‘Good heavens,’ Lizzie whispered from behind her. ‘You’re preening.’
Good heavens, she was. Fluffing her feathers and twitching her tail and tucking her head, as if the guy standing in the door was a big barn owl.
‘Did you know you have a screech owl on your table?’ he asked Mare.
‘No,’ Mare said. ‘I hadn’t noticed.’
‘Close the door, Mare,’ Dee begged.
It came out as a descending carillon of chirps. The guy on the other side of the door lifted amazed eyebrows at her. ‘And I think she likes me.’
Leave it to her to turn into an owl in front of an ornithologist. Who else would recognize the mating call of the Eastern screech owl?
‘You think wrong,’ Mare said to him, trying to close the door. And good-bye.’
‘Good,’ Dee said, panting. ‘Get him out of here.’
It wasn’t often a man got under her skin like this. She didn’t allow it; it was too dangerous. She’d tried a few times, letting herself believe that the arousal from hormones would affect her differently than the agitation of anger or fear. She’d been wrong. She’d ended up sending two guys into therapy and another to an ashram in India. She could still hear him screaming as he ran into the night, her bra dangling from his hand after she’d shifted right there in the back seat of his Jeep. And not into anything as cute as an owl. No, she’d shifted into his mother. Just like she had with the other two guys. And she hadn’t even liked their mothers.
She’d been celibate ever since, and assured herself she was happy that way. She didn’t have a choice, after all. But for some reason, this man suddenly made her feel like a nun peering out the convent gate, longing for what she could never have.
Thank God he was leaving.
He kept his foot in the door. ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Please. I’m looking for Moira Mariposa, Elizabeth Alicia, and Deirdre Dolores Fortune. I’m researching a book.’
‘Our name’s O’Brien.’ Mare stopped trying to kick his foot away. A book?’
He nodded. About Phil and Fiona Fortune. That’s your real name, isn’t it? You just took O’Brien as an alias when you moved here.’
Dee shut her eyes, suddenly sick. Oh, hell. Didn’t it just figure? She couldn’t even have a decent fantasy without it blowing up in her face.
‘No, our name really is O’Brien,’ Mare said. And we don’t know anybody named Fortune. Would we lie to you?’
‘Since I got your alias from your parents’ old commune members, I’d say that’s a yes,’ he said, perfectly calm for all the disaster he was unleashing. ‘I was hoping to at least talk to your oldest sister, Deirdre.’
‘She doesn’t want to talk to you,’ Dee chirped. ‘Get rid of him.’
Her heart was slamming against her tiny chest. Her head threatened to explode again. It wasn’t fair. They’d run so far, hidden so well. And here was the man of her dreams – well, her dust – blithely threatening to do a great big Geraldo on them.
‘Thanks,’ Mare said, ‘but no thanks. Now if you’d move your foot so I could close this door-’
He just kept smiling. ‘That’s what I was told you’d say.’
‘Really?’ Mare asked. And here I thought I was being delightfully unpredictable. Go away.’
‘Find out who told him who we are,’ Dee begged.
‘How about we start over?’ he asked, putting out a hand. ‘I’m Danny James. Like I said, I’m researching a book-’
He never had the chance to finish. Mare stomped on his toes, and when he winced and jerked his foot back, she slammed the door. Then she turned and looked at her sisters. ‘Well, this is another fine mess the ‘rents have gotten us into.’
Dee was frantic. That was disaster standing on their front porch. How could Mare just dismiss it like an inconvenient Mormon on a mission? ‘We have to find out what’s going on,’ she said. Flapping her wings, she swooped over to perch on the living room windowsill.
‘I don’t have to find out,’ Mare said. ‘I don’t care. I got rid of him. He’s gone.’
‘I don’t have time,’ Lizzie said, picking up her book. ‘I have work to do. I’m really close to a breakthrough.’
‘Well, I have time.’ Dee stared out the front window where she could see Danny James pause out by the curb. ‘What if she sent him?’
‘Who?’ Mare asked.
Dee glared. ‘Xan.’
Mare shook her head. ‘She’s your nightmare in the closet. Let it go, Dee.’
‘Open the door’ Dee ruffled her feathers, preparing to fly. ‘I’m going after him. Somebody has to keep an eye on him. I can do it without being caught.’
‘You don’t think he’ll find an owl on his ass suspicious?’ Mare asked.
‘He’ll never see me.’
‘How about when you change back to human form in the middle of the sidewalk and you’re naked?’ Mare stopped and looked thoughtful. ‘Actually, men usually don’t ask questions about naked women, so you might get away with that one.’
Dee ruffled her feathers again. ‘I have clothes stashed all over this town. Nobody’s going to see me naked. And anyway, we have to know. I can at least see where he goes before I have to be at the bank.’
‘Couldn’t he just be what he says?’ Lizzie asked. A book researcher?’
Dee inched her way to the edge of the table. ‘Mother and Dad have been dead for twelve years. Why would anybody do a book now? And exactly who gave him our alias? We can’t just assume Xan isn’t behind this. The last time she came after us, we almost didn’t get away in time. Open the door.’
Lizzie and Mare looked at each other.
‘Maybe we should vote on it,’ Mare said. ‘Just because Dee is over twenty-eight, that doesn’t mean she gets to choose her own life-’
‘MARE!’ Dee screeched, and Lizzie slipped around her and opened the front door.
Dee shoved off the dining room table and launched herself past them, out into the morning sky.
Xantippe Fortune put aside her silver spell bowl, the coppery dust of the True Desire spell gleaming in the bottom, and then wiped her see glass clean while the short, dark-haired woman next to her looked defiant but nervous. Very nervous.
Good, Xan thought and settled into the silver brocade wing chair, the folds of her red gown falling smoothly over her wrists.
It was hell finding competent help for a supernatural power heist in the twenty-first century, especially in a place as small and clueless as Salem’s Fork.
‘All I did was sneeze,’ Maxine said, smoothing down her polyester peasant blouse.
Fashion always tells, Xan thought. ‘You sneezed on a magic glass, Maxine. Twice. The first one blew the front door wide open, which made the sisters close it instead of leaving it open to the screen door, which made it impossible to hear what was happening in the front of the house. The second sneeze almost made them close the garden windows, and if they had, I would have lost the dining room conversation. Because you were never taught to use a handkerchief, they think a hurricane is coming. Plus it’s unsanitary. You just bought a diner, woman. I shudder to think what happens in your kitchen.’
‘I’m going to call it Maxine’s,’ Maxine said in a dreamy voice.
‘No, you are not,’ Xan said. ‘You are going to do nothing to call attention to yourself or to the fact that you have suddenly acquired enough money to buy a diner. Our arrangement was that I would give you the money to buy the diner in exchange for your clandestine services for the next three days, but you must not call attention to yourself. That’s where the “clandestine” part comes in, Maxine. Until Monday, the Greasy Fork stays the Greasy Fork. Do you understand?’
‘There are gonna be big changes,’ Maxine said, looking off into the distance at her magnificent future.
‘Maxine!’ Xan snapped, and Maxine jerked to attention. ‘What are you going to do for the next three days?’
‘I’m gonna watch the Fortune sisters and not make any big changes because I’m clandestine,’ Maxine said.