Chapter 39
SARAH
She’s gone. My baby girl was brought here to this awful place, locked up in a cell, and now she’s gone again. And for some reason I’m not going to look at too closely right now (because if I do I might lose control altogether), I can’t track her anymore.
Maggie’s chewing her lip. ‘We found her in the first place because I knew what road they’d taken. We could narrow it down by location. But by now they could be anywhere, and your magic can’t locate her.’
‘I can locate someone else,’ I tell Maggie. ‘If I can’t trace my daughter, I’ll damn well hunt down whoever’s got her.’
‘Luka won’t be with her,’ the cop says, doubtless thinking of the wayfinding teddy bear that first guided her to him and drew Harper into this nightmare.
‘The guard was clear they were held and processed separately. And Luka’s mom would probably stay with him.
I reckon Theodorou’s our best bet. His car’s not here. Maybe he’s even taken Harper home.’
‘No.’
I can feel it in my bones. Now these vipers have got my daughter, they won’t let her go. So imagine my surprise when Maggie gets on the phone to Chester, insistent he pull up the GPS log of Theodorou’s vehicle – and we discover its most recent trip was to Sanctuary.
My cranky old Plymouth Sundance groans as it tries to keep up with Maggie, while she floors it toward the GPS location where Theodorou stopped.
I’ve not cracked open the window to even a little gust of hope, until I see where our turns and crossings are inexorably taking us.
There is the pink ship’s buoy hanging from a tree, even though the girl in this house is way too old to swing on it anymore.
The enamel mailbox is still covered with birds and flowers, though the name has been repainted.
Just Perelli, now. There’s an ache that Harper asked to be brought to Bridget, rather than to our house, but I tell myself it’s simply because I warned her to stay away.
‘I guess they really did only want Luka,’ Maggie says, as we meet on the sidewalk.
Maybe Harper thought it was time she and Bridget and Izzy spoke about Pierre.
I can’t imagine what scene we’re about to interrupt and wish I could leave them to talk it out, but the urge to hold my child, to check every inch of her for the tiniest scratch, is simply too strong.
I hurry up the steps and hammer on the door.
‘She’s here?’ I demand when Bridget opens the door. ‘Harper?’
‘Harper?’
‘The police brought her here.’
‘No.’
Bridget’s wary, keeping the door half closed. I’m shaking. Whatever I expected, it wasn’t this. My magic presses violently at my fingertips, urging me to hex Bridget and force the truth out of her, as I did to the jailers at that detention centre. I’ll do it, too, if she doesn’t start talking.
‘Theodorou?’ I prompt, giving her an opportunity to do this the right way. ‘Bridge, please don’t do this. Does she not want to see me for some reason? Fine. I’ll go away. But please, tell me she’s here and she’s safe.’
‘Why doesn’t she know?’ Bridget says, eyeing Detective Knight, as she steps over her threshold and pulls the door shut behind her.
Maggie shrugs. ‘Because Theo’s gone over to the dark side?’
‘I won’t leave till I know she’s okay, Bridget. I know you still hate me because of Pierre, but—’
‘It’s Luka. Harper isn’t here. The cops brought Luka Ortiz.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
Why would Luka be here? Why would he have been released, but not Harper?
Bridge has been holding her shoulders up warily, but now they slump with exhaustion. Once, I would have known my cue to wrap her in my arms. Now, my feet stay rooted.
‘Sandra called to say something’s happened that’s really upset him, which she needs to sort out, and asked me to keep an eye on him.
Officer Theodorou and some woman lawyer turned up with him and I was horrified by the state he was in.
Looked like he’d been crying his eyes out.
I signed some paperwork saying I wouldn’t let him off the property, and he signed agreeing he wouldn’t try to leave, but his hand was shaking so bad he could barely do it.
I gave him some Ambien and got him under the covers in the spare room.
I should be there now, keeping an eye on him. ’
‘You’ve got him sleeping in your house? When you know what he did to those people – to Bea?’
‘He was a victim, Sarah,’ Bridget says flintily. ‘Other witches preyed on him to vilify his mom. Your boyfriend Lachlan was probably the ringleader.’
I recoil, suddenly unsteady. How can I trust the ground beneath my feet to stay firm and solid, if I can’t trust my oldest friend to do the same?
‘Mom?’
The door swings open softly and Izzy’s standing there, wearing a cartoon-cute oversize T-shirt, her hair tied up in puffs and one of Bridge’s many elderly cats in her arms. She takes more after her dad in looks than her mom, and my eyes start to well up.
‘Go back inside, honey,’ Bridget tells her.
‘If Harper’s in trouble, we need to help,’ she says. ‘Sarah, please tell her I’m sorry for everything I said. I was just so sad about my dad, and that she didn’t – couldn’t – save him.’
I could hug her for that self-correction. Abigail, Julia, and I, back when we were all still a coven, thought Izzy a little na?ve. Childish, Abigail would say in her sharply pitying way. But there’s real maturity in her now. It breaks my heart to know grief has put it there.
‘Harper would have given anything to save him, if she could,’ I tell her.
Pierre – who died getting Harper away from those who would have registered her, and filed her into their databases, and given her wild, unruly Gift the leaden label of witch. Of malef. His death is for nothing while she’s still in danger.
‘Ortiz didn’t bring her son herself,’ Maggie says. ‘So I’d bet my tiny and heavily-mortgaged house she’s still with Harper. Could something of Luka’s help you track his mother, Sarah?’
It’s a good idea, but I shake my head. ‘Not unless she gave it to him. It’s something belonging to Ortiz herself I need. Did he turn up with anything like that, Bridget?’
‘Sarah, I can’t …’ my friend says. But her daughter has already poured the cat onto the floor and darted away upstairs. When she returns, it’s with a chic and not-at-all Izzy-ish silk scarf in her hand.
‘She was here for dinner last week,’ Izzy says. I remember what I saw through the window, and avoid glancing at Bridget with all the hurt in my eyes that I couldn’t show then. ‘I told her it was really pretty, and she just took it off and gave it to me.’
She edges gently past her mom and holds it out. I’m not sure what I’ll be able to do with a scrap that Ortiz has wrapped around her neck a few times for show. Generally, there needs to be a real emotional attachment. But I’ll make do with what I’ve got. A few resources from my workroom might help.
‘Thank you,’ I mouth at Izzy, and her half-smile in return is so like Pierre’s I flee to my car, Maggie at my back.
On my passenger seat, my phone is spasming.
It did that several times on the drive here, but I ignored it to get to Bridget’s faster.
Throwing down Ortiz’s scarf like it turned into a snake, I snatch up the phone.
Naomi, halfway through leaving a voicemail.
‘… keep calling you but … Oh, Sarah?’
‘I really can’t right now.’
‘No, you need to hear this.’
‘You don’t understand,’ I say. ‘Ortiz has Harper. They had Luka, too, but he’s been released into a family friend’s care.’
‘How did he seem?’
There’s a weird urgency to Naomi’s voice. She’s profoundly rattled. But whatever’s eating her is less important than me getting to work tracing Ortiz.
‘I didn’t see him. Apparently, he’s in bed, overwrought and stuffed with sleeping pills. Sorry, Naomi, but he’s not my priority right now.’
There’s an appalled hiss from the Moot investigator at the other end of the line.
‘The Moot Ledger updated an hour ago. He’s showing as null.’
‘Null?’
My throat closes right up after that one hollow syllable. Null. Magical divestment. They’ve torn away Luka’s Gift.
‘But Harper was with him.’ I force each narrow word out, and it hurts as bad as vomiting nails.
‘There’ve been no other updates other than a death registering itself,’ Naomi says, adding quickly. ‘Some ancient witch down in Texas.’
‘That could simply be because the Moot never recorded her as having magic, so she’s not on the Ledger,’ I say. ‘Luka was Determined and added to it after his arrest, right?’
‘Look, Sarah, I need to see you urgently,’ she persists. ‘A lot has happened here at HQ. I’ll come to you if necessary. I can drive it in just over three hours.’
‘I’m going to my workroom,’ I tell her. ‘But as soon I’ve discovered where Ortiz is, I’ll be gone.’
‘I’ll risk it,’ she says. ‘This is important. It’s about Charles Okoye and Simeon Barr. And you.’