"Nah. Probably some kids from Clinton or Elk City." The man might have been in his mid-fifties and had worked outdoors most of his life, Ashe decided as he watched the man. His face was the weathered brown of old leather and wrinkles fanned out from the corners of hazel eyes. Ashe was as tall as the man was, but his younger employees were slightly taller and in their early twenties.
"I don't suppose you got a tag number," Agent North asked hopefully.
"Nope."
"The last part was GVU. I didn't get the numbers before that," the youngest employee said. His brown eyes appeared more worried than his elder employer's did, while his close-cropped blond hair stood up like ripe wheat in a summer field.
"Oklahoma plates?" Nick Lawford asked.
"Yeah. Car was a sixty-eight Camaro. Looked like they were restoring it." Ashe nodded at the employee's description—Sali would have noticed what the car was, too.
"Run a check," Agent Lawford jerked his head at Derik North, who walked toward their van to make the call.
"Let's look around a little," Trace steered Ashe away from the questioning. Trace would sniff his way through the business while Ashe looked. Ashe trailed Trace as he followed Elizabeth's scent, ending up outside the women's bathroom. "Ever been inside a ladies' room?" Trace grinned at Ashe.
"When I was in the third grade," Ashe nodded. "Sali shoved me inside as a joke."
"This one might be cleaner than most gas station bathrooms," Trace shouldered his way through the door without knocking. Ashe held his breath until he realized there wasn't anyone inside. Releasing the air in his lungs as a grateful sigh, Ashe began to search the restroom.
"Tag from Janie's" Ashe poked the tag with the toe of his shoe—the small paper tag was lying next to the toilet in one of two stalls.
"I think she changed clothes first, then put on makeup at the sink and probably brushed her hair, so she had her purse with her," Trace agreed, sniffing around the Formica vanity and mirror.
"Find anything?" Agent North joined them in the small bathroom. Collecting the tag and a strand of long, dark hair from the sink that Ashe and Trace pointed out, the agent placed both in evidence bags.
"We've got the local authorities and Oklahoma Highway Patrol looking for the car," Nick Lawford said as soon as Ashe, Trace and Agent North came out of the restroom. "Owner says those boys filled up and paid cash, so no credit card records to tap and no security camera, either."
"Let's take the kid home and we can start looking for ourselves," Derik North suggested to his superior.
"Sounds as good as anything else," Nick Lawford agreed. Marcus, who'd stayed with Agent Lawford, hadn't said anything during the questioning, settling for listening and observing while the others talked.
"The owner knows something he isn't giving up," Marcus slid into the same seat he'd occupied before as the others loaded up and buckled in around him.
"I get that idea, too," Agent Lawford agreed.
"He frowned at the boy who told us what kind of car it was," Ashe said.
"Caught that, too, did you?" Agent Lawford spared a grin over the back of his seat for Ashe. "Kid, you're better than a lot of agents I know."
"Well, it makes sense that he may have seen those boys before," Ashe offered. "This isn't a regular hangout for tourists driving through, and there's another gas station only a little farther down the road, between here and the interstate. Their gas is more expensive, though. But you wouldn't know that unless you were familiar with Cordell."
"You think the kid may have friends or family here?" Derik North asked.
"Possible. I can bring Aedan or Nathan back after sunset and question the owner again," Marcus offered.
"Do it," Lawford said. The gravel drive surrounding the service station crunched beneath the van's wheels as the agent drove away from the service station.
* * *
"You didn't tell us you were running away." Nineteen-year-old Dale Sherman glared accusingly at Elizabeth, who sat in the back seat of his nearly restored 1968 Camaro. His uncle had called Dale's cell, so he'd pulled over at a truck stop on I-40 East to answer. "Now Uncle Rick has police crawling all over his gas station."
"I said I'd pay," Elizabeth's haughtiness was beginning to wear on Dale's nerves. Dale's best friend Lex lifted his chin over the seat to stare at Elizabeth as well.
"Uh-uh. You get out here. They said you were fifteen, not eighteen, like you told us. You get out now. You can call your folks or get another ride. I'm not goin' to jail for you." Dale's pale-blue eyes sparked with anger; his brown hair stood up in spikes after he'd raked fingers through it in frustration.
Elizabeth glowered at the two boys—they'd jumped at the chance to make five hundred dollars—that's what Elizabeth offered them to drive her north. She didn't have an exact location; the seductive whisper that had come the moment she left Cloud Chief behind kept promising all sorts of things if she'd travel to North Dakota. The term Grassland kept popping into her head, but that meant little to Elizabeth. She also didn't have five hundred dollars in her purse as she'd promised—but the voice was so persuasive Elizabeth would do anything to get where it asked her to go.
"One of those truckers would take you." Lex Snelson, worried that he'd be hauled off to jail with his best friend, urged Elizabeth to try other means to reach her destination. He figured his description—not that different from Dale's (brown hair and blue eyes, they were distant cousins, after all), was already in the Highway Patrol's database, along with a description of Dale's Camaro. Uncle Rick's new employee hadn't been warned to keep quiet before the cops showed up.
"I'm not that stupid," Elizabeth huffed. "You have to let me out, jerk." She lifted a spike-heeled foot and kicked the back of Lex's seat, ripping a hole in Dale's new upholstery. Dale cursed at the damage his passenger had caused as Lex opened his door and got out, pulling the passenger seat forward so Elizabeth could exit the vehicle.
Lex and Dale watched as Elizabeth walked unsteadily across the uneven truck stop parking lot in the heels she wore. Both struggled to hold onto car doors when the fierce blast of wind hit. It swept Elizabeth off her feet and carried her ten feet into the air, pushing her along with the force of a tornado until she crashed through the thick, plate-glass window of the truck stop. Dale's leg was nearly crushed in the door of his car as the wind slammed it shut. Lex had slid across the rough surface of the parking lot, ending up on his belly halfway between the Camaro and the building. Road burns covered his torso where the T-shirt he wore had been ripped away. Lex and Dale lifted their heads in horror as screams emanated from the building.
* * *
"You're saying it was the wind?" Agent Lawford stared at a grimacing Dale Sherman, whose leg was encased in a cast after x-rays at the hospital emergency room in Clinton determined it was broken. Lex was being treated in a cubicle next door for his own injuries—the parking lot surface had claimed quite a bit of skin across his chest and belly. The girl was dead—from a head injury after flying through the thick, plate-glass window of Teddy's Truck Stop east of Clinton.
"Man, I saw her fly through the air when the gust hit, and then it threw me into the car and the door almost slammed shut on my leg," Dale whined.
"If your uncle had informed us immediately, this might have been prevented," Nick Lawford snapped and stalked out of the cubicle.
* * *
"How many other deaths were reported under similar circumstances?" Director Bill Jennings stared at his assistant, Vince Jordan.
"Seventeen, sir. That we know of." Vince tapped the tablet in his hand for a moment, pulling up information. "It appears that this race can somehow command the wind or other weather elements."
"I was afraid you'd say that."
"Sir, if they can do this, it makes me think that the other murders in the area may not be by the same ones—how much easier would it be to just kill them with a blast of wind rather than breaking necks or strangling somebody?"
"True. Are any other deaths of these ch
ildren by strangulation or broken necks?"
"None, sir. Plenty of gunshots, drownings and other things, but nothing like that."
"Then we may have two murderers, or sets of murderers, in the area."
"Possible," Vince handed the tablet to Director Jennings so he could scroll through the gathered information.
* * *
Marcus had allowed Sali to come; he and Ashe stood in the backyard of Ashe's home and watched as the dark limousine carried Mary Ellen and Francis Frasier away from Cloud Chief, the driver moving slowly through foot-high prairie grass toward the gravel road and Cloud Chief's hidden entrance. Ashe wished at that moment he didn't have exceptional hearing; he detected Mary Ellen's sobs as the car drove past.
"Son," Aedan's hand dropped gently onto Ashe's shoulder—the sun had set an hour earlier, bathing the Oklahoma prairie in twilight. Aedan and Nathan had already visited Elizabeth's grieving parents at Marcus' request. The human couple wouldn't remember where the supernatural community lay, or that it housed the unusual inhabitants that it did.
"Dad," Ashe's right arm slipped around his father's waist as the limo crunched onto the gravel road and rolled past.
* * *
"Ashe, do you want to go to work with me tomorrow?" Adele brushed Ashe's hair back from his forehead as he walked into the house a few minutes later. "It's Saturday and it'll be busy at the store. Your father said it was all right as long as you stayed inside the store with me."
"Yeah." Ashe nodded, his eyes downcast.
"Honey, you're only grounded one more week, and then you can play with Sali. School will be out, too, so you can help watch over Edward and the others."
"Mom, we need to find out if those kids can do anything that might get them killed. And they need to know not to leave Cloud Chief unless somebody's with them."
"I hope this has driven that lesson home, honey."
"It kind of has, Mom, but I still have the feeling that there's something going on with the rest of them that isn't affecting me, somehow." Ashe wasn't about to bring up Renegar; the blue-skinned Larentii said that Ashe was unreadable. The other six half-Elemaiyan children had been easy enough for Ren to locate. It made sense that the Elemaiyan hunters might possess the same talent.
"We can't know that for sure. Why don't you read or watch TV for a while?"
"I think I'll read." Ashe hadn't read anything for fun all week. He walked through the middle door and clumped downstairs. Ren was waiting for him at the bottom.
"I'm very sorry," Ren seemed sad. "I could not tell you she'd escaped, but you did realize quickly that she gained her abilities."
"How did you find that out?" Ashe shouldered past the taller child as he walked toward his bedroom.
"I placed Nexus Echo on Salidar's father and on the agents, so I know about the investigations."
"You know who the murderer is." Ashe turned sharply to stare at the Larentii youth.
"Ashe, I am not allowed to interfere." Ren's contrition was evident.
"But you are interfering. With me." Ashe wiped away the tear he couldn't hold back. "You stand there and tell me you have information you can't give while I watch people die. Do you know how frustrated and helpless that makes me feel? Do you?" Ashe stalked through his bedroom door and slammed it behind him, leaving Ren standing in the hall outside, worried that he'd lost his friend.
* * *
"Ashe made a good suggestion, Aedan. He says we should find out if any of those other children might have shown some kind of ability," Adele told Aedan as he stopped at the house for a brief break before Adele went to bed.
"It isn't a bad idea, but how do we find these things out? I have no idea what the talents might be, so how do you ask or test for these things? We still don't know how Ashe discovered his talents or when. And these children are older than he was when he developed them." Aedan shook his head in confusion.
"Ashe is always ahead of the curve, Aedan," Adele pointed out. "What if these others are ripe to develop these talents? Do we have any information from the Director or those agents regarding the average age these children are disappearing? Perhaps we shouldn't gauge the dead ones against the ones that are counted as missing? There are two sides in this; two sides that are hunting these children for two very different purposes, according to Mr. Winkler."
Had they known it, Ashe was in his bedroom surfing his computer, searching for the same information.
* * *
"Ren, you can't offer information, but will you tell me if I'm right?" Ashe hadn't spoken to the tall youth until then, but he hadn't chased Ren away when he'd appeared inside Ashe's bedroom.
"If you say what's true, I can confirm that," Ren nodded slightly.
"Good. What I'm seeing here is that the ones who disappeared, most of them anyway, came up missing around age fifteen or sixteen. That means their talents develop around that time. True?"
"Correct," Ren verified the information Ashe had gathered.
"Then how did I get mine before turning thirteen?" Ashe mumbled to himself.
"I cannot say, since I do not have an answer for that," Ren replied, although the question hadn't been aimed at him.
"Elizabeth was fifteen and a half; anyway that's what Luanne told us when we visited Wynn and Dori last week, so that fits," Ashe ignored Ren's statement, putting his musings together aloud. "Edward is already sixteen, so he may be able to do something and not even know it. Macy is seventeen, so same there. In fact, all of them are older than Elizabeth, so we may be sitting on a time bomb."
"Correct," Ren affirmed.
* * *
Jane Scott settled her cell phone on the kitchen counter after talking with a friend. Jane lived alone and after a long and trying day at the dress shop (would she have to cover for the charges made on a stolen credit card?), she settled for a microwaved dinner. Doors carefully locked and the alarm set, Jane waited for her meal to heat. Locked doors and an alarm failed to prevent the burly male from leaping through the picture window in Jane's living room. Jane screamed and reached for her cell as the alarm blared and a neighbor rushed toward Jane's home from next door, a loaded shotgun in his hands. The intruder clapped a hand over Jane's mouth and dragged the struggling woman toward her garage.
* * *
"How can this be a coincidence?" Marcus stared at Agent Lawford. "We're in her store this afternoon and tonight she's abducted? I don't doubt we'd be dealing with a body now if she hadn't had an alarm system and a neighbor who came running with a gun."
"I agree with Marcus," Aedan nodded slightly at the Cloud Chief Packmaster. "The kidnapper had no desire for discovery so he took the woman away in her own vehicle. It is a shame it was dark and the neighbor didn't get a good description."
"Agreed," Nick Lawford said. "The local sheriff has his employees searching, but so far there has been nothing. We have a search helicopter en route from Oklahoma City, but the woman may be dead before it arrives. Mr. Evans, will you allow Ashe to help with this?" Nick Lawford was begging that Ashe might help prevent Jane Scott's murder. He felt responsible, somehow, for sending the killer in her direction. Obviously, someone was keeping a very close watch on local events.
"You have a description of the vehicle and which direction it was heading?"
"Yes."
"Then we'll try."
Before Agent Lawford was prepared, Aedan lifted the tall black agent with one arm about his waist and rushed toward the Evans home so quickly Marcus almost missed the movement.
* * *
Ashe jerked in his seat when his father knocked on the bedroom door. Ren was still sitting on the end of Ashe's bed while Ashe did his best to locate more information regarding the missing children on his computer.
"Ashe, we need your help, son," Aedan walked inside Ashe's room with Agent Lawford right behind. Knowing Ren was shielding himself from visitors; Ashe stood and nodded silently at his father.
I will come with you. Do not fear, they will never know, Ren sent mindspeech to Ashe.
Understood, Ashe returned without betraying his silent conversation to his father or the agent.
"We need your invisibility trick, son," Agent Lawford said. "We're looking for a red Buick Regal, heading southwest out of Cordell."
"I can do that," Ashe said. Without another word, Ashe gathered his father, Nick Lawford and a tall Larentii child in his mist. Ren exclaimed happily as they shot through two levels of the Evans home and straight into the night sky.
* * *
It hadn't taken much to knock the woman unconscious. She slumped in the passenger seat, oblivious of her surroundings as her stolen car sped through the twisting roads leading to Lake Altus. The driver couldn't help but curse softly and angrily at what he'd learned from Jane Scott. The card she'd handed over almost made him kill her immediately—Homeland Security was printed plainly across the top with a seasoned agent's name listed below. He'd had to travel stealthily through Cordell and the surrounding communities since he'd killed the cashier from the local supermarket.
Too many things didn't make sense anymore, and now he'd be blamed for the girl's death east of Clinton, although he'd been nowhere near. The only information he'd gotten was that she'd suffered a brain injury. This bitch, though, and anyone else who thought to stand between him and his objective, well, they'd die too.
Shoving the car into park as he slid to a stop at the boat ramp, he carefully exited the vehicle, taking care not to touch any part of it with exposed skin. He flexed large hands encased in gloves before reaching inside the car and placing it in gear. Walking away swiftly, he heard the satisfying splash as the car hit the lake and floated in. Eventually the engine died as it was drowned in water.
* * *
Going down, Ashe shouted to his passengers when he spotted the top of the red car as it slowly sank into Lake Altus. The car was nearly submerged and Ashe, hoping he wasn't too late already, plunged his mist through the roof of the vehicle with no thought for himself or his passengers.
Jane's head was beneath the lake's surface and Ashe cried out in fear and despair, even as he lifted her limp body inside his mist and sped away. He was flying toward Clinton Regional Hospital as fast as he could go, terrified the woman might already be dead.
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