"Her and Jon dated after the crazy ex. She didn't tell you that?"
"Um, no, she told me they were family friends." I rubbed my eyes. That would technically make Liz a suspect. I needed to bring her in and talk to her about Jon. I pulled my phone out of my pocket. Merick took it from me. "I'll get it out of its case and dried off. It should still function after it dries completely."
Luckily for me that I had a life proof case on the damn thing. I nodded and looked down at myself. "I also need a bit of drying."
"I'll get towels for you both." Seth walked passed me and disappeared down a hall. "Merick, where do you live?"
He laughed a little bit as he sat my phone on a floating shelf. "Not too far from you, about a fifteen-minute drive. I didn't take you to another country. I know better than to take you out of state." He sighed. "We'll go back and get your Hummer when we're dried off and changed. I'll call Liz and let her know where you are. We should be back in town by nightfall, so I wouldn't worry about Levi."
I snorted. "Can you imagine that phone conversation?" I shook my head. "No, he'll be fine."
I heard a female voice come from the hall, followed by Seth's voice. Part of me wanted to run, but Merick didn't seem alerted at all. Seth came back into view with a tall, slender woman. The tone of her skin matched Merick's, but her hair had been colored a dark red. She tossed me a towel.
"So you're Abigail Collins." Her accent was a little less noticeable than Merick's. "I'm Merick's older sister, Rania."
"Nice to meet you. I wasn't aware that Merick had a sister." I glanced at him, and he shrugged.
She waved a hand as if to dismiss it. "I'm ten years older than him, and we rarely see each other. I agreed to check in on his house from time to time while he was playing cat."
"Ah." I felt like I had stepped into a strange, awkward family moment. "Okay, so, let me get dried off and then someone can deliver me back to pick up my Hummer, and I can get back to work on finding who killed Zayden." I started running the towel over my skin. My black jeans stuck to my legs and were heavy on my waist while my shirt drooped down, heavy with water.
"Come with me. I have some clothes that should fit you." Rania motioned for me to follow. I glanced at Merick, and he nodded.
"She may be annoying, but she won't hurt you. I'll get changed and make us some tea to warm up."
I didn't want to sit and drink tea with his family. I wanted to go back to get my car and solve my murder. Apparently, that was just a little too much to ask.
∞
A few minutes later, I was dried off, in clean borrowed jeans and shirt, and sitting on the couch drinking tea with Merick. "Okay, so now what? An attempt on my life and Jon's crazy ex showing up. It's been an eventful day. I think I'm ready for a night out. Or a bottle of wine."
Merick laughed. "We'll make sure to open one up tonight. After we make sure your house is still secure."
It did make me wonder if whoever was following me had scouted out the house or not. "I need to talk to Levi about the attack."
Merick sipped his tea. "Decided to keep him in the loop have you?"
"After the conversation that we had when we got back from Samuel's, I think it's for the best. We need to know we can trust each other because if we don't, the next time Samuel calls Levi home for a quick visit he's going to use it against us." I shook my head. "I don't want that. Levi and I have a lot of issues right now because of secrets, and it may end up dividing us."
Merick made a hmm noise as he sipped his tea. "Do you plan on telling him about me?"
"He already knows that there's a warlock hanging around my house. I told him that I couldn't give him your name. He seemed satisfied with that. I'm hoping that since it's another layer of protection for me, he won't push." I sipped my tea and sighed. "How did this all become such a huge mess?"
He chuckled. "Karma? From a past life?"
I glared at him. "Really?"
"You never know."
I shook my head and laughed. "Okay, I think I'm ready to go back. I hope the Hummer is okay."
"And the guy who did this?" Seth asked from the doorway of the living room.
"Better be gone by the time I get back because I'm not thrilled with being dropped in a fucking lake." I finished my tea and stood. "Tell Rania thank you for the clothes, and I'll send them back with Merick."
Merick stood and took my teacup from me. "I'll take you back and stay until I know you're safely on your way to the office."
"Thanks." I had a moment where I wanted to argue, but I let it go. Short of hiding, I'd take all the help I could get in watching my back until whoever had put the hit on me either backed off or was killed. Either way would work for me right now.
Merick walked out of the living room with the cups and Seth handed me my phone.
"I sent you an e-mail with the contact information of those involved. I expect you to respect our deal."
I nodded. "I will." Mostly because I couldn't take on ex-Cult priests. "I have one more question for you. When I first met my uncle Oliver, he wanted me to kill you. Why?"
Seth snorted. "Oliver Mackintosh?"
I nodded.
"That bastard. He's had it out for my job since he joined the Cult. He's known the whole time that I had something to do with his sister's death, and he wanted my head for it."
I stared at him for a moment. "Excuse me?"
"Your uncle is Cult, Abigail. Didn't you know that?"
I shook my head and tried to process and look back at everything Oliver had done or said. The only thing I could remember was that he'd been to Luna Grove on a truce. Holy shit. It was because he was Cult.
"I can see the surprise crossing your face. He hadn't mentioned it at all?"
I shook my head. "No."
"Well, now you have more information then, don't you?" Seth smirked and walked out of the room.
Merick came back in and looked at me and then to where his father had walked off. "What did I miss?"
"Did you know that Oliver was cult?"
Merick shook his head. "No, I didn't."
At least he had been left out of the loop too. I shook my head. "Come on, let's go."
Merick put his hand on my shoulder and used his fancy transportation spell to take us back to the restaurant.
We reappeared, and we both stood there for a moment. I was sure Merick was also assessing the situation around us. No one was in the parking lot, and my Hummer stood out like a sore thumb amongst the fancy foreign cars. There was no sign of my attacker and no sign that there had been a small magical fight outside.
I walked to my Hummer and unlocked it. I threw my bag in and looked at Merick. "No magical interference. I think we're safe."
"He probably thought he killed us both." Merick shrugged. "And didn't bother to take precautions otherwise."
I nodded and climbed in. Merick shut the door after me. "I'll see you at home tonight."
"I'll let you know if anything changes. Check the house out for me?"
"Of course." He looked around and then disappeared. I started the Hummer and pulled it out of the parking lot. I half expected a text or a message from Oliver, but nothing came as I drove back to the office.
∞
The moment I walked into the building, I headed toward Liz's office. I needed to talk to her about a few things, and I wanted to know if she had made any more progress on the woman who had attacked me.
I knocked on her door, and a moment later she opened it. "Hey, Abby."
"Can we talk?"
She sighed. "Yeah, I'm assuming it's about Jon?"
"And the fact that you two dated?"
She cringed and let me in. "I know that's not in the files, where did you find that out at?"
"I just finished having lunch with Seth. It was very informative for a variety reasons." Some which she was never going to know. "Let's talk abou
t you and Jon though, so I can cover my bases. I don't think it was you that killed Zayden, I saw the grief in your eyes, the concern."
She motioned to the chair in front of her desk. "Honestly, I've been waiting for you to come talk to me. I knew it was only a matter of time before you found out. Jon and I started dating right after Virginia left. Virginia is-"
I held a hand up. "I've met her."
Liz laughed. "So anyway, we started dating and then he realized that he wasn't ready for a relationship again, that he had to get himself and his abilities under control."
"So it was before all the tattoos?"
She nodded. "The cult has very few necromancers, and many of them run extremely dark. Jon has a darker streak to him, but he's not as dark as some of the others." She crossed her arms. "He chose to get the tattoos to protect him and his brother. A lot of good it did. He'd received threats about someone exposing him and harming Zayden. They died off, and we never thought anything about them again."
"And you two never thought about talking to PIB about it or your priests?"
She shook her head. "Idle threats, there was no magic to them, a move was never made. We assumed it was Virginia trying to scare him."
"And now Zayden is dead, Jon's been stabbed, and Virginia is back in town. The past may be coming back to bite you in the ass."
She was quiet for a moment. "Have you found the victim of the curse?"
"Possibly, I'm waiting to hear back from Jack. I'm going to give him a call and ask him about Virginia, to see if there's a connection there or not. That's all I can tell you."
She nodded. "I talked to Oliver."
"Yeah, he told me. Have you called Levi yet?"
She shook her head. "No, not yet. I'm trying to piece what we have together without him."
I wanted to tell her that the King's Guard was watching PIB's searches and anything with Levi pinged the system, but there was no way I could explain how I knew that. "Good luck. Might want to give him a couple nights, he's been grumpy."
She laughed. "Thanks for the heads up. I'm going to swing by the hospital and see Jon."
"Okay. I'm going to get back to work." I stood and started toward the door.
"Abby?"
I paused and looked over my shoulder. "Yeah?"
"Be careful. Watch your back."
It was almost as if she knew what was going on with the attempts on my life. "I'll do my best." I finished walking out and took the stairs to my office.
I was glad to find my office empty and the blood stain cleaned up. They must have sent a cleaning team while I was out to lunch. I put my bag down and picked up my phone to call Jack.
It rang four times and I'd almost given up hope when he answered. "Abby."
"Hey, how's Cynthia doing?"
"Better, the fever has cleared, and she seems to be doing alright. She went to go see a friend today, so she was up for leaving the house."
That was good to know. "Good, I'd like to chat with her if she's up for it."
"I figured you would. She was planning on swinging by the PIB office later today. I assume you'll be there?"
"Unless another body shows up, yeah, I should be here. I have another question for you. Do you know a Virginia Stride?"
"Yes, she joined the Coven a couple years ago. She's very active in most of our events."
"And her ranking in the Coven?"
"Nothing special. She never showed any interest in becoming a priestess. Her records indicate she moved around a lot so that may have something to do with it."
I really wished they did a background check and not just a check on coven references. "Did you know that she has an outstanding warrant?"
He was quiet for a moment. "Why do you check on our Coven members?"
"Because she may actually be a suspect. I don't randomly run checks on you guys." Though maybe I should, because it seemed they had gathered some interesting characters over the years.
"No, I didn't know she had a warrant, but I know that she has a troubled past. Bad relationship that led to poor choices. She was pretty open about that."
And I was sure she twisted the truth. "Okay, do you have a contact number for her?"
He rambled off some numbers, and I wrote them down.
"Thank you. And I do mean that Jack. You've been really helpful with this case."
He grunted at me and disconnected the call. I put my phone down on the desk and sighed.
I opened up my e-mail to send a request to see Lydia at the containment center. I had a bunch of pieces, but nothing to connect them yet.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The sun sank behind the mountains as my day ticked into the evening. I hadn't called Virginia yet, because I wanted her to calm down a little bit before I pissed her off again. A knock at my door had me checking the clock and the sun again. Too early for vampires still, unless it was Samuel, but I doubt he wanted it widely known that he was a day-walker.
I got up, opened the door, and came face to face with a woman I didn't know. I paused for a moment. "Cynthia?"
She nodded and held her hand out to me. "Agent Collins, it's nice to meet you. I hear I have you to thank for figuring out that the curse."
"I'm glad it was so easy to get rid of." I motioned for her to come in. "I'd like to chat with you about it."
She nodded and automatically sat down in the chair in front of my desk. "That would be why I'm here."
She seemed almost too at home in my office, as if she'd been in a PIB office before. There weren't too many people who were calm and collected when talking about a curse. I made a mental note of that.
"Do you know who would be targeting you?"
"Zayden's brother." She didn't miss a beat. "For denying him entrance into the coven."
I sat down in my chair. "Did Jon make any threats?"
"No, but we all know that dark Cult members can't be trusted."
'Dark Cult members' was an interesting way to put things. "Jon cares very much for his brother, so I doubt he would sacrifice him to give you a little fever."
She looked offended. Good, angry people rarely kept their lies straight. "Excuse me? A little fever? It would have escalated until I died."
"True, but it didn't get that far. The curse was one that was easily cleansed. That's a lot of work to go through for someone to just be cleansed of it." There was so much truth to my words that I was really wondering who the true target was now.
She looked taken aback. "What are you suggesting, Ms. Collins."
"Agent Collins," I corrected. "I need to know where you were the night Zayden was killed."
She stood. "I came here to talk to you about being the victim of a curse, not to be accused of murder."
"I'm not accusing you of anything. I need to know where you when the curse might have started." I kept calm and picked up a pen so I could jot down notes.
Cynthia took a moment to collect herself and sat back down. "Of course, I'm sorry. I overreacted."
No shit. "It's okay, you're in a stressful situation."
"I was out with a friend the night the heart was found. I don't about when he died. No one ever told me the actual time of death."
I nodded and made a note. "Where did you guys go? Did you feel anything off at all?"
"We went to this cheesy little dive diner. Great food, decorated like the fifties. It's down off 8th."
I knew the place. I'd never eaten there though. "And anything off?"
She shook her head. "No, I felt fine going home. I started to feel off the next day which was when the fever started."
I took the notes and then scribbled a couple thoughts to myself on the paper as well. "If you start to feel ill again, please let me know right away and get in touch with Jack so he can keep an eye on you in case the curse decides to come back."
She nodded. "Okay." Once again she stood and started to the
door. "I hope you catch him, Agent Collins."
"I'll do my best."
She let herself out, and I leaned back in the chair. I had more pieces, and they were falling into place, but first I needed to find the link between Zayden and why he was the target. I shoved my notes into my bag and grabbed my phone to call Levi.
He answered. "Why are you calling me?"
"Because I figured after last night, I needed to be more open with you. There was another attempt on my life today. The man wasn't caught, he tried to drown me in a lake using magic."
I heard Levi take a sharp breath. "I'm okay. My warlock friend happened to be there and was able to get me out of danger. I didn't want you to find out by a third party."
"A lake Abigail? How on earth did he happen to be there? How did he save you from that?"
I gave a short laugh. "Magic, in both cases."
"Thank you. I appreciate you trying to keep the lines of communication open."
I heard yelling in the background. "Are you on a scene?"
"Yes. Grayson called me right at sundown. They are bringing in a suspect right now. I assume you might get a call tonight. I will speak with you later."
The phone went dead in my hand. I wasn't looking forward to that call, but I guess there was probably no avoiding it. I had planned on going home to relax, but if Grayson was going to call me I wanted to stay in town, so I didn't have to keep driving back and forth.
I texted Merick to tell him I was going to grab some food and wait something out. I didn't get a text message back right away, so I assumed he was busy.
∞
My phone dinged the moment I got in the car, and I looked down to see a work e-mail. The containment center had agreed to my request and had given me a time tomorrow to show up. Of course it was first thing in the morning, but I'd make it work. I started the Hummer and pulled it out of the parking lot. I was halfway to where I wanted to grab dinner when my phone rang. Grayson's number flashed on my screen, and I used the hands-free system to answer it.
"What's up?"
"I need you to come to the office and interrogate a witch."
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