Fire Born (City of Dragons Book 5)

by Val St. Crowe

  “We can protect you,” said Christy. “We make sure you’ve got a police escort—”

  “They’ve infiltrated the police!” roared the blogger.

  “They haven’t infiltrated us,” said Lachlan. “Trust me.”

  The blogger shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know about that.”

  “Well, you agreed to meet with us,” I said. “The least you can do is tell us what you know.”

  “I’m not sure if I should,” said the blogger. “Because what if you’re feeling me out to see if what I know is dangerous? I tell you what I know, and then I end up dead.”

  “No,” said Lachlan.

  “Even if it isn’t you,” said the blogger, “they might have followed me here. They might be hiding somewhere close, listening to every word we’re saying.” He looked up, as if he expected someone to be up in the rafters.

  “Talk to us,” I said. “Please. We want to help.”

  The blogger sighed. “Okay. If they’ve followed me here, I might be dead already anyway. Someone should know the truth. I only hope you aren’t working with them, or this will have all been for nothing.”

  “We aren’t working with them,” said Lachlan.

  “So you say.” The blogger rubbed his hands together. He wasn’t wearing gloves, and the tips of his fingers were bright red from the cold. “Where to start…” He blew out a cloud of air.

  “With the rogues,” I said. “What do they have to do with Eaglelinx?”

  “It’s the candy,” said the blogger.

  “The eagleclaws,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said. “How do you know?”

  “I don’t,” I said. “I’ve been putting all this together, but I’m not there yet. There are pieces missing. I can’t figure it out yet.”

  “Well, the eagleclaws cause the monsters,” he said. “They’re marketed to kids, and they’re safe for kids. But sometimes, if a mature dragon eats one, it triggers an immediate shift, no matter where the person is. It doesn’t always happen, but it does sometimes.”

  “And if the dragon isn’t in water, their human form is destroyed in the shift,” I said. “They become nothing more than the dragon, nothing but rage and fire and destruction.”

  “Yeah,” said the blogger. He nodded. “That’s right. You really are for real, aren’t you?”

  “That’s where the rogues are coming from?” said Lachlan, looking alarmed. “But that hardly makes sense. Why are they drawn to Wyatt then?”

  “Who’s Wyatt?” said the blogger.

  “What are you talking about?” said Christy.

  “Never mind that,” I said. “Okay, so the candy does it.”

  “The candy does it, and they know it,” he said. “I’ve got pages of test results trying to figure out how to negate the effect, but they can’t. And they haven’t taken it off the market, even so.”

  “Why not?” I said. “They know what it’s doing? Most of the top brass at Eaglelinx are dragons.”

  “It’s their top seller,” said the blogger. “They won’t give up the cash. And besides, something about whatever is in that formula—it does something else to non-dragons who eat it. Gives them a subtle rush. It’s something magical, and it’s their secret ingredient. It’s what makes them so popular. Maybe you’ve noticed that their chocolate bars don’t sell nearly as well? The chocolate doesn’t have it in it.”

  “For money?” I said. “They’re killing people and turning them into monsters for money?”

  “You surprised?” said the blogger.

  Lachlan grimaced. “They tell themselves that the company employs a lot of people, puts food on the table for lots of families. They tell themselves that the good that they do outweighs the bad.”

  “They’re the real monsters,” said the blogger.

  “No,” said Lachlan. “That’s the hell of it. They’re normal people, not monsters at all. But when the guilt is spread out over enough people, it practically vanishes. And all that’s needed for evil to flourish is for good people to do nothing.”

  “You going to do something?” said the blogger.

  “We will,” said Lachlan, “but first we’re going to need to find proof. If we buy ourselves some of these eagleclaws, are there tests we can do that will reveal what’s wrong with it? Something that we can show to the public so that they can see the danger themselves?”

  “I don’t think so,” said the blogger. “After all, their candy is approved by the FDA. But I do have the test results. I can give you a copy if you think that will help. And information about the cover-ups.”

  “The cover-ups?” said Christy.

  “Well, they use their influence to hide any evidence of this,” said the blogger. “They’ve got teams who go in whenever one of these monster dragons attacks. Erases everyone’s memories, gets rid of any evidence that’s left behind, that sort of thing.”

  Christy gasped. “The crank calls I get sometimes. They aren’t cranks at all.”

  “I have some photographs,” said the blogger. “Some interviews on film of people before the memory erasing and after. It’s crazy. Would you want stuff like that?”

  “Absolutely,” said Lachlan. “We’ll take anything we can get.”

  The blogger took a thumb drive out of his pocket. “Here. This has everything that I know on it.”

  “If we needed your testimony to put these guys away, could we count on you?” said Lachlan.

  All the blood drained out of the blogger’s face. “You kidding me? They’d kill me if I did something like that.”

  “If we could protect you,” said Lachlan.

  “You can’t.”

  “If we could,” Lachlan insisted.

  The blogger sighed. “Yeah, okay, I guess. But you can’t, and you never will be able to.”

  “We’ll see about that,” said Lachlan.

  * * *

  “It was my fault,” I said quietly from the passenger seat of the car. Lachlan and I were driving away from meeting the blogger.

  “What was your fault?”

  “What happened to my parents,” I said. “I think they must have eaten that candy that I put in their luggage. I think they must have turned into rogues, and that’s why they never came home.”

  “Oh, Penny, you can’t know that.” He turned to look at me quickly, then back to the road. “It’s not going to help anything to blame yourself.”

  “And when my great-grandmother gave me that book with the part about the Eagle and the Lynx? Did she know? What did she want me to figure out? I wish she was still alive, so that I could ask her.”

  “It’s not your fault,” said Lachlan. “It’s Eaglelinx’s fault. Whoever is covering up what the candy does. We’re going to figure out who that is and stop them.”

  I took a deep breath. “I just feel sick knowing that I caused it.”

  “You didn’t.” His hand came across the car. He grasped my hand and squeezed. “Don’t think that. Don’t let yourself think that.”

  I chewed on my lip.

  * * *

  We went back to the hotel to look at the flash drive. Lachlan said that maybe it wasn’t a good idea to bring it into the office yet, not if there were cops who were on the payroll of Eaglelinx there. We definitely couldn’t enter it into evidence yet, not until we’d made a few copies. We needed to play this whole thing smart, but if we did, we could blow the lid off of everything. We could possibly stop the rogues from coming once and for all.

  Lachlan and I didn’t say it to each other, but I knew that in the back of our heads, we were both hoping that meant that things would be easier for Wyatt. If there were no rogues, then none could be attracted to him. He’d be free of them. We both wanted that for our son.

  So, we took Christy with us, and we set up in the living room in my suite.

  Lachlan plugged the flash drive into his computer, and we all gathered around him. He clicked on the icon for the drive, and it opened.

  “Whoa, that’s a lot
of files,” said Lachlan. “What do we want to look at first?”

  I stared at the list of files, all in different file formats, from .pdfs to .docs to .mp4s. Then I blinked. Had one of the files disappeared from the bottom?

  “Did you see—” started Christy.

  Another one disappeared.

  “What the hell?” said Lachlan.

  Another did too, winking out of existence.

  “Take it out, take it out,” I said. “Take it out now.”

  Lachlan yanked the flash drive out of the computer.

  The computer made a beeping noise in response.

  “We’ll have to wait until nightfall,” I said. “Then we’ll get Connor to look at it.”

  Christy sighed. “Great. In the meantime, what do we do?”

  “Work on some of those cases that have piled up?” said Lachlan. “The missing-dog-type ones.”

  Christy groaned.

  I made a face.

  Lachlan kissed me on the forehead. “Why don’t you stay here and get some rest? Christy and I will work on this.”

  “I don’t need rest,” I huffed.

  “Fine,” he said. “Then work on the nursery, would you? I put together all that furniture the other night, and it’s sitting in the middle of the floor in there.”

  We had a changing table and a chest of drawers in addition to the crib now. They’d come in boxes, and Lachlan had spent most of the other evening putting them together.

  “I’m not due for a week,” I said. “And first time mothers are always late. So I don’t need to do anything right now.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Well, then you can come along and help us with the caseload.”

  I sighed. “Maybe I will stay here.”

  Lachlan laughed. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

  * * *

  “I guess I don’t get it,” said Lachlan, shoveling corn onto his fork. He and I were eating dinner together at home. The sun had set, and I’d given Connor a call. He was on his way over. “If Wyatt’s really supposed to be able to call these rogues to him to fight the evil water monsters or whatever, why are they being created by tainted candy?”

  “I know,” I said, cutting into my chicken breast. “Olsen Hunter made it sound as if it was this huge, ancient prophesied thing, like he was some dragon messiah or something. He called him something like the blood dragon. But if the rogues are being made by accident, then it doesn’t fit.”

  “Maybe it’s not by accident,” said Lachlan. “Maybe the company is doing it on purpose.”

  “Why?”

  “Maybe they’re on the side of the water monsters.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Water monsters. It’s crazy. I never heard of anything so stupid in my whole life.”

  “Yeah,” said Lachlan. “Look, it’s quite possible that Olsen Hunter was nuts. He might have made the whole thing up.”

  “I’d like to believe that,” I said. “Then the talisman would solve the problem once and for all. We wouldn’t have to feel as if we had this horrible destiny hanging over our heads.”

  “Well, maybe I can find out,” said Lachlan.

  “Find out?”

  “I haven’t wanted to tell you until I knew something, but I’ve been looking for a person who might have—”

  There was a knock on the door.

  “That’s probably Connor,” I said, starting to get up.

  Lachlan got up instead. “I got it. You stay.”

  I let him. Getting up and down seemed like an epic accomplishment sometimes these days.

  Lachlan opened the door.

  Connor came in. “Where’s the flash drive?”

  Lachlan held it up. “Right here.”

  “Okay, cool,” said Connor. “I’m going to unplug your router for a minute, okay? I think someone might have remotely connected to your PC through the Internet.”

  “Yeah, that’s fine,” said Lachlan.

  I motioned him back over. “What were you saying?”

  “Nothing,” Lachlan said.

  “No, I thought—”

  “Just thinking out loud,” he said. “Forget I said anything. Please.”

  I shrugged. If that was the way he wanted it.

  Connor settled down the couch with a laptop resting on his knees.

  I shoved another bite of chicken in my mouth, chewed, and watched him.

  Lachlan sat down beside me and ate some more corn.

  For several moments, it was quiet except for the sound of our chewing.

  “Damn it,” said Connor suddenly.

  “What?” I said, setting down my fork and knife.

  “I think I’m too late,” said Connor. “Something infected this flash drive. I can’t even open it. It’s saying it needs formatted.”

  “Can’t you format it?” said Lachlan.

  “That will erase everything on it,” said Connor. “I’m trying some back-door ways of getting the data, but nothing’s working.”

  “Damn it,” I said. “You mean it’s lost? Everything on that flash drive is lost?”

  Lachlan groaned. “I’m calling Christy. Maybe she can get back in touch with him the same way she did before.”

  “I wish we would have figured out his stupid name,” I said. “Then we could find him.”

  “I think this flash drive is toast,” said Connor. “Sorry.”

  “Man,” I said.

  “Man,” said Lachlan.

  “Thanks for trying, Connor,” I said.

  “Wish I could have helped,” he said.

  “So, you think someone hacked into our computer to get to the drive?” said Lachlan. “That means someone knew we had it. Are we in danger?”

  I chewed on my lip. “I don’t know.”

  Lachlan got up and took his phone out of his pocket. “I’m calling Christy. We have to get back in touch with that blogger as soon as possible.”

  I turned to Connor. “You hungry? There’s more chicken if you want some.”

  “Yeah?” said Connor. “It smells good.” He closed the laptop and came over to the table.

  * * *

  “Still nothing from the blogger?” I said, rolling over in bed. I had no idea what time it was. I’d crawled into bed earlier after fruitlessly waiting for the guy to get back in touch with us. I was exhausted and had fallen asleep pretty much right away.

  “Nope, nothing,” said Lachlan, who was pulling his shirt over his head. “I told Christy to go to sleep. We’ll try to find the guy tomorrow.”

  “Okay,” I said, reaching for Lachlan. “Come snuggle with me.”

  “Snuggle with your pillows, you mean,” he said.

  “Yeah, whatever,” I said.

  He shed his pants and climbed into bed wearing only his boxers. He scooted over until he was as close as he could get to me in my nest of pillows.

  I craned my neck over to kiss him.

  “Mmm,” he sighed. “This is good.”

  “Yes,” I said, happy he was close.

  He nuzzled my shoulder, nipping me playfully with his teeth.

  I tensed. “You going to bite me?” I whispered.

  “I thought you were sleepy.”

  “Only take a little bit, maybe?” I said. “Last time, we felt the baby, and I want to feel him again.”

  He kissed me again, deep and long, his tongue sweeping into my mouth. His teeth punctured my lower lip.

  There was a tiny point of pain and then nothing but warmth and togetherness. I gasped.

  Lachlan made a noise in his throat.

  From inside me, Wyatt projected bright pink waves of love at both of us.

  I shut my eyes and basked in it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Later, I was awakened by the sound of Lachlan’s phone ringing.

  He rolled away from me, and I heard the rumble of his sleep-ravaged voice. “Flint.” Then he was sitting straight up. “What? Where?” He was quiet for a moment, listening. “I’ll be right there. Ten minutes, tops.” He flung
himself out of bed and started to get dressed.

  I pushed myself up on my elbows. “What happened?”

  “Another murder,” he said. “Made to look like a suicide on the south side.”

  “But we have the guy in custody,” I said. “Silas was doing those.”

  “I know,” said Lachlan. “So, I don’t know what this is all about.”

  I sat up. “You going to the crime scene?”

  “Yeah, I gotta dash. I’ll call you as soon as I know something.”

  “I want to come,” I said, pushing aside the covers.

  “No time, Penny.” He crossed to me, kissing me quickly. “I have to go now.” And he was out the door.

  Damn it. “Lachlan!” I called after him.

  Nothing.

  Moving about as fast as a lumbering elephant, I managed to get out of bed and get into the hallway.

  He was at the front door. He waved. “Go back to bed, sweetheart.”

  “Give me five minutes,” I said.

  He kissed his fingertips, blew on them, and left.

  I glared after him. “Bastard,” I muttered. I thought about getting dressed and taking a cab, but he hadn’t bothered to tell me where the crime scene was. I crawled back into bed instead.

  * * *

  “It was really obviously not the same killer,” said Lachlan from behind his desk.

  It was midmorning, and I’d come in when I woke up. I clutched a take-out cup carrier with three coffees—one for me, one for Lachlan, and one for Christy.

  I set the coffees down and settled next to him. “How could you be sure?”

  “Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy,” said Christy. “You know how the others were all pristine and staged? How they were almost pretty? This guy was lying in a ditch.”

  “Dirty and bloody,” said Lachlan.

  “He had a gay porn stuffed in his pocket as an afterthought,” said Christy. “As if we’d really think this was the same guy.”

  “The victim didn’t even have gunshot residue on his hand,” said Lachlan. “The other shot to the head, it was perfect, and the blood spatter was consistent with the victim having been killed in the space.”

  “This was obviously done somewhere else and the victim was dumped,” said Christy.

  “So, it wasn’t Silas,” I said. “But we knew that, because he was locked up.”