Gone With the Witch (32 page)

She finally found the brick school trimmed in granite with teal doors—retro meets new millennium—and recog
nized the elaborate escutcheon at its peak. Out front, buses
made a never-ending line. Storm checked her watch. Only two o'clock, but it felt like ten at night. What a long day: getting up at Becky time, losing the man she loved, and now, after all that, here she was about to stage another rescue. She hoped.

Storm parked behind the buses and waited for the end of-day school bell.

The first
ru
sh of students separated into bus lines like ants at a picnic. One by one, the buses pulled away.

The rest of the students came out in a second assault, racing in every direction. Pepper was, clearly, the odd girl
out, a misfit like her, trailing behind the wild legions, alone,
dragging her heels and her backpack, as if she dreaded the thought of going home. Or maybe that was wishful think
ing. Storm lowered the power window on the passenger
side. "Pepper?" she called. "Need a ride home?"

Pepper's bright red head came up fast. "I didn't dare believe it, but you did come!" She came to the window and
leaned against the car door, not so much the sulky kid with
attitude that she'd been a couple of days before.

"I take it you're glad 'I came back?" Storm asked.

Caught with the electric fence around her feelings unplugged, Pepper checked her enthusiasm and worked up a little attitude. "I could care less." She shrugged. "Why did you?"

"I wanted to spend some time with my baby sister.”

“
Cut the baby crap" Pepper slung her bag over her shoulder and stepped away from the car.

"Okay," Storm said. "I'll come clean, though we

shouldn't
be having this conversation until I talk to your mother—"

"Your
mother."

"Right, her.
I hoped you might want to come home with
me ... for a trial visit."

"Not interested." Pepper walked slowly down the side
walk, and Storm drove the car as slowly beside her.
"Why not?"

Pepper huffed. "No thanks. I'm always on trial. I'd be afraid to burp wrong and get shipped back."

Storm keyed into Pepper's negative vibes, and they
spelled insecurity in caps. "What's the usual threat?" she asked, playing a hunch.

"Boarding school."

"Forget the trial, then. Vickie didn't try us out when she
took us in. She just kept us and set down some rules."

Pepper stopped, opened the car door, got in, and heaved
her backpack over her head into the backseat.

Warlock yowled.

"Hey, you have a cat!"

"You mean
,
he's not dead or concussed?"

Chapter Forty-Four

•

"HEY, he's in a cat car
ri
er, and 'I didn't know he was there. Sorry, Storm kitty."

"Warlock.
His name is Warlock, because he's black.”

“Great name for a Storm cat." Pepper crossed her arms. "What kind of rules?"

"Be nice to our cats. Go to school."

"I love cats, and I'm too young to argue about school, except..."

"Except?"

"Can I go to public school?"

Storm thought about the possible pitfalls for a rebel like Pepper. "I'll trade you private school for public school with
rules."

Pepper slapped her plaid skirt. "I knew it. Let me out."

Storm hit the childproof locks. "Here's the thing: The
minute you start using the skills you learned at your
mother's knee, like theft, deceit, or any I haven't yet discovered—"

"Like treachery, extortion, and blackmail?" Pepper
asked.

"Yeah ... like those." Storm did a double take
an
d
hoped she was joking. "Felonies, misdemeanors—or any
behavior inappropriate to a ten-year-old," Storm said, "and
I'll transfer you from public to private school, but not to a boarding school."

"Deal," Pepper said.

"I'm not done. No
goth
in junior high. In high school, if
goth
is your thing, you'll have my support."

"Sounds like we're thinking long-term here," Pepper
said.

Storm guessed she was, which surprised her, but she
was impulsive, and stubborn,
an
d
as tentatively pleased as Pepper.
"If you like
Salem."

"I will. Let's go"

"Whoa. We need your mother's permission first. I'm
never kidnapping anybody again."

"Marvelanne wouldn't care if you did.
Again?"

"She's your mother:' Sto
rm
said
. "
She needs to okay this.”

“
She's
your
mother, too.
Again?"
Pepper said. "You'll

never
kidnap anybody
again?"

Storm rolled her eyes. "It was more of an abduction
than a kidnapping, and he was a consenting adult, more or less, and 'I
know
that you and 'I have the same mother."

"Sucks
doesn't
it?"

"The word
sucks,
among other peppery curses, will also be put in cold storage until high school."

"Tell me about the abduction
."

"Sure, when you're twenty-one" Maybe by then she'd
be able to talk about it without getting choked up. "How about I take you to your house, then I'll d
ri
ve over to see
Marvelanne at the casino,
an
d
if she says
it's
okay, I'll
come back and take you home with me?"

Pepper turned to face her in the seat.
"For how long, precisely?"
She picked up Storm's purse.

"That's up to your mother. How long would you like to
stay? We have two other sisters, Harmony and Destiny,
and a half sister on my father's side, Vickie, who'll adopt you, too."

"Adopt?" Pepper looked up from ransacking Storm's purse.

"We're getting ahead of ourselves. Is that what you
want? You want out of here that bad?
For good?
How old are you?"

"Thirteen."

"Pepper..."

"Okay, twelve."

"Pepper?"

Her sister huffed. "Eleven.
Exactly.
Tomorrow.
'I didn't mean to be pushy. If you really wanted to take me home with you, you would have asked your mother first."

Storm took her birth control pills from Pepper's hand, dropped them in her bag, and put it behind her seat. "You mean I would have asked
your
mother."

"No:' Pepper said
. "This sister stuff has its perks.
I'll
never have to think of Marvelanne as
my
mother again.
I'll be happy to think of her only as
yours."

Storm couldn't blame her. "I came here first because I wanted to know how you felt before I asked Marvelanne, but 'I guess you just answered my question."

"So now you know. How long can I stay?"

"I thought I'd take you home and we'd see if you like it.
If you don't, I'll bring you back. By the way, you can come
visit your mother anytime"

"Your
mother.
No thanks."

Storm hadn't thought that a kind of peace would settle in so soon after losing Aiden, but she and Pepper seemed
to belong to each other. Pepper needed her, and she'd dis
covered that she liked being needed. She was tired of being
the third twin with little purpose besides shock value.

Maybe Pepper was the reason she'd been lured to
At
lantic City
in the first place. Not to find her mother, but her
sister. "Let's go. Direct me to your house."

It was little more than a shack. The view: a parking lot
of stretch limos surrounded by more shacks. Pepper started
the chores on her list,
then
she showed Storm around the
winterized old summer house. The decor: early dump, except

for
Marvelanne's bedroom, and all the gorgeous clothes stuffed in her closet.

"I don't think your mother would like it if she knew
we were rifling through her things."
Her expensive things,
Storm thought.

"She wouldn't, because she wouldn't want anybody to know how much child support she spends on herself."

Storm and her sisters had lived in dumps growing up,
but their father had been a better mother than Pepper's, and
he'd spent less money on himself than on them, even with the booze. "I'm off to see your mother."

"Your
mother."

"Yours!"
Storm said. "I know. Let's call her Destiny's mother?"

"Works for me.
I'll pack while I wait"

"You'll have to unpack if Marvelanne won't give you
up."

"Storm, let me give you some advice," Pepper said.
"Tell her she can keep her lucrative child support scam,
and she'll ship me out so fast your head will spin."

"You're ten years old, Pepper, not thirty."

"I'll be eleven tomorrow."

Storm ruffled her paprika screw curls. "Let's see if we can make it a good birthday."

The minute Storm walked up to the cocktail waitress in the cool, noisy casino, Marvelanne looked up at her and said, "No.
Absolutely not!"

Chapter forty-Five

"YOU don't even know what I want," Storm told the
mother she almost wished she hadn't found, except for the fact that she found Pepper as a result ... at Marvelanne's instigation, come to think of it.

"I know
who
you want," Marvelanne said. "
Pepper,
and you can't have her. The answer is still no."

"Why not?"
Storm asked. "You won't miss her. And if you didn't want me to take her, why did you introduce me
to Pepper in the first place? This was a setup. We both
know it."

"I need to talk to a lawyer," Marvelanne said.

"Good idea." Storm fished her cell phone from her
messy purse and called Destiny. "
Des,
let me talk to Reggie. I need the name of the lawyer handling her custody suit."

Marvelanne reached over and flipped Storm's phone
shut. "Don't you understand? Pepper's father is stinking
ri
ch!"

"And you don't care that Pepper is stinking miserable?"
They were gathering an audience among the high-stakes

slot
players, so Marvelanne took Storm's arm and pro
pelled her outside.

Storm found the contact surreal. Her mother had just touched her for the first time since the day she was born,
and she felt ...
nothing ...
except the heat of the July sun
on her head and the cool rush of air-conditioning escaping out the casino doors.

"Where would you take Pepper?" Marvelanne asked.
"If
I let you take her."