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I knocked on Shelby’s door and asked if she wanted to come along, but she was busy rushing to finish a test garment. Tansy was visiting her brother, Seth. It was just me then. Me and my rickety old Prius. It was my first solo outing since I’d met Gunnar.
The first stop was my go-to specialty grocer, who carried my favorite roast of Colombian beans. It wasn’t until I was walking back to the car that I had that sinking feeling of being watched again. We’d been so focused on The White Claws that we’d forgotten about the other, unexplained person, or people, that had been watching me. Or maybe that was the insidious forget spell in action again. I hurried into the car, not wanting to take any chances.
I dug in my purse for my phone and pressed the first contact on my list, Gunnar. I pressed the button to record and dictated a message telling him what was going on, with all the details I thought he needed.
I just needed to make it back to the penthouse.
I was trying to make a left turn when a large, black SUV blocked my way. Another black SUV was behind me. Okay, stay calm. I’d just loop around and try again.
Easier said than done. At the next turn, the same thing happened again. I tried to be sneaky at the third turn, putting my blinkers on to go the opposite way I wanted, but again they blocked me from both sides. Soon, I noticed a pattern: they were running me out of the city.
So I did the only thing I could: I put on my blinkers and slowed to a halt. There was no way I was going to let them drive me out into the middle of nowhere. At least here, I had witnesses. Even alook-awayspell couldn’t trick security cameras.
But they wouldn’t let me stop, rear-ending me when I tried.
Fuck!
The Prius might as well have been made of tin foil. Fuck trying to be good to the environment; my next car was going to be a freaking Hummer.
These people didn’t know how little I cared about this car. I slowed and stopped anyway, forcing the SUV behind me to push my car along before we all stopped, my car sandwiched between the two larger vehicles.
I glanced over at my phone. No reply from Gunnar. I sent another message, telling him they had me stopped at the side of the road after pushing my car for some distance.
As two huge dudes got out of one of the SUVs, their faces masked, I triple-checked to make sure my doors were locked, then pressed the call button on my phone before leaving it on the passenger seat. It was then that I noticed the SUVs didn’t have license plates. There was definitely some magic going on here if they weren’t getting pulled over for that.
A smaller guy, also masked, got out and made a gesture at my car, and suddenly the Prius doors unlocked. One of the huge dudes opened my door, and I felt a pinch as he reached in to pull me out.
Then the world went dark.
Chapter 30
Gunnar
Ipacedthelivingroom of the penthouse as I waited for Dr. Shen to pick up. I had an inkling he wasn’t involved, but he was my last lead. We’d exhausted all the other ones.
I regretted having had a few drinks while I cleaned up the greenhouse because now I wasn’t working with all my brain cells, and I needed to be. I’d checked my phone and noticed a missed call and two messages from Lillian. The call had gone to voicemail, and it had recorded the struggle as whoever had taken her broke into her car.
“What do you need, gargoyle?” was Dr. Shen’s terse greeting over speakerphone.
“Lillian is gone. Abducted from her car. Tell me you don’t have anything to do with this.”
There was a low growl on the other line. “I do not. I am currently flying over Hawaii, and Lillian is not with me. Don’t tell me you’ve lost my granddaughter.”
“Your what?” That was news to me.
I eyed Eamon, who was listening in together with everyone else. He mouthed, “I’m on it” before pulling out his phone and starting to tap away.
“Never mind.” Shen yelled something I didn’t understand, probably to his pilot. “Tell me the details, Gargoyle.”
I told him all I could, starting with the missed calls and messages. Checking all the CCTV feeds from cameras dotted about the city, we’d found where they’d stopped her car. I sent him the recording I had of the two thugs manhandling her into one of the SUVs. Then one of them got into her car, and the three vehicles sped away.
“We found her car in a ditch just outside the city limits,” I finished. “Then the trail goes cold.”
“There is a lot of magic involved to make people to ignore all that on a busy street,” Dr. Shen said thoughtfully. “I’m turning my plane back around. What are you doing now to find her?”
“We have drones and a helicopter in the air looking for her.” And I’d called him.
“Call me when you have any more information.” He hung up.
