Protector (Copper Mesa Eagles Book 3)

by Roxie Noir

  “You didn’t say why you’re looking for the car,” the woman said. “The mirror got knocked off fifteen years ago.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and Ellie took a deep breath.

  “A client lost some family members to a car crash, and I’m following up with anything that could be an accident,” Ellie said.

  She hoped it sounded good enough.

  The woman just looked at her. She started at Ellie’s toes and made her way up the girl’s body, like she was judging whether or not Ellie was fit for service.

  “Hellfire,” the woman muttered, and left the room.

  She was gone for a long time, and Ellie could hear her moving around in a back room.

  Should I just leave? Ellie thought.

  At last, the woman came back, carrying a monstrous video recorder.

  Her eyes were wet, and she sat on the couch again, the recorder on her lap like a terrible pet.

  What the hell is going on? Ellie thought.

  “I found this in the attic when Mitch died,” the woman said. A single tear made a track down her cheek. “I was trying to make room for some of his things up there, and I — I came across this. I didn’t think we’d ever owned one of these, so I took a look at what was on it.”

  Ellie felt her whole body go cold.

  “What’s on it?” she whispered.

  The woman placed the bulky camera on the coffee table, aimed the viewfinder at Ellie, and hit play.

  For a long time, there was nothing but static, and then video of someone driving at night, the camera pointed out the windshield. All Ellie could see was the dashboard lights in the lower part of the frame.

  Then, far away at first and getting closer: twin red dots. Tail lights.

  Ellie got on her knees in front of the coffee table, moving her face closer to the tiny screen. The tail lights dodged and weaved, like they were swerving back and forth, blinking in and out.

  Like they’re on a mountain road at night, Ellie thought.

  She had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  The tail lights kept getting closer and closer until, suddenly, the entire camera jolted, the tiny screen shaking.

  “Oh!” Ellie exclaimed, putting both hands to her mouth.

  “He just hit them?” the woman said, her voice flat.

  “I think so,” Ellie whispered.

  “Just wait,” the woman said.

  Now the tail lights got more erratic, skidding back and forth across the small road, the car with the camera following suit. It nearly made Ellie carsick herself, even though she was kneeling on the floor of a perfectly steady house.

  “What is this?” she asked the woman, trying to keep her voice from shaking.

  “I think it’s proof,” the woman said.

  Ellie just watched, glad that the video had no sound.

  The tail lights swerved. They fishtailed, they seemed to leap away. The camera shook again.

  Then the tail lights fell.

  “Oh my god,” Ellie whispered, clapping her hands back over her mouth as the two red lights tumbled downward, the headlights of the car casting crazy shadows as it fell. “Oh my god, oh my god.”

  On the tape, the car stopped. A man got out and ran to the edge of a dirt road. He stopped. He stood still for a long, long time.

  Then he came back, got in the car, and drove on.

  Ellie felt like the room was spinning, and she squeezed her eyes shut.

  “Why?” she managed to ask.

  “There were a lot of rumors that the woman in the car was... a witch, for lack of a better word,” the woman said. Her voice was still flat, but another tear ran down her face. “We lived in a trailer home. The roof leaked whenever it rained and the heat went out whenever it snowed. The kids would huddle together on one bed every night. A month after this happened, Mitch got a big bonus at work, big enough for us to finally put a payment down on this house. I know it ain’t much, but...”

  She trailed off, and shrugged.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Whatever deal Mitch made, I wish he hadn’t. Those people left three teenage boys behind.”

  I know, thought Ellie.

  “If it helps, I don’t think Mitch meant to kill them,” the woman said.

  She stood, Ellie still kneeling on the floor, and walked toward the kitchen.

  “I think he wanted proof of something,” the woman went on.

  At the kitchen door, she stopped and turned around.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and then left the room.

  “It’s not your fault,” Ellie said to the open doorway.

  She looked at the camera again.

  What do I even do with this now? she thought.

  “She wasn’t apologizing for the video,” a man’s voice said.

  Ellie’s head snapped up. Standing in the kitchen doorway was a bald man wearing an expensive three-piece suit.

  “She was apologizing for letting me in first,” he said.

  He moved his hand, and Ellie realized he was holding a gun, trained on her.

  That has to be him, she thought. Weird. I thought I’d recognize him from somewhere.

  “Let’s go for a ride,” Pierce Boudreaux said.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Garrett

  The Jeep was gone, too. Garrett looked at the place where it had been for a long moment, before he finally remembered: she’d said she was going to the library.

  He turned and power walked the three blocks to the small building, nodding at the woman at the front desk. It didn’t take him long to figure out that Ellie wasn’t in any of the library’s main parts. The last place he looked was a small, dark room at the back of the building.

  Inside was a glowing machine, and Garrett looked at what was on it.

  The Kane County Register, dated a month after his parents’ death.

  Well, she was here, he thought, and sat down.

  Five minutes later, he left the room so fast that he knocked the chair over. The woman at the front desk of the library glared as he made for the exit.

  Once he was out of the library, Garrett ran. Panic gripped him, its cold hand slowly tightening around him, so he ran faster and faster for the address that Ellie had been looking at.

  She’s fine, he told himself. She’s just talking to someone. There’s no reason for you to worry.

  Doesn’t she keep saying that she can take care of herself, after all?

  He sprinted across a street, only a block from the address, and then he saw a low, lean, expensive-looking black car ease out of a driveway and then speed down the residential street, not even braking for the stop sign.

  “ELLIE!” he shouted, running full tilt.

  The car was much, much faster, and it was out of sight before Garrett even got half a block.

  Maybe she wasn’t in the car, he thought, gasping for breath. Maybe it was just him leaving to go somewhere else —

  He reached the house the car had pulled out of and threw the front door open.

  On a couch in the living room, a woman sat alone, her hands folded in her lap, a giant video recorder on the coffee table in front of her.

  “Ellie,” Garrett gasped.

  “He took her,” the woman said. She didn’t even look up, but Garrett was gone again, running after the black car as fast as he could make himself go.

  I’ll never make it, he thought. I don’t know where they’re going, and I’m not nearly fast enough to —

  Garrett stopped short, standing in the middle of the road. A car honked, then swerved around him, but he just stood there.

  Do it again, he thought. Whatever you did this morning, do it again.

  He took a deep breath, and tried. He stretched his fingers and flexed his arms. He balled his hands into fists and shouted at the top of his lungs, roaring at the sky.

  Fuck, he thought. It’s not working.

  What if she has to be here?

  He tried again.

  Nothing.

  If I c
an’t shift, something terrible is going to happen to Ellie, he thought, the image of her face floating in front of him, smiling, her hair down.

  Garrett held his breath, thinking of her.

  He tried again.

  Suddenly the ground rushed up toward him and he felt that same bizarre sensation that he’d felt that morning. He could see every pine tree on a mountain miles away. He could smell someone cooking burgers the next county over.

  Garrett shook himself out of his clothes, hopped once, tested his wings, and then took off.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Ellie

  Pierce held his gun on her the whole time they drove through Obsidian. He was almost casual about it, keeping it low, acting like it was no big deal.

  “Your boyfriend shift yet?” Pierce asked.

  They were on the outskirts of Obsidian already, not that the tiny town had much in the way of outskirts.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, stiffly.

  “Really?” Pierce asked. “Have you not slept together yet?”

  “That is none of your business,” Ellie said.

  She stared out the windshield stiffly, her mind racing.

  “So you have,” Pierce said, and chuckled.

  I have to get out of here somehow, she thought, but he was going nearly seventy miles an hour down the highway.

  I’ll die if I jump, she thought. And he’ll shoot me if I try anything.

  No one even knows where I am.

  God, how dumb could I be?

  “Maybe you’re just not the right woman,” he mused. “You seemed like his type, though.”

  He clicked his tongue, and the sound sent a shudder of revulsion down Ellie’s spine.

  “Or you have seen him shift, and you’re just being difficult. I think I like that last option best, actually.”

  He zoomed past the driveway to the Monsons’ house, Copper Mesa glowing orange in the distance.

  “I hope he’s shifted. If not, he’s gonna have trouble following us, and I’m taking you all the way to my new hospital in Blanding for nothing,” Pierce went on.

  Ellie didn’t say anything, but she clenched her jaw at that.

  Oh no, thought Ellie. Please, Garrett, don’t follow us.

  Call the police or something, but don’t follow us.

  She already had a feeling it was a lost cause.

  Pierce slowed the car, but then made a left turn onto a dirt road still going forty miles an hour. Ellie grabbed the door handle for stability as the tires screeched.

  “Hey!” said Pierce. “Hands off the door.”

  Ellie held up her hands, then put them back in her lap.

  They drove on in silence, for minutes. Ellie was afraid to look anywhere except out the windshield for fear that she’d see Garrett, flying high overhead.

  Then she realized where they were.

  “This is Piñon Gulch road,” she said.

  She looked over at Pierce, who didn’t respond.

  “Where his parents died,” she said. “Why are we here?”

  “It’s the fastest way into Blanding,” he said, with a shrug.

  “It’s dangerous,” she said.

  “The two of you took it yesterday, didn’t you?”

  “We were going a lot slower,” she said, eyeing the speedometer.

  “This baby can handle anything,” he said with a dry laugh. “This baby takes corners a lot better than that wreck of a Jeep you two have, or the ancient Ford his parents were driving.”

  All of a sudden, they shot out of the scrub forest and into the broad sunlight. Pierce pressed the sleek car onward, gravel crunching under the tires as the road began to climb and the canyon dropped away to the left.

  I missed my chance, Ellie thought. I jump out now and what, he comes back for me?

  “Slow down,” she said, her stomach lurching as the car went around a curve. “Please. At least use both hands to drive. I swear I won’t try to escape.”

  “You don’t trust me?” Pierce asked, still sounding nonchalant.

  Fucking of course not, Ellie thought.

  “I’m going to throw my breakfast up in your car if you don’t,” she said, hoping that she looked green enough to be believable.

  “All right, all right,” Pierce said. He clicked the safety on and put the gun in a cup holder out of her reach, on his side of the car.

  “Safety first!” he said, and accelerated. “It’s not like you can get anywhere.”

  Ellie shut her eyes. She started to wonder if maybe she hadn’t been exaggerating about puking.

  “Any sign of your boyfriend?” he asked.

  “No,” Ellie said, opening her eyes a crack. “Why do you want him so bad?”

  Pierce looked at her in disbelief.

  “He can turn into an eagle,” he said.

  “I know,” Ellie answered.

  “Can you imagine what someone could do with that?” he said, his voice still astonished. “You could fly, you could get from place to place so easily. You could spy on your enemies, you could spy on your friends, you could spy on anyone. Think of the places you could break into if you could fly.”

  He pursed his lips and exhaled, looking dreamy.

  “And that’s just the birds,” he went on. “If I unlocked the key to shifting? Changing from one life form into another?”

  He shook his head.

  “Ellie,” he said softly. “Anyone who can figure out how your boyfriend and his brothers do what they do could be a god. Imagine the things I could do, the power I could wield.”

  “What do you want that you don’t have already?” she asked.

  Very, very slowly, she moved her right hand to clutch the door handle. Pierce didn’t seem to notice.

  “I want to turn into an eagle,” he said. “I thought I just made that clear.”

  Ellie took a deep breath as Pierce accelerated, neatly dodging a large rock in the middle of the road. The move sent them within inches of the edge, and she could feel the blood draining from her face.

  “So you killed his parents?” she asked.

  Pierce squealed around a turn, rear tires sliding out.

  “Whoops,” he said.

  Ellie could feel her breakfast beginning to rebel.

  Do not throw up, she thought. Absolutely do not.

  Unless you think it’ll help somehow. Then, barf everywhere.

  “That was an honest mistake,” he said. “I just wanted video evidence that she could shift. That idiot’s the one who took things too far.”

  “Wait,” Ellie said.

  They went around an inner curve, her window within inches of the rock wall, and she gasped.

  “You didn’t mean to kill them?” she said, her eyes shut again.

  “Not at all,” Pierce said. “I almost killed that idiot, but I was afraid something would come to light, so I paid him off. For a long, long time I thought I’d lost my chance. At least until Seth fell off a cliff and shifted.”

  They swung around another curve, Ellie’s heart in her throat. Even though she wasn’t watching the road half the time, she could tell they were coming up on the spot where the Monsons had gone off the road.

  From this side of the road, the curve didn’t look nearly as sharp as Ellie knew it was.

  He’s going too fast, she realized. He’ll take that curve too fast, and he’ll never slow down in time.

  She had an idea.

  The next curve, Ellie put a hand over her mouth and pretended to retch, her eyes going wide.

  “Oh God,” she moaned. “You’ve gotta slow down...”

  “It’ll be over sooner this way,” he said.

  She did it again, this time heaving her shoulders and making the worst cat-with-a-hairball sound she could manage, though truth be told, it wasn’t much of a stretch.

  “Do you have a barf bag or something?” she whispered.

  Without waiting for an answer, she opened the glove compartment.

  “Don’t
open that,” Pierce said, annoyed. He took his eyes off the road for a split second to bat it closed, hitting her hands in the process.

  “Ow!” she exclaimed, but his eyes were on the road again, so she just groaned theatrically.

  “Get out of there,” he said, his teeth clenched, his knuckles white.

  Ellie’s side of the car scraped the rock wall next to her, and she yelped, jumping away from the window.

  “You’re going to kill us both,” she said.

  “Don’t be stupid,” he said.

  Ellie scrabbled through the glove compartment again, Pierce glaring at her.

  “Stop,” he said.

  “I am not going to barf all over myself,” she said. “You’ve already got me, can I have some dignity?”

  She glanced through the windshield. The curve was coming up, and she felt every muscle in her body tense.

  At last, she found something long and skinny in the glove compartment.

  Hope it’s a pencil, she thought.

  Then, Pierce laughed and pointed one finger at the sky.

  “Here he is,” he said.

  Barreling toward the windshield at top speed was an eagle, fury written on every feather.

  Pierce didn’t slow down. Neither did Garrett.

  Pierce rounded an inner curve, then hit the short straight stretch and gunned the accelerator.

  Garrett was still coming, still in his dive.

  I don’t know what the fuck you’re doing but this is it, Ellie thought, and braced herself.

  She whipped the pencil out of the glove box and jammed it into Pierce’s thigh, screaming like a banshee.

  Pierce roared and grabbed at her wrist, but Ellie jerked it out of his grasp, undid her seatbelt, and opened her car door.

  Below, gravel and dirt zoomed by, and she heard an inhuman scream.

  “SHIT!” she heard Pierce shout.

  Ellie closed her eyes and jumped out of the car.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Garrett

  High above the Piñon Gulch road, he circled, the black car below winding in and out of the sharp curves.

  Almost, Garrett thought. Almost there.

  The car zoomed around an inside curve, then sped up, heading toward the hairpin turn. The one that had claimed Garrett’s parents.