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Tim — er, Tom — followed his gaze to Nash. “Oh, he’ll be talking to us as well. As will the others.” He looked at Pippa and me, though nowhere near as menacingly. “But I advise you to worry about your own business.”
At a signal from Edwards, two agents escorted Harlon into one of the vehicles. They piled in after him and drove off, followed by two other SUVs — and two of the four dragons, high in the air, where more patches of blue appeared. The other two dragons shifted to human form and drove away in Harlon’s Range Rover.
That left two vehicles, six agents, and Captain Edwards, all staring us down.
Well, three agents stared us down. Edwards had a hard time dragging his eyes away from my mother. I could practically count the sparkly hearts in his eyes.
Finally, he cleared his throat and barked orders at his men. Two pulled out some kind of forensic kit and got to work on Angelina’s ashes, while the other four set off to measure the scorch marks on the earth.
I shot a covert glance at the petroglyphs, then jerked my eyes back to the ground. How the hell were we going to explain the vortex?
Maybe we can gloss over those details,Pippa’s voice sounded in my mind.
I gave her a teensy-tiny nod.
“Now, I’ll need statements from everyone…” Captain Edwards started.
“Yes, yes,” my mother said impatiently. “But surely you don’t have to do that out here. Or in that drafty office of yours.”
Pippa and I exchanged looks. Mom had been to his office?
Pippa glanced back at my mom, then sighed.I want to ask, but I don’t want to ask.
Mom showed Edwards her empty coffee cup — the most pressing misdemeanor on her list — and gestured toward the main house. “Can’t we do this in a more civilized way? I’m sure it won’t take long to clear everything up.”
Edwards studied her, torn between protocol and my mother’s charms.
Ha. The man might be immune to the magic of a class-two warlock, but not to my mom.
Pippa chimed in next. “Good idea. We could put on coffee — real coffee. And didn’t Claire make muffins?” Then she faked surprise. “Oh! Mom, if you come over now, you could see your granddaughter. I know how much you’ve missed her.”
Nash raised his eyebrows. I didn’t say a word.
“What a shame it would be if you had to hurry away now. A crying shame,” Pippa emphasized, going for the hard sell.
“Oh yes,” my mother agreed with no emotion whatsoever. “I’ve missed her so much.”
Ha. She missed coffee more, but we’d learned to take what we got.
“I suppose we could start inside,” Edwards murmured.
And off we went, down the hill to the main house.
“So, the vortex…” Pippa whispered.
I shushed her with a sharp look at Edwards, then corrected her. “Vortexes.” It sounded wrong, though, so I mulled it over.Vortices?
“Aunt Emma only ever showed me the one by the head of the canyon,” Pippa whispered.
“She only showed me the one by the cliff,” I added.
Pippa rubbed her chin. “And Abby was somewhere over by the mesa.”
We chewed on that for a moment.
“One vortex with three outlets, or three separate vortexes?” Pippa wondered out loud.
I didn’t know, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to. Anyway, let my sister chew over that topic. I threaded my arm around Nash’s and trailed behind her.
