Following Fabian (4 page)

Maria had said it in her typical blithe tone, but Astrid didn’t buy it. WeinerFest was a Falk tradition, and they’d been hosting it at the lodge since the end of World War II. The only thing that would make Eric cancel it was if the lodge closed, or if someone was sick or dying.

But, if someone had died, he would have told her, especially if it were one of their grandparents.

She opened her mouth to probe into the subject further, but before she could get the words out, Dana said, “Astrid, we’re going to try to get you linked up with Felipe sometime today. He was doing a job down in Charlotte, but should be out of the weeds by dinnertime. Let him confer with Fabian, and Felipe will pass on whatever needs critical translation.”

Good. The less touching she had to do, the better. “Send me a text message and let me know when so I can make sure I’m in an area that actually has cellular reception.”

“Yep. Call that agent when you’re done terrorizing store aisles.” Dana disconnected, followed by the other three Shrews in North Carolina.

Astrid sighed and tucked her phone into her jacket pocket.

Right. The agent. She’d do that right after she called her brother, orders be damned.

The senior Felipe Castillo shifted behind the open doorway, furrowing his brow at the snatches of conversation he’d gleaned from his daughter-in-law.

Poor thing, she could barely walk because of all the water retention. His wife Jacqueline had been the same way when she was pregnant with Felipe and Fabian. Near the end, he’d hated leaving her, but he’d had to work—to get up on that tightrope without his partner and perform for Jacques and all the paying voyeurs.

This was the first time in the three weeks Senior had been watching in which his son had left the vicinity. Felipe generally stayed within a one-hour drive of his wife, but this job his boss had sent him out on was a short one and he’d be home by nightfall.

Sarah had been forced into early maternity leave, and good for her. Maybe they—the Shrews—were overcautious about her condition, but better safe than sorry. He knew that from experience.

His first
grandchild
! He’d never thought he’d live to see the day, and the only thing keeping him going in the past years was the idea he’d one day do to Jacques what Jacques had done to Jacqueline.

Senior had been following. Watching. Biding his time. They all thought he was dead, and that’s the way he wanted it. A few times, he may as well have gone ahead and pulled the trigger. He’d been close enough, but in the end, thoughts of his boys always made him take the gun out of his mouth.

At the circus, they’d been trapped the same way he’d been until Jacqueline died and he’d deposited his young sons at his aunt’s. He’d had to run away to grieve. He’d had to run away from the circus, and knew Jacques wouldn’t let him go easily. He’d had to hide, and a man couldn’t take children when he was hiding.

He’d thought he’d covered all his bases, settling the boys in the Spanish countryside with his elderly aunt. They could have had a real home that wasn’t on wheels. She was so far off the grid on that tired vineyard, few people paid her much mind.

He’d thought they’d be protected there amongst the old stone buildings and the ancient vines, but Jacques had found them.

He took them in exchange for some sweet lies to Senior’s trusting
tia
. He bound them to his freak show the same way he’d bound Senior, but this time, he’d had a new motive. Revenge.

Jacques and Jacqueline were supposed to be a match, Jacques had always said. They’d grown up in the same village in France. Their mothers had been friends, and both had fallen pregnant at the same time. They’d given their children the same name—one masculine, one feminine—and raised them up together.

The story went that when it was time for Jacques to leave the nest, he’d started the business he’d been planning since childhood. At first, his operation was merely a small carnival. Enjoyable to patronize, but not especially memorable.

He’d listened to those criticisms, and had vowed to Jacqueline he’d do better.

In time, his endeavor bloomed into a massive traveling circus that was met with some acclaim because of the
magic
of the performances. The crowds didn’t know what they were seeing, just that the shows were amazing.

Jacques was a good scout, and Senior had always given the man credit for that. He had an innate knack for locating supernaturals and recruiting them for his show, although he had no showy preternatural abilities of his own. Senior had thought he was just a regular man with keen observational skills. He’d done well for himself. He’d saved up his money and went home to claim the woman who was meant to be his wife—the baron’s daughter.

Senior would never forget what happened next in the old story his late wife had told him.

She’d joined Jacques for an evening at his circus when it stopped in her village. She’d been on his arm all night, even stepping out into the spotlight with him when he announced his acts.

Her eyes hadn’t been on the spectacularly colored tent or the performers tumbling in the two rings.

No matter where she went, her gaze had followed Senior.

She’d frightened him.
Jesucristo,
she was
el negrero’s
woman, and she was looking at him like she’d already had him.

He’d tried his damndest to avoid her when she came around during that long stopover, but he may as well have stood in the pouring rain and expected not to get wet.

She kept coming around, following him when Jacques was occupied. Watching Senior rehearse his stunts. She’d stood right there at the net’s edge, staring up at him.

He’d thought she was trying to kill him through distraction, so he’d confronted her. Asked what she wanted—wanted to know if Jacques was setting him up.

She’d shushed him,
kissed
him, and from that day forward, she was never more than a ten-second walk from him.

They’d suited each other in a way people wrote about in storybooks. She’d said she would have given up anything to be with Senior—to follow him—and she
did
.

Her love had been so strong that she’d left the comforts of her privileged upbringing to travel with him. To marry him.

She was his elegant Señora Castillo, and when she walked the tightrope toward him every night, her smile could light up the tent.

Jacques silently punished them both for their so-called treachery. He was passive-aggressive at first, and then downright murderous as years went on.

Senior had heard the whispers, but he had no proof. Jacques had Senior’s soul mate killed. She’d refused him one more time, and in payment, he’d had her pushed from the wire.

There’d been no net that day.

Now, that same vengeful man was torturing his son—the man whom he’d thought had been just a lucky scouter of talent, but who’d actually had a supernatural gift of his own. Jacques could find freaks easily enough, because he was one himself.

Enough.

It was time for Senior’s hiding to end. He had a reason to come out of the shadows—one that would be born in a matter of weeks, not months, if the child was like the rest of the Castillos.

Senior wasn’t going to let another Castillo generation be born without squashing old grudges. That was his job.
Abuelo
. He’d be a better
abuelo
than he’d been
papá
, or he’d die trying.

He shook off his reverie as Sarah ended her call and shuffled toward the bathroom.

He morphed from his invisible form—his
witness
form—back into flesh and blood. Holding his breath, he eased out of his unborn grandchild’s nursery and slipped down the hall.

South Dakota
, he’d heard Sarah say. Jacques was apparently up to his old tricks: waiting out in the rough where few people would search. The troupe had hunkered down in The Outback in a similar manner forty years before—after Jacques had kidnapped a trio of aboriginal shapeshifters. He’d never been brought to justice for that.

Senior believed it was time for
el negrero
to pay the piper, and he’d would make sure the circus master did.

Passing the old farmhouse’s console table near the front door, he pocketed the credit card Sarah had left there the previous night after paying the pizza deliveryman.

He’d bring it right back when he was done. He always paid back what he borrowed two-fold.

Right now, though, he needed to find a plane headed to South Dakota.

Fabian eyed the bags Astrid deposited at his feet and raised an eyebrow. She’d gone shopping at a time like this?

She bent over one of the bags and pulled a pair of blue jeans. She thrust them at him.

He took them, and fixed his stare on the size label.

“You’re about my brother’s width,” she said.

He more or less caught the meaning. He held the jeans against his waist, trying the width for size. “Thank you.”

She gave his wrist the barest touch and said, “You lost everything. Starting from scratch probably isn’t much fun.” She pulled her hand back, but just briefly. Her fingers flitted over his wrist again. “Oh. There’s a backpack and toiletries and stuff. You can sort through it all while I make some phone calls. Maybe you’d like to…
shave
.”

Shave
?

He rubbed his chin and felt the soft beard.
Oh. That.
“Maybe I like looking different from my brother.”

She gave him a long blink and stuffed her hand into her jacket pocket.

Okay. He got the hint. While he wouldn’t mind being a bit more distinct in appearance from his identical twin, if she wanted him to shave, he’d shave. “You…don’t like?”

Her nose did the most darling crinkling, and he grinned.

“No. But, it’s your face. You can do to it what you like. I figured you’d like to clean up.” She smoothed her expression back to its previous blank and shrugged with obviously feigned nonchalance.

“Then I keep.”

Her cheek twitched. “Suit yourself.”

Oh, this was fun. He didn’t catch everything the little dragon was saying, but her sentiment was loud and clear.

The past half-year had been pretty much non-stop torture, but at least he hadn’t had to shave. He’d never really grown out a mustache and beard before because when he and Felipe performed, they needed to be difficult to tell apart. When Fabian grew his hair out, Felipe had to, too. The shaving part was Fabian’s concession. Hardly seemed an equitable exchange, though, because they’d had to shave damn near everything those fucking spandex costumes didn’t cover. Chests. Legs during the warm-weather months. Armpits.

Torture
.

He rooted through the bags and plucked out necessary odds and ends for a shower and change of clothes, suitably impressed at her thoroughness, though wondering if what she’d selected was her taste or what she
thought
he’d like. If she’d spent any time around Felipe at all, she might have assumed their preferences were similar. That was more or less true, given they’d shared a wardrobe most of their lives.

He wondered what his brother wore now that he didn’t have to share?

Fabian had been in the shower all of ten minutes and had only managed to shave his face and soap up his hair when Astrid knocked on the door.

She let herself in without waiting for his invitation.

He nudged the curtain back a bit and pushed up an eyebrow.

“Phone for you.” She pointedly put her gaze anywhere but on him, not that she’d be able to see much through that little sliver of an opening.

“Me?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Who is it?”

“Dana.”

Dana didn’t speak Spanish or French. He remembered this all too well. The first time he’d gotten into contact with Shrew & Company’s owner, their conversation hadn’t been an easy one. He’d rehearsed what bit of English he’d introduced himself with, and that opening had gone fine, but things had gone downhill from there. Dana had to send Sarah to talk to him, and Sarah turned out to be a formerly bilingual woman who’d lost her Spanish around the same time as her baby teeth. They’d gotten on well enough, though. Under different circumstances, he might have made a pass at the unusual woman, but the more pressing consideration at the time had been finding Felipe.

“What does she want?” He closed the curtain and ducked his head under the shower spray. Dana could wait three minutes.

“To debrief, I guess.”

“Don’t understand.”

“Talk to you. Learn what you know about Jacques.”

He mulled the words over and let the context congeal in his mind as he scrubbed his greasy scalp. “Okay.”

Judging by the fact the curtain didn’t move and he didn’t hear the door close, he assumed Astrid was still there.

“Yes?”

“Phone.”

“Okay.”

Impatient little wench.

He finished rinsing his hair and turned off the water. Nudging the curtain back a bit, he grabbed a couple of towels from the rack and pulled them into the shower cavity.

She was still standing there. Still waiting. She behaved as if he was going to cut and run, but where would he go with no clothes or shoes on?

He stepped out, towel-clad, and she held her slick little smartphone out to him.

“I get dressed.” He didn’t mean for it to sound like a request, but somehow it managed to come out that way.

“Later.” She nudged the phone up to his ear. “Say hello.”

He sighed. “Hello?”

“
Mierda, eres realmente vivo.
”

Not Dana.
Felipe
.

Fabian slumped against the countertop and blew out a breath. In Spanish, he said, “It’s good to hear your voice.”

“And me yours. How are you? Are you hurt? This call is being recorded, by the way. Don’t take it personally. The girls need it to take notes. Make plans.”

“That’s fine, and I’m good. Jacques kept me sedated on and off so I couldn’t phase and slip away.”

“We figured something like that was going on when Sarah couldn’t get a read on you. None of the psychics could find you.”

“Yes. I wish I could say I fought and got free, but the truth was, the shit was just less effective the more they used it on me. It’d still knock me out, but for shorter amounts of time. I had a couple of occasions to get up and run, but if I ran, we’d probably never pin him down again.”

Felipe was quiet for a long while, and then said, “You stayed on purpose? Why? You’ve never been the vengeful sort.”

It was true. He wasn’t. He’d always been too laidback for revenge, but exhaustion broke people in unexpected ways.

“I guess a lot of things change when you have nothing to keep you company but your dreams for weeks on end.”

“If I could leave right now to come help you I would, but I can’t leave Sarah.”

“Why Sarah? You helping her with something? Did the Shrews put you to work?” Fabian used his palm to clear the mirror fog and studied his clean-shaven chin. Just one nick. He grunted appreciatively at his rusty skill.

“Put me to work? Yes, I work for Dana now. With Sarah and all the rest. Oh, and Mr. Tolvaj and one of his brothers.”

“Tolvaj? Really? The old fortuneteller’s favorite?” Fabian chuckled and let the towel at his waist fall to the floor. “Wondered why I hadn’t seen him around with his sadistic brothers.”

“He and the one brother defected. You were already gone by then. The circus had packed up and left North Carolina with you, so you weren’t around when we had a bit of a shootout with Jacques outside of Asheville. It was utter chaos. We freed those Were-bears the crew abducted—ask Astrid to fill you in about them because it’s important—and Jacques shot at Sarah. He didn’t miss.”

“Sarah? Astrid didn’t—”

“Hey, don’t worry. She’s fine. I got in front of her in time to slow the bullet a bit. She’s okay, and…the baby is okay.”

“What baby?”

“Mine.”

Fabian closed his eyes, pulled the phone away from his ear, and shook his head hard. There must have been some water stuck in the canal or something. “I’m sorry, what? Obviously, I’ve missed more than I expected.”

“Yes. Sarah is pregnant—our daughter is due in a few weeks—and we’re married.”

“I was only gone, what, six, seven months?”

“Around seven, I guess. I’ll just say that it only takes one time. Pretty sure she was pregnant before the circus took off. Anyhow, she’ll probably maim me for engaging in this discussion at all, so, to change the subject, where is Jacques?”

Who gave a shit about Jacques? Fabian was going to be an
uncle
, and he had a sister-in-law. He wasn’t going to let that drop.

“You’re seriously married? Like, legal and everything?”

“Yes.”

“And you have a job, and I bet you live in a real house and not a trailer.”

“It’s a pretty nice house. Granted, I had nothing to do with picking it out.”

Pangs of envy stabbed at Fabian’s heart and stole his breath.

Hearth, home, family. Most thirty-five-year-olds sought those things, if they didn’t already have them, but Fabian had never really believed he’d get them. He’d been transient all his life, and didn’t have an education. His travel visa had probably already expired, and he was likely in the country illegally. He certainly didn’t have a driver’s license, or even know where his birth certificate was. And here his older-by-minutes brother was, all cleaned up and respectable.

He had to ask… “You happy like that, Felipe?”

Another long silence filled the line, and then his brother said, “Yes. I’m happy. Sarah’s family has been very warm. Belonging to someplace and someone is nice.”

“Then I’m happy for you.” Envy aside, he really meant it. “Maybe someday I’ll have a landing pad of my own.”

“Why not live here? With us?”

“I wouldn’t intrude. I’d be a burden. Best I go back to Spain and—”

“And what? Chase ghosts? Cry over headstones of people we never really knew? There’s nothing for us there. Trust me, I know. I was there six months ago, Sarah and me. I’m here legally, and not just because of the marriage.”

“And me?”

“And you look like your brother, and your brother’s picture is currently on your passport. We had to be careful in regards to you. While we were abroad, we coordinated with Spanish and French law enforcement agencies to give them information about Jacques, but we didn’t mention you were still with them. Otherwise, you would have gotten deported on the spot once you were found. I had to pretend to be you on a couple of occasions, but you’re here for the moment legally, though dishonestly.”

Fabian groaned and fondled the gold cross pendant he’d been wearing non-stop for seven months. Before Felipe had disappeared, he’d rarely worn it. Now he fondled it as if it were a worry stone.

“I know how you feel about lying, but let me bear that sin and don’t fret about it,” Felipe said. “We have a list of missing children we suspect may have been abducted by Jacques. Names have obviously been changed, and some may be long dead, but they’re going to e-mail descriptions and age progressed artist renderings of the abductees over for us to look at, see if we recognize any of them.”

“Okay.” Fabian sat on the commode and threaded his legs into a brand new pair of boxer briefs.

“Do you know where Jacques is?”

“I caught snippets of conversations. Rumblings. He’s lying low, hoping people will forget about him. There was some talk about looping up into Canada and moving toward the west coast, but for now, I believe some of his shapeshifters are hiding him in the Black Hills. I’m pretty sure they’re getting some help from local rogue Were-creatures. There were some Cats lingering around the camps, and I heard one of the shifters say they stunk of Jacques.”

“That helps a lot. If Sarah were mobile, she’d probably get a read on him quickly, but her doctor has prohibited her from traveling right now.”

“And you have, too, I’m sure.”

“As if I could tell her what to do.”

“I know you well enough to know you’d try, and if your first attempt failed, you’d resort to cheap tricks.”

“You’re right. You do know me well enough, but if it were your wife and your daughter, you’d be unreasonable, too.”

“Maybe.”

Fabian had no way of knowing. The closest thing to a father he and Felipe had from the time they were four was Jacques, and that relationship was obviously rife with dysfunction. It was good to know that Felipe preferred to act on instinct than to emulate what he’d personally experienced.

“Listen, Astrid needs to speak with Sarah, so will you hand her the phone?”

“Certainly. I’ll see you soon, I hope.”

“Within a week, come hell or high water.”

“Why?”

“Astrid will tell you. Has to do with those Bears I mentioned. Love you.”

“Yeah. You, too.” He padded out of the steamy bathroom and approached Astrid at the desk where she was furiously pecking her laptop keyboard, forming silent words with her lips as she typed.

“Phone,” he said, and she looked up, eyes widening as she wrapped her fingers around the phone and took in the sight of him. She did a quick scan from his naked shoulders down to his waistband, lower, then back up to his face.

He hadn’t taken her for a prude.

He let the corners of his lips quirk up. Oh, she was going to be fun to play with.

She swallowed and pushed her chair back as she placed the phone against her ear. “Uh…this, this is Astrid,” she said, and her voice bore a note of strain, as did the corners of her eyes.

She couldn’t pretend he didn’t affect her. She’d just showed her cards, after all.