Money Shot (12 page)

“I can’t believe that anybody on Mishkwa would dabble in this sort of thing.”

“Somebody’s gone to a lot of trouble to practice alone, Lila. You’ve got to wonder why.”

She shook her head again. “I have no idea.”

“I think I do.” Rush turned to Goose and said, “I think your counterfeiter is hedging his bets.”

Goose stared at Rush. “You think my counterfeiter is covering his tracks via
black magic
?”

Lila stared at her. “Your
counterfeiter
?”

He said to Lila, “Goose was sent here to investigate the possibility that somebody is smuggling high-grade counterfeit money into the U.S. from Canada via Mishkwa. That means somebody on this tiny island thinks they’re special. Faster, smarter, more talented than normal people, and therefore exempt from the rules binding normal people.”

“Both activities
would
take a certain personality type,” Goose murmured, struck. “A drive for power paired with a disdain for the rule of law. The sort of person who’d—”

“—buck generations of religious tradition to dabble in black magic.” Lila sighed. “For money. I see your point.”

Goose frowned. “Okay, so let’s assume for now that Mishkwa really is our point of entry, because I do think at least that much of our original theory holds up. It’s a very convenient location with a surprising amount of international travel going on.” She looked back and forth between them. “Can we rule out Yarrow’s involvement?”

“Yarrow?” Rush stared at her while Lila pressed her lips together in disapproval.

“I gather she’s had a troubled adolescence,” Goose said carefully, “including a brush with the law of which no record exists.” She held up a hand to forestall Lila’s no-doubt-pithy comment. “She let it slip herself, Lila. I had to check it out. It’s my job. Now, I have no interest in digging out painful details I have no business knowing, so just give me the broad strokes, okay? Is there any way she could be connected to people who might use her exile on Mishkwa to turn a profit?”

Lila sent her a scorching glare that actually comforted Goose a great deal. No matter how troubled or angry, a kid couldn’t be completely lost when somebody believed in her the way Lila clearly believed in Yarrow.

“She was arrested,” Lila said stiffly, “never charged, and for reasons that are, as you mentioned, none of your business. It’s her heart that was broken, not the law. But if it sets your mind at ease, you should know that her parents have strictly forbidden her access to the outside world while she’s here.”

“No cell phone, no Internet access?”

“None. Which means that even if she were somehow mixed up with a bad element, she’s had no way of communicating with them, let alone arranging to meet them. Not that she’s been off-island even once since she’s been here. Not without supervision.” Lila shook her head. “And to answer what will surely be your next question, her parents have also asked me to keep her strictly separated from our religious tradition as well. The chances of her having any interest in the Stone Altar, let alone the motivation to explore it, are extremely remote.”

“Fair enough,” Goose said. Yarrow had never felt right as a suspect to her, anyway. But somebody had, and since she was already way deep into Lila’s red zone, she went ahead and pitched. “Tell me again why we’re not looking at Einar?”

Lila waved that off with a weary shrug. “Einar may be impulsive but he isn’t stupid. I’m sixty-nine years old, Agent di Guzman, and when I retire, he stands to inherit everything he wants. Why would he risk his freedom to buy something he’s going to get for free in a few years anyway?”

Goose absorbed that. It was a fair point. Einar struck her as showy, not self-destructive. His regard for his own comfort seemed extremely healthy, and likely far outweighed his impatience.

“You’ll ask around, then?” Rush said to Lila. “Discreetly?”

“Of course. But again I doubt any of my people—
our
people—have been involved in anything so unsavory as blood sacrifice.”

“You think it’s gone that far?” Rush asked, his eyes sharp on his aunt. “Actual sacrifice, not just ritualistic bloodletting?”

“Like pricking fingers or cutting palms,” Lila told Goose before she could open her mouth to ask. Her utter stupefaction must’ve shown. “Blood is life, and as such is a powerful and sacred offering. You don’t have to kill to make it.” She pursed her lips and said to Rush, “Though I think the person in question must have killed. Or will soon. He—or she—may not have taken human life yet but perhaps animal life. If you’re hungry enough to spill blood for power, you’re hungry enough to kill for it.” She came to her feet. “I’ll ask.”

“Thanks, Lila.” Rush rose and Goose followed suit.

“Blessed be, nephew. Blessed be, Agent di Guzman.”

“You, too,” Goose said, and accepted the woman’s cheek kisses with less surprise this time, and a bit more grace. A quick, dark movement beyond Lila’s shoulder caught her attention. To her surprise, she saw Yarrow kneeling by the fireplace, a piece of kindling in her hand, her dark eyes fixed on the leaping flame.

“Hey, Yarrow,” Goose said, with a guilty heart. How much had the kid overheard? “I didn’t see you there.”

Lila turned and said, “Yarrow! Goodness, child, how long have you been there?”

Yarrow didn’t turn. She poked at the shimmering blue-yellow embers and a shower of sparks danced up the chimney.

Lila sighed and rolled her eyes at Goose. “She’s got her earbuds in. I swear it’s like living with a deaf person. When I want her attention, I have to flick the lights.”

Rush walked over and tugged on the thin wire that disappeared into the harsh black of the girl’s dyed hair. An earbud popped out and she looked up. “What?”

“We have preseason conditioning tomorrow at three.”

Yarrow rolled her eyes. “Great.”

“You coming?”

“Do I look like an idiot to you?”

“That’s a trick question, isn’t it?” Rush gave his cousin a good, hard stare. “Let’s try that again. The ski team, to which you belong and of which I am the coach, is holding preseason conditioning tomorrow. Will I see you there, Yarrow? Yes or no.”

She heaved a sigh. “Yes, Ranger Rush. I’ll be there.”

“Good. Ferry’s at two. I’ll pick you up.”

“What, you don’t trust me?”

He handed her earbud back. “Do I look like an idiot to you?”

She rolled her eyes so hard Goose feared she might overbalance and tumble into the fire. Rush just shook his head.

Suddenly a high whine filled the air, a vibration that buzzed inside Goose’s chest, her ears. It rattled the books on the shelves and Lila’s teacup in its saucer. Goose grabbed Lila’s arm.

She’d never heard that northern Minnesota was particularly prone to earthquakes or anything, but logic dictated that little bitty rocks poking up in the middle of large bodies of water couldn’t be the most stable things in the world.

“What the hell is that?” she asked.

Lila shook her head and peered out the window.

“That boy,” she sighed.

Goose looked, too, and saw a little black-and-yellow prop plane zip over the harbor. It tipped its wings in a jaunty salute and roared off over the house in a full-bodied wash of noise that even Yarrow heard. She popped out the earbuds herself this time, and scanned the sky with an intensity that drove impending natural disasters straight out of Goose’s head.

She didn’t smile—of course not—but Goose’s heart wrenched at the eager joy in the girl’s dark eyes when she said, “Einar’s back.”

YARROW HAD learned a few things during her exile on the Rock at the End of the Fucking Earth.

First, Sunday evenings were Lila’s favored time frame for cleaning the tea shop. Extensively. What she was cleaning for, Yarrow couldn’t actually say. Like there was going to be some huge rush on tea come Monday morning. Like commuters would be rolling through demanding their scones and lattes.

Only wait, there wouldn’t be any commuters because there weren’t any fucking
cars
. Or, Jesus, any
people
.

The sheer lunacy of expecting customers appeared not to factor into Lila’s decision to prepare for them, however. Thus Sunday nights were spent diligently filling sugar bowls and making up tea bags and topping off the honey pots.

At least they were until Yarrow learned to disappear.

Lucky for her, she’d had plenty of practice disappearing. It had been a little easier back home, of course. There were crowds, for one thing. For another, she was invisible at home. Had been since the day of her brother’s diagnosis. Getting lost was a snap. She could hop the light rail to the Mall of America, a bus to Southdale. She could be at a mall, a movie theater, a library or any one of a dozen coffee shops on the university campus in minutes. She and Jilly had passed for freshman, easy, and—

Pain slid in, vicious and greasy, and she stopped. Backtracked. Then carefully, deliberately, she ripped the thought out of her head. She couldn’t go back to that place. Never again. Even if it existed—the past as she remembered it—she wasn’t the same girl she’d been. She couldn’t go back there, and what was worse, she didn’t deserve to. If the past was gone, it was because she’d destroyed it. What was done was done.

The point was, disappearing wasn’t so easy on Mishkwa. Lila had a decent library, though, full of big fascinating books. Books about herbs and spells and potions and power. Books that spoke to something inside her that twisted and yearned. Books that would make her parents—if they knew she was reading them—completely stroke out.

Or they would have once upon a time. They didn’t care so much about her reading material anymore.

Regardless, Yarrow liked to grab the thickest book she could carry and tuck herself into some unexpected corner until Sunday-night prep was finished.

But Yarrow had learned something else during her exile on Mishkwa. She’d learned that Einar always came by the tea shop after he’d been away. Always. And if Yarrow wanted to see him—which,
God
, she did—she’d get her ass to the kitchen.

She was stuffing spoonfuls of decaf green tea into little square packets of handwoven linen when the sleigh bells at the door jingled. Her heart rocketed into her throat.

“Hey, ladies.” Einar strolled through the door, hands tucked into jeans pockets, jacket open over a flannel shirt the color of autumn leaves. She felt his gaze touch on her then move to Lila. Heat bloomed in her cheeks, and she kept her head down until it faded.

“Hey, Einar,” she said.

Lila said, “Well, the world traveler returns!”

“I don’t know if Mackinac Island qualifies as world travel, Grandma,” Yarrow said. “It’s, like, around the block.”

“You kidding?” Einar draped himself over a stool and propped an elbow on the counter. “It’s three Great Lakes away. I’m exhausted.”

“Poor baby,” Yarrow crooned. He threw her a sharp look, and she hastily dropped her eyes to the tea bags.

“Exhausted and hungry, I assume?” Lila asked, a laugh in her voice. Yarrow nearly sagged with relief. The last thing she needed was Lila catching a clue.

Einar gave his aunt a charming grin. “Am I so transparent?”

“Like glass, darling. Like glass.”

He snatched up her hand across the counter, pressed a lavish kiss to her knuckles. “A grilled ham-and-cheese? With that fancy mustard? I swear, nobody makes it like you do, Lila.”

“Sweet talker.” She swatted at him, but headed for the kitchen. She peered over Yarrow’s shoulder on her way by. “Don’t pack them so full, honey. The leaves need room to breathe.”

Yarrow scowled at the pile of plump tea bags in front of her. Like she didn’t know that already. She just hated seeing the bags all limp and half empty. Like there wasn’t enough inside them. “Whatever.”

Lila pushed through the kitchen doors, then poked her head back into the shop. “Why don’t you come into the kitchen a minute, Einar? Keep me company while I cook?”

“Of course.” He unfolded himself from the stool with a lazy grace that had Yarrow’s heart hammering in her chest. He caught her eye as he cleared the pass-through, tossed her a questioning glance.

She gave him a shrug. She’d heard some of what Rush and Goose had talked to Lila about, sure. The weirder she looked, the less people noticed her. Throw in some earbuds that were only occasionally plugged into actual music and she was as invisible here as she had been at home. At least she had been before di Guzman turned up. Agent Smiley Face was the only reason she’d even turned on some actual music halfway through their conversation instead of listening to the whole, fascinating thing. Left to their own devices, Lila and Rush would never have noticed her there in front of the fire.

Einar disappeared into the kitchen, and she crept over to put an ear by the door. Lila turned on the water in the sink full blast and the murmur of their voices disappeared into it.
Shit
. She tossed the tea bags she’d prepped into the pretty silver canister Lila had set out for them, then took her time hauling out the box of stir sticks from under the counter next to the kitchen door. The water turned off as she slipped the sticks one by one into the blue-glazed vases Lila liked, but then Lila switched on the exhaust fan over the range.

Yarrow gave up. She grabbed a tray and moved into the dining room, where she gathered napkin dispensers and sugar bowls from all the tables. By the time Einar bumped through the kitchen door again—grilled cheese in hand—she was at the counter, slopping sugar into bowls.

“Thanks, Lila,” he said. Hair flopped into one eye as he hit her with a lopsided smile. “You’re a queen among women.”

“And don’t you forget it,” Lila said, flicking him with a dish towel. “You’ll think about what I said?”

“Of course. But I seriously can’t imagine who would—”

Lila cut him off with a pointed look at Yarrow.
Jesus
, Yarrow thought,
like I’m deaf
and
blind
.