. She took them from me just as carefully. But she worked on her face for an awful long time, clearly stalling.
I’d given her something. I’d expect something in return.
That was the way acquaintanceship, as opposed to friendship, worked.
Table of Contents
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- Page 14 (Reading here)
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