No Quest For The Wicked

Owen raised an eyebrow. “Make sure she has it before you hit her.”

“Spoilsport. What happened to better safe than sorry?” I took a deep breath, and my hand only trembled a little as I reached out to ring the doorbell.

The chimes inside sounded like cathedral bells, echoing out into the vestibule, and I gestured for the others to move to the side, where they wouldn’t be immediately visible from the doorway. There was no response for a long time, and I was almost ready to give up when the door opened a crack. A uniformed maid, complete with frilly cap, stuck her head out. She had the kind of fear in her eyes that I recognized from staff meetings with Mimi. She rattled off something in a language I couldn’t identify. I glanced at Owen, our resident linguist, but he shrugged and shook his head. I figured it was just like Mimi to import a maid from some exotic locale—probably some place where they were used to living under the rule of tyrants and didn’t know anything about human rights.

“Um, hi,” I said. “Is Mimi home? I’m a friend of hers. We used to work together.”

The maid said haltingly, “Sorry. No English.”

“Okay,” I said. In desperation, I tried charades, pulling my face into an exaggerated snarl and hissing as I raised my hands in claws.

The woman flinched but grinned in recognition as she nodded. She then shook her head. “Not home. Left this morning. Gone all day. Not back until late, late night,” she said, pausing between words as though running them through a mental phrase book.

“I don’t suppose you know where she’d be now,” I said wistfully, but the maid just shook her head. “Well, thank you. You’ve been very helpful. And I am so, so sorry. We’re doing everything we can to make sure it doesn’t get worse.”

After she’d closed the door, Thor asked, “Now where should we go?”

“If Mimi hasn’t been home since lunch, she probably still has the brooch with her,” I said. “And you can usually find Mimi by the trail of shattered people she leaves in her wake. I bet we could walk up and down Park Avenue and look for people who work in service industries who are either crying or setting things on fire. There could even be riots.” Then I had an idea. “Or I could call Gemma and find out who the most exclusive hairstylist in the city is. Mimi would get her hair done before a gala like this, and we might find her there.”

Owen handed me his phone, and I was already dialing before we reached the lobby. Gemma gave me the addresses of the top hair and nail salons, and I scribbled them on a notepad I had in my purse, then followed the others outside. As soon as I got through the door, I said, “I’ve got a few leads. It might be a good idea to split up to check them all out as quickly as possible, but surveillance only. We’ll call each other before moving in if we find her.”

They didn’t respond, and it took me a moment to notice what they were looking at. The flying carpets were gone, and the two tiny drivers were lying on the sidewalk. “Wait, our carpets were stolen?” I asked. “They didn’t even have radios in them. And I thought crime had taken a downswing.”

“It’s a safe bet they weren’t joyriders,” Rod said as he bent to check on the drivers.

“And they won’t be stripping them for parts,” Owen added.

“Someone is sabotaging us,” Thor said, hefting his battleaxe in his hands. “I suspect the Elf Lord. He doesn’t want his plot disrupted.”

“This doesn’t seem like Sylvester’s style,” Earl said. “He’s more likely to let us find the brooch and then take it from us than to try to stop us from finding it.”

“On the bright side, we’re definitely on the right track,” I said. “We’ve got to be if someone is bothering to get in our way.”

“They tried to stop us at Macy’s, and that wasn’t even a real lead,” Owen reminded me.

“The fake doorman knew Earl used elfsong earlier, so he must be connected to the black suits. Maybe that was about stalling us before we could figure things out and catch up with Mimi. Are the drivers okay?”

“They’ll be fine,” Rod said as he straightened.

Sam swooped in and landed on the awning. “Nothing in a three-block radius,” he reported. “They’re sending up some other carpets, but it’ll take a few minutes. Maybe we should move on and have them meet us somewhere.”

I checked my notepad. “One of the salons Gemma suggested is only about a block away. We could head there.” I hesitated, then said, “But don’t call the office to tell them where to meet us just yet.”