“Ian rang a few hours ago, said they hadn’t found her yet.” Bones stroked my arm, looking thoughtful. “Tate wasn’t surprised. Said she’d avoid people and hide until she’d fully assessed her situation.”
He sounded like he was quoting Tate. Once again, anger flared when I thought of everything that had been done to her. Katie shouldn’t be alone and operating with military-like caution. At her age, her biggest concerns should’ve been playing with dolls versus action figures.
I almost didn’t want to ask, but I had to. “Madigan?”
At that, Bones’s features tightened. “The same.”
Strike two. I took in a hopeful breath. “Any luck pulling some info off the hard drives we brought back?”
Mencheres answered that one. “I have my people working on them, but as of yet, they’ve been unable to recover any data.”
Strike three. Frustrated, I let out my breath. “So we’re nowhere closer to finding out who’s been backing Madigan all these years.”
And that person was probably on red alert now after hearing what happened at the McClintic compound. In short, we were back to square one. Maybe even a few squares behind since we had no idea if more Katies existed at other secret facilities.
Some days, it didn’t pay to get out of bed.
“Mencheres has a theory about that.”
If the edginess in his voice wasn’t clue enough, those soothing strokes on my arm stopped. Clearly, Bones wasn’t a fan of this idea.
“What?” I asked, staring into Mencheres’s fathomless obsidian gaze.
“Vampires and ghouls in Madigan’s condition often remember nothing of their human lives. Some, however, remember pieces of their past, if presented with the proper stimuli.”
“Bones stimulated the hell out of him with the beat down he delivered,” I responded flatly. “It didn’t work.”
An elegant shrug. “Not that sort of stimulus. The most successful is interaction with a longtime personal associate.”
“Do you mean have Madigan hang out with an old friend?” I couldn’t contain my bark of laughter. “That’s impossible. His only friend was his sick, twisted job—”
I stopped speaking as understanding dawned. Now I knew why Bones hated this idea.
“Don.”
Bones spit out my uncle’s name as though it tasted foul. “Though they weren’t friends, Mencheres believes their association was both long enough and notably significant to perhaps trigger memories.”
I didn’t know if I’d be mad at my uncle forever, but I sure hadn’t been ready to see him this soon. Then again, when had “ready” ever factored into anything?
“It’s worth a shot,” I said at last.
Now we had to see if Don would agree to do it.
Mencheres lent us his helicopter since it would take too long to drive all the way to D.C. We had to stop once to refuel and then once more outside the city because that was an air-defense identification zone. We weren’t about to announce our arrival to any interested government officials. So, five hours after we decided to involve my uncle, we parked around the back of Tyler’s building on Macarthur Boulevard.
It was the middle of the night, but the lights in his apartment were on. This time, we’d called first. Tyler hadn’t been thrilled about summoning a ghost at this hour, but introducing him to Marie Laveau seemed to have boosted our favor points. He opened the door on our first knock though he didn’t bother to conceal his yawn.
“Come in. Want to get this over with so I can get back to bed.”
From his pajama pants and robe attire, that was obvious. Dexter was more enthusiastic in his welcome. He danced around my feet, sniffing madly where Mencheres’s mastiffs had brushed up against me.
I petted him, missing my cat once more. One of Bones’s associates had Helsing, since my cat hadn’t liked living in close quarters with Dexter. Then we sat on the floor by a Ouija board set up on his coffee table. Like most in-city condos, Tyler’s was set up studio style, with the kitchen, bedroom, and living area all occupying the same small space.
“Wish I could teach you to do this yourself,” Tyler said, placing his fingers on the planchette. “Too bad you lost your ghost juju.”
Some days, I regretted that. Most, I didn’t. “Everything ends eventually.”
Then we swished the planchette around the board while Tyler began his invocations. Since I didn’t have any personal items of my uncle’s this time, we had to weed through a few random spirits before Don materialized in the room.
When he realized who’d summoned him, he looked surprised. Then guilt pierced me when his next expression was fear as he glanced about.
“There are no Remnants, no Marie,” I said steadily. “Just us, Don.”
His form wavered, blurring at the edges. Now that he knew we had no means to stop him, was he leaving?