‘Maxine was collecting for charity?’ Mare said. ‘What is the world coming to? But the signs are clear. The amethyst belongs to Liz.’
Lizzie looked at Dee. Are you going to call the meeting to order?’
Dee looked uncertain. It wasn’t an expression Lizzie was used to seeing on her practical older sister’s face, as if Dee’s entire universe had shifted unexpectedly. Just as Lizzie’s had.
‘Let me just get the jewelry box…’ Dee said.
‘Dee, don’t bother,’ Mare said tiredly. ‘It’s a waste of time. Just call the vote and get it over with.’
Dee sat down. ‘Well, Xan has found us. I’m afraid it’s time to leave. I’m sorry but I vote yes, we go.’
Mare nodded, all fight gone. ‘As long as I’m in Salem’s Fork, I’ll never get over Crash. I vote yes, we go.’
Dee looked over at her. ‘No Italy?’ she asked gently.
‘Nope.’
Dee patted her hand. ‘Lizzie?’
They both turned to look at her, only a formality, since sweet, spacey Lizzie avoided conflict like the plague.
But sweet, spacey Lizzie had changed. She felt the amethyst throb against her heart, and she lifted her head to look at them squarely.
‘I vote no.’
Lizzie could feel her sisters’ amazement, but she wasn’t about to back down. ‘I’m tired of running,’ she said. ‘I’m not a frightened child anymore. I like it here, and I’m not going to let anyone drive me away.’
Mare blinked at her. ‘Lizzie?’
Lizzie stared back at her, implacable.
Mare looked at Dee. ‘We’re not leaving Lizzie.’
‘Listen to me,’ Dee said to Lizzie. ‘We cannot stay here. We don’t even have a plan!’
‘Then we’ll come up with one,’ Lizzie said, and her voice didn’t waver.
Mare tilted her head at Lizzie. ‘Something’s new.’
Dee put her hands on the table. ‘You’re damn right something’s new. We’re in danger. There’s something about this time that’s different. Worse.’
Lizzie folded her arms, unmoving.
Dee took a deep breath. ‘Okay, we’re not leaving. Let’s think this through. Xan sent Danny James, and we know she deals in men and sex so he’s probably not the only one. Who else is new in town besides Danny?’
Mare put her chin in her hand. ‘Jude the VP from Value Video!! I already have my suspicions about him, but he’s dumb as pond scum, so I don’t see him as a major threat. And Crash, but I can’t see Crash and Xan plotting together. She’d hate the motorcycle.’
Lizzie felt Dee’s bright green eyes turn in her direction. ‘Lizzie?’
She couldn’t lie about Elric. Not now, not to her sisters. But she had no intention of sitting there and having them pepper her with a thousand questions about him, particularly when she had no answers, particularly after she’d just called the shots in her family for the first time in twenty-six years, something that would have made her giddy with power if the responsibility hadn’t been so terrifying.
‘What about Charles?’ Dee said.
‘It can’t be Charles,’ Mare said. ‘He’s gone.’
‘Gone?’ Lizzie echoed, astonished.
‘Pauline said he decided to move to Alaska. Quit his job yesterday afternoon and took off. And nobody has missed him.’
‘Well, hallelujah,’ Dee muttered into her coffee cup.
Lizzie knew who she could thank for Charles’s unexpected disappearance. One more thing her mysterious visitor would have to answer for. Who the hell did he think he was, sending the man she loved… no, she didn’t really love him, but the man she was going to marry… no, she wasn’t going to marry him, either. And this way she didn’t have to tell Charles anything, which was a blessing. He’d dumped her for a magic spell and Alaska.
‘Maybe we need to talk about Elric,’ Mare said, with her usual tact.
‘Who the heck is Elric?’ Dee said.
Lizzie stood up. ‘Someone I need to have a little talk with. And that’s all I’m saying. You two should probably talk to your… whatever they are. And don’t overlook Crash -there’s more to him than you might expect. We could come back, pool our information, and see what we can come up with. Find a way to fight back.’
‘Fight back?’ Mare said, interested. ‘You’re going to fight back? Go, Lizzie!’
‘But-’ Dee said, for the first time outmaneuvered by her younger sisters.
‘It’s a plan, Dee,’ Lizzie said firmly. ‘We’ll meet for lunch and compare notes.’
‘I’ll ask Crash why he picked now to come to Salem’s Fork,’ Mare said as she stood up. ‘And I will beat some answers out of that little toad Jude, but then I’m taking an early lunch break at Mother’s Tattoos. I’ll meet you there.’
She headed for the stairs and Dee called after her, ‘You get any more tattoos, you’re gonna look like a biker!’
‘What’s wrong with bikers?’ Lizzie said.
Dee didn’t look happy. ‘I guess I’m going to find out. Where are you going?’
‘I’m staying put.’
‘But you haven’t told me about this Elric person…’
‘He’ll come to me,’ Lizzie said in a dangerous voice. ‘And he’s going to wish he hadn’t.’
No shoes. No bunnies, ferrets, or wisps of purple fog, she thought, heading back to her supposedly deserted bedroom. Just one extremely pissed-off Miss Fortune, about to find out what the hell was going on. And maybe see whether she’d gotten good enough to turn a wizard into a frog.
They were staying. Dee should have been terrified. She should have been grabbing her sisters by whatever body part she could reach and dragging their asses out the front door so fast they left a dust cloud. And oh, yeah. She was terrified. She knew better than anyone just what they were up against. The truth? Xan could crunch them like cockroaches. And she didn’t even have to show up to do it.
But, God. Dee’d been wanting to face off with that pernicious bitch as long as she could remember. She’d had the girls to think of, though. She’d had her mother looking at her with those big Lizzie eyes of hers, begging Dee to protect them.
Seemed she didn’t have to anymore. At least not alone. So no matter what, it was time to put on her big-girl panties and get on with it. For a second, Dee actually managed a smile. She damn near giggled. Until she remembered just what she had to do to get to that face-off.
She’d thought she’d never have to see him again. That as bad as last night had been, she could be safely away long before he came to demand explanations. She should have known better. Ever since Danny James had knocked on their door, nothing had gone the way it should.
Yanking on her gray cardigan and grabbing her purse off the table, she turned for the door. ‘All right, then,’ she said with forced bravado, let’s get this over with.’
She should have known. She threw the door open, ready to march out like Carrie Nation in search of a saloon, only to be stopped dead in her tracks.
‘Oh, good,’ he said, standing on her porch in his white T-shirt and bomber jacket and jeans. ‘I hoped you’d be home.’
Dee knew she was probably goggling at him. But what did you say to the most handsome man in the world, whom you’d run from the night before? Sorry. I wasn’t sure how well you liked your mother? No. Too much to explain. It was better this way? Not that, either. Dee decided she wasn’t the Casablanca type.
‘Yes,’ was all she could come up with. ‘Here I am.’
She couldn’t take her eyes off him. Those wonderful, water-clear eyes, that chiseled chin and the glint of silver above his T-shirt. The easy, comfortable-with-myself, happy-to-see-you stance that made people smile and set her palms to sweating. She couldn’t breathe again. She could never seem to breathe around him.
She’d run from him last night. She’d have to do it again soon or lose her mind altogether. But not right now. Now she had a mission. Yeah. That’s all it was. A mission for her sisters.