Magic Misled (Lizzie Grace #7) - Keri Arthur Page 0,62
get there.”
“Great. I’ll order you a beer.”
Belle forced him to hang up, then reached past him and grabbed his things. “Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“Back to your place, where you’re going to take down every book you’ve uploaded and then utterly destroy both the files and the drives you’ve stored them on. You will never speak of said books again. To anyone, not even Roland. In fact, after tonight, you won’t even remember me.”
“Oh, come on—”
Belle shut him down, marched him outside, and climbed into his car. I followed them across to the old miner’s cottage he lived in, then parked behind them and waited.
She came out twenty minutes later. Her expression was thunderous, though I suspected the anger was directed more at herself than at him.
She jumped into the SUV and pulled on her seat belt as I reversed out and headed for the pub. “How big of a number did you do on Kash’s memory?”
“It wasn’t worth the effort. I just forced him to erase every single book file, online and off. And then I repeated my threat to scramble his mind and provided a little reinforcement demonstration by making him pee his pants. He was suitably scared, trust me.”
He might be scared, but would his partner be? “Were the books on sale in his name or Roland’s?”
“Neither—it was some company called Black Arts, and from what I saw, they have a history of stealing and selling stuff. I daresay it’d be easy enough for a search to uncover their connection though.” She shook her head. “But the worst thing is, they’ve been selling the e-versions in the university bookstore.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah.” She thrust her fingers through her hair. “I think the council realizing they’re from Gran’s missing collection will happen sooner rather than later.”
“No doubt.” I flicked on the blinker and turned into the pub’s parking area. “I think our first course of action has to be moving storage facilities.”
“That’s not going to help, given it’ll still be in our names.”
“I’m sure either Ashworth or Eli will sign a new lease agreement for us.”
“It would still be commercial premises though, and that’s probably the first type of place they’ll check. We need to go private. Aiden might be able to suggest somewhere.”
“I’ll ask.” I stopped the SUV, and we climbed out. “What does this Roland fellow look like?”
“He’s a Waverley, and has a thick scar on his cheek from a motorcycle accident as a teenager.”
The Waverley line was—like the Sarrs—a lower witch house and was generally pale of skin with thick brown hair and silver eyes. Their magic was of a healing kind, mostly with potions, though some were capable of physical healing, either through Reiki or sexual interaction.
We walked into the main bar but couldn’t see anyone who looked like a Waverley witch. Belle glanced at her watch. “How long do you want to wait? We’ll soon be cutting it fine if we want to get gussied up for tonight’s party.”
“The party doesn’t start until eight, which still gives us plenty of time—even for you.” I ordered us both a drink.
She grinned. “I was thinking more of you—you are, after all, the one intending to wear something so sleek and formfitting it leaves very little to the imagination.”
“It’s not that formfitting.”
“Hey, I was there when you bought it. Trust me, while you might have wanted to keep a lower profile, no man in that room tonight will be looking anywhere else.”
I smiled. “It wasn’t actually aimed at other men. It’s more a big fuck-you to his mother if she happens to appear.”
Belle picked up her drink and clinked it against mine. “Long may the bitch suffer.”
We moved across to a table that had a good view of both entrances, but twenty minutes went by, and Roland never appeared.
“You think it possible he twigged something was up?” I asked.
“Possibly.” She got out her phone and dialed a number. The call went to voicemail. “Change that to definitely.”
“Did you happen to get his address?”
“He’s staying in a motel not far from Kash’s.” She drained her drink and rose. “Shall we head over?”
I nodded and followed her out. Roland, it turned out, had checked out twenty-five minutes ago.
Belle swore. “What now?”
“We can’t do anything more tonight. At least we’ve got his phone number, and we can get his home address from Kash if necessary.” I swung out of the hotel parking area and headed back to the café. “Wonder if he’s got electronic copies of the books?”