“According to what Rachel told me when she called, Franklin Gutierrez went into his daughter’s bedroom on the sixth floor this morning to tell her breakfast was ready, only to find Anabella trying to climb out the window,” Trevor said as they got out of the truck. “When he tried to pull her back in, she fought, much harder than a petite fifteen-year-old should have been able to do.”
“How did we go from a girl fighting her father to the building getting blown up?” Kat asked as they approached the crime scene and got waved through. But before anyone could answer, she stopped in her tracks when they reached the debris along the front of the apartment.
“What’s wrong?” Connor asked.
She didn’t answer right away, instead closing her eyes to take in the chaotic flows of the magic all around the building. When she opened them again, it was to find Connor and Trevor looking at her expectantly.
“A tremendous amount of magical energy was released out here,” she murmured softly so no one else would hear. “There were at least six of them down here waiting, and when the girl didn’t come out the window like they wanted her to, they pulled half the building apart to bring her out themselves.”
“Damn,” Connor whispered, looking up at the inspection crews and firefighters crawling through several of the apartments above them. “What the hell was so special about this one girl that they were willing to do this in broad daylight?”
Kat didn’t have an answer to that question as they slipped inside the building and made their way up to one of the stairwells, weaving their way around all the firefighters and paramedics still helping people out of the building.
The Gutierrez apartment looked like a bomb had gone off in it, with walls caved in or missing and whole sections of the floor and ceiling gone. Detective Sandoval was in the kitchen talking to the chief of police, Shanette Leclair. If an apartment complex that looked like it had been blown to hell wasn’t a sure enough sign that the situation was bad, then having Chief Leclair there sure was. Kat didn’t miss the way the dark-haired woman took note of their presence, especially the curious glance she threw in Kat’s direction, followed by the blatant way she purposely turned her attention back to the detective, like she’d never seen them.
After a moment, Rachel and Hale came over along with Detective Sandoval, joining them in the middle of what remained of the living room.
“We got a statement out of the father, but I think it’s safe to say that no one is going to follow up on it,” Sandoval said, shaking his head. “He seems to be dealing with a severe concussion, though a few of the paramedics think it’s PTSD from seeing his daughter fall.”
“Humor us,” Connor said, crossing his arms over his chest, “with his version of the story.”
“Mr. Gutierrez said he had to wrap his arms around his daughter to keep her away from the window, but that she fought him like she was possessed. He practically had to tackle her to the floor keep her from jumping. That’s when the story went off the rails.”
“Meaning?” Trevor prompted.
Detective Sandoval hesitated, looking from Trevor to the rest of them in turn, like he was afraid to even say the next part out loud for fear of them telling him he was crazy.
“Because that’s when the walls of the apartment were ripped away, and a tall, slim man wearing a long, black cloak floated inside the room, threw Mr. Gutierrez aside with a flick of his finger, and then took Annabella away with him.”
Sandoval paused again, as if he expected them to start laughing.
They didn’t.
“Did Mr. Gutierrez happen to mention what this man looked like?” Kat asked, though she was sure she already knew.
The detective eyed Kat, likely wondering who she was and why she was there in the first place. The man glanced at Connor, then Trevor and Rachel, but when none of them said anything, he must have decided he could answer.
Sandoval glanced at his little flip notebook before answering. “Six three or six four, maybe a hundred and ninety pounds. Pale skin and long, straight, black hair tied back with a piece of leather. Dark eyes.”
Kat had been expecting this answer, and yet she still felt her stomach clench. “It’s him,” she whispered. “Marko.”
Connor and his pack mates didn’t seem surprised by her announcement. Kat knew she shouldn’t have been shocked, either. When she’d seen those witches and warlocks at the farmhouse, especially Tatum Graves, it was clear Marko was involved in all of this. But even knowing all that, there’d been a part of her hoping she was wrong. That maybe Tatum had struck out on his own. That would have still been bad, but not nearly as terrifying as facing Marko again.
“Gutierrez wasn’t making that stuff up, was he?” Detective Sandoval asked softly, looking around the destroyed apartment as if seeing it for the first time. “This guy he saw really floated up here and kidnapped that girl?”
Kat expected Trevor to answer, since he seemed to have the best relationship with the detective from the Missing Persons Unit. If not Trevor, then Connor, for sure. When neither of them said anything, Kat decided it was up to her instead.
“No,” she said simply. “He wasn’t making it up.”
Detective Sandoval didn’t seem to know what to say to that. He looked at Connor and his SWAT teammates like he was praying one of them would come out and say this was all a joke.
“Can you guys do anything about someone like that?” he finally asked when no one spoke up to spare him the discomfort of knowing the truth.
“We’re going to try,” Connor promised quietly.
The detective nodded, then walked back over to talk to the chief. Kat doubted the man would say anything to her about what they’d told him. Everyone would consider him as mad as the missing girl’s father.
“Not wanting to seem too pessimistic here, butcanwe actually do something about someone like Marko?” Hale asked. “I mean, the man can apparently fly. And we didn’t exactly fare too well against the ones who stayed on the ground.”
