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“Did you contact the police? The FH-CSI?” It would be the next logical move, but with Sabele an OIA agent, Harish might have been instructed not to, I thought. My hunch was right.
“No. I called her several times the next morning but got no answer. When the bar opened, I was right there, waiting, but instead of Sabele, an agent from the OIA was there. He refused to let me into her room and told me to keep quiet, that they were looking into matters. He said that if anything had gone wrong, I could endanger her by going to the cops. So I did what I was told and waited. After a few days, the agent showed up at my house. He told me that Sabele had gone AWOL—that she went home. ”
“Did you check with her father?”
“I couldn’t leave right away, I had some pressing dead-lines, and as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t just drop everything. Three days later, I crossed over. ” He shook his head. “I went home to Elqaneve looking for her, but when I arrived at her house, her father had moved. He didn’t leave a forwarding address. His neighbors said he’d moved some months before, so I assumed Sabele went to his new place. The only conclusion I could come up with was that she was hiding from me, that she couldn’t bring herself to tell me she didn’t want to get married. So I decided to let her go, since that’s what she seemed to want. ”
Camille let out a long breath. “Did you ask if she’d taken her things from the Wayfarer?”
Harish shrugged. “Yeah, but the new owner—Jocko—was very particular. He wouldn’t allow me upstairs. Nobody else had seen her around. I dropped in every night for weeks hoping to find someone who’d seen her go, who might know why she left. But it’s like she never existed. ”
I pushed myself up, pacing back and forth on the flagstone in front of the stairs. “Something doesn’t add up. Wouldn’t her father come to look for her if he hadn’t heard from her for a while?”
“You don’t know her family,” the elf said. He stood. “I apologize for my rude behavior earlier. I’d like it very much if you’d all come in and have something to drink. ” Pausing, he bit his lip as he looked at me. “I mean . . . ”
“Don’t sweat it,” I said. “I’m not thirsty, and trust me, I won’t take advantage of your invitation. I never hunt anybody who doesn’t deserve it. When we leave, you can rescind your invitation; it will help you sleep better, and I won’t take offense. ”
We followed him into his house. Our house was large, but his was spacious. An open floor design, one-story ranch style, the house rambled across the property. His living room overlooked the water. Even though the inlet was a block or two away, the view remained unobstructed and breathtaking. The house was tastefully furnished if a little boring. I kept my mouth shut, but Delilah, as usual, blurted out the first thing that came into her fluffy little head.
“You certainly like beige,” she said, then clapped her hand to her mouth. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean . . . ”
“Not a problem. I’m not the most adventurous of men,” Harish said, motioning to the big oak dining table. “Please, sit down. ” As we took our places, he slipped into a chair and toyed with the locket. “Her father wasn’t supportive when she joined the OIA. In fact, he strongly disapproved. Sabele told me that the day she signed up, he actually said to her, ‘If you get yourself killed, I’m not going to bother looking for your body, and I won’t enter your name onto the scrolls of the ancestors. ’ In effect, that would mean her soul would be doomed to wander in the Netherworld until she could be put to rest. ”
“Harsh,” Camille said, glancing at Delilah and me. Our father had been proud as peaches when we joined the OIA. He’d supported every choice we made. Well, almost every choice. He’d been pissed out of his mind when Camille got herself involved with Trillian.
I frowned. “Did he just hate the service, or was he unhappy that she chose to align herself with the Fae rather than Queen Asteria’s court?”
While some elves served the OIA, there was a strong divide in the elfin community between the purists and those who didn’t mind stepping outside the box. Elves weren’t as open to other races as most of the Fae were.
Harish shrugged. “I think her father’s a pacifist. He disapproves of all military service. He wanted her to become a priestess in the temple of Araylia, the goddess of healing. But Sabele liked adventure. She never could stand the thought of being shut up in a temple, quietly living out her life serving others. ” He bit his lip. “Can I offer you something to drink? To eat?”
Delilah and Camille accepted lemonade.
“No, thank you. ” I politely declined. “So you’re telling us that until tonight, you thought she just skipped out on the relationship?”
The pain in his eyes was fresh and new, as if we’d ripped open a wound that had never quite healed. “That’s precisely what I thought. You think something happened to her, don’t you?” He set a tray on the table, containing glasses, a pitcher of lemonade, and a plate of oatmeal cookies. “That’s why you’re here?”
I leaned back, stretching out my legs. “We weren’t sure, but now . . . now I think that we should assume something happened to her. Why the OIA said she went home confounds me, but they might have not wanted to admit they didn’t know where one of their agents went. ”
“Did you know anything about the man who was stalking her?” Camille asked, leaning in.
Harish blinked. Twice. “Stalking her? Someone was stalking her?”
I hesitated on my next question. If Harish thought Harold might have done something to Sabele, there was no telling what he might do. But we had to know everything he could tell us. I decided to take the risk. Elves tended to be pretty even-keeled.
“Did she ever mention somebody by the name of Harold Young?”
The elf slowly sat back in his chair, a suspicious look on his face. “Harold Young? I know that name. Sabele mentioned him a couple of times. She said he gave her the creeps. He came into the bar on a regular basis. But I just thought . . . ” His voice dropped to a strangled whisper. “I just thought he was some obnoxious customer and told her to ignore him. ”
“Did you know she filed a police report, naming him as a stalker? The cops talked to him briefly, he denied it, and since they never heard from her again, they closed the case. ”
Again, the deer-in-the-headlights look. “No. She didn’t tell me she went to the police. Why didn’t I take her more seriously? Do you think this guy did something?” He stared at the floor. “I told her she was overreacting when she mentioned him to me. What if he really did want to hurt her? I betrayed her by not believing her. ”
I didn’t know what to say. Delilah and Camille were as tongue-tied as me. After another moment of uncomfortable silence, I cleared my throat.
“Don’t second-guess yourself. There’s no way of knowing, sometimes. And we aren’t positive that she fell prey to harm. It just looks likely. ”
“Can you find out? I can pay for your time,” he mumbled. “Whatever it takes. ”
Delilah was about to say something when I stepped in. We needed the money, true, but I didn’t want him to feel like we were ghouls, feeding on the dead. “Listen, we’ll take a look around. If it appears that this is going to be cost-intensive, we’ll talk money then. Delilah’s a professional PI, so we’re already off to a head start. For now, the best help you can give us is to tell us everything you remember. Where her favorite hangouts were, what she liked to do, anything you can remember about this Harold guy. Can you get us a dossier by morning?”
Harish let out a soft sigh. “Of course. Give me your address, and I’ll have it sent over tomorrow. ” He stood up, looking far older than when he’d first opened the door. “Thank you. I’m praying you find out that she just got bored with me and actually did go home. But you know . . . ”
“What?” Camille said.
“I’ve always had a feeling that something was wrong. I couldn’t shake it, but it seemed . . . well . . . like I was o
verreacting. I finally just pushed it away and chalked it up to a wounded ego. ”
“One last question,” I asked. “Do you know why Sabele wrote her journal entries in Melosealfôr? It’s an unusual language for most people to speak, let alone write. ”
Harish gave me a soft smile. “When we were young, we were friends with a unicorn. Not one of the Dahns Unicorns, but one from the Golden Wood. He taught us the spoken version, and the sprite he traveled with taught us to write in it. Sabele and I used it as a secret language for many years, a way to keep our thoughts private. I guess she still thought of it as a way to keep the world out of her business. ”
“Thank you,” I said, my stomach dropping at the sadness in his gaze.
“We’ll be going, then. Here’s my card,” Delilah said, handing him her business card as we headed for the door. “I wrote our home phone number and cell numbers on the back. Please, get everything together as soon as you can. You can send the information to the Wayfarer or down to the Indigo Crescent bookstore that Camille owns, or to my office, which is just above the store. ”
And with that, we said good-bye and headed back to the car.
It was after midnight by the time we got home. As Camille slowly pulled into the yard, I glanced at the wards. Linked to the crystals in our kitchen, they glowed, soft rings of large quartz crystal spikes embedded into the ground. Their ivory light showed all was well. No ghouls for the moment, at least.
As we entered the kitchen, we found Iris sitting in the rocking chair by the stove. Her eyelashes were heavy with tears, and her makeup was streaked. She was clutching a tissue in her hand, and her beautiful dress lay in a pile on the floor. She’d changed into her bathrobe, and her hair flowed down her shoulders.
Rozurial was fixing her a cup of tea. He glanced at us and shook his head, an angry look on his face. Camille and Delilah hurried over to her, while I took the tea from Rozurial and carried it to her chair.
“What happened?” Delilah asked, brushing back a wayward strand of the long, golden locks that Iris was so proud of.
Iris flushed. “Bruce happened. A bunch of his buddies showed up at the restaurant and got us kicked out. Bruce didn’t seem to care, so they all decided to go to a bar. I didn’t want to go, but they complained I was being a party pooper, so I went along. Once we were there—it was Clancy’s Pub—Bruce’s friend Hans vomited all over me. That was after he tried to cop a feel. I slapped him in the face when he groped me. He threw up on me, and that damned Bruce just laughed at the whole thing. I was so embarrassed. I just wanted to fall through the floor. ”
The pain in her voice made me want to do a little leprechaun hunting. My fingers itched to find the little creep and smack him around for hurting Iris’s feelings. I forced myself to remain calm.
“What did you do?”
“What could I do? I told Bruce I was leaving, and instead of trying to get me to stay, he just let out a belly laugh. Yes, he was drunk, but did he have to be so cruel?” She started to cry again, and I saw red.
“You want me to have a talk with him?”
Iris sniffed and blew her nose. She shook her head. “Not with those fangs out, you don’t,” she said.
I hadn’t realized my fangs were extended and did my best to rein myself in. “Sorry. I won’t put the bite on him. I promise. ”
Camille picked up the dress, wincing as the smell of stale, alcohol-ridden puke wafted up to assault us all. “I’ll see if I can get the stain out. We’ll have it dry-cleaned if need be. ” She headed toward the laundry room.
Delilah patted Iris’s hand and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Men can be so damned frustrating. I was ready to kill Chase over Erika. ”
Roz settled in at the table with a cup of tea and a turkey sandwich. “We’re not all like that, Iris. Now me, I’ve never, ever been rude to a lady. ”
“No, you just seduce them and then dash out the back when they aren’t looking,” I said, glancing at him. But when he grinned at me, I couldn’t help grinning back.
“Of course. That’s my job, love. You know that. But I do my best to leave them happy and without heartbreak. ” Without his duster, he was just like every other curly headed pretty boy, though he had that slightly psycho edge that gave his eyes a dangerous appeal. He was wearing black jeans, a black mesh wife-beater, and a matching Australian hat that looked like it was straight out of Crocodile Dundee. It looked good on him, too.
Iris wiped her eyes. “I suppose I’m foolish to cry over this. But it was supposed to be a special night, and look what happened. I just . . . I had hopes . . . ” Her voice trailed off as she rubbed the bridge of her nose between her eyes. “I have such a headache. Thank you for the tea, Rozurial. ”
He pushed back his chair and knelt by her side. “Don’t give up on him yet, pretty wench. Bruce is a good sort beneath that loutish exterior. Tomorrow, give him a nasty tongue-lashing, and I’ll bet you anything he toes the mark from now on. ” Leaning forward, he brushed her lips with a kiss, and she blushed but didn’t protest. “You are far too lovely inside and far too pretty on the outside to be alone for long. Give him a second chance, and if he screws that up, I’ll thrash him for you myself. ”
I was about to say something when the wards went off again, chiming and flashing from their master table. Camille came racing in, her hands covered with soapsuds. “Damn, something broke through again. ”