Shadeland (The Ethereal Crossings, 1)

by D.L. Miles

  Chapter 27

  I had considered calling Luke, to tell him what was going on and what we had found out so far, but in reality, we hadn’t found out anything. All I would say was that while he and I had been hunting pixie’s I had seen what could have been an Eidolon on a killing spree fly over our heads. I decided it would be best to not tell him, especially after seeing Jared’s reaction.

  I watched as Jared walked up to the front desk, completely fine with what we were doing. I, on the other hand, was extremely anxious. We were about to ask Cindy if she knew anything about Bayani, and if he had told her anything. What if she decided to follow up on our questions, try and find out what we knew and report on it? We couldn’t let that happen, it would lead the cops to us, and then they would start asking questions. Different scenarios played in my head, all leading us to the police and nation-wide infamy; something which Luke already had. I peeked around Jared’s shoulder to see a small and very young girl sitting at the receptionist’s desk. A girl I recognized from school; not my grade, but I could tell she knew who I was.

  “Hi,” Jared said, giving the girl a killer smile, “I was wondering if Cindy was around?” The nameless intern behind the desk squeaked and blushed hard enough for me to feel embarrassed for her. She gazed up at Jared before quickly picking up the phone and dialling an extension with shaky hands.

  “H-Hello Ms. Hart,” the girl said, “there’s a man here to see you.” The person on the other end said something and the girl blushed even harder. “Who is it? Um…it’s…”

  “Jared.” He smiled again and I saw the girl resist another squeak. There was no way she wasn’t going to be telling her friends about this; the girl that always hung around Luke Harroway was now hanging around a tall, dark and handsome older man who looked to be in his mid twenties. At least I didn’t have to face it at school anymore. Wait…did I just call Jared…? Damn.

  “What is it referring to?” she asked into the phone again and cautiously looked up at the bounty hunter.

  “Bayani Navarro.” I was surprised he was being so honest, wasn’t this something we should lie about? When I asked him he just chuckled under his breath.

  “There’s no point,” he said, “she’ll find out somehow. Just let me do the talking.” I pursed my lips, wondering if he was going to blatantly flirt with Cindy as well. I remembered when she had apologized to me in the diner he had been looking at her a little too much. It made me feel…uneasy.

  The intern looked at the phone and then hung up, turning to face us…or I should say, turning to face Jared.

  “She said she’d be right down,” the girl looked down at her restless hands before pointing to some chairs across the lobby, “you can wait over there.”

  “Thanks,” he said with a wink and walked away. That was too much for the intern, and the second Jared turned his back her hands held her cheeks, trying to hide the red. As I walked behind Jared I heard the familiar clicks and saw her texting away furiously. I just hoped she wasn’t going to try and take a picture.

  The bounty hunter and I sat down on the cushioned chairs, Jared placed his feet on top of the round table filled with magazines.

  “I think she’s a little young for you,” I said, feeling bitter. I don’t know why I even bothered saying anything, it was none of my business who he teased but for some reason I couldn’t help myself.

  “Sorry,” he said, placing his hands behind his head, “are you jealous? Because she doesn’t look much younger than you.”

  “No, I’m not jealous. Besides, I’m almost eighteen…just a few months away.” I was silently cursing my late birthday, not only was it late, it was as late as they came; December thirty-first.

  “You sound jealous,” he laughed, “do you want me to wink at you more, honey?” He blinked an eye shut and I looked away, feeling my face warm. It was just the fever, nothing more. Jared smiled, knowing he had beaten me. I had nothing to say back to him, if I told him to be quiet it would be like I was jealous when in reality I wasn’t. I just felt bad for the girl, that was it. Though it made me begin to contemplate how old Jared was; he couldn’t be much older than Luke, could he?

  My phone rang in my pocket and I clicked “Ignore” immediately, striking Jared’s curiosity as we waited for Cindy to arrive.

  “Not going to answer?” he questioned. “What if it’s Luke?”

  “It isn’t,” I told him, knowing I was right.

  “And how do you know that?”

  “Because Luke would text me,” I set my phone back into my pocket, “it was probably my dad or my brother.”

  “You have a brother?” Jared’s eyebrows raised. Was it so surprising I had siblings? Whenever someone found out, they had to same look. I didn’t understand it.

  “I have four.”

  “Four?” he repeated, probably trying to imagine what they looked like. Most people thought they would look like me, average height and build but they weren’t that at all. All of them were over six feet and all of them liked to play sports. My oldest brother played a lot of football while the others played hockey; they had a thing for contact sports where they could tackle anything that moved near them. Most people didn’t dare move near them, though.

  Ever since Luke’s face had been plastered across the nation they’d been calling a lot. I had spoken with my dad once, telling him that it was a mistake but he was still worried. Luke had called him too, when I was out with Jared but they kept calling and I really didn’t want them to know anything more than they did.

  Yanking me out of my guilty feelings about my family I heard a thick clacking coming down the stairs behind us. Cindy breezed by to meet the intern who pointed towards Jared and me. The reporter immediately came over to greet us, wearing what one would call a smart yet feminine beige pant suit. It was nice, for a reporter I guessed.

  “Good evening,” she said and only then did I realize that it was possible she wouldn’t be available. She could have been live on the air, or at home even. She sat down at the chair perpendicular and leaned forward asking, “What can I do for you?”

  Cindy had a glimmer in her eye that I imagined she got only when she was excited about a story. She gave me a sympathetic head nod, reminding me she knew who I was before drawing her attention back to Jared. I couldn’t help but wonder if it was for the same reason as the intern.

  “I’m looking for Bayani,” Jared said. He planted his feet on the tiles below and leaned towards her. “Have you seen him around?” Cindy’s lips pinched together in thought, debating on what to tell us.

  “Why are you looking for him?” she rested back in her chair, determined to get something out of us.

  “We’re just wondering where he is, he’s a friend,” Jared shrugged innocently but I knew Cindy wasn’t buying it.

  “A friend, huh?” she said slowly, peering at me from the corner of her eyes. I didn’t have much energy to do anything, not that I knew what I was supposed to do anyway. “He might’ve come by to see me earlier.”

  “About what?” Jared kept his stare at her, attempting to break her down. She was a news reporter; I doubted he would be able to crack her, since usually she was the one trying to get information from people. Cindy eyed us both for a long time before she finally answered.

  “He wanted to talk,” she said, “but he wasn’t making any sense. We’d become friends over the past couple of weeks after his sister died, and I was trying to help him through it.” Her eyes grew dark, thinking of the past. “But he kept saying it was all wrong, everything was wrong. He said something about the killer being too far north.” That sounded familiar.

  “So what did you do?” Jared asked.

  “I called the police,” Cindy sighed. “I heard they were looking for him for something so I contacted them while getting him a drink. I didn’t want to…but he seemed to have…” She opened her palms to us, trying to think of an appropriate word.

  “
Lost it?” I suggested, raising my eyebrows and leaving all tact behind. Reluctantly, the reporter nodded.

  “What was he saying that wasn’t making any sense?”

  “He kept talking about needing to find out who the killer was, that only fire could purify it. That’s what scared me the most, I wasn’t sure if he was going to hurt someone. Otherwise he was just mumbling to himself.” She shrugged when someone called her name as they ran around the corner of the stairs.

  “They need you back up there,” a woman said to her, “you’re back on.”

  Cindy excused herself, knowing we weren’t going to give her any information and walked off with the other woman. She stopped at the bottom of the stairs and turned to us picking a card out of her pocket. After the other woman left I remembered she was the weather girl, the very same one that had apologized to Luke. She and Cindy looked strikingly similar and I wondered if they were related somehow.

  “Could you call me?” she asked, handing Jared the card. “I just want to know if he’s okay. He’s been through a lot, I think the stress just got to him.”

  “Sure,” Jared said and tucked the card away in his pants pocket. We stood and separated, Cindy going back work and us heading out the door. It felt like Cindy was hiding something from us, like she knew something we didn’t and had no intention of telling us. It didn’t matter anymore though, we were almost out the door and she would never talk, at least not without getting something in return.

  I noticed the intern watch us as we left, most likely wondering how we were connected. Little did she know he was a bounty hunter and I was merely his…assistant? Well, until we found the killer that’s what I seemed to be, but not by his choice.

  “How are we going to get in to see Bayani?” I asked as we walked back to the Charger. I couldn’t imagine they would just let us waltz right in and question him; he might even be a suspect now, after being caught in the last victim’s house.

  “I’ll go in and talk to him,” Jared said, “you’ll have to wait in the car.”

  “Why?” I whined. That wasn’t fair, why did I have to wait in the car while he got to find everything out? He might not even ask the same questions I wanted to.

  “Because the cops don’t seem to like you much,” Jared said, stating the obvious. “You’ve been all over the place and causing a commotion.”

  No, I haven’t. I wasn’t even caught the first time I broke into a place, nor was I caught with Violet. How had I caused a commotion?

  “Look,” Jared sighed, “they know what you look like because of Luke. Let me get in and out, it’ll go faster because most of them haven’t seen me.” He had a point there.

  “All right,” I agreed, reluctantly. We climbed into the car and drove away, giving me the feeling of being watched. As I looked up to the second story windows of the glass building we had just been in I noticed a blonde turning away from the window, dressed in a pant suit. Had Cindy been watching us leave? Okay, that settled it, she knew something. But what could it be?

  Did she know something about Bayani? Or did she know something about the murders? Maybe she was just worried about her friend who she had just sent to jail…no, that didn’t seem right. I felt a sharp pain through my temples and rubbed them as I thought.

  “Do you want me to drop you off?” Jared asked, noticing my actions.

  “No!” I said too quickly. “I’m fine…I’m just kind of thirsty.” I felt parched but it made sense; I still had a fever and the only thing I’d had to drink in the past two days was…well two bottles of water Jared had given me. I was dehydrated and it was messing with my head.

  “Are you sure?” he checked, his hand about to reach to check the temperature by my forehead but quickly withdrew back to the steering wheel.

  “Yeah,” I told him, “I’ll just close my eyes while you talk with Bayani.” Jared never said anything after that, settling with the fact that I wasn’t fighting to go with him as I usually had. But he did surprise me by going into the trunk and getting another bottle of water for me. After that he just went inside to see what he could find out.

  Hopefully Bayani would tell us something useful, something that would lead us to the killer. I shut my eyes and rested my head on the window, resisting the urge to fall asleep to the purring of the Charger.