Banishing the Dark (Arcadia Bell #4)(44)

He scratched the side of his neck. “Kar Yee is my dad’s girlfriend’s best friend. We just tease each other. It’s just a joke.” Well, most of the thoughts he’d had about Kar Yee weren’t funny at all. In fact, they were downright filthy, but Leticia didn’t need to know that. Nobody needed to know that. “Wait, you looked me up? How come you didn’t friend me?”

She shrugged. “I didn’t know what kind of person you were. I still don’t. I thought you were serious about wanting magical help, but after tonight, I’m not sure you even know anything about it.”

“I do,” he insisted, smelling charcoal and onions drifting in the air from the grill. “My dad can do a little magick. He’s got an occult library that would probably put this one to shame. And his fiancée—”

“I thought you said she was his girlfriend?”

“He bought her a ring, but it’s just been hectic. She’ll say yes.” He hoped. It sure would be easier to say “stepmom” than “Dad’s girlfriend” in situations like this. “She’s the reason I’m here. I need to help her with a big problem.”

“Why didn’t she just come herself?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Like your relationship status?”

“I already explained that.” He motioned to the picnic table. She motioned back for him to sit down, so he crawled up beside her, careful to leave a little room between them. From here, he could see the mass attendees talking and laughing under the strings of fairy lights while grabbing drinks out of a big cooler. A couple of other people were bringing covered dishes out of the lodge’s back door. One of those people was Leticia’s sister, now fully clothed in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt.

That way lies danger.

Fearing a repeat of what had happened to him during the mass, he quickly averted his eyes and glanced down at Leticia’s book. A few words were highlighted. “What are you reading?”

“Nothing you’d like,” she said, shutting off the screen and closing the cover.

“You’re into dragons? Like high-fantasy stuff?”

She shoved the reader into her bag. “Maybe.”

“That’s cool. My best friend, Jack, reads fantasy. I’m a visual person, so I like comics and anime. Movies.”

A long silence stretched between them, until she finally said, “If you want my help, maybe you should start by telling me who your dad’s girlfriend is.”

He sighed. “I can’t do that.”

“Don’t tell me, it’s complicated.”

“It’s—”

“I already know you’re lying, because I looked at all your pictures online. I saw who your dad is. And your mom’s a celebrity.”

“My parents are divorced.”

“I also saw the picture of you and your dad and the owner of that Tiki bar, Arcadia Bell. That’s his girlfriend?”

Jupe felt like he was being led into a trap but was powerless to stop. “Yes . . .”

“I asked my mom if she could look up Arcadia Bell in the lodge directory. And she got all weird and freaked out and wanted to know why I was asking and who you were.”

Crap. That didn’t sound good. “Did you tell her?”

“No.”

Jupe bit the inside of his mouth. “Why do you think she freaked out?”

“I don’t know,” Leticia said, running the heels of her palms over her knees. “But she grilled me about it, and I had to lie and say some kid at school was talking about her. I tried to play dumb, but I’m not sure if she believed me. I don’t like lying to my family.”

“Tell me about it,” Jupe said sourly. “I went to a lot of trouble to get out here again. I’m not sure if I can keep pulling it off.”

After a moment, she said, “My mom told me to leave it alone and forget about it, so I figured it must be important. I sneaked onto her computer after she went to bed and searched the lodge directory myself. It’s a list of every member of the order, since it moved from France to the States in the early 1900s. And no one named Arcadia Bell has ever been a member. No Bell at all.”

Ah, crap. He was torn between being thrilled that she’d gone to all that trouble out of curiosity over him and panicked that she now knew too much. He’d planned on quizzing her about Sélène Duval, not Arcadia Bell.

“Who is she?” Leticia asked.

“I can’t tell you.”

“Fine. Then I can’t help you.”

“Please,” Jupe begged. “I really need your help, but I just can’t.”

She buckled the strap on her messenger bag. “Trust has to start somewhere, Jupiter.”

He thought about everything Cady had told him and how she trusted him to keep her secrets. But then, what did her secrets matter if her mother came down from the Æthyr and stole her body? And then there were Priya’s warnings and his challenge to Jupe. Priya insisted that Cady’s order could be trusted, so it wasn’t as if Jupe would be turning her in to the FBI. Jesus, she didn’t even do anything wrong—why did she have to keep this secret, anyway?

Maybe the better question was, how could Jupe help Cady if he kept her secret and walked away right now? He needed Leticia’s help. And sure, she was pretty and smelled good and had lots of nice curves. Hell, he even liked the way she argued with him. On top of all that, her knee was about an inch away from touching his, and that alone was enough to urge him into telling her anything she wanted to know. But Cady came first, and he really didn’t know what other choice he had. One day, he might have a brother or sister who’d look up to him as a hero, but not if Cady’s crazy mom won the fight.