The next morning I met Caleb and Oliver in the inn’s dining room.
“Oh look who it is,” Oliver said as I sat down, “Miss I-Sexile-and-Ignore-My-Friends Fiori.”
“Do you seriously want to go there?” I said. I’d woken up on the wrong side of the bed—a.k.a., without Andre—and I wasn’t taking it well.
“Oh, I’m already there.” Oliver snapped his fingers and rolled his head, and he did it all with a straight face. This little fairy was serious.
“Listen Pixie Sticks, you can’t just barge into Romania while I’m working and expect me to entertain you.”
“Oh, so that’s what you were doing last night? Working? I didn’t realize Andre paid you for sex.”
“Whoa,” Caleb said, raising his hands. Guess he’d never seen me and fairy boy duke it out.
I snorted. “That’s real good coming from you,” I said to Oliver.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“No,” Caleb interrupted us. “It’s too freaking early for this.”
Oliver ignored Caleb and fixed me a glare. “Better watch yourself, harpy, or you’re going to find yourself hexed.”
I snarled back at him. “Do your worst, Sparkles. You’d be improving my luck.”
Caleb’s chair screeched as he stood up, and then his hands slapped over my mouth and Oliver’s.
Oliver and I blinked at each other as Caleb closed his eyes and sighed. “Finally some peace and quiet.” His eyelids snapped open. “You two are friends,” he said to us, “so please try to act like it. Also, I’m way too fucking young to be the mothering type, so this is the last time I’ll be nice about it. Next time my hands are getting involved.”
Oliver’s eyebrows shot up and he cocked his head, looking thoughtful at the idea of Caleb getting his hands involved. Caleb noticed.
“Damnit Oliver,” Caleb said, “I can read you like a book, and right now it is disturbing as hell.”
Oliver just winked at him, and I started to laugh behind Caleb’s hand. Oliver’s twinkling eyes flicked to me and he extended his pinkie. I reached out and hooked mine with his.
Seeing that we were playing nice, Caleb dropped his hands and shook his head. “You two are so weird.” That was the second time someone had said that to me within the last week.
“What do you expect?” Oliver said. “We’re BBFs—best bitches forever and ever.”
“Hug it out?” I asked him.
“Oh my God, yes times a million, bosom buddy.”
So we hugged in the middle of the dining room as random hotel guests looked on.
I squeezed him. “Oliver, you can still sleep in my room,” I said. He’d refused to enter it last night after the little scuffle with Andre, instead spending the night in Caleb’s room.
“Nuh uh. No way,” he said, still hugging me. “I’m staying with Caleb from here on out.”
My eyes moved to Caleb, who shook his head furiously back and forth.
I rolled my eyes at the both of them. “It’s going to be fine, Oliver,” I said, patting him on the back. “Don’t let Andre intimidate you.”
Oliver stepped out of the hug and cocked his hip, raising his eyebrows skeptically. “Easy for you to say. If he gets angry at you, he’ll what—spank you for being naughty? Me, however, he’ll drain dry.”
“He wouldn’t; you’re my friend.”
“Um, clearly you didn’t see the psychotic look in his eyes,” Oliver said. “Nope, I’m staying far away from your room.”
“Fine, then as my Christmas gift to you, I’ll get you your own room.”
Oliver’s face lit up. “Really? You’d do that?”
I smiled. “Duh.” It wasn’t like I couldn’t afford it.
Oliver clapped his hands together joyfully. “Can we get rooms that connect?” he asked. “Best bitches forever need rooms that connect.”
Chapter 13
Not long after I’d gotten Oliver his own room—thankfully not one that connected to mine—my phone buzzed.
“Hello?” I answered, leaning back in my room’s chair. This desk was quickly becoming a second home.
“Gabrielle, it’s Grigori.”
“Hey,” I said, letting the chair fall back on all four legs, “what are the plans for today?”
“We got a call in last night that two women fitting the description of our suspects were loading a van outside of a warehouse here in Cluj.”
I sat up straighter. A lead. A shiver rushed down my spine. Some part of me had assumed that the voice that beckoned to me last night was the woman. But if she had an alibi …
“When a couple of officers checked it out, they found packing supplies large enough to hold an altar. We have inspectors there at the moment,” he continued, “but I wanted to bring you and Sergeant Jennings over to see if anything stands out.”
“We’ll be ready to go as soon as you can come,” I said.
“Then I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
“Great. By the way,” I said, “I think I have information on the murders.” I hadn’t had time to look into Andre’s theory, but it was the only lead we had.
“Go on.”
So I told him about the threefold murder theory.
“You could be on to something,” he said. I could hear the excitement in his voice. “I’ll pass the information along. See you soon.”
“Bye.”
I clicked off the phone and packed up some of the things I’d need for today. We were one step closer to catching those women.
“The Politia doesn’t pay me enough for this shit,” Caleb yelled over the howling wind as we stepped out of Grigori’s car and into the blizzard. I was surprised that we’d managed to drive at all, given the weather conditions.
We trudged over to the roped off warehouse, keeping our chins tucked in and our arms held close to our bodies. I’d grown up in warm Los Angeles, so I’d never experienced a snowstorm, and I was woefully underprepared. Woefully.
Once we were inside, I shivered and rubbed my arms. “I think I have snow down my shirt and up my nose,” I said to Caleb.