After a whirlwind romance I sort of instigated by realizing, while on a date with a certain guy, that Dawna would make a much better girlfriend for him, she was going to become Mrs. Christopher Gaetano. Being engaged definitely agreed with her. She was practically glowing with joy.
I was happy for her, but thinking about it made me all too aware of the absence of John Creede from my life. “There’s too much to talk about without coffee. Besides, if you have a minute, there are a couple of things I’d like to discuss with you.”
“Uh-oh. That sounds ominous.” Releasing me, she gave me a wary look and turned away to shut the door.
“It’s not bad.” I gave her a smile. “I promise.”
“Good. You head on upstairs. I’ll forward the phones to the service and pour coffee.” She gave me a gentle push toward the stairs, followed by a shooing motion that was almost identical to the one I’d given the gulls.
“Thanks, Dawna.”
“No problema.”
The familiar words brought back my smile—a smile I held on to clear up until the moment I was standing outside the open door of the empty office on the third floor where John Creede had created the magical wine currently sitting undrunk in my beach house. Though he’d had other offices, he’d rented this one to be close to me while we were dating. The room was empty now; the floor was damaged where someone had pulled up the temporary flooring that had been where he’d performed his magic.
He was really gone.
Shit.
I blinked back tears. I was not going to cry, damn it. Absolutely not. I’d done what I had to do. I really did believe that. I’d do it again. But it didn’t make it hurt any less seeing that empty office, remembering when Mexico had started to really go wrong.
“What do you mean you reassigned him?” I kept my voice down. The office door was closed, but the walls of the building were none too thick and I didn’t want anyone overhearing this argument.
“I decided I needed to have Jorge help with the spell work on the vans.”
“You decided you needed? And you didn’t see any reason to check with me first, even though I’m the one in charge? Humberto was depending on Jorge to watch his back, and I assigned Jorge to him precisely because he could cast a protection spell in case there were booby traps. Which there were, so now I’ve got an injured man. What the hell, John!”
John gave me “the look.” It was an expression I’d seen far too much of over the past couple of weeks: superior to the point of condescending. The men had seen it, too. It was undermining my authority with them and with the clients. People had begun to run my orders past John before actually following them, and to obey his orders before mine. That was unacceptable.
He spoke carefully, as though addressing a child … or at least that was how it felt. “You hired me for my expertise.”
Really? When did I say that? “No, Creede, I hired you because you have good men and good equipment, and I thought you were capable of following orders. Apparently I was wrong about the last part.” I spoke softly, but my voice was cold enough to frost the windows, despite the Mexican midday heat.
His face darkened, anger making his golden eyes, filled with magical flame, flash menacingly. “We both know you needed to hire me, Celia. You’re not qualified to handle this kind of project. Bodyguard, sure. But a full-fledged evacuation with a multiperson crew? I can’t believe you agreed to handle the evacuation without a soul to back you up. Remember, you called me. Hired me to cover your ass so you didn’t embarrass yourself in front of the clients.”
Embarrass myself? Embarrass myself? Oh, no. Oh, so fucking no. “I called you because you had people available. Maybe I didn’t mention you weren’t my first choice. I called because your business has sucked lately. Remember that part? That I said on the phone I wanted to do you the favor of a quick paycheck? But screw it. You’re fired. Get your Miller & Creede people together and get your butts back to L.A.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” he said in a dangerous, venomous whisper. I could actually feel the power of his magic building in the room, rising like scalding water.
I met his eyes without flinching, without backing down. “I’ll have Dawna cut you a check for the days you’ve actually been on the assignment.”
In a fit of pique, he’d taken both vans and all the contractors except Maria, Luis, and Lorenzo. It had floored me that he would risk people’s lives that way. Totally unprofessional.
And very likely unforgivable.
But I’d gotten them all out. By myself. The only person who would be embarrassed by that was John Creede. The tricky part was going to be figuring out how to get the word out that I’d succeeded without “taking the credit.” That little bomb hit me as I stared at the empty room.
“Celia.” Dawna’s voice brought me back to the present. “Are you okay? You look … odd.”
I didn’t feel odd. I felt hurt, sad, humiliated, and pissed. John and I had been fairly serious. I’d really thought he respected me as a person and as a professional, and that we’d be able to work well together. Apparently I’d been wrong. It hurt. A lot.
She passed me over a cup of steaming coffee. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not yet.” Again, maybe never.
The eyes that met mine were worried. “Okay.” She sounded doubtful. “If you say so.”
“I do.”
I was spared further discussion by Ron’s baritone bellow from downstairs. “Dawna!”
“Oh hell,” she muttered. Ron may not be my favorite tenant, but Dawna loathes him. Of course, since she’s the receptionist, she bears the brunt of most of his bad behavior. More than once he’s driven her close to quitting or to violence. He thinks his law degree makes him superior to the rest of us mere mortals. He’s an autocratic, demanding bully, but he pays his rent on time and ponies up for building maintenance without too much complaint, so I’ve put up with him.
I laughed. “Good to see some things haven’t changed. Go. I’m all right.”
“But we were going to talk.” She cast a filthy look at the staircase.
I knew she didn’t want to go down there. I couldn’t even blame her. But it was her job. Like it or (obviously) not. “We will. Later. Go.”
With a huge sigh, she flounced down the stairs and back to work.
Later was a lot later. Ron kept Dawna hopping all morning and I wound up having an unexpected visitor.
“I need you to find my daughter.”
The sunlight streaming into my office through the balcony windows wasn’t being kind to the woman seated across the desk from me. Laka is from the Isle of Serenity, home of the Pacific sirens, and usually she looks lovely, thanks to her Polynesian coloring and features and a wide, easy smile that can light up a room. But she wasn’t smiling today and there were lines of worry on her face, which I’d never seen before. She was dressed simply and wore no makeup, her hair pulled back in a thick braid that hung down her back. She looked old and tired. Then again, she probably was. Sirens can live a long time, and if her teenage daughter, Okalani, was missing, Laka probably wasn’t getting much sleep.
I weighed how to respond. I’d met Laka’s daughter a couple of years earlier when I’d been on Serenity on business. Okalani had a remarkable talent—she was a strong enough teleporter to be able to transport groups of people. She’d saved my life, and the lives of a lot of other people, using that gift. And while she had an attitude problem—what teenager doesn’t?—I’d kind of liked the kid.