Page 118 of Throwing Shade
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It waspedal to the metal all the way back out to Diane’s farm. If I could get to her before the Lonestars did, then I’d convince her to turn herself in to the Sapien cops, and if the magic police were already there, well, I’d figure it out when I arrived.
The concession stand was closed, but the door was open and inside, a man was restocking jam on shelves.
I waved at him until he saw me and took out one of his earbuds.
“Hi,” I said. “I’m looking for Diane.”
“Now’s not a good time,” he said. “She just got word that her son was killed in a car accident.”
The vamps had already taken out Kirk? My relief felt wrong in light of his mother’s grief. Was the car accident a story that Diane had come up with or were the Lonestars behind this? If they were here already, I was probably too late to save her, but I had to try. How exactly remained to be seen, dependent on the circumstances when I found her.
“It’s actually in regards to Kirk. Is there a way I can reach Diane?”
He studied me for a moment and then nodded. “She’s in the house.”
I marched briskly up the stairs, took a deep breath, and knocked.
Diane opened the door, her eyes red. “Yes?”
“I’m here about your former guest.”
She frowned and shook her head. “Who?”
I chose my words carefully in case there was anyone inside who shouldn’t hear what I was saying. “The red-haired woman you had over to deal with the people from Blood Alley?”
“I have no idea who you’re talking about and now’s not a good time. My son…” She took a wavery breath. “I’m sorry. You must be mistaken.”
I didn’t think she was lying. She genuinely had no idea what I was talking about. “No, I’m sorry to have troubled you.”
Back in my car, I sat there for a moment, then fired off a text to Ava, asking if Lonestars could erase people’s memories.
She replied that it was one of the tools in their toolbox. Diane had no memory of what she’d done, no memory of magic, and no idea that her son had been a vampire. As much as it protected the magic community, the Lonestars had done a mitzvah by not making Kirk’s mother live with the guilt that her actions had brought about her son’s death. I hadn’t expected that from them.
Were the Lonestars involved in covering up my parents’ murder the exception or the rule? There sure hadn’t been any compassion shown there.
I didn’t intend to get on their radar and find out. Putting this entire mess behind me as best I could, I went to see Tatiana’s friend.
Max lived in a ramshackle bungalow in need of a good pressure washing. The flagstones were choked with moss, and the railing on one side of the front stairs listed precariously, but streetlights made the spiderweb at the front window shimmer prettily.
When I knocked on the door, it was opened only as far as the chain went. An eyeball pressed up against the crack.
“What’s the password?” a man said.
“Uh, Tatiana sent me.”
The door slammed shut.
I texted Tatiana. Do I need a password?
A phone rang inside the house.
“You never let me have any fun,” the man said on the other side of the door.
The chain rattled and then the door opened again, all the way this time.
A short man with bushy hair that had never met a comb it couldn’t defeat and a hideous tattoo of what was either an alien uterus or an extremely maladjusted butterfly on his forearm motioned me inside. “Mi casa es su casa. I’m kidding. I’m not even going to offer you a drink.” He grabbed my arm with fleshy fingers. “Hurry up already. I’m not heating the neighborhood.”
