This Case Is Gonna Kill Me (34 page)

We left the freeway and headed into a neighborhood in search of a restaurant. My cell phone came back to life and chimed to indicate voice mail. I had three—one from my mother, one from David Sullivan, and one Syd. My heart lifted.

“Syd’s back,” I said after listening to the message. “Sounding weak, but very feisty. He told me not to steal his clients.”

John had just begun to play back a message on his phone when we heard the single whoop of a siren, and a police car, lights flashing, pulled in behind us. John began gliding over to the curb to stop.

“Damn, what did we do?” I asked.

“Our rear window is blown out. Here.” He thrust his phone into my hand. “Listen to this message while I get out my license.”

I held the phone up to my ear and heard a gruff, basso voice saying,
“Hey, Elf, it’s Carson. There’s a BOLO out for you. You’re a suspect in a series of murders. What the hell you been doing?”

“John!” My voice was approaching a shriek. “There’s a BOLO out on us.”

His head snapped around. “What?”

“What’s a bolo?” Destiny asked. We ignored her.

“That was somebody named Carson on the phone,” I said.

John glanced up into the review mirror. I used the mirror on the inside of the visor. A cop was cautiously approaching, gun drawn. Another knelt behind his car holding a bull horn in one hand and a gun in the other.

“Shit, shit, shit! Linnet, take my hand. Ladies, grab hold.”

“We’re running,” Chastity gasped. “That’s never a good idea.”

“Normally I’d agree with you, but not this time.” John shifted the car back into drive. We all grabbed for some part of his anatomy.

“GET OUT OF THE CAR AND LIE FACEDOWN ON THE GROUND!”

John floored it, and we were back in Álfar World.

“Why did we run?” Chastity asked.

“Because we’re murder suspects. Which meant when they caught us they would search us, we’d get locked up—”

John picked up my tale of woe. “And the will would just somehow disappear out of the evidence room.” He took a deep breath.

“Are you going to be okay?” I asked, alarmed by his paleness.

“I’ll have to be.”

We drove in silence for a few minutes. “Do you think the firm can get us out of this?” I asked in a small voice.

“Guess we’ll find out how good they are, and how much we’re worth to them” came the comfortless reply.

23

We finally reached the Álfar version of New York, which seemed to consist of fluted spires constructed entirely from crystal, gold, and silver. There was a lot more greenery between the buildings, and the Álfar strolling the boulevards moved with languid grace quite unlike the hurly-burly of my human New York.

The Álfar were also gorgeous, with exotically colored hair, tall, slender bodies, and clothing in fabrics that took my breath away. The humans, almost all clearly servants, stood out like frogs cavorting in a flight of butterflies.

I didn’t see as many vehicles on the Fairy roads. Once I heard dimly, as if muffled by a vast distance, the blare of car horns that was the music of human New York.

A taller than average Álfar, dressed in what looked like livery, was followed by six other Álfar as he hurried through the etched glass doors of a building and waved urgently at us. The stone of the building seemed to have been inlaid with silver lines in swirling patterns, and many of the stained-glass windows threw jewel colors across the crushed white gravel that formed walkways around the structure.

John made a sound like a growl and shook his head. “I don’t have time for her right now.”

“Who?”

“My mother.” John drew in a deep breath and released my hand. “Ladies, please let go.” There were lines of tension around his mouth, and dark circles rimmed his eyes.

I was back in my jeans, the ladies were back in their day clothes, and we were once again seated in a Chevy, and around us was human New York. I realized we were on Seventy-second Street, opposite the Dakota, New York’s premier residence. We were surrounded by honking rush-hour traffic. The Álfar servant and his minions had emerged from a building that was the Fairy analogue to the Dakota, and now that it was the real Dakota they were still there. They had followed us into the human New York.

“They’re still there,” I said unnecessarily.

“Shit.” There was an edge of panic to the word. John tried to maneuver through the other cars, but it was six o’clock and the traffic was wedged tight, held in place by a red light.

The Álfar swarmed the car. The doors were locked, but something they did affected the electronics and the locks snapped up. They yanked open the doors. The tall one pulled John out of the driver’s seat. Two more lunged into the back on either side of Chastity and Destiny.

I made a frantic dive over the backseat and snatched up the will just as an Álfar slid into the driver’s seat. Another one basically sat on my lap, and they drove us through the arch and into the courtyard of the Álfar Dakota.

Where prancing horses were led past by liveried servants, and a Dusenberg was parked against one wall. Servants, all of them Álfar, rushed to open the car doors, and we were pulled out. John was struggling desperately against the grip of his captor. He said something, and the tall Álfar let him come to me.

He took my hand, I stuck the will into the waistband of my jeans, and we were all escorted into the building.

An Álfar operated the elevator, a fantastic creation like a hollowed-out diamond. Occasionally a glowing facet would break the light into a prism of colors. On the top floor a servant waited and threw open crystal inlaid double doors. I took a tighter grip on John’s hand as we entered, and the servant announced, “Sindarhin and humans.”

“John O’Shea and friends,” John said to the living Erte figurine who stood before us.

John’s mother was draped in a gold-trimmed green silk gown that exposed a lot of chest. A necklace of emeralds and gold lay against her golden skin, and her black-and-white streaked hair hung to her waist. John had inherited her deep green eyes. She wore an odd little cloche hat like a golden helmet that formed a false widow’s peak on her forehead. She opened her arms to John, and the tassels of gold chain with moonstones and emeralds threaded on them clashed and rang.

She kissed his cheek. “Always so huffy. He doesn’t mean to be rude,” she said. Her voice was pure music, as if a celesta played in the background.

“But you always are,” John said. She ignored the insult.

“Please, sit, have tea.”

She walked over to a sofa upholstered in white leather, which sat between two end tables of polished cherrywood that doubled as cabinets. All the hardware was chrome. A very angular modernist tea set rested on a Macassar ebony coffee table with wide curved legs that extended above the edge of the top; they looked like battlements protecting the table’s surface. There was a tray of small pastel-iced cakes and finger-sized sandwiches.

John refused to move, but the Álfar holding him forced him forward and shoved him down on a couch. John’s mother waved a languid hand at Chastity, Destiny, and me.

“Oh, bring them too.” We were frog-marched forward and pushed down.

“Don’t eat anything,” John warned us.

His mother’s beautiful and youthful face assumed a pout. “Do you think I’d trap them?”

“I wouldn’t put it past you.”

Her eyes glittered, and suddenly she didn’t look so beautiful. She seemed very alien and very scary.

“Be careful defending them. You might want them to stay with you here.”

I felt a cold, coiling pressure in my chest and a stiffening in my spine as I realized we were on the verge of a kidnapping. The Álfar behind me had a light hand on my shoulder. Was that necessary to hold me in their reality, or was he just being prudent and figuring (rightly) that I was about to tear this woman’s face off?

“What are you talking about?” John asked.

“You’ve walked in our world for much of a day. You reject us except when you need us. Now you must pay the price. You will remain. I want you home.”

“You should have thought of that before you dumped me in a Philly hospital and took John—which would have been his name if you’d left him with his family.” My John was raging, and his face had the same inhuman coldness of his dam’s. There was a visible struggle, but he got himself under control, leaned back, and said with studied casualness, “Where is Parlan, by the way?”

“Off.” She waved vaguely in the air. “Pursuing a girl. Or hunting. I don’t remember which. He’s no longer interesting.”

“So, what? You’re just going to dump him out of the only world he’s ever known and slot me in his place? Well, it won’t work. I’ll never agree.”

“Fine, leave, but I’ll keep your women.” She tapped a perfectly manicured nail against the tabletop and gave Destiny, Chastity, and me a predator’s smile.

Anger flared deep in his eyes, and I felt my jaw clench. There was no way in hell I was going to let this happen. I just had to figure out how to wrench us out of this world and back to our own.

I looked over at Destiny and Chastity huddled together on a fainting couch. They were clinging to each other, slumped, battered by events. Two Álfar loomed over them, hands on the backs of their necks. They were in this mess because of me.
They would be dead if you hadn’t gotten involved
, said the whining, bargaining voice.
Leave them. Take John. He can probably get you out.

My vampire upbringing surged to the fore.
They’re my responsibility.
I released a pent-up breath and looked up at John.

“We have to agree,” I said softly.

“I know,” he said, and he kissed me softly on the lips. I wanted to be strong and brave, but a small sob burst out, and I wrapped my arms around his neck. He held me hard, burying his head against my neck. I felt his shoulders shaking, but when he straightened and stared at his mother there was no hint of distress. Instead he gave her a look of pure loathing. I would not have wanted to have been on the receiving end of that look.

“Okay, I’ll stay. Now let them go.”

“Happily,” his mother said, and the room began to fade around us. I heard her begin to sing. Gleaming ice crystals appeared in the air with each note. She gathered them into her hands, formed them into a splinter, and drove it deep into John’s eye.

I screamed, a cry of rage and denial, and then we were in someone’s apartment in the Dakota, and there was a pair of King Charles spaniels yapping and jumping around the three of us, the smell of cinnamon incense, and a Spanish-accented voice calling from the kitchen.

“Who is it? Who’s there?”

“We’ve got to get out of here!” I spun Chastity and Destiny around and shoved them toward the door of the apartment.

A puzzled-looking maid in a uniform came into the living room, stared at us, crossed herself, and screamed.

We threw open the door and ran for the elevators. There was a doorman in the lobby who just stared at us. We must have looked a sight. Chastity and I were caked in soot, and Destiny was shoeless.

“Hey!” he shouted, but I hit the door running full out.

We dodged between the cars in the courtyard and rushed out onto Seventy-second Street. Night had fallen while we’d been in Álfar World. I threw up my hand to flag down a taxi, then realized I didn’t have my purse. I looked over at Chasity and Destiny. No purses. No cell phones. We were bag ladies with a multimillion-dollar piece of paper that was totally worthless in the current situation, but could sure as hell get us killed.

It wasn’t too many blocks to the office, but we were on the wrong side of the park, and the mother and daughter looked like they were at the end of their strength. Destiny was grimacing with every step. I kept us moving until we reached Central Park West, then walked up to Seventy-third Street. Destiny was leaning on me so hard I felt like my shoulder was breaking. I stopped, assumed my best damsel-in-distress face, summoned the tears, and accosted a middle-aged man walking past with a cell phone pressed against his ear.

“Sir, we were carjacked and robbed. I really need to make a phone call. May I use your phone? It’s a local call.”

People say New Yorkers are rude. I’ve never experienced it. The man took one look at our bedraggled persons, ended his call, and handed me the phone. “You should call the police,” he said.

“I will. I just want to get us off the street first.” I checked my watch. 9:30 p.m. The office switchboard would be closed, voice mail only. I knew the number for the guard desk in the lobby. I called that.

“The IMG Building,” came a male voice.

“Hi, this is Linnet Ellery. Is there anybody still in the office at Ishmael, McGillary and Gold? Preferably a partner, but I’ll take anybody.”

“Just a minute,” the guard said. Then I heard his voice, faintly now because he’d obviously turned away from the phone. “You work for the law firm, right?” I heard a faint acknowledgement. “There’s a Linnet Ellery on the—” His voice broke off, and then I heard David Sullivan.

“Linnet, this is David. Are you in trouble?”

I felt a flash of annoyance that his first thought would be that I was in trouble. But I
was
in trouble. There was a painful lump in my throat. I swallowed past it and managed to say, “Yes. I need help. We’re on the corner of Central Park West and Seventy-third Street. I have no money. I’ve got the will, but no money. I’ve got to get—”

“Stay there! I’m on my way.” And he hung up the phone.

I returned the cell phone with many passionate thank-yous, then pulled Chastity and Destiny under the awning of an apartment building. The doorman chased us off. So now I had experienced one incident of rudeness, but I probably would have chased me off too.

Eventually we crossed over to the park side of the street. The grass was easier on Destiny’s feet, and it wasn’t private property. A cop might roust us, but hopefully not before David found us.

*   *   *

Daniel Deegan found us first.

I saw the big black Hummer driving slowly down Central Park West accompanied by a chorus of honking horns and shouted insults. The big car suddenly dove into a no-parking zone, and Deegan leaped out.
How?
my tired and frightened brain cried. All I could think was that somehow the abandoned Chevy had turned up in the courtyard of the Dakota, and that it was linked to the BOLO. However it had happened, he was here now.