The newest candidate, Ms. Zollinger, was stunning. But that wasn’t the reason she was in the top tier. She was a classic example of someone who didn’t know what she wanted but was smart enough to realize she needed money while she figured it out. Ms. Zollinger had a lot of advanced degrees, and more importantly, a lot of student loans, no family, and no friends. His investigators said she had moved to Seattle from St. Louis, Missouri a month ago, after a bad breakup, and had run out of what little savings she’d brought with her. She was perfect. She checked all the boxes. Educated. Alone. Desperate.
He laced his fingers together on top of her file, already guessing the answer but wanting to see her reaction. “Your resumé and recommendations are impressive, Ms. Zollinger. I’m curious. Of all the opportunities for someone with your background, why seek the job as my assistant at Magus Stone and Gravel?”
She hesitated, focusing on where her hands gripped a small leather purse. When she lifted her gaze, it was steady. Even. Confident. “I’ll be honest. I need the money. When I heard the salary range from the employment service, it made sense to apply.”
He liked her honesty. Most of them lied and said something predictable, like, “I’ve always wanted to learn about rocks.” He nodded and flipped open her file and reread the report. He alsoliked that she was single and the only child of parents who’d died in a private plane crash. His mistake with Daffeny had been that she’d had a family and a persistent boyfriend who’d asked too many questions about the odd hours of operation and the real purpose of the crushed rocks. In every incidence, nosey families and friends were the cause for eliminating assistants and warehouse workers. It was time for a new type of candidate. One with no ties.
He closed the file. “This is a demanding job, long hours, and a lot of weekends. My last secretary had a boyfriend who objected to the workload and persuaded her to quit and move with him to Alaska.” He paused and sat back in his chair, letting this information settle in with the candidate. What he’d said wasn’t a lie. Both bodies were buried in a toxic landfill somewhere outside of Anchorage.
For the briefest moment the muscles around Ms. Zollinger’s lovely mouth tightened. He was curious. Perhaps he’d misjudged her. He leaned forward. “I know I sound harsh, but this is a pressure-cooker of a job. And although I’m not discouraging you to have a relationship, it will be difficult, at best, to have outside interests while you’re learning the position.”
The tension around her eyes and mouth eased when she smiled. “There’s no one in my life. I’m afraid my last relationship was a total mess. We were together for three years, and the whole time he was cheating on me with my best friend.” She paused, then continued in a tight voice. “This wasn’t my first misjudgment in character. I seem to attract lowlife scumbags, like the proverbial moth-to-a-flame cliché. I’m not looking for a relationship, Mr. Phillips. I’m looking for a job that will help me get out of debt.”
“Why Seattle? Aside from the rain, which discourages people, it is one of the most expensive cities in the US.”
“My boyfriend hates the Seahawks. He played football for the St. Louis Cardinals and a series of injuries ended his career. I thought it would annoy him that I moved here.”
He chuckled, liking her answer. Her moving to Seattle was a form of revenge, an emotion he understood very well. “You have the job. Can you start tomorrow?”
She nodded, and her tense expression relaxed, replaced with relief. She rose from the chair and almost curtsied as she left his office. She wasn’t as easy to read as Daffeny, but close enough.
Desperation and need were potent motivators he used to control those who worked for him. He also liked her slip regarding the ex. A beautiful woman might say she was done with bad boys, but they never were. They could never stay away from their addiction for long. For insurance, he’d play the matchmaker.
He picked up the phone and dialed a number by heart. He had the perfect man to keep a close eye on his newest hire. John Reynolds should be back from Alaska by now. He was an ex-NFL football player, soft spoken, with an easy smile and a way with the ladies. Zacharias chuckled at the irony as the phone started to ring. A hit man as a boyfriend. If Ms. Zollinger didn’t work out, getting rid of her would be easier than all the others put together. Reynolds might even cut his normal rate.
Chapter Seventeen
Rowan’s meeting with Lyons concluded, he was glad he was on foot, because Seattle traffic was worse than normal. Midafternoon, on the heels of rush hour, and the traffic lights still weren’t working.
A few drivers used their horns, as though that would fix the situation. Traffic edged through the intersection from all directions. The area to his right was the real problem. Cars were perched on the crest of a hill, where visibility was nearly nonexistent for the drivers. More car horns joined in while impatient pedestrians moved to cross the street.
Brakes screeched over wet pavement as a sports car swerved, barely missing a woman and a black Labrador Retriever. Both were huddled together in the center of the crosswalk, where they appeared to be frozen in fear as a white sedan swerved around them. An impatient driver in a black pickup truck sped over the crest of the hill straight for them.
Across the street a man screamed to the woman to get out of the way as he hurried toward her. It happened like a movie played out in slow motion. Instinctively Rowan knew the man wouldn’t reach her in time. A different kind of speed was needed.
Willing his core to overheat, Rowan took off in a blur of light. He sped around briefcase-wielding business types, parents pushing baby carriages, and teenagers attached to their cell phones. Racing past cars and people, his speed took on the power of a raging fire storm as though the world was standing still.
Rowan gathered the woman in his arms and reached for the dog. But the animal leapt out of the way and into the oncoming traffic. A truck swerved, trying to avoid the animal, but everything happened too fast. It struck the dog and plowed into a van.
Rowan spun clear of the chaos and sped to the curb, setting the woman down gently.
Silence hung in the intersection as Rowan scanned the faces of the crowd and recognized the confusion in their expressions. He knew they were trying to process what they’d seen happen.
He’d acted impulsively, something he hadn’t done in a very long time. The Grey Council and the Talons wouldn’t be doing a Snoopy Happy Dance in his honor when they found out. He’d risked exposure. Again. The Talons and the Grey Council only put up with these risks so long before they reacted. He’d never heard of them killing anyone, but banishment was always at the top of their list.
What was happening to him? He needed more sleep—or maybe less. One thing was certain. It was time to clean up the mess he’d made. Gone were the times when his kind could live out in the open. The witch trials, monster hunts, and purges had been a bleak reminder. Survival meant secrecy.
Rowan scanned the crash site for signs of the dog. The poor animal must have died when it was struck by the truck. He felt bad that he hadn’t anticipated that the animal might spook if a stranger tried to grab him. The woman, her back to him, sat where he’d left her. She pulled the hood of her raincoat farther over her head, clutched her knees together, and rocked slowly back and forth. She looked like she was in shock, but there was nothing more he could do for her. Human hospitals were good at picking up the pieces and putting people back together. Or so he’d been told.
Regardless, she was no longer his concern. Mitigating the situation at the intersection was.
Removing his dark glasses, he cast a forgetfulness spell over the crowd. This method would distort the events of the last few seconds, leaving the crowd confused and unable to piece together what had happened with any certainty. It should beenough. A few might guess he was responsible for saving the woman, but the details of the rescue would be fuzzy, like the weather. Fortunately, humans had a way of adjusting what they saw to fit their perspective of the world and how they thought it worked. It was one of the main reasons the magical community had been able to co-exist with them without detection for centuries.
When he replaced his glasses, the deafening quiet broke and with it the traffic lights resumed their normal patterns. Maybe his spell had jolted loose whatever problem had caused the malfunction. Yeah, like thinking that if you threw you shoe at your flat-screen TV, it would change the outcome of a football game.
The accident forgotten, the crowd cheered in relief as cars moved through the intersection and people rushed to appointments. A few hurried toward the woman, offering help and comfort.
Hands in his pockets, Rowan crossed the street, wanting to be as far away as possible. Then he caught another distress call. The injured dog whimpered beside the totaled vehicles. The dog was still alive. He felt a ridiculous amount of relief and froze in place. If he was smart, he’d walk away. This shouldn’t be his problem. He’d already risked exposure by saving the woman. Helping a dog would send the Talons and the Grey Council into fits of outrage.
