Chapter 13
Jena stood at the sink washing teacups and trying very hard not to cry. Felix dried them and put them away, watching her out of the corner of his eye. It’d been hours since Chase had left, and he wasn’t answering his texts. She’d even tried to call, but it’d gone straight to voicemail.
Something wasn’t right. She knew it in her bones.
In the other room, Aggie was in deep conversation with Sweets, Matilda, and Ms. Pao.
The four of them spoke in low tones interspersed with Aggie’s hacking.
They’d shot enough glances through the kitchen door that it wasn’t a secret who they were discussing.
Jena kept her back to them. She couldn’t deal with anything else right now—
Another set of cups clattered next to the sink, and she glanced over at Ms. Pao. The town librarian smiled back at her, her magnified eyes kind. “Jena…is there anything that Chase may have given you, or left behind while he was here?”
She wiped her eyes. “Aside from the work he did Aggie’s bathroom?” Chase was the tidiest man she’d ever met, and they hadn’t—God, the only thing he’d ever given her was his number—and the sweater she’d thrown away, but that was more of a return… Jena shook her head, tearing up all over again. “No.”
Ms. Pao frowned. “Darn it.”
“Are you going to try and scry for him? What if we got something from his cabin?” Felix asked, tossing the dish towel over his shoulder.
She blinked at him, owl-like. “I don’t think that’s wise. We don’t want to—”
The bell downstairs rang as someone came in, and Jena pushed past her to see who. Let it be Chase. Please, please, please let it be Chase—
She threw open the door, and Kelsey Montgomery stood on the landing, chewing a nail. Before Jena could say anything the woman started talking.
“I shouldn’t be here, but I’m tired of letting messed up shit happen. I-I really am sorry I didn’t do more when we were younger.” She took a deep breath. “I couldn’t get away until my shift at Cups was over, but I saw Malcom and a couple other Westsiders take Chase away in a van this morning.”
Jena put a hand to her stomach. Goddamn it, she knew something had happened!
“W-what do you mean?” she asked, her voice trembling. Kelsey glanced over Jena’s shoulder, and Jena stepped aside to let the slim were in. “Please. We’re all worried about him.”
“If that psycho’s got him, you should be,” Kelsey muttered, slinking onto the couch.
“So spill it,” Aggie snapped. “What do you know?”
Kelsey wet her lips. “Greta lost it when Chase came in this morning and gave your order instead of Crystal’s.
She left me at the counter, and I’m pretty sure she disappeared into her office to tattle, because when I ran out to give him his credit card, Malcom was there with two other weres.
They had words, then one of them hit Chase over the head, and they dragged him into a van. ”
“Did they see you?” Matilda asked.
“Are you fricking kidding me?” Jena asked at the same time, her temper spiking. What the hell was going on in this town?
“I-I don’t think so, and there wasn’t anyone else on the street.” Kelsey fished something out of her back pocket and handed it to Jena. “And no, I’m not kidding. Here’s his credit card.”
Matilda was out of her chair in a flash and snatched it. “Perfect. Where’s your scrying bowl?”
Jena brain skipped at the change in topic. “Um. Under the kitchen sink…”
The little witch was in the other room before all the words had left Jena’s mouth and rummaging through the cabinet. “Ugh! This is disgusting! Who uses a silver basin to catch leaks? Don’t you have plasticware?”
“Just wash it, it’ll be fine,” Aggie called back, a fit of coughing drowning out Matilda’s bitching. “Then what?” she asked Kelsey when she’d caught her breath.
“Um…” The were’s brows furrowed at the older woman, and Aggie scowled, gesturing at her to go on. “Well, like I said, we recognized Jena’s order, and not for nothing, but he was smiling like an idiot and reeked like sex.” She eyed Jena up and down. “High five for scoring that piece of tail, girl.”
Jena felt her cheeks heat. “Um, thanks?”
“You know it. Anyway, that kind of took the guesswork out of why he was there at nine in the morning getting your breakfast to go…but I think I did something stupid.” She chewed her lip for a second.
“I told him to call my dad and gave him the number. If any of them saw that slip of paper, I’m in deep shit. ”
“Who’s your dad?” Aggie asked. “All you Eastsiders look the same.”
Kelsey laughed. “Yeah, we get that a lot, probably because so many of us are twins or trips. My dad’s Phil Montgomery, Eastside’s alpha.”
“And why would you be wanting to have Chase call him after the long silence betwixt your packs?” Sweets asked.
Jena wanted to know that, too, especially if Phil had been friends with her mom. She glanced toward the kitchen, shivering. Whatever Matilda was doing in there was deep magic—the kind that made your bones thrum.
Kelsey squirmed like she felt it, too and scrunched her freckled nose.
“Yeah…that’s kind of…look, all I can tell you is it has to do with this wedding.
It’s not gonna be good for anyone. Like, really not good.
” She looked at Jena. “Which is part of why my dad wanted me to invite you to the pig roast, but I think you should come—”
“Ah! Gotcha!” Matilda yelled from the kitchen.
Jena was out of her seat along with everyone else except Aggie, crowding into the room. The little blonde witch stood peering into a battered scrying bowl on the kitchen table, her eyes occluded with a shimmering mist. She beckoned Jena closer.
The bowl glowed with silver light, and deep within its still waters was an image of Chase.
Wherever he was, it was murky with power, and he’d lost his hat.
He sat in ankle-deep water against the curvature of a gray stone wall, soaked, one arm resting on his raised knee as he chucked stones.
He frowned and looked up, his blue eyes unfocused, like he was hurt.
“Well, hello, gorgeous,” Matilda murmured with an evil chuckle. “Not that we all haven’t heard the rumors, but I’ve got zero doubts now that someone got cuckolded.”
“What do you mean?” Jena asked her.
“Weres’ eyes are always brown. No exceptions, unless there’s some other supe in the mix. And with the clarity in the pair that boy has, I’m betting it was a recent addition to the genome.”
“Well, it’s not from Wallace’s side,” Ms. Pao said. “His mother made a right pest of herself at the library documenting the Montgomery family’s purity—Eastside and West. Or she did before they shipped her off to assisted living—”
“I’m still calling foul on that. Woman was sharp as a tack,” Matilda spat.
Sweets hummed, staring into the bowl. “Though it pains me to agree with you, that shade of blue isn’t something regressive popping up. Which begs the questions, who’s that boy’s daddy, and why is Wallace flaunting him as his own?”
“Do you think that’s what Rebecca saw?” Ms. Pao rubbed her fingers across her lips, her brow furrowed.
“Having relations behind Wallace’s back would certainly be a skeleton she’d want to keep hidden, but the timing’s not right…
they fell out years before Chase was born. Mary was a Duffy, wasn’t she?”
Matilda snorted. “Duffy. Who the hell knows where her people came from?”
“My dad might,” Kelsey said, chewing a nail.
“Or Mr. Brock might remember something,” Felix added.
“He’s still the town archivist?” Jena shook her head at their nods. The vampire was old enough to personally remember the town’s founding. If he could stay on topic was a totally different matter. “Can you see where Chase is?” she asked, more concerned about him than his family tree.
The film over Matilda’s eyes shimmered, and the image in the bowl pulled back…and then back again, like a camera sliding down a track. It blurred, then steadied, wobbled—
And was gone.
“Damn it.” Matilda swore, collapsing onto a chair. “Wherever it is, there’s magic involved. He’s underground, and that hole is deep. All things considered, he’s a little roughed up, but doesn’t look too bad. I’m assuming that means they need him for something.”
Great. Jena was pretty sure that something was going to fall on Samhain, which gave them all of twenty-four hours to figure it out and get him clear of it. She turned to Kelsey. “I know this whole mess involves the Westside pack, but do you think your dad would help us?”
“I-I think so…” She glanced at the rest of the room.
“If this wedding happens…yeah. I think he would if there’s a chance to stop it.
That’s why I gave Chase his number, and like I said, he wanted to talk to you…
and I mean, the worst he can say is no.” Jena pulled out her phone and Kelsey shook her head. “You need to do it in person.”
“Then let’s go,” Felix said, snugging his tie.
Jena shoved her phone back into her pocket. “Don’t you have to get back to work?”
He psh’d her. “Thursdays Mayor Chambers has a standing re-election committee meeting that eats the entire afternoon. Let’s just say that’s not going well after the wind-turbine debacle over on Sunnyside and usually ends in cocktails. I’m not worried about it.”
“You should be,” Matilda scowled from her seat. “That debacle’s not just an eyesore, they planted the damned things smack dab in the middle of the leyline that runs through town. Mark my words, no good’s going to come from those things stabbing into it.”
Jena blinked at her. “Other than being ugly, why? The magic should just run through them like everything else.”
“Mmm. But it isn’t,” Ms. Pao said. “And without ‘science,’” she finger quoted, “backing up the coven’s concerns, the powers-that-be did whatever the hell they pleased.”
Sweets snorted. “As if there’d just be a study lying around on that.”