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Jane hadn’t bothered to close the sunproof shades before she left. Orange-gold sunlight flooded through the windows and the glass transom, giving the shop a cozy glow. I picked up Mr. Wainwright’s copy of A Guide to Traversing the Supernatural Realm, running my fingers over the embossed gold title. I opened the book and was surprised to find that the title page was signed by the author: “The point of any quest is not the prize but the lessons learned along the way. Keep your eyes up and open. You never know what you might find.—Warm regards, Jacques LeMoir.”
“And ambiguous messages prove unhelpful once again.” I sighed, remembering the last thing Mr. Wainwright said to me just the other night. “So the lesson is that failure is OK as long as I come out of it feeling like I’ve learned something. That’s a little condescending.”
I closed my eyes and yawned.
“I tried, Grandpa, Nana,” I whispered to the empty room. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t figure it out.”
I sat there a long time, trying to figure out what would be the best course of action from here. If I asked very nicely, I wondered if the flight attendant would let me drop the Elements out of some sort of hatch while flying over the ocean. It would be safer than leaving them out in the world where the Kerrigans could get hold of them and make trouble.
I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyelids, wishing I could make time go back so I could relive this whole journey over again without making any silly mistakes. I would have confronted Jed earlier and pulled him over to our side. I wouldn’t have reacted so badly when Dick paid attention to me and spent more time getting to know him. I might have brought Penny with me.
Keep your eyes up and open. A soft, warm voice whispered over my ear like a spring breeze. I jumped. You never know what you might find.
I blinked blearily around the room. The sun shifted through the window, bouncing off of a mirror on the wall and reflecting in a bright silver circle over the door. I wiped at my tired eyes and blinked a few times. That wasn’t a silver circle. It was a bell, the old Indian cowbell Jane said had been hanging there since before she worked at the store.
I pushed to my feet, studying the battered silver shape.
It couldn’t be that simple.
I grabbed a footstool and dragged it over to the door to get a better look. The designs I’d assumed were Indian were tiny rows of Celtic knots.
It was that feckin’ simple.
This was the bell. This was the Sea bell. I’d been searching this stupid shop all this time, and the bell had been hanging over the door the whole time.
“If there is a Goddess out there, you have a really mean sense of humor,” I griped.
I’d found it. Just in time. I’d found it. I could do the binding and go home.
Home to my family, but far away from Jed. I blew out a long breath. I would miss him so much. We were so new, so tentative, that we’d never even broached the subject of what would happen when I went home. We hadn’t made promises to each other, and now . . .
“In the grand Southern tradition, I won’t think about that right now,” I said. “I’ll think about it tomorrow.” I unhooked the bell from its mount and dashed for the back office. I jerked the safe open and eased out the little carrying case.
Behind me, a footstep sounded at the entrance to the office. I turned to find a familiar figure standing just behind me.
“S-Stephen?” I stammered, confused about why someone who was supposed to be in Ireland would be three feet away, holding what looked like a rather large handgun. What was happening? Why would Stephen come here at all, much less armed? He wasn’t even looking at me; his eyes were focused on the little wooden cabinet. Gooseflesh rose on my arms as I stood.
Heart hammering, I nudged the heavy safe door shut with my leg.
“Ah, ah, ah,” Stephen said, smiling blandly as he stopped the door with his arm. He edged me away from the safe, trapping me between him and the bookshelf behind me. He gave me a sly, condescending grin as he surveyed the contents of Uncle Jack’s cabinet. “She knew you would find them. You are such a clever girl, Nola. You know that, don’t you? Far too clever to shut yourself away in that stupid little village for that godforsaken clinic. I meant that. I want you to know that not everything I told you was a lie.”
Realization, cold and heavy, settled against my heart. “Sonofabitch! Did you sleep with me just so you could find the Elements?”
“Well, the lovely sex wasn’t about the Elements,” he said. “That was a special side benefit.” I raised my hand to slap him, but he shoved the gun toward my face, making me cower back. “Let’s just keep those fire-starting hands to ourselves, shall we?”
“You ransacked the shop, didn’t you? You hurt Zeb.”
“And the meathead out by the Dumpster.” He chuckled as I made a strangled gasping noise. “And I strolled into your house anytime I felt like it. Old houses are never quite as secure as you think they are. There’s always a window or door that can be jimmied. It doesn’t take much to slink around this town unnoticed. All it takes is a T-shirt with an inappropriate slogan and a John Deere baseball cap. I’ve been here for weeks, watching you, keeping track of your progress. She wanted to intervene, but why do the work when you’re doing it for us?”
“Why are you doing this? And who is ‘she’?”
There was that wintry smile again. “I wish I could say I was special, like you, that I was trying to restore balance to a family that’s been denied its magic for too long,” he said, his lips twisted into a mocking smile. “But I’ll be honest. It’s the money. The Kerrigans are going to pay handsomely for the contents of this cabinet. I couldn’t have gotten a mint for just one or two of the Elements, but all four together, in a handy carrying case? I’ll be set for life.”
“And how long do you think that life will be,” I asked, “once my family hears about this? Hell, when I tell Jane it was you who hurt Zeb, your life won’t be worth living. You’re going to spend the rest of your days looking over your shoulder for an entire family of pissed-off vampires, not to mention angry witches. I’d almost feel sorry for you, if you weren’t such a prick.”
“Well, I guess we’re just going to have to make sure you don’t tell anyone, aren’t we?” Stephen’s hand tensed around the gun, raising it to my eye level. Panic constricted my throat, but my hands flew up, at the ready. I have no idea what they were ready to do, but it startled Stephen enough to flinch. I snatched up a heavy amethyst geode from Jane’s desk and smashed it against his temple. He yelped, slumping against the wall, swinging the gun toward me. I darted to the side and beat his wrist against the shelves, over and over, until he dropped the gun to the floor. He growled, shoving me back against the desk so my head thunked against Jane’s laptop. The pain of my back colliding with the sharp edge of the desk had me howling. I swung my booted foot up in a vicious arc, connecting with his chin and knocking him back into the shelf, which collapsed, dumping heavy leather-bound books on his head. He sank to the floor, limp and unconscious.
Slowly, I sat up, turning my aching head side-to-side. Stephen was working for the Kerrigans all this time? I felt so completely stupid. How had I fallen for this twice? From now on, I would have to ask Penny to prescreen all of my dates. I cradled my face in my hands, praying for the throbbing to stop. I had to get up. I had to go check on Jed, get him help if he needed it. I just had to make my head stop spinning long enough to stand.
