Taken (Ava Delaney #4) (9 page)

After rapping
on the front door impatiently, Esther peered in the windows.
“You’re right.” She lifted her hand to chew her thumbnail. “Damn
it.”

I jerked her
hand down from her mouth, earning a wry smile from her. “She warned
us she wanted to leave,” I reminded.

“I didn’t think
she would be this quick. The place is cleared out, which means
she’s taken everything of Illeana’s with her. Another dead
end.”

“Maybe your
hacker bloke will figure something out. And we’re still looking for
witnesses. Don’t worry.”

She brushed her
hair from her face. “It’s just so frustrating. We’re getting
nowhere fast.”

“Illeana didn’t
figure everything out, either. We just have to keep pushing.”

We walked back
to the car. The wind picked up and blew Esther’s loose hair all
over the place. We sat while Esther fumed silently for a few
moments.

“We’re going to
keep looking while you’re gone,” I said, trying to cheer her
up.

“It’s not that.
I’m just… what if we find out something big? About someone in the
Council or something. I mean, how do we even start accusing
them?”

I turned in my
seat. “We’re all in this together. If something comes up, we’ll all
deal with it. Besides, you have Aiden on your side.”

“What if he
doesn’t believe me?”

“He’s your
brother. You’re more important than some stupid Council.”

She raised a
brow.

“Oh, give me a
break. They aren’t doing anything amazing in the world, you
know?”

She nodded.
“But they’re in charge. They have power, alliances. Even if we do
uncover something, it could go badly wrong.”

“You can back
out,” I said quickly. “But I’m not going to.”

She tapped the
steering wheel and stared into the distance. “I can’t,” she said
finally. “I need to find out what’s really going on.” She started
the engine. “Besides, if it all goes well, I could get a
promotion.”

I shook my
head, but I understood her point. She had gotten everything because
of her brother. Her home, her money, her job, her respect. Shifters
grew up fast, but in a world of ancient beings, a shifter of her
age was still considered a pup, or in her case, a cub. If she could
prove herself without Aiden’s help, nobody would ever be able to
discount her again.

“Can you drop
me off at the bar?” I asked. “I need to talk to Gabe.”

“Yeah, no
problem.”

She drove off
quickly once she dropped me off at the bar. Inside, I was surprised
to see Callista with Gabe. He handed her an envelope and gave her a
tight hug. He saw me watching and frowned. His lips moved, and
Callista turned to face me, her cheeks flushing red.

I strode
straight over to them. “I’ve just been to your house,” I said
before either of them could speak.

“I’m going home
to be with my other sisters. The city has been nothing but bad luck
for us.”

“Esther still
has questions for you,” I said.

“I don’t have
any answers,” she insisted.

Gabe laid his
hand on her arm. “Maybe you should save your questions.”

“I have more
respect for Illeana than that,” I snapped. “We’re trying to finish
your sister’s work here, Callista. If you have anything to tell us,
now is the time. Please.” I softened my voice the way Carl did when
he tried to get through to someone, and miracle of miracles, it
actually worked.

She nodded,
wiping away fresh tears with perfectly manicured hands. “You’re
right. And I will keep in touch. I’ll call Esther if I remember
anything, I promise you. But all I know is that when the Council
sent me her belongings, some items were missing. My sisters are old
fashioned, but Illeana wasn’t. She embraced modern technology, yet
none of her gadgets were amongst her things. Even her handbag and
purse were missing. I don’t… I don’t really understand it.”

Gabe frowned.
“I was telling Callista that they were probably kept as evidence.
We’re still investigating those attacks, after all.”

Callista looked
confused. “I don’t understand how they could be of any help.”

“It’s okay,” I
said. “We’ll figure it out. Don’t you worry.”

She squeezed my
hand briefly. “Thank you. I… thank you for doing this for her.”

Gabe hurried
her out of the bar, suitcases and all. When he returned, I was
sitting alone, thinking hard.

“Are you trying
to make my life more awkward?” he asked impatiently.

“What the hell
is going on? Who is doing this?”

He sat down,
looking weary all of a sudden. “I have no idea. And I have a
feeling we won’t know until we’re supposed to.”

“You have your
suspicions though, right?”

“Too many.
That’s the problem.” He squeezed the bridge of his nose.

“Esther told me
she was making sure that Illeana’s family received all of her
belongings. So someone involved with the Council took them.”

“Looks that
way,” he admitted. “Why are you here?”

I frowned. “I’m
not sure anymore. I mean, you obviously don’t have any answers
either. Except… do you think it’s a good idea to send volunteers to
the UK right now?”

“How else are
we going to find out what’s going on? Our people over there haven’t
made contact in a month. We need to figure out what’s really
happening.”

“The BVA mean
business,” I said. “The twins, the ones who hosted me in Liverpool,
they were pretty sure that the vampires wanted in on this election.
They’ve been trying for over thirty years. It sounds like they
would be pretty pissed over this.”

“It’s not our
concern.”

“It is if
they’ve been working on making creatures like Becca. Their own
slaves reckon they have big plans. As in, ‘create an army of beasts
and drop them in the middle of their enemies’ kind of plans.”

He looked more
tired than ever. “That’s their business, Ava.”

I snorted.
“Yeah, until they decide we’re one of their enemies. Think about
it. What if Gideon’s been making secret alliances with them all
along? He gives the best locations, helps them out, and they make
him king of Ireland or something. It makes sense when you think
about how arrogant and devious he is.”

“He’s not that
stupid, or rather, he isn’t that clever. Gideon’s being watched
constantly, don’t worry. Do you ever stop thinking?” But he smiled,
and I couldn’t resist smiling back. Gabe was beautiful, even if he
was the fakest creature I had come across yet.

“Nobody can
stop thinking,” I said. “Why am I working for you in secret?”

He seemed taken
aback. “Because it could be dangerous for everyone to make this
public.”

I laughed. “I’m
pretty sure everyone knows what I’m doing. The questions make it
kind of obvious.”

“There’s a
difference between making it official and making it a poorly kept
secret. The best way to keep your enemies on their toes is to let
them hear half-truths, so you can watch them try to figure out the
lie. This way, I get to see how the rumours affect those around
me.”

He gave me a
knowing smile. “And if we get somewhere, my rewards will make it
all worth it.”

“For you.”

“For me,” he
agreed.

That evening as
I walked home, I tried to sort everything I knew for sure in my
head. It wasn’t a lot. But I knew, if I kept asking questions, that
I would eventually find what I was looking for. As I entered my
cul-de-sac, I heard a shrill voice calling my name. Dita. I turned
and paused, seeing her mother following her closely.

“Hey, kiddo,” I
said when Dita ran up to me. “Where you been?”

“We went to the
zoo,” she said, her eyes bright with excitement. “What did you do
today?”

“Boring grownup
stuff,” I said, giving an exaggerated eye roll.

She laughed,
and her mother joined us, shifting her weight from one foot to the
other.

“How are you?”
I asked, pleased to see the bruises on her arms were rapidly
fading.

“We are good,”
Anka said, her accent making her words sound harsher than her
expression seemed to intend.

“Can I talk to
you about some things?” I thought she would say no, but it didn’t
hurt to try.

She gazed at
her daughter and nodded. “Fine. Dita, go ahead and wash your hands.
We eat soon.”

Her daughter
made a face as she took a set of keys from her mother, but she ran
ahead obediently. Anka led me as far as the gate, and then blocked
the way with her body. “I don’t want to hear a lecture,” she
said.

“I’m not… I
wasn’t going to give you a lecture. I just wondered if you knew any
more about the markets. Anything at all.”

She shook her
head. “We can’t talk about those things. I’m grateful for your
help, but─”

“Please.
Anything you can think of that might help. I won’t keep bothering
you about it, but I’m stuck for new leads. I have to do what I can,
you know?” I attempted to look unassuming, even a little
vulnerable.

She made an
exasperated sound, and I tried not to smile triumphantly. “All I
know is that there are more powerful beings than us in charge. That
much I learned in my mother’s presence. Favours, money,
alliances—all can be bought with a useful child. Nobody cares about
people like us. We have no friends, no power. We aren’t pure.
That’s why you, of all people, need to keep your nose out of
it.”

She turned
abruptly and headed for her house. At her front door, she paused
and turned. “But if anyone is capable of finding it, I hear you
have the right skills.” She slammed the door behind her, and I was
left standing there, a chill running down my spine at her
words.

The next
morning, I had breakfast with Carl at Eddie’s bookshop, partly so I
could whine at how little we were getting accomplished, and mostly
so I could ignore the incessant ringing of my phone. Every now and
then, my grandmother got it into her head to call me. Over and over
again. I had answered the calls for the first couple of days,
thinking something was wrong, but she had only wanted to beg me to
come over to see her. I wasn’t interested. I didn’t tell Carl that
though. I just stuck to the current story.

“It’s not that
we aren’t trying,” I said. “It just seems like we’re blocked at
every angle. I mean, I’ve been looking online almost constantly
trying to find witnesses.”

“Maybe we’re
looking too far afield,” he mused as he perused websites on his
laptop.

“What do you
mean?”

“We still have
Peter.”

I shrugged.
“So?”

“So he’s a
witness, and he went through something pretty traumatic. Maybe he’s
forgotten details or whatever.”

“Well, if he’s
forgotten them, how are we supposed to make use of him?” I
asked.

“What if we
spoke to someone else who was there that night? Like a police
officer or something?”

I stopped
chewing. “Do you think they would even talk to us?”

He shrugged.
“Who knows? But it’s worth a try.”

“’Course it is.
Wanna come with?”

His face lit
up. “Yeah. After I finish?”

We agreed to
meet when his shift was over. He was in charge of calling ahead to
see if he could find anyone who had attended the scene.

I walked home
and figured I should make use of the next few hours to check out
the rest of my leads. With an aching neck, I went through incident
after incident, struggling to find a witness. Near the end, I got
lucky.

I called
Esther. “I’ve found someone, but they’re in England.”

“Seriously?
That’s pure luck, Ava. I could go see them when I’m over there next
week.”

“They’re way,
way down south though.”

“So I’ll go
earlier than the rest of the Circle and join them when I’m finished
with this lead. We could be on the way to something here.”

“Let’s not get
our hopes up just yet. He’s an elderly man. He might not even be
alive, never mind still remember anything useful.”

She laughed.
“It’s better than the nothing we had yesterday, so I’m looking at a
half-full glass here.”

By the time I
met with Carl, I was feeling a little more optimistic.

“That’s
fantastic,” he said when I told him. “Even if it’s just to hear
them confirm what we already know, at least we’re getting
somewhere.”

“I suppose. Are
you sure about this though?” I gestured at the police station. It
wasn’t Peter’s local one, but Carl had discovered that one of the
officers who attended the scene was dead, and the others had been
scattered around the country. Only one remained in Dublin, and he
was who we were about to see.

“Look, we’ll
never know if we don’t try.” He shifted his walking stick
awkwardly. “Let’s just talk to him and see what happens.”

I followed him
reluctantly. I didn’t really want to face a Garda, especially since
the time I had basically mind-screwed one who had stopped Peter and
me on the way home one night. The station was tiny, and the phone
wasn’t ringing much, but we still had to wait fifteen minutes
before someone opened the hatch and took our query.

“We’re looking
for Garda Whelan,” Carl said, standing up with difficulty.

The Garda’s
face tightened. “That’s Sergeant Whelan,” he said snappily. “And
he’s on a break.”

“It’s all
right, Andy,” a voice said from behind him. “I’ll handle it.”

The hatch was
shut hastily, and a door to our left opened. A tall Garda stepped
through, a smile on his face. “I’m Sergeant Whelan,” he said, his
voice a soft mixture of Kerry and inner-city Dublin accents. “Can I
help you?”

Carl and I
exchanged glances.

“We’re looking
for information on an incident you attended about nine years ago,”
I said. “Two grandparents had their necks broken, a mother’s throat
was slit, and a toddler─”