“You mean…” I gestured with the bottle as I brought it down.
“Absolutely.”
I poured two drinks and set them on the bar. “Sixty dollars.”
He handed me a hundred, and after I handed him his change, he held up his glass. I clinked mine against it.
“To the prettiest bartender in town,” Flynn said.
I laughed and took a sip of the whiskey. So smooth. I vowed right then and there I would buy a bottle for myself in celebration if I managed to reach my first anniversary at Rosie’s.
“I don’t have to ask if you say that to every bartender in town,” I told him. “It rolls off your tongue too easily. But this is the wrong bar, Mr. Flynn. We’re used to Irishmen’s blarney in here.”
He winked at me, then said, “I heard you had a problem with some of my clansmen last night.”
“Are you and Mr. Barclay members of the same clan?”
Flynn shrugged. “So to speak. Nasty business. You know that poor Rodrick isn’t quite right, don’t you?”
“I’m sorry to hear that. I did notice that he had a terrible pallor.”
Flynn choked on his whiskey. When he got his coughing under control, he said, “Ms. McLane, you are delightful. I would enjoy spending eternity with you.”
“I seriously doubt that,” I said, taking another sip of my drink and moving away to take care of other customers.
When I wandered back after about fifteen minutes, I said, “You seem to have excellent sources of information.”
“Barclay doesn’t own Carleton House, and although he wants to think of himself as Master of the City, he isn’t.” Flynn toasted me with his glass and took a sip. “So, he doesn’t know who comes and goes there any more than anyone else.”
“Do your excellent sources have a clue as to why he attempted to kidnap me?”
“Information has value. What are you willing to trade?”
“I’ll take you to lunch tomorrow? La Maison at noon?” I said with a hopeful note in my voice.
Flynn laughed. “Oh, Ms. McLane. You’ll be magnificent in a hundred years.”
“Yes, I will be, and you’ll still be striking out. Consider my future good will for that hundred years as a great bargain.”
He regarded me over the rim of his glass, then said, “I’ll take that. Someone in City Hall asked Rodrick to do it.”
“Name?”
“Sorry, I’m afraid I don’t have that. It seems this person has promised to back him for Master of the City.”
“Is that person a vampire?”
Flynn shook his head. “I don’t believe so.”
“Then how would he be able to help Barclay?” I couldn’t imagine how a non-vampire could possibly do that.
“I told you Rodrick isn’t quite right.”
As far as I was able to determine, four children of Lord Carleton had the age to contend for supremacy, with Flynn and Barclay the strongest contenders. Eventually, one of them would kill the other and ascend the throne. Outsiders normally had very little influence over that struggle.
“Mr. Flynn? Watch your back. I believe that someone in City Hall is directing the Hunter that’s in town.”
He raised an eyebrow, finished his whiskey, and as he got to his feet, said, “Ms. McLane, that nugget of information was worth a lot more than lunch. Until next time.” He smiled, collected his bodyguards, and walked out of the bar.
Sam dropped in later that evening, and I told him about Mietzner and my conversation with Flynn.
“I agree with Lizzy and Jolene,” Sam said. “Meeting with Mietzner is too dangerous. I don’t care if you do have backup. You said yourself that he’s a powerful mage. Too much can go wrong, especially if his backup is the Hunter.”
I hadn’t thought about that. The Hunter would definitely cancel me out, and I wouldn’t be armed. I had the spells in the Book to forge a sword, but I would have to find a skilled metalsmith, possibly through Lizzy’s Fae connections, and it would take time. Assuming I could find a Fae smith willing to work with iron. It would be expensive, too. I would probably have to give the smith the spells to pay for it.
I answered the phone around midnight, and Jolene said, “Can you come by my place around noon tomorrow? Lizzy and I are going to try and find your Hunter. Lizzy said she can pick you up at your place around eleven-thirty.”
“I’ll be there,” I said.
And with that to look forward to, sleep didn’t come easily when I got home. My mind just wouldn’t stop.
Chapter 25
“Trevor did some research for us,” Jolene said when Lizzy and I showed up at her house the following day. “Mietzner owns a couple of rental properties. I thought we could cruise by them and see if we can learn anything.”
“If we could get anything personal of the Hunter’s to focus on, it would make finding him a lot easier,” Lizzy said. “Jolene says she can fashion a tracker we might plant on him.”
It seemed to me that if we found where he was staying, we wouldn’t need a finder spell, but I didn’t say anything. If Trevor had given me the information, I would have checked it out. At least with Jolene’s and Lizzy’s help, I would have transportation.
We took Jolene’s car because it was less remarkable. Lizzy’s pink Cooper with flower decals was rather noticeable.
The first place we checked was a six-story apartment building downtown. We drove around it, then I asked Jolene to let me out. Lizzy came with me. There weren’t any balconies, and when we walked into the lobby, we discovered there weren’t any apartments on the ground floor—just the lobby, a small liquor store with fancy wines, a gym, and a laundry room. There were two sets of stairs and two central elevators.
Shaking my head, I said, “Nope. He wouldn’t be here,” and walked back out.
“Why do you say that?” Lizzy asked as we stood on the curb waiting for Jolene to come around and pick us up.”
“No escape routes. Hard to secure. Not private enough.”
She nodded, then shrugged.
Jolene next drove us out to an area near my place. Rather than apartments, the neighborhood was comprised of one-story duplexes with small front yards and walled backyards. According to property tax records, Mietzner owned two buildings—four apartments—right next to each other.
Jolene parked a block away and said, “Hand me that clipboard on the back seat.” Lizzy handed it to her, and Jolene got out of the car. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Fifteen minutes later, she opened the door, tossed the clipboard into the backseat, and got back in the car.
“Nope. No paranormal assassins in residence.”
“What did you do?” I had been bursting with curiosity the whole time she had been gone.
“There’s a senior center two blocks from here. I rang the bell and said I was doing a survey for the community center. Asked them what services they used, and what programs they would like to see offered. Talked to people in all four addresses, and the youngest one was a woman in her seventies.”
We next drove across the river and into a forested area at the base of the foothills. Custom homes on large lots, shielded for the most part from their neighbors and the road by trees. Mietzner’s house was on one edge of the neighborhood with trees all around it, and a forested hill rising behind it.
“Trevor said this is where Mietzner lived for a long time, but he built a new house a few years ago. He’s been renting this one because the housing market was down.”
“This one’s going to be a little trickier to scout,” I said. “If I was staying here, I’d set wards, but I’d also set some booby traps. Not the kind that would hurt anyone, but that would tell me if someone was sneaking around.”
“Yeah,” Jolene said. “You either have to sneak through the woods or walk right up the driveway in plain sight of the house. Hard to be discreet. Hand me the clipboard.”
Lizzy snorted. “You think people in this neighborhood use senior centers?”
“No, I want to write down the license number on the car in the driveway.”
“Let’s go grab some lunch and bring it back,” I said. “We can go to that fast-food joint we passed. Maybe we can see someone coming out of the house.”
I watched for the car while we ordered burgers and fries but didn’t see anyone drive by. We got our food and parked down the street where we could see the car but none of the windows in the house. Jolene called Trevor and asked him to check on the car’s license number, and then we waited.
After an hour, Trevor called back. Jolene talked to him, taking notes, then asked, “Did you get the name on the credit card?” She wrote some more, then said, “Thanks,” and hung up.
Turning to us, she said, “It’s a rental car, and it was rented two months ago. The credit card he used is in the name of Hans Christian.”
I snorted, and Lizzy asked about silver skates.
“Yeah,” Jolene said, “but Trevor hacked the credit card company, and he’s got all the places the card was used over the past two months. Restaurants, laundry, gas stations. We can map out a pattern.”
We watched for another two hours, and everyone was starting to get fidgety, when a man came out of the house and got in the car. Jolene handed me her binoculars.
“That’s the guy from the police sketch,” I said, and handed the binoculars to Lizzy.
We watched Christian drive away, and Lizzy jumped out of the car.
“Hey, where are you going?” I called.
“Spell material,” she said, trotting away.
“Watch out for booby traps.”
Lizzy laughed.
She came back about ten minutes later and jumped into the car.
“You were right,” she said. “The house is warded, and there are both magical and physical tripwires set around the place. I think you could get blown up if you weren’t careful.”