“Come,” he said in a thick accent. “I take you where you can relax.”
“Ah, thank you,” I murmured, realizing that we might have already lost Cherry’s opportunity to split off without being noticed. “But we are fine waiting here.”
“Please, I insist.”
I could pull rank and tell him to get lost, but I figured that would arouse suspicion. Instead, I nodded. “If that’s the case, by all means, lead the way.”
“Grazi.”
Cherry looked at me again, but this time her expression was much more dubious. Hopefully, we’d find an excuse for her to slip away once we were served our tea and the McElroys continued the world’s slowest game of telephone.
The tearoom was just down a couple of halls and a few doors, and it was quite quaint, in a purposeful way. Unlike the Chevaliers, who had very rococo-inspired décor, the McElroys had a more upscale cottagecore look going, complete with plenty of Irish imagery and themes. I didn’t mean shamrocks or any of the things one might spot on Saint Patrick’s Day, but rather Belleek pottery, Celtic plaques, thick, homemade candles, and a plethora of Irish lace.
“Here, please make yourselves comfortable. And feel free to ring the bell should you have any need of me,” the large butler said once we were seated at an ornate, polished wooden table.
It was only then that I realized there was a vague familiarity about the man, and I tried to pin where I had seen him.
Other than his impressive stature and biceps the size of my head, he was fairly nondescript. His hair was buzzed, he had no tattoos, and his eyes were a dark brown. He was Caucasian, but tanned, making me think he either spent a lot of time outdoors or was perhaps Sicilian?
But once more, it was Cherry who spoke first, nearly echoing my exact thoughts word for word. “You seem familiar. Do I know you?”
The man paused in what was clearly meant to be his exit before giving a grave sort of nod. “You likely are familiar with my sister. She spends the most time traveling between the great houses. I largely work here as a covert security member, but I do occasionally help the VanMarches and Chevaliers when they are short on bodies.”
It hit me right at the same time that Cherry figured it out.
“Oh, so you’re a Parracida!” she said cheerily, and I tried to recall if I had told her anything about that particular family. They were the closest thing we had to familiars, and they had been flourishing in that role for a couple hundred years.
“In carne,” he answered, his tone as flat as mine when I was trying to be neutral. It made me want to know exactly what Cherry was seeing, but that was a conversation we couldn’t have right in front of him.
“Well, it is lovely to meet you. You know, I was thinking of doing a series on some of your sister’s recipes, so I’d love to get a one-on-one with you to hear some heartwarming stories from your childhood. Nothing too serious, just what it was like always having her goodies around, any baking foibles she had that were humorous, you know the deal.”
“I... see.”
Clearly, the man wasn’t much for chatter, but Cherry pressed on. I got the feeling that she was trying to dig for something, although I didn’t know what it was, and I couldn’t help but wonder why she didn’t want him to scram so she could pull what she did at the Chevaliers and disappear for a while.
Eventually, Tadgh, his sister Aoife, his uncle, mother,andfather all found us in the span of a couple of minutes and the butler slipped away. I wanted more than anything to ask Cherry why she’d been so focused on him, but patience was a virtue I most certainly exercised while I endured the near interrogation of the McElroys.
There were too many questions to remember them all, but they generally went like this:
“Did you know something was going to happen at the funeral?”
“Was there an ongoing investigation about your father and brother’s deaths?”
“Was that really your brother that Tadgh fought?”
“Was someone coming after all of the shifter leadership, or did this seem specific to your family?”
“Are we safe?”
I tried to answer as honestly as I could without ruining our own investigation. I did tell them that the police were on the case, but not that I’d hired a not-quite-a-psychic to help me figure out if someone was coming after me and my siblings, only to find out that was the case,andit was possibly someone using forbidden necromantic magic. It wasn’t an easy conversation to have, especially since I could tell Tadgh wasn’t exactly buying it at first. In the end, though, the McElroys seemed satisfied.
Naturally, I didn’t mention that the reason we were really there was because we couldn’t be sure if any ofthemwere the culprit. I couldn’t imagine how that would go over.
Thankfully, Cherry managed to duck out with the excuse of needing the bathroom, and she even returned there for a second trip when she supposedly “forgot her purse.” Although she told me that her exploration of the Chevalier estate hadn’t really turned up anything, I was still quite anxious to get a run-down of her experience once we were alone.
It took far longer than I would have liked, and the sun was setting by the time we were dropped off at the gate. As I expected, there were a couple of security guards posted within seeing and hearing distance of my car, and I appreciated the fact that they’d had the foresight to make sure no one had messed with my vehicle.
What they didn’t know, however, was that it was a honey trap filled with several covert cameras that streamed right back to the antechamber where my siblings were hiding.