by D. N. Hoxa
Nana, Lee Collins, William McCoy, Miranda Giorgio, Andrew Clark, Roger Morris…and next to him in the picture was Jonah Davis.
And next to the picture was Jonah Davis’s file, his picture with his son who’d so tragically died at the age of fifteen.
In that picture he’d been only thirteen.
But his face hadn’t changed.
All the hair on my body stood at attention.
Someone was shouting, but I couldn’t hear a word they said. The building could have caught fire for all I cared because I looked at that kid, Jonah Davis Junior, and it all became as clear as day. All the missing pieces that made solving this puzzle impossible came to light at the same time.
I walked to the board and tore the report page from the pin. My God. How had I not noticed this before? How could I not see the similarities, the exact same features of this thirteen-year-old boy to a face I remembered so well?
“You sonoavabitch,” I said breathlessly.
It was Marcus. All this time, it had been right in front of my eyes, and I hadn’t seen it. It was Marcus, Jonah Davis’s son who most certainly hadn’t died at the age of fifteen. I knew it! I knew he was hiding something when I took him in my apartment. I wanted to laugh and also to cry for taking this long to figure it out.
I turned around to see everyone practically screaming at the top of their lungs. Dumont, Stannel, even Logan.
“Stop it,” I said, unable to even breathe properly. I just couldn’t believe it. Everything made sense now, and I couldn’t believe it.
“Hey! Stop it!” I shouted with all my strength, and finally, the men stopped bickering. They all looked at me, and I showed them the report page in my hand, a huge smile on my face I couldn’t control.
“It’s him. It’s Jonah Davis Junior, the guy who found me in Nashville to tell me that Nana had been kidnapped.” My voice shook, but I think they heard me well enough.
“What?” said Dumont, shaking his head like he didn’t understand.
“He’s Jonah’s son, Dumont. He didn’t die when he was a teenager. I don’t know how he pulled that off, but I recognize him in this picture. It’s him.”
Logan grabbed the paper from my hand and looked at the picture. “Are you sure?”
“Think about it. His father was obsessed with Egyptian runes, so he had a good source to learn these spells. His father died because of those runes, and his friends, the other students from the Enclave refused to help him. That’s why he’s kidnapped all of them. He wants revenge for his father’s death!”
It made complete sense to me. In my gut I knew it to be true.
Before anyone could say anything, Naomi ran into the room. “Found it!” she shouted, showing us a bunch of documents. “I think I found a location. I just need a little more time to narrow it down.”
“Are you sure?” asked Stannel, still as furious. And as red in the face.
“Yes, positive,” Naomi said, walking deeper in the room. “I just need to go over some data with the detective. Half an hour, tops.”
Stannel looked at Dumont, at Logan, and at me. His hatred was perfectly clear, no matter how unreasonable it might have been.
“Half an hour—not a second more,” he spit and turned around to leave. His officers followed, and Dumont all too eagerly slammed the door behind them. I wasn’t handcuffed, and I wasn’t being dragged away into a jail cell, as unbelievable as that sounded. I finally knew who we were up against and even where he was.
All my stars had finally aligned.
***
All my stars had not finally aligned.
“What do you mean, you lied?” Dumont asked Naomi. I didn’t get it either.
“I couldn’t just let them take Ruby away. I had to do something,” she said, tapping her foot on the floor.
“So you don’t have a location?” Logan asked.
“I do, but not for that guy, so I technically didn’t lie because I never specified what location. I do have a semi-pattern and four different possible locations for the magic blasts, though.” She wrinkled her nose. “Maybe five.”
“Wait. Now that we know who it is, can’t we just track him? Can’t we track Marcus?” I finally had a face to put in front of all this madness. I should have seen it in the beginning. He was the only one who had motive to kill all the students of the Enclave. He was the only one who would know enough about Egyptian runes to actually use them without dying. And I bet Nana hadn’t told him to tell me to find my father. He’d done it himself because…
“The bones,” I whispered, suddenly terrified. “The bones of Thomas Murphy. And the dogs…oh, my God!” I’d been played like a little fool. “He sent me to find my father because he couldn’t find him himself. He couldn’t find his remains, and so he had those dogs follow me. And I led them straight to his tomb. Straight to it!” And, yes, I realized what I said about Thomas Murphy being my father, but now was not the time to dwell on it.
Dumont was already on his phone.
“We should be able to track him, right? You can probably find all his information if you had a little time,” I said to Naomi.
“We can only track magic, and that guy isn’t using Futhark for his magic. You can only track Egyptian magic with Egyptian runes,” she said. My heart sank.
“They’re gone,” Dumont said, putting his phone away. “Murphy’s tomb was robbed at dawn. The officers were both found unconscious at the graveyard.”
I knew it! “Oh, no. Are they okay?”
“They’re alive,” Dumont confirmed. “You’re right, this could be it. He has the means and the motive, assuming he really is still alive.”
“And he can be tracked with Egyptian runes,” Logan said.
“You think we can find someone who knows Egyptian runes like this guy?” Dumont realized what he’d asked the second he finished speaking. “No,” he added.
But I wasn’t going to accept that. “It’s the only way, Dumont. Ford might be the only one who can understand Egyptian runes well enough to track them. Do you understand?”
“I was given an explicit order not to go to Ford. To go after him now would be committing a crime,” Dumont insisted. Now of all times I’d have loved to smack him in the head real hard.
“But a much bigger crime is already being committed!” How could he not see that?
“I still can’t do it,” said Dumont. “I can’t.” He looked at me like he had lost his damned mind.
“But—”
“Ruby,” Logan cut me off. “Dumont can’t do it.”
“What?”
Logan grinned. “But I bet if we were to escape from this office, he would have no choice but to follow us.”
Wha…ooh.
“I haven’t even told you where Ford is, and you absolutely never had access to the messages on my phone until now,” Dumont said in a rush. “But if I were to be unconscious, I couldn’t stop you from looking.”
“Okay, that’s enough. I’m going to go now, pretend I need some help on the other side of the building,” Naomi said, slipping through the door. “You’re doing great, guys. Keep at it.” And she disappeared out the door.
“A fist to the face would knock you out cold for a few minutes,” Logan said to Dumont, and he nodded.
“And if I were to get caught by surprise, I wouldn’t be able to defend myself.”
The next second, Logan fisted Dumont right in the jaw. It happened so fast, I barely caught it. Logan wasn’t one to waste unnecessary time. My kinda man.
Dumont spun around halfway, and his blood dripped on the floor. This was so exciting!
“You hit like a girl,” Dumont said, wiping the blood from his lips.
“Thanks,” Logan said. “We’ll be waiting.” And he hit Dumont again.
This time, the detective fell on the floor like a sack of potatoes, and he didn’t move again.
“Oh, God,” I said, unable to decide what to feel. I was terrified of what we’d done—as well as what we were about to do—but also very excited
about all of it. Logan was already on his knees in front of Dumont, fishing for his phone. He found the messages app and scrolled through them quickly.
“Got it,” he said and got up, throwing Dumont’s phone on the desk. “He’s in a hotel. Let’s go.”
I didn’t need to be told twice. I followed him to the door and outside, not thinking if I would get caught before we even made it outside. Naomi wasn’t going to let me down. She’d lied to her boss to keep me out of jail. I’d trust that woman with my life.
Sure enough, nobody stopped us because there were no officers in the hallway or outside the building. I don’t know where they’d gone, but I didn’t care. I breathed the morning air, walking fast next to Logan until we were outside the gates, and then we took off running. Nothing was going to stop us now, and if Christopher Ford thought he had a chance, he was going to be proven wrong, very soon.
23
The hotel where Christopher Ford was staying was the fanciest in the city, monitored by cameras twenty-four seven, and there would probably be security guards in there, too, not to mention Ford’s own guards. The message on Dumont’s phone hadn’t given us details, just the name of the hotel, so we needed to figure it out on our own. It didn’t help that we had no time to keep watch and wait for Ford to be on the move.
I removed my eye patch because it attracted too much attention, untied my hair and put it in front of my face, and holding Logan by the hand, we went inside the hotel through the front doors. The plan was to pretend to be a married couple looking to explore Richmond. Logan didn’t think it would work because of how we looked—definitely not rich enough to be able to afford that kind of a place, but I was sure we’d be fine.
Two receptionists stood on the other side of the shiny counter full of lights and flowers that made me sneeze five times in a row. Fucking allergies.
“Good morning!” the receptionist in front of us said. She looked so fully rested, so energetic, and it was barely eight in the morning. “Welcome to the Royale. How can I help you?”
“We’d like a room for today.” Logan pulled out his wallet to give her his ID. “We’ll be paying cash,” he added before she could ask.
Having money on hand definitely had its perks. I was thankful he was willing to spend so much—for the hacker, for the hotel—even though I knew what he was doing it for.
“Certainly, Mr. Haines. Let me see what we have available,” said the receptionist. The gold-colored name tag said her name was Emily. She typed something on her computer, and I casually turned to the entrance to see who was coming in. So far the lobby was quiet, just a few people sitting on the comfortable-looking furniture, their focus on their phones. The security guard next to the rotating door didn’t pay us too much attention. Maybe we looked better than Logan thought.
“We’d like a less crowded floor if possible. Trying to catch up on some sleep,” Logan said.
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” Emily said. “We’re almost completely booked.”
That wasn’t going to work in our favor in case we had trouble.
“That’s okay,” Logan said without missing a beat. “Our good friend is staying here, Christopher Ford. We’re meeting him here for dinner tonight, and anywhere close to his room is fine.”
Oh, nice one.
The receptionist squinted her eyes as she searched the guest list on her computer, completely clueless.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Haines. Mr. Ford has booked an entire floor for himself, and we are not to allow any new guests on it,” Emily said.
The fucker. How the hell could he book an entire hotel floor?
Again, Logan didn’t hesitate. “Do you have any rooms available a floor above? That way we can just meet him in the elevator on the way down.”
“It looks like we do!” said Emily, pretty excited. My heart all but melted. I could kiss Logan right now.
“Great. And let me know his room number so we can give him a call when we get to our room if you don’t mind,” Logan said with a smile and slid a twenty dollar bill toward her.
Look at my tummy, getting all worked up about Logan smiling at other women. I didn’t like Emily very much. In fact, she was really shitty at her job, handing out information she wasn’t supposed to like that. And she wasn’t even that pretty.
But Emily’s looks didn’t matter when we made it to the elevator. She’d asked us about luggage, but Logan said we hadn’t traveled from far, and I just smiled like a good little girl and followed his lead. The bellboy came with us, as if we couldn’t find a room with a fucking number on it but, oh, well. Dumont would already be on his way, so that meant we still had a little more time. When we reached the sixth floor, I thought Logan might knock the bellboy out, but he just gave him some money and said, “Thanks, we’ll take it from here.”
The boy was too eager to comply and didn’t even come out of the elevator.
I put my eye patch on. Not that my eye had bothered me—I didn’t see anything at all with it, just complete darkness—but I was used to the leather rubbing against my skin, as annoying as it was. I felt better with it on, a bit more protected, even if it was just from people’s stares. Plus Hailey’s drawing was on it, and I was calling it my good luck charm now.
“His room is on the other side of the hallway from the one we booked. All that money gone to waste,” Logan said as we checked the numbers on the door. He was right. We needed the room directly above Ford’s for the plan to work. So we headed for the hallway on the left. There were no people there, and even if there were cameras in the ceiling, they weren’t going to get to us in time.
“So how are we going to do this, just smash the floor and jump through the hole?” I asked. We found room 631, which would be directly above Ford’s room, and stopped in front of it. There was no sign on the knob.
“I was thinking about burning through the floor, actually. Do you think someone’s in here?” Logan said and I leaned my head closer to the door, but I couldn’t hear anything.
“Maybe you should just call your friend Emily and ask her.”
Whoa. That came out of nowhere. It caught me by surprise, too.
“I mean, I can’t hear anything,” I mumbled.
Logan grinned. “Are you upset about the receptionist, Eye Patch?”
“What? No! Why would I be upset about the receptionist? I’m not upset.” Obviously.
“It’s cute, but you have nothing to worry about,” Logan said and pressed his ear to the door.
The asshole. “I’m not worrying about it.” At all.
“Sure you’re not,” he said. “I’m going to knock the door down, and then burn a hole through the floor right away, in case people are on their way. Dumont will know where to look for us.”
That’s why he’d given the receptionist his real name. “Just do it quick.”
I stepped away from the door and watched him as he kicked it right next to the knob with all his strength. The sound was deafening, but at this point we were not worrying about that.
Or receptionists.
It took two kicks for the door to finally give in. It didn’t fall, but the wood broke and the door opened. By then, two other doors in the hallway had opened, and people had come out to see what was going on.
“Lost the key!” I said as we slipped inside the room, which was thankfully empty. “You should have just melted the damn knob.” It would have been much less noisy.
“I was saving strength,” Logan said, then fell on his knees right in front of the door. The room was nice, the wooden floor shiny like it had just been polished. It was a suite, it seemed, with a nice lounge area with a TV and a wooden door to the left that probably led to the bedroom.
Small flames suddenly came to life in the middle of Logan’s palms, and he pressed them against the floor. I stepped away because I didn’t know how big of a hole he was going to burn. It was incredible to watch how the wood burned, releasing a nasty smell while the coating melted and gave way. I had no idea how much t
ime this was going to take, but Logan’s hands were covered in fire up to his wrists, and though he’d pulled the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows, the fire was burning them. His sweat dripped onto his hands and turned to smoke instantly with a hiss.
It took a lot less time than I expected. In less than two minutes, something fell below us, and Logan pulled his hands away, the fire in them burning out. The hole was big enough to fit him through without trouble. I slipped two of my chakris in my hands and walked close to it.
“Let’s do this.”
I didn’t need to see where I was going to land because I already knew there would be a floor to catch me. I closed my eyes and jumped in the hole, with the image of Ford’s face in my mind.
I landed on one knee to take the edge of the fall off my ankles and immediately stepped away to make room for Logan. He came down less than a second later, making much more noise than I had.
I expected guards to already be waiting for us in the room, with guns or with their magic, ready to send us to hell. I was prepared to fight until all of them were down, but there were no guards there.
The room was empty. I looked at Logan. What the hell was happening? Had Emily lied to us?
That bitch.
But just as I thought that, the door to the left opened. Christopher Ford came out, all by himself. Completely unsurprised.
That’s when it occurred to me that Dumont, or even Stannel, had called him and told him that we were on the way. Shit. There went our element of surprise. Maybe we hadn’t thought this through as well as we should have.
“Took you long enough,” Ford said, a sneaky smile on his handsome face. He wasn’t wearing a fancy suit this time, but a short-sleeved shirt and navy pants that looked comfortable enough to fight in. Was that what he was going to do, fight us? Did he even fight?
I didn’t know, but he could do magic. He was a high priest, and we all know how powerful those are. Definitely no match for me, magic-wise, or for Logan.
“You already know why we’re here,” I said, trying to calm my racing heart. This wasn’t supposed to go like this. We were supposed to catch him by surprise, trap him somehow with my chakris and Logan’s fire, and make him tell us how to track Marcus with Egyptian runes.
