about the kid you’re looking for, I got a call. Came in late last night. The witch says she saw the boy you’re looking for.”
Damon’s cup clattered onto the table.
I saw him reaching for the phone and jerked up a hand to stop him.
“Saw him?” These were witches we were talking about. They could see them with their eyes…or other ways.
“That’s all I got out of her. She won’t tell me anything else. Says if you want more, you have to go to her.”
I blew out a breath as I logged into my email. “Okay. So I get the feeling I’m planning a trip to the Everglades.”
“Yes. And now…why aren’t you more surprised about that?”
Sourly, I stared at my donut. I wasn’t hungry for it now. “A little birdie told me.”
My e-mail loaded and I didn’t even have to skim through it. There was a bunch of junk, a bunch of spam, a bunch of old contacts. I’d changed the e-mail because of all the spam, junk and shit. But the one e-mail that I did need was right there at the top. Linc. Damn, the man really did know how to come through.
“I’ll be in touch, Colleen,” I said, disconnecting the call and putting the phone down.
I clicked on the e-mail and started to read.
“The Everglades.” Damon was staring at my bowed head.
“Yes.”
“Was that your witch friend?”
“Yes.”
Lab samples. Soil.
My gut churned as I read some of the notes Linc had thoughtfully thrown in. Several different kinds of dirt…soil. Whatever. The specialist who had done the tests thought it might be consistent with the sort found in the Everglades.
Spinning the tablet around, I shoved it at Damon as I drank the rest of my coffee.
A muscle worked in his jaw when he looked up at me. “Why am I reading lab tests on a dead wolf kid?”
“Because it appears he was down in the Everglades,” I said. “And because, as I’m sure you heard since you were listening in, one of the witches affiliated with one of the outer houses down there thinks she saw Doyle. A couple of the witch kids have also gone missing. All in that general area. There’s a connection, so it looks like we’ve got a road trip.”
“It’s a drive.” He nodded shortly. “We should get going.”
“We need to make a stop first.” I shouldn’t have had the coffee. My stomach was already pitching. The last thing I wanted to do was go back the rec club. “I need to talk to Marcus.”
“Why?”
“Too many coincidences. All these kids tied into the ′glades. I want to know if there’s a connection.”
Damon narrowed his eyes. “If there was, the kid would have said. He knows better than to lie when I’m around.”
“He might not have lied.” I shrugged as I slid out of the booth. “There’s a difference between lying and not telling everything you know. And he might have thought he was doing his friend a favor.”
“By not telling you what you needed to know to find him?” Damon was on his feet now, too, crowding into my space under the pretense of carrying on a private conversation in a busy place.
Instead of tipping my head back to stare at him, I busied myself scooping papers and reports into my bag, shutting down my tablet last. “Kids don’t always have that vaunted foresight. For all we know, the kid thought he was doing Doyle a favor by keeping quiet, even assuming he knows anything.”
“How does not helping bring him home protect him?”
Useless waste—the sound of the whip whistling through the air. I turned around and looked up at him. “You know what the holy hell happened to my back? My grandmother did it to me. While my aunts watched. The first time happened when I was eight. The second, when I nine. It was a yearly, sometimes monthly, occurrence until I ran away when I was fifteen. And if somebody had tried to take me home? I would have either killed them…or myself.”
Slinging my bag over my shoulder, I headed outside.
Maybe the Queen Bitch hadn’t beaten that boy, but somehow I knew life at the lair hadn’t been easy for him.
I’d figured that out just by the look in Marcus’ eyes.
Chapter Ten
Marcus wasn’t at the club.
We found him at his house and his dad didn’t want to let me in.
If it wasn’t for the bruiser at my back, I knew I wouldn’t have gotten in, either.
“He’s starting to spike,” the man said, staring at me with