This also shed light on why my grandparents had never come to claim me. Maud would have fought them tooth and nail to keep me, but she had never had to sharpen her claws. I had no memory of them, I wasn’t sure I had ever met them, but none of that mattered now. As far as they were concerned, I was no one and nothing to them.
“Evie’s relationship with her mother and stepfather was always strained, she never explained why, but I had no idea such extreme measures had been taken. Though this explains why she sought asylum with Maud. Without her family name, no other Society family would have acknowledged her, let alone aided her.”
I sank into one of the rockers bracketing the back door before my legs gave out on me. “Do you think Maud knew?”
“Maud wouldn’t have cared if she had known. She loved your mother fiercely. She wouldn’t have allowed the Society—or anyone else—to dictate the rules of hospitality in her own home.”
Hearing that allowed me to relax enough to push off the planks with my toes. Maud was to Mom what Amelie was to me. “Do you have any idea when they disowned her?”
She hesitated long enough I could tell the answer pained her, and that it would hurt me too. “The day you were born.”
I shut my eyes and focused on my breathing until I was certain I could hold myself together for Odette. “Do they know who…?”
“Dame Marchand swore Evie kept his identity a secret.” Odette paused for a moment. “For what it’s worth, I believe her. The risk of scandal would have been too high for her mother to ignore. I imagine they would have given her the choice of her family or you.”
So much for holding myself together. Fat tears rolled down my cheeks. “And she chose me.”
“She was your maman.” Her voice wavered. “Of course she did. Every time. Always.”
“I appreciate your help,” I said weakly, eager to sever our connection and lick my wounds in private. “I’ll drive out to see you soon.”
“You know where to find me. Je t’adore.”
“Love you too.”
I ended the call and sat there for a while, listening to the night birds and the buzz of insects.
“Things can never be simple,” I complained to the old house. “A phone call to clear up my paternity was asking for too much.” I ground the heels of my palms in my eyes. “Someone must know or at least suspect his identity. We just have to find them.”
The porch light flared in encouragement.
Hinges groaned as Woolly opened the back door, urging me in away from the mosquitoes, and I heeded her advice. After a hot shower to loosen my twinging muscles, I set the plan Taz helped shake loose into motion by dressing in my nicest jeans and least holey top.
I was going to beg Cricket to give me my job back.
I might fail just as hard on this front as I had on all the others, but I needed an outlet, and being a Haint meant something to me. Plus, knocking around the house alone for a week had me bored out of my gourd.
Since Linus hadn’t fitted me with an ankle monitor, and Boaz hadn’t tied me to a chair before he left, I assumed whatever security measures they had put in place after Volkov’s attack comforted them enough not to bother me with the fine print.
The odds were better than good that the Grande Dame had bankrolled a protective detail to skulk after me whenever I left the house. All things considered, I ought to be more grateful, but it took so little to feel cold stone beneath my cheek, to hear my cellmates sobbing, that any restrictions placed on my movements sent spasms through my chest.
Hopping on Jolene was, as always, a revelation. Her steady rumble between my thighs, her roar in my ears, the night stretching long and dark before us, unclenched the spot between my shoulders that kept hitching tighter and tighter the farther I strayed from home.
The sensation of being watched, I chalked up to paranoia that vampires were out to get me.
Except vampires were out to get me. And it was only a matter of time before others joined in the hunt.
The last seven days might have passed in blissful quiet, but only a fool would expect that trend to last.
Reaching HQ unmolested left me shaking with relief. Going out alone for the first time since I had been kidnapped had me jitterier than if I’d tossed back six shots of expresso.
A few of the girls waved or called out to me, but they were on their way to lead tours and couldn’t stop to chat. Depending on how things shook out in the next few minutes, there would be gossip aplenty waiting on them when they got back.
I spotted Cricket Meacham sitting at her desk, victory rolls pinned neatly on top of her blonde head, unlit cigarette pinched between her lips, and marched into her office. Head held high, I listed my demands. Well, demand. “I want my old job back.”
She didn’t glance up from her schedule. “Not happening, honey.”
This nut was going to be harder to crack than I’d thought. “I know I messed up—”
“You’re flakier than fish food, Grier.” She penned in a few more names. “I need guides I can rely on, and that’s not you.” After matching groups to guides, she capped her pen. “Don’t get me wrong, you’re one of the best I’ve got. When you’re here. But you tend to ghost on me, and I only pay for spooks when they’re part of the tour.”
“I was—” imprisoned for five years the first time I bailed and kidnapped by a vampire the second, “—very inconsiderate. I understand that. But I need this job. Please.”
Boredom was a handy excuse, but the truth was all the upheaval in my life had made me desperate for an anchor. Haint Misbehavin’ could be that for me. I loved the work, it kept a portion of my nights occupied, and it allowed me to hang with my friends. The Haints gave me a safe place where I could feel like the old Grier, the one who had a dawn curfew before Maud started making phone calls.
“I can’t help you.” She went back to her paperwork. “Though I will admit I was impressed you bothered to return your costume and accoutrements. Guess you learned that lesson at least.”
Her one requirement for taking me on a second time had been that I pay her back every cent of my previous costume’s worth since there had been no opportunity to return mine after my sentencing. I had been a tad too busy never seeing the light of day again to fret over a few hundred dollars’ worth of skirt and corset. But, as a result, I’d lived on ketchup and crackers at one point to stretch my budget to fit her repayment schedule. For her to say I had returned my things meant Amelie had covered for me.
“I don’t have to be a guide,” I blurted. “Let me help Neely or Dom. There must be something I can do.”
“Dom called in sick.” Her sigh rustled the papers on her desk. “You can scrub toilets for minimum wage if you want. That’s it. That’s all I got.”
“I’ll take it.”
Cricket squinted up at me, noticing my face for the first time. “Damn girl. Good thing you’re not working the beat tonight. Your face is as purple as an eggplant.”
I touched my cheek. “I fell.”
Her humorless snort caught me off-guard. “Honey, that’s what they all say.”
Ducking my head, I figured it was better she thought I was a domestic-abuse victim than if she knew the truth of how I’d spent my evening picking grass out of my teeth. Or maybe the other way around was more accurate. “I’ll go get started.”
“The to-do list is tacked on the wall in the downstairs bathroom.” Her attention settled back on her work. “Use the dry eraser to wipe the board clean, then mark off each task as you finish.” She pointed her pen at me. “And for the love of God, stay out of sight. I don’t want you spooking the victims prior to departure.”
I backed out into the hallway, pulling her door shut behind me, and sagged as relief swept over me.
“Grier.”
I had no time to brace for impact. One minute I was standing there, counting my blessings, and the next a blur of buttery yellow satin torpedoed into my side, knocking me against the wall. “Oomph.”
With her golden-brown hair pinned in a corona around her head and her brown eyes blazing with fury, Amelie embodied a wrathful sun goddess. The matching parasol clutched in her gloved hand might as well have been a scepter given the imperious way she waved it under my nose.