Borderline (The Arcadia Project, #1)(28)

I went through yesterday’s makeup ritual, trying to convince myself that it was a little easier this time. I used styling wax to make it look like my hair was messy on purpose, and even tried on a pair of earrings before I started feeling a -little too much like crying. I sponged a bit more makeup on my left arm and decided that was as much whitewash as this mud fence could handle. I went to the living room to wait.

Caryl arrived at one minute till four, looking as put-together as always. After a brusque greeting, she handed me a pair of glasses like Teo’s. “I am lending you these,” she said. “If you behave yourself, you can keep them.”

I took them in the hand that wasn’t holding my cane and slipped them on, noting once again the odd purplish-green haze that surrounded Caryl. “I’d rather have a phone,” I said. At this hour I sounded almost as hoarse as she did.

Elliott attached himself to my shoulder, and Caryl pressed a fat file folder into my hand. “Familiarize yourself with that during the drive,” she said, and headed for the door, giving me little choice but to follow.

“Does this mean I’m back on the case?”

“For the moment.”

“This file . . . I actually get kind of queasy if I try to read in a moving car.”

“Then bring a bag if you like,” she said, “just so long as you bring the file.”

I got into the car, belted myself in, pushed the glasses to the top of my head, and settled the folder into my lap, watching Caryl as she backed out of the driveway. “What kind of a name is Vallo?” I said. “Italian?”

“My father is Czech-Indian and my mother is of Moroccan Berber descent, if that satisfies your need for ethnic categorization.”

It didn’t, really, and then Caryl turned on some baroque harpsichord music at a punishing volume to discourage further small talk. Reading was hard enough for my rattled brain at the best of times; now I was squinting in the narrow glare of a reading light, trying to block out complicated melodies and keep down a bargain-brand bear claw.

To keep myself from ruining Caryl’s leather seats, I mostly looked at the pictures. Some were stills from a recent film I had apparently missed due to either being in an anesthetic coma or locked up in the loony bin. There were reviews tucked into the file, too; they mostly praised John Riven’s ability to look stunning in various kinds of light.

From what I could pick up between long, restorative bouts of staring out the window, Rivenholt had been visiting our world regularly for forty-seven years, and every decade or so he changed his human identity. He always favored pale hair and skin and always appeared to be in his late twenties to early thirties.

“Hey, Caryl,” I said over the music. “Is it possible that Rivenholt could have changed his face since you saw him last?”

“Not without returning to Arcadia to replenish his essence, and not without a human’s help.”

“Because they don’t really get what we’re supposed to look like.”

Caryl nodded, then turned up the music a bit more. I took the hint and dived back into the file.

The viscount’s latest persona, John Riven, was the only one who had dabbled in acting; the rest had stayed out of the limelight aside from being occasionally photographed as a “close family friend” of the Berenbaums. His earliest alias, Forrest Cloven, had almost no paper trail at all and only one photograph, taken by the Project itself in 1971. None of his four faces really resonated with me the way the drawings had. They weren’t him.

I was overcome by an urge to look at the drawings again, to study them, as though somehow I could solve the mystery of this man by following the strokes of his pen.

“Did Teo give you both the drawings?” I half shouted at Caryl. “I want to see them.”

She turned the music down: a small victory. “You’ll destroy them,” she said.

“Then give me the one I already destroyed.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” I said irritably. “For the file.”

She kept trying to give me one of her long, searching looks, but it was hard to do while driving in the dark. Finally she gave up. “Open my purse for me, but do not touch its contents.”

It was an odd little bag, held together with leather straps and wooden rings. I managed to wrestle it open and presented it to her. Slipping my glasses back over my eyes, I saw the faint glow of magical objects inside the bag. I also noticed that Elliott was curled up in my lap as though dozing.

Caryl, surrounded by that odd dark haze, felt around for the drawings without taking her eyes off the road, then handed me the one that had been crumpled and folded and drained of its magic. I snatched it from her with a little thrill.

“Why did you hit Teo?” Caryl asked me before I had even unfolded the paper.

I tensed, glad the glasses hid my eyes. “I thought he already talked to you about it.”

“I want to hear your version.”

I proceeded carefully, not sure what he’d told her and not wanting to contradict. “I was rattled,” I said. “Dr. Davis would call them ‘vulnerability factors.’ I had just walked in on Gloria screaming at what’s-his-name, and then I went up to Teo’s room, which was all cramped and dirty, and I was feeling kind of . . . trapped. I overreacted, and I’m sorry. If I had access to a phone, I could keep up my coaching with Dr. Davis; it’s very helpful.”