Banishing the Dark (Arcadia Bell #4)(64)

None of that was true.

But unlike him, I was an excellent liar.

“Trust. Me,” I enunciated firmly, pressing my forehead to his. “Everything will be fine.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” I repeated.

“I really do like your eyes all silvery like that.” He’d already told me twice, after freaking out about them when we first pulled up to the house.

“Yeah, well, I’ll like them better if your dad and I can use this new information to stop my mother.”

“Me, too.”

“You did good, kid. Now, go on. Your dad’s waiting.”

He let out a long-suffering breath and eventually broke away to meet Lon on the patio. I watched them through the glass as Lon slid the door shut and talked to him. Lon’s face was intense, but he wasn’t angry. Not in the least. He was talking rapidly, speaking in a voice so low that I couldn’t hear anything through the door. And as he talked, Jupe’s stubborn expression fell away and was replaced by a taut anxiety.

When Lon paused his rapid-fire, one-way conversation, Jupe flicked a look in my direction. Pity? What the hell was Lon telling him?

Feeling like a third wheel, I left them to their father-son conspiracy and brooded my way to the cool oasis of the kitchen. It looked the same as it had when we’d left it, with its white subway tile and Lon’s neatly organized, well-used cooking tools.

I raided the fridge for something to make me feel better and devoured two sweet clementines in a matter of seconds. Thank God for yoga pants; I’d given up on public decency halfway between Twentynine Palms and La Sirena, when I’d forced Lon to pull over so I could change out of those horrible skinny jeans in a McDonald’s bathroom. And with all my newfound stretchy yoga-pants freedom and my grumpy mental state, I decided I didn’t give a damn and ate two more clementines. Lon walked in and caught me stuffing the last segment into my mouth.

As I tossed the mound of peelings into the garbage, I had the distinct feeling he was concerned. Maybe he’d never seen a grown woman attack a piece of fruit as if it was her last meal. But whatever he was thinking, all he said was, “Jupe took Foxglove upstairs for the night, but maybe we should set up camp in the library, just in case he tries to listen in.”

As I wiped my citrus-sticky hands on a kitchen towel, a bottle of vitamins sitting on the counter caught my eye. The label bore a colorful sketch of a woman whose curvy body was filled with fruit and vegetables, so I assumed they were the ones he’d been foisting on me. Idly, I started to turn the bottle around to see it better, but Lon snatched it out of my hand and shoved it into a kitchen drawer.

“You have the page from Wildeye’s journal?” he asked suddenly.

O-o-o-kay. Why was he so flustered? I mean, he didn’t look it. He looked mildly irritated, staring at me with his perpetually narrowed eyes, but that felt like a false front. As if he knew that I knew, he quickly strode off toward the library. “Bring it with you. Let’s look at it again and make sure we’ve covered all our bases. We need to use this time wisely.”

He was probably right about that. I grabbed the journal page out of my purse, then headed past the kitchen into the first floor’s southern hallway. At the end of the corridor, Lon was grumbling at the fingerprint lock as he punched in an override code. “That little bastard’s been trying to get in here.”

I thought about all the dangerous magick Jupe could get his hands on, but Lon confirmed that the break-in attempts weren’t successful. Score one for expensive technology.

Once he got the door unlocked, I shuffled inside, smelling musty old paper and leather. I’d almost forgotten how much I loved the scent of old books. Lon switched on the frosted art deco pendant lights, illuminating the hundreds of rare occult tomes that lined the walls from floor to ceiling. I plopped down on one of two overstuffed armchairs that faced each other in front of an unlit fireplace in the back of the library. Lon took the other seat, eyeing me cautiously.

“What?” I asked, sinking my toes into the soft rug as I slumped in my chair.

“Nothing.”

He seemed anxious, which was completely out of character for him. I studied him as he cracked open his laptop, trying to determine why he was so edgy.

“So,” he said, pausing for a long moment as the computer booted up. “We know your parents stayed in a house here every winter. And we know they shopped for magical supplies at Gifts of the Magi.”

“You knew that shop?”

He nodded. “My parents knew the Pendletons. Not well, just as people around town. The husband died the same year as my father. The wife ran the shop until she passed—four years ago, I think.”

Before I moved to Morella, then. Which explained why I’d never heard of it. “And there were no other occult shops in town?”

Lon shook his head. “That one only survived as long as it did because it was halfway between Morella and La Sirena, which drew business from the city. La Sirena is seventy-five percent Earthbound. Most Earthbounds don’t want anything to do with an occult shop.”

“Makes sense. But it doesn’t help us pinpoint where that winter house might’ve been located.”

“Jupe said all Mrs. Vega knew was that they said it was peaceful, and they wrote there. Your caliph never gave any hint whatsoever when you moved to California that your parents vacationed here?”