Free Borderline by Mishell Baker Page B

of us—­forget about everything and have fun together like we did when we were young. I figured he was just being fey, you know? Forgetting I had all this work to do in post. So I was kind of short with him.”
    â€œAnd this is a big deal?”
    â€œJohnny isn’t other fey. He doesn’t just take off on a whim. I should have realized something was wrong. If I’d listened to him, he would have trusted me enough to tell me what was going on.”
    â€œI hardly think that makes it your fault,” I cut in, earning myself a sharp look from Teo. I leaned back into the couch with a sigh.
    â€œSo you think he went on some sort of a . . . vacation?” said Teo dubiously. “On his own?”
    â€œIt sounded like he needed an escape,” said Berenbaum. “But I didn’t bother to stop and ask myself what someone like Johnny would want to escape from.”
    â€œThat’s not our business,” said Teo. “Our business is getting him back to Arcadia. You know him better than anyone; where would he go?”
    Berenbaum steepled his hands in front of his mouth, tapping his fingertips together as his eyes took on a distant expression. The silence stretched out long enough that I shot Teo a nervous look. Teo gave a staccato shrug, seeming generally impatient with the whole business.
    â€œA spa resort,” Berenbaum said. “Winningham Grove or Regazo de Lujo maybe. Something inside the Project peri­meter, with orange trees. Somewhere we’ve been before. Maybe Elysienne. Check for him at places like that. Under all his old names, too.”
    Teo nodded, scribbling on a memo pad, then glanced at me. “He can’t make up new aliases,” he said in a teachery voice, “because fey can’t lie. Not with words anyway. Our languages are foreign to them on a really deep arcane level, so they can’t use them to create anything. We have to invent their human names. Rivenholt’s been coming here so long the Project has to keep giving him new names and faces every decade or so to hide the fact that he doesn’t age.”
    â€œHuh,” I said stupidly.
    Teo turned back to Berenbaum. “Do you know any reason why Inaya West would be trying to get in touch with him?”
    Berenbaum frowned. “They worked together on Accolade afew years back, but they don’t really socialize. I try to minimize Johnny’s contact with people who aren’t hip to the Arcadia thing.”
    â€œWe intercepted a couple of messages from her meant for him. She seemed to want to talk to him about something, and she said you weren’t returning her calls either.”
    Berenbaum gave an odd little snort. “She hasn’t called me in days,” he said. “Or maybe Araceli has been aggressively screening my calls since I’m behind schedule.”
    My eyes drifted over to the signed poster for Red Cotton . I wondered if seven-year-old Inaya’s scrawl was somewhere under the glass. She had never so much as been in a school Christmas pageant when Berenbaum found her chatting up a snow goose in New Orleans City Park and directed her straight to her first Oscar nomination.
    â€œDon’t worry about ’Naya,” he said. “I’ll give her a call later on today and find out what’s going on from her end.”
    â€œAll right,” said Teo, rising. “Call us right away if you get any new information.”
    â€œYou do the same,” said Berenbaum, moving forward to give Teo’s hand a brisk shake. “I’ll tell Araceli to put you guys through no matter what.”
    Teo was already halfway out the door by the time I ­managed to get off the insidiously pliant couch and back to my feet. Berenbaum reached for my hand more gently than he had Teo’s, and his eyes did a quick circuit over my face that made me feel as though he had just scanned the deepest contents of my psyche. He spoke quietly,