American Witch

by Thea Harrison

  And while the bedroom had only basic furnishings, there was an antique, faded rug that gave the room a sense of richness. The old dresser, the bedside table and lamp—they might be used, but they were all quality pieces.

  She walked to the bed and sat beside him. “Who are you really?”

  His arm obscured half his face and highlighted the sensuality of his firm mouth. “I’ve been Josiah Mason for the past forty years. I carefully targeted the DA position and constructed and executed a successful campaign strategy to win the election.”

  Did that really answer her question? A chill went down the back of her neck as she thought of how he had worded his reply and what he didn’t say.

  And very Powerful witches could live much longer than the normal human life span. He had told her that himself.

  She asked quietly, “What was your original name?”

  “That was a long time ago, and it belonged to a different man.”

  “Was it Russian?”

  No answer. He lifted his forearm to frown at her. “What are you doing up, anyway? You should still be out.”

  “I dreamed about Austin’s attack. It woke me up.” She rested her folded hands in her lap. “I may not be an expert on what safe houses should look like, but even I can tell this place isn’t normal.”

  “No, Molly. It is not.” He let his forearm rest against his eyes again.

  The food sat uneasily in her stomach, and she fought against the urge to lie down. She had too many questions she needed to have answered. “Why are there protection spells all over the basement? Why not the rest of the house?”

  “The ground helps to absorb and hide the magic. The protection spells might be sensed if they were aboveground.”

  “And for some reason you need the protection, because… because Atlanta is a place of interest to a certain dangerous Power, isn’t it?” She thought of all the security monitors in the other room, and for the first time she felt like she was starting to piece together the bits of what he had told her over the past several weeks. She asked, “Possibly something or someone that might love to sink its teeth into someone’s bones and suck the magic out of them like sucking the juice out of a ripe peach?”

  “I really wish you were asleep. You’re too smart for your own fucking good.” He sighed. “I have news.”

  Dread felt heavy on her overstressed body. “What’s happened?”

  He sat in a fluid motion and turned to face her. “Austin’s dead.”

  It hit her like a punch. If she was so smart, why hadn’t she seen that one coming? Through numb lips, she asked, “Did I kill him?”

  “I don’t know yet. The preliminary evidence suggests not, but it’ll be a couple of days before my office gets the official autopsy report.” He looked at her hands lying in her lap. She had twisted them together, gripping so tightly her knuckles had whitened. He covered them with one of his own. “There’s more. I need you to identify another body. Can you do that right now?”

  She managed to respond with a jerky nod.

  “The photo will be difficult to look at,” he said quietly. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  He pulled out his phone, and this time when he turned to her, he gripped her shoulder in a strong, bracing hold as he tilted the screen toward her. “Is this your divorce lawyer, Nina Rodriguez?”

  It took a few moments for her frozen brain to process what she saw. Nausea surged, and she bolted for the bathroom. She slammed the door shut and locked it, then spun to heave over the toilet.

  It was excruciating as her abused ribs protested. She struggled through it, and afterward she rinsed her mouth, splashed cold water on her face, and brushed her teeth.

  Only when she was ready to face him again did she unlock and open the door.

  He waited just outside. “I take it that’s a yes.”

  * * *

  She nodded.

  Her expression was devastated. The color had leached out of her complexion, making the discolored bruises stand out, and there was a fragility in her gaze that he’d never seen before.

  “This is about the Seychelles file.” She looked sick. “I got her killed, didn’t I?”

  “You did not get her killed,” he said carefully. “Austin did. But yes, this is about the Seychelles file. At least that’s how I’m piecing together the information right now. Austin was desperate to get all the copies back from you—desperate enough to kill you to make sure you couldn’t talk. And Nina Rodriguez was the other one who knew about it, because she wrote it into your divorce settlement.” He paused. “How specific did she get in the wording of the settlement?”

  “She was very careful. We didn’t want the documents to trigger extra scrutiny in the court system. We wanted the divorce to go through, so she just called it foreign investments.” She wiped her eyes. “Austin and I didn’t have any foreign investments. He knew what we meant.”

  She looked like a feather could knock her down. Gripping her arm, he steered her back to the bedroom where she sank onto the mattress, lay down, and curled on her side.

  He was too damn tired to resist the impulse that came next. Sliding onto the bed, he fit his longer, bigger frame along her slender, curved back and dragged the bedspread over them both. “I have to get a few hours’ sleep. After that, I should be able to cast more healing spells for you.”

  “Fine, whatever.” Her whispered reply was listless, but she didn’t protest when he tucked an arm around her.

  Hell, he didn’t know why he did it. Maybe to comfort her. Maybe to get some comfort for himself. Letting his nose come to rest in the soft curtain of her hair, he closed his eyes, and despite the burning bedside lamp and the mountain of things he had to do, everything fell away and he slept.

  When he opened his eyes again, he knew he had gotten enough sleep for survival, but it wasn’t a true, deep rest.

  From where he lay, he could see out the open bedroom door to the bottom of the stairs. The filtered light that shone down the stairs was stronger, more yellow. The day had advanced. Moving carefully so he wouldn’t disturb Molly, he pulled out his phone to check the screen. It was almost noon. He had slept for over five hours.

  Pushing himself on little rest had become a way of life, so five hours was actually a good amount for him. Easing away from Molly, he stood and paused to regard her slumbering form with a frown.

  He didn’t sleep with women. He hadn’t even when he had lived with his wife, now long dead. But it had felt good to curl around Molly and hold her in his arms. Too good. Worse, he didn’t want to leave her. He wanted to stroke his fingers along her pale cheek, to erase forever the marks that Sullivan had put on her body and replace those memories with pleasure.

  He had veered dangerously off-track.

  Moving quietly, he gathered a clean outfit from the dresser, turned off the bedside lamp and closed the door as he exited. Once outside, he showered, shaved, and fixed a strong cup of coffee. Taking it into the other room along with another sandwich, he sat at the desk and ate as he considered this current debacle.

  Molly never should have been able to see the contents of this room, but she had recovered Power much faster than he’d anticipated. From the questions she had asked, he realized he had revealed far more in their previous conversations than he had ever meant to. How the hell had she known to ask if he was Russian?

  As soon as he thought it, the answer came to him. He had cast spells in front of her. Of course she had paid close attention to everything he had said whether she understood it or not. He had been her only real source of information about something that was very important to her.

  He could spellcast in English, but sometimes he fell back on casting spells as he had learned them in his native language. That had been a sloppy mistake. She might not know how to speak Russian, but she sure as hell knew how to make an educated guess.

  His coven email had blown up while he’d slept. He skimmed through the various reactions to the news of the compromised saf
e house. Questions, speculation, arguments. Richard was pissed, and so was Henry. They wanted to know what had happened. Anson had jumped in later to give an update on Saturday night’s deaths.

  “Unless you’re going to haul me in and charge me with something, I’ve decided I need to leave Atlanta,” Molly said from behind him, her voice rusty. “I’d been thinking about it anyway, and what happened to Austin and Nina just solidified it. And whatever you’re involved in that necessitates all these precautions… that’s way beyond my coping skills.”

  He put his computer in sleep mode and sat back. “You’re right. I was going to suggest it when you got up.”

  “You’re so full of bullshit.” She coughed out a laugh. “What happened to ‘Let’s rule the Eastern Seaboard together’?”

  Because she had more raw Power than the rest of his coven put together. Instead of telling her that, he raised his eyebrows and spun around to face her. “Once you get ahold of something, you don’t let go, do you?”

  “Not usually, which is one of the reasons why I stayed in a dead-end marriage for so long.” She grimaced. “It’s one of my worst personality traits.”

  “Or one of your finest.” A small silence fell. Then he shrugged and said, “Anyway, offering to teach you was a bad impulse, and I’ve since thought better of it. You’re in danger here, and I don’t have time to babysit a new witch.” Or any time to indulge the dangerous distraction… obsession she had become. “As soon as you’re on your feet, you need to relocate.”

  Licking her lips, she moved into the room and leaned against his desk. His clothes looked ridiculous on her. The T-shirt gaped at her slender neck and arms, and the sweatpants hung low on her hips. Even his thick white socks were somehow adorably oversized on her narrow feet. And the nipples of her small, firm breasts were visible against the old, thin material of the shirt.

  He had to throttle down a surge of anger. Even beat up and badly dressed, she was gorgeous, and she was becoming more compelling by the minute. Sullivan had been a remarkably ugly, stupid man.

  “Somebody killed Nina,” she said in a low voice. She glanced in his coffee mug, then picked it up to take a deep swallow. “And if I didn’t kill Austin, somebody else did. They’re going to want me dead too. I don’t know how to live in hiding. How do I leave without getting caught?”

  Wearing his clothes. Drinking his coffee. Leaning back against his desk while they talked.

  For a blistering moment, he imagined it happening in another life where they were both safe and free from secrets and they chose to share such domestic, intimate moments with each other.

  Either before sex or after. His whole body tightened. Now who was being stupid?

  Rubbing his face, he fought to get his unruly body under control. “I can get you new identification, a new birth certificate, passport, driver’s license, social security number—the works—by Wednesday or Thursday. Everything you need to start up somewhere else.”

  “You can do that?” She stared at him, then shook her head. “Even so, it’s still not going to be easy. I need the money from my checking account… And I just bought a car, but I haven’t had time to get it titled yet. Then there’s my house. My real estate agent thinks she can get high six or low seven figures for it. And there’s the retirement accounts. I won’t be able to access those without either the finalized divorce papers or Austin’s death certificate.”

  He took her hand and laced his fingers through hers. “Molly, you’re about to become a person of interest in a murder investigation. You can’t tie up those loose ends without running the risk of being found, either by the authorities or by whoever committed the murders. You’ve got to walk away from everything. I can have your estate held while an investigation is ongoing, and I’ll order a detailed audit. That will buy you some time, but you need to come to terms with it now—you’re not going to get out of this financially unscathed.”

  She calmed as she listened. “What if I get a cashier’s check for what’s in the checking account?”

  He frowned. “How much is in there?”

  “Over forty thousand. I took what we had in our savings and checking accounts, and then I sold my jewelry, and after I switched cars there was still some money left over from the sale of the Escalade. That should be enough to at least get me started.”

  He thought it over. “It’s too much of a risk.”

  She jerked her hand away. “Maybe it’s a risk I’m willing to take. The police won’t be moving fast enough if I get to a bank branch first thing tomorrow.”

  He snapped, “This isn’t about the police. I might know something about who could be hunting for you, and believe me—that’s not a risk you should be willing to take.”

  Her eyes widened. “You know who’s behind this?”

  “There’s evidence to suggest that my reason for being in Atlanta coincides with Austin and what has happened to you. The fact that you’re an awakening witch just complicates things.” He could no longer sit still and pushed to his feet.

  She had drained his mug. He grabbed it and went to heat more water. This time he put two mugs in the microwave.

  She followed him. “How do you know everything’s connected?”

  He might have compromised his safe house for her, but he wouldn’t share anything about Maria without Maria’s express permission. “I have sources.” When she opened her mouth, he glared at her. “That’s all I’m saying. If you get caught, you can’t give away details you don’t know.”

  She drew herself up. “I wouldn’t betray your confidence.”

  He gave her a grim look. “I might trust your integrity and good intentions, but anyone will talk sooner or later if they’re tortured long enough. You’re going to have to trust me.”

  “Wow.” She paled even further. “But you’re asking me to walk away with nothing. How do I disappear without resources? I wouldn’t even have a car. Even bus stations have security cameras these days.”

  He spooned instant coffee into one of the steaming mugs and shoved it in her direction. “I’m working on it.”

  Wrapping her hands around the mug, she took a sip, then said bitterly, “And why the hell you have this god-awful instant coffee boggles my mind. You spent thousands of dollars on the contents of that monitor room, and you couldn’t even buy a Keurig?”

  He rounded on her. “It’s caffeine. It’s fuel. Shut up for a few goddamn minutes and let me think.”

  She slid sideways, mouthing at him silently, Fine. Just fine.

  He glared as she limped up the stairs carrying her mug. When the floorboards overhead creaked, he opened the fridge. She hadn’t touched any of the food since she vomited, and that had been hours ago.

  Stalking over to the foot of the stairs, he roared, “And eat something with that coffee! How can you expect to heal if you don’t fucking eat?”

  Blistering silence roared back. Great job, asshole, he told himself. She just learned she lost her husband and her lawyer. She’s losing her entire life, and you had to bite her head off.

  She was a time suck. A disaster. And now she was probably going to become a money pit. Women like Molly Sullivan were high-end luxury mammals. They cost a goddamn fortune to maintain. He happened to have a goddamn fortune, but a lot of his liquid assets were tied into fueling the coven’s efforts.

  He slammed a spoonful of coffee into his mug. Fresh brewed coffee would taste better. Goddamn it. Baring his mental teeth, he chased that thought out of his head, then he glared at his surroundings. He was sick to death of living in basements.

  Grabbing his mug, he strode upstairs. Molly huddled in one of the chairs in front of the living room window, looking out as she cradled her mug underneath her chin. Her eyes were reddened, but he didn’t discern any extra splotchiness in her bruised face. He guessed she hadn’t been crying. Probably hadn’t.

  He sat in the opposite chair. “I’ll loan you forty thousand, interest free. And I’ll get you a car.”

  She took in a quick breath.
“That’s very generous. Thank you, but it’s a lot of money. What if I can’t pay it back?”

  Unless he was badly mistaken—and he rarely was about people anymore—she was the type who wouldn’t rest until she found some way to repay him. “You might take some financial hits, like property taxes and other expenses, but eventually you’ll get the bulk of your estate. You can pay me back then.” A corner of his mouth lifted drily. “Either that or I’ll be dead, and the loan won’t matter.”

  Her gaze widened. “Why are you going after someone so dangerous? What did they do to you?”

  He thought about deflecting that, but then suddenly he didn’t even want to try. She had already guessed or discovered so many of his other secrets. What did it matter if she knew the whole truth?

  “I was born to a life of wealth and privilege when the world still had empires and kings,” he said. “And at the appropriate age, I married an appropriate woman and fathered two sons. I became interested in improving steam-locomotion technology. The ruler at that time placed some significance on expanding railways, so when my father died, I inherited a lot of money and then I made more.”

  Fascination overtook her expression. She swiveled to face him fully. “You had a marriage and family. Your wife… did you love her?”

  He snorted. “No. In the circles we moved in, we thought of marriage differently. But she gave me two sons whom I loved, and for several years I had grown somewhat fond of her. Then I was badly injured in a carriage accident and lay in a coma for two weeks.”

  She winced. “That was when your Power awoke, right?”

  “Yes. I could feel it inside, burning like a furnace.” His expression hardened. “I couldn’t move or speak, but I heard everything that everyone said around me. What the doctors said. Things my wife said. What my two sons said. How the three of them planned on disposing of the family assets, and how tired they grew of waiting for me to die.”

  “But it had only been two weeks?” Her gaze darkened with sympathy.

  He didn’t welcome her sympathy but acknowledged where it came from. They both had families who had betrayed them. “After a few days, my sons thought they should give nature a hand and help me to my eternal rest. We had a lot of servants, and my youngest son was afraid of getting caught. That was the only thing that gave them pause. Thankfully, that was enough for me to come out of the coma. I disinherited them, left my wife, and searched for someone who could explain what was happening to me.”