Hard To Bear

by Georgette St. Clair

  Rory drew in a furious breath as she stormed off, but Flint held up his hand. “Let it go, Rory. You did what was needed, by removing her from the operation. I kind of blame myself, here.”

  “How?” Rory glared after Melinda’s retreating figure. “It’s not your fault she’s obsessed with you. I’ve never seen you lead her on.”

  “I know, it’s just…I just feel badly. I owe her my life.”

  “She’s been playing that card for far too long. Yes, she saved your life; she’s an Enforcer, and that’s her job. You’d have done the same for her, or for anyone on your team. In fact, you have saved people’s lives. Do you follow them around acting like they owe you?”

  Flint winced. Rory’s words were true, but harsh. “I guess not,” he admitted. “I better head back to my office and get back to work.”

  Chapter Nine

  Coral arrived at work to find phone messages from Adrian’s mother and Megan’s mother, and she immediately felt guilty that she was brooding about her own problems. Yes, she was infatuated with a bear shifter who was leading some kind of mysterious double life and lying to her, but these two women had missing family members. Her problems were petty and puny in comparison.

  She returned their calls to let them know she hadn’t come up with anything new yet, but she was still investigating.

  Then she turned to shoot Frederick, who had just slunk in from an assignment, the glare of death.

  He held up his hands in protest. “Come on, Coral, I took Bettina out to coffee once. I thought I liked her, but then Melinda – wow. She’s incredible, isn’t she? Can you believe someone who looks like her actually likes me?”

  “Are you really that stupid?” Coral snapped.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” He looked hurt.

  “You’ll figure it out. And don’t talk to me unless its work related. I’m officially pissed off at you.” She swiveled her chair around, deliberately turning her back on him.

  Bettina sat at the front desk, occasionally flashing hurt looks back in Frederick’s direction. Coral sighed. Frederick was too besotted to realize that Melinda had just used him in an attempt to get to Flint.

  She ignored three text messages from Flint that morning as she typed up notices for the weekly “Around Town” column.

  When she was done, she decided to do some more investigating.

  Someone had already searched Adrian’s house, according to his mother, but maybe she could find something that they hadn’t.

  Adrian had rented a tiny little bungalow set on the back of the property of a man named Elmer Kray, on the outskirts of town, about twenty minutes drive from the newspaper. Kray lived in a dilapidated clapboard A-line house with missing shingles and peeling gray paint.

  Coral knocked on his door. He was an older man, in his seventies, wearing stained dungarees and a faded white tank top. Feeling mildly guilty for lying, she told him she was considering renting the property.

  Kray shrugged, not seeming particularly interested. “It ain’t locked. Take a look around,” he said. “If you like it, it’s vacant. Sure is a lot of interest in that place.”

  Coral perked up. “Really? From who?” she said.

  “Oh, a tiger shifter came by asking about it, and before that, some humans. They all wanted to look at it.”

  “Oh,” she said brightly. “Well, I’ll let you know what I think.” Her heart sank, however. Whoever had been there had likely searched the place thoroughly; what were the odds that she’d find anything? Well, she was already there; she might as well do some snooping.

  “If you want it, three hunnert a month,” he said, and walked back inside.

  She nodded, and walked back to through the yard, past pecking chickens and a rusty hand pump, to the bungalow.

  An air conditioning unit sagged from the window, and the steps creaked under her feet as she walked up. The bungalow had definitely seen better days. The windows were grimed over with dust, and a crack ran jaggedly up one pane.

  She opened the door and walked in. The bungalow smelled musty, and was furnished with old, mismatched furniture. She opened the cupboards in the kitchen, and shrieked when a mouse scampered out.

  It leaped on to the counter, where it glared at it her with beady little eyes.

  “Oh, please,” she scowled. “I’m a wolf. I can take you.”

  With a squeak of disgust, it scampered behind a toaster.

  She pulled out drawers, bracing herself in case more live animals leaped out, but there were none. The drawers were empty of animals or clues. She opened the refrigerator. Nothing.

  She went into the bedroom and looked under the bed and then went through the drawers, quickly. She looked in the closet. In the bathroom medicine cabinet.

  Nothing.

  “Well, this was a dead end, and a mouse nearly made me pee myself,” she grumbled. “And I’m talking to myself like a crazy person.”

  And throughout the whole search she couldn’t stop thinking about that bear shifter. Well, a big part of the reason was because she was still aching, in the most delicious way, from last night’s lovemaking.

  With a sigh of defeat, she headed for the front door, and stopped where she stood as she heard footsteps pounding up the stairs.

  She suddenly realized how isolated she was back here. If she screamed for help, Mr. Kray likely wouldn’t hear her.

  And if he did, what could the old guy even do? He was a human; he’d be no match against a shifter. By the time he got his shotgun or called for help…

  The door swung open, and Blanche walked in. Her hair was styled in a big bubble beehive with a purple braid wound around the bottom of it. She wore a polyester dress with a floral print, and a pair of white tennis shoes.

  “Blanche! Good heavens, what are you doing here? You nearly gave me a heart attack. How did you even find me?”

  “Haven’t you learned anything about Blue Moon Junction? Everyone knows what everyone’s up to around here.”

  Coral peered out the door. “Where’s your partner in crime?”

  Blanche’s expression turned frosty. “We’re not speaking. I believe she’s out on a lunch date with her new gentleman friend.”

  “Oh, the veterinarian. He looked kind of boring, anyway. You could do better,” Coral assured her. Blanche nodded in agreement.

  “That’s true. He looked like a strictly missionary possession kind of guy to me. I like them a little more imaginative, you know?”

  Coral stifled a gasp. This was not the direction she was trying to steer the conversation.

  “Well, I’m done here anyway,” she said quickly, desperate to change the subject. “Let’s go get some coffee. I didn’t find anything.”

  “My goodness, first you give up on the bear, and then you give up on searching the house. I didn’t figure you for such a quitter.”

  “I am not a quitter!” Coral stamped her foot indignantly.

  “And now you sound like my great-nephew when he doesn’t want to go to bed.” Blanche folded her arms stubbornly across her chest.

  “Fine,” Coral said, through gritted teeth. “I’ve looked in every drawer, every cupboard, under the bed, in the closets. I don’t see anything. What do you suggest?”

  “What about the trap door that leads to the basement?”

  “What trap door?”

  “Now you see, that’s why you need me to help you with your snooping. I know the history of all the houses in town. This house used to be owned by a moonshiner. He needed a way to make a quick exit when them revenue-ers came around. Follow me.”

  Blanche led her in to the bedroom. She began moving the nightstand, which sat on top of a rug. Coral helped her, and then they peeled the rug back, and Blanche fished in her purse and pulled out a screwdriver.

  Coral stared at Blanche’s big purse, baffled. Who carried around a screwdriver in their purse? Crazy old ladies, that’s who.

  “What the heck else do you have in- no, I don’t want to know. Don’t tell me,�
�� Coral said, shaking her head.

  “You never know when you need to unscrew something. Or stab someone,” Blanche said.

  Note to self, Coral thought: do not piss off Blanche.

  Blanche quickly pried up the trapdoor which had been cut into the floor, and then lit their way down the steps into a small secret room, using a small flashlight she had on her keychain.

  They were in a small dirt cellar, which felt cold and damp and made Coral sneeze. The room was empty, except for a metal box in the corner.

  Coral’s hands were shaking with excitement as she pulled it open. “Blanche, you’re a regular Nancy Drew,” she breathed reverently, pulling out a stack of reporter’s notebooks and a leather-bound journal.

  “Well, course I am. Nobody can snoop like Blanche Briard. So what’s it say?” Blanche demanded eagerly, reading over her shoulder.

  Coral quickly flipped through the journal, including the part where he’d briefly dated Bettina but thought she was too clingy. Towards the middle of the journal, she came to what she was looking for.

  She skimmed through it quickly. A few weeks before his disappearance, he’d received a call from an investor corporation in New York, alerting him to strange goings on in the area outside of Blue Moon Junction. The investors were interested in buying a parcel of property outside of Blue Moon Junction to use as a landfill. They wanted land that was cheap and undeveloped. The property that they were trying to buy had already been purchased, and they couldn’t find out who had bought it.

  Then they tried to buy up a different parcel, but that had also been recently purchased. They found the same for half a dozen more parcels, all in the same area. All of the property was marshy, landlocked, and undeveloped. Undesirable, remote property. All recently purchased.

  Then they began researching who owned the parcels, and found that they’d all been brought up by corporations who only had p.o. boxes as addresses, and no public information about the corporations could be found.

  Adrian began trying to find out who’d been buying up all the land, and kept running into brick walls.

  After a couple of weeks of research, he wrote, “I told the police that I’m pretty sure I was followed yesterday, but they don’t seem to take me too seriously.”

  Well, that was news. Why hadn’t the police mentioned that? And why did they claim that they had no reason to think there was anything suspicious about his disappearance?

  In one of the notebooks, he’d listed the parcels of property that had been purchased, and next to the list he’d written the word “Metamorph?”

  “This is very strange,” she said. “Some secretive corporation is buying up all this property, and when Adrian starts investigating, he disappears. But how does this tie in to the Original Shifters disappearing? Or does it?”

  “We need to go back to your office so we can get an idea of where that property is, but I think one of those parcels is in the area where the three ley lines cross,” Blanche said. “There used to be a settlement out there, which is why all kinds of shifters started appearing, but then when the rail line was built, the town moved to be closer to the railroad. Nobody has lived out there for a hundred and fifty years or so.”

  Coral sneezed for the dozenth time. “Let’s go,” she agreed. “I’ll meet you back there.”

  She stopped by Kray’s house to let him know that she had decided the house wasn’t quite what she was looking for, as Blanche got in her car and headed back in to town.

  Her cell phone rang as she climbed into her car. It was Flint.

  “How’s my favorite redhead?” he asked. His voice was so deep, so rich, and so damned sexy that it sent a flood of heat rushing through her.

  He’s lying to me about why he’s in town, and he dumped me this morning to run off to deal with his crazy lady friend, she reminded herself firmly. And all he wanted was a summer fling, anyway; he’d flat out told her that. There’s no point in dragging this out any further. She already found herself struggling to keep her mind on her work, with Flint’s face popping into her mind and constantly distracting her.

  “Fine,” she said, forcing herself to sound cool and neutral.

  “I had an amazing time last night. I’d like to see you again. Are you up for dinner tonight?”

  She swallowed hard. Be strong, she scolded herself.

  “I don’t think I can make it. I found some interesting information at the house that Adrian was renting, and I need to go talk to my publisher about it. There were a bunch of notebooks and a journal that he’d hidden in his room, where he talked about some land parcel purchases he was investigating. I need to get them back to the office so I can start tracking down the owners of those parcels of land.”

  “I thought you were going to leave the investigating to the police.” Flint’s voice had suddenly gone cold and hard.

  “I never said that,” she said. “You suggested it. I ignored you. I’m a reporter, Flint. That’s what we do. We investigate.”

  “Can’t you just give it a little more time?”

  “No, I can’t. There are too many mysteries here, and I feel like there’s a common thread tying everything together, and maybe it will lead to the people who have gone missing. I have to go, Flint, I’m driving on these windy country roads. I don’t want to hit a tree.” She hung up her cell phone and tossed it in to her purse.

  She was almost back at the center of town when she suddenly realized blue lights were flashing behind her.

  She glanced at her speedometer. She was going thirty miles an hour in a thirty mile an hour zone.

  Puzzled, she waited as the sheriff’s deputy strode up to her car.

  “License and registration?” the wolf shifter asked her.

  She handed them over, annoyed. He went back to his car, and she sat there waiting until he returned and handed them back to her.

  “May I ask why you pulled me over?” she asked.

  “One of your brake lights is out.”

  “It is?” She was puzzled. “I hadn’t noticed.” She also wondered how he’d noticed. It was daytime. She’d been cruising at a steady speed, and hadn’t stepped on her brakes.

  “Go stand behind the car. I’ll show you.”

  She sighed and slid out of her seat, and walked behind the car as he got in the driver’s seat. He started the car up, and after a moment, she saw both brake lights flashed. She walked back to the car.

  “They’re working fine,” she said, suspicious. What the heck was going on here?

  He turned off the ignition and slid out of the car. “You must have some kind of short in the electrical system, or maybe it’s the bulb. You should get that looked at.”

  He walked back to his patrol car, climbed in, and drove off.

  Coral sat there, puzzled, sure that he’d been up to something, but not sure what.

  Then a sneaking suspicion flared up. She grabbed her purse and searched through it. The journal and the notepads were gone.

  She hurled the purse on to the floor, swearing at the top of her lungs.

  Then she picked up her cell phone and called Flint.

  “Did you tell the sheriff’s office to have me pulled over?” she demanded.

  There was a long pause, and she gritted her teeth with anger.

  “Coral, I’m telling you that you need to back off this story for now. If you’d just be patient, you might very well find that you’ll get what you need.”

  “Be patient? Tell that to the people whose kids are missing!” Furious, Coral hung up the phone.

  Then she drove back to the newspaper, marched into the publisher’s office, and told him what had just happened. She left out Flint’s involvement, and the fact that she suspected he was an Enforcer.

  “How do you think the sheriff’s office knew to look for those notebooks?” Mr. Brewster asked.

  “Well, this being Blue Moon Junction, anyone could have seen me going to the house that Adrian had rented. If there is some kind of active investigation, maybe the po
lice are even having that house watched to see if anyone else tries to break in,” she suggested. That could even have been what happened; after all, Flint hadn’t specifically admitted that he was the one who snitched on her.

  Mr. Brewster frowned. “You know, I originally thought Adrian’s mother was over-reacting, but obviously you’ve stumbled on to something here. I’m going to call the sheriff’s office, and then we’ll decide what to do next.”

  She returned to her desk, where very shortly, she could hear angry shouts coming from the newspaper office, with phrases like “freedom of the press” and “harassment” hurled around at high volume.

  Frederick didn’t even glance up when Coral walked by. His cell phone was lying on his desk next to his keyboard, and he kept glancing from the computer screen to the cell phone and back again.

  Bettina wandered up. “Blanche called to say she’s picking up some crullers and she’ll be by in a few minutes,” she said. She surreptitiously glanced at Frederick, who didn’t look up from his computer. She stood there for an awkward minute before she finally said “Hi, Frederick.”

  “Hey,” he muttered, staring at the cell phone as if he could will it to ring.

  Bettina turned and stormed off.

  “You’re a moron,” Coral said. “And you’re going to die a virgin at this rate. And you’ll deserve it.”

  “What?” Frederick glanced up at her. All his attention was focused on the cell phone. “Did you say something?”

  “Why were you rude to Bettina just now?”

  “Bettina? I didn’t mean to be rude. I told you, I like her. She’s way cool. She likes all the same video games as me. It’s just…Melinda. Wow. You know what I mean?”

  “I know she’s using you because she really likes Flint and she was trying to make him jealous by bringing you to that restaurant.”

  His face flushed red and his expression turned sullen. “She has called me several times since then. She loves to talk to me. She thinks my work is fascinating.”

  “Just watch yourself,” Coral sighed. “Has she actually suggested getting together again? Has she even let you kiss her?”

  “You’re just jealous!” Frederick snatched his cell phone off the desk, and stormed off.