Fade-out: Take 2 of the Kanyon and Daylen Series, page 18
Kanyon raised an eyebrow and looked at Blue for a long moment. She stood slowly and walked around the island, took Blue by the back of her shirt, lifted her up to her tiptoes, and began walking her to the back door. “Nope. I have something so much better planned for you,” Kanyon replied, the anticipated amusement evident in her voice.
“Oh, so we’re going with the whole eager student, grumpy old person with the callous heart, closed off from the world and I have to trick you into teaching me all your wisdom thing?” Blue asked as Kanyon opened the back door and sat her on the back porch. Blue straightened her shirt and turned back to Kanyon. “So I’ll meet you here in the morning? Should I wear a karate gi to start my wax on/wax off training? Or how about a greasy shirt? Are we going to be building a hot rod out of an old junker?”
Kanyon smiled. “Please, please, please keep all of this charming repartee for your life coach, she will absolutely love your spunk.”
“MY WHAT? Oh, no. No.” Blue began shaking her head as she stepped toward Kanyon, trying to slide back into the house.
Kanyon dropped an arm across the doorway. “A deal is a deal.”
Blue tried to lift Kanyon’s arm and then tried to duck under it, only to have Kanyon move her arm lower. Blue relented and stepped back. “Can’t we talk about this? Come on, I don’t want a life coach. They will try to dig up my jaded past and-”
“Wait, didn’t you grow up in a small town with a loving mother and father?”
“Yes, exactly my point. I don’t need some life coach dredging up my dark childhood and putting motivational sticky notes all over my refrigerator. Please, can we just rebuild a car? I’m really good with tools.”
“Nope. But I’ll give you this, I picked ya out a really special life coach and I promise there won’t be any motivational sticky notes on the refrigerator.”
“Kanyon, come on. I’ll paint your fence. Look.” She did an up and down motion with her arm. “I already have the first lesson down.”
Kanyon laughed. “Nice try,” she offered then stepped back and started to close the door. “I will give you one valuable life lesson though.”
Blue looked at her wearily.
“Stay out of my spaghetti,” Kanyon ordered, then closed the door.
Back in the kitchen, Kanyon pulled out her phone to call the life coach she had in mind for Blue, only to have her phone ring in her hand, Roz. She had been semi-avoiding her agent for the last couple of weeks, not sure how exactly to tell her she wasn’t interested in taking on any new roles right now, especially until she figured out this whole Seeker Guardian thing. “Hey, Roz.”
“Kanyon, it’s about time you answered.” Roz’s voice boomed over the phone.
“I know, I’ve just been…” Hunting for mystical items with my superpowers. “Busy.”
“Not busy working, because you haven’t let me book anything for you,” Roz countered.
“I know, I’m just not-” Ready, she was going to say but Roz had already started in.
“I have a role for you. It’s perfect; a total femme-fatal gig. Double agent, hero, black leather, fight scenes, fast cars, and lots of weapons. They want you and they want your answer ASAP.”
“Ah, Roz. I don’t-”
“Stop with the don’ts. I’m not going to hear it. I told them we would call them this weekend. You have forty-eight hours to get the don’t wannas out of your system. You want back in this business? You need to take this role. I’ll call you later so you can tell me yes.”
“Roz…” When she wasn’t interrupted, she repeated. “Roz?” She held out her phone to look at it, disconnected. “Ugh!”
The next morning Kanyon got to work even earlier than normal. Dodge was out of town for the weekend attending a martial arts tournament with some of his other students. It worked out well because she had a little plan for the newest member of their little Scooby gang.
Twenty minutes later, she slid out of Theo’s office, carefully shutting the door behind her. She turned only to jump back quickly; startled to see Daylen leaned against the doorjamb to their office, watching her. “Morning?” Kanyon offered weakly.
Daylen raised an eyebrow. “What were you doing in Theo’s office?”
“Nothing,” Kanyon answered flippantly, stepping past Daylen to enter their office.
“Nothing? I find that extremely hard to believe.”
“You should probably work on your trust issues,” Kanyon said playfully as she dropped into her chair, throwing her feet up on her desk.
“Oh, I trust just fine. I completely trust that you were in there rigging up some trap or something to come crashing down on him once he opens the door.”
“Daylen, really? You’d think we’re attending some sixth grade sleepover or something? Please, I promise I didn’t rig anything that’s going to crash down on him when he opens the door.”
“Whatever.” Daylen rolled her eyes and dropped heavily into her own desk chair.
“So why are you here so early?”
“Couldn’t sleep.”
“Ruby?” Kanyon asked.
“Yeah. You want to hear the late-breaking news?” She didn’t give Kanyon time to answer. “Just kidding Daylen, your Uncle Jack isn’t really dead like you thought. He’s a Captain at the local police department and he randomly gives us cases to solve. And why is that, you say? Oh yeah, he knows about this whole top secret world of Seekers.” She threw up her hands. “I mean really? How could she not tell me that?”
“I’m sure she had her reasons,” Kanyon offered.
“Reasons? What possible reasons could there be? Oh, Daylen doesn’t need to know about her Uncle Jack, that’s just one more gift she would have to buy for Christmas. We don’t need to put that kind of stress on her so let’s just let her believe he’s dead.”
“I hate Christmas shopping, so…” At the look Daylen shot her, Kanyon quickly realized that Daylen didn’t want to share the sarcastic stage with anyone at the moment, so she quickly changed directions. “Did you ask Ruby?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I might not have given her time to answer,” Daylen confessed as the heat in her voice cooled to a warm sizzle.
“You have every right to be angry. You believed something and your aunt allowed you to continue to believe it. I’m sure she had her reasons, but what I’m even more sure of is that those reasons weren’t to hurt you.”
“I know, you’re right. I’m just tired of being in the dark, not knowing things; Jack, and then before that the secret about you and me being so…” Daylen caught her tongue before it could finish the word.
“You and me being?” Kanyon asked when she saw the distress on Daylen’s face. When Daylen didn’t immediately answer Kanyon stood. The now familiar heat and tingle rose in her as if there was something inside her wanting to break free. She could almost see it, almost put a name to it, but it was just out of range. She moved to Daylen and stood directly in front of her. “You and me being what, Daylen?”
There was an electric crackle in the air, so strong that Daylen felt as if a thunderstorm was brewing in the office and her heart was the lighting rod attached to the top of an emotional barn. Daylen stood and peered into Kanyon’s steel blue eyes, her mind spinning with the options that were before her. It would be too easy to slide into Kanyon’s arms and take what she always wanted but her thoughts flashed to her Uncle Jack and her Aunt Ruby. Her aunt tried to explain why she pushed Jack away but Daylen had been too mad, too upset to hear the full explanation. What if her reason had been just to protect Jack? She needed answers. She couldn’t, she wouldn’t risk Kanyon’s life, no matter what the emotional price would cost her. “Seeker and Guardian,” she finally answered. “Seeker and Guardian, that’s all.” Daylen stepped around Kanyon and moved to the whiteboard that had the facts of their current case on it. “We should probably get started on the case.”
Kanyon lowered her head, taking a deep calming breath, and then turned slowly. “Right, the case. Okay. Where do you want to start today?”
Before Daylen could answer they heard a loud thud, then a boom, followed by several ear-piercing alarms. Daylen instinctively crouched and ducked with one hand covering her head and the other reaching out to Kanyon to pull her to safety. When she realized the only movement Kanyon was making was her shoulders bouncing up and down with laugher, she stood. “Seriously?”
“Told you. No slumber party here, baby,” Kanyon said as she took off toward Theo’s office to see her victory.
Daylen skidded into Theo’s doorway two steps behind Kanyon to find Theo picking himself up off the ground as he spit feathers from his mouth. The alarms were almost deafening now. Daylen clasped her hands over her ears as she punched Kanyon with her elbow. “Think we’re good with the alarms,” she shouted.
Kanyon reached into her front pocket, pulled out a remote, and clicked a button to bring immediate silence. “Lesson number two: always know what you’re walking into,” Kanyon said to Theo, catching a feather floating down in front of her.
Theo, still shell-shocked, only nodded.
Daylen went to him and took his hand to help him the rest of the way up. “You okay?”
He looked at her and nodded his head, dislodging a feather from his hair. He watched it float to the ground and when it touched down he looked up at Kanyon. “That was totally awesome!” He shook his head, popped the palm of his hand against his ear a few times, and shook his head again. “I think I’m deaf, but… ah no, not deaf, I can hear ringing.” He lunged for his desk and the miniature cannon that Kanyon had propped there. “That was totally cool!” He started examining the weapon that had peppered him with an office full of feathers. He followed the wire from its firing pin down the desk to the wall. “Trip wire, awesome!”
“Yep. Feel free to keep it as a souvenir of this little lesson,” Kanyon offered.
“Thank you! I’ll so be able to use it in my Dark Savior reenactments.”
They left Theo to play with his new toy. “Unbelievable,” Daylen said as she passed Kanyon.
“What?” Kanyon said, smiling as she fell into step behind her.
“You blow the guy up with feathers, which is going to take a week to clean up, almost deafen him, and he still worships you.”
“It’s a gift.”
“It’s something.” Daylen chuckled as she turned back into their office and back to the whiteboard. “So today,” she looked over the board, “our only real viable leads are Rodney and Dale. We need to see if they are working together, alone, or…”
“If someone is pulling their strings,” Kanyon finished for her.
“Right. If we head up now we can get there before the museum opens, maybe talk to Miranda first, and get a little more history on Rodney and Dale. I guess we better throw in the wife and see what everyone has to say about yesterday.”
Kanyon looked at her watch. “Sounds good, but I think you’re missing one small detail.”
Daylen stepped closer to the board, re-examining their notes and pictures. “What?”
Kanyon stepped up, grabbed a dry erase marker, and drew on the board.
“We’re missing two eyeballs?” Daylen asked, perplexed.
Kanyon turned back and added more detail to her picture.
Daylen squinted at the board. “We need to find a guy with two bug eyes and thick wavy eyebrows?”
Kanyon looked at her drawing then back at Daylen. “Really?”
“I hate to inform you, the amazingly talented Kanyon McKane, but you kind of suck at drawing.”
Kanyon huffed, picked up an orange marker, and drew a circle. Next she drew a square with a narrower bottom and several arrows from the circle to the square then turned and pointed to her drawing.
“Ahhh, you think our suspect is a guy with bug eyes and thick wavy eyebrows? And he’s a basketball player? You think a bug-eyed, thick eye-browed basketball player is our suspect! That’s really stretching it. I don’t see the connection.”
“You are so never going to be my Pictionary partner,” Kanyon threatened as she replaced the markers in their tray.
“Oh, gee, Picasso, what shall I do with my life now?” Daylen retorted playfully.
Kanyon grabbed her keys from her desk. “Are you ready to go, Miss Bad-guesser of the Year?”
“How about we eat breakfast first? I’m suddenly hungry for eggs over-easy, bacon, and freshly squeezed orange juice,” Daylen said playfully, pulling at Kanyon’s shirttail before heading out the office door to the kitchen.
Chapter 11
Plates clean, dishes washed, and the latest research assignment handed over to Theo, Daylen and Kanyon headed back up to the museum to speak with Miranda and confront yesterday’s pursuer. “Too cool this morning for a bike ride?” Kanyon asked.
Daylen’s heart flipped at the reminder of yesterday’s bike ride. In the wake of confronting her aunt, her concern at her aunt’s noticeable absence this morning, especially with the cannon boom, and ear-deafening alarms, and most importantly at the smell of bacon, Daylen had forgotten about the promise of another ride. She’d spent a good part of the evening yin-yanging on her thoughts; part of her was sorry for being so hard on her aunt, but the other was hoping her aunt was beating herself up for misleading her for the last twenty years.
“Daylen?” Kanyon asked softly.
Kanyon’s voice and light touch on her shoulder brought her back from her thoughts. “What?”
“I brought the bike, but will you be too cold on the ride up?”
Daylen lost all thoughts of her aunt, remembering the heat that had passed between them the day before. Cold? She had about the same chance of being cold on the back of Kanyon’s bike as an Eskimo did sitting in a pan of grease in hell, but her emotions felt too raw and she didn’t know if being too close, too exposed, too connected to Kanyon at the moment would be a good thing. “Yeah, maybe? Take my vehicle?”
She saw the flash of disappointment in Kanyon’s face before she could hide it. “Sure,” Kanyon replied as she headed for Daylen’s SUV.
They rode in silence for a few miles. Daylen was back to running through yesterday’s events. “Something just occurred to me.”
The first thought that flashed into Kanyon’s mind was, that you’re madly in love with me, but figuring it was not the right moment to throw that little bomb out there she went with, “What?”
“You weren’t surprised when I told you this morning about Jack being alive.”
“Oh,” Kanyon replied.
“Oh?” Daylen questioned. “Did you know?”
“Eh.” Kanyon seesawed her hand. “I kind of had an idea, maybe?”
“And when did you have an idea, maybe?”
“I didn’t know for sure, but it was the way he looked at you yesterday,” Kanyon answered.
“Looked at me?”
“Yeah. He walked in and he was all… I don’t know. I mean, at first I thought he was just a guy admiring, well, you know.” Kanyon took the opportunity to take her own admiring look. “But then as I watched him, I saw real affection, interest, and pride or something. Then when he said he knew your aunt and to tell her hello, his face went all longing pain-like. So yeah, I just kind of figured.”
Daylen glanced over to look at Kanyon, who was now examining her fingernails for no obvious reason. “You connected that he was my uncle from simply watching him?”
Kanyon shrugged a shoulder. “It’s a thing I do. I watch people for real emotions and feelings so I can duplicate them on the screen. Oddly, it’s a talent my mother taught me.” She lightened the tone of her voice to match that of her mother’s, “You can’t expect to act out believable emotions on the screen if you don’t recognize them in real-life.”
Daylen nodded knowingly. “Useful advice.”
“I guess.”
“Speaking of your mom, did you break the news about Blue yet? Genius plan by the way.”
“Not yet. I wanted Blue to get settled in first.” She thought of Blue in her kitchen, eating her spaghetti, looking very settled. Kanyon gave Daylen a mischievous smile. “Tomorrow will probably work.”
Twenty minutes later, they walked up to the door of the museum. Daylen knocked while Kanyon scanned the immediate area for Handyman Dale, concerned he’d sneak up behind their backs and try to go all Jason on them again.
Miranda answered the door with her perfect, no-need-for-whitening-strips smile. “You’re starting early today. Come in.”
Daylen prepared herself for the repeat of a slobber-all-over-Kanyon routine, but this time Miranda met them completely drool-free. “Thank you.” Daylen stepped through the threshold. “We’re sorry for the early morning visit but we were hoping to catch you before you open so we could talk.”
“Absolutely. I was just coming down for a cup of coffee when you rang the bell. Do you mind if we talk in the kitchen?”
“Sure.” Daylen fell into step beside Miranda with Kanyon bringing up the rear.
Miranda led them to the rear of the house. “It typically isn’t this quiet. We have an event tonight so everyone is coming in a little later.”
They stepped into a quaint kitchen that was obviously kept original to the house, minus a few modern conveniences. “Would either of you like a cup of coffee? Cappuccino? Tea?”
“Black coffee would be great,” Kanyon answered as she walked over to the period style stove. “I thought you catered most of your functions? Surely, you don’t use…” she waved a hand at the museum period appliances.
“A catering team comes in and yes, they do everything in-house but we have a commercial kitchen built in the basement. We converted it years ago to keep it out of sight of the museum guests and to make use of the large space. It also houses our extensive wine cellar.” Miranda turned, placing a cup of coffee on the counter near Kanyon. “How about you Daylen? Would you like something?”
