Feather Bound (26 page)

An hour and a half later, Ade left the house looking gorgeous in a mauve bandage dress with her rolling charcoal hair and perfect eye-shadow. Seduce and destroy. Anton was a pig, so why not use his own logic against him?

Less than an hour later, I got the call. “Got it.”

“Really?” I stood at the door, watching Ericka load her baby into her Lincoln Town Car. “That quick?”

“It wasn't too hard to manage. There were like four girls already there. Half-dressed.”

The driver cursed when his finger caught in one of the suitcase's handles.

“Ew, really?”

“And I think he was slightly high. Wasn't difficult at all to get what I needed.”

I heard muted traffic in the background and guessed that Ade was in a cab. “You remembered, right?” I said in a hushed voice, so Ericka wouldn't hear. “The smallest key on his key chain? Bronze?”

“Yes, yes.” Ade laughed. “Like I said, mission accomplished.”

The only way to break into Beatrice's house without getting caught was to have a key. But stealing Anton's would be too risky.

So we were going to replicate it instead.

“I told you this clay stuff worked,” Ade said. She was probably referring to the fresh modeling clay she'd bought on the way to Anton's. “It's super easy to make an imprint. All you have to do is use your thumbs to keep the pressure even and presto, home invasion.”

I probably should have been a little more worried about her knowing that. Oh well.

“Thank God I barely had to touch that skeez. He was so busy with the other girls, he didn't even notice when I left. It was a little pathetic, actually.”

“So now what?” I said as the driver took his seat.

I sort of loved how the mischief slipped into Ade's voice when she answered. “Now for phase two.”

Right, then. “Ericka, wait up,” I called, hopping down the steps. It was time to bring her in.

 

“So I talked to Daisy Bennett,” Ericka said over the phone.

“Who?”

“Daisy Bennett: daughter of the cosmetics mogul… Her mother knows Beatrice.”

All I needed to know. “And? What did she say?”

I heard François cooing over the phone, happy, perhaps, to be back in Manhattan where the bathwater was properly prepared by maids who could probably stand to be paid a little better. “There's some gala going tomorrow afternoon.”

“Another party. God, don't you people do anything else?”

“What, you mean something potentially beneficial to society and the people who live in it?” It was rare, hearing that wry spark in her voice. It was a little amazing.

“Ah to be rich and self-absorbed. So?”

“Daisy said she'd be there for a while. It'll give you some time.” Ericka sighed just as Ade bustled through the door, shutting it behind her with an excited click. “I hope you're aware of how ludicrous this whole thing is.” Pearl-clutching Ericka was back, right on schedule. Ade winked at me and set her tote bag down on the table next to me. “I mean don't you need a locksmith to make a new key from an imprint? But a locksmith wouldn't do it unless he had the original key to make sure you're not doing something–”

Ade plucked it out of her purse: a shiny, brand new key courtesy of her shady friend who she didn't see today, nor has she ever met, for that matter – if anyone asked. It was a perfect replica.

“Illegal?” I finished for her, grinning from ear to ear.

I could practically hear Ericka pursing her lips from here. “Promise me you guys will be careful.”

“Right. And you keep an eye on Beatrice at the gala. She leaves, let us know.”

 

The next day, I was a bundle of nerves. Excited. Anxious. A little nauseous.

“I see her,” said Ericka over the phone. “B. She just walked in.”

“OK.”

“It's ‘copy that', damn it,” Ade hissed at me as she pulled her hair into a ponytail. “Look Dee, do it right or don't do it at all.”

I rolled my eyes. Ade and I stood in front of Beatrice's million dollar townhouse. We'd gotten there late, but only because Ade couldn't find her sunglasses. She finally did, along with those ridiculous half-gloves I'd worn at the masquerade. At the very least I'd convinced her not to wear a black jumpsuit – though the part about not leaving any prints was probably a good idea.

Ericka was at the gala, our point man. Ade and I had worn our best outfits without being too dressy. It was the easiest way to blend in: if anyone saw us, they'd probably assume we belonged here. Besides, that girl in a cute gray corset dress couldn't possibly be illegally breaking into someone's townhouse, right?

Ade shoved the key inside the lock and with a quick twist we broke into Beatrice's townhouse.

“Damn.” Ade shut the door behind her, her eyes tracing the gold rim on the French doors that separated the foyer from what I was assuming was the dining room – or living room? Dressing room? This place was definitely built to have rooms.

“I know. OK, it'll be best if we split up.” I lifted the phone back up to my ear. “Ericka, text me with updates on where B is. That way Ade and I can communicate over the phone while we're searching the house.”

“OK. Remember, the gala isn't that far away from where you are now, so you'd better… Oh!” And then suddenly Ericka's voice changed. The nervous tremor in her voice dissolved with a quick breathy laugh. “Frank, Nina, darling how are you?” The phone clicked off amidst the first round of cheek-kisses. It was like flicking a switch: the survival tactic a Brooklyn girl needed to learn before braving any socialite ball of the Upper East. Looked like Ericka had learned it well.

“OK.” I looked from the staircase to the French doors. “If you were the Queen of Darkness and you were holding some poor boy's feathers hostage, where you would keep them?”

“God, this one banister probably costs more than our whole shitty house; there are like little designs in the wood... is that handcrafted?”

“Ade!”

“OK, OK!” Ade rubbed the back of her neck. “I don't know. It'd have to be somewhere Hyde couldn't find it easily.”

Maybe. Though I wondered if the loyalty curse kept swans from even seeking them out.

“Let's just look everywhere. I'll take upstairs you take… whatever's here. Just make sure that you put everything back where you found it.”

Ade nodded and we parted. I climbed the staircase. The living room looked somehow less vile without Beatrice and Hyde lying half-naked on the couch.

Beatrice and Hyde.

I shuddered at the thought, but shook it away. Hurling on the floor would leave DNA evidence. I slipped on the white tiles as I ran over to the couches; five of them, all white, of course. I checked underneath them. It was worth a shot: back home the world underneath the couch was a black hole that had sucked up every pencil I'd ever owned.

“Damn it.” Nothing.

My phone rumbled with a text from Ericka.
B still in sight. Don't take your time
.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” I muttered, checking underneath the smooth ottoman by the low chestnut wood table. Posies soaked in a vase next to a bowl of fresh fruit that looked more for decoration than eating. Three magazines, all of them
Bella
, were stacked one on top of the other in order of their publication dates. None even a hair out of place. “Lord,” I breathed.

“There's, like, no food in this kitchen!” Ade hissed from the other end of the receiver. “I mean seriously. I see probiotic yogurt and celery sticks in the fridge and that's it.”

“I can see myself in the floor.” I peered down at my reflection before heading past one of the two fireplaces. “This place is more sterile than a surgical knife.”

“And we all know she's seen plenty of those in her day. Any luck?”

I checked under the table, under the chairs
at
the table – the problem was that the place was
so
sterile, so orderly and clean, that there simply wasn't any area that screamed “hiding place”. I walked through the screen doors onto the terrace, looking behind the clinically-preened bushes. “What about you?”

“There's no laundry in her laundry room. Why have a laundry room if you don't plan on having the kind of laundry that usually needs to be cleaned in a
laundry room
?”

“Let's just keep looking.”

Apparently, there were six floors in all. Ade took the basement while I worked my way up through the top floors. At some point I had the brilliant plan of scouring her closets, except she had several closets and several more, all of them flooded in a sea of couture.

Wait a second.
Oh God, what if she'd had Hyde's feathers turned into a coat? Plucked, pinned, and dyed fuchsia… it would be the human-autonomy equivalent of skinning Dalmatians. Could people
do that
? I checked each and every item of clothes regardless and when Ade was done with her floors she came up to join me. We'd already been in the house for more than half an hour, but each of Beatrice's closets was a Cretan labyrinth and neither of us had brought any yarn.

Closet number three: the one in the main bedroom. Ade flicked a modesty tab holding together a gorgeous print caftan and shook her head. “Seriously? I might steal one of these.”

“Please don't make this experience any more complicated than it already is.”

“For real though, it's not like she's gonna notice. I mean, shit, if we don't find Hyde's feathers we might as well take something for our troubles.”

I tossed her an ugly glare. “We
will
find Hyde's feathers if you stop eyeing your bounty and start helping.”

Ade pouted. “I am helping,” she muttered under her breath. And as she ran a finger down the silk of a black draped dress, she smiled. “I'm helping. Finally.”

Frowning from the floor, I looked up at her. “What do you mean?”

“You finally let me help you.” She flashed me a two-fingered victory sign. “I think that means I win.”

I rolled my eyes even though I couldn't help but smile myself. “Technically nobody'll win, except Beatrice, if we don't find–”

“I know, I know. And we will find it. But seriously, Dee. I'm really… relieved.” She turned to face me, flicking one of Beatrice's silk scarves around her neck. “I know I'm not the most responsible Davis girl in the bunch–”

“Technically, you're the least–”

“–but anyway,” she continued, louder, “I can understand why you wouldn't want to come to me. I know you've been through a lot. And to be honest, there was maybe a fraction of a second or two when I was a little… jealous. Of you. A little. I mean I thought first Ericka and now you, and hey, where's my rich boyfriend to buy me a life of ball masks and glass slippers?”

I thought of Ericka and shook my head. “It's not as great as you think it is.”

“I know, I know.” Ade brushed her hair out of her eyes and shifted onto one foot, folding her arms over her chest. “I know. But I just want you to know that none of that crap matters. No matter what's going on in your life, I'm here for you, OK? But only if it'll eventually involve us breaking into rich people's houses.”

I laughed, thinking back to the day Ade had dumped a handful of cheesy pamphlets on my bed, to the day Ade held me and cried with me, my new feathers crushed against my back, beneath her fingers. It was true. Ade was here for me. And for the life of me I couldn't remember when I'd forgotten that.

“Hey, what's that?” Ade pointed at a fancy-looking gold-embroidered case-thing at the far northeast end of the closet, just beneath the assembly line of hemmed skirts.

“Oh yeah, I already looked in it,” I said as Ade walked up to it and lifted the lid. “It's got tons and tons of
Bella
magazines in it. Issues from years and years back.”

Ade looked inside, rummaging through until she stopped, frowning. “Doesn't this seem… off though?” I walked up next to her and peered over her shoulder. “This case thing looks a bit bigger on the outside than it does on the inside. The base of it is here.” She knocked on the surface. “But if you look outside it, it's probably not more than halfway to the bottom of the actual case.”

She was right. My heart started racing. “Take out all the magazines,” I said. “Carefully.”

We did, leaving them in a pile behind us. The base of the chest looked completely solid.

A text from Ericka:
Beatrice just left. Get out of there!

“Ade–”

“Wait.” Ade moved her nails around the edges, tugging until something snagged. Breathlessly, I shoved my fingers into the sliver she'd made and we both tugged until we'd dragged the entire bottom to the other side. My mouth dropped, my eyes filling with tears.

“Found 'em,” Ade said, because my throat was too dry to carry the words.

Hyde's feathers folded neatly in the hidden compartment, as pristine as if they'd just left his back. Slowly, gingerly, I reached down and curled my hands around them. I'd never held another swan's feathers in my hands before. It felt somehow wrong, unnatural. Hyde's free will felt like cashmere against my fingers. They fluttered against my skin when I buried my face in them, the feathers disturbed by each shaky breath. I'd done it: all I could do. And if Hyde still wanted us to part ways, still wanted us to go on living as strangers, then I would give him this as my parting gift – and an apology.

A door slammed. Ade's hands flew to her mouth. Our eyes locked as footsteps started climbing from one of the lower floors.