Forging Day (Crucible of Change Book 1) (31 page)

She gave me a quick side hug. “That sounds good. It might be just the thing.”

* * * *

I was more tired than I thought. My short nap turned into a few hours of nap. The ding of an arriving text message woke me up. I rolled over and grabbed my phone. I woke up again when the phone dropped onto my face, this time managing to focus long enough to bring up incoming messages. The phone number attached to the message was unfamiliar. I opened it and saw,
Payback’s a bitch.

What the hell? I ran downstairs. “Leo!”

He ran to meet me at the base of the stairs. I thrust my phone into his hand. “Look at the message.”

I dropped to the bottom step. “It’s Colby. I know it is. Oh my God.”

He handed me back my phone, and got out his own. I could see he was dialing Cordie.

I called Kat, willing her to answer the phone.

She answered on the third ring. “Olivia? Is everything okay? We’re working here.”

“Are Mikah and Tessa there with you?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“I think I got a text from Colby. He said ‘payback’s a bitch’. Tell the others. I have to go.” I hung up without waiting for a response.

Leo’s expression was grim and his eyes had gone cold. “This is Leo. Call me as soon as you get this. It’s important.” He hung up. “All I could get was Cordie’s voice mail. Their office message says they’re either helping other people or in a meeting. I couldn’t get anyone else on the phone.”

“Shit! You keep trying her. I’m going to try Berto.” I got his voice mail. “Berto, this is Olivia. Please call back as soon as you get this. I think I got a text from Colby and I’m worried.”

I ran back upstairs and grabbed my new dagger from under my pillow. Leo was on hold when I got back. “I’m going to check out the yard. I’ll be right back.”

“I be going wit’ you,” said Korembi. “No one be goin’ off alone right now.”

We went out the back door and started around the inside perimeter of the wall. I was half afraid we’d see the cat nailed to the door, or something equally gruesome. I would have missed it in the sun, but Korembi spotted a pair of broken sunglasses on the driveway, just inside the gate. He picked them up and we finished the circuit of the yard. Nothing else seemed out of place.

Leo was pacing when we got back inside. “I reached Cordie’s boss. Cordie checked out a car to go to another location. They confirm the meeting ended on time and she returned to her office, except that she never arrived. She never answers her phone when she’s driving, so I don’t know that she isn’t okay, but unless she stopped somewhere, she should have been back at her office at least thirty minutes ago.”

Korembi handed him the sunglasses. “I found these on the driveway.”

Now that we were inside, I could see what looked like blood on the bridge of the nosepiece. “Leo, could those be Cordie’s?”

“I don’t know. She usually leaves her sunglasses in the car. I’m not sure what they look like.”

Leo’s phone rang and he put it on speaker. “Is this Leo Mitchell?”

“Yes, it is.”

“You called earlier looking for your sister. I’m afraid I may have some bad news. We just got a call from a state trooper that one of our fleet cars was found abandoned on the side of the road. He stopped because the door was hanging open. There was a small quantity of blood inside the car, along with your sister’s purse. There was no sign of your sister. I’m sure they’ll be in touch. I’m so sorry.”

I grabbed onto Leo. “That bastard has Cordie. I’m going to find him and make him wish he’d never been born.”

This time my phone rang. It was Mikah. “Olivia, they took him. The police just called me as next of kin. They found Berto’s van on the side of the road. There was a note on the dashboard. It said ‘payback’.”

“Oh, no! Mikah—Cordie’s missing, too. They just found her car, but they didn’t say anything about a note.”

Leo walked back into the room, tucking his phone into his pocket. “That was the state patrol. There was a note in Cordie’s car, too—and it said ‘payback’.”

I heard Mikah yelling into the phone, so I put it back to my ear. “Olivia! We’re on our way home. Some officers are on the way. We’ll meet there.”

“Cops are coming over again,” I said.

“State patrol, too,” said Leo.

Sharon didn’t say anything. She just took both of our hands and squeezed them, and then she went rigid, staring into space. “I see you talking to someone. You’re making plans. She’s angry.” She shook her head, taking a deep breath. “I hate when that happens.”

“Sharon, who were we talking to?”

“Didn’t I say? It was Vivian.”

* * * *

Mikah, Kat, and Tessa made it back to the house just before representatives of the various law enforcement agencies arrived.

Sharon ushered everyone in. Lieutenant Clark and Officer Webster were here from the police. We got Trooper Garrison and Trooper McKenzie from the state patrol. I led them over to the large gaming table where we had our werewolf notes. “Let’s meet over here. It might be helpful.”

Sharon made introductions. “I’m Officer Curtis. Leo and Olivia are the siblings of Cordelia Mitchell. This is Mikah, Berto’s husband.”

I said, “I know Colby Green is behind this. He’s the werewolf that raped and murdered those women in the park. He took Cordie and Berto to get back at us.”

Trooper McKenzie snorted in disbelief, but he was the only one with that reaction. “Werewolves? Yeah, right. This is a serious investigation. We’re here to get information on Cordelia Mitchell from her family, not play games.”

“Look at me!” I demanded. “Am I a fairy tale? Ask Officer Curtis or Lieutenant Clark about werewolves if you won’t take my word. If you’re not going to listen, maybe someone else should come out instead.”

His lips tightened into a white line and he glared at me. I should work on that tact thing Sharon keeps talking about.

Lieutenant Clark actually spoke up to support me. “I understand it’s difficult to believe, Trooper McKenzie, but the murders in the park over the last month were all carried about by a werewolf. My officer here,” he gestured at Sharon, “was a witness to, and victim of, this werewolf.”

“Colby Green, the man we think is behind this, attacked me and Kat here at the house the other night. I fought him off and hurt him pretty bad, but not enough to kill him. I got a text this afternoon from a number I don’t recognize. It just said ‘payback’s a bitch’. We started calling people, and we couldn’t reach Berto or Cordelia. We were trying to track them down when we got the calls that their vehicles were found, abandoned. There were notes saying ‘
payback
’ in both cars. Look at my phone.”

I handed the phone to Lieutenant Clark. He and Officer Webster both checked out the text before handing the phone to the troopers.

Korembi chimed in, “You forget, Olivia, but I found these on the driveway.” He handed the broken sunglasses to Officer Webster. “We not be knowin’ who they belong to, but there’s blood on them.”

Trooper Garrison was looking at the phone when it dinged to signal an arriving text. He handed it back to me. I opened the message, and it was all I could do to not drop the phone.

“Bet you feel like this right now,” was all it read, below a picture of me being sodomized while I looked back over my shoulder with tears on my face. My hand shook as I handed the phone to Sharon.

“It has to be Colby. It couldn’t have been anyone else,” I said flatly.

Another text came in, and Sharon read it out loud. “I know the cops are there. My droogies are watching you. Get rid of them and I’ll tell you what you have to do to get your sister and the fairy back. I’ll be in touch as soon as they leave.”

“You have to go,” I told them. “Colby’s crazy. You guys saw what he did to the girls in the park. He has my sister. He has Berto.” That monster had my sister. I couldn’t stop shaking. “Leo, what are we going to do?” Kat hugged me as I cried. “This is all my fault. Colby only took them to get back at me,” I wailed.

“Stop it! Colby is a crazy bastard. You’re not responsible, he is. And it’s not like you could read his mind,” said Kat.

“I let him use me. If I’d kicked him out the first time he pushed me, Cordie and Berto would be safe now.”

“I have a suggestion,” said Leo. “If they really are watching the house, they’re going to look for four people leaving in two cars. I’m closest in size to Lieutenant Clark. I say we swap clothes. He stays here, and I ride out with Officer Webster. What do you say? We can meet at the station and I’ll let you know all we’ve found out so far. Lieutenant Clark can stay here and coordinate things on this end.”

Other than them looking nothing like each other, it wasn’t a bad idea. Mikah paced, his hands clenched into fists, while Clark and Leo debated. “Hurry up. God knows what they’re doing to Berto while you think about it.”

Lieutenant Clark stood up. “I agree. We need to do this now. It’s the best plan on the table. Let’s change, and as soon as you leave I have a call to make.”

Gracie had been hovering around Kat ever since she got home. She abruptly stood up and said, “I should be leaving now, too.”

“No!” said Mikah. “Nobody leaves but the people they’re expecting to see going. You wanted to hang around with Kat. Now you’re here. Park it.”

Her face turned red, and for a second it looked like she was going to argue with Mikah, at least until Kat took her hand and shook her head no. She looked around at all of us before she pulled loose from Kat and went to sit at the farthest point of the library away from us.

While all our Goth drama was going on, Lieutenant Clark and Leo went to make the switch.

I spent the time biting my nails to the quick. I didn’t care what they said. I knew this was my fault and it was up to me to fix it. I was the one who let the monster in the door.

It was ten long minutes after the last car pulled away before my phone dinged again with another text.

Good. Maybe you can be taught. Here’s how we’re going to play this. You’re going to show up alone at the address I give you. You’re going to have one hundred thousand dollars in cash. I know your little fairy friend is good for it. If you don’t show up at all, eventually they’ll both die, but not before I’ve played with them. If you’re late, or I see someone following you, I flip a coin and kill one of them. If my droogie fails to check in on time and tell me how cooperative you’re being, they’ll start to lose body parts. Since it’s late and the banks are all closed, I’m going to be generous. I’ll give you until tomorrow to collect the money. When you and boyfriend get back from the bank, I’ll be in touch.

I texted back.
How do we know they’re even still alive? If you’ve hurt them already, you can forget any deals
.

Give me a minute. You’ll be getting a video call. I suggest you answer it.

I paced, waiting for the phone to ring. Finally! It was Colby. Even back in Human form, the left side of his face was a horror show. The empty eye socket was a burned ruin. He wasn’t even trying to hide. Kat stood by me, but everyone else stayed out of view of the camera.

“You look tense,” he said. “I can fix that…later. Anyway, here’s what you wanted to see.” The camera panned to show Cordie and Berto bound back-to-back to a pair of solid-looking metal folding chairs. There were both gagged and I could hear Cordie sobbing. There was a little dried blood on Berto’s face and Cordie had a claw mark above her eyebrow and a black eye, but they were both dressed and I didn’t see any other injuries.

He panned the camera a bit further, and I saw two other male werewolves in the background. Someone was on the floor, chained by the ankle to a steel support post. The man was covered in bite marks and blood, and one of the werewolves was licking his fingers. The raw whimpers let us know he was still alive. At least for now.

I watched, horrified, as one of the werewolves bit the man again and mounted him from behind. I could hear Cordie screaming behind her gag. Colby turned the camera back to himself, but I couldn’t stop hearing those noises in the background. “Let’s give my boys some privacy, shall we? I’ll see you tomorrow, Olivia, and we’ll have lots of fun. Either that, or your sister and I can play, and then I’ll give her to the team when I’m finished with her. It’s up to you.”

We Need a Response Plan

The call ended. Even Sharon and Lieutenant Clark look shocked. I dropped the phone on the table, not even wanting to touch it.

I went to Mikah and hugged him hard. “We’re going to get them back, no matter what it takes. I promise.”

He hugged me back, clinging like a man drowning at sea. “Without Berto, my life is nothing. Please God, keep him safe. He’s a good man. A healer. You have to watch over him.”

“You can’t go with him,” Kat told me. “You know what he’ll do to you. There has to be another way.”

“And if I don’t go? We know what will happen to Cordie and Berto. It’s simple. We just have to figure out where he’s holding them and get them out before that.”

“We know he’s in a house,” said Sharon. “An apartment wouldn’t have a basement like that. From what I could see of the construction style, I’m guessing we’re looking for a single-family home built in the sixties or seventies.”

“If he owned a house, he wouldn’t be living in that crappy apartment,” I said.

“He has to have at least one other associate,” said Lieutenant Clark. “I’m inclined to believe him about someone watching the house. He called too quickly after the patrol cars left for there not to be a watcher. You don’t see that style of basement in the immediate area, so the werewolves we saw in the call couldn’t be the watcher. They wouldn’t have had time to get from here to there in time.”

“We’re getting silver bullets made, but they won’t be ready until after noon tomorrow. We don’t dare face three to four werewolves without silver weapons. He’s going to have to see us going to the bank in the morning, but we can’t move too fast or he’ll call before we have the bullets.”

“You still can’t just go off with his partner.” Sharon paced the width of the library. “And we don’t dare try a tail or we risk the lives of the prisoners.”