Chapter 5
ALSO STILL MONDAY
IN WHICH DESSA IS NOT A FAN OF MURDER SUSPECTS
Dessa left Jamison to the guide she’d written for new paranormal residents as an after-school project in seventh grade and strode to the break room for a much-needed cup of coffee.
While the guide only scratched the surface of paranormal dynamics, and she wasn’t sure if it was still completely accurate, it was better than nothing.
After all, it was more than clear that while Jamison Kane may have some weird magic now, he was, on some level, still the rule-bending clown he’d always been.
Thanks a lot, Uncle Brad.
But Brad said Jamison had a place here as long as he wanted it.
So, maybe if she could crush him under enough busywork, he’d eventually turn tail and run?
She poured herself a steaming cup from the pot and took a bracing sip.
Monday was definitely Monday-ing. Coffee in hand, she strode back to Melba’s desk, ready to attack the second conundrum of the day.
“Hey, Melba,” Dessa said, “did you hear what Julia said about seeing Carly at the ice cream store? Do you think we could find the CCTV from the shop?”
“Already on it.” Melba’s ringed fingers flew across the keyboard while Richard drifted over to them.
“AzRIO just has no boundaries these days,” he said, leaning over Melba’s shoulder to get his own snoop.
“Where and when was her last known location?” Dessa crossed the geometric-patterned carpet to the cabinet with the active case files, taking the key from the hiding place beneath the potted peace lily.
“She left home in her car and drove out of town,” Richard said. “They say she was running away from her family’s ghosts.”
Dessa froze, her throat closing. She knew quite a bit about those ghosts herself.
“Not that I’ve ever met one of her spectral relations, mind you,” he continued.
“Richard.” Melba turned and narrowed her gaze at him. “If you don’t get out of my space, I will get a channeler to ban you from this office.”
A flicker of panic widened Richard’s eyes. “You never appreciate my shrewd insights.” He lifted his nose in the air. “See how you manage without me then.”
Richard floated through the wall, and Melba patted Dessa’s arm with a sympathetic smile. “It’s all right, hon.”
Dessa swallowed, giving her an appreciative nod before recovering her train of thought.
“Has anyone else gone missing in recent years?” She flipped through the file for any nuggets of information, but since Carly had been classified as an adult runaway—i.e.
a person with two feet and free will—the file was thin.
“Not since Zach Whitmore,” Melba murmured.
Dessa bit the inside of her cheek, trying to keep the storm of memories from clogging her mind.
That was both good and bad news. Good in that there weren’t any more suffering people or families they had to worry about.
Bad in that they had no more information about why Carly would’ve gone missing or who else might’ve been involved.
“She allegedly texted her parents that she was striking out on her own, and they shouldn’t bother looking for her, but her parents said it was out of character.
Apparently, they’d been trying to get her to leave A-Springs and join them in California for years, but she’d always refused to go.
” Melba sighed as she fast-forwarded through a security camera feed on her screen.
“Of course, Deputy Werach refused to investigate without any evidence of foul play, and then Brad got sidelined on the federal case, so she remains MIA.”
“There she is.” Dessa pointed to the screen, and Melba paused the feed.
Carly was a tall girl—maybe 5′9″—with a brown pixie-cut, and all manner of earrings and necklaces.
The video only captured her briefly. She and two boys—Weres by the look of their stocky builds and thick hair—walked out of the theater and into the ice cream shop.
Though the feed didn’t pick up audio, it was obvious they were talking and laughing.
Melba fast-forwarded another thirty minutes, and they continued down the sidewalk.
Julia had been right, the whole interaction, from start to finish, seemed completely normal.
Dessa might’ve dismissed it, except normal people didn’t usually tell their parents not to look for them before they disappeared off the face of the earth. And…
Dessa raised a brow as one of the Werewolf boys kissed Carly just before they disappeared off-screen.
“Did Uncle Brad know that she had a boyfriend?” Dessa asked, flipping through the file again. No suspects were listed, and the interviews with her parents had been terse.
“I don’t think so.” Melba adjusted her glasses with surprise. “As far as I know, Carly kind of kept to herself, and I hadn’t heard rumors of her dating anyone, much less a Were-boy.”
“Is that weird?” Jamison’s voice vibrated directly into Dessa’s ear, and she jumped away from him with a yelp. “Geez, chill, Blue.”
She shuffled to the side with a scowl, and Melba chuckled. “It’s not that unusual for young Weres, Vampires, and Magickers to intermingle and date, but it’s a small town, so it is unusual for us not to know about it.”
Melba clicked over to the internal camera inside the ice cream shop. Dessa cocked her head at the screen again. “That’s weird. She’s using cash.”
“What’s more weird is that this is actually the last time the CCTVs catch her in town until that day she pulled out of the drive,” Melba said. “I’ll print out the known movement log Brad had me put together.” Another few clicks, and the printer hummed in acknowledgment.
“Are you saying she didn’t want to be found?” Jamison said, running a hand through his blond beard.
“Or that someone wanted it to look that way,” Dessa replied, picking the paper off the printer.
“Any erratic behavior would support the ‘she ran off’ theory, but we’ve seen evidence manipulated before.
” She tapped her lips as she considered the dates and times.
“I’ll check with other Intermediary Offices within twelve hours of here to see if anyone’s registered a paranormal newcomer who matches her description. ”
She moved to the desk across from the one she’d put Jamison at, the two of them framing the entryway, and Jamison followed her like a shadow. “And what do you want me to do?”
Dessa’s gaze cut to him as she sat down and turned on the computer. “I don’t know, just sit over there.” She waved at the other desk. Until she found Carly, she really didn’t have time to supervise on-the-job training.
Unfazed, Jamison perched on her desk instead. “But I’m supposed to be shadowing you.”
“It’s Uncle Brad’s final revenge.” She let her forehead collapse onto the desk with a thunk. “I’m not going to survive this.”
“Speaking of Brad, is he one of the paranormal beings on this list?” Ignoring her theatrics, Jamison waved the piece of paper beside her head. “I thought I heard the Vampire say something about an Uncanny?”
Dessa straightened and logged into the AzRIO network, willing Jamison to pull a Richard and disappear into the wall. Meanwhile, her stupid password had expired. “Why do you want to know?”
“C’mon, Dessa. You were the one who told me to learn about this stuff, so why are you still holding out on me?” His brows knitted over his green eyes, a briny desolation glinting in the sea of his irises. “Is it really because you think I’m a murderer?”
For a moment, Dessa stared at her monitor, not sure what to say as she remembered the rumors her mom had related to her last Christmas over a glass of wine.
Jamison Kane’s girlfriend had been killed, and statistically, everyone knew that nine times out of ten, the boyfriend was the murderer.
Not to mention his stepmom had also been killed.
A stepmom he’d been vocal about disliking.
Dessa wasn’t sure about his third connection to the family friend, but when the case was dismissed without any real resolution… Well, it was hard not to be suspicious.
Then again, she thought back to high-school Jamison.
He’d been oblivious of course, as the Nescient kids were, and many of his friends were elitist snobs, but she couldn’t remember him ever being unkind.
In fact, there were even one or two instances when they’d thrown out snide comments about her blue hair or clothes, and he’d actually stood up for her.
Yes, his family was rich, but he’d never flaunted his wealth.
Yes, he’d been Nescient, but that hadn’t been his choice.
And yes, he’d been annoyingly charismatic, in a way that infected her daydreams way more often than she was willing to admit, but did she really believe he killed someone?
Not in a million years.
She blew out a slow breath. “No, Jamison, I don’t think you killed anyone.”
His shoulders relaxed, but the shadows remained beneath his golden brows, the peppery smell of his magic tickling her nose.
“And I told my uncle I would teach you, so of course I will.” She stretched her neck from side to side, searching the brambles of her mind for the sticking point. “It’s just, when we were in school, you were a Nescient, and I very much didn’t hang out with Nescients.”
“Because you were worried I’d find out about this?” He waved a hand to indicate the office.
“Kind of.” Dessa’s fingers typed in a new password she probably wouldn’t remember later: WTHUncleBrad!4ever. “I mean, in so many ways, you were just living in a different world than we were.”
Jamison crossed his arms, and his gaze went distant. “And by ‘we,’ you mean the Jowetts and Zach.”
Dessa’s cheeks heated, her stomach instantly knotting. “Uh, yeah, I’m surprised you remember.”