“Mithra.”
God of contracts. Judiciary. All-seeing protector of truth. Not surprisingly, someone who had never vacationed in Ordinary.
“You owed Mithra the powers? All the god powers in town?”
“What? No! No. I owed him my life.”
“He was blackmailing you? Was he blackmailing you? Why was he blackmailing you?”
She tipped her chin up and I saw the strength of her. Definitely demigod. I didn’t know how I had missed it before.
“He negotiated the situation between my father and mother. For my life. He was the only one who cared. The only one who helped when my mother needed help.”
I inhaled and a low, throbbing headache took up residence behind my eyes. Maybe I had a skewed perspective on gods—okay, certainly I had a skewed perspective. But sometimes getting a god involved in a mortal matter only made things worse.
Surprisingly, mortals were generally pretty good at getting out of messes on their own.
“Okay, I think you need to take it from the top. Which god is your father?”
“Poseidon.”
I bit my teeth on a groan. Of course it was Poseidon. The god who couldn’t even vacation without killing himself over it. Crow would be giving me a big fat told-you-so right now.
“How many years ago was that?”
“Seventy-six. He met my mother while he was vacationing here. She was the daughter of the grocer.”
I did some math. Piper looked like she was in her early thirties, not well past retirement age. Poseidon had a habit of dying while vacationing in Ordinary, and the current Poseidon was only a few years into his godhood. So the Poseidon who was her father would have been in town when my grandpa was acting as the bridge for god powers.
I really wished Myra were here since she kept track of the history better than I did.
I glanced over at the door. And wouldn’t you know it? Myra strolled up and knocked quietly on the glass.
Just when she was needed most. I really wish I had that gift.
Piper looked less impressed. “What is she doing here? Did you call her? Are you arresting me? Is she arresting me?”
“Settle down. No one’s arresting you.” I stood and walked over to the door. It wasn’t locked because the diner was never closed, but it was easy to forget that in our closed-by-eight-o’clock town. I opened it for Myra and started back to the table. Piper had slid out of the chair and was standing with her arms wrapped around her ribs like she was trying to protect her vulnerable bits.
“Hey, Piper,” Myra said. “Is everything okay?”
Myra didn’t always give off the warmest vibes, especially when she was in cop mode. Even though she was wearing jeans and a sweat shirt, she was still giving off that stern cop body language.
But out of the three of us Reed girls, I had always thought she was the most nurturing. Her voice, when it softened like that, reminded me of Mom. Myra could soothe a kitten who’d been locked in a tumble drier if she had to.
And thanks to Jean, she’d had to.
Twice.
Maybe that’s why that cat of ours was always getting stuck in weird places: Jean. I made a mental note to grill her about it.
“You said you wouldn’t tell anyone. You said you didn’t.” Piper’s eyes were tight, her eyebrows dipped in a hard scowl.
Whatever trust I’d been building with her over pie was about to be blown to bits if I didn’t say something soothing, something comforting and trustworthy right this minute.
“Piper is Poseidon’s daughter and she’s in a bit of a jam we’re going to try to help her out of.”
Myra blinked, rockabilly eyeliner winging at the edges of her wide blues making her eyes even more pale. But that was the extent of her reaction to me blurting out that we had a demigod in our midst.
