Page 47 of His Black Onyx

I'm surprised to see a veiled expression of amusement on her face as she looks back and forth between me and Mike. His threat didn't intimidate her in the least, it seems. Just a day ago, she was trembling with fear by his mere presence, but now she can barely hide a smirk as he tries to intimidate her. She appears to feel safe—and maybe that's because she knows where the real danger lies.

She looks at me as if I was her confidant, nodding when she assures me, "No funny business. I'm smarter than that."

There's a flair of menace in her eyes when she looks at me before turning her back.

"You're dead if you try to run, missy!" Mike yells after her.

"I think she understands. Calm down, buddy."

Placing my hand on his shoulder, I guide Mike down the hall back towards the kitchen. I don't know why I'm feeling so protective over her, but even the thought of him standing too close to her is unnerving to me.

“What’s up?” I ask him once we’ve moved away and out of hearing distance from the bathroom door.

Mike casts a suspicious look toward the bathroom door, as if he was afraid she could overhear us. His face is serious when he leans in to speak to me.

“I looked up this Jayson Bowlan guy, like you said,” he begins in a whisper. “Wasn’t even that difficult to find him. Apparently he’s some kind of magician, or like psychotherapist or something. He hypnotizes people with some kind of magic trick—and apparently it’s so awesome that they pay him huge sums of money to do it. The guy is loaded!”

I shrug, unimpressed. Wealth isn’t something that catches and keeps my attention. I grew up in a world where money was never an issue because everybody had it. And that hasn’t changed for me, even though our current circumstances don’t suggest that there’s a lot of money behind any of us.

“So what? The guy is a rich, magical therapist,” I retort.

“Yeah, but that’s not all,” Mike hurries to add. “Remember that Bridgewater murderer they caught last year?”

“Vaguely.”

I remember the case. A man who had been capturing and killing women for years, the so-called Bridgewater murderer, had finally been arrested a few months back. It was all over the news because he’d been on a killing spree for years and the police had no clue who he was.

“Well, get this: Jayson Bowlan was the guy who led the police to his arrest,” Mike goes on, his eyes widening into a conspiratorial look. “It didn’t say whether he used his special power or whatever, but if this girl is his girlfriend or something.”

“Then he might be looking for her,” I complete the sentence.

Mike nods enthusiastically. “What if he’s working with the police? If he could help them find that serial killer dude after so many years… he might be able to track us down as well.”

I nod, furrowing my eyebrows as I peer over to the bathroom door, trying to make sense of this revelation.

Is this Jayson Bowlan guy a problem for us? What if he is working with the police, already following a clue we didn’t realize we had left behind? We’re professionals and know how to stay off the force’s radar or know who to bribe when things do get a little tricky. But this is a different kind of threat, one we’ve never faced before.

“What do we do about this?” Mike asks, shifting from one foot to the other impatiently.

“Don’t worry about it for now,” I tell him, meeting his anxious gaze. “I’ll take care of it.”

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