by Zoe Arden
"What's that?" he asked, nodding to the box. His stomach let out a loud rumble, and suddenly I knew that Eleanor's bribe was going to come in handy after all. "
"Chocolate chip cookies, freshly baked." I opened the lid of the box so that he could get a better sniff. They were perfectly round with huge chunks of chocolate throughout. He eyed them like Halloween candy. His stomach let out another loud rumble.
"Go on," I said. "Take one, I won't tell. Promise." I winked at him.
"I can't." His stomach rumbled again. His eyes lolled longingly their way. A bead of sweat ran down his right temple "Did you bake them yourself?"
"Yes. I work at the Mystic Cupcake in Sweetland Cove."
His eyes widened. "You're not Ava Fortune, are you?"
I blinked, confused. "Yes. How did you know that?"
"You're Colt Hudson's girlfriend. Sorry, I mean fiancée."
"You know Colt?"
"Of course, I do. All the guards here know Colt. He's one of the few agents who treat us like we're not second-class citizens." He licked his lips and shot another look at the cookies. "If Colt was here now, I'm sure he'd put you on the list."
"I'm sure he would, too."
"In fact, why don't we just assume he did that before he went on his little trip?" Now he winked at me. I wasn't sure if the wink had to do with the list or the 'little trip' he'd referenced.
"You haven't spoken to Colt lately, have you?" I asked.
"Not in months. Have you?"
I didn't want to admit to a stranger that the last time I'd spoken to my own fiancé had been months ago. "Not in a little while," I said.
"Well, if you do, say hi for me. I'm Glenn Maverick."
"I will."
"Go on in," Glenn said and thumbed me toward the door.
I pushed the box of cookies across the counter. This time, he didn't push them back.
I walked into COMHA and headed straight for the elevators.
I stormed past Dean's secretary and didn't bother to knock before entering his office. He scowled when he saw me.
"What are you doing here?" He rose from his seat behind his desk and shook one thick finger at me like he was a teacher chastising me.
His secretary was standing right behind me. She looked almost as displeased as Dean. "I'm sorry, sir. I tried to stop her."
"It's all right, Agnes." He indicated that she should shut the door and leave us alone. Agnes pursed her lips but did as Dean asked.
I took three large steps toward Dean and rolled my shoulders back. "I want to know where Colt is, and I want to know now."
Dean shook his head. "I'm sorry, I can't give you that information."
"Well, you have to give me something. Is he alive or dead?"
"I'm sorry," Dean repeated, "I can't give you—"
"That information." I sighed and began to circle his office like a vulture looking for its prey. There had to be some way for me to get Dean to tell me what was going on with Colt.
"If you'd like," said Dean, "I can pass along a message to him for you."
"Hasn't he given you any messages to pass along to me?"
"I'm sorry, I can't give you that information."
I threw my hands up in the air. "You sound like a broken record. You know that, don't you?"
Dean smiled. "My ability to keep a secret is part of what got me this job in the first place."
I stopped circling the room and went right up to his desk. The large oak slab was the only thing separating us. I could smell whatever cologne he'd splashed on his face this morning after shaving.
"I thought you were supposed to keep me apprised of Colt's situation," I snapped. He opened his mouth to speak but I raised my hand and cut him off. "Not where he's at precisely, or even what he's doing, just whether or not he's okay. I don't see why you can't give me that much. I'm his fiancée, I have a right to know." I held my hand and pointed to the engagement ring on my finger for emphasis.
Dean sighed and put his hands on his hips. There were deep lines etched across his forehead, and he looked about ten years older than he probably was.
"Colt is alive." He folded his arms across his chest and gave me a look as if he'd just done me the greatest favor in the world.
"Can you tell me when he might be coming back to Sweetland Cove?"
"Absolutely not. As far as you're concerned, he's not coming back."
My heart gave a thud. "That's not really true, is it? He will be back, won't he?"
Dean shrugged, and I wanted to deck him.
I plopped into the chair opposite him, and my eyes fell to the splatter of papers on his desk. It was covered with manila envelopes, letters, official documents... all of which appeared to be in no particular order. There was one file I almost didn't notice. It was sticking out halfway from under a manila envelope. Dean must've been looking at it just before I'd come in. Scratched across the cover in black permanent marker was Colt Hudson.
Dean caught me looking at it and quickly gathered the folder and its contents up. He stuck it into his top desk drawer and locked it.
"If there is nothing else..." He waved his hand toward the door, an obvious indicator that I should leave.
I rose from my seat, my mind already obsessing about that folder. What was in it? Would it really hurt if I just peeked inside? What was so important about Colt's mission that Dean insisted on keeping everything from me?
Dean was never going to tell me. There was only one way I could to find out. I'd have to come back to COMHA later... when no one was here.
* * *
CHAPTER
SEVEN
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COHMA was surprisingly easy to get into it at night. There were security guards patrolling the area but nothing like what they had during the day. There was no security booth to go through; that had been closed up for the evening. If anyone showed up demanding entry to the building, there was a buzzer for them to push that allowed them to speak to one of the guards on duty inside.
I walked around the building's perimeter for twenty minutes checking the doors and peering inside as best I could to see what the guards who were here were up to. I munched on a small bag of almond macaroons as I worked—I'd skimped on dinner and was starving as a result.
The first two floors of the building had been built to look ultra-modern, as well as throw people off as to what the building was really being used for. The windows were huge glass panes that ran from the floor to the ceiling, revealing everything inside. The walls were lined with pictures of toilets and plungers, and there was even a giant statue of a plumber holding a plunger, a great grin on his face, in the main lobby. COMHA's cover story was that they were a plunger and toilet brush company, manufacturing them and such. There were actually warehouses all around Florida filled with plungers and toilet brushes, should anyone desire to check.
It was part of COMHA's plan to stay hidden in plain sight. Humans couldn't know about the magical world around them—even though many did—so what better way to keep them from guessing COMHA's true nature than to pose as a toilet company? Who wanted to investigate toilets?
The rest of the floors had only small windows and were closed to visitors except with previous notice. Those were the floors where the Council on Magic and Human Affairs did their real work. I didn't know too much about it—Colt could only tell me so much—but I knew that there were interrogation rooms where paranormals were held without a hope of escape, experimental rooms where new spells could be practiced and perfected, and boardrooms large enough to hold giants, fairies, vampires, and every other paranormal in existence.
From what I could tell, there were only five guards on duty right now. One of them stayed behind a desk at the front of the building on the first floor—the main entrance—while the other four split up into two teams of two. One team took the east end of the building, the other the west. They went from floor to floo
r and stairwell to stairwell, checking things over. I could see them walking around through the windows.
They were currently on the second floor and working their way down. Dean's office was a few floors up. Once inside, I should have no problem getting to his office. The only trick was getting through one of these doors.
I’d brought my wand just in case—most witches didn't need wands, but my magic was still a little iffy sometimes; it was just part of growing up in the human world instead of a magical one; I hadn't even learned I was a witch until almost two years ago—and used a simple unlocking charm to open one of the doors. The door opened onto a stairwell. I stuffed my remaining macaroons into my pocket—I used expansion charms on all my pockets to make them bigger, so I didn't always have to carry a purse— and quietly began my ascent.
Several floors later, I was outside Dean's office. Dean's door was locked, and the spell I'd used to get into the building wouldn't work. I tried another one that I'd read about, but that didn't work either. I finally pulled out my Witchmobile phone and did an Internet search on the worldwide witch's network. I found a couple of spells to try, and the third one did the trick. Dean's door opened, and I stepped inside.
Dean's office was creepy at night. His giant oak desk reminded me of something more akin to a crypt than office furniture. I walked quickly to it and pulled open the top drawer that I'd seen Dean place Colt's file folder in earlier. To my surprise, the drawer opened with ease, but the folder was gone.
I bit my bottom lip and scanned the room. It was too dark to make out the good hiding spots. I flipped on the desk light and the room began to glow.
"Now what?" I muttered to myself. I scratched my head and stared blankly at the walls around me. "If I were a file folder, where would I be?"
My eyes landed on the filing cabinets. Duh. I was glad Eleanor and Trixie weren't with me to see what a goof I was. For most people, filing cabinet would've been their first thought, not their last one. Oh, well, we each had our own talents. Mine was apparently not snooping around office buildings in the middle of the night.
I tried to pull the filing cabinet open, but of course, it was locked. I started through my list of spells, certain that one of them must work. None of them did.
"For witch's sake," I hissed under my breath. Couldn't I catch a break? There had to be some way to get into these filing cabinets. I pulled harder on the drawers, trying to force them open, but they only jiggled in their slots, mocking me with their resistance.
A thought occurred to me. Sometimes in the witching world, witches and warlocks preferred the old-fashioned route to the magical one. I went back to Dean's desk and opened the top drawer again. The folder was gone, but there was a key sitting right there. I'd noticed it earlier but had dismissed it as unimportant. Now I took it and held it like it was gold. It was the exact size of a filing cabinet key.
"Please work, please work," I whispered to myself.
Sudden footsteps sounded from outside the office. They weren't racing; they were strolling leisurely down the hallway. My heart pounded in my chest. The security guards must've been going up, not down. I'd goofed again.
I knew I had to hide, but the key was burning in my hand. It would only take a second to get the drawer open if I was right. I ran to the filing cabinet, slid the key inside the lock, and turned. It turned easily, and the filing cabinet clicked open. I could hear the footsteps getting closer. It sounded like the guards were trying some of the doors as they walked along the hallway, checking to make sure they were still locked.
I realized I only heard one set of footsteps and wondered where the second guard might be. Was he down another hallway? Was he already standing outside this door?
The footsteps paused. I heard a man's voice yell out, "Hey, Henry, come help me a minute. My dollar's stuck in the vending machine."
Henry clucked his tongue, and I could almost hear him shaking his head. "Your dollars are always getting stuck in the vending machine. Why don't you get yourself some new ones?"
The other guard laughed. "If I ever get paid a decent wage working here, I'll go down to the bank and ask for brand-new bills. Until then, the wrinkled ones I find under the couch cushions in the break room will have to do."
Henry laughed with him now, and they walked off together to handle the vending machine issue. I breathed a sigh of relief.
I quickly thumbed through the files in Dean's cabinets. They were in alphabetical order, which made it easy. I grabbed Colt's file and sat behind Dean's desk to look through it. The footsteps that had been descending suddenly reappeared. The guards' voices sounded loud; they were closer.
"I tell you someone's in here," Henry said.
"I don't know," said the second guard.
"That bag of macaroons didn't come from nowhere."
I reached frantically into my pocket and realized the snack I'd brought with me was gone. It must have fallen out somewhere on Dean's floor.
The guards were trying every single door up and down the hallway. I could hear the knobs rattling as they checked to see whether or not they were still locked. I shot a quick look to the knob on Dean's door. I hadn't relocked it after entering the office. I rose from the seat and took one step toward it, but the guards were right outside the office. I could almost hear them breathing.
If I tried to cross the room now, they'd see me in an instant when they opened the door. I only had a moment to think, to hide. I ducked under the desk and curled my knees to my chest. The knob rattled, and the door opened.
The light!
I hadn't shut it off.
"This door is open," said the second guard.
"No kidding, Mark. I've got eyes, don't I?"
"This is Mr. Lampton's office," said Mark.
"Maybe he just forgot to lock it when he left for the night," said Henry.
"Mr. Lampton never forgets anything," said Mark.
Their walkie-talkies squealed, and Mark reported to the desk downstairs that there was a possible break-in. I held my breath as they stepped into the room. I shut my eyes, as if they couldn't see me if I couldn't see them.
They took their time walking around the room.
"Looks clean to me," said Mark.
Henry didn't say anything. They walked to the door and back out into the hall. The door shut, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I stuck Colt's folder into my pocket, came out from under the desk, and stood up.
"Gotcha!" Mark shouted. He leaped at me. I screamed and jumped away, but there was nowhere for me to run. He grabbed hold of my wrist and yanked. I stumbled forward but he caught me before I could fall to the ground. Henry was standing guard at the door so that I could not make an escape.
"It'll be easier on you if you don't fight us," said Mark.
I stopped struggling and gave up. A wise woman knew when to run, a wiser woman knew when she'd been beat.
* * *
CHAPTER
EIGHT
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COMHA's interrogation room was tiny. I figure they made it that way on purpose to make whoever was getting interrogated feel uncomfortable. It worked. It felt like I was stuck inside a shoebox. There were no windows, no couches, no pleasantries of any sort. I didn't even have a glass of water. Even Sheriff Knoxx would've given his prisoner a glass of water.
Dean paced the room. He glanced at me, looked away, looked back. He scratched his head and rubbed his chin. The constant flux of his movements was agitating me more than his presence. Could he not just keep still? Finally, he stopped walking and settled his eyes on me.
"Do you know how much sleep I get in a night?" he asked me.
I shook my head, glancing quickly at the palm of his hand as he raised it in the air—empty. Too bad. It would have been nice if Dean could've known what it felt like in the hot seat.
"Six hours if I'm lucky. If something goes wrong, like it did tonight, you can drop that nu
mber down to four or even three." He paused and cocked his head to the side. "In fact, I'm not sure that I'll get any sleep tonight now, thanks to you."
"I'm sorry."
He held up one hand and waved me off. "No, no. Don't apologize. Apologies are for people who accidentally spill their milk at the dinner table. What you did was not an accident. You broke into COMHA headquarters."
He started pacing again. He paused after a minute and took two giant steps toward me, bending at the waist so that we were nose to nose.
"Do you have any idea how much trouble you're in?" he demanded of me.
My eyes began to water. I nodded. "I only wanted to know was going on with Colt. You won't tell me anything. What was I supposed to do?"
Dean let out a long sigh. "And you thought that breaking into COMHA was that answer?"
"I-I'm sorry," I said, my voice choking in my throat. At least they hadn't left the handcuffs on me. I thought I might've lost my mind if that happened.
"You're going to jail for this, Ava. There's nothing I can do about it. You broke into a federal magic building. This is serious."
"I know," I said solemnly.
"I've already called your father and spoken with him. He knows what's going on."
I groaned. He called my dad? That was even worse than getting arrested.
"I was an idiot," I told him. "Stress does crazy things to a person—you know that. Between not knowing what's happened to Colt and looking for King Zulubar, I just wasn't thinking."
Dean shot a sharp look my way. "Zulubar? What do you mean you're looking for Zulubar?"
"Zulubar's disappeared," I told him. "I'm surprised you haven't already heard."
His eyes narrowed. "I have." He looked at me like he was a vulture, and I was road kill. "What does that have to do with you?"
