Oberon Boxed Set (Books 1-3) Welcome to Oberon

by P. G. Forte

  He didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of it before, because now that he had, it did sort of make sense. As much sense as anything else had, so far. It was a hell of a coincidence, Darcy turning up right now.

  Because if there was one person in Oberon who’d had a reason to want Paige dead, she was it. Of course, that was a long time ago. And he didn’t figure her as the type to come all the way back here now, just to kill Paige over a little bad blood. Not that he’d put anything much past her, under the right circumstances. But there would have to be more to it than that.

  But what about some of the people who were close to her? Someone who cared about Darcy – one of her old playmates, perhaps. Someone who’d been hurt by her leaving town, and who maybe hoped that, with Paige out of the picture, she’d come back to stay? How farfetched was that as an idea?

  Well... how far would he have gone to bring Scout back?

  All those years when he’d been going crazy – desperate to find her, desperate to get her back – if he’d known then that all it was gonna take to make her come home, finally, was her step-mother’s death? Would he have…?

  No, he decided at last. No, thank God, he wasn’t that crazy. He didn’t think. But that didn’t mean someone else wasn’t.

  “Me?” Darcy was staring at him openmouthed. “Nick? What’re you not telling me?”

  “Hey, you can’t blame a guy for trying to do his job, you know.” He grinned at her. “From where I’m standing, it looks like maybe someone was tryin’ to do you a favor, that’s all.”

  “Oh, yeah? And exactly why’s that, Greco?”

  “Why, my shoulda-been-the-prize-winning entry in the ‘most unusual item found at the Cleanup’ Darce.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and headed back toward the stage with her. “Was none other than your old friend, Paige Delaney.”

  “What?” Darcy’s eyes flew wide and her mouth dropped open as she gaped at him. “Well, holy shit.”

  * * *

  “Holy shit! I thought I’d never get here!” Camille exclaimed as she burst through the door of the Nature Center. Marsha looked up and cringed as Camille continued, “The entire Marina is plastered in pigs. It’s like a friggin’ cop convention out there. What gives?”

  Marsha groaned. Even in a day filled with forgetting all sorts of important little details, how in the hell could she have forgotten about Camille’s near-legendary distrust for law enforcement? Why, oh why, hadn’t she called the woman and begged her not to come?

  “Oh, my lord,” Camille had thrown her bags under the table and kicked off her shoes when she caught sight of the officer who, apparently bored with guarding the door, was examining the contents of one of the glass display cabinets. “Don’t tell me you’ve got ‘em in here, too? Marsha! What’s up with this? And where’s Siobhan anyway?”

  “Why don’t you give them a break, Camille?”

  It was Scout who answered, Marsha realized dazedly. Of course, it was Scout who answered. Really, it was just like watching a train wreck in extreme slow motion, horrifying and mesmerizing and completely unstoppable. She watched helplessly as color flared on Scout’s high cheekbones and her eyes narrowed dangerously.

  “They’re just trying to do their jobs, you know.”

  “Oh. Hello, Scout.” Camille’s voice dripped sympathy and condescension. “Of course, you would think that, wouldn’t you? Is that what Nick told you?”

  “He didn’t have to tell me anything, Camille. There was a murder. Are you saying you don’t think they should investigate it?”

  “Ooh, a murder. Sure, that’s just what they want you to think,” Camille scoffed, sitting down and reaching for a pile of cards. “Bullshit. This is political. They needed a trumped up excuse to evict all those poor homeless people who’ve been camping on the beach.”

  “I saw the body, Camille,” Scout snapped. “She didn’t look homeless. And she sure as shit wasn’t camping. So I am failing to see your point.”

  “Of course you are,” Camille purred triumphantly. “You are missing the point entirely, I’m afraid. As usual. You saw just what they wanted you to see, so that you would think just what they wanted you to think. One of these days you really should try thinking for yourself, dear. I think you’d find it very liberating.”

  “Yeah well, maybe one of these days you should just try thinking at all, Camille. ‘Cause all I’m hearing is a bunch of mindless rhetoric. Unless... you don’t actually have some obscure political reason for being in favor of murder, do you?”

  Camille stared at her for a moment, clearly thinking about it. Hell, Marsha thought, maybe she did at that. A muffled snicker from the direction of the doorway recalled her.

  Camille turned slowly toward the source of the sound, eyes narrowing as she rounded on the smiling young officer who’d returned to his post. “You. Why are you lurking around here, wasting municipal funds? Can’t you find any innocent schoolchildren to terrorize with idiotic anti-drug crusades?”

  He shrugged. “Not really. It’s Saturday. School’s out.”

  “Oh, like that matters?” Camille sneered. “Are there no basketball courts? Are there no skate parks? Really, the opportunities for you to shape the next generation of Hitler Youth are practically limitless. Have you no imagination?”

  “You know, Camille, that reminds me…”

  Scout’s voice was deceptively soft, but Marsha wasn’t fooled for an instant. She closed her eyes and tried to shut out the escalating emotions. She didn’t know whether she wanted to laugh or cry, but she desperately needed to regain control of things. She was aware of a persistent throbbing, aching pain in her head. Just like an ordinary headache, except – oh, sure. Perfect. Why the hell not? That’s about all today was missing, wasn’t it?

  She slid her gaze across to Sam. Yep, there it was, all right. The little telltale pounding of the pulse in his temple, beating out the same rhythm that echoed through her head. All day the man was a total mystery, and now he wanted her to be his psychic friend? He waits until he’s got a headache before he suddenly starts broadcasting signals like a rogue satellite? Gee, what a guy.

  He turned to her inquiringly. She glowered at him. “I know just how you’re feeling,” she quipped with a hard, little smile, knowing he probably wouldn’t get it, but just pissed off enough not to care.

  “Oh, I sincerely doubt that.” He stared at her down the length of his nose, so impossibly arrogant, that she found herself doing something she rarely, rarely ever did, because the side effects tended to be so intense and so unpleasant.

  Fixing him with the most piercing glare she could manage, she stared into the steely gray depths of his eyes. And smiled pleasantly. “Really? I wouldn’t be so sure about that, if I were you.”

  Taking a deep breath, she planted both feet flat on the floor. She waited until she felt the energy flowing from deep within the earth, filling and empowering her, then she reached one finger toward his temple. “Would you like an aspirin for that headache, Sam? Or, maybe, I should just—” She touched him lightly, gently, arching her eyebrows and smiling just a little when she felt him start in surprise.

  “There, that’s better, isn’t it?” she cooed. “All gone.” She removed her finger, playfully pursed her lips and blew across the tip, as if it had been a smoking gun.

  He stared at her coldly. She stared right back. She had no idea how long they might have continued like that. She was enjoying his discomfort entirely too much, until a voice from the other end of the table blasted all her enjoyment to pieces in an instant.

  “Oh, wonderful! I see you two have already met,” Camille gushed happily. And suddenly, Marsha realized what it was about Sam’s appearance that had struck her as familiar, when she’d first seen him this morning. No. It couldn’t be.

  “Oh, my God.” She could feel the blood drain from her face, as tension twisted her guts into a knot.

  “How’s everything with the cabin, Mr. Presley?” Camille called cheerfully.

  “Th
e cabin’s fine,” Sam answered tersely, his eyes still locked with Marsha’s The tension – either hers, or his, or some ungodly combination of the two – twisted harder. This couldn’t be happening. She couldn’t be more humiliated, more embarrassed, more... disappointed.

  “Oh, my God!” she repeated as she dropped her head to the table with a thud. Karma, she thought weakly. Goddamn karma. When the hell was she ever gonna learn? “Ohh... fuck me,” she moaned weakly.

  This time, the headache was hers. All hers. And it only got worse when she heard Sam’s voice whisper, close against her ear. “Is that an order, doll? Or an invitation?”

  His voice abraded her nerves like nails on a blackboard. Emotions exploded—guilt, regret, anger, despair. Her control lost, she lifted her head and bared her teeth. “Oh! And fuck you, too!”

  Back to Top

  * * * *

  Chapter Eight

  * * * *

  She was definitely a witch, Sam decided, as he sent the Day-Glo pink Frisbee sailing across the lawn for the dogs to chase again. A witch, in more ways than one. But he didn’t want to think about that right now. He just wanted to get the hell away from here. And away from her.

  The tally was finished, but they were all still stuck hanging around. Other than that whacko realtor, who’d announced her intention to leave the minute the counting was done, and who nobody had seemed inclined to stop.

  Jeez. And people said life in the city was stressful. These small town people were seriously nuts.

  The girls were turning cartwheels in the grass, laughing whenever one of them fell down, the dogs running over each time to lick their faces. The air was warm, it smelled of seaweed and sage. And the water in the bay looked like countless sheets of shiny gray glass sliding back and forth across each other. He could not for the life of him understand how the people who lived here were not continually seduced, by the beauty all around them, into forgetting their problems.

  Maybe they were all too used to it. Maybe they didn’t even see it anymore. Because the only one who seemed to be getting deflected here, was him. And that was not a good thing. Oberon might be a nice place for a visit, but it was obviously a very dangerous place in which to live.

  The dogs had reached the Frisbee, landed at the edge of the lawn, but they paused and stiffened and he tracked the direction of their gaze. A huge blue-gray bird, easily four feet tall, gazed back at them. Motionless. Majestic. The most incredible thing he’d ever seen.

  Sam knew of only one person who might be able to tell him what it was, and what it was doing there. And there was no way on earth he was going back inside that building to ask her about it.

  As he watched, the scene came unstuck. The dogs resumed their fight for possession of the Frisbee, the bird shook out his feathers and stalked slowly away. And Sam paused, half turned toward the Nature Center, irresolute. She probably wouldn’t bite his head off again, just for asking about a bird. But on the other hand, he wouldn’t lay odds on it, either.

  Scout and Officer Henderson chatted on the porch. Erin, Larry and Gail had gathered together on the steps, all of them forced out of doors by the unbearable tension inside the building. All of them waiting.

  Only Marsha remained indoors. The source of the tension, she wasn’t being forced anywhere.

  The last time he’d seen her, she’d been sitting in a chair with a wet cloth covering her eyes, blocking out the world. Her feet rested on a second chair, a cup of tea sat untouched on the table beside her, growing cold. A very tired, very stressed out, very angry witch.

  Or maybe she was just working up a new spell? One that would transform her back from the raging she-devil she seemed to have suddenly turned into, would be a nice idea. And if it worked, be it the blackest of black magic, he was all for it.

  The dogs came bounding back across the grass toward him, leaping over the children, who had fallen down in their path. The older dog, a little larger and part greyhound from the looks of her, had caught the Frisbee again. But that didn’t stop the younger one from trying to steal it away. Sam wasn’t sure what kind of dog the second one was, maybe a chocolate lab/chow mix with a little Rottweiler thrown in.

  Taking hold of the Frisbee, Sam sent it sailing over the lawn once more, smiling as it flew over the girls’ heads. They squealed delightedly as the dogs barreled over them again. The way the dogs charged through the grass reminded him a lot of those geese.

  And thinking about the geese, of course, brought him back to thinking about Marsha. The witch.

  Ah, hell, at least it beat thinking about all the other things his mind was doing its best to not think about. He couldn’t help remembering how pretty she’d looked this morning; her smile and her laughter and the touch of her fingers on his arm. And then later, when her hooded eyes and the husky whisper of her voice had turned their silly little word game into something more hotly competitive than he would have thought possible.

  Even when she’d zapped his headache away she’d been smiling. A friendly witch. For the most part. Smart and helpful and more than a little innocent-seeming, but with just a touch of fire buried somewhere deep within her. Not at all the kind of woman he was usually drawn to. But someone unusual. Intriguing, even. Someone he wouldn’t have minded getting to know better.

  Until she’d gone all rabid on him.

  He supposed he should give her the benefit of the doubt. Just because he had no idea what he’d done to set her off like that, it didn’t mean she didn’t have some kind of reason. It was even possible she might not be completely psychotic.

  Besides, he did owe her one. Right now he figured, the only thing standing between him and a long, unpleasant police interrogation was her word that he’d been in the parking lot all morning. And he still had no idea why she’d said that. He’d been watching her, hadn’t he? He knew damn well she hadn’t seen him, except that one time. She couldn’t have known he hadn’t gone down to the beach. And she didn’t know him from Adam. So why had she vouched for him?

  It could be she’d done it as part of some police conspiracy, of course. That she wanted to lure him into complacency, and tie him up here, while elsewhere, nefarious forces were engaged in who-knew-what illicit activities. Camille would’ve probably endorsed that idea, but it seemed a little too unreasonably paranoid, even for him.

  He’d just about made up his mind to go back inside and ask her… what was the worst that could happen? She probably couldn’t really turn him into a toad, after all. But when he’d turned to go inside, he saw the other cop – Kate’s father – bearing down on him. The look on his face was not encouraging, and Sam felt the tension inside him ratchet up again.

  “Mr. Presley,” Nick addressed him, and his voice sounded way too pleasant to be for real. Sort of like Columbo. Which was decidedly not a reassuring association to make. “Any relation, by the way?”

  Huh? Oh. “No, not that I know of.” Sam shook his head, not wanting to explore the topic any further. It was altogether possible. Presley had been his grandmother’s maiden name, after all, though no one in his family had ever been inclined to research the matter.

  “Uh-huh. You aren’t by any chance a schoolteacher, are you? Or a camp counselor? Anything like that?” Nick’s voice might have been suspiciously friendly, but his eyes sure as hell weren’t. They were just plain suspicious.

  “No. I’m in the stock market. Why the sudden interest in my career, officer?

  “Nick. You have any kids of your own? Any nieces or nephews, maybe?”

  Sam couldn’t help smiling in relief, as understanding finally dawned. “Nope. And please, call me Sam. No orphaned younger siblings that I’ve had to raise on my own following the untimely death of our parents, either. I don’t even really like kids, generally, to tell you the truth, Nick. Although yours seem nice enough.”

  He turned to look at the two girls, still sprawled on the grass, and then turned back to Nick. “You’re wondering why I’m hanging out here with them, instead of inside, right?”r />
  “Yeah, actually, that had kinda crossed my mind.”

  Sam nodded. “Sure. That’s reasonable. They don’t read minds.”

  “Come again?” Nick looked surprised.

  “That’s the answer. Your kids don’t read minds. They can’t zap headaches away just by waving their fingers in someone’s face. They don’t seem to know things they can’t possibly have any way of knowing. And so far, I’ve understood practically everything they’ve said today. So that’s why.”

  He stared gloomily at the building in front of them, not really expecting him to understand. “They just seem a whole lot simpler to deal with at the moment, that’s all.”

  “Huh!” Nick’s smile was sudden, and surprisingly warm. “Oh, I hear that.”

  * * *

  Scout smiled as Nick climbed the stairs to the porch, but her smile faltered when she saw the shuttered expression in his eyes. “Everything okay?” she asked, and then could have bit her tongue. No, of course it wasn’t. And of course he wasn’t going to admit that, either.

  “Yeah. Everything’s fine.” His tone suggested he didn’t want to elaborate. And, oh gee, Scout thought, I wonder why that is? At least the man knew he couldn’t lie for shit. Not to her, anyway. Sooner or later, he’d have to get it off his chest.

  She’d just prefer that it was sooner.

  “Well, great,” she said, lying right back at him as she followed him back inside the center. “So, tell me, if everything’s so wonderful, why’d you start smoking again?”

  He whirled around, staring at her, and for a moment Scout reveled in the pleasure of actually having surprised him. It didn’t happen often. In fact, she decided, it didn’t happen nearly enough anymore. Maybe she ought to work on that.

  “How did you—?”

  “Hmm? Oh. Well, there’s nothing wrong with my nose, you know.” She smiled at him encouragingly, but he still didn’t smile back. She hadn’t seen him this tense in a long while. Things must be really bad.