Cassandra's Dilemma (23 page)

Media firestorm.

A bomb goes off in Grant Park. Where was the media coverage? She’d barely noticed any kind of chaos while they’d been there. Cassie looked around, longing for a television or even just a radio. Mr. Wizard took the damn keys with him. She growled in frustration and slapped her hand against the dashboard.

A cursory search of the cab turned up no cell phone, BlackBerry, or even a slip of paper. She popped open the center console and nearly whooped. A Nokia lay silently nestled into the black-colored upholstery. Cassie picked it up and thumbed it on. She glanced around as warm light, pink tones, and golden hues flooded the area. The sunlight pushed back all the shadows. If not for her bruised hands, shredded manicure, and burned hair, Cassie believed she could almost forget the horrors of the last three days.

She dialed the number from memory and waited.

“…Hello?” A male voice, thick with sleep, answered.

“Michael?”

“Cassie?” Alertness flooded through his tone. “Are you all right? Where the hell are you? I’ve been trying to get the Chicago PD to look for you, but they keep saying you’re in FBI custody, but no one at the FBI has any idea what is going on.”

“Michael…”

“Where are you, Cassie?”

“Take a breath.” Cassie laughed weakly, fighting the surge of tears in her eyes. Laughter and tears turned her voice husky. “I’m not sure where I am right now. But Homeland Security put me in protective custody.”

It was relatively true. True enough that she could say it with equanimity.

“Protective custody! Cassie, tell me where you are and I can be there in under an hour.”

“An hour? From San Diego?” Her voice pitched high.
What? Is Michael going to announce he’s some kind of Fae, too?

“I’m not in San Diego. I’m in Chicago. I flew here the day of the explosion. I’ve been trying to track you down. I’m sorry about Billy.”

Silent grief punched her in the gut. Michael knew Billy. Michael was teaching Billy to play racquetball. Billy taught Michael how to surf. Luncheons with Billy listening to Michael and Cassie tear apart an ad campaign. Hours spent into the night working with clients, Billy hovering in the background, ready to assist them.

“I miss him,” Cassie choked out. “I miss him, and I haven’t even had a chance to call his parents or to find out what happened to…” She couldn’t finish the sentence.

“I’ll take care of it. Just tell me where you are. You shouldn’t be alone. Not
now
.”

“I’m not alone. I’m—” Cassie broke off when the driver’s-side door yanked open. She lifted her wet gaze to meet Jacob’s furious one. “Michael, I have to go. I’ll call you later, I promise. I just—I just wanted to talk to a friend.” She said the last as much for Jacob as for Michael. She didn’t fight when Jacob took the phone and hung it up with one press of his thumb.

Anger and disapproval radiated off him like heat rising from blacktop on a summer day. His dark eyes held her bleak gaze for several long heartbeats. Then he just shook his head and nodded his head toward her door.

“It’s safe to come out. I got us a room and a change of clothes for both of us. You could use a shower and a nap.”

“I’m not tired,” Cassie said automatically but found that once she said it, she meant it. “In fact, the only thing I am tired of is being told what to do.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah, that’s so. You and Helcyon—you’re exactly alike.” Cassie dragged her upper lip across her teeth before blowing out a breath. “You are both so convinced that you know what’s going on, that you’re calling all the shots. But so far all that’s done is land me in the middle of several fights, blinded me, and totally screwed my manicure.” Cassie’s voice rose.

“Done, are we?” Jacob cocked an eyebrow at her and kept his wrist resting lightly on the doorframe. His body language said casual, relaxed. His eyes screamed anything but.

“No. I’m not done.” Cassie opened the passenger door and stood. Her body protested the sudden surge to her feet. She firmed her hand on the door to keep from making an idiot out of herself by sprawling on the ground from dizziness. “This is my life, Mr. Wizard. Not yours. Stop dictating to me like you’re the one in charge.”

“Yeah, you can’t tell you have royal blood.” Jacob laughed. He thumbed the car remote and opened the back of the vehicle that wasn’t a vehicle. Goose bumps prickled her skin as Jacob circled to the back. He reached into the rear and pulled out a duffel. “Tell you what, princess. I need a shower. I need to shave. I need to brush my teeth, and I need a cup of coffee. You want to stand out here in the morning light looking like something the cat dragged in, be my guest. But until we do all of those things, I’m spent. Done.
Finito
.”

“Fine!”

He gave her another long look, closed the hatch, and started back for the hotel. Cassie glared after him. She looked down at her feet in their wet socks, the only thing between her bare feet and the roughness of the parking lot blacktop. Traffic sounds from the highway remained faint and few. Cassie looked back at the door to the hotel. Jacob stood staring at it, his back firmly to her.

Waiting.

“Aww shit.” She allowed herself the pleasure of the curse before striding across the mostly empty lot to join him. To his credit, Jacob didn’t smirk when he opened the door for her nor did he say anything when she entered the building and followed him to the elevator.

They were silent on the ride to the third floor. She was surprised they weren’t staying on the first floor, but since he was so quiet, she didn’t want to ask and be the one to break the silence. Cassie padded down the long hallway, trying not to think of the millions of other feet that walked on the carpet nor that her socks were squelching.

She missed her shoes.

Jacob halted abruptly in front of a door and Cassie bumped into him. His arm came around her to keep her from being knocked back. He didn’t look like a rock wall of muscle, but he felt like one. He cocked that eyebrow at her again as the corner of his mouth twitched.

Cassie resisted the urge to punch him. Pulling away, she rubbed her arm and looked up and down the long hallway. She could hear the muted sounds of a vacuum somewhere, but otherwise it sounded like every other middle-sized hotel she’d ever stayed in. The door opened, but she didn’t move. The Wizard stared at her, waiting as he tossed the duffel bag into the room.

The Wizard.

The Elf.

What next? A dwarf? A kender? Why not a genuine pixie?

“Does a Brownie count?” she wondered aloud.

“Not if you drink a Diet Coke, or at least that’s what commercials used to say.”

“What?” Cassie blinked back to her surroundings and went into the room that Jacob held open.

“You asked me if a brownie counted. Calories in a brownie are supposed to be counteracted by diet sodas. Or at least, I know a lot of women who like to tell themselves that.”

“I didn’t mean fudge brownies.” Cassie looked around the room. It was midsized, with a pair of double beds, a nightstand between them, three lamps bolted to the walls, a desk crammed into a corner near an old air conditioning unit, and windows framed by curtains with a geometric pattern that matched the stiff coverlets doubling as bedspreads.

“It’s not much, but it’ll do, and it has running water.” Jacob reached around her to switch on the bathroom light. “Ladies first.”

“Jacob—Agent Book.” Cassie turned, trapping him between her and the now-closed hotel door. “I need to know the truth of what is going on. I need to be involved. What I don’t need is to be protected, cosseted, or in some way coddled.”

“Okay.” He bobbed his head once. He reached out and put a hand on either side of her waist. She tilted her head back, expectantly. He smiled faintly before picking her up, turning around, and depositing her against the hotel door.

“I’ll take a shower first.” He grinned and stepped back into the bathroom, shutting the door in her face.

Cassie blew out a breath and scowled at the closed door. She walked further into the room, listening to the sound of running water.

She sat down on the bed.

She stood up.

She paced.

Finally she settled at the desk. Yanking open one of the curtains so that the morning sun could flood the room, Cassie rubbed at her stinging eyes. They were still complaining about their mistreatment. She took advantage of the box of Kleenex next to the nineteen-inch television bolted to the wall. She laughed.

The beds were probably bolted to the floor. Did the hotel have a problem with losing items not bolted down? How did they keep the chairs? The chuckle verged on hysterical, so Cassie swallowed it and dug around in the desk to find the complimentary notepad and pens. It seemed a bit old-fashioned, but a list would help her organize her rather haphazard thoughts or at least help her identify the most pertinent ones.

Maybe.

She wrote across the top of the sheet “
Bombing Questions
.”

She certainly had a lot of those.

Who planted the bomb?

Was it actually a bomb?

If not a bomb, then what?

What kind of magic can create that effect?

How can one be fought?

Salt weakens it.

Sunlight seems to be a weapon as well.

Cassie paused to look at the list. The water continued to run in the bathroom. She wanted coffee. A very large cup of hot coffee. Her stomach growled vociferously as if in agreement. She looked back at her list.

Who is the target?

The last question haunted her. She drew a circle around it once. Then twice.

Who gains?

Of course, that was the largest question of all. Who gained? Was it a measure of politics? Could someone in the Fae not wish to come out to the world? Was it someone in this world who did not want the Fae in it? Cassie’s gaze flickered to the bathroom. As if on cue, the door opened to reveal Jacob standing there, hair dripping, with a towel wrapped negligently around his waist.

Her face flushed, and she looked away quickly. Guilt left a wave of goose pimples along the flesh of her arms. She didn’t look up when he padded across the room to look over her shoulder. Nor did she stare at the muscled thigh that seemed to fill her peripheral vision.

“That’s a good question,” Jacob said softly. “And not just who, but what? We know it wasn’t just to delay the announcement, or they’d have stopped coming for you by now. If it was to dissuade the Danae, well, having patience and remaining uncaught is all they need to do to be effective there.”

“But?” Cassie interjected for him.

“Exactly. But they haven’t been patient. They’ve come for you. Four times now.” Jacob tapped the item on her list. “You’re the target. Not the Danae. Not the Fae.
You
.”

“But I don’t have any enemies.”

“Cassie Belle, public-relations and media expert? Probably not, unless you pissed off some Paris-Hilton-wannabe-BFF—but Cassandra Belle, Changeling Heiress to the Fae? Whole other story.”

She looked up as he tugged the pen from her suddenly numb fingers. “Go take a shower. I’ll get us some food and coffee ordered up.”

“But,” Cassie resisted when Jacob gave her a gentle nudge in the direction of the bathroom. “Jacob, if they are after me…”