“Make it go away,” I said stiffly.
The mirror vanished.
I didn’t belong here. Nothing good could come of my presence. Sure, I could ask V’lane to make me pretty and clean with glamour and drop in for a visit, but what would I say? What could I hope to accomplish? And wouldn’t every minute that I remained here potentially invite unsavory attention my parents’ way?
After all I’d been through, after all I’d seen, I still couldn’t come home.
There was a whole world out there in trouble. My mom and dad were safe. I felt a sudden rush of gratitude toward V’lane and turned to him. “Thank you,” I said. “It means the world to me that you protected them.”
He smiled, and I think it was the first real smile I’d ever seen on his face. It was blinding. “You are welcome, MacKayla. Shall we go?” He held out a hand.
I would have taken it, should have taken it, but just then I heard voices.
Cocking my head, I listened. My heart constricted. It was Mom and Dad. They were on the screened lanai that overlooked the pool in back of our house. Dense bushes at each side afforded privacy from our neighbors.
I could go press myself into the holly branches and, shielded from their gaze, catch a glimpse of them. I was starved for a glimpse of them.
I slipped off my MacHalo, dropped my backpack and gun. “In a moment,” I whispered. “You stay here. I’ll be back.”
“I deem this unwise.”
“Not your decision. Back off.”
I slipped into the shadows near my home.
“We’ve been over this again and again, Rainey,” my dad was saying.
I wedged quietly into the bushes and stared hungrily.
Mom and Dad were sitting on white wicker chairs on the lanai. Mom was sipping wine, and Dad was holding a glass of bourbon. I hoped he wasn’t drinking too much. There’d been a bad time after Alina had died when he’d slurred too often for my comfort. Dad’s not a drinker, he’s a doer. But Alina’s murder had fried us all. I absorbed my mom’s face greedily. Her eyes were clear, her face gently lined and beautiful as ever. My heart swelled with emotion. I ached to touch her, hug them both. Daddy looked robust and handsome as ever, but there was more silver in his hair than I remembered.
“I know it’s dangerous out there,” my mom said. “But I can’t stand this not knowing! If I just knew for certain she was alive.”
“Barrons said she was. You were here when he called.”
Barrons had called my parents? When? How was his phone working? Damn, I wanted his service provider!
“I don’t trust that man one bit.”
Neither do I, Mom. And I slept with him. My face heated. Sex and Mom are two thoughts that don’t fit comfortably in my head at the same time.
“We have to go to Dublin, Jack.”
I silently willed a thousand “no”s in my mom’s direction.
Dad sighed. “I tried to go back. Remember?”
I blinked. He had? When? What had happened?
Mom pounced on it. “My point exactly, Jack. You believe that man hypnotized you, planted blocks in your mind that prevented you from bringing her home, forced you to leave, and is somehow keeping you from going back—you couldn’t even get on the plane, you got so sick—but the moment you left the airport you were fine. Three times you tried to go! Yet you accept his word that our daughter is okay?”
You could have knocked me over with a feather. My dad knew Barrons had done something woo-woo to him and actually believed it possible? Daddy didn’t believe in woo-woo things. It was he who’d taught me an abject rejection of all things paranormal. And he and my mother were calmly sipping their drinks, discussing this stuff?
“We can’t go over there now. You heard what the scouts told Officer Deaton. Fae reality has gotten mixed up with ours. The few airplanes that have taken off have either come crashing down in flames or disappeared.”
“What about a private charter?”
“What good will it do if we die trying to get to her?”
“We have to do something, Jack! I need to know she’s alive. No, I need more than that. We have to tell her. You should have told her then, when you were there, when you had the chance.”
Told me what? I pressed deeper into the shrubs, all ears.
Dad rubbed his eyes. I could tell by the look on his face that he and Mom had been having this conversation a lot lately. “We promised we’d never talk about it.”
I nearly beat the bushes with frustration. Talk about what?
“We made other promises we broke,” Mom said pointedly. “That’s what got us into this situation to begin with.”