“Come on,” Seth said, standing. “I’d like you to point out the spot where this happened.”
Billy looked reluctantly at his empty glass. Clearly he had hoped for more booze for his efforts.
Seth walked over to the barkeep. “I’d like to settle up, and put a bottle for him on my bill. Just hold it until he gets back.” Seth looked at Billy, who smiled and slid out of the booth.
They walked out of the bar together and covered the block and a half in silence. The dimly lit area was mostly residential with non-existent or minimal front yards and stoops.
Billy stopped and looked warily around. “This is the place. I was walking about here, and he…it came from that direction.” He pointed south. “Just banged into me and kept going.”
“And you didn’t see anything? No flashes of light? Shadows?” Kam asked.
Billy shook his head. “Nope. I’d had a lot to drink. Probably wouldn’t have noticed anything if he hadn’t knocked me down.”
“Did you hear anything else? More voices, for instance?”
“Maybe faint footsteps, but that’s all. Sorry, I can’t remember anything else.”
“That’s OK. It’s been very interesting. Thanks for your time.” Seth extended a hand. “I hope you’ll let us know if you have a second encounter.”
“Oh, I will, but I ain’t planning on that happening. No sirree.” Billy grinned. “But I’m looking forward to a good time tonight. Thanks to you.” He took off toward the pub at a rapid pace.
“At least you made him happy.” Kam looked at the area around them. “I don’t see anything unusual. We could knock on a couple of doors. See if anyone else experienced a similar incident.”
Only three doors drew a response, and no one admitted to seeing anything out of the ordinary. Unless you counted the old woman who wanted to retell every ghost sighting she’d heard, going back eighty years to her own childhood and the experiences of friends of friends. They weren’t having much luck extricating themselves from the conversation until Kam’s phone rang.
“I have to take this,” she said, snatching it from her pocket. “Thanks for talking with us. You were a big help.” She turned away and answered. “This is Kam.”
“I have a job for you.”
Noah Crain. Damn.
“I just got back from one. It’s too soon.” Seth’s words replayed in her head that the CIA agent was calling her so often because it was easy. “I have problems of my own.”
“It won’t take long. You don’t even have to leave New Orleans,” he coaxed.
Kam frowned, but she was intrigued. Usually her assignments were far away. The CIA didn’t have jurisdiction inside the US borders. What was so important he was breaking protocol?
She glanced at Seth when he stepped up beside her. His face said he knew she was talking with Crain, and he didn’t like it. His reaction annoyed her. “Details, Crain.”
The agent’s voice was all business now he’d caught her interest. “Those souvenirs you brought back from your Mexican trip? They’ve shown up in New Orleans. And in sizable amounts.”
Counterfeit money. “Where exactly?”
“All over town. Dispersed throughout a local network, but we may have identified the main link. A little nighttime work could confirm our suspicions.”
“So send in one of your men. Isn’t that the kind of covert stuff you do?”
“Not really. We’re better at listening and watching. What we need may be under lock and key. With budget cuts and all, no one’s available for that kind of work.”
She shifted her feet. He meant safe cracking. Easy for her with her superior hearing and nimble fingers. “Really, Crain. I have a hard time believing that.”
“No one close by who isn’t already committed. It could take days or weeks to get someone qualified, and time is an issue. If we move quickly, we may be able to stop a major terrorist infiltration.”
Kam sighed. If she was going to do this, she needed more specific intel than he’d be willing to provide over an open line. “Where do you want to meet?”
Seth stiffened and walked away.
“The boat,” Crain said. “Say thirty minutes?”
“I’ll be there.” She disconnected and looked at Seth’s rigid back. “I’ll only be gone an hour or two. This shouldn’t take long.”
He looked over his shoulder. “Isn’t that what you always say? What about the attack on Rimee? Doesn’t that matter to you anymore? Crain crooks his finger and you desert your own job to do his.”
“It isn’t like that. I’ll be working on our ghost case by early tomorrow morning. Or not long after that,” she added in recognition of how easily missions became complicated.
“Where to this time?” His eyes were accusing. “Or is that a secret?”
“Don’t act like this. Six months ago you were OK with all of it. What’s changed?”
“You’ve changed. Now it seems to be all you want. Frankly, it’s turned me off the whole idea.”
“Fine,” she snapped. “Nobody’s forcing you to do it. But don’t try to dictate what I can and can’t do.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I haven’t done that.”
“Oh yes, you have. By your disapproving looks, your pointed comments. You’re trying to make me feel guilty. And it’s not going to work. It’s part of what I do, Seth. I like it. Get used to it.” She turned on her heels and walked away. “I’ll call you.”
He didn’t respond. She felt his eyes on her back, but he didn’t try to stop her. She wasn’t sure whether she was glad or sorry.
Seth gritted his teeth, jerked his phone from his pocket, and thumbed speed dial. “Rhyden, it’s me. Are you available to help on this Rimee incident?”
“I was going to pop over and see Esty, but she isn’t expecting me,” his cousin said. “Is something wrong?”
Seth let out a long breath. “It’s Kam. She’s bailed again. Crain called.”
“That’s happened a lot lately. What’s the problem this time?”
“I don’t know. We got in a fight before she told me. She said she’d be back tomorrow, but we both know how that goes.”
Rhyden chuckled. “So, do you want me to come now? Or only if she doesn’t return?”
“Now. I think we should watch the streets tonight, especially around the guilds. Something odd’s going on. We’ll be watching for ghosts.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Seething with irritation at Seth, at Crain, and at herself for letting the situation deteriorate into a fight, Kam clutched her invisibility amulet and sped across the marshlands. The wind gradually wicked away the sticky July heat and dulled her frustrations.
She sighed. She’d make it up to Seth tomorrow.
Kam shook her long hair in the breeze. She enjoyed the wildness of the swamp with its exotic foliage and the intriguing sounds of mostly hidden creatures—the buzz of mosquitoes and other bugs that bothered humans but didn’t care for elven blood. She skimmed the edge of the waterways, startled a small alligator, and raised a squawking complaint from a pair of night herons. The dim light of the CIA boat finally appeared ahead.
A rush of air brushed past her left shoulder, and Kam whirled to follow the unnatural occurrence. Was that a shimmer or just an optical illusion? She circled to the left, leaped over a water hole, and struck something. Thrown off balance, she splashed the water with one toe and felt fingers close on her arm.
Landing on solid ground, she jerked her arm away and struck out with her other hand, connecting with what felt like a solid cheek. The air dissolved into a humanoid male form. Kam released her own amulet and became visible. She and the stranger stared at one another.
He was a gorgeous male elf, tall, deeply tanned, pale shimmering hair pulled back over his shoulders. But it was his remarkable eyes that captured her attention—multi-hues of blues and greens streaked with silver. They glimmered with intensity. “Who are you?” he asked in the ancient Elfish tongue.
“Who are you?” she r
esponded in the same tongue but did a clumsy job of it. It had been a long time since she’d heard the language spoken. “What are you doing here?” She grabbed a handful of portal dust from her pocket and threw it at him.
He drew back slightly, but the dust settled on his shoulders with no noticeable effect. Kam widened her eyes. Even a small amount of dust should compel any inhabitant of Elvenrude to immediately return to the nearest portal. She sensed another stirring behind her and scrambled away, grabbing the amulet and the protection of invisibility again. The stranger wasn’t alone.
“Come back,” he ordered sharply, peering around. There was no mistaking his commanding tone.
Kam quietly got to her feet, backed out of reach, and stopped, staying still to avoid a movement or sound that might give her position away. The stranger cloaked himself. She heard brief rustlings and then nothing. With her heart pounding wildly, she waited a full minute before dashing toward the boat. Right now even the CIA agent’s human company would be more welcome than the uncertainties behind her.
She landed on the boat with both feet, released the amulet, and burst into the cabin. Crain jerked his head up. “Hey, slow down. What’s the hurry?”
“I have other things to do.” Her instinct was to hide the recent encounter. Crain already knew more about her world than she liked. “It’s getting late. If you want this done tonight, we’d better hurry.”
He gave her an odd look but laid out the details of the mission, pointing to the map location of the safe where the CIA believed the counterfeit money was kept. “A mobile unit will disable the building’s exterior alarm system as soon as I call.” He looked up. “If we can tie this Clyde Gormley into the distribution chain, we can shut him down. All I need to know is if the money’s there. Once you establish that, we’ll keep an eye on them until we figure out a way to have local authorities make the seizure.”
“My part sounds easy enough.”
“It should be.”
Returning to the city a few minutes later, Kam moved quietly, alert to the swamp around her. The slightest noise or stirring in the tall water grass might indicate the elven stranger’s reappearance. Who was he? His eye color was like nothing she’d seen before. And the silvery-white hair… What region of Elvenrude was he from? How did he get to this side of the portal? And what was he doing in the swamp?
Or in New Orleans? Her recent encounter bore eerie similarities to Billy’s story. Were the unknown elf and his companions responsible for the recent hauntings in the city?
She reached the edges of town without incident and raced through the streets. Arriving at the three-story building that housed Gormley’s office on the second floor, she put other concerns aside and concentrated on her task. She wrapped the amulet’s chain around her wrist and hooked it over her thumb. Once it was secure, she approached the side door. If the CIA had done its job, the building’s security system should be off. She picked the locks. No alarm. Kam stepped inside.
Even if Crain hadn’t warned her of an inside night watchman, she could hardly miss him. A rough-looking, late-thirties man blocked half the passage as he sat reading a sports magazine with his feet propped on a rickety desk. She tiptoed past and stopped at Gormley’s closed office. A quick manipulation of the locks, a glance at the guard to ensure he wasn’t watching to see the door open, and she entered total darkness. She softly closed the door. Even her elven eyesight was challenged until she crossed the room and opened the window blinds enough to let in a faint shaft of moonlight.
Following Crain’s instructions, she located the wall safe, listened for the distinctive clicks as she spun the dial back and forth, and pulled on the handle.
An alarm shrieked, and she jumped. Damn. A safe alarm. Kam turned the dial to lock it again, sprang away, and flattened against the far wall a hairsbreadth before the guard burst through the door. He flipped on the lights and scanned the room, leading with the business end of a handgun.
His phone rang, and he listened a moment.
“Yeah, I’m in the room now. Looks like a false alarm. There’s no one here. Yeah, I’ll stay until you can check it out.” He disconnected, inspected the lock on the window, and poked around the office, looking behind and then under the desk.
Kam crept to the open door, ran down the hall, down the stairs, and exited the building. There was no chance of getting into the safe until everyone left. She looked at the sky. It was already lightening. There wasn’t a whole lot of time until the offices filled with morning workers.
If she was going to go back, she’d have to figure out how to defeat the safe alarm. Exactly where was the pressure point, and could she get to it fast enough to stop another alert?
She waited in a recessed doorway across the street where she could monitor the front and side doors and still see the window to Gormley’s office. Within two minutes, a pair of big men with security written across the back of their jackets arrived and entered the front door. They left twenty minutes later.
The lights remained on in the office. Apparently the guard was taking no chances. Or he was lounging in his boss’s chair with his magazine. She fidgeted, frustrated with the continuing delay.
Another hour went by, but nothing changed. When the first building occupants arrived for work, Kam headed home. She called Crain to report on the situation, and they agreed to try again the next evening. In the meantime, he promised to find a way around the safe alarm so she wouldn’t have to worry about it. By the time she’d reached her apartment and showered, it was 7:30, and she fell into an exhausted sleep.
* * *
“Still haven’t heard from her?” Rhyden asked the next morning as he entered Seth’s elegant office on the top floor of the Lormarc Building. The bank of windows behind the desk provided a spectacular view of the city, but Rhyden ignored it. He took a drink from the coffee mug he carried, set it on the polished walnut desk, and drew up an upholstered side chair.
Seth slid a coaster under the mug. He leaned back in his swivel chair and eyed the other man. “No, delayed again. Not that I’m surprised. We’ll have to proceed without her.” He frowned, his annoyance fed by long, wasted hours watching the guilds. It had been a short night for sleep. “I wanted to track down this James character today, but without Kam’s help I don’t see how we can talk with Rimee’s girlfriend. She works in one of those women’s spas.”
“Where they get massages and tan their bodies? I wouldn’t mind going there.” Rhyden grinned and picked up his coffee.
“Hardly the low profile Rimee requested.” Seth envisioned Rhyden flirting with a room of half-dressed women.
“It’s a beautiful picture, isn’t it? OK, maybe not the best idea,” his cousin admitted. “So, what about Esty? I bet she’d talk to her. She’s always wanting to come Cityside. And she loves anything that’s a little different.”
“Kam would kill us.”
“Not if she didn’t know. Esty wouldn’t tell her.”
“Are you sure about that? They’re pretty tight.”
“She knows how to keep a secret.”
Seth pursed his lips. He doubted if Esty could keep anything from her sister for long. But maybe Kam wouldn’t mind if all Esty did was go to a spa. They really needed to question Julia’s ex-boyfriend, and the only lead to him was through the girl. It might be worth the fallout. “Why don’t you talk with Esty…see how she reacts?”
“You mean be subtle? Sure. I can do that. Give me a few minutes, and I should have an answer.” Rhyden rose and entered the portal room at the far end of the office.
Seth gazed at the door a moment, struck by sudden doubt. Should he go after Rhyden and stop him? Esty wasn’t exactly a woman of the world. Not that they were asking her to do anything difficult or placing her in danger. Julia was Rimee’s girlfriend, not a suspect, and Esty would be inside a women’s spa the entire time. What could be safer?
A nagging feeling told him Kam wouldn’t see it that way, but he went back to his paperwork and concentrated on readi
ng reports until he heard the portal ding. He looked up and stood immediately. Not only Rhyden but Kam’s sister walked through the door too. Seth lifted a brow. His cousin had changed clothes somewhere along the way, replacing his business suit with jeans and a white T-shirt that showed off his dark tan. Esty was also in casual clothes: jeans and a pale pink, short-sleeved top. Very feminine. And she was grinning.
Seth walked toward her. “Esty, welcome to New Orleans. Please, have a seat.” He looked at his cousin.
“She’s willing to talk with Julia for us,” Rhyden explained, his gaze quickly returning to Esty’s upturned face. “I figured there was no time like the present.”
“It’s kind of exciting.” Esty’s voice bubbled. “Oh, I know it’s just Thorn’s girlfriend, but I haven’t talked with many humans before…except in stores and stuff.”
Oh man. What was he doing? “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”
Esty’s face lost its eagerness. “You can’t change your mind now.” She looked at Rhyden. “Can he?”
“Her mother agreed,” Rhyden offered.
Seth shook his head but laughed. “Fine. Let’s sit down and talk about it.”
Seth had tea and coffee brought in and made it clear they only needed a couple of pieces of information from Julia. “In and out,” he summarized. “It shouldn’t take long.”
Esty nodded, her eyes shining. “I get it. I can do this. Are we ready to go?”
Seth almost laughed. The two sisters looked so much alike he sometimes forgot Esty was five years younger and very sheltered. Yet in her own way she shared Kam’s love for excitement. To her this was probably an adventure. Esty hadn’t spent much time Cityside without her father. Interesting they’d trusted Rhyden to bring her.
The Femme Fatale spa stood in the middle of an upscale suburban strip mall. While Esty went inside, Seth and Rhyden waited in the car, watching the women stream in and out the main entrance. They held a brief debate on whether those coming out looked better than those going in and finally concluded they all looked pretty good.