Chapter 25 #2
“Enough,” Drucinda said as she refilled her dragon’s glass before she plopped onto the couch. “We’re all supposed to be working together here.” She flicked her gaze to Paige. “Unless you’ve decided we’re enemies?”
Paige pressed her lips together and shook her head.
“Well, then we’re all friends.”
“Except me and Thorn,” Dewey said, crossing his arms. “We’ll never be friends.”
“Oh, come on, Dew–”
Dewey wagged a finger at the larger dragon. “Don’t call me Dew!”
“Gentlemen,” Drucinda said, “that is enough! There are more important matters to discuss than nicknames.”
Dewey moaned as he thrust his fists in the air. “But he–”
Drucinda shot him a glance.
“I what?” Thorn asked.
“Don’t push it, Thorn,” Drucinda said. “The little fellow is upset, and we already have one too many people upset on this flight.”
Thorn raised his glass in the air. “I’m not upset. Are you?”
“I will be if you don’t stop your antics.” Drucinda shot him an irked glance.
The dragon pressed the glass to his lips, with a sigh.
“Now,” Drucinda said, “with that settled, may I assume we’re moving forward?”
Dewey settled on Paige’s shoulder again, still glaring at Thorn. Paige nodded. “Yes. I want to hear your side of the story. I want to know what happened to my mom.”
Drucinda sat straighter, a slight smile curling the edges of her lips. “Good.”
Paige skirted past the dragon and Devon and reclaimed her seat next to Drucinda. “You said you knew where to find her?”
“Not where to find her, but where to start our search. I’m convinced she’s alive.”
“You said that. Why?”
Drucinda stared into space for a moment as she sipped at her cocktail. “Just a gut feeling.”
“That’s it?” Paige slapped a hand against the arm, with a scoff.
“Her gut feelings are rarely wrong,” Devon said.
“I just…thought there would be more to it than that.”
“There is. There is no reason for whoever did this to her to kill her,” Drucinda said.
“Why would someone kidnap her?” Paige asked.
Drucinda grabbed her wrist and tugged it toward her before she traced her finger along the bracelet dangling from Paige’s arm. “This.”
“Her bracelet?”
“This bracelet means something. I don’t know what. But we need to explore it.”
“I’ve been trying to,” Dewey said, sliding off Paige’s shoulder and gliding down to sit between the women.
“Let me guess, you haven’t gotten very far,” Thorn purred.
Dewey’s cheeks turned purple as he glared at Thorn.
“No, you wouldn’t have. There isn’t much information out there,” Drucinda said.
“Your grandmother died before she could tell your mother anything about that bracelet. All she knew was that it was a family heirloom. What it meant beyond that, she wasn’t certain.
She had been researching it as part of her work with the library. ”
“Did she find anything?” Paige asked.
“Not much. She tracked a few leads down to Ireland, but then…”
Paige dipped her chin. “Then?”
“Your dad died.”
Paige sucked in a breath and swallowed hard. “My dad?”
Drucinda rubbed Paige’s arm, a consoling expression on her face. “He died just two months before she found out she was pregnant.”
“I’m lost on the timeline here,” Dewey said, waving a paw in the air.
“Try to follow along,” Thorn answered, “it’s not that difficult.”
Paige and Dewey offered him an icy stare as Drucinda answered. “Your father died, your mother found out during the asset retrieval that put her in a coma–”
Dewey popped up to stand. “Which happened how?”
Drucinda narrowed her eyes at him. “She was being chased by a Lich.”
“A Lich?” Paige asked.
“Skeleton-like creatures that can steal a person’s soul,” Devon said. “Or kill them.”
Paige tugged her lips back in a wince, flicking her gaze from Devon to Drucinda. “Why was it chasing her?”
“We don’t know. Lichs tend not to attack unless they have a reason. There was none in this case. She says they showed up during the asset retrieval, and that the fortune teller who had the asset–”
Dewey set his paws on his hips. “Which was what?”
“Will you stop interrupting me?”
“I have to know! If we’re going to solve this, I need all the information.”
Drucinda’s jaw flexed, and her nostrils flared as she puckered her lips. “A Magician’s Teapot.”
Dewey’s eyes widened. “Devon said it puts you in the last book you read, right?”
Drucinda bobbed her head up and down. “Yes. She used it to escape the Lich.”
“No,” Dewey murmured, collapsing to sit. “What book?”
“ Darkness Rising . A particularly terrible one to have ended up in. It was while in the story she learned she was pregnant. She thought it wasn’t real until she woke up.”
Devon tapped his fingertips together, balancing his elbows on his thighs. “So, wait, she found out she was pregnant two months after Paige’s dad died, but…she was eight months pregnant when I met her.”
“She spent six months in the coma,” Drucinda said. “That’s when I came to take over the library position, whilst she was ill.”
“Okay, then she woke up and told you what? What was it that she was investigating.”
“Theft at the library,” Drucinda said.
“No!” Dewey exclaimed, with wide eyes.
“Yes, pervasive theft. Affecting every library in the network.”
“How do you know?” Dewey asked.
“We did a search and found thousands of items under the check-out code ‘seven’ missing from every location globally.”
Dewey screwed up his face “‘Seven?’ There is no check-out code ‘seven.’”
“I know,” Drucinda said. “But items were missing, and that was the code.”
Dewey reached for the RP on the table in front of them.
“No sense in trying, Dew,” Thorn said, “all those entries have been deleted.”
Paige pressed her fingers to her forehead as she shook her head. “So, she disappeared searching for the thief?”
Drucinda nodded. “She received a note telling her to go to Greece. It threatened you. We found it in your blanket. She panicked. She didn’t know who to trust. That’s when she took you to the nuns and left for Greece herself.
“I managed to track her location. When I arrived, I found the place empty. I passed out, and when I woke up, I was covered in blood. The blood turned out to be a mix of mine and hers. The authorities surmised we had struggled, and I had killed her.”
“But you didn’t,” Dewey confirmed.
Drucinda shook her head. “I didn’t. And I have no reason to think whoever took her did either. They lured her there for a reason. Those who wanted her to investigate wouldn’t have done it.”
“But whoever was stealing may have,” Dewey said.
“The note didn’t come from them.”
Dewey waved a claw in the air. “Or they didn’t want her to think it did.”
“There was no blood when I arrived,” Drucinda said. “They set me up. But if she was dead, why would they not have left her body to make it conclusive that I had killed her?”
“If this is true…” Paige said, her voice faltering. She sucked in a breath, her forehead pinching. “If this is true, then the thief is still out there.”
“Yes,” Drucinda said with a nod, “and I’m concerned they are coming after you, too.”