Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
The one-room police station was equipped to handle only the lightest of offenses and basic medical care.
With the interrogation room doubling as a holding tank, the rural station was mostly a counter for pushing papers.
The little bit of public seating involved a few folding chairs around an industrial table laden with pastries and employee morale questionnaires.
It was adjacent to the northernmost tip of MacLaoch land, and while half the staff had no clue who Rowan was by sight alone, those who did stayed mum as he filed a police report on Richard Murdoch for voyeurism.
It would hold just long enough for Charmaine to arrive and change the charges to something more hard-hitting or whatever it was that she did in such situations.
Mickey drawled around a huge bite of oatmeal scone, “Can I go now? You guys have all you need, right, man?”
The intake officer tsked at Mickey while her administrative assistant hung on the counter, making eyes with him.
Just then the front door to the station opened, and Charmaine breezed in, her black satchel on her arm, her hair pulled back, and her eyes bright.
She’d changed clothes and now looked like a very expensive solicitor from some futuristic metropolis. TJ followed, taking in every detail.
Charmaine said to Rowan, “Where is it?”
Rowan dropped his act and said calmly, “Making its way back home now.”
“Has it been documented?”
“We have bigger issues at the present moment,” he said, nodding at the desk clerk who was at first curious about the newcomers and then began exhibiting impatience as Rowan’s accent morphed.
Charmaine was sharp. “No, we don’t.” To the clerk: “What are you holding him for?”
“Holding him? He’s here to file a complaint for voyeurism.”
Charmaine looked from the woman to Rowan to Mickey and then back, assessing the situation, and deciding she needed no further information, she said, “Shred that form.” Then to Rowan and Mickey: “Get in the car.”
“Hey, wait a second—”
“Listen up, I have every judge on speed dial and very little time, so if you think you have reason to pursue any of these men for anything other than a pleasant greeting, I suggest you bury that idea. Because if you don’t, I’ll—”
“Out.” The officer pointed to the door behind them. “Get out. A waste of time this has been. Just be on with you.”
“Yes, ma’am,” TJ piped up.
The officer scoffed as Mickey gave a ’sup chin nod. As Rowan left, he heard the lovelorn administrative officer ask Mickey, “Are you really from San Diego?”
“Totally.”
Rowan heard the wink in Mickey’s voice.
She said, “Cool,” in a single exhale as the door to the station closed behind them.
TJ drove them out onto the rural road and worked them out of the village and back toward Otey and Rowan’s vehicle.
Charmaine turned in her seat. “Explain. Everything.”
Rowan did as Mickey looked out the window, feigning boredom.
“How’d you know the camera was in the chimney, Mickey?”
“Where else would he get a good signal in a solid stone building with a slate roof?” He sighed, “That, and I saw the antenna when I got back into the car.”
TJ piped up. “Dude. San Diego called; they want their accent back.”
Mickey let a small grin slip over his lips. “I travel a lot. Accents come and go.”
Rowan remembered then that Mickey had no idea who TJ was, yet it was apparent TJ knew exactly who Mickey was. He watched the exchange with pleasure.
“Jackson,” Tee said from the driver’s seat.
“It’s Mickey.”
“No, I was trying to remember what my sis calls folk like you. I just did: Jacksons. Well, she did when we were kids. You see, she’s always had a thing about the natural world giving us the tools to understand humanity.
There’s a reptile called the Jackson chameleon.
They change their colors depending on their environment. ”
“Mmph” came from Mickey, and Rowan almost smiled.
“No worries, dude,” TJ quipped. “I’m not some chameleon-eating raven. But you should stay away from my sis—she punches guys like you in the dick.”
“She sounds fun,” Mickey said, back to his natural acerbic tone.
Rowan smirked. “Mickey,” he said, waiting for the man to meet his gaze, “that’s TJ.” Mickey shrugged. “My brother-in-law.”
They held gazes for the length of time it took for Mickey to connect the dots.
“Huh,” Mickey said, but he seemed to shift uncomfortably.
Rowan met TJ’s gaze in the rearview mirror.
“Yeah,” TJ said, taking his eyes off the mirror and putting them back on the road, “I’ll be sure to let my sis know you were a big help so when that Viking I’ve heard so much about comes back, she won’t rip your nut sack clean off.
” He sighed like it was hard having a sister who was so violent.
“Like grapes off a vine.” He made the hand gesture of a man pulling fruit from its stem.
Rowan smiled for the first time in a few hours. He was beginning to feel brotherly love for TJ—he was a solid man to have in his corner.
“Come now,” Charmaine said, wanting them to get back on track, “what else did he say?”
The county pastures whizzed by. Rowan finished his story with the worst of it: “He said that he’s acquired Castle Laoch. Somehow, he’s pushed it, I’m assuming fraudulently, into foreclosure status. He plans tae level it. Ye might think it a farce, but I’ll tell ye, it felt real.”
Now that Charmaine was with TJ, Rowan and she were finally back to being civil, and it was nice to remove someone from his battle list.
“That’s a crime.”
“Aye, and would lead me to commit one in retaliation.”
“Even if it were empty and in some psychotropic fantasy he indeed held ownership of the castle, leveling it is an actual crime: Castle Laoch is a historical landmark and cannot be altered without Historic Council approval. That’s why we do alterations to the building and lands through the Fund.
If he did do that, he’d go to prison and likely lose the property in the process.
Not to mention that amending a loan he no longer has access to into default so that he may buy it out of foreclosure?
That is another surefire way to spend time in our prison system. ”
They went silent as they reached the Otey property’s long driveway, each thinking about whether a man who booby-trapped his own home to capture Rowan on camera would demolish a historic building out of spite.
And if he was the kind of man who would wait for the law to tell him it was his first or he would rush the timeline to get what he wanted.
For Rowan, he wondered if he could find the blasted man in time. He’d gone from worried about losing Castle Laoch in bankruptcy to worried a madman would attempt to level it.
He sighed, letting his head fall back against the headrest, and in his quiet, he felt that his fingers had gone numb.
He looked down at them and tapped them together.
The tap felt icy. Moving them one way and then the other, he saw his fingertips were turning blue.
The blue felt electric, and a soft light glowed out of them.
His heart skipped in anxiety as he recognized the glow before the spirit of Cole, possessed with Ormr, breathed through him.
They arrived at the Otey manor, and TJ pulled next to Rowan’s vintage SUV. As he parked, he said to Charmaine, “Hold on, my pocket is blowing up.”
In the back seat, Rowan blew out a breath as if preparing to dive underwater. The blue was moving up his arms, and he felt as if he was being squeezed.
“Ho-fuck,” Mickey said at Rowan and scratched frantically at the door handle. He caught it, kicked the door open, and leaped out of the back seat.
“What’s up with him?” TJ pulled his phone out and turned around. His brown eyes went wide. “Holy shhh…”
Rowan swallowed down panic and, forcing himself to talk, said, “Check your phone.”
TJ, mouth agape, did. His eyes stayed on Rowan until he had the app open, then read quickly.
Charmaine turned to look into the back seat to see what the fuss was and covered her scream with her hand.
TJ, reading off the texts, said, “Holly says we need to get back. Cole’s gone Viking.”
Rowan gripped the door handle and tried to pull it but couldn’t. Charmaine ejected herself out of the car as TJ sprinted around to Rowan’s door and yanked it open. He caught Rowan’s upper arms as he slid out.
As soon as TJ touched him, energy flooded into TJ’s body. His head snapped back. “Ugh,” he groaned and went to his knees.
Rowan felt the instant relief of TJ taking the power from Cole. “I didn’t think this could happen off MacLaoch property.”
TJ was now catching his breath as Rowan hung half out of the rear of the coupe. “What the fucking hell was that?”
“Well, shit.” Rowan swallowed. “You are her brother.” Rowan gave him a wan smile, thankful for the relief that his brother-in-law was enough Minory and enough magic-tied to him that he could hold Ormr’s power and siphon off his opposite, Orabilia.
TJ’s tan seemed more golden—as if the sun had come out and shone only on him.
Mickey was wary as he came around the coupe’s rear.
Rowan explained, “Cole needs me.”
TJ was recovering on his knees. “Shit, that was a rush. Is that what Pipsqueak had going through her when she was ancestral Grandpa?”
“Aye.” Rowan noted TJ was taking all this very well.
“No wonder she’s got the slug of an MMA fighter.”
“Later, we’ll talk about how calm ye are about all this. But, aye, when she pulls, I give… This is stronger than she’s been since working with Ethel. And it means she could be lost to him. Like before.” Rowan shivered, remembering the battle on the cairn knoll, her power uncontrolled and ruthless.
TJ took that information too and calmly asked, “Need me to drive?”
“Um” came from Mickey. “Holly’s da just texted. They got to the castle, and there were men there, trucks piled with furniture and boxes of clan antiques. Her da left to get reinforcements. Some of the men are armed.”
“What?” Charmaine exclaimed. “Oh no, no, no.” This didn’t seem like news to her. “He-he wouldn’t have. He couldn’t. That’s, but it’s vandalism.”
Three sets of eyes landed on her.
She explained, “Richard Murdoch said he had a surprise planned. Today, now, is the surprise. It has to be. I thought it was over. The ransacking he dreamed of doing, was referring to, was a crude description of taking the Rembrandt.”
Mickey clarified, “It’s not. Is he a war-reenactment nut?”
“I’ve no clue, but Chief MacLaoch, I’m afraid now. Those explosion threats might not be a bluff. The constable should be notified, and they should bring reinforcements, not Holly’s father. I don’t believe the man he’s solicited for this work is above hurting people.”
Mickey said, “He’ll shoot his own son if he deems it worthy.”
All eyes were on Mickey.
Knowing that Lou Gillian, who took the Rembrandt off Charmaine, likened himself to a gangster and fixer, Rowan asked, “And I take it you have the bullet hole to prove it?”
Mickey gave a wan smile, and Rowan thought he saw the true Mickey Gillian surface for a moment before he smothered it back down. “O’aye.”
TJ stood and was dusting off his knees when Rowan got out. “Get in the front,” Rowan said to TJ.
Mickey tossed Rowan a cell phone. Rowan caught it. “Thanks, but I don’t need yer phone.” Rowan did a double take. “Wait. This is mine.”
“I needed it for the trace.”
“Fine. Do you need the keys to my rig, or do you have those too?”
Mickey pulled the keys from his pocket. “All set.”
Rowan slid into the driver’s seat as TJ kissed Charmaine when she refused to go with them.
TJ climbed in as Rowan let off the clutch, and gravel pinged the undercarriage as they launched out of the driveway.
TJ fastened his seat belt as the scenery blew by; Rowan shifted, giving them more speed.
“Good” came from TJ. “I like to play it cool with others, but I’m glad we’re on the same page about hustling to the castle.”
“Is tha’ why you were so calm back there?”
“Ye-up. Pretty sure I shit my pants when you shocked me. I’ll take care of it later. I have a feeling it won’t be the last time I shit my pants this day.”
“If Cole is Ormr, I guarantee it won’t be.”
As they blew out the drive and blasted down the country road, TJ added, “And I’m mighty glad you’re a trained fighter pilot.
I’m definitely not screaming in my mind as you take this next turn”—his hand went to the roof to brace himself as Rowan engine-braked through the wide turn, then shifted up, flying them out the backside—“at eighty.”