"Whoa. No!" Adam said as he climbed out. "That's not what I meant. Ransom, not a trade. Your Prius is very cute and very ecofriendly and very, very Paige." He shut the door.
"Savannah?" Lucas said.
"Sorry. Adam was just--"
"Distracting Paige, which is why he texted me to go into another room and call him. Whatever happened, Savannah, keeping it from Paige is not--"
"A witch-hunter is trying to kill me."
Silence.
"Lucas?"
"I'm quite certain you're joking. However, you don't sound as if you are."
"I'm not. There are these women called witch-hunters who--"
"I'm familiar with the legend, Savannah. But it's just that, a legend."
"Yeah? Tell that to the bitch who's been trying to kill me." I told him the story.
When I finished, he was quiet for a minute, then said, "While I'm not convinced the person stalking you is a witch-hunter, she does appear to be hunting witches, so the precise nature of her affiliation is unimportant. You and Adam need to--"
"Stop her. I know. And you need to get Paige out of Portland, in case this chick circles back there looking for me. Can you take her to Miami? I know you don't like relying on the Cabal."
"Under the circumstances, it's probably the safest place for her. Unless you need our help . . ."
"We don't. Whatever this kid is, she's only a kid and she's human." And I'm sure as hell not adding to your worries by telling you about my power outage. "We can handle it."
"I presume this hunter is responsible for the vehicular damage then?"
I hesitated. "Actually, no. That would be the case I was investigating while you guys were gone, which turned out . . . I think we'd better get Paige in on this explanation. Can you call her and put me on speaker?"
"So," I said, when I was finished telling them about the events in Columbus and the return of Leah O'Donnell. "The moral of this story is never to let Paige kill anyone ever again. She sucks at it, and I'll have to go back and do it right."
"I'll remember that," Paige said. "So you're all okay?"
"Yes. For the hundredth time, I'm fine."
"I'll stop asking when I believe it," she murmured. "So what are you doing now?"
"Workaholic that I am, I found another case right away. One that may need a full council investigation."
I told them about Jaime's show and the death of Walter Alston.
"Jaime should get to Miami," Lucas said quickly. "She needs to be under Cabal protection, so she isn't targeted to raise Lucifer. That's probably the best place for us, too. If there's been trouble, someone in the Cabal will have heard rumors."
Paige moaned about getting on another plane, but Lucas adroitly steered her to the conclusion that they really had to go to Miami. Immediately.
The minute I stepped onto the front walk, my head started to ache. Just a soft pulse that got stronger as we drew near the house. A witch-hunter was inside. I hoped it was my little friend, but suspected that would be too easy.
Since we'd been sitting outside the Tucker house talking to Paige and Lucas for a while, we weren't surprised when the door opened before we could knock.
A middle-aged woman with a cane stood in the doorway. Mrs. Tucker, I presumed. "If you're from the insurance company, hoping to catch me doing something I shouldn't, you'll need to do a better job of undercover surveillance than that." She waved at the car. Then she saw me an
d stopped.
"Oh," she said after a moment.