It Never Rhines but It Pours (30 page)

I shrank back a little. Man did she freak me out when she looked like that. I tried to get a grip. Sitting on the floor and wailing was helping nobody. “You’re right,” I said, and pulled myself to standing, using her shoulder. “First I have to make sure that I’m not overreacting. Let’s go check out Carolyn’s house.”

Cecily smiled, a freaky vampire “the better to eat you with” smile. I suppressed a shudder and charged back into the kitchen.

“Someone might have kidnapped my daughters and I need to go check that they’re not still safe at their grandmother’s right now,” I announced.

There were looks of shock all around. “Who kidnapped your kids?” Annabeth asked.

“I don’t know,” I said grimly, “but I intend to find out.”

“What do they want?” Floyd was practical. “Money?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I think they want me to either quit looking for the murderer or drop out of the USB.”

“Murderer? USB?” Floyd was lost.

I sighed. “I don’t have time for the long explanation. The short one is: the USB is the United Nations of magical beings. All of us here are members. Cecily and I work for them, covering up any magic accidents or crimes that could expose magical beings to humans. We were supposed to execute a witch for murder, found out he was innocent, have been trying to clear his name, run out of possible suspects, and are hours away from being executed ourselves for failing our job.”

Floyd’s mouth dropped open. “There are more creatures than just skunk apes?”

I sighed again. “Catch up quick, Floyd, or I’m leaving you behind.”

“What kind of creatures?” He was stuck like a broken record.

I thrust my feet angrily into my flip-flops and scooped my purse up off the counter. “Werewolves, vampires, shape-shifters, Fae, selkies, witches, you name it. It’s real.”

“Werewolves? Vampires?” Floyd was deep in his mental rut.

Cecily turned on him with a snarl. Eyes black, teeth elongated, face soulless and hungry like a great white shark. “Believe it, accept it, and help, or I’m tying you up in the garage until Sarah can deal with you again.” She looked at me, a question in her eyes, “Or I can fix this permanently. Now.”

I didn’t even bother giving her a look. How many times did I have to say not to kill people? “I’m driving over to check out my mother-in-law’s house. Annabeth, can you and Harry stay here in case she comes by?”

Annabeth nodded weakly, and Cecily and I were out the door. Floyd staggered after us, “I think … I’ll stay here and talk to Annabeth,” he said hesitantly.

“Fine. I’ll call if we find anything.” And we were in the car and on the road before I could really even think about what I was doing. I didn’t want to think. I wanted to feel numb. I wanted to be cold and logical and be able to act quickly and decisively. Breaking down wouldn’t help my little girls. I didn’t know if action would help either, but at least it was a chance.

Cecily wisely stayed quiet for the drive. Carolyn’s elegant townhouse was normally a ten minute drive away. That day I made it in less than seven. As we pulled into the perfectly manicured subdivision, I felt sure I was overreacting. I have been known to do that in the past. How could anything have happened in a place that would look at home on the cover of
Better Homes and Gardens
?

I parked in the pavered driveway on Carolyn’s half of the attached townhome, and was out of the car before the engine had totally switched off. My fear came back in a tsunami wave that almost knocked me to my knees. The front door was open. Carolyn would never leave the front door open.

“Carolyn?” I called, bursting through the door. “Anybody home?”

There was no one home. Cassidy’s stuffed elephant was lying on the sofa in the living room. The lunch dishes were still on the counter. A gigantic dollhouse with hundreds of rooms of toy furniture was in the middle of the floor, half set up. No Carolyn. No Megan and Cassidy.

I spun around at the sound of a footstep behind me. It was Cecily. She looked grim. “There’s a car parked in the garage,” she said softly. “Two booster seats in the back.”

I chocked back a sob and ran to see. Carolyn’s car was parked neatly just as Cecily had said. No sign of her or my daughters.

“There’s no sign of a struggle,” Cecily said helpfully as I came back into the house. “Nothing broken or knocked over. No blood.”

I shot her a venomous look. “That’s supposed to make me feel better?”

She looked down at her feet. An embarrassed vampire; what a novelty. “What do you want me to do?” she asked.

I reached out and gave her a hug. She stiffened at first, then hugged me back. “I’m sorry,” I sniffed. “I’m glad you’re here. I’m just really scared.”

She pulled back out of the hug to arms length and looked me straight in the face. “We’ll get them back, Piper. I promise you.”

I nodded, quick and forceful. “We will.” There was no other option. I would accept no other option. I would hold my girls again, alive and safe, and all would be well. That was the only way that this was ending.

“What now?”

I thought for a moment. “We need Sarah. If we find where the girls are being held, we’ll need all the help we can get. Let’s go pick her up, then go back to the house to think.”

I closed the front door behind us and drove across town at a slightly slower speed. The last thing I needed was to be pulled over for a speeding ticket right now. As we turned a corner I caught sight of Cecily’s face. She was thinking hard.

“What?” I asked.

She frowned. “Are you going to quit?” she asked.

“Quit?”

“Yes. Your mother-in-law said they would be returned if you quit.”

I shook my head. “I’m not quitting. Quitting is not an option.”

“But your daughters!”

“What about them?”

“Quitting is the easiest way to get them back safely.”

I stopped at a red light and turned to look at her. “Easiest, maybe. Or maybe I quit, and we’re all executed by the Synod and then humans are hunted to extinction. Or maybe I quit and never see my girls again. How can I trust the word of a kidnapper? No, the only option is to hunt whoever it is down and get my girls back myself.”

She relaxed in her seat. “Good.”

“Good?”

“I wasn’t sure what you would do. It’s your family. Sometimes people are too close the situation to be able to make the best decision.”

The light turned green and I gunned the van forward. “Believe me,” I said bitterly. “If I thought that there was any chance that some scumbag kidnapper would return my children unharmed if I cut off my right hand, I would do it. But quitting puts us
all
in danger, so it’s not an option. If I give in to blackmail now, I’ve doomed not just my family, but everyone’s family.”

Cecily nodded. “Then we’ll just have to find them.”

I pulled into my parents’ driveway and was relieved to see my dad’s car in his usual parking space. I motioned Cecily to wait in the car and loped up to the front door. I’d left the van running and had to knock instead of using my key.

Dad opened the door. “Hey, Piper!” he greeted me with a hug.

“Hi, Dad. How’s Mom?”

He shook his head. “She’s resting. Sarah says she has no idea how your mother took the wrong pills, but the doctor says that it will wear off. What a weird reaction though! It’s almost like she’s gone crazy!”

I laughed nervously. I wasn’t sure what Sarah had told him, but it sounded like a pretty good story. “Umm, can I borrow Sarah for a bit? Sister stuff.”

“Sure,” he smiled. “I can hold down the fort here. I’m glad you two are reconnecting.”

“Yeah, it’s great, Dad.” I trotted down the hallway to pound on Sarah’s door. I opened it without waiting for her to answer and took in the pigsty. Sarah belonged to the school of thought that believed that if everything was out on the floor you never had to look for anything. True, sometimes you mixed up your piles of clean and dirty laundry, or stepped on something sharp or breakable, but it was a real time saver.

Sarah was flopped on the bed with her pillow over her face. “I need your help, Sarah,” I said urgently.

“Uh-huh,” she grunted. “Like you needed my help this afternoon when you ditched me and Mom. Do you have any idea of how tough my day has been?”

I snatched the pillow off her head and tossed it on the ground. “I don’t have time for this. I’m sorry you had to watch Mom, but we’ve got bigger problems now.”

“Bigger problems?” she sat up, hair disheveled. “I had to slip Mom four sleeping pills before she would stop knocking holes in the walls with a hammer to see if there were any hidden alien listening devices. I had to wear a tinfoil hat on my head all day so she wouldn’t try to tinfoil the entire house to protect me. I had to
lie
to Dad about how she took the wrong pills and had a bad reaction. Don’t talk to me about problems!”

I almost jumped on the lying part to point out that she should be used to lying to Mom and Dad by now, but I restrained my big sister impulse and said instead, “Megan and Cassidy have been kidnapped.”

Sarah’s jaw snapped shut. “Oh. Let’s go.” Somehow, she found her shoes under a pile of towels and quickly ran a brush through her hair before tossing it on the floor. She pulled her silver bracelet out from under a stack of school books and jammed it on her arm. It might look like a disorganized pig pen, but she was ready to go in under thirty seconds.

We were back in the car and on the way home before anyone spoke again. “So, what happened?” Sarah asked.

Cecily filled her in quickly and her first idea surprised me. “Why don’t you get Harvey to track them?”

“Harvey?” My dog? The one with an IQ slightly higher than a twig’s?

“Yeah. Take him over to Carolyn’s and command him to track the girls.” Sarah seemed to think it would work.

“Sarah, this is the dog that can’t find a piece of cheese dropped on the floor unless you point it out to him. I don’t think he has any bloodhound in him.”

Cecily tapped her lips with a finger. “
Harvey
might not have the greatest sense of smell …”

The same idea hit me. “… but Annabeth does!”

“Annabeth?” Sarah obviously hadn’t been paying the closest of attention to Cecily’s quick recap.

“Previously, in the life of Piper …” I said in a radio announcer’s voice.

They both stared at me like I’d gone mad. Maybe I had. “What?”

“Nothing,” I hunched my shoulder defensively. “Annabeth is our skunk ape friend who’s staying with Cecily for a few days.”

“Oh.” Sarah blinked. “You really think she can track down Megan and Cecily with her nose?”

“You thought that Harvey could do it,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, but Harvey is a dog. They’re supposed to be good at smelling.”

“They’re also not supposed to pee in the house, but tell that to Harvey,” I said dryly.

“She smelled that Piper is pregnant,” Cecily said.

“Have you checked yet?” Sarah asked.

“Not yet,” I focused on the road. “I haven’t really had the time.”

“We make the time,” Sarah said wisely.

“Thanks, Dr. Phil,” I snorted. “I’ll remember that next time I have to choose between running to the store for a pregnancy test or hunting down a murderer.” I blinked back some tears. “Or trying to find my daughters.”

“And your mother-in-law,” Cecily added.

“And my mother-in-law,” I agreed, less tearfully.

Sarah took a breath to say something then stopped.

“What?” I prompted.

She took another breath, let it out slowly, then said, “It just doesn’t make sense.”

“What doesn’t?”

“Why kidnap Carolyn and the girls?”

“To get me to quit.”

“Quit what?” Sarah met my eyes in the rearview mirror. “It’s not like we’re close to finishing this job. We have no leads. No clues. And unless we kill Pravus, we’re out of the picture in a few days anyway.”

I thought about it. “You’re right! We did something to trigger this. Someone thinks we’re getting too close. Why else try to stop us like this? Why not just wait until the Synod stopped us permanently?”

“You’re sure that the witch guy in the freezer was a dead end?” Sarah asked.

“He smelled pretty dead to me,” Cecily quipped.

“So, where does that leave us?” She looked from Cecily to me, expectantly.

“I don’t know …” I trailed off. Something was not making sense here. Maybe if I thought it through aloud, starting at the beginning. “The Synod tasks us with executing Pravus. He says he’s innocent. Lie Detector Boy says he’s innocent. We try to find the real killer. It’s not Annabeth. It’s not the freezer guy. We’re out of leads, and almost out of time. The Synod is going to step in and have the Guardians get rid of us. Then, Carolyn and the girls are kidnapped and I’m warned off.” I shook my head. “It just doesn’t make sense.”

I pulled the car up into the garage and turned off the motor. We all sat there, lost in our own thoughts. Suddenly, it came to me. How stupid could I be? Apparently, really, really stupid. Colossally stupid. Insanely stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. I didn’t know that I was bashing my head into the steering wheel until Cecily pulled me back.