Jaggar came in the door, heading straight for Canyon’s desk.
“Jag, what’s up?”
“Timber, you gotta help me. Mac says if I don’t find Dahlia Woodridge in the next hour, she fucking dies. She’s a One True Mate. I don’t need that on my conscience.”
Timber shook his head. “We better work together because he told me the same thing.”
Jaggar nodded, relief stamped in his expression. He pulled a folded stack of printed papers out of his back pocket. “This is what I’ve found.”
While Timber was looking through the data, Jaggar said, “I’ve got more. I’ll be right back.” He ran out the door.
Timber fed a couple pieces of Jaggar’s information into Predator. Predator responded with an investigative summary, making it clear they were at a dead end. They hadn’t found her current physical address. They had leads, but some of them could take days to follow.
Timber, tried to think what Canyon would do. Something illegal, probably. What could he do that was illegalandwould find Dahlia Woodridge? He snapped his fingers and told Predator to hack into the system of a credit card company they’d found in her virtual mailbox. He scanned the charges until he found one he could work with, from Serenity Small Appliance Repair, then typed in a command to Predator.
‘Access Serenity Small Appliance Repair systems and see what their business was with Dahlia Woodridge.’
Predator gave him an hourglass for so long, Timber pounded on Canyon’s keyboard.
“Come on!”
The result popped on the screen like he’d summoned it. A repair person had picked up, repaired, and returned a vacuum cleaner to 4123 Ashland Court, which was close-by, and in fact, Timber knew of an ice cream shop on the street.
‘Access the security system of Ziggy’s Ice Cream.’
He confirmed the camera could see the house, then typed, ‘Watch these videos, stop when there’s movement at house number 4123.’
The video played at super fast speed and then froze at a frame with a woman on the front porch. Timber checked the email picture.
“Match!” he shouted.
He ran for his phone, then thought better of it, returning to Canyon’s chair, and sending an email to Jaggar, Mac, Wade, Trevor—everyone, then he pushed Canyon’s chair under the desk and hurried back to his own desk, grabbing up his phone to text Mac, but before he could, Jaggar ran past the bunker, down the hallway, headed for the steps that lead to duty room at full speed.
“Canyon found her!” Jaggar yelled as he passed.
Timber ran to the door and shouted, “Tell Mac!” at Jaggar’s back.
Timber checked on his brother in the alcove. Canyon was still alive, still sleeping. Timber knelt and shook him by the shoulder. “Little bro, when are you gonna come back to us? Shit is goingdown.”
Canyon only snored. Timber stood and left the bunker, his throat tight. For the first time ever, he locked the door when he left, then hurried down the hallway to the tunnels, to the duty room. When he got there, the room was empty, with the phone on one desk ringing on and on.
Timber let it ring and went to the door that led outside, following the scent of the others into the dark of the night.
17—Abigail
Abigail White barked directions at Number Twelve from the back seat.
“Left, then right on the second street. Look for the red mailbox.”
They were almost at the Van Crimson’s safe house near the hospital. Serenity Hospital loomed on the left—the largest building in town, while the Marnes Mansion loomed atop a hill to her right.
Abigail was still without hercask, and without her animal essence, but she did have Number Six wrapped around her shoulders, and a deficient memory of this horrible day. She knew Khain had taken Paisley, but she dared not think about it. She would have to meet with morevodsoon, and she needed to appear human, nothing more. She had to deny and decry who she really was, to stay free another day. She knew bigger forces were at play than she could specifically recall at that moment, and she knew thevodwould do their bumbling best to find Paisley, and she knew (hoped!) that Paisley would be recovered alive and unhurt. She knew the Van Crimsons were gathering amongst members of her own family, all of them working together toward a common goal: get Paisley away from thevodwithout them knowing what she was, what any of them were.
Tetheredfoxenhad no choice but to live in Serenity, where they always had to hide from either the demon or thevod, and sometimes both, and this was how they survived, always on the edge, which was why they could go dim, while the othershiftencouldn’t. The goddess Rhen had gifted the ability to them on order to help them hide.
Abigail stroked Number Six’s head, staring up at the Marnes Mansion. It was a Serenity historical building, built in 1893. The original owner, Moline Marnes, had been the wife of a deceased European shipbuilder and one of the original settlers of Serenity. She’d had it built in gorgeous Romanesque Revival style, using local limestone as a construction material for all outside walls, adorning it with a prominent turret, and rounded archways. Everyone knew it was haunted due to a ghostly figure being seen in the upstairs bathroom window at all hours, ever since Moline Marnes had died in the tub.
Eldred Van Crimson had bought the mansion in 1937 from the Marnes family. He’d bricked off the entrance upstairs, then turned the ground floor into a for-profit museum of Serenity’s history. The basement floor was home to several Van Crimson miscreants, and the secretly added sub-basement floor was used as a safe house for anyone withfoxenblood.
