She pondered how much to tell her sister and decided, as little as possible. “You could say that.”
“Good heavens! You weren’t arrested or anything, were you? I mean, the news is loaded with pictures of people there being led off to jail.”
“No, I wasn’t arrested.” Nice of you to be so worried, though.
“How did you get here?”
“Some really cool guys rescued me. Weird, though. They wore long capes and carried swords. I think they might have been special forces in disguise.”
Sigurdssons, Andrea guessed. Cnut’s vangel brothers.
Andrea wasn’t sure if she’d ever find out exactly what happened at the ranch, due to government secrecy. Unless she found Cnut.
“How long have you been here, Celie? In my apartment?”
“Since Wednesday. Your super let me in. You don’t mind, do you?”
Andrea shook her head. “You can stay as long as you like.”
“I’ll be gone by tonight.”
Uh-oh! “Why is that?”
“I’m off to the Côte d’Azur. My friend Jilly has a friend who owns a yacht, Pierre Gaston, the magazine mogul. We’re gonna cruise the Caribbean for a few weeks.”
That is just great. My life is falling apart, all because of her, and she just scoots off to the South of France. But this is nothing new. This is Celie, and God knows, I love her. She walked over and hugged her sister. “Have a good time.”
“Here’s the best part. I’m going to be paid. It’s a job.”
The red flags went up again. “Um, what are going to be doing for pay, honey?”
“Cooking. I’m going to be an assistant cook.” Celie beamed at her, and Andrea didn’t have the heart to say that Celie burned toast and once got spaghetti sauce on the ceiling of Darla’s newly painted kitchen. Probably it wouldn’t matter to Pierre and his gang.
After Celie went back into the bedroom to get dressed, Andrea addressed her most important issue. Cnut. She called his business number, and all she got was his answering machine, which noted that he had twenty-five other messages. Then she called his cell phone. It had survived the travel back in time, so maybe it had made it forward. No luck there. She tried to think where else to try. Transylvania, Pennsylvania, he had said. Andrea went over to her desk where her cookbook notes lay, untouched, just as they had been a week ago. Somehow, a cookbook was the last thing in the world she was interested in now. Logging on to her laptop, she did a Google of “Transylvania, Pennsylvania castle.”
She got a hit. A castle that had been built more than a hundred years ago by a lumber baron. Long neglected, it was being restored by Lord Vikar Sigurdsson—Cnut’s brother?—and might eventually be turned into a hotel. Yeah, right! Unfortunately, it had an unlisted phone number. The picture next to the short article showed a really creepy-looking castle, the kind vampires would live in, for sure. The small map showing its location indicated to Andrea that it would be about a three-hour drive from Philly.
Which brought Andrea to her next problem. Her purse with all her credit cards was still back at the ranch in Montana. Probably in FBI hands by now. She had no money, or way to access it without a debit card. She would need to buy gas. But then she remembered the check her Dad had given to her for her birthday, which she’d yet to cash. Two hundred dollars. Thank you, Daddy! Of course, she had no ID to cash the check at the bank, but she could do that at La Chic Sardine. Sonja wouldn’t mind.
So it was that two hours later, after showering and changing her clothes and stopping off at the restaurant, Andrea was cruising up the turnpike toward Transylvania. She prayed that Cnut would be there when she arrived. If he wasn’t, only God could help him now.
Chapter 21
A LITTLE ISLAND MEAL
Grilled red snapper with lemon and onion slices
Remoulade sauce
Green salad with lettuce, tomatoes, onions, radishes, and balsamic vinaigrette dressing
Rice parboiled in fish stock
French baguette bread
Strawberry cheesecake
Beer
Tears of a Viking . . .
“I am going to kill you. I swear I am going to kill you,” Cnut said when he finally recovered from the worst teletransport of his life. He could swear Zeb had hit every sky turbulence, rain storm, tornado, and flock of geese in creation.
Zeb was picking goose feathers off his Wise Man clothes when he reminded, “I’m already dead.”
“I’ll find a way to kill you again.” Cnut looked around then, fully expecting to see dungeon walls with chains and whips and racks and the like. Instead, he was sitting in a buttery yellow leather recliner, which matched the recliner that Zeb lounged in with his legs fully extended. He was sipping from a can of Bud Light.