Chapter Sixteen
Evan parked across the street. She checked in both directions before trotting to the pay phone. The coffee shop was in her peripheral vision, and for a second, she thought of making a quick detour to see if Jai was working.
Get your head in the game, Evan.
She dialed the number and waited for what seemed like forever.
“Identify.”
A different woman answered. This didn’t strike Evan as strange since normally she called much later in the day. Although this whole system of calling in was starting to feel like weird clandestine cloak-and-dagger spy stuff, and Evan was getting annoyed.
“Evan Bell…” She was about to launch into her list of questions about an extraction team, but the woman cut her off.
“We were ready to send a search team out for you. Why haven’t you reported in? We haven’t had a status update from you in more than two weeks.” It sounded as if the woman was trying to sound neutral, but her words were edged with frustration.
Evan had called every day since she’d arrived. Who the hell had she been giving status updates to? Something was off, way off. Evan’s gut told her to be evasive.
“I’m sorry, I’ve been ill. I only just arrived.” Evan looked over her shoulder. She had a weird, creeping feeling of unease, and she wasn’t sure of the source.
“You should have sent word. We’d have brought you in and sent a replacement.”
“Well, I’m here now and I’ve identified the candidate. I’ll report any signs of transmutation immediately.”
“I’ll inform the Council.” The woman clicked off.
Fuck. Now what? She checked her watch. If things went as planned Lisel would ring this number in ten minutes. Until then she’d wait. Evan stepped away from the phone and leaned against the wall in an attempt to look casual. Her body was at rest while her mind raced.
When she’d left Salem for California, things had been unsettled. Jacqueline had died without passing her power to the second in line, leaving a power vacuum. The Council of Elders, made up of twelve women, was at times a fucked-up tangle of fractured discord, but Jacqueline had managed to keep the balance for decades. Without Jacqueline at the helm, Evan feared the worst. The coven would become a morass of ego and backbiting and power grabs. The second in line was Leath Dane. Leath had stepped into the leadership role with half the power Jacqueline had wielded. A weak leader was a threatened leader, and feeling threatened would only make Leath pettier and more insecure, a bad combination.
Jacqueline’s power had been lost to the ether. A wave of regret and recrimination washed over Evan again.
Ever since the sixteenth century, witches had been seen as a deadly threat to society, but mostly to the patriarchy. There’d been hundreds of years of witch hunts, hangings, and worse. Now it seemed the Council was becoming its own enemy, wounding itself from within. With Leath in the leadership role that situation would only worsen.
The transcript of the last status report she’d made ran through her head. The woman had challenged her, questioned her hesitation. She should have made the call to Lisel sooner. She’d had a weird feeling about this assignment from the very beginning. Was she the one getting set up or was Abby?
She worried that by reporting any details about Abby she’d set something in motion that she had no control over. Who the fuck had intercepted those calls? Scrolling through an index of possibilities in her head offered nothing conclusive, although the idea that Leath could be behind the confusion was gaining traction.
The phone rang and Evan picked it up before the second ring.
“Evan?”
“Yes.”
“Get out of there.” Lisel sounded spooked. “Leath left Salem. Without an escort.”
“Where are you?”
“With a candidate in Florida. But when I called yesterday to report, I could tell something was wrong. I made a call to Bridget and she filled me in.” Bridget was another member of Evan’s former security team. Bridget seemed solid, but the only person Evan trusted completely was Lisel.
“Fuck.”
“Evan, talk to me.”
“Are you on a secure line?”
“I called you from a public phone.”
“I’ve been reporting in every day, but someone has been intercepting the calls.” Evan paused. “Lisel, my candidate is the real deal. I’ve never seen signs this powerful before. There’s something different about this one.”
“You need to evacuate with your candidate. Do it now. And call me when you’re somewhere safe.”
“What are you going to do?” Evan wished Lisel was with her. She needed more backup than some nerdy mystery writer and an Irish cook.
“My contact in LA is reaching out to the West Coast Coven—”
“They’ll report this directly to the Council…that’s not going to help.”
“No, he’s back-channeling. Evan, trust me…help is on the way.” Lisel paused. “I’m just sorry I can’t get there…”
“I know.” Evan wanted to reach through the phone and touch Lisel. At least the sound of her voice reminded Evan that she wasn’t crazy. And she wasn’t alone.
Evan climbed back in her truck and did a U-turn, heading back toward the Spencer estate. She’d have to figure out a way to handle things on her own until help arrived. She knew Lisel wouldn’t let her down. And she wasn’t about to turn Abby over to that pit of vipers, not until she could figure out what was really going on and who she could actually trust. Abby would be safer among people who cared about her. Right now, from her perspective, that was a short list of two—Cora and Foster. Three if she counted herself. No one else was going to be lost on her watch. She white-knuckled the steering wheel and hit the gas.
***
After a scenic twenty-minute drive, Abby and Foster pulled into a parking lot in front of a rustic looking spot called the Trinity Café.
“Before we go in you should see the view.” Abby motioned for Foster to follow.
They wove between weathered Adirondack chairs and plank picnic tables to a cliffside overlook. A waist-high fence made of vertical slatted redwood, gray from the elements, was set back a few feet from the drop-off. The uneven, ragged board fence was more of a suggestion than a firm boundary providing safety. Foster suspected that if she leaned against it she’d topple the whole business into the sea.
The view was breathtaking. They were probably two hundred or three hundred feet above the waterway and the sea. The blue-green river flowed from the east and bumped up against a sandbar that blocked its entrance to the Pacific except for a narrow sluice.
“This is the West River.” Abby had a far-off look. Loose strands of hair swirled around her face in the breeze.
“What’s that down there?” Foster pointed toward some brown lumps on the sandy shore of the river near where it met the ocean.
“Seals.”
“Really?”
“Yes, they sun in that spot quite often. It has good access to the river, but it’s protected because it’s hard for people to get close.”
They stood quietly for a few minutes, enjoying the view, then turned back toward the café. It was warm enough so that after they ordered they chose one of the picnic tables outside. The air was light and crisp compared to the moist, dense air of the Deep South. If the wind picked up Foster would need a jacket, but for the moment she was enjoying wearing only shirtsleeves.
“You don’t really want to do this memoir thing do you?” Foster had never been very accomplished at small talk, and she’d been dying to just come right out and ask Abby if she wanted to call the whole thing off.
Abby seemed a little taken aback by the direct question, but she rallied.
“You don’t think there’s a good story here?”
“Oh, there’s definitely a story, but if you’d prefer, I could write it as fiction…I mean, if you didn’t mind.” Foster paused. “There’s a shipwreck, a lone girl the survivor, a town built on an industry now long
gone…all elements for the basis of a compelling narrative.”
“Let me think about it.” Abby sipped her water thoughtfully.
“Fair enough.” Foster had a million questions queued up but was afraid she might overwhelm Abby with her curiosity. Sometimes as a writer, it was difficult not to transition from a conversation to what might feel like an interrogation without realizing it.
Abby turned from the view and pinned Foster with another one of her intense looks.
“Just go ahead and ask me.”
As if she’d read her mind, Abby’s words sounded almost like a dare. Foster laughed.
“Okay… Can I ask how your parents died?” She’d been curious since seeing their joint headstone in the graveyard.
“A plane crash when I was sixteen.” Abby took another sip of water but didn’t take her eyes off Foster. “My father was a pilot. It was a small plane. It went down during a night flight through the Sierras.”
“And you weren’t with them.” It wasn’t really a question, but she hoped it would prompt Abby to offer more details.
“I was…well, let’s just say that I was a teenager and I didn’t want to spend every weekend with my parents. So I stayed home with Cora to work on a project for school.” Abby looked away, toward the open sea. “It’s strange, thinking back, I knew the minute it happened.” She turned to Foster. “Do you think that’s possible?”
She wondered what Abby was really asking.
“Are you asking me if I believe all the stuff that Evan has been saying? That you’re becoming a—”
A young waiter with long hair pulled into a man bun cut Foster off with food delivery. Foster smiled and waited for him to leave before continuing.
“What do you think is happening?” Foster opened the bag of chips and dumped them onto the plate with her sandwich.
“I’m not sure, but…I don’t feel like myself.” Abby looked down at her food, hands in her lap, as if lunch were some foreign concept. When she looked up at Foster, tears were pooling along her lashes. She looked away again and dabbed at them with her napkin. “I don’t know why I’m feeling so emotional. It’s like I can’t control it.”
Foster swallowed. She felt guilty about eating while Abby seemed so upset.
Instinctively, she reached across the table and covered Abby’s hand with hers.
Abby looked down at Foster’s hand. There it was again, that low-level current, a vibration, whenever they touched. It should frighten her, but instead it settled her. It soothed her. She took a deep breath and then the first bite of her sandwich.
“Better?”
She nodded. She couldn’t explain it, but Foster did make her feel better.
“You’ve never suspected you had…powers?” Foster looked at her expectantly. There was no judgment in her expression.
Abby took a deep breath and tried to relax. She wanted to be honest with Foster. It felt good to talk about things openly.
“There were things that made me wonder. After the incident with Elissa I started to notice that electrical devices sometimes acted strangely when I held them.” She pulled a bit of the crust from her sandwich and chewed thoughtfully. “Cell phones always seemed to malfunction. Which is why I rarely use mine, and if I do I can only use it for brief moments. That’s the real reason we don’t have Wi–Fi at the house. Whenever I was near the router it would stop working.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah.” Abby rested her chin in her hand. She just wasn’t hungry. Sitting across from Foster made her stomach unstable. “I knew that I was different in some way, but you don’t assume you’re anything special.”
“Abby, trust me when I say you’re special.”
Abby’s cheeks warmed and she had to look away for a few seconds.
“How is it you don’t have a girlfriend?” Abby stole a chip from Foster’s plate.
Foster had just taken a big swig of her Coke. She sputtered, and then coughed.
“Have you ever dated a writer?” Foster coughed again. “We’re terrible girlfriends. We pretend to listen, but all the while we’re thinking about the next scene we’re going to write.”
“You seem like a good listener to me.”
“We keep odd hours too. We work in binges, all-nighters, and then the rest of the time whine about writer’s block.”
“I think you’re a great writer.”
“I aspired to greatness, and I’m pretty sure I ended up somewhere just south of average.”
“I disagree.”
Foster exuded the kind of solid decency and humility that made Abby want more time with her, not less. The stories Foster wrote were filled with both angst and kindness, filled with the sort of characters readers fell in love with. Characters in search of redemption, undiscovered heroes for the modern world. Foster’s modesty only made her more adorable.
“If you’re trying to convince me not to like you then you’re too late.”
She was pleased that her flirtatious comment made Foster blush. Abby had the sudden desire to drag Foster back to the car, climb into her lap, and make out. She unfastened another button and tugged the collar of her shirt open farther. Why was she so warm? She leaned forward, no doubt giving Foster a tempting view of cleavage. She didn’t care. She wanted to fan Foster’s desire and somehow, she knew just how to do that.
Foster cleared her throat and looked down at her plate as if her half-eaten sandwich was the most interesting thing around.
“Where did you go to college?” Foster was obviously trying to redirect the conversation back to get-to-know-you topics.
“Smith, but I’m not in the mood to talk about college.”
Foster adjusted her glasses nervously and swallowed.
“Foster, I need…”
Before she could finish the request, Foster’s plate began to levitate off the table. She grabbed it with both hands and forced it back to the table’s surface. The water in Abby’s glass began to bubble and boil.
“Abby?”
Abby rocked backward, gripping the edge of the table, which now also began to rise off the ground.
“Abby…” Foster reached over and grabbed Abby’s hand. “Abby, stop.”
“I’m not doing anything—”
“Look at me.”
Foster entwined her fingers with Abby’s. Abby focused on Foster’s mouth as she said the words again look at me. Abby exhaled slowly, and the table sank back to the ground. Luckily, the legs had only risen six inches or so off the ground so hopefully no one noticed.
“Will you take me home?”
“Of course.” Foster started to get up.
“Don’t let go.” She squeezed foster’s hand.
“I won’t let go. I promise.”
Somehow, she had no doubt that Foster would do everything within her power never to break that promise.
Chapter Seventeen
Evan drove from the barn to the house. There was still no sign of Abby, Cora, or Foster. She checked the back door. It was unlocked.
“Hello?” she called, but there was no reply.
She wrestled free of her muddy boots, left them by the back entry, and started to search the house. No one was around. That seemed odd. Cora sometimes ran into town for groceries or to run errands, but Abby rarely went with her. And Foster’s rental car was still in town with a dead battery, so she should be around also. The tiny hairs at the back of Evan’s neck prickled. She was descending the stairs from the second floor when she heard a knock at the door.
There was another rapid knock at the front door before Evan reached it. She swung the heavy door open. She blinked a couple of times to clear her vision, but Jai was still standing on the doorstep, with another older dark-haired woman.
“Jai?”
“We’re here to help.”
“Help who?”
“You and Abby. This is Dena Alvarez.” Jai began introductions as if they’d been expected for afternoon tea. “Dena, this is Evan Bell.”
Evan was
simultaneously intrigued and annoyed. She didn’t remember giving Jai her last name. In fact, she’d made a point not to.
“May we come in?”
“Why not?” Evan couldn’t help the sarcasm and stepped aside to let them pass. She was sure they could tell she was annoyed, but she didn’t care. What the fuck?
“I’m sorry if this bothers you, but we’ve been tracking the movement of some dark matter, and it seems to be traveling in this direction. And then we received a message from a contact in LA that you required assistance.”
Lisel’s back channel request. That had to be the reason Jai was here.
“This place is beautiful.” Dena was looking around at her surroundings as if she wasn’t really listening to what Jai had said. “Is it true that it’s haunted?”
“Okay, just hold on a damn minute. Who are you?” Evan wanted some answers before she offered up anything.
Jai didn’t respond right away. She looked at Dena, but Dena was too distracted by the décor.
“We’re part of the western sisterhood,” Jai finally answered.
“As in—” Dena cut Evan off.
“The Bay Area Coven, not to be confused with the LA branch, which is not completely in bed with a division of So Cal vampires, but they might as well be.” Dena snorted and adjusted her glasses. “Hmph, LA…what more do I need to say.”
“I’m an understudy. Dena is third chair on our board of elders.”
Jai was an entry-level witch, why didn’t that surprise her. Dena, on the other hand, seemed more like an angry librarian than a witch. She didn’t look the part, well, except for the dated fashion from the eighties. That was usually more of a giveaway for vampires. When you lived forever it was sometimes hard to keep up with trends. Mostly, witches just kept things simple and wore black. Black was classic, always in style. Dena was the first elder witch she’d ever seen in plaid flannel and Crocs, but she was on the crunchy, granola Left Coast, so what did she expect?
“Wait a minute…what do you mean you’re tracking some dark matter? How?”
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