4. Chapter 4
Chapter 4
Tessa sat in front of her best friend and waited for her to ever so slowly calm down. It took time before Megan’s muscles relaxed. It helped that Eric was rubbing her back and talking to her in a low voice.
Tessa sat quietly—which was really, really hard for her—but she had said enough already. Telling them about the second paragraph of the curse appearing. Sure, that in itself was great news, until she told Megan and Eric how it appeared.
Megan had immediately told Eric to lock the scroll in the safe and had then gone to check on Arabella, who was napping in her room. After she confirmed her daughter was safe, she’d returned, so wound up Tessa was afraid she was going to self-combust.
Finally Megan blew out a breath and seemed ready to talk. “Okay, what now?”
Tessa blew out her own breath and reached for her best friend’s hands. “I would have never let Arabella get near the scroll if I had known, Megs.”
Megan shook her head. “I have the scroll out all the time on the desk, and Arabella is in my lap. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened before this.”
“We should call John and let him know what happened,” Eric said.
Tessa closed her eyes for a moment before launching into the rest of her news. “Um, about that. I already talked to him.”
Megan frowned. “You called him? How did you get his number?”
“Your address book.”
Megan’s eyebrows rose. “The one in the closed desk drawer.”
Tessa swallowed. “Yep.”
“I’m surprised he answered the phone. He doesn’t usually pick up numbers he doesn’t recognize,” Eric said.
“Yeah. I remembered you guys telling me that before, so…I kind of used your office phone.”
Megan’s eyes widened. “That was devious of you.”
Eric smirked. “I bet he loved that.”
“Not really. I mean, I know you told me he was a recluse, but he was the dragon version of Oscar the Grouch.”
Megan shook her head. “You didn’t call him that, did you?”
Tessa shrugged. “The word ‘grouch’ may have been used in a sentence.”
Eric chuckled. “He didn’t know what hit him when you called. I know that much.”
Megan bumped her husband’s shoulder with her own. “Enough. What did John have to say about the curse?”
“He said it might be the steps to break it.”
Megan closed her eyes. “It’s talking about an oracle.”
Eric wrapped his arm around his wife. “It could just mean that Arabella was the catalyst that started the change. It doesn’t mean she will be involved in any of this.”
Tessa squeezed Megan’s hands to calm herself down as much as Megan. “He’s right. It might be more important that a human and dragon were able to have a baby. Now that we know we’re compatible, maybe that will change everything. The first child born to a human-dragon union is an oracle, and the marks on her back where her wings will unfurl mean she is also a dragon. That’s a big deal. It doesn’t mean that she’s in danger.”
Megan nodded, although doubt still filled her eyes. “What else did John say?”
“I asked him about Templars, and he said they were some ancient religious military order.”
“He’s right. They were a Catholic order that I think existed around 1100 AD.”
Leave it to her art-historian best friend to know about them. “Right, but he didn’t know why they would be tangled up with dragons.”
“I’ll start researching them and also go through the clan’s history to see if there is any reference to them.”
At least it would give Megan something to do instead of worrying about Arabella. “We’ll figure this out. I know it’s scary, but at least we have more to go on now.”
“I wish I could talk to Professor White. She would know more about this. I’m sure of it.”
Tessa wondered if she was the answer to a lot of things.
Megan chewed on her bottom lip. “I’m scared, and not just about Arabella. It can’t be good that one of the lines talks about blood being shed.”
Tessa was scared too. If she was honest with herself, that’s why she had jumped the gun and called John in the first place. “Maybe that part of the curse has already…” Tessa stopped. Did she really want to bring up Eric’s brother right now?
Eric blew out a harsh breath. “It’s okay, Tessa. I was thinking the same thing. Maybe Adam’s death is the reference to blood being shed.”
Adam had gone missing, and the clan had searched for him for months. Eric and Marcus had found Adam’s remains in a secret cave that Adam and Eric had played in as children. It was located in the valley behind the clan house. Tessa hadn’t seen his remains, thank goodness, but he had been attacked by another dragon and killed. Adam’s family and clan were left picking up the pieces and trying to stop the curse Adam had died trying to break.
Now it was Megan’s turn to comfort her husband as she let go of Tessa’s hand and wrapped her arm around him. “We have to stop others from being hurt.”
“Agreed,” Eric said. “So what did John say the next steps were?”
Tessa huffed. “He agreed with Megan that Mia White might be able to help. He said that he didn’t need our assistance since he had some PI he’d used in the past. He was going to have him look for Mia.”
Megan’s eyes lost some of their worry as she stared a little too hard at Tessa. “That makes sense to me. What did you say to that?”
“I might have called him a grouch.”
Eric shook his head. “Did you threaten him?”
Just because she’d brandished a golf club—and okay, a table lamp—at Eric in the past, he was never going to let her live it down. “I couldn’t hurt him over the phone now, could I?”
He gaped at her. “Let me get this straight. You didn’t argue your point?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “He hung up on me. He wants to do this his way.”
“And you’re going to let him, right? ” Megan asked.
“Of course,” she responded with as much conviction as she could muster.
Megan kept watching her a little too closely for her own comfort. Now that she was married to a dragon, was she some sort of mind reader? Tessa hoped not because she was going to help protect Arabella, Megan, and the dragon clan whether John Grumpy Baker liked it or not.
And if that meant doing some detective work on her own, then so be it.
The next morning Tessa was in her car speeding along the road to John’s secluded cabin. She hadn’t just memorized John’s number from Megan’s address book.
Megan and Eric had also called John and, after talking to him, agreed that it made sense to let him look for Mia White while Megan continued to research the Templars. Even though they seemed fine for now letting John do his own thing, and had made a point of telling her the same, Tessa wasn’t as patient. And as much as Megan felt that John had been the impetus for her meeting Eric, he was responsible, even if inadvertently, for bringing the bad guys into her life last year. Tessa wouldn’t forget what could have happened to Megan and Bella. And she wouldn’t let anyone hurt them again.
This guy…dragon…witch…whatever John called himself had been alive for over four centuries and seemed to only rely on himself. Could they really trust that he was telling them everything? Or would tell them everything he found out? And who was this private eye that he supposedly used anyway?
She glanced to the side. Sitting on the passenger seat next to her was a large envelope filled with papers. She had spent half the night researching Mia White online. Even though Mia had for all intents and purposes dropped off the face of the planet, that didn’t mean that something in her past might not be the clue to finding her. She had wanted to reach out to Marcus’s son, Jonas, the clan’s IT wizard, to help her but was afraid he would tattle to Marcus or Eric.
She hoped that her research would be enough to get her foot in the door on this with John and his PI. Not a bribe, per se, but a show of what she could provide to them. She was used to having to prove herself. Too many people underestimated her because of her looks. As if brains and blond couldn’t be in the same gene pool.
She had turned onto a deserted road a few minutes ago, which would ultimately lead to John’s path to his cabin. Megan had mentioned that his cabin was remote, but this was ridiculous.
After a few more minutes she was surprised to see a truck heading toward her on the road. It had to be coming from John’s cabin. Was the recluse leaving his home? She watched the driver as he passed her car, and he didn’t match John’s description. Tessa had pestered Megan until she had described John to her. (Who could blame her for asking? Anyone would want to know what a four-hundred-year-old guy looked like!)
Tessa slowed down. If that wasn’t John, it had to be the PI he’d hired. Who else would be out here? Damn Sam. Should she still go to John’s cabin and try to convince him to let her help, or should she adjust her plan?
As the truck drove farther and farther away, she decided to go with Plan B. She turned her wheel so that she could make a U-turn. Unless the wildlife had a direct dial to the cops, her illegal turn in the middle of the road would remain anonymous. She headed in the same direction as the truck but slowed down. It wasn’t like he was going to turn off anywhere until he made it to the main road. She just needed to know what direction he turned once he got there, and she would follow him.
In the meantime she needed to come up with the rest of Plan B.
And be very, very stealthy while doing it.