Under a Spell

He snapped to attention. “What, what?”

“You’re thinking something. You have something to say. So, out with it.”

Will cocked an eyebrow but said nothing. I gave him the universal “well, come on” scowl and he blew out a sigh. “She had a lot of detail in her story.”

“Who? Miranda? Of course she had a lot of detail in her story. It happened to her. She was telling us. The details are important.”

“Is that common?”

I paused, thinking back on all of the eyewitness accounts Alex and I had sat through. Generally, the first time the story was told, the witness had very little to say other than the most general overview: “I was attacked. It was dark.”

“Not really. But she had had some time to process it. And, she’s kind of a loner. More of an observer. Not everyone reacts the same to trauma.”

“Yeah . . . but she was out of breath, crying, terrified. And yet she remembered all these small, unnecessary details.”

“People cling on to weird things when they’re traumatized. You read about it all the time. There’s even a name for it.”

Will crossed his arms in front of his chest. “What is it?”

I opened my mouth and then closed it again, cogs spinning in my brain. “Traumatic Unnecessary Brain Focusing . . . Syndrome.”

Will’s lips quirked up into a smirk.

I threw up my hands. “Okay, there is no name for it. Just what the hell are you getting at, anyway?”

“Nothing, love. I was just pointing out that it seemed odd that a young bird coming from such a stressful situation would have a story with that much detail.”

“You know what your problem is, Will? You just don’t understand women. We’re complicated. We’re varied. We’re not ‘birds’”—I made air quotes—“or ‘lasses.’”

“I don’t believe I’ve ever called a bird a lass, and as far as whether or not I can figure a bird out . . .” Will’s eyes sliced into mine and he licked his bottom lip seductively. The action, paired with the steady heat of his eyes, shot fireworks off in my veins and my entire body perked to attention. “I haven’t any complaints yet.”

Somehow, all the breath was sucked from my body. Somehow, all of my bones had congealed into a wobbly, untrustworthy jelly-like material.

Get it together, Sophie.

Will closed the distance between us and his arm brushing past me—the light wisp against my nipples—was on the verge of making me purr. It was hard to be angry and confident when all I wanted to do was collapse against his chest and do the bodice-ripping things that Harlequin novels were famous for with just a hint of Fifty Shades.

He was so close now that I could feel his breath on my neck, could feel his lips against my earlobe. Goose bumps shot up like spikes all over my flesh when he breathed and my heartbeat went slow and heavy, my entire body aching with desire. I knew he wanted me, too. The way his hazel eyes skimmed over my cheeks and settled on my lips for an extra second, the way his fingertips grazed mine . . . I closed my eyes as his lips came toward mine, waiting for that moment of soft flesh on flesh.

“There we go.”

I started, every hormone crashing into a brick wall. “What?”

Will sat back in his chair, now with a yellow notepad in his hand. “I was reaching for my notepad,” he said, waggling it for proof. “What did you think I was doing?”

I cleared my throat and straightened up. “That. I thought that’s what you were doing.”

There was a hint of amusement in his eyes and a bit of a sly smile forming at the edges of his mouth. His eyes broke from mine and scanned the notepad. Suddenly, all play and sex appeal was gone, replaced by an all- business look.

“Did you think it was strange that Miranda said Janitor Bud let her into the building?”

My sex-starved heart thudded to a stop. The saliva in my mouth went bitter. “What?”

“She said that Janitor Bud let her in the building tonight so she could go get her book. Janitor Bud who has gone on sabbatical and been replaced by your stinky troll mate.”

“He’s not my mate, and maybe she was just mistaken.”

“Veil or not, do you really think someone would mistake a little person they’ve never seen before for someone they’ve seen in their environment for the past three years?”

“I don’t think it’s all that likely, but it’s not impossible. And maybe she did actually see Steve, but in her recollection—with all the trauma”—I stressed the word—“maybe she just assumed it was Janitor Bud when it was actually—”

“A three-foot-tall gray fellow?”

I pressed my lips together thinking about Nina—about the snarl in her lip as she said that Miranda smelled like “stale blood and something like Windex.”

“Do you think Janitor Bud did this? Do you think his sabbatical was a fake?” I stood, considering. “Oh my God, Will, Bud could be the guy we’re looking for. He fits—it fits, right? He has close ties to campus, he could—he could hate the girls and want to exact revenge.” My heartbeat started to speed up. “Think about it—Meadow, Meadow from Simply Charming, said that Fallon came in with her grandfather. Or someone she thought was her grandfather, but she said Fallon called him something like her ‘buddy.’ Maybe she just called him Bud. They’re working together. They’re partners. It’s Janitor Bud. It has to be—that’s the only thing that makes sense!”

Will was silent for beat. “I don’t think Bud is the only thing that makes sense.” He looked at me hard until I sat down again.

“What are you talking about?”

“Think about it, love—”

“Miranda? You think Miranda—what? Did this to herself? How dare you! Did you see that child? She has no friends. Basically has no family. And she was beaten, Will. There were words carved into her flesh. She didn’t do that. No one would do that to themselves.” I could feel the heat zinging through my veins. I knew I was yelling, clipping my words, but I didn’t care. “It’s not possible. It’s just not possible.”

“You’re certain?”

I nodded before I could think otherwise. “Absolutely.”

Will and I were nearly nose-to-nose, his arms crossed in front of his chest, my fists on my hips in a sort of Guardian-Guardee stand-off. We were still huffing into each other’s faces when my cell phone split off into a crazy Latin beat. I slid it out of my pocket and held up a finger.

“It’s Sampson. What do you think he wants?”

Will cocked an eyebrow. “I bet if you answer the call, he’d be willing to tell you.”

I rolled my eyes and slid the phone on.

“Hey, Mr. Sampson.”

“Sophie.”

He had barely finished saying my name when the chill ran through me. “What’s wrong, Sampson?”

There was a pause—it must have been for just a beat, but it seemed to stretch on as the sound of my own blood rushing through my ears filled up the room, punctuated only by the thud-thud-thud of my heart.

“Another girl has gone missing.”

Fear, like a gnarled fist, unwound in my stomach. I could feel the cold fingers reaching every part of my body. “Another girl, missing? That’s not possible,” I heard myself say. “That can’t be.”

I could hear Sampson breathe on his side of the phone and I wanted to be there to shake him, to tell him he was wrong.

“That’s not the pattern,” I mumbled dumbly. “That’s not the pattern.”

“It was another Mercy girl.”

I was shaking my head now, stunned and numb. Somewhere, a thousand miles away, I could hear paper rustle and I knew that it was Sampson, bringing police files closer to him. He cleared his throat.

“Her name was Kayleigh Logan. She was a junior.”