Celtic Dragons

by Dee Bridgnorth

  She floored the gas pedal again as the light turned green, chuckling. “Yeah. That too.”

  “But it was good, right?”

  “Oh my God.” Siobhan laughed, shaking her head. “Yes. It was good. It was incredible. Amazing. Exhilarating. Fabulous. Intoxicating. Thrilling. Ooohhh. Aaaahhh. Julian…”

  He was laughing, too, as she tossed her hair around dramatically. “Eyes on the road. And two hands on the wheel!”

  “A few days ago, a comment like that would have really annoyed me,” she pointed out, even as she followed his instructions and drove more carefully.

  “And now?”

  “I’ve gotten used to you.”

  “And my buttoned-up ways.”

  “Yep. You’re hot as hell now. And I like you. A lot. Now, change the subject.”

  He smiled, more amused than anything, and looked out the window, trying to get a sense of where they were headed. “How far away is this place?”

  “Kean says that Melanie and her kids are at a petting zoo of all places. It’s only another five minutes or so from here. They’ve been there for about an hour, and he says that he’s pretty sure that another car in the parking lot is there watching her, so he’s gotten out of his own car and entered the zoo, too, to keep a closer eye on her. In case the guy goes in after her.”

  “So we’re going inside?”

  “No. Kean is keeping an eye on her. We’re scouting out the car scouting out Melanie.”

  Her phone rang and Siobhan reached for it, swiping it open to answer the call and put the phone to her ear. “Yeah?”

  Reaching over, Julian took the phone from her hand, putting it on speaker and holding it away from her so that she could put both hands on the wheel. She gave him a look, but there was no real frustration in it.

  Kean was in the middle of his sentence. “ …so I wanted you to know before you got here.”

  “Wanted me to know what?” Siobhan asked. “I didn’t hear the first part of what you said.”

  “That it looks like Melanie and her kids are getting ready to leave.”

  Siobhan scrunched her nose. “Damn it. We’re like two minutes away. I can see the sign up ahead. Just keep close to her, and I’ll be there in a minute.”

  “That’s the thing. I have to play it carefully, because I’m here as a single guy…in a petting zoo…keeping an eye on a mother and her two kids. If I’m not careful, I’ll be the one confronted for stalking. I can’t follow her immediately out, but—damn it. Yeah. She’s definitely rounding them up. They’re going to head for the parking lot.”

  Siobhan cursed under her breath and whipped around the car that was going slowly in front of her, hanging a sharp left turn that allowed her to cut through a parking lot instead of waiting at the upcoming light. Drivers honked at her as she wove through the parking lot and pulled out in front of a pickup truck that laid on its horn as well.

  She ignored all of the protests and worked her way into the left-hand turn lane, pulling back out onto the main road and then quickly zipping into the parking lot of the petting zoo.

  “Okay, we’re here,” she told Kean, who was still on the phone that Julian was gripping tightly, his eyes wide at the maneuvers they had just gone through. “I’m parking at the far end. I’ve got the white Kia in my sights. Driver in place. Can confirm that basic description matches.”

  “All we can see is his outline,” Julian said, finding the white Kia and looking closer.

  “Yeah, but he’s balding,” she said, turning the car engine off. “Don’t stare. We don’t want him to notice us.”

  “Melanie and the kids are on their way to the car,” Kean said through the phone speaker. “She’s walking toward you now. I’ve made no move to leave.”

  Siobhan turned toward Julian, positioning herself as though they were having an intent discussion. She had her back to the parking lot and the white Kia, but she was cutting her eyes toward the direction of the petting zoo entrance. “I’ve got her in sight. Julian, watch the Kia—discreetly—and tell me if there’s any move at all from the driver.”

  “He’s looking at us.”

  “Damn,” Siobhan said. Then she grabbed his shirt and pulled him toward her, kissing him passionately. It shocked him—though not unpleasantly—and he didn’t close his eyes right away. Then he noted that hers were still open, and she was still watching Melanie walk her kids to her car. “Keep watching the driver,” she said against his lips, really playing up the intensity of their kisses with her hands all over his face and in his hair. “Is he moving?”

  Even though it was clear that the kisses were for show, Julian still found them distracting, and he couldn’t help but pull her closer as he kept one eye on the balding Kia driver. “He’s watching. Melanie is close to our car now. I can’t tell if he’s looking at us or at her.”

  “Does she notice him?” Siobhan bit down on his bottom lip, tugging lightly.

  “Mmm …uhhh …no, doesn’t seem to. She’s focused on her boys.”

  Kean cleared his throat over the forgotten phone line. “You want to keep the fake kissing a little less noisy? I hear saliva.”

  “It’s for the job,” Siobhan said, pulling away from Julian and then burying her face in his neck so that it looked like she was kissing her way down it. “Look over my shoulder,” she told him. “She’s behind me. Watch to make sure that she gets her and the kids into her car without the Kia guy getting out.”

  Julian watched, as directed, sliding his hand up and down Siobhan’s back as he did, his cheek nestled against her hair. As his eyes stayed trained on her, Melanie loaded her two boys into the back of the minivan and, looking flustered, rounded to her own door, got in, and turned on the car. The whole time, the man in the Kia sat still, not moving a muscle, even when Melanie pulled out of her parking spot and headed toward the main street.

  “He’s still sitting there,” Julian told Siobhan. “He hasn’t mov—oh, wait. He just turned on his car.”

  “She’s pulled out onto the street,” Siobhan said, sitting up. “She’s merged into traffic …she’s getting into the left lane…looks like she’s going to make a U-turn, maybe? Damn it—Xander.” Siobhan’s eyes narrowed as she and Julian both watched the Kia moved slowly toward the street entrance and hesitate there for a moment, finally pulling out into the left lane, like Melanie had.

  Julian decided not to take offense at how quickly Siobhan pushed him back and resituated herself in her seat, turning the car on and throwing it into drive. “Kean, you still there?”

  “I’m here. I’m walking out now.”

  “Okay—Kia’s on the move behind Melanie, and I’m tailing him. Follow behind me.”

  She hung up the phone without waiting for a response, then gunned the car forward, making Julian grab onto the seat to brace himself.

  “Siobhan, we can’t help her if we get ourselves killed!”

  Glancing over at him, she took one hand off the steering wheel—which was terrifying, giving that she was whipping out into traffic at the time—and patted his arm. “Just close your eyes, okay?”

  Julian considered it for a moment, but decided that, if death was coming to him, he wanted to go looking death in the face. And it felt like that was exactly what he was doing as Siobhan cut across three lanes of traffic and slid into the far lane where Melanie and Xander, behind her, had both just done U-turns. There was no way that they were going to make the green arrow before it turned red again, with two cars ahead of them still needing to go as the arrow turned yellow.

  But both of those cars ahead of them made their turns, and then as the arrow turned red, Siobhan gripped the steering wheel in both hands and whipped her way around the barrier as cars began to come at them from the opposite direction. Julian’s fingers tightened on the arm of the door, but he didn’t make any sound at all as she wove her way through traffic, the cars she had cut off all honking at her as they zoomed around her.

  Siobhan seemed unaffected, her gaze trained on the Kia
that was now almost at the next light ahead, which was green.

  “We’re not going to make it,” Julian told her. “We’re not going to.”

  She didn’t reply, instead flooring the gas pedal and weaving her way through the three lanes of traffic filled with cars whose drivers she had already made angry as she grew closer and closer to the Kia.

  The light stayed green, and Melanie’s minivan went through it, the Kia just two cars behind her passing under a yellow light. And then, with two cars still in front of them, the light turned red and everyone began to stop.

  Julian was sure that Siobhan would brake too, but she didn’t, flipping on her blinker and zipping into the much emptier turning lane, speeding forward, and then cutting directly in front of the car that stopped first at the light, flying through the intersection between two cars coming from her left.

  The Kia was now just one car ahead of them, and there were no upcoming lights, so Siobhan laid off the gas pedal and Julian took his first breath in several seconds, willing his muscles to unclench.

  She looked over at him and smiled. “Told you to close your eyes.”

  “I thought you were supposed to be subtle when following someone…”

  “That’s ideal, yeah. But then there are times when you do what you gotta do.” She shrugged, as though the insane driving had had no impact on her whatsoever. “We’re good now. I’ve got him in my sights.”

  Julian sat for another moment in shocked silence, then he just started laughing, shaking his head. “Oh, God. How is this my life? I’m an accountant!”

  “We all have our faults, Julian. I don’t hold it against you.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Siobhan

  Siobhan had her target in her sights, and she was in her element, navigating busy Boston streets while maintaining a balance between staying close on the Kia’s tail and making sure that Xander didn’t realize that he was being followed. Behind her, Kean drove close to her bumper, preventing any of the other aggressive Boston drivers from getting in between them. At the front of the line, Melanie led them all to some unknown location, with no possible idea of what followed her and her children. Siobhan didn’t know if Xander was following the woman she believed to be his mother now because he intended to take her right then, or if he often followed her when he thought he could get away with it.

  But either way, Siobhan wasn’t letting the man out of her sight. This was the moment that she was either going to stop him from taking Melanie altogether, or the moment that she was going to let him know in no uncertain terms that she had his number and that if anything ever happened to Melanie, she was going public with everything she knew.

  “Siobhan…”

  “Hmm?” She cut her eyes over toward Julian, but then quickly looked back at the Kia.

  “I’m concerned your fingers are going to fall off. Your knuckles are so white right now. Are you upset, or are you always this intense about a case?”

  She half laughed. “What do you think?”

  “True. Stupid question.”

  “I’m just going over in my head what I’m going to say to him,” she told him, remembering that, since he was there in the car with her and part of the case, it would be the right thing to do to discuss her strategy with him. Siobhan usually didn’t work this closely with her clients, and when it came to working with her friends, they were all so inside each other’s heads that they didn’t have to hash out the details a lot of the time. “It doesn’t look like Melanie is going straight home. I’m pretty familiar with where she lives at this point, and we’re not heading in that direction. And I don’t know for how long he will follow her. So we’re working with a lot of different variables here. Once she stops or he pulls off from her, we’ll know more about how it’s actually going to go down.”

  Julian nodded calmly, though Siobhan noted that he was still holding onto the arm of the door pretty tightly. “What about the license plate? Can’t we find him that way?”

  “Kean will have called it in,” she assured him. “Assuming the car is his, yes. We’ll be able to find him. But I want to catch him in the act and use the element of surprise.”

  “And what are you going to say, exactly?”

  Siobhan shrugged one shoulder, turning on her blinker as, seven cars ahead of her, Melanie got into the right-hand turning lane. She merged into the right lane, keeping her eye on the Kia as it did the same. “I don’t have a script,” she said, returning to Julian’s question. “But the gist of my message? The gist of it is that I know what he has planned, I’m watching him, and I have evidence logged. If anything happens to Melanie—in any way shape or form—I’m turning it all over to the police, and it’ll be a matter of hours between when they find her body and when they arrest him.”

  “But—”

  “Fuck,” Siobhan said, hitting her hand against the wheel as Melanie turned right and, at the last minute, the Kia slipped back into the other lane and went straight through the light. To her left, a long line of cars blocked her from getting out of the turning lane, and she was quickly approaching the turn she would have to take if she was following Melanie. “He’s onto us. Seriously—close your eyes for this one.”

  Siobhan didn’t stop to check whether or not Julian complied. She only had seconds to make sure that she didn’t lose the Kia, and she used them well, laying her hand on her horn as she stopped her car, turned on her hazards, rolled down her window, and stuck her hand out, waving for the streaming lanes of Boston traffic to halt and let her cross.

  A few people stopped, but Boston drivers weren’t known for their cooperation and sense of community, so many drivers laid on their own horns and flipped her off as she made her way past them. Had she not been concerned about the real possibility of causing an accident pileup by forcing her way across the lanes, she would have just gone and trusted that the cars had enough self-preservation to stop for her.

  But she couldn’t risk anyone getting hurt. Especially Julian beside her.

  It took her longer than she wanted, but she skidded through the intersection, across three lanes of angry drivers, and then gunned her way down the main road, trying to catch up to the Kia that was already past the next light. That one stayed green for her, and she continued through, gaining on the Kia with every passing second.

  And then Xander jerked to the left without signaling, taking a side street that had him out of her sight almost immediately. Siobhan slammed on her brakes and jerked the wheel to the left, glancing in her rearview mirror and realizing that Kean was no longer behind her. She couldn’t blame him, and she didn’t need him. Instead, she hoped that he knew what she would want him to do.

  Taking the left-hand turn, Siobhan skidded across three more lanes of oncoming traffic and followed Xander down the backroad, flying by houses and schools much faster than she was supposed to and trusting her supernatural instincts to help her make sure that she didn’t harm anyone with her car.

  Xander was only a quarter of a mile ahead of her, and she knew she could catch him.

  “Siobhan, there’s a cop behind you.”

  Julian’s warning came seconds before the first sound of the siren reached her ears, loud, insistent, and blaring. She glanced in the rearview mirror and lifted her hand up in acknowledgment. It was a gesture to tell the cop that she saw him and understood why he was there, and that she would comply. If he was after her for reckless driving—which would be fair enough—it was a signal that she was going to cooperate with him…eventually. And if he was there for the reason that she hoped—because Kean had called in a favor with the police department they were on friendly terms with—then it was a gesture of gratitude for the fact that he was going to give her an escort.

  “Siobhan, the cop,” Julian said again. “You’re not pulling over.”

  “I’ve got it under control,” she promised him. “I know what I’m doing.”

  “We’re breaking the law,” he insisted, clearly not on board with the direction things h
ad gone. “You can’t outrun a cop. We don’t even have a good reason to be doing this if we have to explain it logically. What are you going to tell him? My psychic visions say the guy three blocks ahead of us is going to kill a woman someday?”

  Siobhan could tell he was frustrated, and it wasn’t that she didn’t sympathize. She just couldn’t do anything about that right then as the Kia put more and more distance between them and then merged onto another main street, quickly merging in with the rest of the traffic she could see ahead of them.

  “Fuck,” she whispered, smacking a hand against the steering wheel. “Now is the time, buddy,” she muttered, glancing in her rearview mirror and hoping against hope that the cop still following her with his sirens and lights both going strong. “Now is the—yes!”

  The cop sped up, moving around her and pulling directly in front of her car, lights still going.

  “He’s telling you to stop,” Julian told her. “He’s going to block you, Siobhan. We can find the guy through the license plate. Back off now. Wait—why is he going faster?”

  “He’s giving us a police escort,” Siobhan told him. “Kean called it in.”

  “He did? How do you know? Why would he do that?”

  Siobhan sped up too, keeping pace with the police officer and then using the wide-open space created by the cars who all stopped for his siren to merge onto the main street and continue to follow the officer down the road, cars continuing to part along the sides of the road.

  “He did that because we have a good working relationship with the police. Symbiosis. We help them a lot of times, and they help us. And Kean called a buddy and got him to sic the nearest cop on the situation. He’s helping make sure we don’t lose our mark. He’s on our side.”

  “Well, that would have been nice to know.”

  “Sorry,” Siobhan said, glancing over at him. “I’m just a bit busy at the moment.” He fell silent, and she refocused the whole of her attention on following behind her cop escort, the Kia up ahead of them disappearing down another road.