Romero’s dark brows went up. “You were daydreaming in the doorway of the police station?”
“I’m fine, really,” I lied, as my heart hammered like a fire bell. “Fine.” I squeezed by Romero into the safety of the vestibule. “I’ve just got to get—” I forced a smile, relief crashing over me when Romero kindly smiled back. “I’ve just got to get my head on straight.”
“Yeah,” Romero said, finally grinning. “I can respect that. Have a good night.”
I stayed rooted in the vestibule until Romero crossed the parking light and disappeared into his squad car. By that time, I could feel little beads of sweat prickling at the back of my neck while I mashed my finger against the elevator’s down button twenty times over.
The Underworld Detection Agency waiting room was deserted. The rows of blocky chairs and tattered magazines looked benign under the sodium chloride safety lights, but the calm fa?ade did nothing to settle my nerves. I headed directly to my office, shoved the stack of papers and messages on my chair to the floor, and sat down on a sigh, holding my head in my hands. Finally, I steeled myself and picked up the phone.
“’Lo?”
“Lorraine? It’s me. It’s Sophie. Can I ask you something?”
Lorraine sounded like she was chewing on her end of the phone, and she didn’t bother to stop. “If it’s quick. I have six orders to drop off tonight.”
I licked my lips. “Can a witch—can a witch make someone see—or hear something? I mean, like, could someone like you remotely make someone—”
“Someone like you?”
I sucked in a breath. “Yes, someone like me. Can someone like you remotely make someone like me hear someone’s voice?”
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
I relayed the details of my police station parking lot experience, cringing with each new word and each new thought that I was finally losing my marbles.
“Oh, God, Sophie. You’re dealing with someone pretty powerful. This is from the school case, huh?”
I pinched my bottom lip. “Yeah. Look, Will and I found a couple of spell books—just protection spells. Is this the kind of spell that someone can learn?”
“From a book?” Lorraine snorted. “No way. There are some spells and incantations that can be learned from a book and some that are only passed down through families and covens. The spell that overtook you? It’s the latter. Its not the kind of thing someone just messes around with.”
“But why would someone—this mysterious, powerful witch—want to show me something incriminating? Or at least something that could possibly help me find Alyssa?”
“Could it help you find the girl?”
I frowned. “No. But there was someone in a robe and a knife. That’s got to be pretty specific to a certain spell, right?”
“Absolutely. With a robe and a dagger, a witch can bind another being, call dark forces into their servitude, and ensure that a herd of cattle stays fertile. Among other things.”
“Great. So I’m not even a tiny bit closer to figuring out who—or why—or anything.”
Lorraine paused for a beat. “I’ll come by tonight. I can run a few clarification spells, do some star mapping—maybe I can shed some light on what’s going on.”
A little sliver of hope pierced my heart. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”
I rode up the elevator and when the big silver doors opened, I stood there mutely until the door began to slide shut again. Then I took a few tentative steps into the police department.
It was late enough that the majority of standard business was done there, and the only people left in the office were the nightshift and their newly caught, grumbling against their restraints or wailing that the police “got the wrong dude.” Eventually, I found myself heading directly for Alex’s office and hoping against hope that he was momentarily away while his office door was wide open, all the evidence in the Mercy kidnapping case spread out wide for me to take.
No such luck.
I rounded the corner and found myself in a standoff with Alex.
“What are you doing here?”
It wasn’t the warm, fuzzy, possibly kissy greeting that I always hoped for, but it was pretty much becoming standard Alex Grace.
“Can I talk to you in your office, please?”
I watched Alex suck in a deep breath, his cut-crystal eyes sharp and suspicious.
He sank into his desk chair and I perched in the visitor’s chair across from him. “So, how are you doing?”
Alex leaned back in his chair, the leather groaning underneath him. “What do you want, Lawson?”
I swallowed. “I want you to look up these names. They were students at Mercy with me, and well, suddenly, one day they weren’t. I think they might be part of this.”
I handed the page across the desk to Alex. He glanced down at it, his eyes giving it a quick glance before he moved it aside. “Thank you.”
“Aren’t you going to do anything about it?”