Motor City Witch Read Online Free PDF Page B

his head. This was something he’d rather do alone.
    He didn’t have much idea of what a four-year-old girl’s bedroom was supposed to look like, but if he’d had to guess, he supposed this would have been it. White and gold furniture filled the space, dominated by a canopy bed hung with gauzy curtains in glittery candy pink. A matching comforter lay in a heap beside the bed. The carpet was apple green and the wallpaper wainscoting had wavy stripes of both shades. Shelves were filled—or had been—with books and toys. Now most of the contents were dumped on the floor. One bed curtain was torn and the framed print of a fantasy castle hung crooked above the headboard. The pink sheets dangled to the floor.
    Thank the gods there was no sign of blood, but it looked like Dina had put up quite a fight for a four-year-old. That shouldn’t make him proud, but it did.
    A sparkly silver hairbrush lay on the floor beside the desk, a few long, dark strands still clinging to the bristles. Perfect. With no qualms at all, Aidan ’ported in an envelope, stuck the hairs inside and stuffed the envelope into the back pocket of his jeans before carefullyreplacing the brush on the desk. Later, once this was over, he’d arrange the damned DNA test. There was a framed picture there of Dina and her mother, and Aidan couldn’t help himself. He picked it up and compared the two faces, searching Dina’s for any trace of him. Were her ears slightly pointed? Was the line of her chin a bit more elven than human? Impossible to tell.
    It didn’t matter anyway. She was still a young child who’d been forcibly taken from her home by enemies unknown. The only important thing right now was getting her back. If she’d been taken because of Aidan, he wasn’t sure he’d ever forgive himself, but he’d make damn sure somebody paid. Preferably in blood. He wasn’t so far removed from his pirate days as most people liked to think.
    Forcing back the knot in his throat and the uncharacteristic itching of his eyeballs, he concentrated on the magic trails that Wallis had mentioned. Yes, there was definitely elven sorcery present, along with something foreign. There was a familiarity, though, to the more exotic magic, one he kept turning over and over in his mind. As head of Underhill, he dealt with people from all over the world and all varieties of non-humans as well, as long as they were willing to do business with the sidhe.
    Business. Halfway down the stairway, the thought occurred to him. He’d had meetings for the last month with a particular group of investors. He looked at Wallis as he re-entered the crowded living room and said, “Djinn.”
    “Fuck, how could I have missed that?” Wallis smacked himself in the forehead, right below his shock of carroty hair. “Of course.”
    “Djinn?” Elise looked at Aidan as if he was on drugs. “What would a genie want with my daughter?”
    “Djinn are businessmen.” Aidan resumed his seat beside her on the couch. “Most of them, at any rate. And like any group of corporate raiders, some are honest and others are not. Every race has its mercenaries, love.”
    “So a djinni and an elf working together,” Greg said. “Shouldn’t be too hard to find. There aren’t too many Fae willing to mingle with other races. Still doesn’t explain how they beat the alarm system.”
    “Actually, it might.” Aidan tapped his fingers on the arm of the sofa. “Something I learned in the negotiations last month is that djinn don’t need portals to move between the mortal realm and Underhill—which they call the ‘Otherworld.’ They can cross the dimensional veil anytime and anyplace. So if one got to the Otherworld equivalent of Dina’s bedroom, then, yeah, they might be able to come through directly.”
    “Walk up outside the condo in this realm, pick a window and calculate the distance.” Wallis moved his hands as he calculated the possibilities. “Cross over, move that distance in and up…with a