No Quest For The Wicked

Owen caught up to me and said, “Where is she?”

“I don’t know. I think Sam’s still with her.”

We kept going, checking in doorways as we passed, in case she was hiding. There was no sign of her the whole block. Soon, we reached Lexington Avenue, which was busier. In all that traffic, she could easily have disappeared. She could have hailed another cab.

“I think we’ve lost her,” I said.

“Sam’s still with her. He’s hard to shake.”

“Well, there’s no point in us running until we hear from him, right?” I said.

“Very good point.” We stopped, both of us breathing heavily.

“How’s the leg?”

“I barely feel it anymore.”

“Either you’re lying or that’s a very bad sign.”

“I’ve got bigger things to worry about than pain.”

A bench would have been nice, but I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to stand up again if I let myself sit down. Owen and I just leaned wearily on each other as we waited for word.

Finally, Owen’s phone rang. I heard Sam’s voice on the other end when Owen answered. “Sorry, kids, but I think I lost her.”

Chapter Eighteen

I wanted to bang my head against the nearest brick wall. We’d gone through all that to get the brooch and keep it safe, and now we’d lost it again?

“Keep looking, Sam,” Owen said into the phone. “She can’t have gone far. You know the signs to look for.” When he ended the call, he said with a weary sigh, “Okay, maybe letting her keep the brooch for a while wasn’t the best plan.”

“On the bright side, how long has it been since anyone’s attacked us?”

“Good point.”

We stood there for a moment, both of us swaying slightly as our bodies fought to force us to rest. “I suppose we ought to search, too,” I said after a while.

We began walking, keeping our eyes open for signs of Mimi’s presence. There seemed to be a higher-than-normal number of fender benders, so either Mimi had hailed another cab or she’d crossed the street. In case it was the latter, we crossed over. We hadn’t gone far when we heard raised voices coming from a nearby coffee shop, where it looked like an altercation was in progress.

Owen and I exchanged a glance. “Do you think …?” I asked.

He shrugged. “It’s worth a shot.”

We went inside and found Mimi holding court, surrounded by young people whose backpacks suggested they were students at the nearby university. She was berating a waitress for bringing the wrong kind of creamer for her coffee.

“Jackpot!” I whispered. “Now what do we do?”

“That box should be ready soon, so we might as well wait and watch. She can’t get out of here without going past us. Are you hungry?”

“Starving,” I said, my stomach seconding the motion with a rumble. We’d done so much running and fighting, and the late lunch was hours away.

We took the table nearest the door, and Owen ordered coffee and pie for both of us. The waitress gave us a funny look. I figured we didn’t look much grungier than any of the other late-night patrons, so long as no one noticed the blood on Owen’s leg, but we also didn’t exactly look like reliable, upstanding citizens. Owen put enough money to cover the bill and a generous tip on the table, and that seemed to ease the waitress’s concerns.

I winced at the sound of breaking crockery as Mimi forcefully rejected whatever they’d brought her. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” her waitress groveled, backing away. Mimi’s court of students rushed to do anything she demanded. One stood behind her, picking the leaves and twigs out of her hair. Another knelt under the table, washing her feet and lower legs.

“She’s got ultimate power, and she’s using it to boss around waitresses and college kids,” I said, shaking my head.

The waitress brought our coffee, and Owen took a long sip. I couldn’t tell if it was the fluorescent lighting in the cafe, but he looked awful, his face a sick, greenish pale color. “What would you do if you had that kind of power?” he asked.

I sipped my own coffee while I considered his question. “I don’t know. It must tap into your basic personality rather than your plans. I doubt she’d have thought she’d be so petty with it. She would have wanted to rule the city social set, to be the Mrs. Astor of the twenty-first century. With me, it would probably be something pathetic like getting people to give me their seat on the subway and hold doors for me.”