Revenge and the Wild(53)

“All we need to do is take it to the foundry and have the key made.” The metallic screeching that had once accompanied his words was gone now that his mask was repaired, and the hum of his breath was less noticeable too.

“Where’s Bena?”

“Here.” The voice in Westie’s ear caused her to jump.

“Sonofabitch,” she said, and grabbed her chest. “Bena, stop scaring me like that!”

Bena replied with a smile.

“Now what?” Alistair said.

“Now we wait for an opportunity to break in. Do you think Nigel fell for your angry act about me being seated next to James?” Westie said to Alistair.

“He bought it,” Bena answered for him as she casually flipped through the pages of a medical book on Alistair’s dresser. “If there’s one thing that Nigel knows will get under Alley’s skin, it’s a handsome boy like James Lovett looking after you.”

Westie and Alistair blushed equally, as if a blood main that connected them had burst.

Westie cleared her throat. “Thank you for your help, Bena. You’re always putting yourself on the line for me.”

“I want those people caught as much as you do,” Bena said, touching her arm. “I’ve seen what they’re capable of.”

Westie woke to an uproar of men’s voices and baying hounds. It was early morning, still dark, the air colder now that fall was near. The ruckus hadn’t fully penetrated her consciousness until she heard Jezebel pawing at the door, cutting deep valleys into the wood.

“Hold on,” she told the worried chupacabra as she slipped into her dressing gown and house shoes.

The moment Westie opened the door, Jezebel shot out of the room and downstairs. Westie walked out onto the catwalk above the grand entrance. A stream of men flowed beneath her, weaving around one another like worms during a rainstorm, holding guns from Nigel’s armory.

Alistair slid into the maelstrom from the dining room with his revolvers on his hips.

“Alley,” she called to him. He didn’t hear her, and there was no way she would reach him before he made it to the door.

Nigel was behind him. He looked up just as she was about to call his name. He pushed through the crowd and took the stairs two steps a time to get to her. It seemed every man in Rogue City was in their house. The place had turned into some kind of headquarters while she slept.

She ran to meet him at the top of the stairs. “What’s happening?” she asked.

Concern made a ledge of his brow. “Isabelle is missing.”





Twenty-Six


“Missing?” Westie said. “How could Isabelle be missing? She was just at my party.”

“Her mother sent a telegraph bird saying Isabelle never made it home from the ball, and her coach is still here,” Nigel told her.

Westie remembered seeing Isabelle’s parents leave before the food was brought out, and Isabelle complaining when they’d told her to be home by ten. Westie looked around as if she might find her friend hidden among the men below.

“She was mad the last time I saw her. Maybe she went for air,” she said.

Westie shook herself awake. Her brain had clearly slept in after her body got out of bed. For a moment she thought the theory made sense, but she knew Isabelle better than that. She was more likely to gather her hens and cast nasty rumors about Westie to ease her pain than to walk it off. Isabelle wasn’t the walking kind.

“Not at all hours of the night,” Nigel said.

“I’m getting dressed. I’ll help you find her.”

If Isabelle’s disappearance was some game she was playing for sympathy, Westie meant to give the girl a bite of copper.

Westie checked Isabelle’s walking coach first. The metal legs on each side were folded beneath it, making it easier for a woman to get in and out wearing full skirts. Obviously it hadn’t moved since the party. There had been a light rain during the night, enough to dampen the ground, but the patch of dirt beneath the coach was still dry.

Westie raced her horse to catch up with Alistair. She found him following a stream near the river. She slowed, checking to see if her parasol was in the saddle holster as Nigel had said it would be. It was. She also found comfort in the rifle slung across her back, even though she was a terrible shot.

She told herself Isabelle would be all right, they would find her. The Fairfields weren’t crazy enough to kill a pharmacist’s daughter right under their noses. She repeated the thought over and over again until she almost believed it.

“Isabelle is fine. I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation for where she is, which will most likely involve a boy,” Alistair assured her.

They rode a mile downstream. Hounds sang their sorrowful song behind them. Werewolves pitched in. They were still in human form, but their noses were better than any dog’s. They looked under every rock, and behind every tree, and still they found nothing. Isabelle could’ve been anywhere.

“Westie!” she heard someone shout from the woods.

She thought it was Nigel at first until she realized the rider had no accent. And his horse was clumsily splashing over the slick rocky stream—definitely not Nigel.

“James,” Westie said when he emerged. She and Alistair shared a glance, for James was a direct link to the Fairfields. “What in damned hell are you doing out here? You don’t know these woods—you could get lost.”