Tarnished (30 page)

Susan had apparently missed John’s response while dealing with their son, as when she opened the door to their bedroom, Silver was shouting at him again. “If we’d started earlier, maybe the trail wouldn’t have been destroyed. I don’t care if you break Convocation rules and shift, we need to find him.” Silver swept her hand in a broad gesture, glowering at John. She looked worn and thin. The planes of her face couldn’t have gotten sharper since lunchtime, but some combination of her flush with pale skin made it look that way.

Susan immediately counted noses to find the missing man. John, Tom, the guy from Roanoke … Andrew? Andrew was missing? Edmond’s crying wound down to whining and sniffling that grated on Susan’s suddenly raw nerves. Someone who could make Andrew disappear had to be a heavy freaking hitter. Susan trusted Silver if she thought it had to be the result of foul play rather than Andrew’s mood.

“It does Dare no good if I get myself shot as a wolf or coyote around here!” John’s voice was even, though Susan could see his tension in the wrinkles his fingers created in his shirt at the elbows of his crossed arms. “It’s not just a Convocation rule. We’ve had plenty of injuries in past years from trigger-happy ranchers. Who knows, maybe that’s what happened to him. Another wolf showing up at that scene would cause even more trouble.”

Silver drew in a breath for another outburst and Susan stepped into the pause. Maybe she could short-circuit some of the yelling before Edmond started screaming too. “What do you mean, the trail’s been destroyed?”

“I thought I found where he entered the woods, but someone drove over the place on an ATV leaking oil. I remember hearing it during the meeting this afternoon. Some kid trespassing from the highway, I assume. I can only smell so much in human, and it stirred everything up. Without even a starting point, we can’t try to find where the trail picks up again.”

Edmond tried to squirm out of her arms, awake enough now that he wanted to be crawling around. She set him down, watching him carefully for whatever unknown materials he might find on the floor, despite several earlier baby-proofing sweeps. “Who saw him last?” Silence greeted her at that, and she looked up. John looked blank.

Susan laughed, a little punchy from the tension in the room. These Were really did need a human around sometimes. “Humans have figured out a strategy or two for finding people when you can’t magically track them by scent. You ask around. Who saw him? What direction was he going? Did he talk about a destination he had in mind?”

John nodded, slow at first, then sharply, perhaps as the implications of the strategy dawned on him. “When he left here, he was going to talk to Roanoke. But Roanoke’s not going to tell us a thing.”

That was a good point. Susan stooped to turn Edmond around and set him crawling away from the space under the couch. Who knew what was hiding back there. The pause shook an idea free and her heart sped with a sudden surge of excitement. “Roanoke has a daughter, though. I’ve met her. Tom. You’re friends with her, right? Would you be willing to come call her away from her parents innocently for a while?”

Tom bounced to his feet from his seat on the rock bench in front of the fireplace. “I’ve known Ginnie since she was like that.” He pointed to Edmond, now pulling himself up on his father’s pant leg. Tom was out the door before Susan could say anything else.

Edmond wobbled and thumped back on his bottom and John scooped him up. He looked down at the baby and back to Susan, as if he’d just realized he couldn’t go around intimidating fearsome Were for information with a baby squirming in his arms.

Susan took a step over to put her hand on his arm. “More flies with honey than scary Were threatening to beat the information out of them, I think. Let me try first?” She meant that to be a statement, but it came out as a question. She strengthened her tone at the last minute, trying to make it like Silver and Dare talked to each other: equals asking for ideas, not an underling asking for permission.

John looked disgruntled, but he only tightened his grip on the baby. “I’ll watch Edmond,” he said. Susan decided now wasn’t the time to push him about his tone. She’d gotten what she wanted.

“I can’t just wait here!” Silver burst out with the words as if in answer to some long argument. Maybe they were, just one that Susan couldn’t hear.

Susan took Silver’s good hand and laced their fingers together. Andrew grounded Silver in this world, she’d seen that, the same way Silver helped ground Andrew from his temper. Maybe Silver needed someone else to do that for her for a while. The desperation did fade a little from her expression at Susan’s touch. “Come on. The more of us there are, the more people we can talk to,” Susan told her.

Silver nodded and dropped Susan’s hand to make it easier for them to make it out the door. Tom, who had been waiting impatiently outside, bounded ahead and Silver followed him.

“What about me?” The guy from Roanoke caught Susan on the step. He looked like he was trying to prove he could be intimidating too, but his slight frame made it impossible for him to pull it off the way John could.

Susan hesitated. Andrew and Silver apparently trusted this guy enough to let him stay with them in the cabin. “Can you ask about Andrew without giving it away that he’s missing under mysterious circumstances?” Susan used her best Were authority voice.

The man’s head dropped, perhaps in response to the voice, and he nodded. Just because he thought he could be subtle didn’t mean that everyone couldn’t see through him, but at least he’d be thinking about it. Susan pointed to the cabin across the way. “Roanoke’s down at the other end. Work your way up asking whoever you run into if they’ve seen Andrew. If we don’t get anything from Roanoke, we’ll work down.”

When Susan reached the Roanoke cabin with Tom and Silver, Tom gestured them back. “Gimme a second,” he said, and strode confidently up to the front door. He knocked and gifted the woman who answered with his best grin. Susan remembered seeing her associated with Roanoke at the Convocation table, so maybe she was his mate. “Is Ginnie around? I found an owl—I think it might be a Great Horned—out in the woods a little way and I thought she might be interested.” Tom pointed out past the last of the cabins. “I’ll make sure she doesn’t go any farther than that.” The woman eyed him, but sighed after a moment, and stepped aside for her daughter to burst out in excitement.

Tom swooped her up and carried her piggy-back. “Do they taste good?” she asked.

“It would probably scratch you with its talons. Besides, you can hardly eat one if you don’t have a wolf form, can you, purse dog?” Tom headed off the path back into the trees and Susan and Silver followed. Neither of the Were seemed to notice, but Susan slowed for a few beats to let her eyes adjust when they left the light pooled around the main ranch buildings.

Ginnie bopped Tom soundly on the shoulder for the apparent insult. “I’m not stupid! What good is it, then?”

“To watch it hunt.” Tom slowed and let Ginnie slide down to her feet.

Susan figured this was her moment. She lengthened her last few strides to catch up to the pair. Silver hung back, looking a little out of her depth. “Before you go, I wondered if you could help me, Ginnie.”

Ginnie chewed on her lip as she frowned at Susan. Her hand sought Tom’s. Probably deciding whether she should talk to the human again. “Daddy told Felicia that he was going to take care of you himself,” she confided in a burst. “I think he really doesn’t like you.”

Susan’s heart stuttered into a pounding race and Silver made a noise that was probably a swallowed growl. The girl might not guess the meaning of that, but knowing Were as she did, Susan could. Jesus Christ. But she was with both Tom and Silver, who were more than capable of protecting her. Better to be out helping Andrew than hiding whimpering at the cabin.

The question was, which tack should she use with the girl? Frame her question as something her parents would want her to answer, or something she could use to rebel against them? Or better yet, reference someone else she liked. Andrew had to have known her, and Susan had noticed that he was pretty good with kids when he wasn’t paying attention. “That’s okay, a lot of Were aren’t used to dealing with humans,” she told Ginnie. “But it’s not really to help me, it’s to help Andrew. You guys are friends, right?”

Ginnie grinned and stood a little on tiptoe to seem taller. “Mr. Dare knows that I’m really smart.” She stuck out her tongue at Tom, who looked properly chastised for his earlier remark.

Susan smiled at Ginnie encouragingly. “When did you last see him?”

“He came to talk to Daddy after lunch. They’re going to fight in two days.” Ginnie tugged on Tom’s hand and looked anxiously up at him. “My daddy’s going to win, right? Since he’s so powerful?”

“Even if Dare wins, he’ll be a really good alpha. You and your family won’t have to worry.” Tom covered her hand with both of his, but Ginnie still looked dubious.

“Where’d he go after he talked to your daddy?” Susan held her breath. Here was where things might break down. They’d known Andrew was going to go talk to Roanoke, and he had. But where had he gone next?

“To the kitchen, I think. Daddy called him a bad name and Mr. Dare went in that direction. Felicia thought it would be the kitchen, anyway. We were playing Go Fish, only it had some other weird name in Spanish. Daddy told Felicia how what Mr. Dare did didn’t matter, he was going to take care of the human—I mean, you—and she snuck out without finishing the game because she wanted to talk to Mr. Dare. She wouldn’t let me come with her, either.” The girl frowned with remembered frustration.

Tom caught Susan’s eyes and she nodded. That’s what they’d needed. If they interrogated the girl for too long, she’d get suspicious, or her parents would later. “That owl’s gonna fly away,” he said, and took off running, Ginnie laughing beside him.

Silver started immediately in the direction of the hall, but Susan didn’t move. Something was niggling at her, trying to break through the stress of knowing Roanoke might be after her. But that was the thing. Was he really? “Why would Roanoke tell Andrew’s daughter anything about a random human? Why would she care? She must have given herself a crick in her neck, she was looking down her nose so hard when we met. Ginnie said he told Felicia specifically he was taking care of me.”

Silver slowed, brows drawing down in thought. “The question is not why Roanoke would do anything. The question is why Madrid would tell him to.” She flexed her hand in an ear-scritching motion beside her hip.

Susan eyed the gesture, then decided she didn’t want to think about it. Easier that way. She exhaled in absent amusement at Silver’s words. None of the Were seemed to think much of Roanoke. “The first thing Felicia apparently did after being told the plan for me was to go looking for Andrew. So let’s assume Madrid wanted Andrew to know about that plan—or for Andrew to
think
Roanoke was planning something.”

Silver sent Susan a sideways twisted smile. “If he heard about that kind of plan, he’d want to protect you.” She shook her head and started moving again with purpose. “We need to find Dare’s daughter. All of this is speculation for now. If Madrid is up to something and she knows anything about it, we’ll get it out of her.” She snorted, not a kind sound. “Yes, even if means resorting to that.”

Susan couldn’t help but stare at the air and wonder what “that” was. Was Silver falling apart worse than usual with Andrew gone? Or was it that she wasn’t hiding her craziness as much as usual? Susan hoped it was the latter, but it still made picking up the line of conversation like nothing had happened painfully awkward. “Can you track Felicia’s scent, or do I need to go back and grab John?”

Silver shook her head. “If she left the main area with Dare, her trail would have been destroyed, the same as his. But she should be back. I saw her with her alpha at the Convocation.” She stumbled. “Lady! Dare’s brother-in-law came in late. I didn’t even think about it, because he was so submissive to Madrid. He wouldn’t have been doing anything on his own, but if he had orders—” She stumbled again on a gnarled root in the path as she tried to break into a jog. The ground out here was treacherous in the dark, at least for Susan. She noticed that except for those moments of distraction, Silver seemed to pick a path just fine.

“The jarring can’t be good for your shoulder. Slow down.” Susan put a hand on Silver’s back this time. Silver wasn’t the only one who needed grounding at the moment. The uglier their conclusions grew, the more her stomach twisted. What could the two of them do about whatever Madrid had done? He wouldn’t kill Andrew immediately, would he? Hadn’t that been half the point of her trial for killing Sacramento, that Were tried to avoid killing as much as possible? Or was that just North American Were?

“Let’s try the hall first.” That was easy enough for Susan to find even with human sight in the darkness, so she took the lead along the path to the big hulking shape against the horizon. “I know a place where we can check nearly everywhere at once.” She had to tug Silver onto the side path to the back entrance when she headed automatically for the front doors.

They got halfway up the stairs to the loft when Silver hissed at Susan to stop. “We’re not the only ones with the idea of keeping an eye on who’s here.”

Susan flattened herself to the side of the stairs so Silver could pass her, since that was obviously what the woman wanted. “Don’t let her past,” Silver whispered to her as she squeezed by.

Mindful of Silver’s request, Susan stayed at the head of the stairs rather than follow her into the cable-snarl of the loft. Her eyes adjusted slowly back from the bright fluorescent lights of the kitchen and she finally spotted the dark-haired teen crouched against the railing. Felicia. Susan hoped that Silver was right, and they’d get information out of her, rather than scare her into silence.

32

Silver took a moment to just breathe before she spoke. Too many of her emotions threatened to wrest control of her words from her. She wanted to scream in rage at Dare’s daughter for the way she’d hurt a father who loved her. She wanted to beg her for help in finding him. She wanted to scold her like a mother for all her many mistakes. Susan was the mother here, though. She’d proved that with her skillful handling of Roanoke’s girl.