I turned grim. “The other is Dustin Carrington. I was at his house yesterday when I ran into her. She hasn’t found him.”
“We need to find him,” Landon surmised. “Why does she want you to have all this information, Bay? What’s her end game?”
“She wants me to know she’s almost finished. She’s hoping I won’t come after her, because she really doesn’t want to kill me.”
“Just like you don’t want to kill her.”
“We have to find some middle ground.”
“Like we give her Prentiss and she gives us Dustin?”
“Maybe. I need Scout for what’s to come, but I can’t expose her to Steve. Any ideas?”
“You could try telling him the truth.”
That was a novel choice. “We need to sit down and hash this out. You see if you can track down Dustin and remove him from the situation. Once we have a plan, we’ll move on Prentiss.”
“We won’t be the only ones moving on Prentiss.”
26
TWENTY-SIX
Lying made me itchy, but only when I didn’t want to lie. At this point, it felt as if I should be able to tell Steve the whole truth and let the chips fall. That wasn’t yet an option.
So, when we got back to the inn, I made an excuse about having to run back to the guesthouse and went outside. I was looking for someone specific, and I found him loitering behind the greenhouse.
“We know who the warlock is,” I said, causing Evan to look up from the pot he was working on. “What are you doing?”
“Tillie says I can grow my own crop in her field this year,” he replied. If he was embarrassed to be caught digging around in the dirt, he didn’t show it. “I want to plant a small herb garden. She let me borrow a few books and I’m getting the pots ready for the sprouts. They’ll start in the greenhouse.”
“Um … okay. Are you sure you’re not just hanging around because you think I might need you?”
He sent me a small smile. “I can do two things at once.” He got to his feet and dusted off his hands. “You’re not the only who might need me today.”
“Aunt Tillie. You’re worried about her.”
“She seems okay. You gave her an out she wasn’t expecting. That makes it easier for her.”
I considered it, then nodded. “Well, I’m glad I had an idea that might work for everybody. I originally thought we wouldn’t lose another life. I was wrong.”
I caught him up, telling him everything that had happened since I saw him the previous day. When I explained what happened to Tyler Travis and about looking inside Wendy’s head and finding a message from the naiad, he frowned.
“I don’t want to tell you your business,” he started.
“But you will.” I didn’t bother to hide my smile.
“That has ‘trap’ written all over it, Bay.” There was no amusement wafting across his features. He almost always found something funny. When Scout had first healed him enough for a soul, he was tortured. Since then—with the help of Aunt Tillie—he’d found his sense of humor. It wasn’t on display today.
“What if it isn’t?” I asked. “What if she’s trying to tell me that she’s almost finished?”
“Why would she care about communicating that to you?”
“I may have mentioned I knew someone who could open a plane door.” I squirmed under his steady gaze. “I didn’t give her a name, but she only has one chance to ever live a decent life again. Her people went through a plane door. They were in the area because they were trying to figure out how to open the plane door in the lake. Scout can open that door for her.”
“Scout would be more than happy to open the door,” Evan readily agreed. “She’s not done hunting yet. You just told me there are two people left on her list.”
“Greg Prentiss and Dustin Carrington.”
