Page 86 of Bonds of Magic
“Jesus, Tom, what’s with the third degree?”
“She’s a paying customer. That’s an invasion of privacy, the way I see it.”
I heaved a sigh. I hadn’t expected this much resistance. But now that I thought about it, I hadn’t given Tom all that many reasons to trust me over the years. And it seemed too late to start now.
“Nevermind,” I said. “I’ll go up and knock on her door.”
“Knock all you like. She won’t answer.”
“Why? You plan on calling her room before I can get up there?”
“Nope. She’s out. Stopped in half an hour ago and said she had some errands.”
“Errands,” I scoffed. What kind of errands could a person be running in Pointe Claudette? There was nowhere to run errandsto. “Well, maybe I’ll go up anyway. Take a look around.”
“And break down my door in the process?”
“You think you can stop me?”
“Maybe not,” Tom said equably. “But I’m sure that if you think about it for a minute, you don’t really want to go jeopardizing my relationship with your school. Which is what you’d be doing, if you damaged my property.”
I glared at him. He looked back, a slight smile on his face, no sign of temper. I pounded a fist on the bar.
“Dammit, Tom. Someone could be in danger. This is important.”
“I’m sure it is,” he said. “You just have to decide how important.”
I glared some more, but he was unmoved. Mentally, I tallied up the possible information I could glean from this woman’s unoccupied room and compared it to the tirade I’d get from Isaac for putting Vesperwood’s relationship with Tom in trouble. Tom wasn’t a witch, but we did call on him for favors now and again.
“Fine,” I said. “I guess I’ll be going, then.”
“Have a good night now,” Tom called. “Thanks for stopping by.”
It wasn’t worth trying to sneak upstairs now and pick the lock on the door. Tom would be watching. I’d have to find this woman another time.
I drove back to Vesperwood, the road winding up and down the cliffs at the edge of the lake, then plunging into deep forest, curving sinuously. My mind wandered. Was this woman after Sheridan because he owed her money too? Or did she want him for more serious matters? And did that make her friend, or foe?
I parked in the gravel in front of Vesperwood’s carriage house. It was far enough away from the main manor that you could get away with having cars out here—as long as they ran on outdated technology. There wasn’t a single car in the lot that post-dated 1990. And all of them looked familiar.
If the woman’s errands had taken her to the school, she hadn’t come by car. But would she have, if she were trying to be stealthy?
I stood in the lot for a minute, listening to the sounds of the night. An owl hooted mournfully. It was cloudy, and there were no stars to speak of. The waxing moon was just a slightly lighter patch of sky.
I was about to head for the manor when I heard it—branches breaking underfoot, in the woods at the eastern edge of the lot. It could have been anything. A deer. A rabbit. Even a wolf or a bear. There was all sorts of wildlife up here.
I was being overly cautious. But when I heard the sound again, I turned in its direction. I couldn’t go inside without checking. Someone might be out there. Watching. Waiting to pounce.
I stepped as lightly as I could on the crushed gravel. I paused at the border of dark trees at the edge of the lot. I listened again. All I heard was silence. I was about to turn around, convinced it was a deer after all, when I heard thrashing from inside the trees.
The sound was farther away this time. Whoever was making it was on the move. But it was so loud and awkward, I was fairly certain it wasn’t an animal. Only a bear would make that much noise, crashing through the underbrush, and bears weren’t too active this early in the spring.
My gut said it was a person—and a not-very-stealthy one at that.
I ducked into the trees. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the even darker night that reigned beneath their canopy, but as soon I could see the ground in front of me, I set off in the direction of the thrashing, doing my best to walk more quietly than whoever was up ahead.
If this were someone looking for Sheridan, they were walking in the wrong direction. Unless they already had him. Dragging a reluctant prisoner through the woods would definitely make noise.
My entire body was on high alert. My heartbeat was elevated, my eyes focused. I moved with a light step, ready to dart in any direction I needed to. I was on the hunt, but there might be someone out here hunting me.
