Storm Born

by Christine Pope

  “Both.”

  “Milk’s in the fridge, and there’s some sugar in that red bowl on the counter.”

  Obviously, Jake didn’t see the need to play barista for me. Or maybe he’d decided it would look weird if he tried to wait on me hand and foot. I wasn’t going to complain, only thanked him and went to the fridge, where there was a quart of milk sitting on one of the door shelves. After pouring some in my coffee, I took the mug over to the sugar bowl and put in a teaspoon, and stirred it well.

  One sip told me the man knew how to make coffee. I looked up from taking a second swallow and saw him watching me.

  “Better?” he asked.

  “Much. Thanks.”

  A nod. I got the feeling he was being deliberately casual because I’d been sending out mixed signals and he wasn’t quite sure how to react. Well, I couldn’t really blame him. I honestly didn’t know what I was doing, either, other than trying to survive from one day to the next.

  We drank coffee in companionable silence for a few moments. Then he said, “Laurel is going to come over in a little bit and take you shopping. I figured you’d have more fun doing that with her than you would with me.”

  I wasn’t entirely sure about that — I’d been hoping to spend more time with Jake — but on the other hand, it would definitely be less embarrassing to shop for more underwear without him tagging along. I made a noncommittal sound, and he went on,

  “And after you’re done with that, you can come over to Wheeler Park to see the setup.”

  “‘Wheeler Park’?” I repeated, not sure what a park had to do with his witch-finding efforts.

  He grinned. “Our ‘headquarters’ are located across the street from Wheeler Park. It’s just a few blocks from here. I walk there sometimes, if I don’t have someplace else I need to go after I’m done for the day. Anyway, I figured you’d want to meet Jeremy and see something of the operation.”

  Since I’d been wondering about Jeremy, I thought that sounded like a good plan. “Sure,” I said.

  “I don’t do much for breakfast,” Jake added. “But I’ve got some bagels in the freezer, if that works for you.”

  In general, I wasn’t a huge breakfast person, either, so bagels sounded fine by me. I nodded, and he went ahead and got out a couple, defrosted them in the microwave, and then put them in the toaster oven to get crispy. Once we were done eating, I went back upstairs to brush my teeth and replace my lip gloss, and by the time I was done, it was almost ten o’clock and someone was ringing the doorbell.

  That someone turned out to be Laurel, looking just as cheerful that morning as she had the day before when I’d first met her. Because it was a warm, sunny day, she wore cropped jeans, a sleeveless top in a fresh, bright green, and flip-flops.

  “Hey,” she said as she came into the living room, apparently unfazed to find me at Jake’s house rather than at the cottage that was supposed to be my crash space. I guessed that he must have called her to tell her to pick me up at his place, but still, I was a little surprised to see she wasn’t at all disappointed that I hadn’t taken advantage of the house they’d all worked so hard on.

  She was carrying a pretty flowered reusable shopping bag, and set it down on the coffee table with a slight thunk.

  “I have all the stuff,” she said, although I had the feeling those words were directed more at Jake, who stood over by the fireplace, than at me.

  “Any problems?” he asked.

  “Nope. You know how good Jasper is at all this stuff.”

  I wondered who “Jasper” was. Another of an apparently inexhaustible supply of Wilcoxes, I supposed.

  Laurel reached into the bag and pulled out a brand-new iPhone still in its box, and handed it to me. “Merry Christmas.”

  “For me?” I said stupidly, even though of course the phone had to be mine. Still, I wasn’t used to people giving me thousand-dollar phones as casually as handing over a stick of gum.

  “Who else?” she replied with a grin. Next out of the bag was a slim red leather wallet. This time, I took it from her without question…although questions bubbled to my lips as soon as I opened it to see the I.D. inside, as well as a brand-new Social Security card tucked behind it.

  I had no idea where they’d gotten the photo, but that was definitely me on the shiny new Arizona driver’s license. Except….

  “Adara Wilcox?” I asked, seeing that name on both the license and the Social Security card.

  Jake and Laurel exchanged a glance.

  After an uncomfortable pause, Jake said, “We didn’t want to take your name away completely, but we also didn’t want to send up any red flags by having ‘Adara Grant’ pop up in Flagstaff. So, we compromised.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say. On the one hand, I understood why Jake wouldn’t want to use my real name, especially if I started opening up bank accounts and renting or buying a home. On the other hand, seeing that I was no longer officially Adara Grant made me feel adrift again, as though I didn’t really know who or what I was, just someone getting pushed and pulled by every change in the tide.

  “And the address?” I said, figuring I’d better shift the topic to something a little less fraught.

  “A mail drop,” Laurel supplied. “We can update it once you have a permanent residence, but that seemed the easiest thing for now.”

  It was on my lips to ask how this “Jasper” had managed to manufacture what looked like a completely authentic driver’s license and Social Security card, but I realized I was dealing with a clan of powerful witches, and there probably weren’t a lot of things they couldn’t do if sufficiently motivated. Instead, I forced a smile and said, “Thanks — this makes me feel a little more real.”

  Laurel’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “Keep looking — I think you’ll find even more to make you feel ‘real’…so to speak.”

  Mystified, I glanced back down at the wallet. I’d been so preoccupied with the I.D., I hadn’t even noticed that the section for storing bills was full of twenties. What the…?

  “Just a little something to get you started,” Jake said. “Now that you have your I.D., we’ll get a bank account set up so Connor can start transferring funds to you, but in the meantime, you have something to go shopping with.”

  I honestly wasn’t sure what to do about such generosity. And all right, maybe none of this had come out of Jake’s or Laurel’s bank account, had come from some kind of Wilcox clan slush fund or something, but still, I hadn’t expected to be showered with money like that. What was in that wallet looked like more than I would have made in a month.

  But my instincts were telling me it would be better to smile and accept the money, rather than protest they were being too generous. Although Connor hadn’t made any remarks to that effect, I had the uneasy feeling I was being given special consideration because I was the daughter of a former primus, rather than your run-of-the-mill long-lost Wilcox.

  “Thank you,” I said, doing my best to look pleased by their largesse instead of uncomfortable at the thought that this might only be the start of the attention I could expect as Jackson Wilcox’s child.

  “Well, enough business,” Laurel announced. She rubbed her hands together, looking delighted at the prospect of causing some serious retail havoc. “We girls have to get shopping. Do you want us to get some takeout from Taverna after we’re done? We can bring it by Trident and all have a late lunch together.”

  “Works for me,” Jake replied, even as I sent both of them an inquiring glance.

  “Trident?”

  “That’s what we call the operation,” he explained. “Trident Enterprises. If anyone asks, we’re an IT consulting business — Jeremy can field any questions along those lines that might come our way, but so far, no one’s really made any inquiries.”

  Convenient for Jake & Co., I supposed. But then, these days most people seemed inclined to stay out of each other’s business. Most of our neighbors, no matter where my mother and I had landed, were only concerned th
at we weren’t loud and didn’t leave vehicles parked all over the place, and had kept the personal questions to a minimum.

  But thinking about my mother only saddened me, and I pushed the thought away. It wasn’t that I wanted to forget her, only that I knew I needed to focus on other matters at the moment.

  “Ah, got it,” I said, praying that my tone wouldn’t give away what I’d actually been thinking. I picked up the wallet with the I.D. Laurel had provided, and the new iPhone as well — and hoped she would be able to show me how to work it, since all I’d ever had was my mother’s hand-me-down Android phones. Summoning a smile, I added, “Let’s go shopping.”

  12

  All seemed quiet enough in the modest two-story home across the street from Wheeler Park. Jake pulled into the driveway, noting that Jeremy’s silver Dodge Ram truck was already parked there. Well, no real surprise; it might have been a Sunday, but Jeremy wasn’t the type to take the day off. Actually, if it weren’t that he’d helped his younger brother move into his townhouse not too long ago, he might have wondered whether Jeremy had started living in the Trident headquarters full-time.

  Since it was just about a picture-perfect day, the sun warm but the breeze mild — one of the reasons why so many people from the Phoenix area flocked to Flagstaff in the summer to get away from the Valley’s brutal triple-digit temperatures — the windows were open, letting in abundant fresh air. Jake found Jeremy in the PC center, fingers flying on a keyboard as lines of code flowed over the screen before him. Long ago, he’d stopped trying to make any sense of the sort of magic that allowed his brother to bend that code to his will, although he still couldn’t quite prevent himself from staring at the endless stream of numbers and letters and symbols.

  “What’re you working on today?” Jake asked as he sat down on one of the spare office chairs.

  “Hacking more cameras,” his brother replied, not looking away from the screen. “It looks like Inspector Javert is doing his best to keep up with you, but I’ve thrown a monkey in his wrench.”

  Jake had the feeling he should have recognized the reference, but his memory appeared to be failing him right then. “Who?”

  Jeremy paused long enough to throw a half-contemptuous glance over his shoulder. “Javert. From Les Misèrables. You know, the police inspector who keeps chasing the bread-stealing hero for years and years.”

  Right. Jake ran a hand through his hair and frowned slightly. “Well, let’s hope our guy isn’t quite that persistent.”

  “Seems like he is, but then, it’s only been a couple of days. He did manage to follow you to Vegas, actually.”

  Shit. “Wasn’t the whole point of scrambling the satellites and the traffic cameras in Kanab to keep him from ID’ing my vehicle?”

  Jake’s tone had been faintly accusatory, but Jeremy appeared not to notice, instead giving a shrug that didn’t look terribly concerned. “Yes, but if he saw your truck, then he wouldn’t have that hard a time following you. I told you that thing was way too flashy.”

  Which it was, but Jake had test-driven the Gladiator and fallen in love, and that was the end of the story. Still, he probably should have rented a car for this particular adventure. Something boring and completely inconspicuous, like a silver Toyota Camry or a beige Hyundai Sonata. At the time, though, he’d been in a hurry, and also, he’d held the thought in the back of his mind that there was a good chance the Gladiator’s not-insignificant off-road abilities might come in handy if he needed to leave the highway to shake off any pursuit. But at this point, the damage was done.

  Rather than directly respond to his brother’s comment, Jake said, “So, what’s Agent Lenz up to now?”

  “Not much, as far as I can tell.” Jeremy finally pushed away from the computer slightly, swiveling his office chair so he could face Jake. “That is, he checked into Mandalay Bay and went back out about a half hour later. Looks to me like he’s going from hotel to hotel, making inquiries.”

  Which seemed to indicate that even if he’d made it to Vegas, he didn’t possess enough information to know where his quarry had gone next. “Any pattern to his movements?”

  “Well, Mandalay Bay is the southernmost of the big hotels along the Strip. As far as I can tell, he’s moving slowly north. He’s gone to Luxor and Excalibur so far.”

  Jake released a slow breath of relief. If Jeremy’s observations were correct — and there was no reason to think they weren’t — then it would take Agent Lenz a while to reach Treasure Island, which was near the top of the Strip. And if he made detours along the way, going to some of the smaller hotels, then his task would take even longer. With any luck, a day or so might pass before he finally got to the hotel where Jake and Adara had stayed.

  “I used cash,” he said, but Jeremy only lifted his shoulders again.

  “Which helps, of course, but if he has a picture of Addie to show the clerks, someone might remember her.”

  Yes, she was memorable. Or maybe not. Jake wasn’t going to deny he found her beautiful, with that fall of dark hair surrounding her graceful oval face, those amazing gray-green eyes with their heavy fringe of black lashes. But lots of beautiful women went to Las Vegas, most of whom dressed much flashier and were more likely to attract attention. Also, Addie had stayed behind him as he checked into the hotel, not directly approaching the clerk. There was a chance that no one had really noticed her.

  A slim hope, but better than nothing.

  “He doesn’t have a picture of me, though,” Jake said. “He doesn’t even know my last name.”

  “You think he doesn’t know that,” Jeremy said darkly. “Or have a picture of you. The dude’s a government agent, Jake. He has access to all kinds of resources.”

  “He doesn’t have you, though.”

  The sideways compliment didn’t even seem to register. Or maybe Jeremy had simply brushed it aside. He never seemed to care much about receiving praise for his work, possibly because he knew a lot of it was due to his singular magical ability, something he’d been born with rather than achieved through hard work or sheer skull sweat.

  “He might have his own version of me, though,” Jeremy remarked. “And whoever he works for, it’s severely locked down. I haven’t been able to dig up anything about him except that he works for Homeland Security and has been employed by the federal government since 2005.” His expression brightened slightly, and he added, “Oh, and he owns a house in Alexandria, Virginia. Those records are pretty easy to find.”

  Good for Agent Lenz. Jake wished the bastard was back in Alexandria, drinking a beer in his backyard on this fine Sunday rather than sniffing around Las Vegas, doing his best to find out where his prey had gone to ground.

  “What are the chances he’ll be able to track us to Flagstaff?”

  Jeremy scratched his chin. Like Jake, he hadn’t bothered to shave that day and was looking kind of scruffy. “Maybe fifty-fifty. I assume you didn’t give the hotel a real address.”

  “No,” Jake replied. “I’m not that stupid. I gave a fake name and a fake address in Southern California.”

  “A real fake address, or a fake-fake address?”

  “It’s a real address,” Jake said, a note of irritation creeping into his voice. “But not a house. It’s a grocery store in Rancho Cucamonga.”

  Jeremy looked almost amused by that reply. “How did you come up with that one?”

  “I looked it up on my phone. I knew I’d need something to throw them off the scent but obviously didn’t want to give the address of a private residence.”

  “Rancho Cucamonga, though?”

  “I liked the name.”

  That response made his brother’s mouth twitch, but he didn’t comment on the reply, only said, “Well, the fake address should put him off for a while, I suppose. But we also need to be prepared if he does make it to Flagstaff.”

  “Connor’s already one step ahead of you. He’s put the word out. If Agent Lenz shows up here, he’s going to discover he’s bitten off a whol
e lot more than he can chew.”

  The words weren’t simply bravado. Maybe the Wilcoxes were a kinder, gentler clan with Connor in charge, but they still weren’t soft by any stretch of the imagination. There was plenty of open land around town, land where a person could disappear and never be found again. Jake knew this for a fact because it was common knowledge that their ancestors had disposed of more than a few enemies in that very same way. Something to be proud of? Probably not; there had been times when he’d winced inwardly at his clan’s black reputation with the other witch families. But even though they’d cleaned up their act in recent years, that didn’t mean they didn’t know how to make sure troublemakers quietly vanished.

  Even knowing that the Wilcoxes could handle pretty much anything thrown at them didn’t allay all of Jake’s fears, however. Making an ordinary person disappear was one thing. But if Agent Lenz vanished in his pursuit of Addie Grant, well, there would probably be a lot of interested parties determined to discover what had happened to him. They might shine a spotlight on Flagstaff, which was the last thing the Wilcoxes — or any of the Arizona witch clans, for that matter — wanted to happen.

  Well, no point in borrowing trouble. Either Agent Lenz would never make the connection between Adara Grant and Flagstaff, Arizona…or he would. And if he did, the Wilcoxes would be waiting for him.

  Agent Lenz didn’t know what he disliked the most about Las Vegas — the insufferable heat, the unending traffic, the throngs of tourists that crowded every place he went, or the neon lights that flashed day and night, searing his corneas.

  Actually, it was probably a combination of all those factors, plus a couple more he hadn’t yet thought of.

  He sat in his hotel room at the Mandalay Bay, scowling at the club sandwich room service had brought up for him and wondering if he should have ordered something a little more substantial. It was now after nine o’clock at night, and he’d finally given up after visiting ten casinos and a few more of the smaller hotels in the southern part of the Strip. No one had seen Adara Grant or her companion, and the traffic cam footage that hadn’t been corrupted hadn’t shown a single black Jeep Gladiator.