Glancing around, it was clear that the cops had already thoroughly searched the room, with drawers and closets rifled through, clothes, books, and knickknacks pushed around. Kat didn’t imagine the police had even known what they were looking for other than something to indicate who had taken the kids and how they had convinced them to leave the house without telling anyone.
“You picking up any unusual scents?” Hale asked, poking his head into the closet for a second, then pulling out a drawer on one of the bedside tables.
Connor sniffed around the room before answering. “No.”
Kat closed her eyes and reached out with her own senses. Since she was still wiped out from her cat-to-human transition, she had to push a bit harder than she normally would.
“You okay, Kat?” Connor asked.
“Yeah,” she said without opening her eyes. “I’m just trying to see if there’s any indication that magic was involved. But picking up remnants of residual magic isn’t as straightforward as smelling a scent left behind on a pillow or a piece of clothing. Magic is all around us, in every living thing and everything that’s ever been alive, and to a lesser extent, those things touched by the living. The bed, desk, curtains, carpet, even that closet full of clothes carry leftover magic. Residual energy like that can easily hide minor spell work, especially if it’s subtle.”
“Can it hide the kind of magic that could force two teenagers out of a house in the middle of the night without leaving a trace?” Connor wondered.
“Possibly,” Kat said. “Time can blur any spell that was used, and it’s been nearly a full day since Addy and Ben disappeared. On top of that, there are spells that witches and warlocks can use to obscure the magic. But I’m hoping I can pick something up.”
As Kat stood there trying to feel the magic around her, she wasn’t surprised she couldn’t come up with anything concrete. She opened her eyes with a sigh.
“Unfortunately, I’m not picking up much in the way of residual magic.”
She walked over to the desk and opened the center drawer. Along with the requisite pens and pencils, there were a few ponytail holders, a calculator, and a pack of gum.
On the other side of the room, Hale pushed back the curtains to reveal an open window. He leaned out to gaze at the ground. “The grass looks like someone rolled around on it down there. I think Addy and Ben jumped out the window.”
Kat hurried over to join Hale even as Connor did the same. The distance to the ground made her stomach clench. Crap, she hated heights.
“That’s got to be at least a thirty-foot drop,” she said, yanking her head back inside. “There’s no way those kids jumped that far.”
Beside her, Connor looked thoughtful. “That text from Addy said she and Ben were being forced to do something. Maybe she meant someone forced them to jump out the window.”
Kat supposed that was possible, but it still seemed like a stretch.
“Let’s check outside,” Connor suggested.
Downstairs, Trevor was still talking with the same detective he’d been speaking with earlier, but when Rachel caught sight of them heading for the door, she quickly followed. As they made their way around to the back of the house, Kat filled Rachel in on Hale’s theory.
Kat didn’t know much about investigating a crime scene, but when they reached the part of the yard underneath the window in Addy’s bedroom, even she could tell that something—or someone—had landed on the grass there. Maybe Hale was right.
Connor went down on one knee to sniff the deep impression in the grass. “This is where Ben landed when he jumped.”
“Addy landed right here beside him,” Rachel said as she got to her feet after sniffing the ground. She turned and stared up at the window above them, a frown creasing her brow. “What the hell could have convinced a girl as smart as Addy to jump out a window that high off the ground?”
Kat didn’t have an answer to that question. Neither did Connor or Hale.
She followed Connor and his pack mates as they used their noses and keen eyesight to track where Addy and Ben went after they’d jumped out the window. The trail led them to the back of the large tree-lined yard.
“These marks make me think someone dragged Addy and Ben across the yard, but there are no other shoe prints anywhere,” Hale murmured, pointing at a section of grass that had been scuffed up. “There was no one out here by Addy and Ben, so who the hell was dragging them?”
When they reached the edge of the property, they found the flower bed where Addy had dropped her phone and the low stone wall the kids had climbed over.
“This is going to sound crazy, but I think Addy and Ben dragged themselves across the ground,” Connor said, kneeling in the grass to trail his fingers along a groove in the sod deep enough to reveal the dark brown dirt underneath. “There aren’t two gouges side by side anywhere. That means they were dragging the toe of one shoe, while walking forward on the other. It’s like they were fighting themselves every step of the way.”
Hale and Rachel exchanged confused looks but didn’t say anything.
“So what does that mean?” Kat asked.
Connor shook his head as he got to his feet. “It means we’re almost certainly dealing with something supernatural.”
Chapter 8
