Spirit and Dust

5


I WOKE FACEDOWN in a drool-soaked pillow.

There were worse puddles to wake up in, I suppose, but I didn’t want to think about that. I just wanted to lie there, absolutely still, until I was certain that nothing was going to kill me. Not my migraine, not Agent Gerard, not whoever had snatched me off the curb.

Imminent death seemed unlikely. I was tucked under a fluffy quilt, sprawled on a bed that was more comfortable than the one in my dorm room. When I cracked an eyelid to take a peek, I glimpsed a nicely decorated room, with a reassuring absence of white slavers and crack whores.

A quick inventory under the covers revealed no amateur sutures, so I didn’t seem to be missing a kidney. Just my clothes.

Not all of them. I still had my underwear on, thank God. Good thing I listened to Aunt Pet and put on clean ones every morning.

I was due an almighty freak-out. I mean, my family is unconventional to say the least, what with teen psychics and mad scientists and kitchen witches. But kidnapping was out of the ordinary, even for a Goodnight.

First things first, though. I’d spotted an adjoining bathroom, and I had to pee like a racehorse.

Once I had taken care of business, I put off panic and took stock of the bathroom in case I needed to make a last stand. An inventory of the medicine cabinet turned up a disposable razor, a bottle of mouthwash, a toothbrush in a cellophane wrapper, and assorted travel-sized toiletries. Ones with French names, so I knew they were très expensive. And on the back of the bathroom door was a bathrobe. It was like I’d been kidnapped and dumped at the Four Seasons.

I put on the bathrobe rather than wander around in my skivvies, then used the mouthwash to rinse the taste of stale cola and migraine off my tongue. Only after I swished and spat did it occur to me that the mouthwash might be drugged. Wouldn’t that just pull the handle on this crapper of a day.

I sat down heavily on the closed toilet lid and tried to figure out what had happened. A dark car pulling up in front of me, hands hustling me toward it. An embarrassingly short scuffle, then … unconsciousness.

Had I been taken by the same people who had snatched Alexis Maguire? What were the odds it was some random grab? Maybe not zilch, but close.

How long before Agent Taylor missed me? If he thought I was still sleeping off the post-mojo migraine, he wouldn’t bother me until the warrants were approved. As for my thirty-six cousins and aunts, we have a kind of radar for when one of us is in trouble, but I tripped it so regularly, no one would really worry until I didn’t check in.

Phone. I remembered looking for my phone in my small backpack. I charged out of the bathroom, intent on finding my stuff. Instead I found a man coming in the other door.

I screamed, and he did, too. I scrambled for a weapon, but only turned up an ornamental wooden duck from the top of the dresser. I cocked it back, ready to let fly if the guy took one step toward me.

He didn’t. He just stood in the doorway recovering his dignity, and said in a pained voice, “Please don’t do that. That decoy is an antique.”

That pretty much defused my fight-or-flight response. And I couldn’t exactly picture this tidy, gray-haired man jumping me in any case. He was way too … dapper.

He was also carrying my clothes, neatly folded, and he put them on the table near the door, without making any sudden moves. “Your clothes have been cleaned and pressed. I was just going to slip them in here. We were expecting you to be unconscious for a bit longer.”

“Who is ‘we’?” I demanded. “And where am I?”

“I’ll let them know you’re awake,” he said, taking hold of the door handle. “Can I get you anything, Miss Goodnight? A sandwich? Cup of coffee?”

I lowered my arm, realizing the futility of menacing anyone with a duck. “I would really like an appetizer of ‘what’s going on’ with a heaping portion of ‘get the hell out of Dodge.’ ”

“I’m afraid that’s not on the menu, miss.”

With a sigh, I put the decoy back on the dresser. “I’ll just take a cup of coffee, then.”

Jeeves nodded and closed the door behind him. I heard the solid click of a lock but hurried to try the knob anyway.

No dice. Next I ran to the window and flung back the curtain. I was on the second floor of a huge house. Like, mansion huge. It was dark outside, but I saw no other house lights close by. An estate, then. Was Alexis somewhere here, too? Was one of Maguire’s crime-boss rivals behind this? What could they possibly want with me?

It didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to just sit there in that comfy bathrobe waiting for someone to make me an offer I couldn’t refuse.

I grabbed my clothes and got dressed. The shirt and skirt were still warm, and I pulled my socks on over my goose pimples, missing the robe already. A quick search turned up my sneakers, but not my backpack. I was just lacing up the former when I heard footsteps in the hall outside.

The panic I’d been putting off had me hard in its teeth. What if it wasn’t Jeeves? What if they’d sent someone like Bruiser to get me?

I snatched up a vase, dumped out the cut-flower arrangement, and jumped behind the door. It opened without hesitation, and I didn’t hesitate to attack.

The guy who came in was considerably taller than Jeeves. The vase glanced off the back of his skull and smashed on his shoulders. He hit the deck and didn’t get up as a dark wetness soaked his blue dress shirt.

Sweet Saint Gertrude, I’d killed him.

No. It was only the water from the vase. The guy sprawled on the floor was better-looking than Jeeves and considerably younger. Like maybe twenty-one. Twenty-two at the outside limit. They’d sent an intern to collect me.

I hadn’t thought as far as what I’d do next, but running seemed smart. I burst out of the Four Seasons prison cell into a wide hallway with a high ceiling and hardwood floors, polished smooth and dust-free. The walls were painted a warm, sandy color, and there was art. Real art. I thought I recognized a Remington landscape, and at a glance, it didn’t look like a print.

Alexis might be in the building somewhere, but there was no convenient clue where I could find her. Just the endless House Beautiful hallway. The sound of big, heavy somebodies approaching from the left, however, was a pretty big hint I should run the other way, so I did.

That hall dead-ended at another one, and I picked a direction at random, feeling like a rat in a Lifestyles of the Rich and Infamous maze. The corridor made another turn, and dude, this place was huge.

A billiard room. A den or library. Then an invitingly dark room, which turned out to be a freaking movie theater. I dove behind a row of cushy chairs, holding my breath until I heard two linebackers go by.

This was not a good plan. The house was too big to randomly search for Alexis. I couldn’t even find the stairs. But if I did, and I managed to get out, I could bring back help.

I crept to the door, and after a quick check of the hall, doubled back the way I’d come, running as quietly as possible. Except when I rounded the maze corner back to that first hall, there was a wet and cranky henchman intern in my way.

He raised his hands in the international gesture for halt right there. He may have actually said “Stop!” but I had escape ringing in my ears, so I accelerated to ramming speed.

He probably had fifty pounds on me, mostly height and shoulders, but I had inertia and surprise on my side. I knocked him out of my way and kept going.

But now I’d pissed him off, and he was fast, with really long legs, even longer than mine. Before I got to the end of the hall with its glimpse (finally!) of stairs, he grabbed me from behind, arms wrapped around mine.

“Calm down,” he said in my ear. “I don’t want to hurt—”

The rest was just a grunt of pain as I slammed my elbow—and I have really pointy elbows—into his ribs. He doubled over with a wheeze but still had a grip on me, so I kicked him in the instep and he let go.

But only for a second. The bastard even limped fast.

He grabbed me again, but our feet tangled up and we tumbled forward. I braced for impact, and for all that guy to come down and snap me like a twig, but at the last instant, he twisted to take the brunt of the crash onto the hardwood floor. It knocked the wind out of him, but he was a tough bastard, so as I squirmed out of his hold I kneed him in the groin just to make sure he stayed down.

I have really pointy knees, too.

Bruised and breathless, I left him in a groaning heap on the floor and ran for the stairs. On my way down I met Jeeves on his way up, my cup of coffee on a tiny tray in his left hand.

“Sorry,” I said, breezing past. “Can’t stay for refreshments.”

The butler didn’t say anything. He just grabbed my hand as I went by, and with some twist of physics, mechanics, or magic, I was suddenly pinned to the wall, my arm twisted up behind me, utterly unable to move.

Jeeves hadn’t even spilled the coffee. “I apologize, Miss Goodnight,” he said with unflappable courtesy. “Hell out of Dodge isn’t on the self-service menu, either.”

Reinforcements arrived, cutting off all exits. They were the expected gorilla types, rather than the dapper man who had me tasting wallpaper.

“Thanks, Bertram.” It was the intern. I recognized his wheeze. He’d hauled himself up from the floor and limped over to join us. “I’ll take it from here.”

“Are you quite sure, Mr. Carson?” I could almost hear the butler raise an eyebrow.

I could totally hear the grinding of Mr. Carson’s teeth. “Yes. You can let her go.”

Bertram did, and I turned around, flexing my arm and viewing the butler with new respect. Poker-faced, he held out the tray to me. “Your coffee, Miss Goodnight.”

I took it. Frankly, I was afraid to piss him off.

“Mr. Maguire wants to see you,” said Mr. Carson a little impatiently, probably because I made him wait while I added cream from the tiny pitcher and stirred with the tiny spoon.

And then the name made it to my brain, and I dropped the spoon onto the tray with a clatter. “Hold on a sec. You mean Alexis Maguire’s father? That Mr. Maguire?”

“Yes,” said the intern. “That one.”

After the initial surprise, the new information sank in. It was almost a relief, because I could imagine what he wanted, just not why he’d gone through this much trouble to talk to me. All he had to do was ask, and I’d tell him Alexis was alive. Somewhere.

I turned to Mr. Carson, planning to say just that, but paused when I got my first good look at him.

My first impression didn’t lie. Young. Twenty-one-ish. Younger than Agent Taylor, and almost as tasty. And tall. I’m five foot ten, and I had to tilt my head to look at him. His hair was brown, still wet, and standing up all over. His eyes were a dusky green—no, hazel—and I’d last seen them in the Minnesota cold, just before everything went dark.

“You!” I exclaimed, with all the melodrama his offense deserved. “You’re the one who whammied me behind the police station.”

He didn’t look chagrined or apologetic. He looked annoyed. “I did not whammy you anywhere. You passed out without my doing anything to you. Which is more than I can say for what you did to me.”

“You kidnapped me! I’d say that’s something.”

Bertram gave a wordless warning and held the tray under my wildly gesturing cup. Carson—I refused to give him a “Mr.”—just stared me down, unfazed. Then he turned, signaling the goon squad to make sure I followed along.

“Come on. You don’t want to keep the big man waiting.”