by Ivy Sinclair
Maggie listened and asked a couple of questions of George as the tour progressed. She was completely engaged in the story, but the thing that struck her the most was that the place had started out as a sanatorium. She couldn’t help but ask if there were any stories about ghosts haunting the halls.
There was a low murmur of laughter at her question, and Maggie felt slightly uncomfortable. But then she figured why not? It seemed like exactly the kind of place that would be haunted.
“Although there are many rumors about potential hauntings here at St. Ignacious, nothing has ever been officially confirmed,” George said.
That made Maggie wonder. Nothing that had ever been officially confirmed. That sounded vaguely familiar to her. After the tour was over, Tony offered to buy her a late lunch at the cafeteria. Maggie thought that was highly amusing. “Can’t spring for anything better than cafeteria food?”
“I guarantee it’s still better than anything you’ll find at City Hall,” Tony said confidently.
Maggie scoffed but at the same time, she knew he was probably right. The City Hall cafeteria was hardly known for its high-brow cuisine, and she had eaten there far more frequently than she would’ve liked. She let Tony lead her through the hallways to the cafeteria. She looked around them and thought again about how strange the place was. She felt like it was practically a perfect scene for some kind of B-rated horror movie.
“Other than your roommate, were there any other instances of violence here?” she asked.
“You’re really on this whole ghost kick aren’t you?” Tony asked. “I never pictured you as the type that would be into the paranormal.”
Maggie looked at him in surprise. “Isn’t the whole idea of a being who can be half human and half animal somewhat mystical? There’s something magical about that, you have to agree.”
Tony stopped in his tracks. He looked at her in borderline amazement. “I understand that the idea of a shifter is something that is not quite jiving with the normal state of nature, but it doesn’t dispute the fact that we exist. I don’t think that there’s anything magical about it. It’s simply a different expression of nature.”
Maggie thought about that, and it still didn’t seem quite right to her. She didn’t broach the topic anymore, though, because it seemed like she might be agitating Tony. They went to the cafeteria and ate lunch, all the while admiring and listening to the school orchestra as they played tunes for the families.
“So are we going to the rally tonight or what?” Tony asked.
“I know I said I’d go to homecoming, but I think that we have to do a little bit of work here too,” Maggie said. She pointed at her briefcase sitting next to her. “I’d at least like to see the quarry before dark. If we get back in time, then we can go to the rally.”
“All right, but I don’t know what you think you’re going to find out there.” Tony looked around with a bit of chagrin. “I’m not even sure if the quarry exists the way that it did when I was here. I haven’t been there since that night.”
Maggie figured that was still a distinct possibility, but her check of the records of the quarry seem to indicate that it was still being used. She figured the only way they were going to find out for sure was to go out that way. She also had a list of other places in Croftsborrow that she wanted to visit while she was there.
Second on the list was a visit to City Hall to look into the police records. She wanted to confirm if there were any police reports on record for that night. The report in her original anonymous package had to have come from somewhere. She wanted to see if Tony’s story that no police report had been filed was actually true. Because then the file she had received was possibly a fake.
But she couldn’t deny the fact that something had happened that night that involved three girls who had disappeared. At least, that seemed to be the case.
She and Tony finished eating without any further conversation. He led her back out to the car. “So you really think there’s something we can find out there?”
“Well, we won’t know until we go out and take a look.”
She knew that was logic that even Tony couldn’t disagree with.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Just as Tony expected, Maggie so far had proved to be a dog with a bone about the case. It was what he told himself he wanted, and yet at the same time, he was uncomfortable with it. He felt like one big ball of exposed nerves. It was a feeling quite unlike any other that he had experienced for a very long time. Added into that, every time he looked at her, he wanted to grab her and pull her into him so he could bury his nose in her hair, and he was completely and thoroughly distracted during the tour of the school.
He had managed to keep his cool through the entire incident at her apartment. Tony had the whole of the Urban Dwellers investigative resources looking to find out how the black rose ended up on Maggie’s doorstep.
He had received a report from Samuel, his head of security, just before they landed. Samuel said they had reviewed the practically non-existent footage from Maggie’s apartment as well as video footage from street cameras around Maggie’s building. There was nothing. It was as if whoever planted the flower was some sort of phantom.
Then there was the fact that she had received another envelope that contained new pictures of the three women that haunted his dreams. It was entirely unsettling. He felt like everything was converging on him, and he didn’t know what to do about it. Tony didn’t believe in coincidence. It was also on his mind that somehow, through some random twist of fate, whoever was fucking with him had picked the one woman to pull into his orbit that might be his mate. What were the odds? Surely if he was a betting man, he would have never picked that particular scenario. It was highly unlikely, which made it all the more suspicious.
He wondered if he should tell Maggie about what he thought she meant to him. But she was so insistent on keeping everything on a professional level. It seemed as if she was doing everything in her power to deny that there was any attraction between them. He didn’t want to scare her away. He wanted to protect her now, because he sensed that he had endangered her in some type of way. There was someone out there that had their attention set on him, and they were using Maggie to get to him.
The idea that someone would’ve been able to predict that Maggie would potentially be his mate was crazy to him. It was impossible. There was no logical way that someone would be able to know that, especially when Tony himself hadn’t known until the second time he and Maggie met. So, he was left that it was a simple, random twist of fate. Perhaps that was all it was. But that didn’t feel right. It brought him back to coincidence, but he grappled with the idea that, once again, he didn’t believe in coincidence.
He had no idea how he had managed so far to keep it together. He didn’t sense that Maggie understood the turmoil going on inside of him. She seemed completely enthralled by his school, and Tony was entirely okay with it. He found that he wanted to impress her. He wanted her to be proud of him. That was the weirdest thing ever. Tony hadn’t given a shit about what anybody thought about him for years. On that, he and Eric were completely aligned. Eric was often successful despite himself. Tony wasn’t like that. He understood why having people like him was to his benefit. But he didn’t go out cultivating the kinds of relationships that were deep, emotional, and were supposed to last a lifetime. He was really good at the surface stuff. He sucked when it got any deeper than that.
He thought about Maggie’s question about his past relationships. He hadn’t told her a lot, because he had been equally curious about her past history too. He was surprised at the bolt of anger inside of him when he heard about her ex-fiancé. It made him want to track the guy down and beat the shit out of him. But, of course, that was his animal talking. His wolf growled inside of him at the idea that anyone would ever hurt his mate.
Tony was feeling waves of possessiveness about Maggie that grew by the hour. It was something that he had talked about many times on the witness stand, but
had never really thought he would encounter himself. He was having a hard time trying to separate his logic from his emotion. He just hoped he could hold it together, especially throwing in the added stress of being back in his school’s hometown on the eve of homecoming and going out to visit the scene that had been the defining moment of his teenage years.
Tony was nothing if not logical about the impact of different behaviors and the emotions that drove them. He understood that he was currently operating in less than optimal circumstances. Ideally, he would have the whole issue of his mate status with Maggie figured out before he ever came back to confront these demons of his past. Unfortunately, the way that things were playing out, he had a mate who was human and currently investigating him. What could possibly go wrong with that situation?
These were the thoughts rolling through his mind as they made their way toward the quarry. He wondered if he would be able to keep his cool. He leaned back in his seat and took a deep breath. That was when he felt her hand touch his, drawing his attention to her. He saw she was looking at him with a look of concern. It was probably the first time he thought that perhaps she was looking at him as someone other than a client. Maggie was a true professional. He had to admire that about her even if it drove him a little bit crazy.
“I know this is hard for you,” she said. “But if we can get to the bottom of what happened that night, I think you will find a huge weight lifted off your shoulders.”
Tony chuckled, but it was a sound that didn’t hold any humor at all. “And if you find out that I ate someone? Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“Have you eaten anybody since then?” He thought Maggie was being facetious, but then he saw that her expression was completely serious.
“Of course not. That was preposterous. I would never eat someone whether I was acting as the wolf or not. That idea is disgusting.”
“Well, I think you have your answer then. If you did something, possibly under the influence of some kind of hallucinogen or something that you guys may have taken that night you don’t remember, there is a precedent set for temporary insanity.” Maggie said it with a kind of satisfaction that was almost a little bit unsettling.
He realized he knew why he liked lawyers. They were a lot like scientists. Very cold, very analytical, and very logical. They didn’t let emotions get in the way, but he wanted Maggie to feel emotional toward him. He didn’t want the proper attorney-client relationship. He found it slightly disturbing that she seemed to be getting used to the idea that this might be what he had done. He had had eighteen years to get used to the idea, and it still sent a shudder through him every time he thought about it.
“Even if it was temporary insanity, I still don’t know that I would be able to live with myself. I certainly know that I would not feel a weightlessness about it.”
Maggie shook her head. “What is more terrible than not knowing what happened? You haven’t been able to close that wound. It’s scabbed over, but it’s never healed. You’ve never been able to find closure. That was why you need to find out what happened. That was why I’m helping you now. Once you have that closure, you will be able to move on- whatever that looks like.”
Tony had to give her credit. He was the one who was supposed to be the therapist, and yet it seemed as if his attorney was schooling him on how to deal with emotional trauma. “We’re almost there,” he said.
She looked out the window at his motion. They came onto a gravel road that was barely large enough to hold the truck they were in. Tony had borrowed it from one of the groundskeepers at the school. With Tony’s influence and throwing a little cash at the guy, he had been able to secure one of St. Ignacious’s work trucks.
Just like eighteen years ago, the road was barely worn enough to be able to be called a road at all. He and Maggie were jostled around the cab of the truck, and he heard her groan as her head hit the roof several times as he tried to navigate a couple of potholes that could not be avoided. He hoped that he wasn’t going to bust out one of the axles on the truck but, of course, it wasn’t like he couldn’t afford to replace it if that happened.
“Well, this appears to be about the same,” he said, trying to lighten the mood.
“I’m not sure I’m seeing the appeal of the quarry,” she said sarcastically.
As the view opened up in front of them, he heard her gasp. He knew what she was seeing. If he didn’t have the jaded eyes of his youth, he would understand it too. The walls flew up around them as the road opened into a large open space. It was open to the sky above them, and there was a small man-made lake in front of them. It was solitary and slightly picturesque at the same time. When you were there, it was as if you could forget that the rest of the world existed, and that was exactly the reason that they had chosen that secluded location for their celebration that night.
Tony felt a slight bit of relief that seeing the quarry for the first time didn’t immediately spark some kind of visceral, negative reaction. In fact, it didn’t spark anything at all. Of course, he remembered waking up, and he remembered his father and Kyle’s father and Eric’s father arriving a short time later in the helicopter, but he didn’t still remember anything else. There had been a small part of him that had wondered if he ever went back to the quarry if those memories would come back. But still, he had nothing.
He could tell that Maggie was watching him carefully. He looked at her with a small shrug. “Nothing.” He hadn’t even needed to hear her question out loud. He knew what she was thinking. She might not know it, but Tony had started to get a feel for how his mate thought and behaved. It was bound to happen.
He pulled the truck around to the small, rocky beachfront next to the lake. He got out and surveyed the scene with his hands on his hips. Maggie immediately started walking the beach and looking at things, talking to herself. He wondered if that was how she prepared for her cases.
“I know it’s probably not exactly like how it was when you woke up that morning. But I would really like it if you can kind of orientate me to where you were versus Eric and Kyle.” She took a piece of paper out of her briefcase and started wagging her pencil at him. She had gone into investigative mode.
Tony knew better than to argue with her. She was going to get the information she wanted one way or another. He thought from the way that the sun caught fiery glimmers of her hair that she was absolutely stunning. He realized he could look at her all day, and then it occurred to him then that the reason he was so calm was because she was there with him. He sensed that as long as they were together, everything was going to be okay. He would help her figure out who was stalking her, and she would help him figure out perhaps what had happened that night so long ago. Those answers were intertwined.
He had to help her because she was helping him. So he put his emotions away and pushed the wolf deep down inside of him. That would be for later. Now, he simply wanted to give his mate what she wanted.
He sighed heavily because he knew that this was also going to mean that he was going to ruin his favorite pair of shoes by walking in the dusty rocks that formed the beach. He supposed it couldn’t be avoided, and it was his own fault for not wearing different shoes. Maggie, on the other hand, seem to be walking around in her kitten heels without any issue. He admired her shapely legs.
“So are you going to stop staring and help me or what?” Maggie said as she put a hand on her hip.
“There’s no reason I can’t do both,” he said to her with a smirk. He walked closer to her. Then he looked around at the ground, considering her request. Things had changed since he had last been there. But he wanted to try, for Maggie.
“I was here,” he said, pointing at a spot a few feet away. He felt pretty confident about the answer.
“Were you naked or did you have clothes on?”
He looked at her with a raised eyebrow and gave her a wink. “I was naked.” He had been in his half phased form. He knew he must have phased from his human form quickly because the clot
hes he had been wearing were in tattered shreds on the other side of the beach. He pointed all of this out to Maggie.
“Wait a minute, though,” she said. She looked at her notes. “You said that Kyle called his father. So if a call was placed there had to be a cell phone somewhere?”
“Actually, we had a walkie talkie. That was how you had to communicate back then because the cell service here in the quarry didn’t even register. We were at least smart enough to take some kind of communication device with us when we would come out here.”
“So Kyle was able to call his father on a walkie talkie?”
Tony knew why this sounded suspicious. “You have to remember that we had access to certain channels and certain people that other people did not,” he explained. Kyle’s father was a high-ranking general in the U.S. Army. Recently, it had come to light that there were a lot of things that had happened that most people probably didn’t want to know.
Maggie nodded her head slowly and chewed on the end of her pencil. “If it was a walkie talkie, then it’s possible that his signal was intercepted. If you used it at any point during those twelve missing hours, it’s possible somebody else heard you.”