Heat of the Moment (31 page)

He didn't even respond to that. “And you think you can hear the thoughts of animals. That you can touch them, touch people, and make them whole.”

“I can.” I tugged on one hand, and he let it go. I set my palm over his injury. Energy snapped. Heat flared. “Let me heal you.”

He stood, practically tripping over his feet to get away from me. I wanted to cry.

“If there's one thing I learned from my mother's insanity it's that I shouldn't buy into her delusion. I'm not going to buy into yours.”

“Owen, I can heal you. You can g—” My voice broke.

After I healed him, he would leave. This time he might never return. But I couldn't be selfish. He and Reggie had saved countless lives. Just as he'd let me go all those years ago so that I could have the life I'd dreamed of, I had to do the same now.

I got to my feet. Reggie stepped between us with a huff. His ruff lifted.

Splode.

I frowned. “What's going to explode?”

“Stop it!” Owen blurted, too loud, his voice broke.

Reggie woofed and crowded me back.

“I have to—” Owen yanked open the door.
“Hier.”

Reggie came, though he cast me an uneasy glance. He'd probably never seen Owen this upset. I hadn't.

My phone started ringing, so shrill I gasped and yanked it out of my pocket, hitting the mute without even a glimpse at the caller ID.

Owen closed the door. He never looked back.

 

Chapter 25

Owen had to get away. Not forever. Not even for long. But he needed to think. And when he could see Becca, hear her, smell her, touch her—or when she touched him—he couldn't.

He snapped Reggie's leash onto his collar, and the two of them began to walk. Without thought, Owen headed for the trees. He wanted to be alone. Or as alone as he got with Reggie, which was good enough.
He
couldn't hear the dog's thoughts.

The cool, calm, shadowed peace of the forest surrounded them. Owen liked it so much better than caves and sand.

“Who wouldn't?” he murmured, and suddenly …

He didn't want to go back.

Owen stopped dead on the path, and Reggie, nose down, sniffing at every swaying branch, kept going. He tugged the leash from Owen's hand—something that never happened when they were working unless Owen wanted it to—and he was gone. Owen didn't call him back. He was too caught up in this revelation, which wasn't much of a revelation at all.

He loved Becca. Always had, always would. No matter what.

Was she crazy? He didn't care. If she was, he'd help her. He was better equipped for that than anyone else.

“But what if she isn't?”

If she wasn't, he shouldn't have let her out of his sight.

Owen whistled. Reggie raced through the underbrush and leaped onto the path. It wasn't until they erupted into the parking lot that Owen realized something else.

He was running.

*   *   *

I stood in the waiting room, staring at the closed door. When my phone started vibrating in my hand, I was glad. It gave me something to do.

“Hello?”

“Becca! Thank God.”

I hadn't looked at the caller ID this time either. Didn't matter. I knew that voice.

“I found something,” Jeremy Reitman said.

The fog that had descended since Owen had left lifted a little. “What?”

“I have to show you. You aren't going to believe it.”

Driving to Madison would take five hours, then I'd have to drive back. Wasn't happening.

“I have appointments today.”

“This won't take long. I'm nearly there.”

“Three Harbors?”

“I need you to meet me.”

I was so glad I wasn't going to have to drive forever, then drive back—not to mention miss my appointments, reschedule them—that I said, “Sure.”

“There's a place called ‘Revelation Point.' You know it?”

Revelation Point was make-out central for all the surrounding areas. Located on the bluffs of Lake Superior, the area had a terrific view. Not that anyone spent time contemplating it.

I hadn't been there since high school. Hadn't had any reason to be. Not only had the idea of making out with anyone but Owen bored me, but I was no longer seventeen.

Thank God.

“I know it,” I said.

“Hurry.”

The line went dead.

As I had nothing better to do than brood about Owen, I got in my car and hurried.

*   *   *

Owen's palm curled around the knob on the clinic's back door. He twisted as he moved forward, smacking into the ancient wood with all of his exuberant momentum when he discovered it was locked.

The door made a nasty crunching sound and popped open. Owen stood there for a second, flummoxed. Breaking down doors was never that easy in Afghanistan.

Reggie bopped his nose against the wood and went in.

“Becca?” Owen followed. “I'm sorry about the—”

Reggie began to howl.

Terrified at what he'd find, Owen hurried toward the sound. Only to find the dog alone in the middle of the waiting room. A quick tour of the rest of the building, upstairs and down, revealed it empty.

Owen glanced out the back door. Her car was gone. If he hadn't been so determined to find her he would have noticed, and saved her a door.

“Dude.” Joaquin stepped inside. “Was it like that when you got here?”

“It was an accident.”

The kid snorted. Owen
had
sounded like a five-year-old after he'd broken Mom's favorite vase.

“Shouldn't you be in school?”

“Why does everyone keep asking me that?”

“Who else asked you?”

“Doc Becca.”

“You saw her? When?”

“Early this morning.” Joaquin frowned. “Isn't she here?” He walked through the exam room and into the office/waiting area. Owen followed. “We have office hours soon.”

The unease Owen had been feeling since he'd returned intensified. Becca wouldn't miss her appointments.

He pulled out his phone, dialed her number, got voice mail. He almost disconnected without leaving a message. What could he say?

I'm an ass.

He figured she knew that already. In the end he made do with a short, “Call me,” and hung up.

Joaquin appeared as concerned as Owen. “Should I cancel her appointments?”

Reggie blew air out his nose the way he always did when he was excited, revved, ready for a mission. Owen turned.

The wolf was back.

Reggie licked her face. She rolled her eyes, the amused disgust in the mannerism as human as her green gaze. Then she spun and ran out the still open door, pausing just outside to look back.

“You see it, right?” Joaquin stood at Owen's side.

“The wolf? Yeah.”

“Look at her wound.”

Her stance gave Owen a perfect view of her shaved flank. The wound that had nearly killed her was gone.

“How does that happen?” Joaquin asked. “Becca said wild animals heal fast, but that's ridiculous.”

Owen didn't have the time to explain magic, even if he could. Then the wolf yipped—high, impatient—and Reggie rushed to join her. The two disappeared from view and Owen bolted after them. By the time he caught up, they were trotting down the sidewalk.

“Hell,” Owen muttered, as locals and tourists did double takes, then scrambled out of the way.

“It's okay,” he called. “She's tame. Not a threat.”

He wasn't certain how true that was, but he didn't need anyone playing the hero, trying to grab either Pru or Reggie. Pru would probably be better behaved about it than Reggie would be.

“What's going on?” Joaquin had followed him outside.

“You need to stay here,” Owen said.

“Not.”

“The door's broken. Anyone could get in. Besides, I think you
are
going to have to cancel Becca's appointments.”

The wolf had seemed agitated. That couldn't be good.

“I don't—”

“Becca would expect you to do your job,” Owen said.

She would also expect Owen not to bring along a fifteen-year-old kid in his search for her. Considering all that had happened since Owen had gotten home, he doubted what was to come would be anything short of dangerous.

“I'll call you when I know something.” Owen hurried after Reggie and Pru.

The townsfolk, who had parted like the Red Sea at the sight of the dog and the wolf, flowed back together like the ocean. Owen had to take to the street to keep up. At least everyone was keeping their distance and not following them.

A flash of metal to his right drew Owen's gaze as a man stepped out of the hardware store with a rifle. He sighted on Pru. Owen snatched it out of the guy's hands.

“Hey!” The fellow—someone Owen didn't know—tried to snatch it back. “There's something wrong with that wolf.”

“I'll take care of it,” Owen said.

“The wolf or my gun?”

“Yes.”

Picking up speed, Pru left Carstairs Avenue. She wasn't a fool. Best to get where they needed to go before someone else appeared with a firearm.

Like Chief Deb. Where had she gotten to? Owen hadn't seen her since the incident on Route GG.

Ahead lay the coffee shop/motel. The wolf trotted right up to the same room Owen had been in that morning, bopped her head against it—once, twice. When it opened she went in.

Reggie glanced back, saw that Owen was close, and went in too.

*   *   *

For probably the fiftieth time since I'd bought my Bronco I was so glad that I had. What had once been a shitty, gravel road leading to Revelation Point was now a shitty, rock-strewn, overgrown dirt path leading to the same. Apparently kids no longer came here to smooch. Had to wonder why.

It wasn't until I shot out of the trees and put the vehicle into park that it occurred to me to call someone and tell them where I was. By then it was too late. My phone read
no service
. Maybe I could borrow Jeremy's. Different carriers covered different areas, and his might work.

As if the thought had conjured him, his Jaguar emerged from the forest and stopped behind mine. He had to have scratched the undercarriage badly on that trail. Weeds clogged the wheel wells and pine needles stuck in pine tar all over the hood. He must have something pretty damn important to show me.

I wondered for an instant why he didn't pull his car next to mine instead of behind it, but then he got out, all smiles, and I forgot.

Jeremy wore perfectly pressed charcoal-gray trousers and a red Polo shirt. I had an instant to think that he should have brought a coat—it was chilly enough up here on the ridge above the lake that I was thankful for my own—before he enveloped me in a hug. “Thanks for coming.”

“No problem.” My hands slid down his arms.

Electricity flared. Sparks flew, reminding me of the last time I'd touched his arm, in the parking lot after someone had tried to smother me.

My gaze fell to his forearms, both scratched badly—one worse than the other, but healing even as I watched. The really strange thing—and that was saying something—was that the scrapes matched my fingers. As if I had raked my hands down his arms and—

I had raked my hands down his arms. Then I'd touched one arm and it had healed just enough to make it seem like he hadn't tried to kill me. But he had.

Jeremy caught my wrists as I drew back, capturing me, holding on tight.

“It was you,” I said. “In my apartment, with the pillow. The ring. The ski mask.”

He didn't speak. He didn't have to. Owen had been right.

I yanked free. “Why?”

“Witches must die.”

“But … you're a witch.”

“I only pretended to be one to discover their identities.”

“Being a witch is that big of a secret?” I asked.

I had to figure out what to do. Behind me lay a cliff, the drop straight to the rocky shores of Lake Superior. Jeremy stood between me and my car. The forest was an option, but I'd have to disable him first. He was fast. Much faster than me.

“The identities of the elemental witches, the ones with true power and real magic, like you, are a secret. It's those witches we need to kill. They're dangerous.”

He
was dangerous. But I didn't mention it.

“You mean to tell me no witches but elementals have been harmed?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I'm sure a few pretenders have died along the way.”

His casual dismissal of lives chilled me.

“What makes you hate them”—hate
us
?—“so much?”

“I don't hate you, Becca.” He shook his head, his expression that of a professor admonishing a dumbass student. He'd no doubt used it a hundred and one times before. “But I do need to kill you.”

I could tell he believed it, was, in fact, looking forward to it. How had I missed the crazy before? Or had he become crazy only recently?

“Roland speaks to me. In my dreams, my mind.”

Recently then. He couldn't have hidden that for very long.

I needed to keep him talking, maybe talk him out of this. I had a pretty good idea how.

“If you've been chatting with McHugh, you know he wants to kill me and my sister.”

“Sisters,” he corrected.

He
had
been talking to McHugh, or reading
Venatores Mali
propaganda.

“He wants to wipe out our line. He won't be happy if you beat him to it.”

“He doesn't care who kills you, he just wants you dead.”

“Swell.”

“I need a sacrifice to bring him forth. The one who raises him will stand at his side.”

“Whoop-dee-doo,” I muttered.

“A man who can return from the dead is a very powerful man indeed. There'll be no stopping him.”