Magic Rising (5 page)

The digital chime demanded her attention so she risked it. Thankfully, the number belonged to Tech. Relief washed over her.

“Talk.” She looked around the locker room and found it empty.

“I’ve been checking into Farmer. So far rumor has more than the hard facts. I did a search like you asked and came up with little but his stats as an officer and general family information. I called a friend on the force for more info, a friend, I might add, who works nights and had just gone to bed.”

“Is there a point coming?” She paced along the smooth concrete floor with green metal lockers running on each side from floor to ceiling. It caused a weird echo whenever she spoke. She wasn’t crazy about the locker room because it always smelled of chlorine, either from the nearby pool or a recent mopping.

“Patience. Anyway, Detective Farmer has been asking around about you. Apparently you’ve been something of an obsession of his for the last few weeks.”

That much she figured. Farmer must’ve grown tired of butting heads with her and had tried another approach. There was no way of knowing what he intended to do with his information. The least would be knocking Deirdre down a few pegs and possibly ending some of the privileges the force gave her.

“This is what I pay you for?”

“There’s more. He’s been making trips out to the mountains. People noticed that he was hard to find, showing up late and taking hours to report to a scene. Even the mileage on his issued car has been way over. Their boss did a check of his computer and found a map of...some damn place in the middle of nowhere. Let’s see. I wrote the name of the place down.” The sound of papers rustling followed.

“Madison, somewhere along the mountain side before Walnut. A deserted, privately-owned section of land where a large stone structure once stood.”

“I don’t know about all that. All I have is in Madison. How’d you know?”

“Call it a hunch. Keep digging. Don’t forget Lora Shope.”

Deirdre ended the call. There were no records of what happened at Stone House. She checked into it personally, trying to find any list of other survivors. As far as she could tell, she was the only one, although there was no documentation of her either. Everything was difficult to track since no member had ever learned another’s true legal name. Farmer had to have gone excavating. She wasn’t sure what was left in that old place but the bastard had found something damning. Surely everything had been burned along with the structure.

I hope everything burned.

She picked up her bag and headed out of the locker room, realizing that she would have to skip her exercise routine today. She had to go and see what was left to haunt her in those old mountains. Her secrets could be out and that thought grew more unsettling with every moment. If Ryan Farmer knew, how many others were just a hike away from her past? Something bad might still live in those mountains and they might find it and the life she left behind.

Her past might reach out and take her.

Deirdre shivered and looked around, feeling paranoid. Being in any public place now made her feel strange, exposed. She needed to get out of there and she knew where she had to go back, even if she’d sworn to never return. She had to discover what was left of that hell and what connection remained to her.

The painted path from the locker room to the exit went by the punching bag. She wasn’t dressed for boxing, and didn’t even have her gloves out. Stress filled her though and the temptation grew overwhelming. As she walked by, she kicked up, swinging her foot against the bag and knocking it hard into the wall behind. Two chains on the front broke loose and the bag swung awkwardly back and forth from the remaining chain.

“Deirdre?” Chad walked up wearing his standard Hannah’s Gym t-shirt and sweats. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“You only break my equipment when something is wrong.”

Hannah’s Gym was named after the owner Chad Griff’s daughter, Hannah. The name threw people. Everyone expected a female to be the owner. Few asked why he’d done it. After a sparring match with Chad, Deirdre had. Chad used to be an addict, one of those heroine fools ready to beg, borrow, or steal for a fix. Then his girlfriend got pregnant. He never shot up again. Two years later he borrowed enough money to start this gym and named it after the girl who had saved his life. Hannah was sixteen now, the gym fourteen.

“Sorry. I’ll pay for the damage.” She started to the door.

“I don’t want you to pay for the damage; I want to know what’s bothering you.”

Deirdre felt his hand on her shoulder and stopped walking. Most people would’ve earned her venom for touching her, but Chad was different. She respected him.

“How about some coffee? I just started a pot brewing.”

She turned and silently followed him through the gym to the rear section where a heavy glass door led to a set of offices. He held the door open for her, then proceeded to the back where he kept his office.

“So what’s going on?” He poured two coffee cups and put one in front of her.

“It’s complicated.” She sat in the vinyl chair to the side of his desk, wishing she hadn’t come in here. She should’ve dealt with Farmer, not given into the temptation of prolonging her trip to her old school.

“Everything is complicated with you.”

The hot black liquid was compelling. She usually drank nothing but water, but Chad’s special blend was an enticement she couldn’t resist. Trying to ignore him, she blew into the cup.

“Talk Deirdre or I’ll drive you nuts asking questions.”

“That’s the last thing I need.” She let out a long breath, wondering where to begin. Most people had a simple childhood, not like hers. Her past didn’t consist of ex-boyfriends or family sagas around a rebellious streak. “Somebody’s nosing into my business and I don’t know what to do about him.”

“Is it a friend or foe?” Chad looked grim, keeping his eyes on her.

“Foe. An asshole cop.”

“It isn’t your boyfriend, is it?”

“No and Noah isn’t my boyfriend.” She pulled a piece of lint off her pants, trying to find something to look at instead of Chad. “I don’t like people digging around about me. There’s a Detective Ryan Farmer who has made me his pet project.”

Chad raised an eyebrow. “So, do what you always do when you don’t like a situation. Investigate and handle the problem.” He studied her closer. “There’s something different about this one, isn’t there? It’s too personal and you can’t take it.”

She hated when he knew her motivations. “I can take anything. I was already planning to look into this.” Deirdre sipped the coffee and scalded her tongue. She took a few breaths through her mouth, trying to ease the burn.

“Are you in some kind of trouble?”

She hadn’t thought about it. The idea that Farmer could hurt her seemed ridiculous after everything she’d been through. “No. It’s just disturbing to have to deal with my childhood. I thought I’d put it behind me.”

“You never told me about your past. All these years, you’ve kept the pre-Lawrenceton part of your life to yourself.” He leaned back in the large leather chair that was only suitable for a boss. “You know everything about me.”

“That’s because you won’t shut up.” She grinned and tried the coffee again. This time it went down, although her tongue still stung.

“Deirdre?”

“How’s Hannah?”

“No changing the subject. Now, tell me about yourself. Come on. It’ll make you feel better.” When she didn’t respond, he kept going. “It would do you good to talk to a friend, instead of dealing with this alone. Tell me anything. How about your family, your father?”

“There’s nothing to deal with. I never knew my father.” As a child she’d been forbidden from asking about him. It wasn’t that big an issue. She hadn’t even addressed her mother in public, except by her Stone House name.

Chad looked at her, chewing his lip in that absent way that meant he was thinking. She supposed he thought of her as a daughter, so any information about her background, or any problem; he wanted to know about it. He pried for further details.

“Did you miss not having a father? Did your mom date?”

She loved him for his attention, but her childhood was impossible to explain. Back then, she’d thought it was normal. How was she supposed to know life didn’t have to involve pain?

“Mom never remarried.” The answer was simple and would do. “I don’t know of any men that caught her eye.”

“How’s your mother now?”

Deirdre closed her eyes and was surprised that the image of fire was there instead of metal and blood. The inferno ate up the walls, lapping against anything it could consume, and Deirdre had stood in the midst of it laughing, wishing to join her mother until self preservation kicked in. Even now she thought she heard her mother’s voice in the flames.

“She’s dead.” Deirdre felt her eyes tear up. The reaction surprised her and, from the look on Chad’s face, he was shocked too. “Sorry. I didn’t think it would still upset me.”

“How’d she die?”

“An accident.”
A murder
. “There was an accident at a picnic
.” There was a killing on the exercise field and Mom never had a chance.
“A car came through the crowd, out of control
.” But it wasn’t a car, it was a man, and Mom died because Dragonfly had failed
. In effect, Dragonfly had killed her mother.

“Must’ve been tough. How old were you?”

“Fifteen.” She sniffled, and tried to keep her bottom lip from quivering by biting it. “I got over it.”

He leaned over and hugged her around the edge of the desk. Chad was the only man she ever let hug her, maybe it was because the contact was always innocent. She never once sensed the lust in him that so many men held for her, and shamefully, she enjoyed the contact. If this was friendship, it was a better gift than anything.

“This detective guy is digging into her death?”

“Yes.” She pressed her face against his shoulder. Farmer was digging into more than her mother’s death; he was digging into the deaths of hundreds. Worse, he was finding out her secrets, seeing through to a past Deirdre never wanted revealed. “I didn’t think anybody would bring it up.”

“You know you have to face this. Putting it to rest is the only way to make it stop.”

“I know.” Pulling away from him, she stood and turned to the door. This was upsetting her and she couldn’t do this now, not here. The gym was her refuge, not a place to cry it out and wish her problems would vanish. “There’s no better time like the present. I’m going to handle this now.”

“Be careful. If you need me, call.”

Deirdre nodded, knowing that a family man had no business involving himself with anything as twisted as her history. She wasn’t crazy about involving Tech, but she trusted her employees to an extent. They were her backup.

She walked out of the gym and found the temperature already growing with an uncomfortable stickiness. Deirdre tossed her bag into the backseat of her Viper and slid into the driver’s seat.

As she started the engine, her cell phone rang. She glanced down and saw Noah Smythe’s number. Talking with him now wouldn’t help her. She never understood his need to constantly check on her. It had started before their first date, so the extra attention couldn’t be blamed on romance. Some people were just clingy.

Letting the call go to voice mail, she pulled onto the main road. She hadn’t ever driven to Stone House and it took her a minute to figure out which interstate would take her there. She connected the routes in her mind and made an abrupt U-turn in the middle of the street.

Ten years ago she’d sworn never to return to that hellish place. All of her possessions had been left behind except for one change of clothes and a short sword. Everything else burned with the building. She’d hung around, watching from the woods as the forestry service came to fight the fire. There was no saving the structure. The roof collapsed and much of the front wall fell in at the same time. It had been a strange sound. The fire had been loud, but the stone crumbling down was reduced to a rush, like an ocean wave breaking on shore. She was supposed to die in the blaze.

At the time of the fire, she had wanted to. The only place she called home was burning and her mother was dead. Survival instincts took over as soon as the first floor caught light. Grabbing her single bag, and crawling up the stairs, she escaped the flames. With the window open, fresh air remained tinged with the stench of fire below. She didn’t want to burn. Burning hurt too much. Instead, Deirdre jumped from the ledge of the second story, landing in the wood-chip pile, where they’d stuffed the punching bags and practice dummies once a month. The wood caught fire when she jumped into it. Flames danced around her head on all sides, burning her shoulder and singeing her hair. She got up before the worst of it fell and fled to the woods while the building that tainted her became engulfed. Oh sure, a building didn’t sound like a living entity but this one was alive, either through the people who committed those atrocities or a pure evil force all its own.

Her cell phone interrupted the hard memories. Glassy eyed, she reached for the belt clip and pulled it out. Tech’s number appeared on the display. Damn, he was getting fast. She might have to give him that raise after all.