“I hope so. Keep me posted on what you find out, alright?”
“Will do.”
Holden bid Weston good night and hung up the call, but he didn’t go back out to the living room. Instead, he lay on his bed and stared up at the ceiling, mulling over everything Weston had told him. The idea of a shifter who could not be smelled was both fascinating and terrifying. All shifters had incredible senses of smell, and relied on that sense of smell to keep them safe. A shifter who could not be detected by smell would be at a serious advantage.
Holden suddenly sat up, wondering if there was any more to learn about ghosters than what Weston had told him. He walked over to a small duffel bag of reference books that he’d brought with him just in case he needed to research anything while on this mission. Violet had teased him relentlessly about being a bookworm, and asking if he knew that most people just looked things up online these days. But Holden had ignored her and brought the books, anyway. Now, he was glad that he had. Despite Violet’s teasing, ancient shifter history wasn’t exactly something you could learn about just by running a few Google searches. Holden did have a book, though, that he thought might hold some answers, and he rummaged through his duffel bag looking for it.
“Ah ha,” Holden said when he found what he was looking for a few minutes later. He pulled out the thick volume, which had the title An Exhaustive Encyclopedia of Shifters through the Ages embossed on its cover in gold lettering. Holden sat cross legged on the floor and started flipping to the section for the letter “G.” He flipped through the pages, ignoring the illustrations of fantastical beasts mixed with mundane, ordinary animals. Finally, he found it.
“Ghosters!” he said aloud when he turned to the page with that word written across the top. But the entry was brief, and did not give any more information than what Weston had already told him. Holden read through the text several times, as though each new reading might magically reveal some new tidbit of information. But no matter how many times he read it, the text remained the same.
Ghosters were a rare variation of dragon shifters, prominent during the age of the dragon kings. They were called ghosters because of their ability to completely mask their scent, thereby sneaking up “unseen” by the noses of other shifters. Ghosters were in high demand by the dragon kings, who often assigned them to positions as spies or assassins. There have been no confirmed instances of ghosters since A.D. 1035, and ghosters are believed to be extinct in modern times.
Underneath the text was a drawing of a dragon, but the picture did not look like anything special to Holden. It was just your everyday, garden-variety dragon as far as he could tell. With a sigh, Holden shut the book. The mental image of the young boy’s eyes from that morning, glowing and troubled, haunted him. He wanted to know more about who the kid was, and who his dad was. Weston was convinced that the boy didn’t work for Saul, but that was easy for Weston to say—he was safely back in Falcon Cross, in no danger of being spied on.
Holden drummed his fingers on the cover of the book, wondering where he should start with his investigation of the boy. He glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was 8:45 now, almost late enough for a self-respecting adult to go to bed. But he wasn’t tired anymore. His conversation with Weston had given him a second wind, and he wanted to do something now to learn more about the young ghoster in this town. But what could he do at this hour?
Almost as soon as he asked himself the question, Holden had an answer. He could go to the diner, of course. He doubted the boy’s mother would be there now, since she’d worked the morning shift. But perhaps someone there would be willing to tell him more about the woman or her son. It was as good a place as any to start.
Holden quickly pulled on a light hoodie, then went out to the living room to pull his shoes on. Violet raised an eyebrow at him.
“Where are you going?” she asked. She had finally turned off the television and was flipping through the pages of the novel she’d bought at the airport bookstore before their flight to Nevada.
“A walk,” Holden said. “I need some fresh air.”
“Want me to come with you? We could discuss our plans for tomorrow. We still haven’t decided what we’re going to do.”
Holden shook his head no. “We can talk more when I get back. Right now I just want to clear my head a bit.”
Violet looked for a moment like she might protest, but then she shrugged and sat back against the couch. “Suit yourself,” she said.
Holden stuffed his keys and wallet into his pocket, gave Violet a small wave, and then left the dingy apartment. He felt a bit guilty for not including Violet in his little excursion. After all, he had a plausible explanation now for what he had seen earlier today. It would have been a good time to loop her in on the situation. But something still held him back, and he wasn’t quite sure what.
A few blocks down the road, he finally realized what it was, and that realization startled him a bit: he hadn’t told Violet where he was going because he was secretly hoping that the boy’s mother, Elise, would be working at the diner tonight after all. And he was slightly excited at the thought of getting to talk to her alone.
Chapter Three
Elise Merritt scrubbed the countertop vigorously, running her dishrag in circles to scrub away imaginary dirt. The countertop was so clean at this point that you could have eaten straight off of it, with no need for a plate. But Elise kept cleaning, anyway. It gave her an outlet for all her pent up, nervous energy.
Her mind wandered to the verbal lashing she’d endured in her boss’s office just a few hours earlier.
“This is the last time I’m warning you, Elise!” he’d yelled. “You keep your brawls out of my diner or you go find a new job.”
Elise cringed at the memory of how he’d jabbed his pointer finger right into her chest. She’d tried to protest that she couldn’t keep grown men from fighting, and that if it wasn’t her son they’d be fighting over something else. That was true enough. Blackstone’s locals loved nothing more than an excuse for a fistfight. She’d been shocked by it when she’d first ended up here three years ago, but she was used to it now.
Her boss insisted on blaming her for the fights, anyway. He needed someone to blame, and lately most of the fights had revolved around Nick somehow, so naturally they were all Elise’s fault. Elise stopped scrubbing the counter and bit back tears as she thought of her little Nicky, who wasn’t so little anymore. She was at a loss on how to help him. He was a good boy deep down, she knew that. She wasn’t just being a biased mother when she said that. He truly had a kind, soft heart. But something seemed to torment him, and she didn’t know what it was. It had gotten worse lately, and Elise lived every day in fear that he was going to piss off one of the men in town bad enough for them to truly hurt him.
Elise bit her lip in an attempt to hold back the tears that wanted to spill over her eyelids. It wouldn’t do to cry while on the clock. The diner was empty now, except for her and the one cook in the back, but you never knew when someone might come walking in the front door. There was still a little over an hour until closing time, after all. If someone caught her crying and told her boss, she’d have to endure a fresh round of yelling from him. To distract herself from her emotions, Elise decided to make a fresh pot of coffee. The one sitting on the burner behind the counter had probably been there for a few hours, and, even though it wasn’t likely that someone would come in requesting coffee at this hour, it wasn’t a complete impossibility. Making a fresh pot gave Elise something to do, at least, and she threw herself into the task as though her life’s purpose was to make the best diner coffee in the world.
She dumped out the old coffee and grounds, then rinsed the pot and filter before putting in a new filter, new beans, and fresh water. She had just pressed the bright orange “Brew” button when she heard the bells above the front door jingling.
Ah ha! she thought smugly. A customer. I bet they’re going to be just desperate for a cup of coffee.
But the
smug smile froze on her face when she turned around and saw who it was. Standing just inside the doorway, and looking straight at her with eyes even greener than her own, was the man who had rescued Nick this morning.
“You!” she said. It was the only word that she could manage to get out in her surprised state, and it seemed to amuse him.
“Me,” he replied, a hint of a smile playing at his lips. He walked up to the counter and sat down at one of the barstools. “This place is a lot less busy now than it was at breakfast.”
“Uh, yeah. Breakfast is our busiest time. And it’s too late for dinner for most people right now. I don’t even know why the boss keeps the place open so late. We don’t do much business after nine p.m., unless there happens to be a home game during football season. But it’s not football season now. But of course you know that. Or maybe you don’t, I guess. I shouldn’t assume you know about sports just because you’re a guy.”
Elise forced herself to stop talking. She was rambling on about nonsense to the man who had saved her son from serious harm. What a blubbering idiot she was. But something about his eyes unnerved her. She felt open and exposed, like he somehow knew something about her that she didn’t even know about herself. She had overcompensated by opening her mouth and letting whatever words popped into her head come tumbling out. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to smile calmly.
“Anyway,” she said. “Did you want something to eat?”
He shook his head. “I’ll just take some coffee, if you don’t mind.”
Elise grinned, feeling triumphant. “Of course. I’ve just made a fresh pot. Cream or sugar?”
“Just black, thanks,” he said.
Elise turned to grab a mug. She had to wait another minute still for the coffee to finish up, but she did so with her back to the man. She needed a minute to recover her composure. For one thing, she hadn’t noticed this morning how handsome he was. She’d been so distraught about Nick that she’d missed details—like how tall the man was, and how muscular. Like how perfectly his green eyes sat in his chiseled, handsome face, or how his dark hair set off the deep tan of his skin. She took a deep breath as she poured his coffee, then smiled as confidently as she could as she set the mug in front of him.
“I owe you a big debt of gratitude,” she said. “Thank you for what you did this morning, for my son.”
The man took a sip of his coffee before answering. “You don’t owe me anything,” he said. “I only did what any decent human being would have done.”
Elise raised an eyebrow at him. “Well, I suppose this town is a bit lacking in decent human beings, then, because you’re the only one who attempted to help.”
The man laughed and shrugged, then held out his hand. “I’m Holden, by the way.”
Elise took his hand and shook it. “Elise. But you probably already know that.” She glanced meaningfully down at her nametag, and he laughed again. God, that sound was so wonderful. She wanted him to laugh again and again and again, but she couldn’t think of anything else funny to say at the moment, so she settled for small talk instead.
“What brings you to Blackstone?” she asked. “We don’t get too many outsiders around here. Most of them go to Sandview instead. It’s a bit bigger, and closer to the national park.”
She thought she saw a worried expression cross his face when she mentioned Sandview, but he smoothed it away so quickly that she thought perhaps she had just imagined it.
“I’m working on some research,” he said.
Elise frowned. “Research? What could you possibly be researching that would require a trip to Blackstone?”
Holden paused for a moment, tilting his head to one side as though assessing her. She wasn’t entirely sure he’d seen whatever it was he was looking for, but finally, he shrugged.
“Would you believe me if I told you that I’m working on a documentary about small towns?”
Elise rolled her eyes at him. “No.”
He laughed. “I thought as much. Well, then, all I can tell you is that if I tell you I’d have to kill you.”
She laughed, too, then. “You hardly seem like the killing type.”
He shrugged, and took another sip from his coffee. He looked at her over the rim of his mug with a mischievous glint in his eye. It occurred to Elise that perhaps she should be frightened. After all, here was a man she didn’t know, who wouldn’t tell her what he was doing in town and was making jokes about killing her. That sounded awfully creepy when you thought it through, but somehow Elise just knew that he was harmless. At least, he was harmless to her, she thought, taking a peek at his bulging bicep muscles. She had a feeling that he could do some pretty serious damage in a fight, if he wanted to.
“Well, Mr. Mystery Researcher,” Elise said, putting her hands on her hips. “Can you at least tell me how long you’re planning to be in town?”
He shrugged again. “However long it takes,” he said.
“To finish your research on small towns?” Elise said with an accusing raise of her eyebrow.
“To finish my research on small towns,” he agreed with a wink.
Elise laughed. She liked this guy. He had an easy way about him that made you feel instantly comfortable, like you’d been friends for years. “Well, just be careful. You might end up intending to be here a few months and then staying for years. Don’t ask me how I know.”
Elise couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice when she said this, even though she’d been intending the comment to be something of a joke. She should know by now that there was nothing funny about being stuck in Blackstone, going nowhere.
“Oh?” Holden prompted. He wanted to know more, but she wasn’t sure she was ready to divulge her life history to this stranger. He was a handsome, funny stranger, sure. But she’d only known his name for a few minutes. No need to confess all her secrets right away. So she tried to turn the moment back into a joke.
“Yeah, well, I got stuck here for a while, but I think it might be just about time to move again. I’m wearing out my welcome at this point, I think.”
“Because of your son?” Holden asked. Elise froze as her eyes met his. Was that why he was here? To ask questions about her son? She suddenly didn’t feel so friendly anymore.
“It’s just time, I think,” she said in a neutral tone. “And, anyway, I’m quite rudely taking up your time with idle chitchat. Are you sure you don’t want to order some food?”
The hint was clear: this conversation is over. But he ignored it and pressed on regardless.
“Moving somewhere else isn’t going to solve the problem, Elise,” he said. But despite his gentle tone, Elise’s anger flashed.
“You have no idea what kind of problems I have or don’t have,” she said. “Now, did you want to order something or not? I have work to do.”
Holden sighed and leaned back in his barstool. For a moment, Elise thought he was going to end the conversation there. But then, he leaned forward again and looked at her earnestly.
“I think you’d be surprised at how much of an idea I have of your problems,” he said.
Elise crossed her arms protectively over her chest. “Look, Holden, I appreciate what you did for my son today, I really do. But I don’t want to discuss my problems, okay? Can we please just drop this?”
But he wasn’t going to drop it. He had a look of determination in his eyes that looked strangely familiar. Elise was startled when she realized why. It was almost the same way Nick looked when he’d set his mind to something.
“Let me guess,” Holden said. “Nick has always been a good kid, but has always been a little bit different, too. You’ve noticed he seems to have abnormally exceptional senses of hearing, smell, and sight. He’s also strong, freakishly strong for a boy his age. Not only that, but he’s restless. He paces, and seems agitated for no reason. This agitation started when he was a young boy, but it’s gotten worse as he grows older. That’s why he’s always getting into trouble with the men in town, isn’t it? Wh
en he’s restless, he seems almost out of control, and he lashes out destructively, ruining property and harming people. You’re worried that the townspeople aren’t going to put up with him much longer. And he’s probably been on the receiving end of quite a few disciplinary measures at school, I would guess. Oh, and, let’s not forget his eyes. The way they glow and churn sometimes? You’ve noticed that, too, I presume?”
Elise took a step back, looking at Holden in horror. He had just described Nick perfectly, but how? She’d hidden Nick’s strange abilities and restlessness from everyone, and, until this moment, she thought she’d done a decent job of that. Sure, people thought he was a little terror and a menace to the town, but no one knew how strong he was, or how restless. Or about his freakishly good senses.
“Who are you?” she whispered to Holden. “Why are you really here in Blackstone?”
Holden must have realized that he was frightening her, because the expression on his face softened somewhat. “I’m a friend, I promise. I can help you, and Nick. Let me ask you something. How well did you know Nick’s father?”
Elise frowned at Holden. The question was somewhat rude, and a part of Elise wanted to tell Holden to mind his own business. But another part of her wanted to believe that he might somehow be telling the truth when he said he could help Nick. She took a deep breath, and decided to take a chance on trusting this man. After all, what could he do? Tell everyone in town that her son was a freak? Elise was on the verge of having to move away, anyway. What did it really matter what people thought of her anymore.
“I…I didn’t know him very well. In fact, he was just a summer fling,” she admitted, then rushed to add. “I know that Nick needs a better male role model. He needs a daddy to help show him right from wrong, and how to behave like an honorable man. I’m doing the best I can myself, but it’s not enough. But what can I do? There aren’t many good men in town for Nick to look up to. And I thought I was doing the right thing by keeping Nick a secret from his dad. I thought he’d be better off raised by me alone. Now it’s too late.”
Stealth and the Dragon (Redwood Dragons Book 7) Page 3