Rockwell Agency: Boxset

by Dee Bridgnorth

  She had ruined the whole thing. She had rushed into it, gotten cocky, gotten sloppy, and she had ruined everything. She had lost Quentin’s trust, and she deserved to. God, it was so clear now. She should have done it all so differently. When she’d found out that the video she’d seen where the dragon wing was clearly visible through the clouds for the briefest of moments, she had gone almost crazy with excitement. She had researched the origin of the video and found that it was filmed in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Then she had read everything she could on Baton Rouge, which at first seemed to be nothing but speculation and rumors that led her to no particular place.

  But then she had found it. She had found a small paragraph in an obscure book about the legendary Rockwell family and the myth that they had been the supernatural protectors of Baton Rouge for generations. That had led her to research the family, and that had led her to the Rockwell Agency, and when she had read about it and cross-referenced it with what she knew about dragon shifters in general, it had been so obvious that finally—finally—she had found an enclave of shifters.

  She had been desperate to get close to them. To see them, talk with them, interact with them. It had made so much sense in her mind, at the time, that to do that she had to be a client. She had to have a mystery for them to solve in order to see them in action.

  But looking back now, all she could see was that she had gotten so caught up in her imagination that she had ended up shooting herself in the foot. Why had she not just come down to the area and arranged to bump into one of them, start up a friendship, and then become part of their lives that way? Why had she thought that she could outthink an investigator and create some sort of fake case for him to fake solve while she followed him around with a notebook and a recorder to whisper all of her observations in?

  Now none of them would ever want anything to do with her or trust her ever again, and she couldn’t even blame them. She had made a total fool of herself, and there was no explanation she could give—other than saying she was obsessed with dragon shifters, and she’d wanted to study them.

  “Oh sure,” Lydia said out loud, waving her spoon about. “That would go really well, Lydia. In case you haven’t already made enough of a fool out of yourself, you could always go tell them that you’re a dragon shifter researcher and hunter. Good idea, Lydia. Yep. One of your best.”

  A loud knock at the door startled her, almost making her drop her spoon as she went in to scrape the bottom of the pint of ice cream. She jerked her head around, looking towards the front of the apartment, but she didn’t get up. There was no one she was expecting, and if it was the neighbor or the building manager following up on the events of the day, she wasn’t interested.

  If she thought that there was any possibility that it would be Quentin, she would have headed to the door as fast as she could, but she could still see his face and hear his voice when he had told her to leave. He never, ever wanted to see her again.

  There was a second knock.

  Lydia’s eyes narrowed, and she put down her empty pint of ice cream, turning on her chair and studying the door, hoping to be able to just see straight through it. She still made no move to answer.

  “Lydia?” a voice called. “Lyd—I know you’re in there.”

  Her heart shot into her throat, and she jumped up from her chair, the empty ice-cream pint tumbling to the floor along with the spoon as she hurried to her feet. She ran to the door as fast as she could and threw it open, seeing Jack standing there with a suitcase. Throwing her arms around his neck, she hugged him fiercely, jumping up and down at the same time.

  “You’re here! How are you here? Why are you here? I’m so glad you’re here!”

  Chuckling, Jack hugged her back, then nudged her inside, dragging his small carry-on with him. “You don’t look so good.”

  “Well you wouldn’t either if you had just blown up your biggest chance at fulfilling your life’s work,” Lydia said, closing the door behind him and then hugging him again. “Why are you here?”

  “Whitney’s mom called with a spontaneous invitation for Whitney and the kids to visit Nanny and Papa for a few days, so she packed them up and headed out this morning,” Jack said, squeezing her and then stepping back to look around the apartment. “When you called earlier, I didn’t want to spoil the surprise, but I had already bought my ticket down here. Whitney said I should come down and do this with you since she wasn’t even going to be around anyway.”

  Lydia covered her mouth with her hands. “Oh my God, I love your wife. So, when I called you earlier to tell you what had happened …”

  “Yeah, I was in the airport,” Jack said, setting his case aside and walking over to inspect the living room. “I had to take the phone into the frequent flyer lounge, so you wouldn’t hear all the announcements. But you were too busy crying anyway, so I don’t think you would have noticed.”

  Lydia thought that was probably fair. She had called Jack immediately after leaving Quentin’s office, and she had still been entirely beside herself. She hadn’t even thought to ask what the sounds in the background were—she’d just assumed he was at work.

  “And now you came all this way,” Lydia said, clasping her hands together. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re here. I’m sorry I ruined it all before you got here. It’s so ruined, Jack. I mean, I really, really screwed up. I even met four of them, so they all know who I am, and what I did to Quentin. There’s only one I didn’t meet, and her name is Jordan. She’s the toughest one, from what I hear. There’s no way she’s going to listen to me, even if I did get up the courage to try to talk to her. It’s over, Jack.”

  “Nothing is ever over,” Jack said, sitting down on the couch and bouncing lightly to test the cushion. “It’s a nice enough place you managed to set up here.”

  Lydia grimaced. “It was obviously not what I said it was. I can see it now—just how obvious it was.”

  Getting up, Jack walked over to her and took her shoulders in his hands, looking down at her firmly. He was about ten years older than her, and he often played the role of an older brother, as he was preparing to do now. “That’s enough,” Jack said, firmly. “We’re going to open a bottle of wine, which I hope you had the good sense to have on hand, and we’re going to find a way to laugh about what happened today, and then we’re going to regroup and come up with a different plan.”

  Lydia pulled away from him and went to the kitchen, retrieving the bottle of rosé that she had been chilling. “There’s wine.” She held up the bottle. “But there’s not a lot of hope. How do you recover from something like this, Jack?”

  “Well, let’s think of something radical,” he said. “Go get the corkscrew and bring two glasses in here. I’m going to start working on a plan, and it’s going to blow your mind.”

  “It is?”

  “Yep,” Jack said, going back to his carry-on and pulling a laptop out of the front compartment. “It’s called …coming clean.”

  “You mean?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean,” Jack said, not needing her to finish her question. “If you blew it so badly that he won’t listen to any other story you tell him, then don’t tell him a story. Tell him the truth.”

  “Tell him that I came down here to study dragon shifters in person to get content for a book I want to write on dragon shifters?” Lydia would have laughed, had she been feeling in better spirits. “Come on, Jack. Be serious.”

  “I am serious,” he said. “About at least part of what you said. Go get the corkscrew.”

  She shook her head, but she walked into the kitchen and retrieved the corkscrew from its drawer. Opening the bottle of wine, she poured two generous glasses and walked back into the living room with them, sitting down cross-legged on the floor by the coffee table where he had set up his laptop.

  “Your plan is crazier than mine,” she said. “I hope you know that. And mine was crazy enough.”

  “I’m not suggesting total, blind honesty,” Jack said, pulling up a Word doc
ument where they would make notes as they worked. “I’m suggesting that you come clean about having made up a story with the purpose of observing his work. Appeal to his ego. Flatter him. Tell him that you’ve researched him, and you’re interested in what he does and what his fellow agents do. Tell him that you’re just a woman with a passion for investigation and that you want to break into your career as a writer, and this was your crazy way of doing it. Tell him that you got caught up in the romance of your plan, and you made bad decisions, and you just want to come clean with him.”

  Lydia sipped at her wine, contemplating that. “But don’t tell him that I know about dragon shifters.”

  “Don’t bring that up,” Jack said. “There’s nothing that says you have to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God. Is there?”

  “I mean, I think that’s an actual phrase.”

  “Yeah, but you’re not testifying in court,” Jack said. “We’re going to take about ten steps back here, and we’re going to come up with a version of the truth that doesn’t get you fire-breathed into oblivion, and then you’re going to walk back into his office and charm the pants off him.”

  Lydia flushed, thinking about how handsome Quentin was. “His pants?”

  “That’s a phrase only,” Jack said. ‘Don’t get any ideas. The worst thing you could do is sleep with the guy on top of taking him on a wild goose chase and writing an exposé about the most private part of his life.”

  “I’m not going to identify them in the book,” Lydia said, shifting around in her seated position. “I’m not a monster.”

  “Of course, you’re not,” Jack said. “You’re a woman with a passion and a mission, and you’ve invested way too much into this to just let it go because you had a setback. Admittedly, a significant setback.”

  Lydia started to feel a little glimmer of hope that she might actually be able to salvage the project that she had spent so many years building up to and invested all of her savings in. “You really think we can do this?”

  Jack rolled his eyes at her. “I’m here, aren’t I? Now—pay attention.”

  Chapter 9

  Quentin

  Quentin sat on the couch in Hannah’s office, his back against the arm of the couch and his legs stretched out in front of him. He had his laptop balanced on his lap, and he was reading over the case report he had helped her write, since he had spent so much time helping her with the case. Over at her desk, Hannah was also tapping away at the computer, but she was writing up her initial impressions of the new case that she had taken—a case involving a house haunted by the ghost of the previous owners. It was the sort of bread and butter case that they saw frequently and knew how to handle easily enough. All Hannah had to do was figure out what the spirit wanted and give it to him if she could. If she couldn’t, they would have to do a purge.

  It would be wrapped up by the end of the week.

  Meanwhile, Quentin had yet to take a new case in the two days since he had sent Lydia Winn out of his office, and he was keeping busy helping Hannah, in order to avoid thinking about Lydia.

  It was only working part of the time. Every time there was some pause in the work, his mind drifted back to the unique beauty with her quick smile, and her random flushes, and her insane story. He couldn’t get her out of his head, and the evenings were the worst, when he went home and had nothing to distract him except his evening workouts and nighttime routine. Once it got truly dark, and he left the house to meet up with his friends and fly out in the bayou, then he could forget again. But the moment he got back to his room to go to sleep, his thoughts kept drifting back to Lydia.

  He should have asked her why she had done it. Surely that was why he couldn’t get the woman out of his mind. He just didn’t understand why—why had she made up that story? Was she just seeking attention? It didn’t seem like that was the answer. Did she have some other agenda? But what could it be? She wasn’t trying to trap him somehow. Was she trying to prove a point to someone? Had she angered her sister? Had her sister angered Lydia? Was Lydia genuinely delusional?

  If he just knew why, then maybe he could put the whole thing behind him.

  Or maybe he just had to find a way to do that anyway. Lydia had never filled out any of the information on the intake forms. He didn’t know how to find her. All he knew was what he had looked up about her online, confirming what Barrett had told him. She lived in Idaho, and she didn’t have a listed job. Her story that she was a waitress lined up with that, then. There was little other information available about her, but he had found a few pictures that were available publicly, though most of her social media pages were private.

  He shouldn’t have looked her up at all. But he had. Both nights.

  “I can hear you thinking,” Hannah said, as she continued to type. “You’re obsessing. I can feel it.”

  Quentin flicked his eyes towards her, noting her serene face and her long, brown hair that was braided over her shoulder today. “I am not.”

  “Yes, you are. I can feel your vibes from over here. You’re not going to stop obsessing over it until you just talk to me about it.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” Quentin said, not even knowing what he would say. He had already updated the agency on how the case had gone, in general, and everyone had agreed with him that there had not been a real case, and that it was better left alone. Though, now that he thought about it, Hannah hadn’t said much about it.

  “Fine,” Hannah said. “I’ll go first. Do you know David?”

  “David who? David Chapman?”

  Hannah nodded. “That’s right.”

  “Sure,” Quentin said. “Of course, I know David.” David Chapman was a dragon shifter—a member of the Rockwell Clan. He wasn’t part of the agency, but he was well-known in the dragon shifter community, and he had a good job as a lawyer. If Quentin recalled, he was well on his way to making partner.

  “Well, he asked me out.”

  Quentin put his laptop to the side. “You’re kidding.”

  “Is that so unbelievable?” Hannah asked, somewhat archly, as she turned to look at him. Hannah was the sweetest person in the world, but she had this look where she could peer down her nose at you, and you knew that you were in trouble—at least the Hannah version of trouble.

  “Of course not,” Quentin said. “Obviously you’re a catch and all of that. I just never saw you and David really hang out together. And I thought he was dating Fiona, the shifter who moved down south to New Orleans.”

  Hannah lifted a shoulder. “They stopped dating. Anyway, I don’t know what to do about it. I never really thought of David that way. But then, I’m not getting any younger either.”

  Quentin gave her a look. “You’re twenty-seven, Hannah. It’s hardly time to call in the cavalry.”

  “I’m not calling in the cavalry,” she said. “Whatever that means. But …it’s been a long time since a guy asked me out. Since I started working here, actually. I’m busy all the time. I don’t really want to be busy all the time, indefinitely, anyway. I’d like to date and be a little bit more social. A few dates don’t mean it has to be serious, right?”

  “Of course not,” Quentin said. “So, you’re going to say yes?”

  “I don’t know,” Hannah said. “Maybe. Then again, I don’t love that he’s a lawyer. That’s a very high-powered, high-stress job, and two people with high-powered, high-stress jobs seem doomed to fail. And I don’t want to curb my career in any way. Then again, he’s a shifter. Isn’t that the most important qualification? I know that there are plenty of dragon shifters who do marry outside of the clan or outside of shifters altogether, and it works for them. I’m sure Ryan and Angela will do just fine, for instance. And now Jordan and Wes. It’s not like shifters could ever sustain themselves just marrying shifters. But I would like to marry a shifter rather than a non-shifter, just to eliminate that worry of having some children who were shifters and some who were not shifters. Well, not eliminate it altog
ether, but at least reduce it. So, from that perspective, it’s more of a positive that he’s a shifter than it is a negative that he’s a lawyer.”

  Quentin didn’t even attempt to hide his smile. “I thought you weren’t planning on getting serious. Just a few dates.”

  A sheepish smile curved Hannah’s lips. “I know, I know, I know. But I’m just so bad at the whole casual thing. I always end up thinking about, you know …what if I get involved. What if I get invested? And then it’s doomed to fail, and my heart is broken. I’m very sensitive, Quentin. I can’t afford to be going around risking broken hearts here, there, and everywhere. And I’ve already had a few, silly as they were.”

  “They weren’t silly,” Quentin said, knowing that Hannah had already been through three relationships that had ended poorly for her. Hannah’s problem really was that she loved so easily and so completely. Sometimes it came back to haunt her.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I do,” Quentin said. “And all I can tell you is that I think David is a good guy. So, if you want to go out on a date with him, then go. But make sure that you coach yourself the whole time about keeping your heart protected.”

  Hannah nodded. “I know. I just …I see problems with the shifting community here, you know? Not real problems …but things that bother me. For instance, look at how many of us are only children. Barrett is an only child. I’m an only child. Jordan has a sister. You have a sister, but she’s moved away. And Ryan is an only child.”

  “And?” Quentin asked. “Why are you worried?”

  “Because we have to keep up our numbers,” Hannah said. “The Rockwell Clan …we have a responsibility here. We protect Baton Rouge. It’s our job, and it’s our privilege. But if we keep marrying outside of the clan or outside of shifters, in general, and if we keep having fewer children and if more of those children are not shifters because one parent is not a shifter …then we will keep dwindling.”