Page 10 of Blue Moon

And got through to his voicemail.

Thoughts jumbled, I left a long, rambling message that probably didn’t make much sense, and as I spoke, I realised how crazy I sounded. Someone had sent me earrings and linguine? He’d said I had the spirit of a pharaoh? I hung up and channelled Jubilee and her stupid meditation app. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out.

Maybe I was overreacting?

It wouldn’t be hard to find my address. Reporters camped outside most days, and I’d seen pictures of myself leaving the building. People used to mail stuff to my old house, but I hadn’t flipped out because I was never alone there. Mom was nearly always around, and Jubilee, and the maid, the yard service, the pool cleaner…

If I thought about this logically, I wasn’t alone here either; I just didn’t speak with anyone. My neighbours would hear me scream if a creep showed up at my apartment, I lived on the fifth floor so nobody could climb through the window, and I had two locks on the door. As long as I kept my phone charged and with me, I’d be okay.

I’d be okay.

The notes were polite, not nasty.

And that linguine did smell good.

I cracked and ate a mouthful as I googled Cleopatra and Mark Antony. Then another mouthful. And another. Cleopatra had married Mark Antony—aka Marcus Antonius, a Roman general—after the death of her first husband, Julius Caesar. He’d been murdered on the Ides of March. What was an ide? I googled and came up with “Integrated Development Environment,” which didn’t seem right.

Anyhow, Cleopatra had been powerful in her own right, the Queen of Egypt, a pharaoh. They hadn’t fallen in love right away—Mark Antony had fought the attraction and married another woman soon after they met, Octavia, even though Cleopatra was pregnant with his babies—but he and Cleopatra reunited later on. I wasn’t sure I liked Mark Antony much. He seemed like a player.

So, it wasn’t surprising when he had a tiff with his ex-wife’s brother, Octavian. Did the Romans not have many names available? Octavia and Octavian? Mind you, I’d competed in pageants against a girl named Simona, and her brother was called Simon, so the problem wasn’t confined to ancient history. Octavian and Mark Antony got into a battle, like, with armies, and Cleopatra figured her man would lose, which wasn’t very loyal of her, but she also seemed to be more manipulative than Cordelia, so her actions weren’t entirely surprising.

Rather than shack up with a loser, she pretended to kill herself, so Mark Antony killed himself in return, and then she really did die by suicide—an asp bit her boob the way Paul said. What a freaking horror story. If they’d lived in this century, the two of them would have been on a remake of The Jerry Springer Show for sure, and Mark A thought I reminded him of Cleopatra? Gee, thanks.

I polished off the rest of the linguine, double-checked the door was locked, and crawled into bed. Sleep was a pipe dream. I lay there in the dark, googling “how to un-leave a voicemail” and finding that it wasn’t possible. Where was Ryder? Probably in Virginia, working or out with friends. Or maybe saving the world.

He’d moved on, and I had to do the same.

5

RYDER

“You expect me to believe that? Nobody could be that stupid.”

“I was, I swear! She said she loved me.”

Ronald Hill, Luna Maara’s former accountant, squirmed in his seat, and Ryder couldn’t blame him. The smell of urine was strong in the small motel room. Sitting in soaked-through slacks couldn’t be comfortable, especially when Ana Petrova—also known as Lilith, the she-demon—was staring with a mixture of annoyance and incredulity. Yes, she was wearing a scarf that covered the bottom half of her face, as was Ryder, but her eyes conveyed exactly what she was thinking.

Ron Hill might have been a reasonable accountant, but he wasn’t much of a fugitive. Over the past two months, Hallie had given up most of her spare time to help Ryder track the motherfucker from Las Vegas to New York, to New Jersey, to London, to Zurich, to Vienna, and finally to Tbilisi.

Agatha had hacked Hill’s email and found that he’d gone to meet his girlfriend. They’d all assumed that the pictures of the beautiful blonde were clickbait, photos stolen by a scammer and used to con unsuspecting marks into parting with their cash. But no, Hill swore that Irina Vardanashvili was a real person, although it wasn’t yet clear whether that was her real name. She’d met him at Tbilisi International, and from there, they’d headed to the Wyndham Grand hotel and spent three weeks having rabid sex and spending Luna’s money on spa treatments, designer clothing, and expensive meals. At the beginning of week four, Irina had blindfolded Hill, handcuffed him to the king-sized bed, and promised him a night he’d never forget.

She hadn’t lied.

While he was incapacitated, she’d logged on to his laptop, stolen Luna’s money—again—and vanished into the depths of the city. A maid had called the cops at seven o’clock the next morning, but Hill couldn’t exactly report the crime, so he’d been trying to find Irina himself. In a city he didn’t know. In a country whose language he barely spoke. At least, that was his story, and given that Ana was asking the questions, Ryder was inclined to believe the jackass.

Now they had to decide on their next course of action. The plan had been to locate Hill, gently persuade him to return Luna’s money, and then relocate him to a police station in Vegas. Luna had reported the theft, but seeing as Hill had fled overseas, the detective in charge had just hemmed and hawed and said there wasn’t much he could do.

Hence Ryder taking matters into his own hands.

Kind of.

Emmy had lent him Ana, her half-sister, with a directive to “Get this done, get your head out of your arse, and get back in the game.”

To say she’d been pissed at him in San Gallicano was an understatement. The dressing-down she’d given him behind closed doors had made his XO at SEAL Team Five look like Betty White. But Emmy hadn’t yelled. No, her voice turned deadly quiet, which had actually been worse.

“You broke rule number one, Metcalfe,” she’d said, in full ice-queen mode. “You got involved with a principal.”

“I didn’t sleep with her.”

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