of his aura dimming and flashing red for a moment. “Soraia. Yes. Three days ago I picked upa message from Sam—that’s my sister. Her name is Samantha. Samantha Elizabeth Rebelo. She doesn’t use ‘Purlis’ or ‘Quinn.’”
“I’m following you,” I said.
“Sam married a Portuguese guy. Well, he’s half Dutch, but that doesn’t matter. Piet Rebelo. His dad was with the diplomatic corps and they met while she was taking care of our grandparents in Rhode Island and he was visiting some of his family that lived there—lots of Portuguese in Rhode Island. Piet is kind of like me—went into the family business in a manner of speaking. He works with one of the ever-changing EU trade-negotiation groups. Travels in fits. So . . . he’s currently out of town on business and Sam didn’t want to get the local cops involved in this because, while the Portuguese authorities are pretty serious about crimes involving children, she was worried about Dad’s government contacts hearing about it. She was afraid he’d find out through them if she’d reported it and maybe do something to her or Piet or the baby.”
“Baby?”
“She has a baby boy—Martim. He’s almost two and Sam was thinking about going back to work part-time. Soraia’s six, so she’s in school a lot of the time now and that makes it easier on Sam, but taking care of kids is a big job and Sam fears that if she calls attention to herself, Dad will find a way to spin it so she looks like a negligent parent instead of a victim. Neither of us thinks it’s a coincidence that Dad took Soraia right after Piet left town, so even if Sam had called him and he’d turned right around to come home, it would have been a day or more before Piet got here, and that’s extra time to Dad’s advantage.”
“So your sister didn’t call her husband? That’s kind of strange.”
“Not for Sam. She’s the supercompetent one. She rarely calls for help and she couldn’t even reach Piet initially. By the time I got intouch with her, she’d decided she didn’t want to let him know because he’d insist on getting the government and police involved. Sam believes that would play into Dad’s hands in a worst-case scenario and put her in a position of being unable to do anything herself. She doesn’t want to think the worst, but she does. Dad is up to something terrible.”
I felt a little odd about the situation. On the one hand, Purlis was dangerous and crazy enough to do everything his children feared. On the other, going after him alone and without any help from the police was going to be rough. But this wasn’t a typical kidnapping, so Sam might have been right in feeling that the police would be more of a hindrance than a help. The most important thing was that there was a six-year-old girl in the hands of a man I thought wasn’t safe or stable.
I nodded. “I wouldn’t put anything past your father.”
“Me, neither. But the thing that worries me is that I haven’t been seeing much sign of the paranormal side of his project and I’m afraid Soraia may be why.”
I frowned at him. “In what way?”
“I have a bad feeling that whatever he’s up to is just waiting on some triggering event, and the timing of this makes me think Soraia is meant to be part of that.”
I felt ill and fell silent, thinking about all the horrible things magic could make of a six-year-old girl. . . .
SIX
I t was nearly five o’clock when we disembarked in Carcavelos. The houses were mostly plastered and painted in soft colors like smaller versions of the grand Baroque buildings I’d seen in Lisbon, but the town reminded me of Manhattan Beach, an upper-middle-class beach suburb of Los Angeles. The architecture and the light were totally different, but the laid-back surfer kids, the well-heeled family houses in yards filled with shaggy palm trees behind stuccoed walls covered in purple bougainvillea, and a practical but recent-model car in the driveway were
“I’m following you,” I said.
“Sam married a Portuguese guy. Well, he’s half Dutch, but that doesn’t matter. Piet Rebelo. His dad was with the diplomatic corps and they met while she was taking care of our grandparents in Rhode Island and he was visiting some of his family that lived there—lots of Portuguese in Rhode Island. Piet is kind of like me—went into the family business in a manner of speaking. He works with one of the ever-changing EU trade-negotiation groups. Travels in fits. So . . . he’s currently out of town on business and Sam didn’t want to get the local cops involved in this because, while the Portuguese authorities are pretty serious about crimes involving children, she was worried about Dad’s government contacts hearing about it. She was afraid he’d find out through them if she’d reported it and maybe do something to her or Piet or the baby.”
“Baby?”
“She has a baby boy—Martim. He’s almost two and Sam was thinking about going back to work part-time. Soraia’s six, so she’s in school a lot of the time now and that makes it easier on Sam, but taking care of kids is a big job and Sam fears that if she calls attention to herself, Dad will find a way to spin it so she looks like a negligent parent instead of a victim. Neither of us thinks it’s a coincidence that Dad took Soraia right after Piet left town, so even if Sam had called him and he’d turned right around to come home, it would have been a day or more before Piet got here, and that’s extra time to Dad’s advantage.”
“So your sister didn’t call her husband? That’s kind of strange.”
“Not for Sam. She’s the supercompetent one. She rarely calls for help and she couldn’t even reach Piet initially. By the time I got intouch with her, she’d decided she didn’t want to let him know because he’d insist on getting the government and police involved. Sam believes that would play into Dad’s hands in a worst-case scenario and put her in a position of being unable to do anything herself. She doesn’t want to think the worst, but she does. Dad is up to something terrible.”
I felt a little odd about the situation. On the one hand, Purlis was dangerous and crazy enough to do everything his children feared. On the other, going after him alone and without any help from the police was going to be rough. But this wasn’t a typical kidnapping, so Sam might have been right in feeling that the police would be more of a hindrance than a help. The most important thing was that there was a six-year-old girl in the hands of a man I thought wasn’t safe or stable.
I nodded. “I wouldn’t put anything past your father.”
“Me, neither. But the thing that worries me is that I haven’t been seeing much sign of the paranormal side of his project and I’m afraid Soraia may be why.”
I frowned at him. “In what way?”
“I have a bad feeling that whatever he’s up to is just waiting on some triggering event, and the timing of this makes me think Soraia is meant to be part of that.”
I felt ill and fell silent, thinking about all the horrible things magic could make of a six-year-old girl. . . .
SIX
I t was nearly five o’clock when we disembarked in Carcavelos. The houses were mostly plastered and painted in soft colors like smaller versions of the grand Baroque buildings I’d seen in Lisbon, but the town reminded me of Manhattan Beach, an upper-middle-class beach suburb of Los Angeles. The architecture and the light were totally different, but the laid-back surfer kids, the well-heeled family houses in yards filled with shaggy palm trees behind stuccoed walls covered in purple bougainvillea, and a practical but recent-model car in the driveway were
Similar Books
