Banishing the Dark (Arcadia Bell #4)(23)

I took them with the pulpy dregs of my orange juice, then ran my finger through the puddle of cooling syrup on my plate and licked it. “If our waitress doesn’t show up soon, I might eat a few more.”

She was running late, apparently. And neither the cook nor the other waitress had heard the name Robert Wildeye. If our luck didn’t change soon, I didn’t know what we’d do. Walk around town holding up a sign like chauffeurs in airports?

I’d called Jupe after the whole naked, scaly modeling session. The kid sounded a little weird—I think he said “uh” a dozen times during the phone call—but he did what I asked and summoned my guardian. Upon being questioned, Priya informed us he hadn’t noticed my transmutation in the Æthyr. The tarp ward had worked. Whether my mother had noticed, though, Priya didn’t know. All he could tell was that she was still in the Æthyr, she was still on the run, and he was still tracking her.

Better there than here, I supposed.

The diner’s front door squeaked open. Lon and I both glanced at the woman striding into the restaurant. Middle-aged. Curly brown hair streaked with gray. A little plump and a whole lot in a rush. “Sorry I’m late, Carol,” she said, disappearing behind swinging doors for a couple of minutes before reappearing without her coat. Like the other waitress’s, her dress matched the avocado tile floor. She was still tying an apron around her waist when she approached our table with a pencil clamped between her teeth.

Her nametag read “June.” That was our gal. I guessed I hadn’t realized just how enthusiastic I was to finally see her, because I heard a loud crack and looked down to find that my fork had snapped in two, right in my hand. The tine side clanged against my plate as it fell.

“Oh, Jesus,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

June stuffed the pencil in her apron pocket and smiled. “Don’t be. Those things break in the dishwasher all the time. Customers complain that they can’t cut into a steak without bending the knives. The owner is too cheap to buy anything better.” She whisked up the broken fork pieces along with our plates, deftly cleaning up the table as she talked. “Carol said you two were asking for me?”

“Kid at the gas station said you might be able to help us,” Lon said.

“Joey or Henry?”

“Joey,” I lied smoothly. As good a name as any. I didn’t want to get into a Who’s Who of Golden Peak; the sun had risen, so it was now officially my bedtime, and the fake maple syrup was giving me heartburn. “We’re looking for a man named Robert Wildeye. He’s a private detective. Supposed to have an office in town, but we can’t find it.”

“Robert Wildeye?” The waitress scrunched up her nose. “You don’t mean old Bobby Wilde, do you? Not a detective—at least, not to my knowledge. A retired pilot.”

I glanced at Lon and read what I was thinking on his face. Never discount coincidence, and that name was too close to the one we sought. Someone who kept his address secret—and someone who was able to uncover things about my family that an entire army of journalists and cops failed to find—well, someone like that could very well be using another name. Magicians did it all the time to keep their private lives private. Hell, I was doing it right that second.

“He’s a retired pilot?” Lon asked. “Does he have a son, maybe?”

The waitress shook her head. “Never married, no son. And he was a retired pilot—as in, he’s passed on.”

Dammit. I discreetly kicked the table leg. Metal creaked. Loudly. For a second, I thought I’d kicked the leg away from where it was bolted to the floor. This diner was a freaking shambles.

“Maybe this isn’t the guy we’re looking for,” Lon said. “I think he would’ve had an office downtown—”

“Definitely not,” the waitress said. “Bobby hated coming into town. Never was much of a social creature. He moved out here about ten years ago now, I guess. Mostly kept to himself. Had a cabin near the state park. That’s where they found the body in early January. First murder in this area since the late eighties.”

“Murder?”

“Shot,” she said in a low, salacious tone. “One of the park rangers found him in his backyard. He’d been dead for two weeks, and no one knew. At first, they thought maybe a hunter had shot him, but the bullet was from a handgun at close range. Terrible. Scared the whole town to bits. Sheriff said we weren’t in danger, though. Bobby had likely just made the wrong person mad. He had dealings with a lot of the rich folks who build on the mountain.”

“Is that so?” Lon murmured.

“People from L.A. were always heading up to see him,” she said. “My bet is that it was something to do with a debt or money.”

“Usually is,” Lon said.

June smiled, happy to have Lon’s validation. “Anyway, his only family is a brother from Vancouver. He came down for the funeral. Nice man. Little harried and overwhelmed. Said he’d be back in a few weeks to clear out Bobby’s things and sell the cabin. I had to do that when my mother died—estate taxes and paperwork. What a nightmare.”

“I can imagine.”

“Still, the brother will make a pretty penny off that property. Everything on Diamond Trail is selling these days, and Bobby’s land butts up against the old state park entrance. Once the park gets its funding approved, they’re building a nice restaurant and gift shop up there. Oh, the Deacons are here.”