Forbidden (24 page)

They got to the bottom of the stairs and looked around. The unfinished gray cinder blocks made up the main part of the area, and wooden timbers supported the floor. Other than a large hot water heater, the area was mostly bare.

Claire sat down on the bottom of the steps and twisted her leg to look at the claw holes through her jeans. “That's going to leave some new scars but at least none of the muscles were cut.” Looking up and around the room, she pursed her lips and said with surprise in her voice, “Hey, it's not too bad down here. I was expecting a real mess. But there's not much to move at all.”

Little did she know. “The basement is bigger than it looks.” Alek moved to the far end of the front room and opened the long wooden gate to the storage area. “Here's what we need to empty out.”

He flicked on the light switch and heard Claire gasp behind him. The room was thirty feet square and packed floor to ceiling with boxes of all sizes and shapes. Some were carefully sealed with tape or plastic wrap, while the contents of others bulged out at odd angles. “All the spots used to be marked and each family had their own section. I guess things got a little out of control…”

Noticing the variety of webs stretching from stack to stack and the insects crawling openly on the boxes, Alek began to understand why Rachel had suggested that this be done. “Man, we're going to have to bug bomb down here before winter. There must be dozens of spiders in here.” Beside him, Claire shrugged and rolled her eyes a little. “What?”

“Nothing. I guess I'm just not used to getting worked up over bugs. Maybe there are some bad ones here I don't know about. But in Texas we have about six kinds of black widows and brown recluse spiders, and tons of scorpions. These just look like regular garden spiders to me. Nothing to bother with. You find them, you smush them. You get bit, put on some baking soda and move on. No big deal.” He must have had an odd expression on his face, because she looked contrite all of a sudden. “Sorry. I guess that wasn't the right thing to say. I'm still getting used to how things are done here. We can bomb if you think that's best. Do you have any around? I do know how to use them.”

Maybe that was why Skew hadn't done it herself. The spiders might be no big deal to her. He hated to admit that spiderwebs gave him the willies, but if they didn't bother Claire, he wasn't going to let them bother him either. “Nah. Never mind. I'll talk to Skew about it when she gets back. Let's just get started and try to figure out what belongs to which family.” He thought he knew approximately where the Williams section was, but there didn't appear to be any guide marks on the floor or walls. “Y'know what? We should grab a pad and pencil from upstairs and keep records, so we can put everything back in the same place.”

That lit up Claire's face. “Ooo! Good idea. And I can take pictures with my cell phone. I might as well put it to some use, since it's useless for making calls here.” She pulled the slim smart phone from her pocket and started pressing buttons on the face. “It even has a flash, except that uses up the battery pretty fast.”

Also a terrific idea! “Wait here.” He sprinted up the stairs to get a pad from behind the counter. He'd worked here several summers while he was in high school, so he knew where everything was.

Or at least he used to know. Not only was the pad not where Skew always left it, but while looking for it, he started noticing other things that were out of place. A key ring was on the floor, nearly invisible next to the wall. The dishes in the sink weren't from breakfast. The smell of mold on unwashed plates was plain when he walked back into the sink area. In fact, he was surprised he hadn't noticed it when he and Scott first arrived. It was very unlike the uber-clean falcon who had been constantly on his ass for not sanitizing the counters after customers left. He realized he couldn't remember the last time he'd seen Skew. He'd been so busy searching and doing work for people that he hadn't been by for days.

“Alek? Are you coming back down?” Claire's voice rose up the narrow stairwell.

He stepped to the door. “I think something's wrong. Stuff is out of place up here. I don't think Skew has been here for a while.” Claire came up the stairs, leaning less heavily on the rail than when she'd gone down. “Hey, you seem to be doing better. In fact, the cut on your head is nearly healed.”

She reached up to touch her hair, then patted it with a pleased expression. “Is it? Oh, I guess so. Good. Maybe El Chupacabra is sleeping or something.”

“El … what?”

“That soul-sucking chief of police of yours. A chupacabra is a south Texas legend, like Bigfoot. It supposedly sucks all the blood out of goats and little kids. That's what it felt like when he
dimmed my glow,
as he put it. Can't have me just
pretending
to be omega, after all. Jerk.”

Alek couldn't disagree. “At least he didn't make you grovel on the floor, begging forgiveness.” He paused. “Did he?”

She shook her head. “Unless you count him stepping on my windpipe for accidentally looking the Alpha in the eye.”

Alek let out a small growl without intending to. Lenny had no right to do that! It wasn't how things were done in this town. “He's going too far. That's not police behavior and it's especially not Wolven behavior.”

“Pfft,” she snorted. “No doubt. But it's not like we have much to say about it. Let's just finish up here and then we'll report the owner's disappearance. Maybe there's a simple explanation, like running to the city to shop, or visiting relatives or something.”

Alek didn't know much about Skew's family. She mostly kept to herself and didn't really talk about where she came from. “It's possible, I guess.” He turned to follow her back downstairs but stopped. “Hey, can I see your phone for a second?”

When she handed it over, he clicked on the camera button and took photos of the key ring and the dishes. He wrapped his shirt over his hand, opened the cash register, and took more photos, showing the drawer full of cash. Something was definitely not right. When he turned back, Claire was leaning against the jamb to the stairwell, nodding and smiling. “Rachel was right. You
are
paranoid.” Before he could reply, she smiled. “Good.” Then she trotted down the stairs, barely touching the handrail, as though she'd never hurt her leg. Very strange.

He followed more slowly. The day was already taking a toll on him, even though it wasn't even half over.

By the time he made it down the stairs, Claire had found a stapled list that marked off the storage area by letters and numbers and assigned a family for each slot. “Tell you what,” she said. “It looks like everything is out of order from the last time Rachel updated this. I think we should go unload the groceries and tackle this tomorrow. I don't trust the police chief to call the school and the last thing I need is to make another enemy.”

Alek agreed. “I think you're right. There's more than a day's worth of work here, and I'm worried about Skew and Darrell. If we have to take another beating, so be it.”

He felt suddenly out of breath and reached for the stairwell railing for balance. She noticed. “Hey, are you okay? You don't look so good.”

His heart was pounding and he felt cold. “I don't know. Maybe I'm getting the flu or something. I felt fine earlier, but now I feel like all the energy has been sucked out of me.”

“Maybe we should get you to the nurse too. Let's head over that way. I'll drop you there and check in at the school. Maybe they'll let me store the refrigerated stuff in the school fridge. Is the truck a rental? Is there any rush to get it back somewhere?”

Alek shook his head, feeling light-headed and slightly dizzy. “No. The town owns the truck. I don't know if there's enough room in the school for the dairy stuff, but it's worth a try.”

He let her help him up the stairs. “Actually, why don't you drop me at my apartment? I'll use my landline to call around and check up on people. I'll call Marilyn too. She makes house calls.”

“Are you sure? You really don't look good.”

He shook his head. “I'll be fine. Don't worry about me.”

*   *   *

Claire made it to the cafeteria with just minutes to spare. She was grateful that she'd started a pot of chili the day before to simmer overnight, because it gave her time to get Alek to his apartment. Rachel had spotted her helping Alek inside and promised to keep an eye on him, including calling Marilyn herself. She had agreed that Alek would probably try to tough it out. Still, she needed to check up on him later. He'd said not to worry, but she did. He could have a concussion after that punch to the temple.

The spicy scent of chili filled the air and she had no doubt the whole school was drooling by now. There was nothing quite like fresh ingredients cooked slow.

She'd barely filled the trays and turned on the heat lamps before the room was crowded with kids and adults alike, clamoring for a bowl. The microwave had to do for warming the tortillas—store-bought, which her Alpha would have shuddered at. But it was quick and easy and filling.

“Oh, my gawd!” a woman about her age who worked in the office said after swallowing a spoonful. “Are you sure you have to be a teacher? Couldn't you just stay and cook?”

Was an Omega supposed to acknowledge compliments? She didn't know. But she kept her eyes at neck level when she answered. “Thank you. But I want to be a teacher. Cooking is just a hobby.”

“Well, it's great.” She held out a hand. “I'm April, by the way. You're Claire, right?”

Again, she didn't know enough about protocol. “Should you be talking to me? I don't want to get you in trouble.”

“Nah. We can talk to you. You just can't speak without being spoken to.”

Ah. She figured there had to be a set of rules somewhere. Time rushed by as she passed out bowl after bowl. The room was soon filled with laughing children and chatting adults. She could get used to this atmosphere.

The chili all dispensed, she started to gather the pans that needed to be cleaned. She glanced up to see Denis. “Hi, Denis. How's Darrell? And how are you doing? Did you get your project done?”

Denis stared at her with a level of hostility she didn't understand. “Why did you come here? You're screwing everything up!” He stalked away, leaving her staring after him open-mouthed. What the hell was wrong with him?

April stepped in front of her, blocking Denis from her view as he left the cafeteria. “All gone? Damn. I was hoping for seconds.”

“Sorry. All out. But hey, what's up with Denis Siska? He seems to have a real chip on his shoulder.”

April turned toward where he'd just exited the room and then shook her head. “I don't know. He's been like that for a couple of years now. Maybe growing up in Alek's shadow made him angry. It's hard to live up to the standard of the golden child.”

“Alek is golden?” From everything she'd seen in the past two days, it seemed more like he was on everyone's shit list.

April turned back to face her. “Oh, yeah. Best grades, best athlete, multiple Ascension champion, going to be a cop, does hours of community service stuff. Blah, blah. It's no wonder Denis acts out. He can't compete with the attention. Alek is the oldest by a few months. All of the Williams kids have had to find their own specialty to break out of his shadow. But it's tough when Alek was good at
everything
. Denis is just sort of average.”

Interesting. It did make a lot of sense. But it didn't explain why he was mad at
her
. “By the way, did you hear that Darrell has been found?” She didn't want to talk about her part in rescuing him, but she thought people in the school would be happy to know.

“Who?”

That made Claire look up sharply, but not meet the other woman's eyes. Instead, she looked past her left ear. Her platinum-blond hair was cut in a bob and her furrowed brows matched the color. It must be natural. “Darrell Williams. One of the missing kids.”

“Darrell's not missing. He and his sister have been staying with their aunt in Louisiana for a couple of weeks now.”

“Are you sure? I've been staying at the Williams house and I got the impression they were missing and there have been search parties.” This was getting very odd.

The other woman shrugged. “Nope. No kids missing around here. In fact, Darrell is in the class where I help grade papers, so I know for certain. He was really excited to take some time to go visit New Orleans.” April wandered off, using her finger to get the last bits of chili from the plastic bowl.

Curiouser and curiouser. She picked up the stack of metal pans and carried them to the sink. After pouring the last of the chili into a bowl for herself, she put them in to soak and then started back out to start collecting plates.

When she turned around, Principal Burrows was standing in the doorway. She was careful not to look at his face, but she noticed he had shed his suit jacket and had rolled up the sleeves of his snow-white shirt. “An excellent job, Ms. Sanchez. Everyone is raving about your cooking.”

“Thank you sir. I wasn't sure I'd be able to make it on time after the excitement earlier. I presume the police chief called you?” It was a test and by the scent of confusion that rose from him, she had her answer.

“No. What excitement?”

“Darrell Williams was found earlier out in the woods.” She paused, waiting.

Confusion was replaced by excitement and joy. “That's
wonderful
! I'll have to call his mother. What about Kristy?”

So, not everyone had the same story. That was worth checking into further. “I don't know. I was going to head over to the house after I left here. If it's okay, I'll come back later to clean the building.”