This Wicked Game

  Her shoulders sagged with relief as her dad kissed her forehead. He left her standing in the hall, wondering how long her parents had been keeping her secret.

  The Toussaints’ driveway was already crowded when Claire’s dad pulled up. People were milling around the property, including a few men in suits that Claire assumed were part of the much-whispered about private security team Bernard and Estelle quietly paid to keep the Guild’s current headquarters—their house—secure.

  Claire wasn’t surprised at the lack of “real” law enforcement. Even though voodoo wasn’t illegal, Guild business wasn’t something they shared with outsiders.

  The house was more crowded than the yard. A locksmith was already at work on the front door, adding an intimidating dead bolt and changing the lock on the original knob. She had no doubt the same thing was taking place on all the doors to the house.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Kincaid.” Betsy rushed toward them as they stepped through the open door. The distress was visible on her face, and she waved them forward, leading them to the library.

  Claire heard the murmur of voices before they reached the room. When they got there, everyone only looked up for a second before returning to their conversations, or in Bridget’s case, the drink in her hand.

  Estelle sat on a damask-covered chair talking to Julia St. Martin, while Bernard whispered quietly to Reynaud. Estelle’s expression was calm despite the fact that her face was pale, her hands gripping the sides of the chair.

  Betsy hurried forward, bending to say something to her before she retreated.

  “I better go check on Estelle,” Claire’s mother said, patting her daughter on the shoulder.

  Claire spotted Xander in his customary spot at the back of the room. Their eyes met, but he didn’t move. She knew that it was for her.

  “Go ahead,” her dad said, tipping his head slightly to Xander. “I need to speak to Bernard.”

  She took a deep breath and headed toward Xander. His eyes were guarded, his arms folded across his chest in a gesture of self-protection. It was harder than it had ever been not to put her arms around him.

  “Hey,” she said softly, standing close to him. “You okay?”

  He nodded. “They didn’t take anything and no one got hurt, so I guess it could have been worse.”

  “When did it happen?” she asked.

  “This morning while we were at church.”

  “How did you know if nothing was taken?”

  “The alarms on the back door were tripped.” He hesitated before continuing. “And stuff was moved around in my room like it had been in Allegra’s and the others.”

  Something cold slithered up her back as he said it.

  “And you’re sure nothing was taken?”

  “Nothing we could see.”

  She had an image of Maximilian touching Xander’s things, looking for something personal. Something Xander wouldn’t miss.

  “So they’re really doing it,” Claire said softly, horrified all over again. “They’re taking stuff from us.”

  “Not all of us.”

  She met his eyes. “Right. Everyone but me.”

  She felt guilty, like it was her fault she hadn’t been victimized. Then she remembered the photograph and her discovery.

  “I think I found out something about Max—”

  “Not yet,” Xander said, looking around nervously. “The meeting’s about to start.”

  Bernard stood and cleared his throat. “As you all know, we suffered a residential break-in this morning while we were at church. The details aren’t significant except to say it was very like the break-ins some of you in this room experienced. Nothing appears to be missing. In fact, we might not know at all except for a broken window in the study and some things moved around in Alexandre’s room.”

  “I’d like to know what’s really going on,” Bridget suddenly demanded.

  Even from the back of the room, Claire could see Bridget’s hands trembling.

  Bernard leveled his gaze at her. “I assure you that we are using every means available to get to the bottom of it. You know as much as we know.”

  Bridget laughed a little, but it was as brittle as the ice in her glass. “I highly doubt that. I know I’m the newest member here, but that doesn’t give you a right to keep me in the dark. Someone broke into my house, too, you know.”

  “I think we all know what’s going on here,” Julia St. Martin said quietly.

  The room grew hushed as everyone looked at Bernard.

  This is it, Claire thought. He’s going to tell the truth. He’s going to tell them Max is behind the orders of panther blood, the break-ins, all of it. He’s going to explain why.

  “Julia.” Bernard’s voice was a warning, a low rumble of thunder just before a violent storm. “That will be all.”

  She sat up straighter, indecision warring across her elegant features. Claire had a flash of Allegra. Saw her strength in the set of her mother’s jaw, her stubbornness in the fire lighting Julia’s eyes.

  “We have to do something,” Julia said softly, fear threading her voice.

  Claire watched Bernard’s face carefully, wondering if it was her imagination that his right eye was twitching a little.

  “It’s all under control,” he said. “My alarm system is being upgraded as we speak, and I’ve asked Palmwood Security to consult with each and every one of you before you leave. The Guild will fund immediate upgrades to your stores and residences as you see fit, and we will retain on-site security for those of you who want it until the threat passes.”

  “And what if it doesn’t?” Julia asked.

  “It will,” Bernard insisted. His eyes dared anyone to disagree.

  The room was uncomfortably silent, some of the women fidgeting with their clothes while the men stood quietly by, making it clear they didn’t intend to challenge Bernard’s authority.

  Catching Claire’s eye, Xander tipped his head toward the hall. They slipped out the door at the back of the room and headed outside.

  EIGHTEEN

  Xander took her hand and they followed the path to the arbor, the security men talking and calling out to one another as they worked around the property.

  “They’re resetting the alarms,” Xander explained. “Making them more sensitive, connecting them to every room in the house instead of just the main entrances, and attaching the alarm to my dad’s cell so it’ll alert him, even when we’re out, if someone tries to break in again.”

  They reached the arbor and Claire dropped onto one of the garden chairs.

  . . . we might not know at all except for a broken window in the study and some things moved around in Alexandre’s room.

  Maximilian had something of Xander’s.

  And Max was going to use it to hurt him, Claire just knew it.

  She tried to focus on what she’d learned, hoping for a way forward. A way to stop whatever was happening.

  “I figured something out,” she finally said. “About Maximilian.”

  Xander sat next to her. “What is it?”

  “I couldn’t decide why that group picture looked so familiar, but then I . . .” She stumbled, not ready to admit she’d used the craft. There was no proof the gris-gris bag and spell is what had done it. It was only a dream. “I remembered.”

  “Remembered what?” Xander’s brown eyes were full of concern.

  “My dad has the same picture in his study, but the one on his wall has a piece shaved off the side. Look.” She pulled out her phone, flipping through her pictures, trying not to feel sick when she saw the one of Xander, the one that probably, at this very minute, had an X drawn through it. She stopped when she came to the group photo she’d recorded from the house on Dauphine.

  She turned it so Xander could see the screen and pointed to the right edge of the photo, the place where Maxi
milian stood, his eyes glaring defiantly at the camera, the little girl in her wheelchair in front of him.

  “See this man?”

  Xander nodded.

  “I think it’s Maximilian. I mean, he’s obviously younger in this photo, but I think it’s him.”

  Xander peered more closely at the image. “Is that . . . my parents? And . . .” He pointed to the woman in the flowy dress. “Your mother?”

  Claire nodded. “This is obviously a photo of all the Guild families. More specifically, it’s a photo of the families who hold all the power. If you look closely, you can see Allegra’s parents and Sasha’s and the Valcours. Bridget was pregnant, so it must have been about thirteen years ago, just before Daniel was born.” Claire met his eyes. “Maximilian was one of them, Xander. One of us.”

  Xander’s forehead was furrowed as he thought about what she said. “You said part of the picture in your dad’s study was cut off?”

  “Yeah, this part.” Claire pointed to the side where Maximilian stood. “It’s like they wanted to pretend he’d never existed. Like he’d never been one of them.”

  “No one leaves the Guild,” Xander said. He shrugged, remembering. “Not willingly.”

  “Right, which is why my bet is on Maximilian getting kicked out. The question is what happened that would make him target us? And why did he get kicked out in the first place?”

  “I don’t know,” Xander said, pacing. “I don’t get any of it.”

  “Don’t get any of what?”

  Claire turned toward the voice as Sasha stepped into the arbor.

  “Hey,” Claire said. “I think I figured something out. I was filling Xander in. Is Allegra coming?”

  “Oh, she’s coming,” Sasha said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Claire asked.

  “It means, that girl could make texting an Olympic sport. I think the longest I went without a text from her last night was three hours, and that was between three a.m. and six a.m. I’m exhausted.”

  Claire laughed as Allegra entered the arbor, her tan legs a mile long in white shorts. She wore her hair down even though it was nearly a hundred degrees outside. Claire would have been surprised if she’d ever sweat a drop.

  “What’s so funny?” she asked, sitting down. “What did I miss?”

  Sasha rolled her eyes. “Nothing.”

  Allegra looked suspicious, but a second later she leaned across the table, her eyes on Xander. “Everyone okay?”

  He nodded. “Same MO as the other break-ins. Nothing taken that we could see, but a few things seemed to be moved around in my room.”

  Sasha looked stricken. “Which means I’m next.”

  “Unless we can figure everything out first,” Allegra said. “And I don’t know about you guys, but there’s nothing even close to a Cold Blood spell in any of our books. Not even the ones my mom keeps locked up.”

  “We don’t have it, either,” Claire said.

  “Same,” Sasha said. “I looked twice, just to be sure.”

  “I struck out, too,” Xander said. “But Claire found out something about the group picture from the house on Dauphine.”

  Claire filled them in, explaining how she’d taken a picture of it with her phone.

  “It looked familiar to me for some reason,” she continued. “It was driving me crazy, so I . . .” She hesitated, wondering why it was so hard to admit that she’d used the craft even if she wasn’t entirely sure that’s what had caused her to have the dream. “I used an insight potion and a knowledge spell from Marie’s book to try and figure it out.”

  Allegra sat back in her chair. “An insight potion? With the sage and verbena and Solomon’s seal chips?”

  She nodded, sensing Xander straighten beside her. He would definitely have questions later. She just hoped it could wait until they had everything else figured out.

  “Did it work?” Sasha asked.

  “I don’t know. But something did. I dreamed about the Guild. I saw everybody at some party when we were all little. That guy named Maximilian was there, too. When I woke up, I remembered that my dad had the same picture hanging on the wall in his study. Except when I found it, it was missing the piece with Max in it. I compared it against the one from the house and everything.”

  “What do you mean it was missing a piece?” Sasha asked.

  “Someone—my dad, I think—cut him out of the picture.”

  Everyone fell quiet, each absorbed in their own thoughts.

  “It’s weird, right?” Xander finally said. “That Maximilian was part of the Guild?”

  Sasha nodded. “Either he did something really, really bad to get kicked out, or the Guild did something really, really bad to him to make him leave.”

  “Exactly,” Claire agreed. “But what?”

  “We could ask our parents,” Sasha suggested. “If we tell them we know Maximilian used to be part of the Guild, they’ll have to give us some kind of explanation.”

  Claire wasn’t so sure. She thought about the aura of secrecy she’d never questioned. About all the things she didn’t know about the Guild. True, until now, she’d never wanted to know. But all of a sudden, it bothered her.

  “Come on. We all know the Guild isn’t talking,” Allegra said. “Maybe they’d give us some kind of lame explanation for Maximilian’s defection, but it probably wouldn’t be the truth. And then they’d know that we’ve been snooping around. After that, you can say good-bye to us figuring out anything on our own. They’d be watching us like hawks.”

  “Which is why we have to find out what happened on our own,” Claire said. “Wait until we have all the information to confront the Guild.”

  And until we know what’s going on between Estelle and Maximilian, she thought, glancing at Xander.

  “How are we going to find out what happened if nobody’s talking?” Sasha asked. “I doubt you’re getting into the house on Dauphine again.”

  Claire took a deep breath. “I think we should talk to Eddie.”

  “Crazy Eddie?” Sasha said too loudly.

  “Shhhhh! God!” Claire looked around, hoping no one had overheard.

  Xander stopped pacing. “What does Crazy Eddie have to do with anything?”

  “Probably nothing,” Claire admitted. “But if we want to find out what happened with Maximilian, we need someone who knows a lot about the Guild but isn’t loyal to it. I can’t think of anybody but Crazy Eddie. Can you?”

  Xander dropped into the chair next to her. “I don’t know, Claire . . . I thought you wanted to take everything to the Guild?”

  “That was before I found out our parents aren’t exactly coming clean. They know way more than they’re letting on—about the panther blood, the break-ins, and Maximilian. After the orders came in, they held their so-called emergency meeting, but Allegra’s right; they never said anything about what they were going to do about it or what was really happening.” Claire stood up, walking angrily to the edge of the arbor before she turned back to look at the others. She thought of Xander’s mother, talking to Max in secret, like whatever he was threatening could be negotiated. Like it didn’t call for an actual response from the Guild. Even if Estelle had been having an affair with Max, her priorities were obviously out of whack.

  “If we’re right, we’re the ones in danger. Or . . . you and the others are. They force us to memorize spells and invite us to meetings when we turn eighteen, but now, when something important happens, no one tells us anything. And you know what? I might be able to live with that if I thought they were doing something about the threat. But it’s not really looking that way, is it? They’re not even talking to each other about it.”

  “She’s right,” Allegra said.

  “I’m not disagreeing,” Xander said. “I just don’t know what good it will do to talk to Crazy Eddie.”

 
“If we can find out what Maximilian did or what happened that made him leave the Guild,” Claire said, “we might be able to figure out his motive. And if we figure that out, we might get an idea of what he’s up to and whether or not we’re really in danger.”

  “It’s not a bad idea,” Allegra agreed. “Plus, maybe Crazy Eddie knows something about Cold Blood.”

  Sasha shook her head. “You guys are forgetting something: Crazy Eddie hasn’t been around for years. No one even knows where he lives.”

  Claire hesitated, trying to get up the courage to say what she’d been thinking.

  “Your dad’s the head of membership, Sash,” she finally said.

  It took a minute for Sasha to get it. “You want me to look in my dad’s records?”

  “I don’t know what else to do,” Claire admitted. “We don’t even have Eddie’s last name.”

  Sasha shook her head. “First of all, my dad wouldn’t let me within five feet of those records. Second, they’re all stored inside the computer in his office. And third, no one’s heard from Eddie in ages. My dad probably doesn’t even have a current address for him.”

  “What if he didn’t know you were looking at the records?” Allegra asked.

  “You mean, what if I violate his privacy to find a crazy voodoo guy who was kicked out of the Guild years ago and hasn’t been heard from since?” Sasha’s eyes were bright, her voice a little too loud.

  “Look, it’s their fault we have to sneak around. If they’d just come clean, we wouldn’t have to do all this. And if Max is as dangerous as he seems, we’re the ones in trouble. You’re in trouble, Sasha. You and Xander and Laura and everyone else. Do you really trust the Guild to figure it all out before someone gets hurt? The Toussaints’ house was broken into this morning, so whatever they’re doing doesn’t seem to be working.”

  Sasha glared at her. After what seemed like forever, she exhaled loudly. “I see your point. But this is . . . This is big, what you’re asking me to do.”

  “I know,” Claire admitted. “I’m sorry. I can’t think of any other way.”

  Sasha stared out the window for a minute before turning back to them. “I’ll do it. But I can’t do it alone.”