15
He sped the whole way back from New Mexico to make up time, lights flashing on his SUV, sporting a massive hangover. O’Shea picked up Martins and filled him in before they raced to catch Adamson, the tracking device working well for once, showing him she’d gone home.
“There’s got to be a ring of them working together. I think she’s working with someone who kidnaps the kids, then she ‘finds’ them for a cost. A perfect sting on parents who are desperate.” O’Shea actually wasn’t sure of his new theory, he was just so pissed she’d dodged him again, he’d grasp at anything.
“Why wouldn’t she just phone?”
“Taps.”
“She doesn’t look like the type to kill anyone, especially not her own sister. Nor the type to kidnap kids for money.”
O’Shea snorted. “That’s what she’d like us to believe, no doubt. But we can have a chat with her, try to loosen up her tongue.” That brought a far too intimate image to mind, one that he quickly banished. He took the turn-off leading up to her home without pausing to even check the road sign. There were many nights he’d staked out her house early on, waiting, hoping for the break he’d need to finally put her behind bars. But what he’d seen was a woman who’d grown up with no family, alone in the middle of nowhere. He tried not to think about how it must feel for her to be alienated from everything she knew.
As they pulled into the yard, a strange sight met them. Four hooded figures stood near the back of the house, not trying to conceal themselves, but standing there, not moving. Smoke curled around their feet, looking like it came from the other side of the house.
“What the hell is this?” Martins asked.
O’Shea shrugged. “No idea.”
They stepped out of the SUV in tandem.
Martins walked forward first, taking the lead, showing initiative, which was a surprise.
“Hello, we’re looking for—” His words were cut off when the figures shot at them.
Except “shot” wasn’t quite the right word. They lifted their hands and stuff poured out of their fingertips, straight at the two agents. Bright blue and green, the ‘stuff’ zipped toward the junior agent first. Martins reacted faster than O’Shea thought he would, diving behind a hedge alongside the house. O’Shea used the SUV as a cover, his mind struggling to make sense of what he’d just seen.
“FBI Agents! Put your weapons down!” He fully expected them to react accordingly. Not so much, as it turned out.
They continued to send that sparkling crap toward both of the agents, which left the agents no other choice. Martins shot first, his aim way off the mark if the way the scarecrow in the field behind the figures jumped was any indication.
O’Shea leaned against the door and shot, his gun misfiring, not once or twice, but three times. “What the hell?”
Martins ran from the hedge across to a small pump house for better aim. Again though, his shots went wide—all four of them. This wasn’t possible.
Smoke continued to curl out around the house, but that wasn’t what stole his attention from the fire fight. It was the screaming.
O’Shea didn’t think, he just burst from behind the Jeep, firing at the figures as he ran. A spiral of blue hit him, absorbing into his skin, and he held his breath, stumbling with the anticipation of pain, loss of vision, something bad. But there was nothing. Blinking, he stood back up and looked around. There was only one figure left and it stood five feet from him. He raised his gun as Martins ran up beside him.
The cloaked figure tipped its head sideways, as if considering them both.
“Lower your hands,” O’Shea barked.
As if on cue the figure whipped its hands up, and O’Shea fired. He watched in horror as, in slow motion, the bullet curved almost ninety degrees to blow a hole in Martins’ forehead right next to him.
O’Shea froze, unable to comprehend what had happened, his mind reeling at the impossibility of what his eyes were telling him.
More screaming. Adamson was screaming for him, his partner was dead and the bullet was from his gun. His eyes flew back to where the figure had been, but it was gone along with the others.
In that moment, O’Shea felt his world spin out from under him; the only thing keeping him from losing it was the woman who cried out for his help. Holstering his gun, he pushed everything else away and ran toward her voice.
*-*-*-*
“Rylee. Scared,” Alex whispered, his body pressed hard against mine as we crept forward. The only chance we were going to have was to break out through the flames and hope to hell we didn’t catch fire. Not how I saw my day panning out when I got up that morning.
“I know, buddy. We’re going to run fast, around the house to the Jeep,” I said, scratching him behind the ear. “Understand?”
He huffed into the dirt. The smoke filled the room fast, my lungs ached, my eyes burning and my hope fading. If they, the bastards who’d taken India and attacked us here, had blocked the trap door, I doubted they would have left the cellar door to chance.
“Now,” I said, prepping my body to hit hard, hoping I was wrong, hoping the door wouldn’t be barred magically.
Our bodies hit in tandem and we were flung backwards, bitch slapped by the power that held the door against us. I grabbed the jug of salt water and flung it on the door, but it did nothing; the spell was on the other side.
Intermittently howling and choking on the smoke, Alex sat on the floor, tears streaming down his face.
Even with all the weapons I had, there was nothing to break through magical barriers. There’d never been a need, and we were about to die because I hadn’t been prepared.
I slumped to the floor, as a gunshot went off outside.
“What the hell?”
Alex answered. “Guns.” He paused. “Big guns. Man with gun here.”
Man with . . .
“O’Shea!” I screamed. “Here, we’re trapped!”
Another round of gunshots went off, then the sound of sirens. Shit, I’d never been so happy to have a constant tail from the agent that had tried to frame me for murder.
Coughing, I crouched back to the floor. Within moments, there was rattling on the cellar door and then it flung open. But it wasn’t O’Shea.
“Milly!” I ran up the steps and caught her in a hug. She was crying, her hands white with powdered salt. The fire raged behind her, but it wasn’t as close as I’d thought; the smoke had just been funneled toward us. Nice.
“I’m so sorry, Rylee.”
“Hey, you made it in time, that’s all that matters.” Alex ran around us in circles, yipping until O’Shea ran into view. The wind, the real wind and not some magicked wind, picked up and blew the smoke and fire back out into the wheat field. That wasn’t good either, but better than the alternative.
I turned to face him, putting Milly just behind me. I couldn’t help it; we were a team, but when it came to O’Shea’s anger, she didn’t deserve to get the brunt of it.
But he didn’t flare up. His face was pale, and it occurred to me he’d just seen magic for probably the first time in his life.
“Where’s mini-me?” I asked, hoping to shake him out of his stupor.
He stared blankly at me.
I stepped closer and touched his arm, the chill of his skin evident even through the shirt. “Where’s your partner?”
“Dead. I don’t . . .” He shook his head. “How did this happen?”
I wasn’t entirely sure what he was talking about. “Milly, what happened?”
“I knew you were in trouble, could feel the vibrations stronger than anything ever before.” She pushed a long strand of dark brown hair off her forehead to reveal eyes that at times could be a soft green, and when she was pissed deepened to an almost neon green that flashed. Right now they were as soft and gentle as I’d seen them in a long time.
She went on. “I came out to the house, but they had already trapped you. O’Shea and his partner showed up—”
“Those people attacked us, we shot at them and . . . .” O’Shea stared at me as if I was going to have the answers. Oh, this was not going to be good. “Our bullets swerved, came back and hit Martins, right in the forehead.”
“Was it your bullet that swerved back?” My mind already caught on to the implications.
O’Shea frowned. “What does it matter? He’s been killed in an impossible situation.”
The sirens were almost here. “Listen, there isn’t a lot of time. Think, O’Shea. You’re going to tell people the bullets did whatever the f*ck they wanted, swerved back and shot your partner with YOUR bullet? You’re about to be implicated for murder.”
His face paled. “They won’t believe me.” He put a hand to his head. “I wouldn’t believe me.”
I couldn’t help it. “Just like you won’t believe me when it comes to Berget.”
Again, he just stared, his eyelids twitching as I watched emotions run across his face. Anger, fear, disbelief.
“Come on,” I said. “We can’t be here if you want to stay out of jail tonight.”
“I’m not going with you. That’ll only prove I’m guilty,” he said. “When you run, it shows your guilt more than anything.”
Well if that wasn’t a dig at me, I didn’t know what was. I laughed; I couldn’t help it. Milly, standing beside me in her fashion-forward bright white pantsuit, was shaking her head.
“Rylee is right, Agent O’Shea. You can’t prove your innocence. There aren’t even any of the perpetrators here to point fingers at. Unless you did manage to shoot one of them?”
He shook his head. “No, but you’re innocent until proven guilty. You should know that, Adamson.” Already the shock was wearing off and he was sliding back into this usually difficult self.
Shrugging, I turned my back. “Come on, Milly, if he wants to spend the rest of his life in jail for a murder he didn’t commit, then let him.”
We started to walk away, but it was Alex who stopped us with words he shouldn’t have been able to utter. “Man with gun. He come with.”
I spun in time to see O’Shea stumble backwards, eyes wide at really seeing Alex. He pulled his gun on the werewolf. I bolted toward them, but it wasn’t me that got to O’Shea first. It was Milly.
She slammed him with a knock-out spell that rolled his eyes back into his head and dropped him to the ground.
“Good shot,” I said.
“Thanks.” She gave me a smile.
Grabbing Alex by the collar, the three of us ran around the side of the house as the fire trucks and police cars screamed into the yard. We pointed around the back of the house and they sped off in that direction.
As I shoved Alex into the Jeep, a black unmarked pulled in. “Damn.”
Three hours later, we—Milly and I—were still explaining the same story over and over. I had been trapped in the cellar, Milly had showed up and heard gunshots, but neither of us had seen anything. Now it was up to O’Shea as to whether or not he dug his own grave.
We were released just as they brought O’Shea out of the house. In handcuffs.
I was surprised to feel a pang of guilt hit me. What the hell was that about? I tried to push it away, but it overrode any attempt I made to shrug it off. O’Shea hounded me for years; with him locked up, I wouldn’t have to worry about who was following me around anymore. I let out a sigh. “You know this complicates things.”
Milly touched my arm. “Your life would be easier without him in it.”
“And yours would be easier without me in it,” I said.
She ducked her head, shame flushing her face. “You’re family, you and Giselle. The Coven gave me leave to help you on this case.”
“Why?”
She didn’t answer, our conversation interrupted.
O’Shea and his guards walked passed us. I wanted to make a smart remark; I knew that walk of shame. In fact, it had been O’Shea who’d walked beside me.
But I couldn’t make the words form. He was as innocent as I was. Magic had a funny way of making humans believe the wrong thing.
We were allowed to stay while the police did their investigation, they told us ahead of time that it would likely take all night. They had lights on tall stands lighting up the yard as if it wasn’t close to midnight in the middle of October.
Milly helped me make a late—very late—dinner of pasta and steamed veggies from the garden. Neither of us spoke as we cooked, except for the “pass the salt” variety of conversation. As soon as the food was ready, I put Alex’s share in his bowl. He cleaned it in about thirty seconds flat—except for the carrots, which he left in the bottom of the dish.
“Eat your veggies, Alex,” I said.
“No, Yucky, poopy,” he grumbled, poking at them with the tip of one claw.
Milly leaned over. “You can have some dessert if you eat them.”
Two bites later, and he was waiting patiently beside the fridge for ice cream.
I stood and scooped out some of the Tiger-flavoured dessert, the black and orange stripes visible even through the thick plastic tub.
“I’ll stay the night. But then I have to go,” Milly said, finally breaking the silence.
“You won’t get kicked out of your new club? Your new friends will let you come back?” I couldn’t stop the words; maybe I didn’t want to. She’d hurt me and I was not good at taking hurt, unless it was of the physical kind.
She glared at me. “And what would you do if your parents came back, if they said you could be a part of their family, but you’d have to give me and Giselle and Alex up? You’d do it.”
A bitter laugh escaped my lips. “No, I wouldn’t. They proved they don’t give a shit about me. Why would I choose them over people who I love and care about, and who I thought felt the same?” I stood up, grabbed the plates from the table and stomped over to the sink. “One thing I do want to know, how long before you told your new friends I was looking for India?”
Her eyes filled with tears. “I never told anyone.”
“Not even your new boy toy, whoever the hell that is?”
Her tears turned into a flush. Bingo. “What does it matter?”
I couldn’t stop the anger bursting out. “Because someone left a nasty message for me only hours after I spoke with you, and because whoever has India knows I’m coming. And the only person I told about the case was you.”
Milly stood, her white pantsuit splattered with flecks of spaghetti sauce. “He would not have shared it. I trust him.”
“Just like you trusted the last one? And the one before that?”
Alex decided to chime in. “Before that?”
Milly’s tears dried up. “You can be such a bitch, Rylee.”
“At least I’m not a whore.”
The world stilled around us. Never in all our time together had we let it go this far.
She spun and stomped upstairs, the guest bedroom door slamming behind her. I let out a sigh and slumped into my kitchen chair. I needed to apologize.
“Milly stay?” Alex asked, his tongue stained by the black colouring from the ice cream.
“No, I don’t think so.”
Slowly, I made my way up the stairs and tapped on the door to the guest room. “Milly, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”
No answer.
Trotting back down the stairs, I made my way into the kitchen, glanced at the dirty dishes, and then decided to leave them.
My bed called to me and I still had to practice. Here at home I had a large punching bag, weights, medicine balls, and a climbing rope, all set up in my bedroom, what had previously been three bedrooms until I knocked the walls out. The rope was one of the things I hated most. When I’d bought the house, what was currently my bedroom was open through both floors, which meant I had a ceiling about twenty-five feet high.
I had two ropes hanging about five feet apart. I climbed the first one all the way to the top, reached across and slid down the second one. Then repeated the routine three times until my breath hitched in my chest. After that, came the punching bag, where I slid through my Muay Thai training. Then onto weights, then the medicine ball, and finally back to the ropes.
The final climb burned my hands, the rope fibers stinging, the cut in my forearm aching, sweat dripping into my eyes. But I couldn’t stop, not until I’d done the whole routine.
Finally, I slid to the floor, body exhausted, heart tired, mind nearly numb enough for sleep.
Outside, the police still moved around. Every once in a while, I heard them over their walkie talkies, heard the rev of an engine start up.
Leaning back against my bedroom wall, I closed my eyes, letting the sweat dry on my skin. A cold nose pushed into my face and woke me up as the sun climbed the eastern horizon.
“Alex hungry.”
I stood, stiff from the position I’d slept in, and headed to the bathroom. A quick shower and change of clothes left me feeling more optimistic. I’d apologize to Milly again, then things would be okay.
Within an hour of me waking up, the last of the forensics team, police included, had gone, leaving a smoldering wheat field, some yellow tape and a slew of tire tracks.
Milly came out to the back porch, a cup of coffee in her hand. Her eyes were cool, and wouldn’t meet mine.
“Look, Milly, I’m sorry about last night. Really, I don’t think of you that way.” I meant the words. Sure she got around, but she always believed she was in love.
“I still think you can be a bitch,” she said, but a smile was at the edge of her lips.
“Well, we both know that’s the truth.” I leaned back against the porch railing. “Are we okay then?”
She nodded. Neither of us spoke again until she’d finished her coffee. The obvious question had to be asked.
“Okay, Milly, time to confess. What’s going on? You said you couldn’t be around me, yet here you are.” We sat on the back porch, staring out at the burnt field.
She took a deep breath, then laced her fingers together and placed them in her lap. She studied them carefully. “I’m to be your liaison. The people who took India are breakaways from the main Coven.”
I flicked a piece of imaginary dirt off my jeans, giving myself a moment to think. “Why send you? I mean, no offense, but aren’t you the baby of the group?”
High colour flooded her cheeks. “Yes.”
There was only one reason they would send a lesser-experienced witch after a group that broke away from the Coven.
“So are they trying to get rid of you by sending you after the rogues? Because that’s what I see.” And I didn’t like it, not one bit. I might fight with her, but I would never deliberately try to hurt her; she was the closest thing besides Giselle that I had to family.
Milly’s fingers tightened and she clenched her hands until the knuckles turned white, then slowly she relaxed. “They think I’m trouble. This would be a good way for them to use me up without just making an arbitrary decision to have me removed.”
“How many rogues are we dealing with?” Together, we could take this group out, no problem.
“We aren’t dealing with them. I am. I am to be your liaison while you rescue India, that’s it. I will handle the black members,” she said. We both knew Milly was good—very, very good—at what she did. She had to be to have survived this long without a Coven to back her up. But no matter how good she was, even she couldn’t handle more than a few black witches at a time.
“Who’d you sleep with that you shouldn’t have?” I leaned back against the porch pillar.
She stood, her eyes flashing, and stomped her way into the house, yelling over her shoulder through the open door. “Shut up! You don’t know anything!”
“Do you love him at least?” I yelled back.
She paused in midstride, turning just her face back toward me, one hand on the kitchen table. “Yes.”
“Is he worth it?”
“Yes.”
I shrugged. “Well, then at least we know we won’t both die in vain if it’s for true love.” I was betting it was anything but love. More like a serious case of the lusting hormones; that was Milly. She was a good friend, but I would hate to be one of the men who thought she loved them, and only them.
“Okay, so it was a fling,” she said with a huff. “But seriously, how was I to know he was engaged to the Coven leader’s daughter? He wasn’t wearing a sign or anything.”
I groaned. It couldn’t get any worse.
Nope, wrong again. Alex trembled, and I turned to face where he was looking. There, galloping across the burnt field was the werewolf pack, teeth flashing as they howled their intent.
“They come to kill Alex. Stay till Alex is dead,” he whispered.