Rockwell Agency: Boxset

by Dee Bridgnorth

  Quentin got up and walked around to Hannah’s side of the desk, dropping a kiss on the top of her head. “You worry too much. These things work themselves out. And just because the Rockwell Clan shifters are perhaps fewer in number now than they were one-hundred years ago does not mean that there aren’t plenty of shifters around the world. Maybe we should start a dragon shifter dating site.”

  She jabbed him with her elbow, but not hard enough to hurt. “Very funny. Now it’s your turn. I’ve bared my soul to you and told you all my worries. Tell me yours.”

  Sighing, Quentin perched on her desk and looked down at her. “You got me … Now it’s only fair, and I’m feeling all communicative. I’m still thinking about Lydia Winn.”

  “Obviously.”

  “I just need to know why she did it.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” Quentin said, dragging a hand over his hair. “I really don’t. There’s just something about her. She’s interesting. She’s intriguing. She’s …”

  “Beautiful?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “Are you interested in her?”

  “Not like that,” Quentin said, quickly—maybe too quickly. “She might be beautiful, but she did lie to me, and I don’t tolerate that. I just—I don’t know. I can’t get past it. Why did she go to all of that trouble?”

  “Why don’t you just find her and ask her?” Hannah asked, with her usual penchant for simple answers. “Barrett said that at the beginning, remember? He said the real case was figuring out why she brought you a fake case.”

  Quentin shook his head. “No. It’s better if I just stay away from her. I don’t trust her, Hannah, and with everything going on with the agency right now, I can’t afford to bring anyone around who I can’t trust.”

  Chapter 10

  Lydia

  Having Jack down in Louisiana with her had been a blast. He had an old college friend who lived down in New Orleans, and so they had gone down to visit him, both agreeing that before they implemented the next stage of their plan, they needed to give Quentin some time to cool off and give themselves some time to regroup.

  Lydia had been more than happy to drive them down in her rental car, and they had spent a day and a half down in New Orleans, eating too much food, drinking too much beer, and taking more than their fair share of ghost tours. In the thirty-six hours they were there, they managed to go on three different ghost tours, and they had loved every single one.

  When Lydia and Jack arrived back at the apartment, she felt completely hopeful again. She was going to be able to convince Quentin to work with her—she was sure of it. And if not him, then perhaps she could talk to one of his friends about working with her. She was in Louisiana, in the heart of one of the most supernatural areas in the country. She had just experienced the wonderful culture of New Orleans, basking in the supernatural vibes that pulsed through that entire city. She was certain that she had seen several, actual ghosts, and on one of their tours she’d had the opportunity to try to communicate with spirits. It had been exhilarating, and it had confirmed to her that this was the world she wanted to continue to invest her time in.

  She had to talk to Quentin, and she had to convince him that she wasn’t the insane person he had ordered to get out of his office. She just wanted to know about his world. She wouldn’t tell him that she knew about dragon shifters—not yet. But she would. Eventually.

  They got back to the apartment, and Jack and Lydia both went upstairs. Lydia dumped her bag in the bedroom while Jack went into the kitchen and started to prepare dinner. They were both hungry, but they had decided to make dinner at the apartment rather than stop on the road. Lydia was tight on money. Jack was flying home the next morning, and Lydia would drop him off at the airport with her eternal gratitude for showing up at a time when she most needed a friend, and then she would go back to the Rockwell Agency and plead her case.

  She was ready. And she was ready for a hot shower, and a clean change of clothes, and some of Jack’s delicious pasta that he had planned.

  Lydia got in the shower, singing as she stood under the hot water and scrubbed off with vanilla-scented soap. She took her time, knowing that Jack’s pasta dish was complex and there was no rush. She dried her hair, which took quite some time, given how long and thick her strawberry-blonde tresses were. She dabbed on a bit of makeup, too, just because she was feeling good, and she pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweater that was appropriate for the cool January air. It was hard to wear such things here in Louisiana where winter meant something so different from what it meant in Idaho, but even though it was only in the low fifties, she welcomed the comfort of her oversized blue sweater as she padded in bare feet out to the kitchen.

  “I’m clean, and I’m hungry,” she said, sweeping her hair over her shoulder and using her fingers to comb out the residual tangles as she walked. “Is dinner ready? I don’t smell it.”

  There was no answer, and Lydia walked into the kitchen, surprised when she didn’t see Jack standing there, chopping up the herbs and veggies that they had picked up at the store and stowed in the refrigerator before heading down on their impromptu trip to New Orleans.

  There was pasta boiling on the stove, though, and she went over to check it, surprised again when she found that the noodles were completely limp and almost falling apart. She took the pot off the stove and searched around for a strainer, pouring the water and pasta into it and watching as the water drained from the ruined pasta.

  “Jack, you left the pasta boiling!” she called, shaking the strainer and putting the pasta back into the pan, her nose wrinkling at it.

  The apartment wasn’t big, and it only had one bedroom. Jack had slept on the couch the one night that he had stayed there, and there was only one bathroom—the one she had just left. There was nowhere in the apartment for him to go without her seeing him on her way from the bathroom, through the bedroom and living room, and into the kitchen.

  Curious, she turned off the stovetop and went back through the apartment, looking around for him.

  “Jack?” she called, her brow furrowed now. “Jack—where are you?”

  Then it occurred to her. He’d probably gotten a call from Whitney and forgotten everything else. He would have taken it out in the hall for privacy. Lydia shook her head, clucking her tongue at his forgetfulness, and then went back to the kitchen, starting a new pot of water on the stove to boil fresh pasta. There was no way they were going to eat any of what he’d already made.

  He must have been on the phone for some time, because there was nothing else done in preparation for the sauce. There were some vegetables on the counter, and she took them out of their bags and began to wash them, then chopped them up the way she had seen Jack do any number of times when it was his turn to make dinner. This was his signature dish.

  She put the vegetables into the oven for some light roasting, and then she turned to the herbs, chopping those up as well before pouring some heavy cream into a little melting butter and stirring it all together. Pleasant scents began to fill the air, and the water was boiling, so she put in fresh pasta.

  He was going to be so impressed when he finally came back in and saw that she had taken care of everything.

  Lydia was singing again, bopping around the kitchen as she worked, but when she checked her phone and saw that she had been out of the shower for twenty minutes, she paused. She’d been in the shower and getting ready for probably forty minutes. It looked like Jack had only just gotten started in the kitchen, so he must have left pretty quickly after they got home. That was a long time for him to be on the phone with Whitney, even for those two lovebirds.

  She hoped everything was okay. She gave herself a mental limit, telling herself that if he didn’t show back up in ten minutes, she would just go check on him. There was no rush for him to get off the phone, but she just wanted to make sure he was okay.

  Ten minutes later, she had drained the pasta that was perfectly al dente, the sauce was
simmering nicely, and the vegetables were beginning to take on a nice color in the oven. And Jack still wasn’t back.

  Lydia turned off the burner under the sauce and turned the oven on the lowest setting. She headed out into the apartment hallway, looking up and down without seeing any sign of Jack. She followed the hallway down to the far end, opposite the elevator, and opened the door to the stairwell, but he wasn’t there either, and she couldn’t hear him.

  Starting to get worried again, she looked way up, seeing no sign of Jack on the stairs above her. “Jack?” she called, loudly. “Jack, can you hear me?”

  There was no answer, and Lydia left the stairwell, closing the door behind her. She peered out the window and scanned the parking lot below, but there was no sign of him there either. Opening the stairwell door again, she hurried down the three flights of stairs until she was on the ground floor of the apartment building. There was an office, which was long closed, and there was a community room. The TV was on in the community room, and she heard voices. Her heart surged hopefully, but when she looked in, there were only strangers, watching a show she didn’t recognize. She checked the gym, but found it empty except for one older woman walking on the treadmill. There was a closed-in pool, and there were some kids playing there under the supervision of a tired-looking woman, but there was no Jack.

  After hurrying out to the parking lot, checking her rental car, and running around the entire lot without seeing Jack, Lydia hurried back inside and, with a pounding heart, got into the elevator. She went back up to the third floor and into her apartment. Grabbing her phone, she called Jack, not caring if she was interrupting some important phone call. She needed to make sure that he was all right.

  But when the phone started to ring in one ear, it also began to ring in her other ear. Gasping, Lydia ran to the couch, grabbing Jack’s bag from beside it and rifling through the front pocket as the ringing echoed, taunting her. Her fingers closed around his phone, and she pulled it out, staring at it blankly as her own name lit up its screen.

  “Shit,” Lydia said, dropping her phone from her ear and sitting back on the floor, holding both phones. “Shit, shit, shit.” Jack was gone, and he had been for over an hour now, and his phone was here. Her car was here. His clothes were here. Everything was here.

  Everything except Jack.

  He was just missing.

  “Calm down,” Lydia ordered herself, speaking sharply. “Just calm down and figure this out. There is no way that you came down here for a fake, missing person’s case and then got an actual missing person. That’s not a thing. That doesn’t happen to people. If it was going to happen to anyone, it would happen to you, but it doesn’t happen, so get a grip, Lydia! Just get a fucking grip on yourself.”

  She was momentarily offended by the tone she had taken with herself, but she pushed that aside and picked up her phone again. “Okay. Call Whitney. Call Whitney, and be chill and just see when she last talked to Jack. Ask her …say, Whitney, did Jack mention to you that he was going to put pasta on to boil and then just leave the apartment for an hour or more? Because he didn’t mention that to me, so I just thought I would check with you. And while you’re doing that, take the vegetables out of the oven, Lydia.”

  Lydia pulled up Whitney’s number and pressed the call button, letting the phone ring on speaker, as she walked into the kitchen and pulled the vegetables out of the oven, using a towel that was hanging nearby. She dropped the hot pan on top of the stove, listening to the infinite ringing of the phone. She walked back into the living room, counting rings, and sat down again, hugging her legs to her chest.

  “Hey!” Whitney said, picking up on the seventh ring. “There you guys are. I’ve been calling Jack. He said he would call tonight, but I wanted to talk to him earlier than I thought he might call because my mom and I are going to go to a movie while my dad stays with the kids and puts them to bed.”

  “Oh good,” Lydia said, struggling to keep her voice normal. “Good, that sounds like fun. Listen, I thought you had already talked to Jack. Have you been trying to call him?”

  “Yeah, a couple of times,” Whitney said. “Is he there now?”

  Lydia shook her head. “Well. No. No, he is not, actually. He is not here, right now, with me, per se. Here. In the apartment.”

  Laughing slightly, Whitney paused. “Uh, okay, well where is he? Can he talk?”

  “I’m sure he can. I have no reason to think that he can’t talk. The thing is, Whitney, I think I’m just freaking myself out here, and everything is probably fine, but Jack is not …here so much right now. What I mean is, he might be here, but he is less here than he is not here. Rather, he is more not here than he is here.”

  “Lydia, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Lydia nodded. “That’s fair. The thing is …I don’t know where Jack went. He’s not in the apartment. I mean, he might be in the building somewhere, but I ran all over looking for him, and I didn’t see him. And his phone is here, so I can’t call him.”

  “Oh,” Whitney said, sounding unconcerned. “Well, he probably ran out for something he forgot at the store. Was he cooking his pasta tonight?”

  Lydia sat up. “Yes. He was actually. I guess he could have walked to the store …without his phone. He wouldn’t have taken my car because he’s not authorized to drive it.”

  “That’s probably where he is.”

  For a moment, Lydia felt such relief that she almost began laughing—a nervous reaction she despised. But then she frowned again. “For an hour?”

  “You know Jack has no sense of direction. He’ll have gotten himself lost if he walked and left his phone behind.”

  “That’s true,” Lydia said, nodding. She was sitting up again, having slumped back against the coffee table when she remembered how long he’d been gone. “That’s very Jack. That’s so true.”

  “You’re worried over nothing,” Whitney said. “I’m sure he’s fine. When he gets back, have him call me, and if I can answer, I will. But we’re about to head out. I’ll call you after the movie if I haven’t heard from you.”

  “Good, I mean, great,” Lydia said. “Have a nice time!”

  The two women hung up, and Lydia dropped her head into her hands, feeling slightly better but not entirely better—not entirely better at all, in fact. She wished that she had half as much chill as Whitney did. Whitney was always calm, and reasonable, and practical. She loved Jack with all her heart, and she trusted him to just be fine. She always knew everything would be fine. That’s how Whitney was.

  “Be like Whitney,” Lydia ordered herself, picking her head back up. “Go eat Jack’s pasta that you made, and be chill like Whitney. Do it right now.”

  Chapter 11

  Quentin

  Quentin got to work early, which was pretty normal for him. He had a routine that he liked to follow. He went out flying with his friends most nights, then was in bed by one o’clock. He slept for six hours, got up at 7:00, had a hearty breakfast, and was usually at work by eight o’clock. The others usually were in by about 8:30, although for Ryan it was often more like nine o’clock. Quentin was used to opening up the agency, turning all the lights on, and checking calls for Anna, who worked different schedules based upon the day.

  But as he pulled into the agency parking lot, the first thing he saw was a very familiar car with a very familiar license plate. He had only seen it once before, but he would have recognized it anywhere, and it made his hands tighten on the wheel and his pulse accelerate.

  Quentin parked and got out of the car, and by the time he was standing, Lydia was right in front of him. She looked wrecked. Her hair was messy, her eyes had deep shadows beneath them, and her skin was paler than he had ever seen it. She had her hands clasped in front of her, and her sweats swallowed her body, making her slim frame almost disappear.

  “I’m not interested,” Quentin said, pushing past Lydia, as he walked towards the agency. It was a lie, and he hated it. He was absolutely fascinate
d about why she had shown up again, looking like that, after he had spent the whole evening obsessing over her again. But he’d made a commitment to himself not to have anything to do with her, and he was going to abide by that commitment.

  “Quentin, please,” Lydia said, running after him. “Please, I’m in trouble. I need your help. I know that I lied to you, and you probably think I’m crazy, but I’m desperate—please. Please help me.”

  There was so much sincerity in her voice that he almost stopped and turned towards her, but he forced himself to keep walking, reaching into his back pocket for his keys to the agency. He didn’t reply to her, picking out the right key and inserting it into the lock. He opened the door, letting himself in but not holding the door open for her. He let it start to shut behind him as he began to turn on the lights.

  But Lydia was persistent, pushing the door open and following him inside. “My friend is missing. I swear to God. I know I sound like a complete fool right now, and I don’t care. I lied to you before. My sister isn’t missing. She’s in Oregon with her family. She never was missing. She doesn’t have a bad back. She doesn’t know I’m here doing this. She never lived in that apartment. I bought those clothes at a thrift store. I slept in the bed for two nights, so it would look lived in. I did all of it—I staged it. But I didn’t stage this, Quentin. My friend—his name is Jack—and he’s truly missing. He disappeared last night while I was in the shower. I swear to God.”

  Quentin stopped moving around the front lobby of the agency, turning to look at her. “If your friend Jack didn’t spend the night with you the way you hoped he would, that doesn’t mean he’s missing, Lydia.”

  “No, it’s not like that,” Lydia said. “He’s married. He’s happily married. His wife is one of my best friends.”