His wife grabbed his arm, trying to pull him back to his seat. “Rue, stop. We need her help.”
“I won’t lose my daughter again,” he said, shrugging off his wife and leaning closer to me, invading my space. For her part, his wife melted back into her chair, collapsing into herself as she sobbed into her hands.
I met Rue Saunders’s piercing stare evenly. Grief did strange things to people. Some people broke under their sadness. Others got angry. Rue was clearly the latter. And while I felt for him—losing a child was a horrible thing—that didn’t give him a right to try to bully me.
His aggressive posture had apparently gotten Briar’s attention as well. Though I couldn’t afford to look toward her, I could feel the cluster of spells she wore moving closer. I did not want her getting involved, which meant I needed to defuse this situation fast.
“I can’t help you. Mr. and Mrs. Saunders, I think it’s time you go.”
Rue lifted his palms and slammed them back on my desk, making everything on the surface shake. The picture of my dog toppled.
I gritted my teeth and pushed out of my own chair. Standing switched our positions so I loomed over his hunched form now, and he had to either straighten and move out of my space or crane his head to look up at me.
Briar was so close, I could have reached out and touched her, but she hadn’t revealed herself. I hoped she’d hold back. Ms. B should interrupt any minute now.
Rue straightened. We were nearly the same height when both standing, the expanse of my desk separating us. His hands balled into fists at his side. “You can help. You have the magic. You just won’t.”
On my desk, the phone buzzed, indicating Ms. B wanted to open the intercom line. About time. I hit the flashing button.
“Hate to interrupt, but your next appointment is waiting,” the brownie said in her gruff voice.
“I’m just finishing up here,” I said in response, hitting the button to close the line again. Then I gave the couple in front of me a tight smile. “I hate that I can’t help you, but there is nothing I can do. Now, if there is nothing else, I think we’re done.”
Rue Saunders stared at me a moment longer, his wife still sobbing behind him. Then he grabbed the photograph of his daughter off my desk and turned.
“Come on. There are other grave witches.” He stormed out of my office without waiting for his wife. The door slammed behind him and I felt Briar back off, retreating to her corner again.
Rachael moved slower. As if she had to rebuild herself to climb out of the chair. She clutched the soaked tissues in a hand curled against her chest. “I’m so . . . He didn’t mean all that. It’s hard on him.”
I nodded acknowledgment of her not-quite-voiced apology and held out a fresh tissue to her. “I would help if I could.”
She made a sound under her sob that might have been anything and accepted the tissue. Then she dragged herself out of my office, moving slow, stiff, as if she’d aged twenty years in the short consultation. Once the door shut behind her, I sagged back into my chair, letting out a long breath.
The door opened before I could even turn toward Briar. I looked up, but the doorway was empty. So I looked down.
Ms. B studied me from where she peeked around the door. She stood no taller than my knee at her full height, her quill-like green hair fanning around her face like a mane.
“I take it we won’t be billing them?” she asked, glancing back over her shoulder.
“Not so much.”
She nodded, but if she was disappointed or upset about that fact, I couldn’t tell. Though brownies are diminutive in size, their features are fairly similar to a human’s except that brownies lack noses. I’d never have guessed a nose was an important feature to allow others to decipher expressions until I had daily dealings with Ms. B. Or maybe the brownie just had a killer poker face and lacked microexpressions.
“Are you ready for me to send in the next client?”
I sat up straighter. “You mean there really is another client?”
She cocked her head, fixing me with her dark eyes. “I’ll send him in.”
I stared at the door as it shut. She’d said another client was waiting. I’d assumed that was for my rescue, but she was fae. She couldn’t lie.
Taking a deep breath, I made a quick assessment of my office. As high as the tensions had been for a moment, there wasn’t much evidence. I picked up the fallen picture and moved the tissue box back to its spot, and everything was as good as new. I glanced over at Briar’s corner. The spell made my eyes want to skid past her, not seeing her, but the fact that I could feel the spell made it easier to resist its influence. She pantomimed a yawn when my gaze landed on her. I wanted to tell her she could leave if she was bored, but footsteps were approaching in the hall.
The door slid open slowly, admitting a girl who appeared to be about seventeen years old. Inwardly I groaned. I needed paying clients. Still, I plastered on my professional face as she stepped inside, but cringed again when she turned and thanked Ms. B for showing her in.
“Don’t thank fae,” I said, on reflex.
The girl froze, her cupid’s bow of a mouth half open. “Did I offend her?” She turned and looked like she was about to say she was sorry to Ms. B’s retreating figure. I preemptively cut her off.
“Don’t apologize either,” I said, trying to keep my smile in place. The girl was jumpy. “But it doesn’t offend them. It acknowledges a debt they could cash in. Ms. B is good folk, but it’s best to never thank or apologize to anyone whom you suspect might be fae.”
“Oh, I didn’t know. Thank you.”
And back to my internal cringing as the smallest gulf of debt opened between us. But she couldn’t have known. I intentionally passed as human, mostly because until a few months ago, I’d thought I was a normal human witch. Well, a wyrd witch, at least.
“I’m Alex Craft,” I said, standing and holding out my hand. “What can I do for you, Miss . . . ?”
“Taylor. Taylor Carlson.” She took my hand tentatively, but once she made contact, the handshake was good and firm.
I motioned to the client chairs in front of my desk. She took one and I sank into my own chair.
“What can I do for you today?”
Taylor pulled a cell phone from her bag, tapped the screen for a moment, and then pushed it across the desk toward me. “This is my boyfriend, Remy.”
I glanced at the displayed photo. In it was a smiling boy not much older than Taylor wearing a football jersey. He had one arm around Taylor’s shoulders, pulling her close, and the other disappeared off the edge of the photo at an awkward angle, the telltale sign he was taking the picture. The time stamp of the photo was only a week old.
I glanced at my prospective client. She perched at the edge of her chair, one hand twisting and untwisting the strap of her bag. A small crease had formed over her nose, and her lips compressed as she stared at the picture she’d passed me, but if I had to put money on it, I would have said she was scared, not sad. She certainly wasn’t displaying the sorrow I’d expect from someone whose boyfriend had died within the last week.
“Okay,” I said, passing the phone back to her. “I’m assuming you’re not here to have his shade raised.”
“No.” She blanched, shaking her head. “No. I mean. I hope not. He’s missing.”
“A missing person is probably something you should take to the police, not a private investigator.”
“I know.” Her face scrunched tighter, making her nose crinkle and her mouth purse as if too many emotions were jostling for space on her face and crowding each other into her features. “And I tried them. But he’s over eighteen and hasn’t been missing long enough for anyone to pay attention. But if I’m paying someone to look for him, you have to take me seriously, right? And this is a magic-based firm, so you can track him with a spell. I brought you some of his things.” She opened her bag and pulled out a large T-shirt, a high school ring, and an origami flower before shoving them across my desk.
I glanced at the haul and then back up at Taylor. “How long has Remy been missing?”