The Lost Ones (Here Witchy Witchy Book 12)

by A. L. Kessler

  “Agent Whittbe? You trust him?”

  “I do. I saved his life a while back. He’s not like Grayson, who would feed me information on PIB, but he would bring you home with O’Donald’s backing. I’m glad he was available to bring you home because we needed an agent to escort you. Some ridiculous rule of containment.” Levi’s phone went off and he grabbed it. “Levi speaking.” He paused for a moment while I sat in the wingback chair, trying to think through everything. I couldn’t pinpoint an enemy who would want to have me locked up, other than Samuel. I think he would have just arranged to have me handed off to him instead of going to containment.

  “I understand that. She’s here at the mansion with me. She’ll be back to work tomorrow.” He nodded a couple times. “I understand that. I need to make sure that Zayne can be with her as the sun comes down and that Agent Jefferson is nearby when it’s daytime. I will not have her brought in on false charges again, Commissioner. Is that clear? Or I will make a complaint.”

  I tried not to roll my eyes, but at least there was someone with power backing me up. Levi hung up.

  “That was Commissioner Charleston, and he assures me that Agent Ross is a step below him, and she did not have the authority to bring you in. Especially using a SWAT team.”

  Huh. “Neat. So why did she? How did she pull any of this off?”

  “He’s going to look into it and find out,” Levi promised. “For now, you’re not to be alone, and unless Commissioner Charleston comes to collect you himself, you won’t be going back there.”

  I raised a brow. “Even if it’s an entire SWAT team?”

  “Try not to cause too much damage if you have to face an entire SWAT team.”

  “So you’re saying, fight against the SWAT team?”

  He sighed. “If it comes down to that, yes.”

  “Great, I hope it doesn’t come down to that. Agent Ross showed me a picture of a body that she accused me of burning to death. Saying that I must have been blacking out and killing people with my powers.”

  Levi shook his head. “Commissioner Charleston mentioned a murder, and Liz is on that case. Sounds like it might be the same one. Maybe pair up with Liz and find out why Ross thought you were on the suspect list.”

  “Okay, am I okay to head home for the night? I’d like to collect my gun and phone from Mario.” Who I hadn’t seen yet. Odd. “Where’s Mario?”

  Levi shook his head. “He’s on a mission for me. Your phone and gun are at home. Zayne will take you back now that it’s dark. He’ll be staying with you at night.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but Levi held a hand up. “Yes, Merick is there, but he has to sleep sometimes too. I’d rather him be at your side during the day when you’re at home. Liz will be at your side at the office, and there will be extra security around your office. You won’t notice the difference, much like when you first found out I was king. It’ll be a person here or there to check in, blending well with the background of PIB.”

  I wasn’t getting get out of this, and honestly, I wasn’t sure what Merick and I would be able to do against SWAT, but Zayne was powerful. He could help. Though I didn’t know him.

  “And Mario can’t be my guard because he’s on a mission?”

  Levi nodded. “And I’ll need him by my side the moment he gets back.”

  No choice. “Okay, then I’ll head home with Zayne.”

  Levi stood and hugged me. “If it makes you worry less, Zayne’s sire isn’t an evil bastard.”

  I gave a short laugh. “No?”

  “No, I promise. She’s a good vampire.”

  That was comforting. “I’m going to take your word, but if it comes back to bite me, and I get killed, I’m going to haunt your ass.”

  “I wouldn’t expect anything less. Now go home, eat some dinner, and recover from being cooped up for a day.”

  I paused before I left. “Did you know Loraine wasn’t in high security?”

  He nodded. “Plea bargain and insanity plea.”

  “She was there with me.”

  “I’m surprised she didn’t lash out.”

  “She didn’t really have the chance. We had a quick breakfast together, and that was it. Now, if I was in there another day, there would be no telling what kind of trouble she was going to cause.”

  He nodded. “I’m glad we got you out of there.”

  “Me too. Because everyone seems so worried that they were going to hurt me, I don’t want to know what would have happened after today.” I walked out of the study and into the hall where Zayne stood.

  “Ready to go home, Princess?”

  “More than ready.”

  Zayne and I walked into the house to find Simon standing in the kitchen. His caramel hair was shaggier than it was last time I saw him, but his eyes were the same hazel. I grinned when I saw him and went to hug him.

  “I’m so glad to see you.”

  He wrapped his arms around me and squeezed tight. “Seems like you’ve had an interesting time since getting back in town.”

  I leaned up and kissed him quickly. “That is putting it lightly.”

  Simon looked over my head and raised a brow at Zayne. “You can leave now. Levi trusts me with Abigail’s security.”

  “No, I’ll be staying here with her until sunrise.” Zayne positioned himself against the wall, one hand clasped in front of the other.

  Simon looked at me and I shrugged.

  “There’s apparently a need to up security.”

  “Great, so if we want alone time?” He asked.

  Zayne snorted. “Go to the bedroom. I’ll be able to hear if you leave.”

  Which also meant he’d be able to hear everything else we did. “Ugh, we’ll just have to wait until daytime.” Because I knew Merick would give us privacy. “Anyway, I’m starving, and I want some good coffee.”

  Simon motioned to the coffeepot. “It’s already brewing.”

  “You are a hero. What about food?”

  “Merick’s picking some up on his way home. Said something about needing to go into town for groceries since you’re home.”

  Really, Merick did ninety percent of the grocery shopping anyway. “Well, that’s good, because I’m not sure if I’d be able to do that tomorrow or not.”

  Simon rolled his eyes at me. “Yeah, yeah, we all know.”

  “Know what?” Zayne asked.

  “That she hates grocery shopping. Typically, there are leftovers, creamer, milk, and that’s it in her fridge.” Simon shrugged.

  Zayne looked at Simon and then at me. I laughed. “I’m typically at work. I come home, sleep, get up, go back to work.”

  Simon nudged me a little. “You were getting better before spending time at Melisandra’s.”

  Before I worked that case. I looked at him and touched his cheek. “Are you okay?”

  He turned and kissed the palm of my hand. “I’m fine. The pack helped me heal, and we took care of it our way. You don’t have to worry about me,” he promised.

  I searched his face to see if he was lying to me.

  He laughed. “You can call Travis any time and ask him. You know he’ll tell you the truth.”

  Yes, because Travis was always looking out for Simon. “I might do that, and I might just come sit with the pack later this month on the full moon.”

  Zayne wrinkled his nose. “Could we please not?”

  Both Simon and I stared at him. “You don’t have to go.” Simon said. “In fact, very few vampires are welcome in our territory.”

  “But the Princess is?”

  “She owns the magic around our land. She’s not a vampire.”

  Zayne chuckled and shook his head, and I knew he was in on the secret as well. So was Simon now, because of me almost dying and everyone worried I was going to wake up a vampire.

  Simon pulled me toward the living room. “Come on, let’s relax.”

  I ignored Zayn and followed Simon. We sat down on the couch and snuggled up with each other. I pulled a blank
et over my feet and sipped my coffee. Zayne didn’t come into the living room with us, but both Simon and I both waited to see if he followed.

  After a couple minutes, Simon grabbed the remote and turned on the television. It was nice to lay back against him like normal, like we hadn’t just spent three months apart.

  Simon wrapped an arm around me and squeezed me gently. “I’ve missed this.”

  “Me too. I go back tomorrow for desk work. Hopefully I’ll be staying out of containment for a while.”

  Simon laughed. “Did you really have a full SWAT team in your yard?”

  “Yep, and a jerk of an agent who threatened to have them pull my circles down,” I muttered. “I don’t want to think about how that would have gone down. I don’t think they would have been able to get through Merick’s circle.”

  Merick walked in. “No, they wouldn’t have, but we didn’t want your hard work torn down.”

  I nodded. “And probably painful. That’s a powerful spell for them to take by force. I would have felt it.”

  Simon seemed to hold me tighter. “Seems like a lot of stuff in the magical world is painful.”

  He’d seen me go through a lot, and with him being one of Christof’s victims, I couldn’t blame him for thinking that. “Not everything. Clarissa had some amazing abilities, and Riley in Luna Grove? She was great.”

  “But the coven there tried to kill you too.” Simon buried his face into my neck. “I’m always worried someone bigger and scarier is going to come get you.”

  “And you call yourself an alpha.” This from Zayne as he walked in. “What kind of alpha are you if you’re scared to lose your mate?”

  Both Simon and I tensed. We hadn’t declared each other mates, and neither had fate. We were, at the most, dating seriously, with partial live-in time. Simon snarled, and it rumbled against my back.

  I took a deep breath, trying to prepare to break them up.

  “I’m an alpha because I look after and protect my pack. I do what it takes to keep them safe. Abigail is not a wolf. I cannot force her to do something she doesn’t want. I cannot hold her to pack laws or traditions that would protect her from these monsters who want her life.”

  I hadn’t even been aware that it was something he struggled with.

  “Then maybe you should find yourself a wolf if you’re so scared of losing the Princess.”

  The growl grew deeper in tone and I put my hand on Simon’s trying to get him to settle down. “I don’t want a wolf. I want Abby.”

  Ohhh, there was something oh so sexy with the way he said it.

  Zayne opened his mouth to say something else, but I shook my head. “Don’t push him, Zayne.”

  He gave me a fake salute. “Yes, Princess.”

  “And please stop calling me that. I hate it.”

  “You need to get used to it.” He went back into the kitchen and I assumed to the front door to keep watch.

  Simon sighed. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It was nice to hear you say it out loud.” I chuckled.

  Merick snorted. “Food’s on the counter, let’s eat.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The next day I stood in front of my office door, staring at it, wondering if this was really what I wanted. Was I ready to go back to work? Paperwork or not, desk work or not, what case was going to land in front of me?

  I closed my eyes and sighed.

  “Special Agent Collins?” O’Donald’s voice made me jump.

  I spun around to face him. “Yes, sir?”

  “I’d like to speak to you.” He jerked his head toward the office. “In there.”

  I swiped my card and opened the door. “By all means.” He’d never stepped foot in my office before.

  He eyed my desk and then me before letting out a deep sigh. “Abby, I need you to remove the flamingo.”

  I raised a brow. “The flamingo?”

  He nodded. “I’m terrified of it.”

  “It’s plastic. He won’t jump out and bite you.” Did he think the spell was on the flamingo?

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Some people are scared of spiders, some people are scared of flamingos. Can you please like, I don’t know, move it to a corner?”

  I tried to hide my laughter. “I will move it, and I will make it face the wall if that will help.”

  He nodded, face straight and serious. “Yes.”

  I walked in and moved the plastic flamingo to the corner of the office and made it face out the window overlooking the parking lot and mountains.

  O’Donald stepped into the office without an issue.

  I refused to say anything about it as I sat down at my desk. “Okay, what’s up?”

  He sat down in the chair across from me. I swore his eyes flickered to the flamingo a few times. “I wanted to talk to you about Agent Ross and her case.”

  “You mean the murder she had me taken into custody for?” I asked, trying to keep my voice light.

  He nodded. “She recently worked a very rough and dark case, and it’s clouding her judgment. Acting as the commissioner from her state, jumping on a whim, not following good evidence. She’s currently on administration leave.”

  “Good, I’m glad to hear that something's being done about it. That doesn’t explain how she got my case files unsealed and how she knew so much about me.”

  “Well, the name Abigail Collins showed up in her case.”

  “It’s a common name.”

  “It is, and she should have known that. But she ran it through the system and through an internet search. Have you ever searched for yourself?”

  I shook my head. “I try not to. I’ve made a lot of headlines.”

  “Yes, including the underground. So Ross jumped on the train and automatically assumed that you had lost it and started killing people.”

  I cringed. “She obviously didn’t dig any further.”

  “Precisely. We think the name came up as an alias for someone else. A name given in a moment of panic or even planned. I don’t think they intended to get you involved.”

  I nodded slightly. “Thanks for the update.”

  “They have handed the case off to your department.”

  I blinked. “Say what now?”

  “Agent Ross traced the murders from her home state, Arizona, to here. Because she’s off the case, we’re picking it up.”

  “Elemental abilities don’t fall under black magic.”

  “We aren’t sure they are elemental abilities, though. I’ll send the case files up to you. I want you to look through them and see what you can find out about this whole case and the victims.”

  I sighed. “Okay, a research day it is.”

  “And please, Abby, try to keep this on the down low? If it involves elementals, I don’t want people throwing known elementals into containment.”

  Yeah, me either. “Will do, thanks.”

  He got up and gave the flamingo one more look, shivered, and then walked out of the office. I shook my head and grabbed my phone to text Liz.

  ‘Bring coffee, it’s going to be a long day.’

  ‘No doubt.’ Was what I got back in an instant. That made me wonder if she already had a long morning.

  It wasn’t long before records showed up and dumped a bank box worth of files at my door. I had expected emailed files, not good old paper and pictures. I knew records was working on digitizing everything, but this was a recent case.

  I pulled the box into the office and Liz came down the hall holding two cups of coffee. She walked in and set them on my desk.

  “What is that?”

  “My work for the day. Apparently, it’s the records on the case that brought me in.” I shrugged. “O’Donald said it’s our department’s now.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Did Agent Ross not trust electronic files?”

  “That’s what it looks like.” I went to my desk and grabbed coffee. “So, if you’re not to leave my side, how are we going to work?”

  She sipped her
coffee. “Levi placed people around PIB, remember?”

  Oh yeah, I had forgotten that little detail. “Good, because one of us is going to have to work the field, and since Nick can’t be on the field and neither can I, that leaves you and any other spare agents.”

  “Yeah, but I’m hoping we can get you on the field if that’s where this leads.” She motioned to the box.

  I looked at it. “I hate paper records. I’m always worried I’m going to destroy them.”

  “Or someone is going to steal them.”

  We laughed for a moment because it happened before. I shook my head. “What are you working on?”

  “Helping you sort through this mess, and then I guess there’s some type of press conference I’m supposed to go to.”

  “Huh, I didn’t get the memo. Must mean I don’t have to be involved.” Which was good. I hated press conferences.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know, O’Donald just told me about it on my way up.”

  “I’m sure he would have mentioned it to me if I needed to know.” I pulled out some files. “These are a mess.”

  Nothing was organized, clipped together, or labeled. It was like someone had thrown papers and everything in a box and called it a file.

  “This is going to be fun.” Liz sighed and pulled out a stack of photos. “What the hell?”

  I started laying out documents. “I guess we work on the puzzle of finding out which piece belongs where. Fuck, it could take us a week to sort all this out.”

  “And by then, whatever trail Agent Ross was following could go cold.”

  “Maybe she wants that?”

  “What? Let it go cold, so no one knows she fucked it up and wasted time?” Liz paused for a moment. “I guess that’s an option. But why?”

  I shrugged. “I honestly don’t know, but this doesn’t look like someone took the care to hand over proper evidence.”

  Liz pulled out a paper that had a coffee cup stain on it. “Maybe she just wasn’t clean and organized.”

  I snorted. “That’s a possibility too. Come on, let’s move to the floor to sort out this crap.” I grabbed the few items I had out, and Liz grabbed the box and then her items. This wasn’t the first time we’d spread out on my floor. We could have used a conference room, but my office was protected. The conference room was not.