“He doesn’t trust us. He just needs my plane. Female Wizards don’t just vanish without a trace.” Rowan hesitated. “Unless they want to disappear.”
Stryker drove into the terminal and headed toward Rowan’s plane. “My thought is that one death got them spooked. Two more propelled them into an all-out panic attack. According to the male Troll, there’s a large underground magical community sympathetic to female Wizards. He thinks they only made it look like Vlad’s boat sank to get the Grand Vizier off their scent, then headed for Seattle in another one of his yachts.” Stryker grinned. “You’ve got to admire their style.”
“I’m sure I will, when I’m done being pissed off. Great detective work, Stryker. I’m betting you’re planning on defying Vlad’s direct order and leaving the island.”
Stryker parked the car and cut the engine. “That’s what makes this fun. I told the guard we were going for coffee. I just didn’t mention the coffee shop was in Seattle.”
Rowan noticed a male Troll standing by his plane, the same Troll who had hitched a ride on Rowan’s plane from Seattle, and he looked mad as hell.
He nodded toward the man. “Did he tell you his name?”
“Renegade.”
“Fits. Does he trust us?”
“Pretty sure he doesn’t, so watch your back.”
Rowan got out of the car and slammed the door, frustrated the female Wizards didn’t trust him. Who was he kidding? It bugged him the woman he’d slept with didn’t trust him. For some reason, that one stung far worse. His anger ran like molten lava through his veins, and he did nothing to cool it down.
Stryker was right. Something must have really freaked the female Wizards, to cause them to run. His anger spiked and a cluster of bushes caught fire as he passed them on his way to the plane. Rowan let them burn. He planned to find out who or what it was that had pushed the women to desperation. But first he intended to find out where they were hiding and protect them, whether they liked it or not.
Chapter Fourteen
In the late afternoon, Seattle’s waterfront warehouses buzzed with activity. The brick warehouse of Magus Stone & Gravel was no exception. Perched on the farthest pier, it reeked of wet rock and sea water. Large slabs of blue-veined stones, resembling granite, were loaded onto conveyor belts and crushed. The material was then deposited into containers and stacked in rows, in preparation for shipment.
The company, Magus, named for a Scottish Wizard from the ninth century, supplied landscape boulders, crushed granite, flagstone and river rock for pathways and gardens to the general public. The real money was in extracting arsenic, asbestos, mercury, lead, uranium and thallium and selling them to the magical community. These elements were among the key ingredients used in forbidden spells and potions.
In the corner office, overlooking the warehouse floor, Zacharias Phillips studied the profit-and-loss statements on his desk. He had the reputation of being a hard worker. When he was younger, he’d start his day with a run around Green Lake. Now he just went in to work. His dedication to his job had garnered him the approval from the leaders of the Talons and the Grey Council, and divorce papers from his wife of fifteen years.
The time on his cell flashed eight a.m. and, like clockwork, his new assistant, Daffeny Schultz, entered his office to review the statements she had given him last night.
She was an improvement over his last assistant. Smart and attractive, she always wore dark slacks and a jacket, and according to her resume, she played volleyball in college and held a master’s degree in business from Seattle University.
His former assistant was also pretty but was as dumb as roadkill. After his divorce, he’d wanted a little eye-candy todecorate his office. He was over that phase in his life now. Intelligence had become his main consideration. If he got both, that was a bonus. The most surprising of all was that Daffeny Schultz never flirted with him, even after she found out he was single and worth billions. He liked that about her—and the fact she always called him “sir.”
Zacharias made a few notations on the statement and then handed it Daffeny. “Are you positive the count is off?”
“Yes, sir. We double-checked. Ten fifty-pound sacks of broken rocks are missing. Sammy verified it but said we still have enough product to fill our order with Northwest Landscaping. Should I ask him to double-check the count?”
Zacharias didn’t like the implication of a discrepancy in the numbers. It meant there was either a thief or someone who couldn’t count. He didn’t like his choices. He kept the irritation out of his voice. No sense alerting his secretary to the seriousness of the problem. “Have Sammy conduct a recount, and this time bring someone else along to help him. Fifty-pound sacks of rock don’t walk away without help.”
“Very good, sir.”
He watched her scribble on a yellow notepad. She was always making notes. He figured she was like those people who had to write everything down. He didn’t care what she did to get the job done, as long as she kept her mouth shut.
Daffeny was the fourth assistant he’d hired in the last ten months. Finding competent people wasn’t the problem. Zacharias could hire a law graduate with the salary he paid. The bigger issue for him was loyalty. The minute his assistants caught on to his black-market operation and showed signs they might share that knowledge with the authorities, they were replaced.
“Will that be all, sir?”
Daffeny’s professional manner pulled him back. Yes, he hoped she wouldn’t catch on for a while.
“Excuse me, sir, but there was one more thing. Your daughter called. She said her tuition is due.”
Zacharias’s mood lightened as he pictured Katharine. Except for her mother’s exceptionally green eyes, Katharine was as plain and bland as English Yorkshire pudding. Maybe that’s why he spoiled and indulged her so much. She’d never given him a moment’s worry. She’d never partied like her mother had. Didn’t do drugs, and earned straight As in the University of Washington’s medical school. Even when her mother divorced him and then died of an overdose, Katharine remained unchanged, as though her mother had died years before. And in a way, she had. She’d accepted her mother’s death as easily and as unemotionally as rain in Seattle. He’d never been more relieved. His only regret was that…
Daffeny cleared her throat.
“Sorry. I was thinking of Katharine. I’ll call her myself and let her know that I’ll transfer the money today.” He could read the worry in his assistant’s eyes. It was another trait he liked about her. She couldn’t lie or bluff without him being able to read it in her expression. He’d know if she so much as stole a stapler or a box of paperclips. “Is there anything else?”
