by Tegan Maher
"I wish you'd have come to me about this. I could have gotten results as early as this afternoon."
"How?" I asked. "Hunter Woods, the sheriff from Keyhole Lake, is in town, and he sent it to his guy in Atlanta, but even so, we won't know 'til this evening at the earliest."
Sean smiled. "Cori, Cori, Cori. When are you ever going to learn that I'm an instant gratification type? When I want something done, I want it done now. Do you have a picture of them?"
"Actually, we do," Alex replied. "She took pictures of their IDs."
"Text them to me right now," he said, then knocked the bossiness out of his tone. "If you'd like, I mean. I have a tech guy that has access to every facial recognition database on the planet."
I raised a brow. "Every one?"
"Really, Cordelia?" He rolled his eyes. Of course he was being literal. He was Sean.
I pulled out my phone and texted him the pictures, then he fiddled with his cell for a minute, then gave a sharp nod. "There. We should know something soon. Hopefully by the end of your lesson."
The man wasn't kidding, either. I'd learned firsthand that when he wanted something done, it got done.
The only problem with going through Sean was that the people in this case were human. Any information I got from him would have to be verified by a legit avenue, so I crossed my fingers that even if Sean's guy got it done first, Hunter's guy would come up with the same results.
Until one or the other of them came through, though, I was at a dead end. Noelle's current brush with nasty witches was stewing in the back of my mind. So far in my career in law enforcement—and as pack leader, for that matter—I'd never had to use my magic to defend myself. Her situation was kind of an awakening for me. Just because I hadn't had a problem yet didn't mean I never would.
I vowed then and there to master my magic so that if the time came, I'd be ready.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I WIPED THE SWEAT FROM my brow after barely dodging a huge rock.
Alex laughed. "Sorry about that! I thought you were ready."
"For what? To have my brains bashed out by a flying boulder?" I scowled at him, but then focused and sent the stone sailing back toward him. I smirked when he barely managed to deflect it himself.
Charlotte's voice cut through my satisfaction. "All right, kids. Play nice. You're only sparring, not actually trying to kill each other. Though I do have to say, you've both come a long way since we started."
Almost without thought, I reached up and touched the crystal hanging around my neck. An ancient witch had given it to Kat, telling her only that she'd know what to do with it when the time came. Luckily for me, she was right. Kat had given it to me, and Alex had its twin. The luminous blue stone helped us separate our wolves from our witches so we could effectively use our magic.
It had made all the difference in the world for me. To be honest, before I'd gotten it, my magic had been spotty. I just figured any serious magic had skipped me since I was only a quarter witch, or a half, depending on how you looked at it.
My mom, a witch, had been attacked by a werewolf when she was pregnant with my sister. My father had saved her when she'd begun going through the change. So, if you think of mom as all witch and all werewolf, I'm half witch. If you think of her as half-and-half, which isn't really accurate, either, then I'm a quarter witch. Regardless of the math, my magic was horrible before Kat gave me the stone.
Little had I known it was only because my werewolf blood was blocking it.
At any rate, my pathetic lack of magical education had come to Sean's attention during the whole Zach incident, and he'd insisted on providing me with a tutor. Alex hadn't really struggled with his magic because he'd simply chosen not to develop it. Sean informed him that was at an end, too. It wasn't that Sean was bossy—okay, yes, he was—but more that he took care of people he cared about. He'd seen a deficit and, because he'd taken us under his wing, took it upon himself to fix it.
"Switch it up," Charlotte called. "Let's see some water magic."
Water was hard for me. It hadn't taken long to figure out that earth magic was my forte, so I tended to stick to that. Alex, on the other hand, was more powerful with the elements. He could call water and whip up a windstorm, which honestly made me a little jealous. I could throw rocks. He could make lightning. Totally unfair.
I sighed and prepared myself for a soaking.
"Don't look like you've already lost the war before it even starts," Charlotte said, her tone severe. "You know it makes me crazy when you go all defeatist."
She was right, so I gathered my wits and focused on drawing water from whatever resources I had. Gods and goddesses knew Alex was going to, and maybe—just maybe—I could get ahead of it for once. I sent out a mental feeler looking for water, and came upon the jackpot—the pool was close enough that I'd be able to manipulate it if I concentrated.
Alex, being the drama queen that he was when it came to his favorite form of magic, clapped his hands and closed his eyes. I could already feel the air around me becoming drier. Since I had no hope of pulling water out of thin air—literally—I focused on the pool. If all went well, I'd be able to call it over and drench him before he got to me first.
I closed my eyes and summoned it, not sure how much magic it would actually take. I only wanted to bring a little.
After a few minutes, Sean's voice disrupted my concentration. "Cordelia!" he snapped. "Put the water back in the pool, right now!"
I opened my eyes and gasped when I saw every drop of pool water hovering above, and several feet outside of, its concrete home. I gasped when I saw a brunette in a red suit directly under it, holding her hands up as if she could stop it. I put everything I had into pushing the water back over the pool and was doing a fine job until Rhea's voice sounded from right beside me. I snapped my head toward her and cringed when I hear a squeal of outrage.
Rhea slapped her hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle, but Dominique wasn't finding the same humor in the situation that she was. Instead, she was standing by the pool, fists clenched at her sides, her floppy hat drooping and her sarong clinging to her like a wet t-shirt.
Her face was a dripping mask of outrage, and I barely had time to step out of the way when she shot across the yard toward me. In fact, if it hadn't been for the super speed that was a permanent side effect of a medicine Sean had used to save my life a few months before, she'd have had me for sure.
"Dominique," Rhea barked. "Stop!" She stood between the two of us, hands out, and I tried to nudge her out of the way. I didn't need her to fight my battles, and my wolf was begging to take a shot at the snooty vamp.
Rhea turned to me and caught my gaze. "Cori, please."
I took a long, hard look at Dominique. Her chest was heaving, and her face was still red, but she didn't have murder in her eyes anymore. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sean standing by, waiting to intervene. I relaxed my stance; after all, it had been my fault.
"My bad," I said to Dominique. "I'm sorry I dropped the water on you. It wasn't my intent."
"Well then maybe you should—"
Rhea glared at her. Dominique pulled in a deep breath and mashed her lips together for a second. "Fine," she finally said. "Apology accepted."
Then she turned and stomped toward the house.
I turned toward Rhea, whose eyes were drooping. She looked exhausted, and it occurred to me that she was out in the daytime. "You look beat. Maybe you should go to bed."
She gave me a wan smile. "You're probably right. Sometimes I can stay up just fine, but other days, it's all I can do to make it 'til noon. Right now, my butt's draggin'. I'm tryin' to get it turned around, but it's not easy. Can we talk tonight? Or tomorrow morning, maybe?"
I paused. Was I ready to do that? "Tomorrow would be better, if I can. I need to take care of some things."
"Okay," she said, then gave me a look I couldn't quite interpret before turning toward the house. "I'll talk to you later."
Sean st
epped forward and gave me a pointed look. "The pool, Cordelia?"
I hated it when he—or anybody else, for that matter—called me by my given name, and he knew it. Still, he was right. It had been a dumb thing to do.
"I'm sorry. I was thinking more about winning than about the consequences."
Alex snickered beside me. "As if you could actually beat me with water."
I elbowed him.
"At any rate," Sean said, waving a hand, "I just heard from my guy. He got a hit on the facial recognition. The man is Robert Cantonelli, a banker from Ohio."
All thoughts of magic and horsing around fled from my mind. "And the woman?"
"His wife, Cloe."
Well, that explained why he'd called her Cloe, then.
"Do they have any criminal ties? A record?"
Sean shook his head. "No. As a matter of fact, my guy only traced them down because he has a picture on file with a financial institution. He had to manually pull up Chloe's picture from social media accounts linked the Robert."
My mind was whirring trying to put together the pieces.
"I'm sorry he didn't get more than that," Sean said, but I held up my hand.
"Are you kidding? In less than two hours, you managed to find out who the heck they are. There's no way I could have done that on my own. I appreciate it."
Alex nodded. "She's right. I'm not even sure we could have found it no matter how much time we had. That was some fancy footwork your guy pulled."
Sean smiled with pride. "For what he charges me, he better be fancy."
"Maybe the fingerprints will come back with a hit," I said, though I wasn't holding my breath. I couldn't imagine that a banker was going to come back with much of a history, but then again, I couldn't figure out why a banker from Ohio was in my neck of the woods using a fake ID.
I gathered my backpack and bottle of water and motioned for Chaos to come along. "I want to get back and do a little research of my own."
"Cori?" Sean said as he held the back door open for us.
"Yeah?"
"Don't let Dominique rattle you. It's unusual for her to be so aggressive. She's usually quite laid back and fun. I think she's just jealous that you have such a past with Rhea."
"Yeah, well I goaded her. Plus, she knew Rhea was alive. I was the one she lied to." I felt guilty saying that, but it was true, and it was the part I was having a hard time getting over.
"I know. And I also know you'll work it out. You're intelligent and fair," Sean said.
"She is," Alex replied, "but this is a big deal. If it takes her some time, then it just does. Rhea can't expect her to just get over it, especially with the murder. We know she's lying about that, and we can't think of a logical reason for her to do so if she's not guilty."
Sean's face was pensive. "I know. I don't understand that either, so I don't have an answer for you."
He stopped in front of his office. "If you don't mind seeing yourselves out, I have a business call I need to make."
"Sure thing," Alex said. "Thanks again."
He nodded and split off through the pocket doors.
Jeeves gave us a nod as we passed through the front door, then closed them for us.
"So do you have an idea yet?" I asked as skipped down the veranda steps toward where his truck was parked.
"Not yet, but I'm working on it. The pieces will fall together."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
IN ADDITION TO BEING a pack representative, Alex also did some graphic design on the side. He said it never hurt to be diverse, plus it put a little extra money in his pocket. He needed to work on a couple projects, so I left him at my place and took my Jeep to the office.
Sam was there when I got there, working on some paperwork. He gave me a dirty look when I dropped my backpack on the floor beside my desk before plopping down in my chair.
"Whatcha workin' on?" I asked, stretching my neck to see what form he was completing.
"The same thing it seems I spend half my time doing—filling out Gertrude's complaint form."
I shook my head. “I think it would be easier at this point if we just kept a running list with dates and the complaint du jour. Half the time, it involves somebody's underwear anyway, so we could just use the little quote mark each time."
"That's how I used to do it, before the new sheriff"—translation me—"came in and decided everything had to be done by the book."
When I'd first started, I'd felt like a bug under a microscope. I was the youngest sheriff ever appointed and the first woman sheriff. Ditto on the pack leader position. Plus, I had no beta, so that brought even more scrutiny. I'd felt the need to cross every t and dot every i. Now that I'd been in the position for a couple years, I no longer felt that sense of pressure.
"I know. I was an overenthusiastic nube with an all-consuming desire to please everyone. Grab a notepad and stick it in the bottom filing cabinet drawer. Put her name on the first page. From now on, we'll just add the date and summarize the complaint."
"And what about the others?"
We had a small but time-consuming little-old-lady brigade that had nothing better to do than look for reasons to complain. They were one of the main reasons Sam had turned down the sheriff's position. He said they cut into his fishing time, and here he was, dealing with them anyway.
"Same thing," I said, waving my hand. "Give 'em each a page."
He snorted. "It's probably best to give them each a pad. It'll be easier to keep them organized."
Unfortunately, he wasn't kidding. "You're right. We're not eliminating the waste of trees, but we'll be reducing them, at least."
A little twinge of guilt needled its way through me. "And I'm sorry you've had to deal with them. It's not fair."
"Damn straight it's not," he growled.
I gave him an ornery grin. "Even if they do request you, nine times out of ten. I'm just the third-rate substitution."
"Yeah, well that makes it even worse. I feel like the last cookie on the plate the way they ogle me."
I giggled at the visual and at his use of the word ogle, but he wasn't wrong. Nearly every old hen who came in to complain was either single or widowed. Sam was apparently quite the catch. He was in his sixties but looked at least ten years younger, plus he still had that military look about him, which was no doubt a tremendous draw.
"So what's up with Daisy's case?" he asked. "Did you find out anything else about the Smiths?"
I gave him the rundown, and he tapped his finger on his chin—something he did when he was concentrating. "So why would a banker and his wife be traveling incognito? It can't be for anything good, but for the life of me, I can't think of anything in Castle's Bluff that would attract them."
"Me either," I said. "Maybe when we get the DNA results from Hunter's guy in Atlanta, we'll get some answers."
"Don't expect much from that," he said. "He'll only get a hit if they're already in the databases. Though as a banker, I'd think they'd have some system in place to keep track of him, at least."
I was afraid he was right, but I wasn't sure what else to do. Rhea was lying, but I had no way of proving it without bringing forth a dead—excuse me, post-living—witness, and it wasn't like I could subpoena her in a human court. The best I could hope for was that somebody came forth with some new information.
We spent the next couple hours completing the day-to-day tasks required to run the sheriff's office, and I'd just finished when my phone rang. An unknown Georgia number showed on the screen.
"Sheriff Sloane," I said when I slid to answer.
"Hi, Sheriff. This is Jim Sanders. You sent me some fingerprints and DNA samples."
I sat up straighter in my chair. "Jim, do you mind if I put you on speaker? I have my second in command here with me."
"I don't mind, but you may want to make sure nobody else can hear."
A quick glance around through the glass walls of our office assured me nobody else was within earshot, but I rose and pushed the door shut an
yway.
"Okay, Jim. We're secure. Did you find anything?"
"I did, actually. The DNA was inconclusive because the sample was compromised, but I got a hit on the print on the juice glass. I'm afraid I don't have a name for you because it was pulled from a bank robbery scene in a town in Pennsylvania. So far, we haven't been able to match it to anybody, but that robbery is linked to three others."
Sam's eyebrows shot clear into his hairline.
"I can help you with that, then," I said, hardly able to believe what was going on. "The print belongs to an older man who's staying at a local B&B with his wife. They're using assumed names, but one of my resources ran a facial-recognition program on them. The man is Robert Cantonelli, and the woman is his wife, Cloe. He's a banker from Ohio."
"If you don't mind me asking, do you have a solid reason to suspect them of this murder? I'm afraid I'm required to report these findings to the appropriate agency. I can hold off for a couple hours, but beyond that, I'm risking my job."
"No, no," I rushed to say. "Don't do anything that will get you in trouble. Do what you gotta do. I'll deal with things on this end."
"Okay," he said. "This is high-priority, so I'd be surprised if agents aren't dispatched ASAP. You probably have a couple hours at best."
I thanked him for his help and disconnected.
"So what now?" I asked Sam. I was his boss, but he had decades more experience than I did.
He shrugged. "Now we wait for the feds to show up. I'm not sure what else to do. I think you should probably pick them up, though. If they slip away on our watch, you can bet there'll be hell to pay."
I had no problem with that, but I wanted to wrap up Daisy's murder before the feds pulled them into the cogs of the federal justice system. At that point, any charge in a Podunk town like Castle's Bluff would most certainly play second fiddle to multiple bank robberies.
"Are both of them involved, or just one of them?"
He paused, and I could hear him clacking away on a keyboard. "From the looks of it, there's a woman involved too. The only thing we have on her as far as a description is general build and a wedding ring caught on one of the security tapes. It's unusual, but so far, our guys haven't been able to trace it to any particular jewelry designer. Otherwise, they wore the standard ski masks and trench coats."