"No, he's driving with us. It was a last minute thing, so we couldn't get rooms."
"Is that cute guy, the one you were talking about, going to be on this trip?" Gemma asked. She has a one-track mind.
"Yeah. Actually, there will be two of them." I hadn't yet told them Ethan was working with my company, so I decided not to try to work that in right then. It would get too complicated to explain. Come to think of it, "complicated" was a very good word for my life.
* * *
I set Marcia's alarm for one, and when it woke me, I started the coffeepot while I dressed, then rilled a couple of thermoses. I had a feeling we'd need plenty of caffeine to keep us all going. I'd just made it to the sidewalk when a silver Mercedes pulled up. The passenger window rolled down and I saw Merlin's face. "Good morning, Katie," he said, looking perkier than any thousand-year-old man had a right to look at that time of the morning.
I climbed into the backseat, then Ethan took off. We turned off onto a narrow, tree-lined side street, where Owen waited on the sidewalk. He wore a black, double-breasted greatcoat over a dark suit, which was somewhat incongruous with the pillow he had tucked under one arm, like a child heading off on a family vacation.
I scooted over to make room for him in the backseat.
And then we were off. "I brought coffee," I said. "Does anyone want any?"
"Oh, bless you. You're an angel of mercy. Black, please," Ethan said. I poured some into a travel mug and passed it up to him. He turned to Merlin and said, "I can see why you hired her."
"Anyone else?"
"No, thank you," Merlin said. "I must confess I haven't developed a taste for this coffee you drink."
I turned to Owen, but he was already sound asleep, his head resting on the pillow he had wedged against the window. I didn't see how he could sleep at a time like this, but it was good that he could. We needed him at his best that morning.
An hour into the drive I was wishing I'd brought my own pillow. Not that I thought I could sleep, but there wasn't much else to do. In the front seat, Ethan and Merlin talked quietly. It sounded like Merlin was giving Ethan a Magic 101 lecture, answering all of Ethan's questions. I would have liked to listen in, but they spoke too softly and I didn't want to risk waking Owen by asking them to speak up so I could hear. It was too dark in the car to read, even if I had brought a book, and I couldn't see the scenery outside in the darkness.
It was still dark when we pulled into a parking lot near the boardwalk. "Looks like we made good time," Ethan noted. "But if we'd left later, something surely would have come up."
"I made cinnamon rolls, if anyone wants breakfast," I said.
"You aren't an angel, you're a goddess," Ethan said. I passed rolls forward for him and for Merlin. Ethan took a bite, then said, "You made these, yourself? Look out, Sara Lee."
"You cooked for us?" I jumped when I heard Owen's voice, then turned to see that he was awake, blinking sleep out of his eyes.
"Yeah, would you like some coffee and a cinnamon roll?"
"Yes, please. I take it we're here?"
"With plenty of time to spare," Ethan said as I handed Owen a mug and a roll.
"After we refresh ourselves, we can get the lay of the land," Merlin said.
I got a roll and some coffee for myself. The nearly sleepless night was already catching up with me, in spite of a bad case of nerves. "These are wonderful, Katie,"
Owen said, his voice sounding very close to me in the darkness of the backseat.
"You're a good cook."
"Everyone needs a hobby," I said, glad he couldn't see me blushing.
After we finished our breakfast, we got out of the car and walked toward the boardwalk. The sky was just starting to turn gray on the eastern horizon, and a light fog forming near the ground gave the deserted boardwalk a ghostly quality. Merlin unlocked the public rest-rooms so we could all recover from the long drive. I touched up my lipstick before heading back out to join the men. A girl just couldn't face a magical battle without her lipstick.
We walked together toward the amusement park. If this had been a movie, it would have been one of those slow-motion power shots, our coats swirling around us as we strode purposely through the fog toward our destiny. As it was, we all felt a little cold and damp, so we clustered together tighter than we normally would. I noticed that the men had closed ranks around me, and I wasn't enough of a feminist to mind all that much. If they wanted to protect me from the scary bad guys, I was totally on board with that plan. Never mind the fact that I was probably safer than Merlin and Owen were from whatever was likely to happen.
A gate sealed off the amusement park's pier, but one touch from Owen and it opened soundlessly. In the pale early morning light and the fog, the amusement park looked like something out of a Scooby Doo cartoon, very eerie and haunted. I halfway expected to find the evil caretaker wearing a rubber zombie mask. Only bits and pieces of the giant roller coaster broke through the fog, looking like sections of a railroad to nowhere.
"Do you think he's here yet?" Owen whispered.
"I'm not sensing anything," Merlin replied. "You two"—he indicated Ethan and me—"keep your eyes open for anything unusual, anything you don't think should be there."