Borderline (The Arcadia Project, #1)(95)

A chorus of assent followed her question, though Teo’s response was sullen. He was normally the first one spouting the rulebook at people too. I was going to have to find a time to figure out what was really eating him. Even I wasn’t narcissistic enough to think that our argument could put him in this deep of a funk.

“When are we heading out there?” I said.

“Now,” said Caryl.





44


“Now?” echoed Teo in disbelief.

“What did I say about giving orders twice, Teo?”

Teo scowled, rising from his chair. “Did it ever occur to you that some of us might have social lives or something? I gotta go make a phone call.”

“Sit,” said Caryl. “Your phone is in your pocket, and I don’t want to waste more time herding stray sheep.”

I took a cue from that and dialed Inaya, hoping she’d be as cooperative as I’d implied. I greeted her by name when she answered, glancing around the room to make sure everyone noticed. Teo wasn’t paying any attention, of course; he had his own phone out.

“I need you to get us on the lot tonight,” I said to Inaya.

“No problem.”

“There are a bunch of us, so we might want a van or something.”

“We have a van,” interrupted Caryl.

“Never mind the van,” I said. “We’ll come pick you up, and then you can just deal with security and keys or whatever when we get there.”

She replied something about private security, but I lost most of it because Teo’s voice had risen to a distracting volume, as though he were talking to someone in a noisy bar.

“A bunch of people from my stupid job are going down to Manhattan Beach tonight,” he was saying, “and they decided to drag me along. We’ll have to have that drink later.”

“Could you hold just a moment, Inaya?” I said as sweetly as I could, and then put my hand over the phone. “Teo,” I said. “Can you lower your voice, please?”

Teo flipped me the bird.

I turned to Caryl, gritting my teeth. “Can we not just leave him here?”

Caryl rubbed at one of her temples with gloved fingertips in a long-suffering way that made it easy to forget she was the youngest person in the room. “I will keep Teo under control,” she said. “Can I trust you to do the same for yourself?”

I wasn’t entirely sure that I could, but I nodded. Act as if ye have faith, and all that.

“Sorry, Inaya,” I said, putting the phone back to my ear. “You think you can get us past the security?”

“Oh, I can do better than that,” she said. “Just relax and I’ll show you some real magic.”

? ? ?

Our ride was an unmarked white van with tinted windows—not suspicious at all. Inaya rode shotgun, and Teo made a point of squeezing between Tjuan and Gloria in the back bench seat rather than taking the more comfortable captain’s chair next to mine. Poor Gloria got up with a sigh and took the chair instead. I watched Caryl calmly maneuvering the great white whale through evening traffic, and it occurred to me that when she had been appointed head of the Los Angeles Arcadia Project, she had been too young to drive without an adult in the car.

“Caryl,” I said, “how dangerous is this, really?”

“I do not know what safeguards they have set up around the Gate,” she said, “but if they are linked to Vivian’s essence and you cannot fully dispel them, we will leave them be. I have no desire to get anyone hurt tonight, especially with National’s eyes on me.”

“Hope your probation works out better than mine did.”

Inaya directed us to the studio’s main entry gate; there was enough room to pull in out of the main flow of street traffic before stopping in front of the unmanned guard booth and drop arm. There was a smaller pedestrian gate to the side; as soon as we stopped, Inaya hopped out and pulled out a set of keys, trying one at a time in the lock. I carefully maneuvered myself into the front passenger’s seat of the van so I could watch and listen.

An energetic young blond guy approached her almost immediately. “Ms. West,” he said with a playful salute. “What brings you here at this hour?”

“Hmmmmm,” she said, considering him. “Can you keep a secret?”

Caryl shifted in the driver’s seat. “Millie—”

“Trust the lady,” I said.

The guard was leaning against the gate in what I imagine he thought was a suave pose. “Keeping things safe is my job, Ms. West.”

Inaya gave him a slow, sly grin. Foxfeather must have recently sprinkled her with fairy dust or something, because even from my angle, that smile set loose a cascade of butterflies in my stomach.

“I’m having a . . . private party for some friends here tonight,” Inaya said. “But we might be doing some things that aren’t strictly, you know—” She paused to make a puff-puff gesture with her elegant fingertips.

“Right,” said the guard.

“I don’t want you guys in trouble about it, so I’m giving you the night off, full pay. Can you radio the others? I want everybody gone till morning. That should give us enough time to clean up, and we can all just pretend this never happened.”

The guard gave her another salute. “Sure thing, Ms. West.”