“Uh, no, actually I wanted to talk to you about something.” Facing her beaming eagerness made bringing up the Web site that much harder. Made it hard to believe the drunken girl I’d seen on the Internet and this one were one and the same person.
Finally, I just said it. “I saw the Web site.”
“Oh.” She picked up the brush and dabbed at a spot where the old institutional green was leaking through the purple. “Do you like this color? I thought about pink. It’s my favorite, but Harmony didn’t think it was a good idea.” She wrinkled her nose. “I’m not sure why.”
“Because of the baby?”
She patted her stomach. “What about him?”
“Him. He’s a boy.”
The wrinkle morphed to a full-face frown. “I know.”
I took a breath, then let it go. The kid was going to be the first boy in history raised with a family of Amazons-a pink or purple bedroom was sure to be the least of his differences.
I paused, wondering if he, like many Amazons, would inherit skill sets from his grandmother. Pisto was a warrior and Dana a hearth-keeper. I had no idea which was more common in their line. Could a boy be a hearth-keeper? Of course, common belief was that males didn’t inherit any of the Amazon strengths, had normal mortal life spans and no powers; skill sets or lack of them should follow this same rule…
“Is it okay if I paint the furniture too? I was thinking white.”
Purple walls, white furniture…if the boy did get a skill set, I prayed to Artemis it was warrior. Or maybe on his thirteenth birthday I’d just gift him with a badger tattoo like the one Nick had been drawing. He’d need the added toughness to survive junior high.
Dana picked a plastic bag off the floor and pulled a white lace baby gown and bonnet from it. “I got this from Goodwill. What do you think?”
I rethought the tattoo. It would take more than a badger to handle the ribbing this kid was going to endure, even in liberal Madison.
“Pretty. I might have some of Harmony’s old stuff stashed somewhere too.” And none of it was pink or frilly.
“Really?” Dana pulled the gown to her chest and twirled. “I can’t believe how happy I am. Nothing could ruin this. Nothing.”
Just hearing those words made me cringe inside. I’d felt that way once, but I’d learned that things had a horrible way of twisting around and around again until the one worst thing you never dreamed would happen did.
And current times were far from certain. Still, I wasn’t going to stamp on Dana’s fluffy image of life. Maybe she was right. Maybe her life would be perfect from now on.
“About the Web site. I was wondering if you could tell me who put it together.”
“Oh, the one of our tattoos? I really don’t know. We went to a couple parties after the bar closed, and someone was passing around a phone. Most of the pictures we took ourselves.”
“You didn’t even know whose phone it was?”
She picked up a roller and started coating the wall in purple. “Didn’t seem important. It was just for fun.”
Fun. Some fun. I couldn’t help myself, my “mother” voice kicked in. “You know you shouldn’t show people your givnomai.”
Dana frowned, almost a scoff. “Everyone does.”
The importance of guarding your givnomai had been pounded into me by Bubbe, into all Amazons by their elders, I had thought. Yet another example of teenagers deciding they knew better. I wanted to shake Dana, then and there. Shake Alcippe or whoever had fallen down and not warned these girls about guarding their givnomais too. Of course, it went past that, showed how much the Amazons needed to change. The world was changing; if the Amazons didn’t change with it, they would be destroyed by enemies they never knew existed.
Who was I kidding? That’s exactly what was happening. I made a mental note to talk to Zery, to insist she get the older Amazons educated on today’s technology and the benefits and dangers that could come with it.
I tightened my jaw and resisted my desire to lecture Dana until I ran out of words and voice. I knew from experience with Harmony that reaction would just shut her down, make her see me as the enemy rather than the cool friend she could trust. And for now I needed to be that friend.
I let it go.
“So, how’d you even find out the pictures were on the Web?” I asked.
She took a step back to admire her work. “Same way. People at a party were talking about it.”
“But no one claimed the page.”
She filled in a spot of white with a quick hard turn of the roller. “Not that I heard.”
I left her alone, happy and sucking up paint fumes. She had been very little help, except to tell me she was no help so I could move on to step B-whatever that was.
Back in my office, I stared at the computer screen. I had told myself if I couldn’t figure out who had set up the page, I’d call the police-Detective Reynolds, to be exact. But now old loyalties were warring with that resolve.
Should I talk to Zery first? What if she didn’t want to tell the police? But if I couldn’t think of a way to track down the page’s owner, how could Zery?
I toyed with calling the social site and demanding their assistance, even went so far as to click around their “contact” page. There were all kinds of links to report abuse, but none that indicated they’d be willing to reveal who had set up a page. I had a feeling it was going to take a lot more than one parent’s outraged call to get that information out of them, especially since the pictures in question would garner at most a PG rating.
Which brought me back to Zery and Detective Reynolds. I was savvy enough to realize calling the detective would focus his attention back on me as a possible suspect-not that his attention had wandered too far from that direction anyway. I also realized Zery was stubborn enough and arrogant enough to refuse to let the police into what she saw as Amazon business. Knowing the queen as I did, she’d put together some kind of war party, march to northern California, and storm the site’s corporate offices first.
That would be lovely-computer programmers held hostage by a troop of six-foot-tall Amazon warriors.
Amusing as the image was-it also rang horribly possible.
I jerked open my desk drawer and rummaged for the card Reynolds had given me on his first visit.
So far as Zery was concerned, better to ask forgiveness than permission. Okay, not so much with a warrior; you might not survive the forgiveness stage. But since I was damned sure I wasn’t going to be gifted with permission, it was the only option left to me.
I picked up the phone.
Detective Reynolds was in.
“I found something I think you need to see,” I said, my eyes focused on the bear telios. If I concentrated on the girls, I wouldn’t think so much about how angry Zery was going to be when she found out I’d gone to the police before her.
“Really?” He sounded bored, but it was an act. There was a little lift on the “L” that gave him away. “And what would that be?”
“You near a computer with Internet?” At his affirmative, I read off the URL. “Scroll down to the third row, then over two pictures.”
“How’d you find this?” Tense-not bored at all.
“A client sent it to me. She liked one of the tattoos and wanted to see if I could replicate it. I recognized the bear and leopard from the pictures you showed me.” Peter had tried the story with me and it hadn’t worked. Didn’t mean it wouldn’t work with Reynolds.
“Quit the bullshit.”
Or not.
“You’re welcome,” I replied.
“Welcome, my ass. When are you going to come clean? Who are these girls and why won’t you tell me?”
Amazons, and because it wasn’t really my secret to give up. But maybe it was time, and maybe I could convince Zery of that…maybe.
I twisted in my chair and turned my back to the tattoos on my screen. For some reason I couldn’t face them right now. “I didn’t know those girls. I swear that.”