Secrets and Lies (Cassie Scot) (17 page)

Be calm
, I told myself.
Think
. Cool heads sometimes prevailed against impossible odds, whereas fear and panic could do nothing for me.

He had tugged off his own shirt and was reaching for the button of his bulging jeans when I thought about something he had said to me a few weeks earlier, when discussing kisses and love potions.
A sharp shock can sometimes work wonders
.

This wasn’t a strong spell. He had said so himself. So maybe, if I could think of something shocking enough, I could break it. If only something else would blow up!

Although, who said it had to be a physical shock? Henry Wolf had snapped me out of a kiss by mentioning my parents, so an emotional shock could do the trick as well.

What would work, though? What would shock Evan back to his senses? He had nearly finished undressing when it came to me.

“Evan, wait! I’m pregnant. You might hurt the baby.”

E
VAN STAGGERED BACKWARDS AS IF I’D
physically pushed him away.
“You’re what?”

“Pregnant,” I repeated, though it was no longer necessary. The look in Evan’s eyes told me, quite clearly, that the spell had been broken.

The forces pinning me to the ground evaporated, but I didn’t immediately rise. I was too aware of my nakedness, Evan’s proximity, and what had almost happened. A minute ago, I had been swept away by one kind of emotion, allowing myself to forget the reasons Evan and I couldn’t get together. No longer. Now, I felt shaken to the core by what had nearly happened, and by how Evan’s superior strength had been turned against me.

“Turn around,” I said, when Evan seemed disinclined to do so.

He blinked a few times, then looked at me as if just noticing my unclothed state. Nodding, curtly, he turned his back to me, and I scrambled to my feet.

It took me a minute to find all my clothes, which had not survived the attack unscathed. My shorts were missing a button, so I had to content myself with zipping them and allowing my shirt to hang down over the waistband. The shirt, meanwhile, had a rip up one side seam, and the only thing I could think to do about that was sling my purse over my left shoulder, instead of the usual right.

“I’m done,” I said, when I was as presentable as possible.

Evan turned to face me, with an unusually open expression. He was letting all the horror he felt show on his face, but I didn’t know if he felt more horror at the idea that I might be pregnant, or at what had almost happened.

There was only one way to find out. Besides, maybe this was the answer to my plan to turn his interest away from me. If he thought I was pregnant with someone else’s baby, surely he wouldn’t want me?

“Braden wants me to move to Chicago with him.” It was the truth, and yet, the implications were not.

Evan, still shirtless, and better looking in that state than I remembered from glimpses at the pool in high school, turned and grabbed his shirt, which he thrust over his head. When he faced me again, he had regained control.

“Is that what Braden wanted to talk to you about yesterday?” Evan asked.

“Yes.”

“You said you two broke up.”

“Yes.”

“He broke up with you after he found out you were pregnant?”

“No!” I couldn’t have him thinking that. “I broke up with him.”

“Why?”

Why, indeed? It didn’t sound like the sort of thing I would have done, under the proposed circumstances. “I don’t love him.”

“Really? But you slept with him. Tell me, was that before or after a vampire tore out half your insides and I had to put them back together, a bit at a time?”

“Oh.” I hadn’t been thinking about that. Of course, Evan wouldn’t have been remotely fooled, at least, not past the initial shock.

Evan wasn’t done with me, though. “It must have been before, because it’s only been a week and a half since, so you wouldn’t know if you’re pregnant or not.”

“Evan, I just said that because–”

“If it had happened before,” he went on, relentlessly, “I’m afraid the baby didn’t survive the attack.”

“Stop it, okay? I lied!”

“Clearly.”

He strode past me, studying the great black hole in the forest where the cabin had once been. There was nothing left to suggest a building had ever been there. All that remained was a crater a hundred yards wide and several yards deep.

“Wow,” I said, despite myself.

“We must have tripped a ward.”

We stood there in silence for a minute, several feet of space separating us, neither one willing to bridge the gap. He had said he would never hurt me, and I believed him, but neither one of us had considered what might happen if he ever lost control. Now I had seen it. I shuddered, violently.

“I’m sorry.” Evan laid a hand on my arm, but I wrenched it away.

“Don’t touch me right now,” I said.

He dropped his hand. “I’m sorry.”

“You said that.”

“The second one was for getting angry.”

“Fine, I forgive you.”
For getting angry
, I added silently.

Evan looked like he wanted to say something else, perhaps something to make me forget, but he must have thought better of it. I was glad, because I really just wanted to forget it had ever happened.

Silently, he held out the bracelet-wrapped handkerchief to me.

“Is it still spelled?” I asked as I took it with deliberate care.

He shook his head. “And now, I think we need to get you out of here.”

“What?” It was my turn to get angry. I spun on my heels, horror nearly forgotten as I drove a finger into his chest. “I don’t think so. Call in reinforcements if you want, but you still need me.”

“I won’t put you in danger again.”

“I’m in danger every second I’m around you.” The words slipped out before I had a chance to censor them, but I meant them. I would not take them back.

Evan just stared at me for a long minute. “Come on. Let’s get back to camp.”

* * *

The explosion did not go unnoticed. By the time we returned to the mess hall, every deputy in the county had been dispatched to the cabin, along with the fire department. Since Jeff had gone with them, Evan missed his chance to confront the deputy who had handed me the poisoned water.

With all the campers gone and the search parties temporarily stopped, things were much less chaotic. For the most part everyone sat around the mess hall tables with coffee or soda. They talked to one another, but the tone was unmistakably mournful; when I caught snatches of conversation, it was clear that a lot of people thought the girls had somehow been involved in the earlier explosion. They might even have been right, but I wasn’t ready to speculate about what may or may not have been in that cabin. The only solid clue I had was the charm bracelet in my pocket.

Armed with that, I headed for Tracy and Vera. They sat silently together at a table near the windows, staring out in desolation. Vera did not even acknowledge me when I walked up, which almost made me think that Tracy’s breakdown had been contagious. Then I saw Tracy turn fully toward me and give me a faint, “Hello.” Apparently, the two women were taking turns.

Seated with them at the table was Nora, who barely acknowledged me, Jack, who gave Evan a forced smile, and another man I did not know. He was a wiry little man with a few streaks of gray in his brown hair, and he kept shooting looks across the table at Vera.

Carefully, I pulled the bracelet out of my pocket. Before I had a chance to ask about it, Tracy shot to attention. “Where’d you get that?”

“Do you recognize it?” I asked.

“It’s Laura’s. I gave it to her for her birthday.” Tracy snatched the bracelet away from me and hugged it to her chest. “Where did you find it?”

Before I had a chance to answer, the wiry man whose name I didn’t know interrupted. “Are you the detectives?”

“Yeah,” I said.

He stood up and offered his hand to me. “I’m Ben Goldstein, Regina’s dad.”

“Hi, it’s nice to meet you.” I shook his hand.

“I’ve been out with search parties for two days now,” he said. “I’d be out now if they hadn’t told us to stay here.” He darted another nervous glance at Vera.

“May I have a private word?” I asked him, motioning toward a nearby alcove.

He followed me, then asked, without lowering his voice, “What do you need?”

“I was wondering if you ever noticed anything unusual about your daughter.”

I was trying to figure out how to explain unusual when he jumped in, enthusiastically. “You mean magic? Nope, never noticed anything.” Again, his gaze darted to Vera.

“How are you holding up?” I asked, noting his nervous state and wondering if he would soon be following his wife’s lead.

“I’m upset,” he said. “How else could I feel? But I’m sure we’ll find her. I mean, Vera seems to have given up but I–” He broke off. “Did you want anything else?”

“No, thanks.”

I followed him back to the table so I could have a word with Nora. She grudgingly gave me her attention. “What do you want?”

“I need to talk to a few people, still. Could you point out Mackenzie and Renee?”

Nora looked around the room. “I don’t see Renee, but Mackenzie is standing by the water fountain.”

“Thanks.”

The man standing by the water fountain was a tall, muscular man who stood with his arms crossed, glaring out at the room as if it were about to bite him. He was a man clearly ill at ease with his surroundings.

“Mackenzie?” I asked.

He jumped. “What?”

“I’m Cassie Scot, a private investigator.” I handed him a card, which he shoved in his pocket without reading.

“I was hoping to ask you a few questions about the girls. A few people have told me that you spent a lot of time with them.”
He gave me a resigned sort of look and nodded. “They liked horses. Kept coming by to see me, sometimes when they shouldn’t have.”

I arched an eyebrow, but he didn’t explain his comment further. “Randy said they both fell off once, early on. I thought that was strange, since they were so good with horses.”

Mackenzie closed his eyes. “Yeah, I guess. I don’t know. The saddles weren’t secured right. Might have been a practical joke or something. No one liked them.”

“Did you like them?” I asked.

“Yeah, I did. Excuse me.” He pushed himself off the wall and strode purposefully out of the mess hall, leaving me to stare at his back and wonder what that had all been about.

As I stood there, another young man, probably a counselor, came to stand by my side. “I think he may have liked Laura a little too much, if you know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t know what you mean.” I let my irritation show without restraint. If someone had something to say, I wanted them to say it, rather than perpetuate rumors.

“I saw him kissing her, once. He tried to tell me she kissed him, but now I’m not so sure.”

I turned to face the man more fully. “When was this?”

“Day before they went missing. I was trying to decide whether to report him or not when all hell broke loose.”

“Thanks for telling me,” I said, heading back for Evan.

Before I reached him, however, the mess hall door banged open. A plump, middle-aged man with a camera around his neck barged in, making a beeline for the grieving parents. I knew instantly that he was a reporter.

Nora knew it too, because she stood and tried to impede his progress. “They don’t want to talk to you right now. Have a heart.”

“I’ve been at the blast site,” he said. “Just thought they’d want to know what’s going on. They have a right to know what’s going on.”

“And give you a reaction, I suppose?” Nora shot back. “Stay away. When the police have something, they’ll tell them.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “When they found this weird dagger stuck in the crater, not even damaged or anything, they didn’t seem like they wanted to tell anyone about it. I heard the sheriff say so.”

Evan strode over to me and grabbed me by the arm. “Let’s go.”

“But–” I looked back at the reporter, then at the haunted, terrified looks on Vera and Tracy’s faces.

“Nora can handle him,” Evan said. “You and I need to call in some reinforcements.”

* * *

We were halfway to the nearest town with cell phone reception when I began to question Evan. “What’s going on? Do you think the girls were in that cabin when it–” I wasn’t quite able to finish the sentence.

“I don’t know. I do know that a dagger like the one he described is often used for blood sacrifice. I also know whoever warded that cabin meant business, and probably knows who I am now.”

“Mackenzie,” I said, “I think it’s Mackenzie.”

“Why?” Evan asked.

Quickly, I sorted out the reasons in my head. “He knew that cabin better than anyone, he was closest to the girls, and... hey!”

“What?”

“The girls fell off their horses. They weren’t novices. Why did they fall off?”