Lure of Song and Magic (7 page)

Chapter 9

In the end, Oz derived a small amount of comfort from managing the production just as if he were back in L.A. While dogs and searchers took the path where the shoe had been found, he set Pippa up in a tall chair near a bonfire. He had Conan help form the crowd into a quiet circle far enough away from Pippa that they hid in shadows—for her comfort as much as Tommy's.

When the sheriff mentioned a reporter had inquired about the situation, Oz got on the phone and diverted him. The story wasn't big enough to risk landing on his blacklist, and the media knew he'd return bigger favors later. If that boy was to be found, they didn't need TV crews terrifying either Pippa or Tommy into running.

Thinking of Donal and how he loved hot dogs, he passed out more cash for food to be thrown on the grill so a hungry boy might follow his nose.

Oz did everything possible not to think about coyotes and rattlesnakes and treacherous mountainsides. He even admired Pippa's technical expertise in helping with the sound equipment. She shocked even Conan with her knowledge, forcing him to adjust his rich bitch opinion of her.

And then they baited the boy trap.

Opening and closing her fingers, Pippa looked nervous and uncomfortable as Oz fastened the microphone to her hoodie.

“I don't want them counting on me,” she whispered before he turned on the sound. “This is just a shot in the dark.”

“They're ready to place hope on the number of times a frog croaks right now. You can't change human nature. If this doesn't work, we'll think of something else. Pretend you're at the day care.” He hated to shove her out there alone, but there was nothing he could do to make her more comfortable. She'd said children liked the familiar. His presence would frighten the child.

So Pippa took the chair by herself, a microphone clipped to her shirt, while everyone else hid in the shadows. After a momentary look of panic, she settled down to read from her books. She read slowly and surely, without the drama of an actress, although she changed the timbre for different characters. Her calmness sent a soothing message into the universe.

Oz stayed in the background, keeping an eye on the production. He heard a few people near the road scoff that she was grandstanding, but Oz suspected Pippa would rather be anywhere except here at this moment. She was simply doing all she knew to do—read because the boy liked it.

He admired her courage in waiting these long hours, dreading this moment. He'd learned enough about her need for privacy to grasp some small amount of her discomfort.

And still she sedately read the nonsense words about Tommy Turtle and Billy Bob Bat. Oddly, the crowd of adults quieted, concentrating on her reading just as if they were toddlers.

He didn't know how she did it. She was magic. Tension drained from taut shoulders everywhere he looked. Even Tommy's family quit crying and settled on the ground, cross-legged, listening and praying. Perhaps the reading was a form of prayer.

A coyote howled in the distance. A dog barked. A nearly full moon began rising over the scrub-dotted hills on the horizon. The aroma of sizzling beef drifted on the chilly breeze, along with the crackle of the warm bonfire. And Pippa's voice droned through the landscape as naturally as the call of a night bird.

Despite the spell she cast, the crowd rustled uneasily when they realized she was repeating books she'd already read and Tommy had not appeared. People turned away and muttered among themselves. When Pippa's confident voice faltered with uncertainty, Oz wanted to break the circle and haul her out of the spotlight. He didn't think he had a protective bone in his body, but he wanted to shield that frail, fey female from a mob mentality that could turn on her at any moment.

Juanita and her daughter, Sara, hugged each other, weeping as they rose from the ground. Their neighbors crowded around them, adding words of hope and sympathy that no one felt.

Conan came to stand beside Oz, not tearing his gaze from Pippa. “She looks as if she'll shatter into a million pieces any minute,” he said with the same concern Oz was feeling. “She's not what I expected.”

Oz snorted, remembering flying fists and feet. “Don't tell her that, or she'll break your nose. She's been badly hurt, but I think this place has helped her heal. She's trying to return the favor.”

“I want to know the story,” Conan demanded, crossing his arms.

“Whenever you find the beginning and I learn the rest.”
Maybe
, Oz amended, knowing Pippa's preference for privacy.

A gasp and a hush fell over a part of the circle farthest from the bonfire. Pippa continued to read, adding a little more emphasis than usual to Tommy Turtle's dialogue. Picking up on the expectation, the rest of the crowd quieted as well. A horse nickered.

“And then Tommy Turtle knew his mother loved him best of all,” Pippa said into the microphone, breaking from the story she'd told earlier and inventing a new ending as a small shadow slipped from the sagebrush. “And he came home.”

Weeping, Juanita and Sara rushed in to scoop up the little boy. He clung to his mother's neck but kept staring at Pippa. Looking tired and frazzled, Pippa climbed down from the chair and handed the small book to the lost child. She unsnapped the microphone so the crowd couldn't hear what she said, but the boy took the book and rested his dirty head on his mother's shoulder as she spoke to him. And then Pippa walked away.

Jubilation filled the air with shouts and whistles. A woman broke out of the crowd to hug Pippa. Others pounded her on the back.

She kept walking, past the ring of well-wishers, past Oz, down the road as if in a daze.

Oz punched Conan's arm in thanks and farewell and hurried after her.

He wished he knew what he was doing, but he had no idea what he was dealing with here. He caught up with her easily, tapped her shoulder, and pointed out the direction to the truck. With a blank gaze, she turned to follow his gesture.

He had no right to touch her. Didn't know if it would hurt or help if he did. He opened the truck door for her and offered his hand to steady her as she climbed in. She didn't even seem aware that she took it.

They drove back to her place in silence. Oz waited for some clue from her, but she offered nothing. He wanted to tell her she'd been brilliant out there, that he wished she'd been around when Donal had disappeared. Except, he acknowledged, even her magic couldn't have saved a boy who'd been stolen away in a car.

He allowed himself relief that one small child had been saved from disaster—because this frail woman had known what to do and put herself out there and done it. Not many people would put aside their selfish concerns to help another. He couldn't think of anyone he knew who would.

When they parked at the day care, she climbed out of the truck without his aid, but Oz wasn't ready to let her wander down that path on her own. He followed behind her, and she didn't object. The moon illuminated the barely discernible rocks laid out to form a walk, but the house was hard to miss once they were past the bushes.

She didn't object when he followed her inside. She wandered like a ghost to the kitchen and then stood there as if she didn't know what to do next. Oz opened the refrigerator, found one of her bottled juices, and poured her a glass. She took it and sipped.

He would have to start carrying a flask. He needed something stronger than vitamin juice.

He knew now that Pippa could not possibly have been involved in his son's kidnapping. It hadn't made sense before. It made less now.

What did make sense was the Librarian's admonition that she could
help
. He didn't know how or why or anything else, but Pippa had just lured a small boy back from the edge of disaster. Could she do it for Donal?

With “The Silly Seal Song”? It didn't seem credible.

“Will you be all right if I leave you alone?” he asked with concern.

“I'll survive.” She didn't sound too certain, but she'd at least spoken.

“You've been doing little more than surviving for quite a few years, it looks like.” Oz was suddenly angry with her pale face and listless attitude. “You
saved
that family back there from unimaginable heartbreak. Why aren't you part of the celebration?”

She glanced at him blankly and then headed outside to the pool. “It was a very small payment on a very large debt.”

Grabbing the juice bottle, he followed her out. He needed something liquid, so juice it would have to be. “Explain,” he said curtly. He wanted to know everything about her, but he knew nothing.

She shrugged and fell into the lounge chair she'd left earlier when she'd received the call. She didn't move it away from the one he occupied.

“Karma,” was her explanation.

Oz made a rude noise. “Then I'd like to know what I did in a former life to deserve losing my wife and my kid. And what I can do to get them back, if it just takes paying some karmic debt.”

For the first time since they'd left the crowd behind, she looked at him with a degree of interest. “You lost your wife, too? Are you sure your head is nailed on straight?”

“No, can't say that I'm sure, some days.” He'd been shell-shocked at losing Alys, but driving to Mexico to recover Donal and trying to find out what had happened had kept his head occupied. He'd learned from that experience—stay busy. But some days… it didn't help.

“We can't stop living because someone else did,” he told her. “I don't think there's any way I can pay back the universe for whatever in heck I did wrong. Personally, I think the universe owes me.”

This time, Pippa snorted. “How have you improved the world?” she demanded. “Do your renowned skills of perseverance and negotiating bring joy to the unhappy or enlightenment to the ignorant? Or do you just put money in a lot of bank accounts?”

“Money in the bank brings joy to some people,” he pointed out, not caring if she sniffed at his accomplishments. “It makes me enough money to finance the team you saw at work back there. Each to his own skill set is my take on it. I don't know what worm you have eating your brain that you let your talents languish, but I doubt that you're improving the world by doing so.”

She shot him a look that sparked with anger—a sign that she was returning to normal.

“You have no idea what an improvement I make in the world by staying out of it,” she announced. “It's the reason I'm not doing your show. If you think you're
protecting
the
talent
by hanging around here, you may as well go back to your happy life in the city. I don't need you, and you don't need me.”

“I need my son, and you're the only key I have to finding him,” he finally told her, although why he did so now, Oz couldn't say. But he was about to trust her with information that would have the whole world laughing if she revealed it to anyone.

Of course, he held her secrets, too, so maybe they were even. Maybe he could only trust when the score was equal.

She studied him quizzically. “I'm a key to finding your son? How do you figure that?”

He drove his hands through his hair and tried to coordinate his definitely unbalanced thinking. “Thank you for not stating the obvious. My family believes he's dead.”

She waited, not offering sympathy or false encouragement. Oz rubbed his jaw and swallowed more of the nasty juice. He really needed a strong one to get through this. “My wife ran away with Donal when he was just a baby, leaving a note saying he was in danger.”

That Pippa said nothing was actually calming. Oz watched the moon climb over the garden wall. “Alys made it as far as Mexico City, where someone sideswiped her car and drove her into a building. It was a freak accident. A sign on the wall fell through the windshield. She died instantly.”

“Your son was with her?” Pippa asked quietly.

“No, that's what saved him. She'd left Donal with some woman she trusted. I have no idea why. Alys was from L.A., not Mexico. I don't know how she met this stranger. But the woman called me, told me it was up to me now, that I had to keep Donal safe. By the time I got down there, the woman had disappeared, and Donal was with the police.”

She whistled softly. “I was at least left in this country,” she murmured. “With a fire station. Thank goodness for whomever that woman was, or your son could have been as lost as I was.”

“But he
is
lost,” Oz insisted. “I was supposed to protect him. I hired security guards, installed alarm systems, hired the best nannies money could buy. And he still disappeared. The nanny carried him out one day and never came back. He's out there, somewhere, just like you were. I
know
it. And I have to find him!”

“And I can help you how?” she asked, astutely enough.

“I don't know,” Oz groaned. “I have utterly no idea.”

Chapter 10

Depleted by the anguish and guilt spilling from Oz in waves, as well as her own exposure, Pippa sat back in the lounge chair and stared at the stars. Sometimes, she wondered if her real parents were up there somewhere, looking down on her, and if they approved of how she'd spent her life.

Other times, like now, she didn't think anyone cared what she did except her, and that was okay. She didn't want anyone depending on her, because she'd already proved herself to be a monster of irresponsibility. So this was good, sitting here, not caring, just watching the stars.

Because if she thought any harder, she'd know what she'd done tonight wasn't natural, and she didn't want any part of it.

So she pondered Oz's incomprehensible problem as if it were a math quiz. “
Why
do you think I can help you find your son?” she asked. There for a moment, she had feared he'd say he wanted her to go on television and beg for his son back. At least he wasn't totally insane. Of course, not knowing why he thought she could help him was near enough to crazy, but Oz didn't strike her as crazy. Just desperate.

She could understand his desperation to some extent. She'd never lost a kid, but losing Robbie as she had… had been a deciding factor in coming undone.

For Oz to lose his wife in such a weird manner would certainly have unbalanced a lot of men. Why Mexico? Had his wife simply flipped out? Been paranoid? Or had there really been a danger to his son that Oz hadn't seen? Since the boy was stolen again, it did seem fate had marked him somehow.

“I'm desperate enough to follow any clue, and the very few I have led me to you,” he said, sounding pained to admit it.

“Me? Me as Philippa James or me as Syrene?” Because she was two different people, whether he realized it or not.

“Syrene, although since you're the same person, I don't know if it makes a difference. The first message said
Syren
can
help
find
your
son
. Syren, spelled with a
y
and without the final
e
. It took Conan a bit of digging to figure out the connection between the author and the singer.”

“So you cooked up the TV show idea so you could come haunt me because some idiot wants to resurrect Syrene?” she asked in disbelief. This whole evening had been surreal. She'd thought this man had a head on his shoulders. She'd
admired
the way he'd taken the crowd in hand and twisted them to his will. She hadn't known many men with the confidence to command a crowd without raising his voice.

She didn't want to believe he had a head full of maggots, just like her.

“The TV show idea came to me after I read your books.” He sipped his juice and stared at the stars, apparently suspending disbelief for the moment. “The nanny used to read to Donal at naptime. Some of your books were in his nursery. That's when I developed this crazed notion of putting you on TV where Donal might hear you, at which point I realized I had gone over the edge. But the TV show was a good idea. I meant it when I said you have a lyrical voice. I listened to some of your songs after Conan told me about you. You write a kind of mystical poetry in a simple language that harmonizes with your melody. Your music shines through in everything you say or write.”

“That's not good,” she muttered. “All the more reason to stay out of the public eye.”

He shot her a quizzical glance. “Do I dare ask why having a recognizable voice is a bad thing? All good authors have it.”

Her ego would swell to twice its size at knowing a man of his obvious intelligence and experience recognized her foolish words as talented—if she didn't know the very large flaw in the picture.

Pippa wasn't ready to reveal her ultimate insanity, because no one would believe her. She turned the question back to him. “So you found out I wrote children's books, but you realized I wasn't the Pied Piper and couldn't read your son back home. So why on earth would you believe I can help find him? Just because some wacko said I could?”

“The wacko knew you had written ‘The Silly Seal Song,'” he pointed out. “It's not traceable anywhere on the Internet that I can tell, although I suppose I could set Conan to looking. The wacko calls himself the Librarian. Does that mean anything to you?”

No one knew she'd written that song except herself and cyberspace. Unless some long-buried alter ego had emerged from her subconscious to send messages to a man she'd never heard of until three days ago… She knew she was crazy, but she didn't want to go that far.

“I don't think I want to talk about this anymore.” She rose from the lounge chair with her insides churning and her head doing loop-de-loops as if she were on some god-awful roller-coaster ride. “Thank you for seeing me home. I don't handle intense emotions well, but you've talked me back down. I'll see you in the morning.”

Staying as loose as she could manage, Pippa strode into the house, escaping to her room and shutting the door as if she were a normal, sane person. She listened, waiting for Oz to depart.

She could tell he did so reluctantly. She didn't think he was the type to take advantage of a woman when she was emotionally vulnerable. She'd wager a charming hunk like Oz could have any female he wanted with a snap of his fingers, so there wasn't much chance that his returning here with her meant he had any interest in her as a woman. She had to believe he'd actually followed her home to make certain she was okay.

And that degree of sensitivity was damned dangerous. She didn't want him getting close or understanding anything.

But he wanted his son back, and if that poor boy was alive anywhere, crying for his daddy, being hurt by the careless monsters who thought kids were nuisances or punching bags or creatures to be exploited—she wanted to find the boy, too. She knew what it was like to be abandoned.

Tears crept down her cheeks as she leaned against the door and sobbed.

***

Pippa painted a cheery red smile on her face the next morning.

She didn't feel like smiling. Yesterday had terrified her on too many levels. But she had no reason not to look cheerful for the kids. They knew when adults were upset. Little kids might seem carefree, but they picked up vibrations and worried just like the grown-ups around them.

Her cell phone rang before she left the house. “Hey, Lizzy, what's up?” She slipped the strap of her small shoulder bag over her head and stepped into the courtyard. Warmed by the sun on the wall, one of the foolish roses was trying to bloom, and she pinched the bud off and slipped it into the buttonhole of her baggy denims.

“You might want to avoid the café today,” Lizzy said. “They're all lying in wait for you. Why don't you bring the hunk over to the bar tonight so I can get some of that business?”

Pippa scrunched up her nose. “Why is anyone waiting for me?” She was so used to being anonymous these last years that it took a moment before the fear hit. “Not the media?” she asked before she could stop herself.

“Of course not, silly. El Padre is too tiny to rate even a blip on a radar screen. Your remarkable act of heroism will go unheralded by anyone outside of town. But every unemployed hopeful in the county is lining up at the café because that's where
he
is.”

Relieved, Pippa laughed. “You said they were waiting for
me
. Oz is the one with the deep pockets, not me. I could sit on the counter and fiddle and no one would notice.”

Lizzy snorted. “Oh yeah, right, like that would happen. What are you wearing today, cherries jubilee on your cheeks and the lemon overalls? They notice, all right. But that's not why they're waiting. Oz won't hire anyone unless you approve. So they're waiting on you.”

Pippa said a very bad word, one that probably dented her karma for another few dozen years. “Okay, thanks for the warning. I'll see what I can do about sending him over to the bar tonight in return for the favor.”

“And hey, just in case no one said anything yesterday, you're a genius and a maker of magic for luring Tommy out of the brush. I think Juanita's family is planning on building a shrine to your name.”

Pippa laughed, momentarily pleased by her friend's inanity. This was why living outside her head was good for her. “They need to find a saint to repay Oz for the burgers that lured Tommy out when the kid got hungry. I just made an idiot of myself to pretend I was doing something.”

She'd just about convinced herself of that over the last hours she'd spent lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. All she'd done was read the books, as she always did. It was just the dark and the moon and the bonfire and everyone praying that had created the illusion that she'd done anything significant at all.

And it was that kind of oblivious thinking that had killed Robbie. Fortunately, she'd learned control since then.

She turned around and went back inside, dropping her purse on a chair and aiming for the kitchen. She'd bake muffins for breakfast.

She would not worry that either someone had hacked her computer or she had multiple personalities hiding in her subconscious.

She might worry if she thought one of those personalities had something to do with Oz's son, but she was pretty certain she wasn't that crazy, or her therapist would have told her so.

Oz caught up with her as she carried muffins to the day care. She opened the box and offered him one. “I ate breakfast,” she informed him before he could chastise her for skipping the meal. It was a little startling and disquieting, realizing she understood him that well, but she could live with it.

He helped himself to a blueberry one. “You're hiding.”

“Can't argue with that,” she admitted. “Your show. I'm not accepting one whit of responsibility for who gets hired.”

“Heard that, did you?” He bit into the muffin, murmured his approval, and followed her up the path. “My director will do the hiring. He'll be up next week. I just thought you might like some input.”

“Nope. No input, no responsibility, no Pippa at all. Just the books. My agent says your contract is very fair. If you're trying to bribe me into helping you find your son, you're not succeeding.”

“I had another message from the Librarian this morning,” he said without warning, just as she was about to enter the rear door she'd painted with hot pink trim.

Pippa froze and refused to look at him.

“It just said
Ronan
wants
to
come
home too
.” He waited expectantly.

Pippa thought she might lose her breakfast all over his pretty shoes.

“Ronan is the seal in a book I haven't published yet,” she whispered.

Then, angry that he'd done this to her, she jerked open the back door, stalked in, and slammed it in his face.

***

Oz didn't use Pippa's swimming pool for his office that day. For one thing, the March wind had turned nippy, and he had no interest in freezing his nose.

For the other—he didn't like being manipulated, and someone was yanking his chains. And Pippa's, apparently. He hadn't thought it possible for her to be any paler, but she'd looked like a ghost when he'd told her about the Librarian's latest message. Not just white but translucent.

He was angry that he was doing this to her and angry that someone might know something about his son and not just come out and say it. He wanted to throttle anyone who got in his way.

In that frame of mind, it was easier to drive into L.A. and get some work done in a real office rather than torture himself or Pippa anymore.

Between signing off on disbursements and ordering his favorite wines sent to the B&B so he could at least have some alcoholic fortification when he needed it, Oz left messages for Conan to call him.

Conan. Ronan. Weird. Why would anyone write a book using a name like Ronan? While talking to the director he'd hired for the show, Oz Googled
Ronan
.

It was derived from the Celtic word for
seal
. Which made sense if Pippa knew that.

Conan was also Celtic, meaning
wise
. Oz snorted at that and searched for Dylan—Welsh for
son
of
the
sea
. Among the many stories she'd told her sons, their mother had claimed to be descended from Druids. Welsh ones, apparently.

And this was getting him nowhere, except for learning the Ronan/seal connection, and that had to be Pippa's doing. Why was she writing songs about seals with weird names, and why was the Librarian connecting them with Donal?

He snatched up the phone when Conan's number flashed across the screen. “Tell me what you found out yesterday.”

“Yes, O Fearless Leader,” Conan said mockingly. “I am at your command. I hope your secretary put a fat deposit in my account this morning.”

“I just signed off on it. You won't starve anytime soon. Spill.”

“I went to the fire station where the police report said she was found. I got the names of the men on duty at the time, and I've been calling all of them who are still alive. They're all pretty clear that they found her crying around midnight almost twenty-four years ago. She told them she was three and that her name was Philippa Seraphina Malcolm, but her mama called her Siren. Or that was their interpretation of toddler-speak.”

“Siren, like on fire trucks?”

“Or like the fatal seductresses in
The
Odyssey
,” Conan said dryly.

Oz ignored his brother's cynicism. So the names were real. Siren. Syren. Oz felt a chill of foreboding.

“She said she lived on Hollow Road,” Conan continued, “or that's what it sounded like to them. Except there is no Hollow Road in Bakersfield. The police speculated that a three-year-old couldn't pronounce the name correctly and checked variations and came up with nothing.”