“Do you want me to come with you?” Gabriel asked. If he’d been on duty, it’d have been him opening the gate anyway.
“Let me see who it is first,” I said.
From the huge windows at the front end of the house, I could see down to the gate even from the second floor. A cherry-red Mustang was parked by the gate. And the young blond woman who was just stepping up to the bars was familiar enough that my breath caught in my throat.
Gabriel glanced at me. “You know her?”
I managed to nod. “That’s Caroline Almeida. Her parents are some of my father’s—and the Frankfords’—closest colleagues. What the hell isshedoing here?”
Chapter Four
Rose
Caroline Almeida sat primly on the same settee Investigator Ruiz used less than an hour ago. She looked so polished with her impeccably subtle make-up and the crisp cut of her blouse over her tailored slacks that it was hard to feel she’d take me seriously as lady of this estate. I was still in my dress that was rumpled from casting, my hair mussed after my snuggle with Gabriel. For a few seconds, I was taken back to those teenage years when I’d wandered around the witching get-togethers in Portland feeling gawky and out of place.
Then Caroline rubbed her mouth with a brisk motion of her hand, her eyes twitching away from me and back, and I realized at least part of the reason she looked so stiff was nerves. She didn’t know what to expect from me either.
“Oh, hey, another visitor?” Naomi said, ambling in. “Nice to meet you! I’m Naomi.”
Caroline went even more rigid, but she accepted Naomi’s handshake. Her gaze shot back to me.
“She’s my cousin,” I said. “Anything you’d talk to me about, she can hear too.” I turned to Naomi with a meaningful glance. “This is Caroline Almeida. Her parents have done a lot of work with my father.” Then I added, to Caroline, “Do you want to tell me more about why you’re here?” She’d been pretty vague when I’d gone to meet her at the gate, but intense enough with some sense of purpose that I’d let her in.
I knew from our stolen files that her family supported the Frankfords, but that meant they were bound by the oath not to harm us either. Andmyfamily, on my father’s side, was linked too, so I couldn’t make any definite judgements based on that. We’d just have to be very careful what we said around her.
And obviously she felt she needed to be careful with us. Fair enough.
“I just…” She hesitated, her hands clasping in her lap. “I’ve gotten the impression that there’s some kind of conflict between you and my parents—and other people they do business with. I know they won’t tell me what’s going on. But I’ve heard enough that I’m worried. So I was hoping we could talk, and you could tell me your side of things, and that would at least give me a starting point.”
Wow. What could she have heard that would have made her come to me instead of approaching her parents directly? Or maybe she had approached them and the way they’d dismissed her had made her suspicious?
I couldn’t help thinking of the struggle I’d gone through accepting my father’s guilt a month ago. But I’d accepted the truth in time.
“There’s only so much I can say,” I said. The oath prevented me from even mentioning there was an oath. “I’m not on the best of terms with several families in the witching community. I don’t agree with certain things they’ve been doing. And my father tried to control my consorting in a way that would have really hurt me.”Thatcrime I’d uncovered more than a month before I’d taken the oath.
I braced myself for her to ask for proof. I couldn’t have provided it to her any more than I could have to Ruiz. But she simply nodded. “These families had some kind of plan that you were supposed to participate in?” she said. “Or that you interrupted?”
“A little of both,” I said.
“That faction had the enforcers loyal to them chasing her all the way across the damned country,” Naomi broke in. “They almost—”
Her voice cut off before she could get into any actual criminal actions the Frankfords’ people had taken. The oath I’d taken bound her too, just as much as it protected her and the rest of my family.
Caroline worried her lower lip under her perfectly white teeth. “But everything—everything got sorted out?”
Naomi and I exchanged a look. “Not exactly,” I said. “But everything that’s not, I can’t talk about. I’m sorry. Believe me, I wish I wasn’t in this position.” I paused. “Whatever you heard, it must have been pretty serious. Did you come all the way from Portugal?”
“We were staying with extended family in San Francisco for the month,” Caroline said. “I guess that’s why… They didn’t realize the acoustics of the house…” She grimaced. “I don’t know what to think. I hardlyknowanything. And if you can’t tell me anything else…”
An idea lit in my head like an extension of my spark. “Your parents probably have more answers. Even if you’re not comfortable talking to them, if you looked through their files—on paper, or on the computer—you might be able to put the pieces together. That’s how I caught on to what my dad was doing.”
She gave me a small wry smile. “I tried that already. As far as I can tell, Charles and Helen Frankford are in charge of whatever’s going on, and they handle all the, ah, paperwork. It’s sounded like they’ve tightened up their personal security even more in the last few weeks.”
I might not be able to say much about the Frankfords, but my expression must have shifted. Her gaze sharpened. “You know about them too.”
“I can’t talk about it,” I said quietly. It didn’t surprise me at all that they’d have beefed up their security, though, after my unsparked consorts and I had breached it and nearly exposed their entire horrific conspiracy.
“Okay.” She looked down at her hands and then back at me. “I think you might still be in some danger. I’m sure you’re already looking out for yourself. And I don’t know if my parents are involved in that at all—I hope not. I just wouldn’t have felt right not saying something.”