Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
Ispent the afternoon researching in May’s lighthouse library. She didn’t visit. She often did when I curled up on the couch in her formerly private space, and I felt a pang in my heart when I realized it.
Was she with Wesley? That made the most sense.
She’d followed the man she loved to make sure he wouldn’t be killed.
Jareth’s theory that it had been May and not my mother in the mural had thrown me.
I’d seen photos of May from when she was younger.
She and my mother weren’t clones but they looked a lot alike.
I looked like them too, although I had inherited a few of my father’s features, including his strong chin.
Was it possible that Declan was obsessed with May because he thought her magic might help him achieve his goal of immortality? Perhaps he’d wanted May’s powers so he could better fight Jareth, and it was the vampire’s blood he’d wanted to give him a fighting chance.
Galen sent a text requesting my presence for dinner. I was happy for a break. I considered taking Declan’s DDA file with me — there was a lot in there I discovered during my research — but I’d committed most of it to memory so I opted to leave it behind.
Galen had selected one of our favorite beachside restaurants. One thing the Moonstone Bay restaurants all did well was seafood. Galen was picky about his steaks, and this was one of the better steak restaurants.
I found him sitting on the patio. It was a romantic setting, a candle flickering in the center of the table, and he was leaned back and staring out at the ocean when I approached him from behind.
He didn’t act as if he knew I was there, but his awareness was off the charts and I laughed when his arm shot out to wrap around my waist. He dragged me to him for a kiss.
“Where were you sneaking?” he asked in a gruff voice.
“I wasn’t sneaking anywhere. I’m just a light stepper.”
He snorted. “You trip over your own slippers three times a day.”
“I’m not wearing slippers now.” I pressed a kiss to his mouth. “I have some news.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Is this where you ease me into your plan to cross to the other side to get Wesley?” He looked resigned.
“Not yet.”
Hope replaced resignation in an instant. “You’re not going back?”
“Don’t act so surprised.” I gave him another kiss, then settled in the chair across from him. “I can be reasonable if I put a bit of effort into it.”
Galen snorted. “Yes, that’s often the word I use when I think of you. Reasonable.”
“I’m serious.”
“Of course you are.”
“I really am.” I pinned him with a stern look. “I have some things I need to talk with you about and … it’s a lot.”
He cocked his head, and something he must have seen in my eyes had him nodding. “Okay. Tell me what you’ve found.”
I ran him through my conversation with Jareth. He seemed surprised, then stunned, when I told him about the fight in the woods.
“I didn’t know he was related to Declan.” Galen’s forehead creased. “I’m not sure anyone knew.”
“Probably not,” I confirmed. “Jareth seemed troubled by the memory.”
“I’ve never seen him as much as blink, so that must have been quite the sight.”
I shrugged. “It’s obvious his brother — who he really didn’t want to talk about — is some sort of paranormal deadbeat. I think Jareth tried to help Declan but it didn’t go well.”
“Sounds like Declan wanted something he couldn’t have,” Galen mused. “I’m still curious how he managed to find a plane door to go through.”
“Maybe he did it himself. He had witch in him. He could have researched how to open plane doors because he wanted that option if he needed a quick escape. And maybe he realized that the island had accessible plane doors and figured out a way to get through them before he ran from Jareth that day.”
“Okay.” Galen didn’t look in an argumentative mood. He also didn’t appear willing to accept my hunch without any pushback. “Why not kill Jareth? He had full control in the moment. He could have drained Jareth and gotten everything he wanted.”
“Maybe he panicked,” I replied after several seconds. “Maybe he feared that everyone on the island would band together and try to kill him once they found out what he’d been doing. Maybe—”
“That’s a lot of maybes, Hadley,” Galen noted.
“It is. We don’t have the full picture yet, but we have more.” I was earnest as I regarded him. “Some of the whys, at least.”
His hand landed on mine just as the server arrived to take our order.
I went big — I always went big with seafood — but Galen didn’t even blink when I opted for the seafood platter with an extra pound of crab legs. I also ordered a margarita the size of my head.
Mirth had Galen’s lips tipping up at the corners. “Somebody is hoping to drown her sorrows.”
“Not sorrows,” I countered. “It’s just … Jareth brought up one more interesting thing, and I feel like a bit of an idiot for not recognizing the possibility myself.”
He didn’t press me. He’d ordered a huge serving of prime rib with potatoes and corn as sides. The beer he ordered was much more reasonable than my margarita.
“Tell me,” he prodded in a soft voice. “I want to hear it.”
“Jareth pointed out that perhaps the woman in the mural wasn’t my mother, but May.”
Surprise registered on Galen’s face and he opened his mouth — to counter that argument? — but he snapped it shut quickly.
“Yeah, I’m right there with you,” I said at his puzzlement. “Declan was on the island for a long time. For most of that time, May would have been the dominant witch on Moonstone Bay.”
“And your mother was a child who ultimately fled,” Galen said. “You saw your mother, though. She was the one you interacted with on the other side.”
“Jareth had an explanation for that too. Declan knew my mother and likely understood that adopting her persona would have drawn me in. What if he wants me because he wants to adopt my persona? If he managed to get me to cooperate — which might be why he interacted with me while pretending to be my mother — he could have stolen my place here, but only after I helped him open a plane door.”
Galen looked appropriately horrified. “I don’t like that even a little bit.”
“That makes two of us.” I cracked a smile I didn’t feel. “And we have no idea if that idea is correct. It’s just something else to consider.”
He fell silent, but turbulence stormed through his eyes. “You need that to be your mother,” he realized.
“Not need.” I vehemently shook my head. “I don’t need that. I came to grips with the fact that I would never know her a long time ago.”
“But your heart still longs for her,” Galen argued. “In your head, you finally got the interaction you’d been dreaming of and now Declan has taken that from you.”
“We don’t know for a fact we’re dealing with Declan,” I said. “That’s just an idea.”
“It’s a pretty good one, and that mural you found is enough to prove it for me.”
“Yeah.” I rubbed my forehead. “I think it’s him. I just can’t figure out his end goal. If he wants my magic, why not kill me when I was on the other plane? He had the benefit of surprise on his side.”
“Maybe he didn’t expect you to come through so soon. You may have surprised him.”
“But, if our new hunch is correct, that wasn’t my mother. It was him.”
“Or May.”
I laughed, then realized he was serious. “May would not act like my mother.”
“Declan may have glamoured another creature to look like May and went with it when you assumed it was your mother.”
“But he would know that’s not May,” I persisted. “I think her ghost is with Wesley. Whether by choice or not, I can’t say, but that’s my feeling.”
“That doesn’t mean Declan can see her. Maybe he used May’s image from his memory.”
“May would have still been much older than the individual I saw when he disappeared.”
“He was obsessed with youth,” Galen pointed out. “Maybe he planned to use that mural — the image of May when she was younger — to get her on his side. He could have planned to tell her that he could bestow youth upon her. Jareth might have ruined his plan.”
I blew out a breath. “That’s a lot of maybes.”
“Too many,” he agreed. “Tell me about dhampirs.”
That sounded better than obsessing over a hunch I couldn’t prove. I waited for my margarita to be delivered, then got to the heart of matters. “I did a lot of research this afternoon.”
“I know you did, my little geek. That is also one of my favorite things about you.”
“What’s your absolute favorite thing?” It was a tangent, but I felt the need to chase it.
He smiled. “Fishing for compliments?”
“Just curious.”
“You’re my favorite thing.”
My forehead creased. “But … .”
He shook his head. “The whole package.”
“Even though I drive you crazy?”
“You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t.”
“Good point.” I pulled out my phone. “I took some notes.”
“Of course you did.” His smile widened.
“The book I read said that they’re the offspring of vampires and humans,” I started. “Jareth confirmed that the only humans who can survive it are witches. The book suggests they have to be very strong witches.”
“They can’t get pregnant otherwise?”
“Some can, but won’t survive the pregnancy.”
I scrolled through my notes. “Dhampirs are alive. They have beating hearts and pumping blood. They can sustain some direct sunlight, but it can weaken them, so they limit daytime activity.”
Galen cocked his head, adopting his philosophical expression. “That would make it easier to hide what they are. They’d live long enough to amass an impressive fortune, but they would have to move regularly to avoid questions.”
“My understanding is that Declan didn’t tell anyone on the island what he was.”
“I had no idea. I looked through his file today — it’s in my truck at the station, but I walked so I could drink, by the way — but there was no mention of him being part vampire.”
“My guess is he didn’t want anyone to know. Jareth may be the only one who knows his true origin story.”
“And anybody who had suspicions back then would have said something or let it go,” Galen said. “It makes sense.”
“He was a property owner,” I pointed out. “He could have owned the property under an assumed name, then returned twenty years later under a different name and pretended he was the son of the original owner.”
“It’s something to investigate.” He didn’t sound convinced.
“Wouldn’t someone have recognized him?” I asked, already seeing the holes.
Galen held out his hands. “Maybe, but everything in his file suggests he was a loner. No one knew him very well.”
“Except Jareth.”
“It doesn’t sound as if Jareth knew him very well.”
I thought about it for several seconds longer, then shook myself out of my reverie.
“Dhampirs can regenerate, but not at the same levels as vampires. Their powers are reduced in the sunlight. There are conflicting statements in the book that suggests dhampirs stop aging at eighteen, but I don’t think that’s right because everything in the DDA file on Declan suggests he looked to be in his forties when he arrived on the island. ”
Galen tapped his fingers on the table as he took it all in. “Maybe the rate of aging is so slow that it takes twenty years to age a year. If he’s been alive for a hundred years and looks to be about forty … .” He trailed off, leaving me to decide.
“I guess that part doesn’t matter,” I said. “Obviously I’m going to have questions for him when we’re face to face.”
Galen’s smile disappeared in an instant. “I prefer that not happen.”
“I’m getting my grandfather back.” There was no give to my tone as my voice ratcheted up a notch. “You can’t ask me to leave him over there.”
“I am not asking you to.” Galen was matter of fact. “I’m trying to figure out a plan that doesn’t involve you facing off with a serial killer vampire.”
“Dhampir.”
“One is not better than the other. Vampires are superhuman. Even if Declan has only a fraction of the power Jareth has, he’s still dangerous.”
“And he has my grandfather.” I swallowed hard. If I thought about Wesley too much, my eyes started to burn. “My grandfather was taken to use as bait against me.”
Galen licked his lips. “Or because Declan was obsessed with May.”
It wasn’t as jarring to hear it this time. “We don’t know that.”
“We don’t know that he was taken because of you.”
“That plane door was hexed to draw me in specifically.”
“Or Declan didn’t realize May was dead and it was aimed at her. Why else put it on Wesley’s ranch? You don’t live out there.”
“May didn’t either before her death.”
Galen raised a finger. “That’s true. But if Declan were to search for May’s soul — a standard way of casting a locator spell — where would it have led him?”
I didn’t want to answer that question.
“You’re the center of my world, Hadley,” he continued. “But Declan could very well be looking for May.”
“But we think May is with Wesley,” I said. “He already has her.”
“Does he? Maybe he doesn’t realize she’s a ghost. Maybe May went to the other side, realized what was going on, and is hiding from him. She could be over there plotting against him.”
I liked picturing that. May was a force to be reckoned with. Still, there were holes in his idea. “I saw my mother. If that was Declan glamouring himself, how does that play into the May thing?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Declan is making up the rules as he goes along. Maybe he had one plan to start and pivoted.” Galen leaned closer and stared directly into my eyes. “We need to be smart about this so he doesn’t get what he wants.”
“I won’t abandon Wesley,” I insisted.
“We’re not abandoning him,” he assured me. “Wesley would not be okay with you getting hurt attempting to rescue him. If something were to happen to you, he would never get over it. You’re the last living member of his family.”
Wesley had lost his wife and his daughter. Sure, the great love of his life was still hanging around as a ghost, but he’d lost her in life. I really was the only family he had left.
“I won’t sacrifice myself for no good reason,” I promised.
“You’re not going to sacrifice yourself at all.”
“I’m going to get my grandfather back.” Some people, including Galen, called me stubborn. They were right. “I’m going to figure out a way to get him back and make sure Declan doesn’t get over here. I don’t know how, but I am.”
“We’re going to do it,” he corrected. “We’re a team. I need you to remember that.”
“I could never forget.”
“We have other members on our team too,” he added. “It’s wise to utilize their strengths on this one.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“I don’t know yet, but we’re going to figure it out.