Magic Misled (Lizzie Grace #7) - Keri Arthur Page 0,83

but she’s convinced I’d be the perfect partner for her good-for-nothing lazy offspring.” Jaz glanced at me, expression amused. “I’m not entirely sure what that says about her opinion of me.”

“You’ve never asked?”

“Never dared. It’s not like I see her outside her annoyingly regular reports of break-ins. Aiden, I must point out, takes great delight in sending me over here.”

“I’d have a word with him on your behalf, but it’s not like he’d take all that much notice.”

“You’d be surprised,” Jaz said. “He did move heaven and earth so that you could attend his initiation, remember.”

I was hardly likely to forget, given Karleen’s input on the whole matter.

The main gate into the complex was open. Jaz drove around to the left and parked out the front of the Butterworth’s building. I grabbed my backpack and swung it around my shoulders as I joined Jaz at the front of the SUV.

While the old brick chimney dominated the skyline, the building itself was less than impressive. It was little more than a long brick shed with a tin roof, double metal doors at the front, and not much in the way of windows. A second, somewhat newer brick building stood off to the left, with a large Factory Direct sign emblazoned on the front.

There was no immediate sign of either a break-in or magic. No hint of the pungent sulfur scent associated with our rogue.

Which didn’t really mean she wasn’t here—especially given there were spells that could contain scent, and that was certainly something she’d want to do in an area such as this. This factory might be closed, but the complex overall was quite busy. Werewolves would notice such an odorous scent coming from a sweet factory.

“Anything?” Jaz asked.

I shook my head. “You?”

“Nothing that shouldn’t be here. Let’s do a circuit and see what we find.”

She moved off to the right. I followed, my gaze on the building and every sense humming with tension. There were a few windows on the long side of the building, but none were broken. The raised loading dock dominating the rear section was large enough that several trucks could load or unload at the same time. They’d obviously sold a whole lot of sweets at one point in time.

Jaz ran up the steps to test the roller door leading into the building. “Locked.”

“Let’s check the other side before we go in.”

I moved on. A small and somewhat shadowy lane divided this building from the next. Nothing moved, and the putrid scent of sulfur remained absent.

After a brief hesitation caused more by a flicker of unease than any immediate sense of trouble, I continued. Stones crunched softly under my feet, and the drifting wind took on a whistling note, suggesting that somewhere up ahead a window might be broken. I couldn’t see any glass on the ground, but there was a pile of twisted metal lying halfway down.

The deeper we moved down the lane, the more unease grew, and the more forceful the inner response became. I clenched my hands against the magic once again pressing against my fingertips; the surest way of alerting her to our presence if she was here would be to allow that magic to escape my skin.

The pile of metal turned out to be the rusty remnants of a ladder, the top half of which remained attached to the building. No one—aside from a very athletic werewolf—would ever reach it.

I glanced at Jaz. “You think the destruction was deliberate?”

She knelt and studied the pieces on the ground. After a few seconds, she picked up what looked to be one of the supports that had held the bottom portion of the ladder to the wall. “This has been cut, as have several other bits.”

“Recently?”

“Fairly.” She pushed upright. “What I can’t say is whether our rogue did it or someone else.”

“Do you know if there are skylights or even a roof entry point up there?”

“No.” She motioned to the rest of the lane. “And there’s only one way to find out—let’s get back to the main door and go inside.”

That, instinct was suddenly suggesting, wasn’t really such a great idea. Or maybe that was simply fear. Sometimes it was hard to tell the two apart.

As we neared the other end of the building, the unease faded but didn’t entirely go away. Whatever I’d sensed, it had centered on the portion of the building near the ladder.

“You might want to grab your gun, Jaz, just in case. I’m getting a really itchy feeling things