Protector (The Witches of Cleopatra Hill Book 5) (11 page)

Caitlin nodded. “Of course. Even if it’s the middle of the night?”

“Yes, even then.”

Andre didn’t look entirely thrilled at that prospect, but seemed to know better than to protest. “Thank you for letting us come by,” he said.

“No problem,” Alex said, the automatic response. After that, he led them to the front door, Caitlin a pace or two behind them. She gave one last reassurance that she would call if anything changed or she saw anything else, and then they were gone. He closed the door and let out a relieved sigh. “Well, we survived.”

Caitlin gave a half-hearted nod but didn’t appear entirely convinced.

“Come on,” he said. There wasn’t much he could do to help her at the moment, but he wanted to try, wanted to do something to help remove the anxious expression from her face. “While we’re waiting for those visions to come, let me show you around a bit.”

E
ven a house
as nice as Alex’s could seem confining after a while. Caitlin was forced to admit that it felt good to get out, to let the sun warm her skin and the breeze blow through her hair. He drove them away from his neighborhood up in the hills, back down toward the center of Tucson proper.

“Anything in particular you want to see?” he asked, once they were driving south on the freeway.

By then it was around two-thirty, late for lunch, far too early for dinner. She thought she could eat something, but at the same time, she was feeling on edge after that meeting with Marie, her stomach sort of jumpy and nervous. Better to hold out on any real eating for a few more hours.

“The university?” Caitlin responded. That sort of came out of nowhere, but she thought it would be interesting to see where Alex had gone to college, and whether it was so very different from Northern Pines.

“Thinking of transferring?” he asked with a grin.

Maybe, if it meant being closer to you.
Then she wanted to smack herself. A day around this guy, and she was already thinking about possible ways she could spend more time with him? It was ridiculous. Focus. She really needed to focus.

“No,” she replied, taking care to keep her tone light. “It’s just — Northern Pines is the only other university I’ve ever seen, and even that’s super-recent. Up until a few years ago, it might as well have been on the moon.”

He must have caught something in her inflection, because he glanced over at her for a second before returning his attention to the freeway. There was traffic, but it moved well enough. “I guess I always took it for granted that I could go to college — whether here or up at ASU. But you McAllisters didn’t have any real universities in your territory, did you?”

“No, only a community college. That’s where I was going, actually. But then everything changed.” There was an understatement. A feud that had lasted for generations, wiped away as if it had never existed. Well, almost. Caitlin knew that among her own generation, most people, whether Wilcox or McAllister, didn’t have too hard a time adjusting to the change in the status quo. With the older set, that sort of acceptance was a little more spotty. Her mother and father hadn’t been terribly thrilled when she announced she was transferring to Northern Pines so she could get a real degree, but after some family drama, they’d eventually settled down.

“Let me guess — mass influx of McAllisters?” Alex asked, that same grin flashing at her, making her just weak enough in the knees that she was glad she was sitting down.

“I don’t know about ‘mass,’ but there were a few…maybe enough to make someone at the registrar’s office wonder why so many of their incoming students had the same last name.” It was funny, because she’d never thought about it that way before. Then again, not all of her fellow clan members who’d transferred to Northern Pines even had the last name of McAllister, although of course they were all related in one way or another.

“Well, it makes sense. It would be a big deal to me, too, if I’d spent my life in a small territory like yours, and then had the chance to get out.” He seemed to stop himself, adding, “Sorry — I didn’t mean it that way. Jerome is great, from what I saw of it.”

“I’m not offended,” she replied, and offered him a smile of her own. “That is, our territory is a lot more than just Jerome, but compared to what the de la Paz clan controls, or even the Wilcoxes…yeah, it’s sort of underwhelming.”

“All the more reason for you to get out and stretch your legs.” He pulled off the freeway then, crossing back under it before heading…east? Northeast? It was hard for Caitlin to say for sure, since she really hadn’t gotten her bearings yet, and the position of the sun wasn’t telling her much, either.

They were headed up a main street, she could see that much, and the area around the freeway didn’t look too promising. It did improve, however, as they drove along, until suddenly on either side of the boulevard were official-looking buildings in a variety of different architectural styles.

“This is it,” Alex said.

Caitlin blinked. “You mean…you have this big road just going through the middle of your campus?” Not that Northern Pines didn’t have its own access roads, but the campus still felt somewhat segregated from the city around it. Here, the school seemed to have been plunked down right in the middle of town.

“Basically, yes. So what did you want to see?”

“I don’t know…where did you hang out?”

He didn’t exactly frown, but he also didn’t look quite as cheerful as he had a minute or two earlier when he’d been teasing her about the McAllisters invading Northern Pines. “I worked part-time at the store the whole time I was in college, so I didn’t do a lot of hanging out. But there was a coffee place I’d go to between classes. I think the Caffe Lucé espresso kept me alive during finals a few times.”

“Oh,” she said, her tone flat. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting him to say, but telling her that a coffeehouse had been one of his favorite haunts hadn’t even occurred to her.

“Right, you’re not a coffee drinker. They have tea, though, and good pastries, if you can grab one before they sell out.” A quick glance over at her before he turned right down another street whose name she didn’t quite catch. “Does that sound okay?”

It sounded way more than okay. Right then she knew she’d never make it to dinner without having something a little more than the few handfuls of grapes she’d eaten while Alex had his sandwich. “You had me at pastries.”

His smile returned, and after they’d gone another block or two, they came up to a row of shops dominated by a Trader Joe’s. The street parking was dicey, but he found a spot just as someone was pulling out, and so was able to park his SUV there. “Right this way.”

Because it was a dead time in the afternoon, they didn’t have too much trouble finding a place to sit after placing their orders for coffee and tea. “Should I feel guilty for snagging the last coconut raspberry scone?” Caitlin asked.

“Only if you want to.” Alex picked up his coffee and took a measured sip.

“Then I won’t.” She drank some of her iced tea, then broke off a piece of scone. “You want some?”

“I’m good. I had an actual lunch, remember?”

Caitlin nodded before popping the bit of scone in her mouth. It was very good, rich but not too sweet. Rachel McAllister would have approved. “I know I should have eaten something, but….”

“But you were mildly freaked about having to deal with Marie.”

“Something like that.” She washed the scone down with another swallow of tea. “Actually, for her, she was kind of mellow. I kept expecting her to rip me a new one for hiding my seer abilities from the clan.” Alex’s gaze slid away from her at that remark — just for a second, but enough that she thought he didn’t entirely agree with her. “What…did she say something while I was off getting Danica’s bracelet?”

“Not about that exactly.” He picked up a stir stick and ran it through his coffee, even though he was drinking it black and didn’t really need to stir anything. “She just…well, it wasn’t as if she said it in so many words, but she made it pretty clear that the wrath of both the McAllisters and the Wilcoxes would fall on the de la Paz clan if we don’t get Danica and Roslyn back safely.”

Caitlin wanted to protest that he must have misunderstood her, that Marie had meant something else entirely, whatever she’d said to him. But although she couldn’t claim to know Marie well, Caitlin did know that the other seer wasn’t exactly the world’s most tactful person. However you wanted to paint it, the kidnappings had taken place on de la Paz soil. That meant their clan was partially responsible, since if Maya had been fully functioning as a
prima
, she should have known interlopers from another clan were in her territory, and taken steps to have them sent back to wherever they’d come from.

However, Caitlin also knew that Alex knew all that as well, so there was no reason to point it out to him. Instead, she broke off another piece of scone, then said, “We all know that Angela and Connor will never retaliate. No matter” —her voice felt oddly dry, and she set down the bit of scone and instead took another pull at her iced tea— “no matter what might happen.”

“Maybe they wouldn’t. But what about your other clan members?”

He would have to ask that. Caitlin stalled by eating the piece of scone she’d broken off. “They wouldn’t go against their
prima
’s wishes. And neither would the Wilcox clan.”

“Are you sure about that?”

His dark eyes searched her face. She could see the doubt in his expression, the worry that Angela and Connor might be the
prima
and
primus
of their respective clans, but they were also, in the eyes of a lot of those same witches and warlocks, only a couple of kids in their twenties, not ready for the kind of responsibility this crisis had created.

“Well, I can’t speak for everyone,” Caitlin said, knowing she was hedging but at the same time realizing that she couldn’t possibly give him a definitive answer. “But even though they haven’t been the heads of their clans for all that long, no one can say they haven’t been doing a good job. I’d like to think everyone would give them the benefit of the doubt.”

For a few painful seconds, Alex didn’t say anything. Then his shoulders lifted, although she got the feeling the shrug was intended more to show her that he didn’t feel like arguing the subject, rather than because he agreed with her.

“The best thing we can do is find them,” she went on. “Which is why it’s so frustrating to sit here and know that I should be doing something besides having scones and tea. It’s just not right.”

“What else could you do?” he asked reasonably. “You’ve tried summoning the visions, and that didn’t work. In the meantime, you still have to eat and drink and carry on like a normal person. I doubt you’ll do them any more good by continually stressing until your focus is totally shot.”

She couldn’t really argue with that. At the same time, she couldn’t help feeling angry with herself for being here and finding any kind of enjoyment in the pastry she was eating, or even simply being able to look across the table and see Alex’s earnest gaze on her, the warmth of his voice. Something about the way he spoke always sounded unruffled, always in control, although she knew that wasn’t entirely the case. There were things that worried and upset him, just as they would anyone.

“You’re right,” she said, trying not to sigh. At the same time, she couldn’t help feeling impatient with that supposed third eye of hers, or whatever it was. If time was of the essence, why wasn’t she being bombarded with a string of images that would lead her straight to wherever Danica and Roslyn were being held?

Alex’s phone went off then — another email, judging by the alert sound.

“I’d better check that,” he said. “That’s usually how my mother gets in touch with me. She hates texting, and I hate getting interrupted by phone calls, so the emails are our compromise.”

“Maybe she has some new information for us,” Caitlin suggested.

“Yeah…or maybe she’s emailing to give me a ration of shit about how that interview with Marie went.”

“Ouch.”

He smiled then. “Yeah, that about sums it up.” But he reached into his pocket and dug out his iPhone, then unlocked it so he could access his emails.

Caitlin watched as he scanned the message from his mother, the movements of his eyes almost hidden under the dark sweep of his eyelashes. Was he even aware of how good-looking he really was? He definitely didn’t dress all that flashy; when she’d first met him, he’d had on dark khaki pants and a white button-down for work, and today he was wearing nicely faded jeans and an untucked polo shirt along with some well-broken-in cross-trainers.

“Well, that’s interesting,” he said at last, setting the phone down on the tabletop so he could pick up his neglected coffee and take a sip.

“What is?”

“We have someone in the clan — my cousin Miguel, who lives up in Mesa — who’s a private investigator. His talent is always being able to tell when someone is lying. Convenient for his line of work.”

“I can imagine.”

“Anyway, my mother had him look into that house where Matías and the others took you, to see if there was any kind of a connection between them and the house.”

“And was there?”

Alex shook his head. “Not exactly. Turns out the place is owned by a couple of snowbirds from Chicago. They’d just gone back up north the week before, had the house listed with a rental company that specializes in short-term vacation rentals of houses and condos. But there’s no record of anyone renting it yet, which means the warlocks were just using it, knowing it was vacant.”

It would have been so much easier if Matías and his goons had rented the place legitimately. But that would have meant leaving some kind of paper trail, something Caitlin knew they would have worked hard to avoid. “So…do you think they were keeping an eye on available rentals in the area, knowing they could use one if the opportunity presented itself?”

“That sounds about right.” Alex ran a hand through his thick, dark hair, pushing back the one bit that always seemed to droop over his forehead. “I mean, pretty much any witch or warlock can get into a locked house, so it would be easy. And since it’s spring break for ASU — U of A is off next week — no one would probably think twice about seeing a group of college-age guys going in and out of a house that was up for rent.”

There wasn’t much Caitlin could find to argue with in that logic. But still…. “I suppose that makes sense. What I don’t understand is how they were able to target us. I mean, the only people who knew Roslyn and Danica and I were even coming here to Tucson were your mother and Maya. I kind of doubt they’d be spreading that information around.”

“No,” Alex said at once. “I mean, your travel plans were your business, and if you’d come across any de la Paz witches or warlocks while you were here doing your thing in Tucson, they would have known you were here with permission and wouldn’t have thought much about it.” His brows drew together, as if he was mentally attempting to put the pieces together, and he continued, “But if any of those warlocks has the kind of talent my
abuela
has…
had
…they might have been able to sense you from much farther away than a regular witch or warlock could. I don’t know why they would have been hanging around here in the first place, as you’d think they’d have better hunting up in the Phoenix area, but if one of them did have that gift, they would have felt you three as soon as you came into town. And then….”