Rule jerked in shock.
“What?” Lily said.
“Nothing.” And that’s what he saw now. Nothing. He needed to tell Lily he’d actually seen the ghost. The mate bond was still bleeding something of her ability into him—was maybe turning up the power on that—and she needed to know.
But later. When they were alone. “Friar wants to sell it,” Rule said. “The sidhe realms run heavily on magic. It’s their tech. They might have dozens of uses for such a device that we can’t imagine.”
“And they could pay for it with more of the kind of stuff he got from Rethna. God. That’s bad news. I need to call Ruben right now. If he—” Her eyebrows went up as her hand went to her pocket. She took out her phone, snorted, and answered. “Hello, Ruben.”
Rule heard Ruben Brook’s reply. “I had a hunch I should call. Is my timing a problem?”
“No, you’re being your usual uncanny precog self. I need to bring you up-to-date.” Lily began pacing as she briefed her boss.
Rule went to the spot on the couch she’d vacated and sat beside the man Lily insisted on calling his brother. He looked at Jasper. “You haven’t laid down any terms this time.”
“Tonight I come as a supplicant. One without power can’t set terms.”
Lily had been right. Jasper didn’t care if he went to jail, not as long as Adam was safe. “Did you consider just asking for help before?”
Jasper looked down. His hands were clasped between his knees, and his face was still. “I didn’t know you. I had some preconceptions, mostly negative. I was just bright enough to know that’s what they were—glimpses caught through a distorted lens—but I was used to them. They were all I had to go on.”
“I didn’t have any preconceptions. I didn’t know about you. Until last night, I didn’t know you existed.”
Jasper nodded. “So Isen told me.”
“You’ve talked to him.”
“The last time my mother went in for treatment. Until then, I didn’t know Isen had paid for Mom’s treatments all along. I knew Dad hadn’t—he never made that kind of money—but he’d told me it was a relative of hers, someone with plenty of money and a guilty conscience, who covered the cost.” Jasper’s smile flickered. “True enough in a sense.”
“Isen didn’t feel guilty about Celeste.”
Jasper’s eyebrows climbed. “No? My father…but his perspective could be skewed, I suppose. He’s a good man, a fair man, but it was hard on him, accepting help from the man who’d abandoned her.”
“Abandoned her?” Rule heard the sharpness in his voice. Carefully he smoothed it out. “I don’t think we’ve heard the same story.”
To his surprise, Jasper laughed briefly. “I’m sure we haven’t. I’ve heard dozens of stories. Mom was…I’m not sure she knew which version was real. But Dad’s head is screwed on straight. He says that Isen wanted nothing more to do with her once she gave birth to you. He’d gotten what he wanted.”
Isen would never abandon a woman, and certainly not the mother of his child. Hadn’t he proved that, paying for Celeste’s treatment over the years? But…Rule forced himself to stop mentally defending his father. He didn’t know what had gone on between Isen and Celeste Babineaux. If Isen had stopped wanting to be her lover, she might have experienced that as abandonment. Back then, when human mores were very different from now, it was no light thing for an unmarried woman to take a lover. To bear his child.
Had Celeste been desperately in love with Isen? Had she felt betrayed when she realized he wanted the child she bore more than he wanted her?
She’d been fragile. He knew that now, and he remembered his father cautioning him more than once about fragile women, women too damaged or needy to take as lovers. They might seem to hear you, he’d said, when you tell them it’s not forever, but they need so much. Sometimes all they can hear is their own need. You can be completely honest with them and still hurt them terribly.
Had Isen hurt Celeste terribly?
Such a woman might resent the baby Isen loved and wanted so much. Such a woman might find the sight of that baby impossible to bear. He looked at his mother’s other son, who looked so much like him. “You love Adam very much.”
Surprise flickered across Jasper’s face. That was one way they were different—Jasper’s emotions tended to be writ large and clear for all to see. “He’s funny and tender and tough and a huge pain in the ass sometimes. He’s more than I can say. He’s the light of my life.”
Lily had finished talking to Ruben and was making a second call. Her hair was loose, still tousled from their loving. She kept tucking it behind her ears, and it kept slipping free. She was giving instructions this time, her voice crisp as she told someone why they were to check out a particular FedEx garage and those who worked there.
She was funny and tender and tough and, yes, sometimes a pain in the ass. She was the light of his life, and he knew all too well what it was to fear for the one you loved. He spoke to Jasper. “I can’t promise we’ll get Adam back safely, but you have my word that we’ll do everything we can to make that happen.”
Jasper studied him for a moment, maybe trying to see what his word meant. He nodded. “Thank you.”
Rule took out his own phone. This was his responsibility, after all. He had no good reason for pushing it off on Lily. He was about to select Cynna’s mobile number when the phone in his hand vibrated.
It was his brother. His brother Benedict, that is, whom he’d thought was his only brother after Mick died…and that was a confusing thought. Rule answered.
AN hour later, it looked like Jasper would run out of time before Lily ran out of questions. Jasper glanced at his watch. “I need to leave soon.”
“We’ve still got forty-five minutes.” Lily flipped to a fresh page in her notebook.
Cynna had said she would come if she could. She hadn’t said what the qualifier meant—just that she’d let him know tonight. It might be late tonight, but she’d call and let him know.
It was an odd response. Maybe Lily was right. Maybe the Lady did have the habit and the means of warning her Rhejes away from too-dangerous actions.
Rule hadn’t been able to pass on Benedict’s news yet. It involved Arjenie, and her Gift and heritage was not a secret he could pass on to others.
“We’ve been trying to find the agent you used to use,” Lily began.
Jasper snorted. “You, too?”
“Are other people looking for him?”
“Me. I suspect he’s where Friar learned about my professional abilities, mainly because no one else knows.”
“The Bureau did turn up a police file on you.”
“Agent Adamson. Dogged fellow. He couldn’t tie me to anything, but he had good instincts. But he didn’t know about my specialty or my nom de guerre.”
“Umbra.”
Jasper’s eyebrows climbed. “That wasn’t in your police file.”
“No, I got that from another source. Your former agent’s name was Hugo, right? Over fifty, overweight, unusual tat on his forehead.”
“You have good sources.”
“Tell me about Hugo. What’s his last name?”
Jasper shrugged. “Variable. He’s got at least three identities that I know. Or he used to. He doesn’t seem to be using any of them these days. He’s a big guy, like you said. Doesn’t talk much. He’s greedy, fit beneath the flab, hates drugs but likes bourbon, and he’s crooked as they come. So why did I use him, you ask? Because his handshake meant something to him. Once you struck a deal and shook on it, that was it. He’d hold to that. He did time once to protect a client’s name. More practically, I was worth a pretty penny to him—he got five percent of any deal he brokered, and why would he give that up?”