At my sudden change in behavior, Josh looked at me askance. “What are you doing? Why are you looking at me like that? Do you want to eat me?” he said out of the blue.
I didn’t bother to snort at his bad joke. “How do you know Peter Mercure?” I asked with no segue whatsoever.
Sure enough, just the reaction I expected occurred – Josh stiffened as if someone had poured concrete down his mouth. His back elongated, his arms became like an A-frame at his sides, and his cheeks paled.
“You do know him, don’t you?”
“… Yes,” Josh managed as he shook off his initial shock, “of course I know him. He’s one of the three kingpins of Madison City. Do I really need to give you a refresher course on who we work for?”
“Of course you don’t. I want to know why you didn’t fight for that bounty. You would’ve fought anyone else. Hell, I imagine you would’ve even fought Helena. So why didn’t you fight Peter? Where do you know him from? Is it the Army?” I said out of the blue. It was a good guess. Josh had been in the Army, and Peter had too. He still had ongoing ties with the Army with his security training courses as well.
Josh stiffened even more. Hell, it looked like a passing wind would be able to snap him in half.
My eyebrows condensed hard over my eyes. “Did you two serve together or something? Was he your superior?”
“Stop guessing. You’re really bad at guessing,” Josh spat between a small slit in his lips. “Now it’s time to get you home before you’re tracked down as a public health violation. Come on.”
“Why won’t you tell me? You always keep me in the dark, and that’s never a good thing. Do I need to remind you—”
“No, Beth, you do not need to remind me of every time something has gone wrong. I haven’t forgotten a single incident.” He brought up a hand and tapped his finger on the side of his temple. “But it doesn’t matter how much you pry, I’m not going to tell you a thing. You have your personal affairs, and I have mine. Now let’s go.”
Josh wouldn’t listen to another one of my questions. He turned me around, and together, we headed back to the car.
The questions, however, remained. So too did the footage on my phone. And that?
Would prove to be key.
Chapter 3
It was when I was in the shower, relaxing, that Josh turned the hot water on downstairs.
I shrieked as the previously pleasant temperature turned frigid.
I didn’t wait for Josh to turn off the water. He wouldn’t. You see, he’d played this game with me multiple times. I would tell him I was going to have a shower, and then he would nod, wait until I was upstairs, then run the hot water tap just to get back at me.
Was he a juvenile or something? Had he never grown up? Or was he that same six-year-old bully in adult skin?
I jumped out of the shower, slammed the taps closed, grabbed a towel, furled it around myself, and practically kicked down the bathroom door.
I stamped down the stairs, not caring that I splashed water everywhere over Josh’s house, and pounded into the kitchen.
“Do you have to run the hot water tap all the time, you asshole?” I blared as I stomped into the kitchen.
But then I stopped. Because Josh was sitting at the kitchen table. He wasn’t running the hot water tap. No – Max was running the tap. He turned over his shoulder and looked at me. “I apologize. I didn’t realize.”
I brought a hand up and flattened it over my mouth, sure to secure my towel with my other hand so I didn’t flash Max and add to this already monumentally bad situation. “Oh my God, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it was you. I thought Josh was being a dick again. I… never mind.” I turned as fast as I could and scurried out of the kitchen.
“I apologize again,” Max called from behind me.
I was redder than a beetroot.
I scurried back upstairs, made it into the bathroom, closed the door, locked it, then leaned against it.
“Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Why the hell didn’t Josh tell me Max was coming over?” Though I wanted to scream that at the bathroom, I wasn’t that stupid. Do that, and Max would probably hear, and I would add to my growing list of reasons to kill myself in front of him.
I pressed the back of my hand against my cheeks, realizing they were as red and hot as angry coals.
I walked over to the sink, splashed cold water on myself, then looked at my reflection in the mirror.
I looked like a drowned rat.
I brought my head down and sniffed at my arm. At least I didn’t smell like one anymore.
I dried and dressed quickly.
I had two options. Hide out in the bathroom until Max left, or rush down there and apologize again.
Though the embarrassed me wanted to do the former, the rest of me wanted to do the latter.
Sorry, did I say the rest of me? I meant that tether.
I wanted to see him again. More than anything, I wanted to get him alone. No, not for the reasons you suspect. The reason I wanted to get him alone was that I wanted to question him more about the fact he was so adamant I was about to get married.
In the last couple of weeks since the incident at the stadium I hadn’t suddenly met the man of my dreams and become engaged.
So Max had been wrong, right?
Could he be wrong?
Was his magic patchier than mine?
Or was this some grand prank? Was Max getting back at me because I had stolen his mantle as the only finder in Madison City?
These questions and more poured through my mind as I dressed quickly, towel dried my hair, then made it downstairs.
I hovered in the doorway before walking into the kitchen.
I glanced down at the puddle of water I’d left when I’d stomped in. Swinging my gaze to the side, I realized I’d even splashed some water up the painted wall.
Dammit.
Max was very cautious about his possessions.
Josh had obviously noticed the splatter up the wall, because he shot me a death glare. “You’ll be cleaning that later,” he mouthed at me. He wasn’t brave enough to dare insult me or snap at me in Max’s presence.
As for Max, his back was to me as he boiled the kettle.
At the sound of my quiet footfall, he turned around.
We made eye contact.
Several things happened at that eye contact. I swore time stretched out, as if eternity was beckoning. But at the same time, my stomach grumbled. One of those really irritatingly loud rumbles that can echo across a packed train.
Instantly, I slammed a hand on my stomach. “Sorry,” I muttered as I tried to hide behind my hair.
“There’s no need to apologize. However, I must apologize again for using the hot water. I didn’t realize you were in the shower. The plumbing in this place is quite antique.”
I didn’t look at him as I shuffled over to the kitchen table and sat.
Josh shot me the kind of look that told me I wasn’t invited.
I ignored him.
My stomach rumbled. I frowned.
My stomach kept rumbling. I had a crazy appetite, too. Ever since I’d come into my powers, I would come home each day and devour everything in the fridge. But therein was the problem, because Josh refused to shop much, and I still hadn’t received a proper paycheck.
I kept my hand clamped on my stomach, warning it internally that if it dared rumble once more, I would never feed it again.
Max sat down at the table, a steaming cup of tea in his hand. “You have been feeding yourself, haven’t you? Sorry, I realize that’s a personal question. But as a fellow finder, I can attest that when our abilities are manifesting, we require more calories than usual.”
“I’ve been eating,” I lied. Then my stomach revealed the truth as it rumbled once more.
I practically put my head in my hands.
“Let me fix you a snack.” Max stood up, walked over to the fridge, opened it, then turned to look at Josh. “You are providing your charge with food
, aren’t you? That is part of the employment contract when someone’s under a protection order.”
Josh stiffened. “I’m aware of the rules. The fridge’s just bare because… I was going to go shopping later. It’s hard keeping her in food. She—” Josh stopped abruptly. It was obvious that he was about to insult me, but just as obvious that he thought better of it considering Max was only about two meters away.
Max appeared to hold his tongue. He walked over and sat. Then he sipped his tea.
… And nobody said anything.
Had he come over here to inspect the kitchen? Or maybe he’d just been on his way through this suburb and had wanted a refreshment?
I sat there, as awkward as a person could be as I alternated between patting my hair dry and chewing my nail.
Josh picked at his fingers.
Max sipped his tea.
I was the one who broke first. “So, Max, is there a reason you’ve visited us?”
Josh shot me the kind of look that told me to shut up.
“I was simply continuing the conversation I couldn’t finish with Josh before.”
I blinked and reddened. “Did I interrupt you? Sorry. I thought this was a meeting or something.” I winced as I realized how stupid I sounded.
I went to stand up.
Max brought up a hand and waved it. “Please sit. Our conversation is over.”
I was nowhere near rude enough to ask why he was still here then. I went back to patting my hair dry.
“Um, so,” I muttered after another lengthy pause.
“Sorry, I was waiting for Josh to ask you something,” Max said.
I frowned at that strange comment and looked over at Josh.
Josh pushed his teeth against his lips. He looked as if he was being forced to swallow a lemon. He glanced over at me. “Show Max your phone.”
I shook my head lightly. “What? Why?”
“It appears you took… some footage I might be interested in,” Max managed.
My mouth dropped open, and slowly I pressed my lips closed. I looked over at Josh. “I thought you said that footage was useless?”
“Yeah, well just show it to Max,” he explained without explaining anything at all.
Still frowning, I shoved a hand into my pocket, pulled out my phone, unlocked it, navigated to the footage, and handed the phone over to Max.
He took it in a careful hand.
I have a thing for hands. Yeah, okay, I know it’s weird, but just go with it. I swear you can tell a guy’s personality based on his hands. Not just what he does for a living based on whether he has calluses or rough skin. But how he thinks and how he acts and what he chooses to value.
And Max? His hands gave me the impression that he could hold the most fragile of hearts and keep it beating even when it was pulled from your chest.
At that particular poetic thought, I mussed my hair on the premise of drying it as I hid behind the wet strands instead.
Max watched the footage without a word. When it was done, he handed the phone back to me. He brought two fingers up and tapped them on his lips. He looked as if he was no longer aware of Josh and me. His gaze was locked on the far wall of the kitchen, his attention very much elsewhere.
Josh appeared to watch Max. After several seconds of silence, Josh cleared his throat. “It’s not enough to go on. I told you it wasn’t enough to go on.”
“We have the time.”
“But not a place.”
I kept shifting my gaze between the two as if they were playing a game of badminton. “What are you two talking about?”
Max looked at Josh, and Josh looked at Max, and neither of them answered.
I frowned. “If you think these two really are going to commit a crime, why don’t you just follow them?”
Josh took a frustrated breath. “Because, for the thousandth time, we’re not the police.” Though his tone started off unquestionably irritated, as Max shot him a certain look, Josh softened.
I stared between the two of them again. Just what was going on here?
When nobody said anything and we descended into another one of those dreary, awful silences, it was my turn to clear my throat. “And why don’t we just go to the police? You two obviously suspect that some kind of crime is going to go down. We have reasonable evidence to suggest that Frank will be involved in it. So if the police put a tail on him, then you’ll be able to stop it, whatever it is.”
“The police won’t be equipped for this one,” Max explained.
I frowned as hard as I could. “But the police have their own warlock division.”
Max brought up his tea and sipped it. He was still looking at Josh, but finally he yanked his gaze off the bounty hunter and settled it on me. “There are certain limitations the police warlocks will face.”
“What does that mean?” Even though I’d come a long way in my relationship with Max, that underlying grain of suspicion was still there. I could never forget that Josh had told me that Max had spent his life living just on the cusp of good and bad.
Personally, I trusted the law. Now I was part of the law, I trusted it even more. I believed that vigilante justice was never the solution.
Max obviously had other beliefs.
“Beth, why don’t you head upstairs and watch TV?” Josh said out of the blue.
“Because you won’t let me go into the TV room,” I answered back sarcastically.
Max arched an eyebrow. Just after the incident at the stadium, Max had followed us home, and he’d clearly told Josh that I could use every room in the house apart from Josh’s bedroom and his sitting room.
Before Max could question if Josh had forgotten that, Josh turned on me, a fake smile pressed across his lips. “Of course you can use the TV room. Now go up there. I’ll bring you some snacks later when I go shopping.”
I looked at him, my expression unimpressed. Before I could point out that everything he’d just said was a lie, Max placed his tea down carefully. “She can stay. She should stay. You’ll need her, after all.”
My back stiffened. “What are you talking about? Are you two planning to go after Frank and Bill?” My voice went up high.
Again Josh and Max wouldn’t look at me. I swore there was so much energy crossing between their gazes that the air would soon start crackling.
“We should keep her out of this,” Josh said, his tone dropping to that careful pitch he always used when he went against one of Max’s directives.
“If you choose to keep her out of it, your likelihood of busting this ring apart and catching the culprit diminishes by 90 percent. I sense no opportunity in leaving her behind,” Max added.
As soon as he said it, I swear I felt a flicker of something charge through my heart.
I pressed my lips together and watched Josh.
Josh brought up a hand, massaged the base of his fingers into the bridge of his nose, then let the hand drop with a sigh. “This will be going off the reservation. I don’t want her involved.”
… Josh was protecting me, wasn’t he? I still didn’t really know what they were talking about, but Josh was trying to keep me out of trouble.
And Max?
He turned to me. He let his gaze tick from eye to eye. “You want to know what we’re talking about, don’t you? You know at the stadium when we learned about the drug shipment?”
I shivered. How could I forget? I still dreamed of being threatened by Carson.
Max obviously took my shiver as a yes. He softened his expression. “It’s still going down. Though we managed to put Carson Black behind bars, he wasn’t at the top of this mess. We have credible evidence to suggest that a major shipment is coming in in the next three days. And thanks to that,” he gestured to my phone, “it seems we now have a date and a time. We just need a place.” He looked at me. It was a very specific look.
It was the kind of look that told me he needed someone to locate that place. And the person he needed was me.
I clamped my hands on the
table and looked at him. “But I still don’t get it. If you know Frank’s going to be there, why don’t you just follow Frank?”
“Because this drug ring has a team of illusionists,” Josh said as he sat back in his seat, another sigh rattling through his chest. He clamped his hands on his stomach, looked up at the ceiling, then tilted his head toward me. “You know Jeremy?”
“I can’t exactly forget what happened this morning,” I said as I took another surreptitious sniff of my body.
“He’s smalltime compared to these illusionists.”
“Smalltime?” My voice went up high.
“They’re ex-army,” Max interjected. “Part of the warlock division.”
I looked between the two men. “And this drug cartel uses the illusionists to hide their agents?”
“And their drugs. You get enough illusionists, you can bring a boat stacked with D 20 right through the harbor, park it at the port, unload it like you were just unpacking fish off a trawler, drive your drugs right through town in ordinary trucks, and distribute them to your smalltime dealers – right under everyone’s noses. Heck, you could even do it in the middle of the day. You’ve got enough illusionists, and no one would be any the wiser.”
I shivered. “So… you want me to find where the drugs are?”
Max nodded.
I swallowed. “But why can’t the police be involved? I mean, I know I can’t be subcontracted out, but I can work for the government.”
Josh wouldn’t look at me. He crossed his arms and stared at the cooker.
“We have suspected there are two agents within the warlock division of Madison City Police Department for some time.”
It was a hell of a revelation. It was like finding out the president was a clone. I blinked hard, probably looking like a surprised cartoon character. “Sorry?” My voice went up like a kazoo. “I thought the warlock division was some of the most carefully checked and supervised?”
“They are, but that’s not the point,” Josh said as he crossed his arms harder. “If you find a witch with a weakness, and play on that weakness, you can get them to do anything for you.”
It was a nasty sentiment. And the way Josh said it – the way his eyes suddenly became hooded – told me he was speaking from experience.
Forgotten Destiny 2 Page 3
