Carla Lindo sipped her tea, seemed startled. Dean had broken out one of his reserve blends. She took another sip, told me, "That's exactly the way it happened, Mr. Garrett. I think."
"You think?"
‘I wasn't there. He sent me away so I'd be safe."
‘He did? He wanted you safe from the rowdiness at home, but he packed you off to the wicked city alone?" That didn't seem consistent.
"He didn't want to send me. Probably she got here before I did because he spent so much time making up his mind. But he didn't have any choice. I was the only one left that he could trust."
"Why?"
‘The Serpent tried to enlist everybody else. Some of them had to be with her. The trustworthy ones all got killed trying to get the book. She never tried to get to me because she knew I'd never do anything against him."
"Why not? We all can be tempted."
"Because he's my father, Mr. Garrett. My mother was a chambermaid, too, so there was no way he could legitimize me, but their relationship wasn't any secret. He never denied me, even to his wife. She hates me and my mother. But she hasn't dared do anything." She shivered, suddenly frightened. There was a big yet unspoken there. If Dean had been anywhere else, I would've bounced over to comfort her.
This was getting more complicated by the minute, at the far end, where the story started, but I wasn't a step nearer getting things unraveled here. "Wait up. I'm getting confused. We have a wife and a witch and a mistress and a daughter, all for a guy who's supposed to be two hundred years old, bedridden, and under a curse that won't let him die?"
She looked at me funny. I ran past her what the other
Carla Lindo had told me. Maybe she hadn't been listening the first time.
"Oh. That's not quite true. Father is old and bedridden, but he wasn't always. And he's not two hundred; she just says that. He's sixty-eight. She put the curse on him when I was four, when he stopped even pretending about my mother and sent her to live in the other tower."
"Huh?"
Dean got it first. "His wife would be the Serpent, Mr. Garrett. He exiled her to a separate part of the castle." So much for my steel-trap mind. Maybe if I was a little less pained and tired
The girl nodded.
"Oh. Right. I got it now Should have said so." I wondered if that changed anything. I wondered why I cared. The carryings-on of the denizens of a faraway castle were no business of mine. Unless those people wouldn't leave me alone. I thought out loud, "It seems we know who and why, Dean. You think?"
"That Serpent person. Wanting to keep Miss Carla from reaching you and getting your help."
"That's one. What about Squirrel? Her doing?"
He shrugged. "That blonde woman?"
"Maybe. Now we know this, what should we do?"
Carla Lindo didn't correct Dean's lapse. So she was the kind who would let him get away with stuff.
She interrupted my thoughts. "Will you help me, Mr. Garrett?"
I wanted to tell her I wouldn't let her out of my sight. That that would be too painful, like taking away my vision. My eyes couldn't stand the darkness when she was gone. But I kept it businesslike. Barely "Yes. I think our interests run parallel." Wouldn't be the first time I'd turned on a client who turned out to be shady.
My comments puzzled Carla Lindo. I glanced at Dean. He shrugged. He hadn't told her about Tinnie or that the imposter Carla Lindo had hired me.
"Miss Ramada... I became involved in this on a personal level yesterday. A. good friend was coming to visit. She's about your height and has red hair. A man tried to kill her out front. One of the Serpent's men, evidently. Mistaking her for you, I suspect. So I have a score to settle. I suppose."
The Dead Man touched me, a summons. He had something he wanted to stick in, in private. "Excuse me. I have to step out for a minute. Finish explaining, Dean."
The old man nodded. He was looking hurt all over again. Like Tinnie had just gotten hit. He'd probably tell it better than I could. He didn't pretend to be tough.
I sure didn't feel tough and invulnerable.
18
I slid into the Dead Man's room, starting to feel sorry for myself. I hadn't had me a good dose of that yet. I suppose it was due. Part of being human.
"What's up? This one a ringer, too?"
This one is genuine. She is an open book, easily read— though the truth be told, there is not much written there. Her light does not shine brightly. Be kind to her, Garrett.
"Aw, hell. That ain't playing fair."
He filled my head with a chuckle. There is kindness and kindness, Garrett. I would not ask you to cease being human.
"Big of you." Not much, he wouldn't. "What's up?" Looking at all of him here and thinking of all of Carla Lindo over there, I was headed into withdrawal.
One significant factor has escaped you. No. You need not feel slow. Indulgent of him. It escaped me until you told Miss Ramada about Miss Tate's narrow escape.
That's the way he is. Nothing straight out. Try to make me figure it out for myself. "Well?"
He didn't play with me long. You related the same account to the pretender earlier. That woman, if she is indeed the Serpent—and I now believe she is—then knows that Miss Ramada had not been harmed and was in fact ignorant of that threat, so was in no danger of being scared away. Presumably she had something to do with your adventure near Dwarf House. So. Assuming the house was not watched while you were away, because you were not expected to return .
"I've got it. Do you think she figured out that you were here?"
That is of no consequence. It is no secret that you share the home of a Loghyr. She will know once she starts to ask questions.
I skipped his invitation to feud over whose house it was. I considered what we knew about the Serpent. Damned little, but if she was heavyweight enough to create the kind of book that was the root of the excitement, she could be heavyweight enough to cause us trouble. The Dead Man can do incredible things, but strength isn't everything. Sometimes you have to bob and weave and he just isn't light on his feet. There are disadvantages to being dead that even he can't get around.
"Let's back off and look at this. Why is she here? To get her book back. That's the big thing. Keeping me out of her way ought to be secondary. When she was here, she got everything I knew. She gave me stuff back, but only because then she figured me to do her legwork." But if she wanted me to do legwork, why try to hit me? "Maybe she changed her mind when she got wind I was seeing your pal Sneezy."
Sneezy?
"Gnorst Gnorst Gnorst, and so forth. Maybe she started feeling the heat, realized how much she'd stirred up. She's got me and Saucerhead and you and the Tates after her on account of Tinnie, as soon as we figure out she isn't Carla Lindo. She's got the kingpin after her because he wants whoever cut Squirrel. I visit the head dwarf, he squawks like a stuck turkey when I mention the Book of Shadows, goes into a panic, says he's going to put his whole mob on the warpath. They're after her, too. She's got to make some moves. Maybe she figures if she gets rid of me, everybody will sit back for a while because I was the common denominator tying her enemies together."
I'd gone from explaining to thinking out loud. "She's going to push hard, going after that book. She might take another whack at me when she finds out I got away from her boys. Now I can raise the heat even more."
Yes.
"Can there really be a book where you just read a page and turn into whoever's written there?"
She believes it. Gnorst believes it. The girl and those who sent her believe it. The man who stole the book believed it. Miss Tate was wounded because people believe it. What I believe does not matter. This has become a race, Garrett. You have to find that woman before she finds the book.
"How about I just find the book and wait for her to come to me?"