“Someone put it in Grandma Gertie’s truck when they were at Sandcastle…”
“It could have been put into her truck at anytime, anywhere, by anyone. You know she doesn’t lock her truck and has dozens of kids underfoot all the time. Everyone calls her Grandma for a reason.”
“Why are you being so pig-headed about this?”
“Because I’ve watched your family tear itself apart and then have to rebuild itself every time we find anything even remotely connected to your sister’s disappearance. That girl’s body that we found in the woods two years ago. And the boy’s skeleton two years before that. It’s suddenly the day that she disappeared and you’re all blaming each other for not keeping close enough watch on her.”
“So for peace of mind, you want us to just say ‘she’s dead, end of story.’ ”
“No, that’s not what I said,” Brandy growled. “Look, it doesn’t make sense. If Boo was the person that put the doll in Grandma Gertie’s truck, why didn’t she just stay there?”
“I don’t know!”
“Jane, I love you like a sister, and if this was any other time, I’d round up some people and go tear Sandcastle apart. No one seems have noticed, but the shit hit the fan thirty days ago. A week after Windwolf was nearly killed, EIA started major housecleaning. They have two NSA agents going through all their personnel files and they started Gestapo-level seizing EIA employees and throwing them in jail.”
“I—I haven’t heard that.”
“No one has. Someone is keeping a tight lid on the news. They opened up the county jail to hold them all.”
“Wait? They’re holding them? Why didn’t they ship them to Earth for trial?”
“Because they’re not human. The EIA has been infiltrated by the oni. It went as high as Director Maynard’s personal assistant, who turned out to have a tail and dog-ears. The oni were using magic somehow just to look human. The EIA was spending too much time trying to keep more oni from slipping into Pittsburgh to transport the ones in holding to the border.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this?”
“Because it’s coming down from on high that hush-hush is best for Pittsburgh. Let the EIA clean house. The thing is that the EIA did most of the heavy lifting, and we have been picking up the slack. Now Tinker’s been kidnapped and we do not have the resources to follow ghost leads.”
“Please!”
Brandy looked away, shaking her head. “Jane. I can’t. I can’t drop everything because of a toy found in a pickup truck weeks ago. Grandma Gertie is getting old. That doll could have been in the truck for days before she noticed it. She could have been anywhere when it was put into her pickup. And why would a little girl who disappeared eight years ago put a doll in a truck, and do nothing else?”
“Brandy!”
Brandy’s shoulder radio crackled and her dispatcher directed her to head to a shooting and added that an ambulance was responding. “I have a job to do! I have to do it because no one else is going to!”
The Chased by Monsters production truck pulled into McMicking’s parking lot just as Brandy raced away.
“How’d you find me?” Jane snapped. She didn’t want them there, reminding her that she had her own job to do, one that no one else could do.
All three men tapped their right temple to indicate the headset she was wearing.
“Oh, freaking hell!” Jane cried. “Don’t tell me you heard everything I said?”
“Okay. We won’t.” Hal pointed at the deli. “It’s lunch time. Let’s do food.” He turned to Nigel. “This place has amazing food. Good as anything you’d find in New York.”
“Gypsy wagons!” Nigel clapped his hands in delight. He’d attached his backup set of feet, so only the faint blood staining through his clean shirt remained as proof of how close a call they’d had. “Oh, how charming.”
“Are you okay?” Taggart asked.
Jane nodded mutely as tears started to burn in her eyes. Somehow last night had broken down her defenses around him and it left her emotionally fragile.
He carefully took the doll out of her hands. He brushed the ratty, dirty hair back from its impish smile.
“People used to ask if Boo was half-elf because she was so beautiful. She had hair so pale blond that it looked white, the bluest eyes and skin like china. When she was clean and still—which was usually only when we were at church or a wedding or something—she was like an angel that had fallen from heaven. But with us, most the time, she was half-naked, muddy, and grinning. To me, she was just as impish as this doll. And her hair. Her hair would be this mass of untamable curls. When I fixed Helga for her, I made the hair just like Boo’s.”
“We’ll find her,” Taggart said.
Jane shook her head, taking back the doll. “I can’t put you at risk.”
Hal came back carrying biodegradable takeout containers that perfumed the parking lot with the smell of rice and pumpkin curry. “I say we film a show.”
Jane smacked him.
“Ow! I mean it! Everyone in Pittsburgh knows PB&G. Even if you don’t own a television, there are those billboards of me all over town. We just do our normal shtick.”
“Shtick?” Jane echoed.
“Come in with cameras, walk all over the homeowner, and blow the hell out of their property.”
Jane stared at him for a moment as she realized that he was right. Shy of the viceroy and the director of the EIA, the various TV personalities were the most famous faces in Pittsburgh. Unlike some of them—like Chloe Polanski—Hal was well liked. People sensed that at his core, what Hal wanted more than anything, more than ratings, was to honestly save people. It was the main reason that Jane put up with his craziness. Despite the homeowners’ misgivings and the chaos PB&G caused, they kept the dangerous flora and fauna from killing countless people.
But would his fame actually protect him?
Jane shook her head. “I can’t ask you…”
“You’re not asking,” Hal said. “This is my plan and I’m quite proud of it.”
“I think it’s a good plan,” Nigel said.
She glanced at Taggart and he gave a sheepish grin as he nodded.
Oh, God, this was what she was most afraid of: she was outnumbered by crazy men. Vague plans to call her little brothers evaporated as she started thinking of damage control. The fewer crazy men she needed to corral, the less chance of something going wrong. Hopefully.
Pittsburgh was full of forgotten corners. It was nearly two thousand square miles of space transported to Elfhome. For every handful of empty houses there was an empty quickie mart, gas station, dry cleaners, Starbucks and McDonalds. And with every failed business, there came another handful of empty houses. Desolation grew like a cancer. Homestead had been home of the famous steel mill, a fairly new mall, the sprawling water park of Sandcastle and sixteen hundred households. When she was little, there had been a strip of houses clustered around West Street, eking a living from the still-open Sandcastle. When the park closed, the neighborhood went under.
The entrance of the park looked no different from all the abandoned buildings that they’d passed coming in. Jane’s heart sank. The squatters must have moved out after Grandma Gertie’s tribe descended on them.
“What is it?” Taggart’s question made her realize she had sworn softly.
“It’s empty,” she said.
“How can you tell?”
“There’s no takens.”
“Takens?”
“Pittsburghers do stuff to show that a building is taken. Set up a planter with flowers. Paint the door Wind Clan blue. Put out a welcome mat. Install an obvious doorbell. Or put up a new mailbox, even if they can’t get the mail delivered. It keeps other people from trying to move into their space.”