I huffed out a breath. “The news?”

“Forty miles seems pretty exact.” Suspicion was back in her voice, but Mother stepped in.

“The tribe thinks both girls had made trips to Madison.”

That stopped me. I’d convinced myself the girls were killed in Illinois and just brought to Madison-to me.

Zery lowered her flashlight. I could almost feel the defeat in her voice. “We found coasters from a bar in their stuff-one near campus.” The round circle of light from her flashlight began moving again, dancing over the space. “This will work,” she said.

“No.” I shook my head.

Mother’s beam, which had dropped from my face too, rose again. “The tribe needs our help. This”-she moved her hand, sending the light bouncing up onto the ceiling and back down-“is what we have to offer. You’ve been to the camp. The house only sleeps twelve to fourteen, tops. More Amazons are coming from other states, Canada even. They need somewhere to stay and train. And we’re here-near where the bodies were discovered and the bar.”

I stood firm. “Why? What are they going to do while they are here?” Visions of Amazons canvassing Madison, accosting legislators, college students, and soccer moms ripped through my mind.

Zery clicked off her flashlight. Her voice reached out to me in the dark. “By your choice you aren’t one of us, Mel. Our plans aren’t for you to know.”

“If you want to use my property, they are.” A tense silence followed. I flexed my fingers, wished I still held Mother’s staff.

Zery sighed. “They’re angry, Mel, and they don’t trust you. I won’t tell you what we’re doing; I can’t. But we won’t break any human laws…Not until we find the killer. Then Amazon law will rule. Until then, we’ll play whatever cover story you pick for us, conduct our business in a way that no one, not even you, will know what we’re doing. It’s the best deal you’re going to get. You need to take it. If you refuse, they’ll come anyway, but it will be to pull you back for trial. Work with the tribe, and maybe they’ll be willing to consider that someone else is doing this. Don’t, and they’ll be convinced you’re hiding something.”

Her feet padded across the wood floor, almost too light to hear. When she stood parallel to me, only a few feet away, she continued, “Think of your daughter. You don’t want to introduce her to her tribe like that.”

Then she brushed past-she and I both knowing she’d just said the one thing to sway me to her side.

Chapter Eight

Two days later, on Saturday, the Amazons started arriving. I’d told my employees and Harmony that I’d rented the gym and cafeteria to a women’s self-defense group for a retreat.

Even with this background, I saw a few raised eyebrows as the Amazons started arriving in beat-up trucks and thirty-year-old campers. Their average height hitting over six feet and the confident swagger that came with being a warrior didn’t help. A family of hearth-keepers arrived also, but no high priestess or artisans. Bubbe and I could fill those needs.

As much as I didn’t want to be involved with the tribe, I also couldn’t have an unlicensed artisan tattooing women in my gym. If someone needed body art, they’d have to come to me or Bubbe. Mother was too busy being in her element to bother with tattooing; besides, while she could manage a decent human tattoo, her mystical powers were crap.

Bubbe would serve as priestess. High priestesses were a lot more rare than the other talents, and for good reason. Putting two high priestesses in the same camp was a lot like putting two cats in the same bag, then shaking it. The goddess must consider this personality glitch when handing out the talents.

The rarity of high priestesses made having Bubbe fill in even more important in my mind. There were only six active high priestesses at any time-one for each safe camp. One of those was the woman I held responsible for my son’s death-the woman I’d accused of doing something that caused his stillbirth.

If she showed up on my property, I wasn’t sure what I would do, wasn’t sure I could control the anger that still threatened to consume me. Mother, Bubbe, and Zery realized this, and no one had mentioned any possibility other than Bubbe filling the role. This was good, I supposed, for now. But some day I was going to see her again, and when I did, I was going to get some answers one way or another.

“Self-defense group, you said?” Peter placed a hand against the side of a dented Jamboree RV. “Looks more like a bunch of carnies.”

The weather had turned warm again-unusually so for October-and Peter had taken advantage of it, wearing nothing but a tight-fitting T-shirt tucked into worn jeans. I rubbed suddenly sweaty palms against my thighs.

“I wouldn’t say that too loudly if I were you.”

Zery walked by with five twenty-pound staffs propped over her shoulder. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and her butt was encased in Lycra workout pants.

Peter grinned and shoved himself away from the RV. A cluster of Amazons flicked their eyes in his direction, one pulling her hair over her shoulder and angling her body to reveal exactly what bench pressing a few hundred pounds can do for a female chest.

Peter’s grin widened.

I tapped my fingers against my leg. “Don’t you have an appointment?” I’d been checking the book every day since Peter’s arrival to see if he was pulling in clients of his own.

The teasing expression dropped from his face. “I do. That’s why I came looking for you. Someone’s going to have to clear a path through all of this. My client’s in a wheelchair. He can’t be navigating around weights and luggage.” He stooped and picked up a fifty-pound dumbbell that had rolled away from a stack.

I half-expected him to curl the thing. A show of strength like that was such a male thing to do-not that it would have impressed any of the warriors milling around. Then again, based on the appraising glances they’d been casting his way, he didn’t need to do anything more than bend over to impress them.

A retort sprang to mind, but I quickly swallowed it when a man in a self-propelled wheelchair rolled up to a stack of duffel bags and boxes that blocked the sidewalk. Without waiting for assistance, he reached down and began flinging duffel bags out of his way. That caught the attention of the Amazons-fast. Five of them hurried forward.

He cocked a bushy eyebrow at the one in the lead and cast the last duffel into her gut. “Yours, I’m guessing?”

She caught the bag with a glare.

Cursing, I shoved past Peter and marched to their sides. Pisto, or Pistol, as many of the tribe called her, was not known for her demure temperament-not that many Amazons were.

“I’m running a business here. You can’t block the walkway.”

She didn’t move. I could tell she was weighing her choices. I wasn’t sure how Peter’s client’s disability would play into her decision. Wouldn’t gain him any sympathy-I was sure of that.

After casting him one last suspicious glance, she grabbed four of the duffels and nodded to the warriors waiting behind her. With each of them grabbing two boxes at a time, the sidewalk was soon cleared.

During the whole process, none of them said a word-to me, Peter, or his client.

I let their obvious disdain pass. They had reason to hate me. I was a troublemaker in their version of history. Peter’s client was old and handicapped. In other words, in an Amazon’s way of thinking, not potential baby seed. Peter was just being punished by association.

“Mel, this is Makis Diakos. He just moved to Madison.” Peter seemed unaffected by their reaction.

“Really?” I frowned. I wanted to turn and see what the Amazons were doing behind me, but that would look strange, and be rude. “What brought you to Madison?”

Peter answered, “Makis is an artist. He taught me.”