by R. L. King
“What she’s doing isn’t fair to you,” she said gently.
“I’m a big boy, Amber. I get to make the determination about what’s fair.”
“Sure you do. But you also need to have all the facts. You’re a scientist, that’s the way you operate. I didn’t need Jason to tell me that to see it. And right now, I’m saying you don’t have them because you’re letting your mind get clouded by what you want to be true instead of what is true.”
She sipped her beer again, never taking her eyes off him. “Tell me I’m wrong, Alastair, and I’ll shut up and let you get back to whatever you were doing.”
He looked down into his glass. “I can’t ask her to be someone she isn’t.”
“How are you doing that?”
“She’s—” He spread his hands. “She’s never made any secret about the fact that she’s more attracted to women than men. I’ve been…sort of an exception for her. How can I expect her to…”
“To give up women for you? Why is that any different? Would it be different if she wanted to see other men?”
Stone thought about that, but didn’t answer.
“It would, wouldn’t it? You’d have a bigger problem with the whole thing if she wanted to see other guys. I think you’re trying so hard to be a gentleman, to be a modern enlightened guy, that you’re burying the fact that it does bother you.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I wasn’t aware you had a psychology practice in addition to your bounty hunting.”
“You’re doing it again, you know.”
“Doing what?”
“Deflecting. Using sarcasm to keep from admitting I might have a point.”
“It’s possible I am. But you’re forgetting something.”
“What?”
“She isn’t with Kyla anymore. She made her choice, and she chose me.”
“You’re right, she did. But then, barely before anything even changed, she took off again.”
“We disagreed on a philosophical matter. She went through a tragedy, and it spurred her to action on something she’s believed in for a long time. This didn’t have anything to do with—”
“With your relationship?” She shook her head. “For a genius, you can be pretty slow sometimes. And before you jump down my throat, I’m not being insulting. A lot of the smartest people I know are utterly clueless when it comes to this kind of thing. It’s kind of wired into the way we work—especially guys. But people don’t just take off on the road for an indefinite amount of time because of ‘philosophical differences.’ Hell, even she might try to convince herself that’s the only reason, but do you really think it is?”
He glared at her. “So what do you suggest I do, Amber? I won’t contact her—I promised her I wouldn’t. Should I just carry on as if we’re no longer together?”
“What’s the alternative? Sitting home like the girl who didn’t get a prom invitation, waiting for her to make up her mind?”
“Amber…”
“What?”
He didn’t answer—partly because he knew she was right. “Jason put you up to this, did he?”
“He didn’t…put me up to it, exactly. He didn’t ask me to talk to you.”
“But he didn’t ask you not to, either.”
She sighed. “He’s…kind of caught in the middle. Verity’s his sister, and you know how tight those two have always been. He doesn’t want to say anything against her. But…”
“But…?”
“Don’t tell him I said this, because…you know, you’re guys and guys don’t talk about this kind of stuff. But he cares a lot about you, too. I think he pretty much considers you a brother. So either way he goes with this, he’s going to get crap from somebody.”
“So instead, he sends his wife to pass on the message.”
“Like I said, he didn’t ask. But we’ve had more than one late-night conversation about this, and when I suggested talking to you myself, he didn’t shoot down the idea.” She chuckled. “You know as well as I do with Jason that’s basically him holding up signs.”
She was right about that, of course. “Well—all right, then. You’ve delivered the message. You can go back to Jason and tell him mission accomplished.”
“What does that mean?” She tilted her head at him, eyes narrowed.
“It means…” He let out a loud sigh. “I’ll think about what you’ve said. I will—I promise. I’m not convinced you’re completely right about what’s going on, but…I’d be lying if I told you I hadn’t been thinking a few of the same things.” He finished his Guinness and stood. “Right now, though, I’ve still got things to do tonight.”
“Yeah.” She stood too. “Take care of yourself, Alastair. And don’t be a stranger. You know you’re welcome to come by whenever you want. And not just if you’re helping out with a case.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Really? Whenever I want?”
“Well…” She waggled hers. “Maybe call first.”
Stone didn’t want to think about Amber’s words as he drove home, which of course meant they were the only thing he could think about.
Mages, for all their mental discipline and magical skill, were still human, and Stone was no exception. He brushed the thoughts off angrily, trying to convince himself that Amber didn’t know what she was talking about, that his situation with Verity wasn’t anything like she was trying to paint it.
He couldn’t do it, though. Even if he could discount Amber’s words because she didn’t know him very well, he couldn’t do the same thing with Jason’s. His friend had been there since the beginning, and was closer to Verity than anyone else on earth—even him. He might be a mundane, but he was one of the most perceptive people—magical or otherwise—Stone had ever met.
And this time, as much as Stone wanted to pretend he was wrong, it wasn’t working.
Because he wasn’t wrong.
He tightened his hands on the steering wheel and unconsciously sped up.
He didn’t have time to think about this right now.
Verity wasn’t here. He didn’t even know where she was, except that she planned to attend the Occult Symposium outside Chicago at the end of the month. She’d been on the road for more than a month now; he wondered if she’d managed to drum up any support for her attempts to convince other mages of a need for some kind of magical governing council. He doubted it, but he’d promised her he’d keep his nose out of her efforts, so he hadn’t made any attempt to check. He wondered how she’d react to discovering he was right, that mages in general only wanted to do their thing without any kind of outside oversight. Would it change how she felt about him, or would she—
His phone buzzed in his pocket.
For a second, a little jolt went through him along with an absurd thought: had Verity somehow picked up that he was thinking about her and decided to call?
He pulled the phone out and glanced at the display.
Not Verity.
Instead, the display showed Jason’s number. Perhaps Amber had already called him and reported back on their conversation, and he wanted to discuss it. Stone definitely didn’t want to talk about it any more tonight. He almost sent the call to voicemail, but at the last second hit the button to answer it. “Yes, hello, Jason.”
“Hey, Al.”
“If you want to talk about my little chat with Amber tonight—”
“No. I just wanted to let you know—I just heard from Blum. They found Ty Ellerman. He’s alive, Al.”
Stone let his breath out in relief. “That’s—brilliant. Where did they find him?”
“Dallas.”
9
Jason couldn’t discuss the details until after he’d finished his surveillance job, but Stone didn’t want to wait until the next day to get them. He met Jason at a bar in San Jose an hour later. “All sorted?”
“Yeah. I got some good, clear photos of the guy coming out of his mistress’s house. I’m meeting with my client tomorrow to show them to her.”
“Good.
So tell me about Ty. What the hell is he doing in Dallas?”
“That’s a damn good question. A suburb, actually. None of this has hit the news yet—Blum gave me a heads-up, but I’m sure it will be all over the media by tomorrow morning. As far as anyone knows, nobody connected with the kid has any ties to that area. The parents are as confused as the cops.”
“Tell me the details.” Stone leaned back and sipped his Guinness, forcing himself not to spin out any scenarios until he had all the facts.
“Yeah, they’re pretty weird. According to Blum, the kid turned up outside a convenience store three hours ago. He told the clerk who he was, and the guy immediately called the cops.”
Stone narrowed his eyes. “You say ‘turned up’. What does that mean? He just walked in? Someone dropped him off?”
“Just walked in. And before you ask, the security cameras around the place don’t show anything. The area’s rural so they don’t have a good system of street cameras, but so far everything they have shows nothing.”
“So the boy just wandered in from nowhere.”
“Apparently, yeah.”
“I assume he was questioned about where he’s been.”
“Oh, yeah. I think they’re keeping him there tonight, and sending him home first thing tomorrow morning. They’ve got his clothes, taken trace from his hair and his shoes and under his fingernails, the whole bit. But Al…he doesn’t remember anything about where he’s been for the past several days.”
Stone frowned. “Nothing?”
“Not a damn thing. Last thing he claims to remember is walking home from the school in Cupertino the day he disappeared. Everything else is nothing but a fog.”
“What about tonight?”
“Nothing. He says it’s just like he woke up in the trees behind the convenience store, but it’s not like he was asleep or unconscious or anything. He wasn’t lying down. Blum says he claims it was just like the lights came up and he was there, with no memory of how he got there.”
“Damn.” Stone sighed. “And I suppose there’s not a chance in hell of my being able to question him, is there?”
“No way. I might have been able to swing it if I was still working for his mother, but now that he’s been found, the cops aren’t going to let anybody unofficial near him.” Jason glared at him. “And don’t get any ideas of trying to do it without authorization. I don’t really want to be visiting you in a jail cell.”
“No, no, I wouldn’t do that.” This was frustrating. If the victim were an adult, he could arrange a way to meet with them in some public place without arousing anyone’s suspicion, but he suspected Tyler Ellerman’s days of being alone anywhere were over for the foreseeable future. “Do you know if they found anything odd about him? Did he seem drugged? Any signs of injuries, needle marks, anything like that?”
“I haven’t gotten the whole story yet, so I’m not sure. Blum didn’t mention anything about it, though.” Jason shrugged. “We might have to let this one go, Al. The kid’s safe and he’ll be home tomorrow, so maybe even if this guy was looking for something magic-related, he didn’t find it.”
“You know I can’t just let it go. That’s not the way I work.” He raised his hand when Jason started to protest. “Don’t worry—I give you my word I won’t go anywhere near the boy unless I’ve got official permission. Which, by the way, I might look into trying to get.”
“Good luck with that. I can ask his mom, but I’ll bet my Mustang she doesn’t want anything to do with any more ‘psychic’ intervention. Can’t really say I blame her, if she’s got her kid back.”
“No, I suppose I can’t either. But do you think you can manage to get me either a transcript of whatever interviews were done with Ty, or even better, a copy of any video interviews? It would be better if I could see auras, but maybe I can spot something in his body language.”
“I’ll see what I can do. But don’t hold your breath.” Jason didn’t look any happier about the situation than Stone did. “Anyway, that’s all I know right now and I need to get home. Early morning tomorrow. Thanks for all the help, Al. I like to think we made a difference.”
Stone wasn’t so sure of that, but he didn’t say it aloud. He finished his Guinness and stood. “Let me know if you come up with anything else.”
As he turned to leave, Jason said, “Oh, hey, Al?”
“Yes?”
“You said you and Amber talked tonight?”
“We did.”
Jason waited a moment, watching him expectantly. When he got no further reply, he nodded. “Okay, then. Cool. Talk to you tomorrow.”
Stone waited until later the next day before calling Leo Blum. He wished he had a contact closer to home he could talk to with the same candor he did with Blum, but this was better than nothing.
“Hey, Stone,” the cop said. “I thought I’d be hearing from you. I’m surprised you waited this long.”
“Yes, well, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.”
“Jason said he filled you in on some of the details last night.”
“Yes. But I was hoping something else might have surfaced between then and today. I assume the boy arrived home safely?”
“Yeah, he got here this morning. He’s with his parents now, after spending the morning being questioned. Since he was taken across state lines, the feds are involved now. This is a big deal.”
“Damn. I suppose that means you’ll have a harder time getting hold of any information.”
“Yeah, unfortunately. I can try since the dad is from San Francisco, but I don’t have any reason to be directly involved, so it will look suspicious if I stick my nose in too much.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
“What do you think this is, Stone? Why would a mage kidnap a teenage kid and take him to Texas? And how would he make it so the kid doesn’t remember anything?”
“I don’t know the answer to the first question. The second one is easy, though, if our kidnapper has any talent with alchemy.”
“You can make potions to make people forget several days of their lives? That’s…not freaking terrifying or anything.”
“Well, I can’t. I’ve always been rubbish with that sort of thing. But yes, it can be done. Verity can probably do it.”
“Where is Verity, anyway? I thought she’d be right in the middle of this too.”
“She’s…away for a while. We’re out of communication at the moment.”
There was a long pause, and Stone could almost hear Blum’s thought processes as he debated whether to ask. Finally, the detective said, “Okay, well, anyway, I don’t have anything else to tell you. They did take a blood test from the kid to see if he was drugged at all. I assume your kind of drugs won’t show up on a tox screen?”
“Unlikely. Something might show up, but it won’t be anything they can identify.”
Blum’s loud sigh came through the connection. “Damn it, you don’t know how frustrating this is sometimes. You know magic was involved, and I know, but nobody else investigating the case does. Which means they probably aren’t going to find jack shit, and this guy will never get caught unless you or somebody like you tracks him down unofficially. And there’s no reason to expect you to. You’re not a cop. This isn’t your job. I wish there was more communication between the sides.”
Stone chuckled. “Are you talking about some kind of magical arm of a law-enforcement agency? That sounds like something on a television show.”
“Yeah, I know it does. But it would also make a lot of things a hell of a lot easier.”
“And a lot of them harder as well.”
Another sigh. “Well, either way, I don’t think we’re ready for that kind of thing. Do you have time to keep investigating this? Because I doubt even Jason’s going to come up with anything without a little magical help.”
“My curiosity’s been aroused, Detective, which means you’ll have a difficult time keeping me away. No promises on results, though. This one’s got me stumped
so far. Let me know if you get any other useful tidbits, no matter how inconsequential or strange they might sound.”
“Don’t worry. You’ll get the strange stuff as soon as I do.”
Stone hung up, gathering his notes and stuffing them back in his desk drawer. As he did, his mind returned to what Blum had said about a magical law-enforcement agency, which in turn brought his thoughts back to Verity and her attempts to organize the mage community into some kind of overseeing body. He wondered if cooperation between mages and mundanes might be the logical next step to such a thing. Mundane police might not have much success hunting down magical threats on their own, but many of them were smart and persistent, and they had access to networks the mages didn’t. Even if mages weren’t willing to police their own community, their help would be invaluable in solving mundane crimes.
It was something to think about—and something to discuss with Verity if and when she returned. Perhaps if she didn’t have any success with her own efforts, she might consider redirecting them to something a bit more possible.
10
As Jason had predicted, Tyler Ellerman was the top story on every news source the following morning. Stone read the online story from the local paper with his morning coffee, doing his best to keep Raider off the keyboard.
The details from the story matched with what Jason had told him: Ty had walked into a 7-Eleven in Murphy, a small, rural town twenty miles outside Dallas. According to the clerk on duty, the boy seemed confused about where he was, but immediately introduced himself and asked the clerk to call his mother. Instead, the man gave him some food and contacted the police, who showed up within ten minutes.
As Jason had said, the cops had no leads on where Ty might have come from. The boy himself didn’t remember arriving, and the only security footage showed him coming around from the rear of the building. The police were enlisting the help of local residents for any information about suspicious-looking cars or anything else that might indicate where Ty had come from.
