“They’re probing. It’s subtle, but I can feel it.”
“Can you sense what they’re looking for? Or who?” Magicals got hungry too, and I’d noticed a couple of familiar signatures as soon as I exited my car.
The young man behind the counter hit the order bell. “Two Margherita pizzas.”
“That’s ours,” I said.
Off-balance at Tanner’s mild alarm—and the sensation of his fingertips on my bare skin—I stood a little too suddenly. My chair teetered and quickly righted, Tanner’s foot looped around the closest leg. While I paid, he retrieved the boxes and stacked the pie container on top.
“Can we take your car?” he asked.
I nodded. “But where’s yours?”
“I let Wes and Kaz use my truck. I’ll have them pick me up when they’re done.” He held the door open with his back. When I passed in front of him, he tensed. “Calliope, take the food.”
“Why?” My left arm brushed his chest, meeting a solid wall of warm, tensed muscle.
“Because I’m not sure what it is we might be walking into and I can’t defend us if I’m also trying to save our dinner.” Tanner hitched the straps of my bags higher on my shoulders before handing over the stack of fragrant boxes. The bottom one was hot. He bent forward, brushed his lips against my cheek and whispered into my ear, “Go to your car. Put the food on the floor, start the engine, and wait for me.”
My urge to gawk at his backside cooled even as my cheeks burned. I hightailed it to where I’d parked, keeping my eyes forward and daring any driver to get in my way.
Damned if I was going to play the damsel in distress.
And damn Tanner for making it so easy to pretend there was something between us.
I stashed the pizzas and the pie behind the driver’s seat, readjusted my cross-body bag, and leaned against the car door, slowly scanning the street and sidewalks. If he could feel the presence of another magical, then so could I.
Maybe. Probably.
It was worth a try, especially with the boost to my confidence earlier in the day. Slipping off my boots and wincing at the gravel underfoot, I kept my eyes open—always a challenge when I was sensing—and fed my awareness out in concentric circles.
Chapter 4
I couldn’t recall the last time I tapped into the energy of downtown Ganges with the purpose of tracking Magicals. The energy was always thicker in the summer and especially on market days, when the collective magic resembled a tangled mass of root balls. Familiar signatures—ones I could attach to specific shops and offices—burst here and there, like tiny buds and flowers.
I gloated when I located Tanner’s citrine-colored signal in the park. The druid was likely surrounded by toddlers and hula-hoopers and…
Oh! A peculiar, solitary point tugged on a section of entangled energies at the near side of the marina. The knot was close to where prop planes took on and dropped off passengers, which could mean whoever was giving off the signal had just arrived, or was preparing to leave. Wiping the soles of my feet on the inside of my pant legs, I wiggled back into my boots and headed in the direction of the harbor. I had to cross a main thoroughfare and jostle my way through clusters of bodies. Holding firm to the unknown entity, I kept to as straight a line as possible.
Once across the busy street, I released one foot from its boot and wiggled my toes into the soil underneath the shrubbery lining the sidewalk.
Maybe Tanner was on to something with his quick on, quick off footwear.
The ominous presence pulsed oily and cold among the boats bobbing in the crowded harbor. My toes recoiled. Following the line of energy to its source had just gotten exponentially harder. There was no way I was going swimming in that water.
Moving forward, I tried to be unobtrusive. I mean, I lived here. I knew almost all the shop owners and the staff at the marina, and on a normal day it could take me twenty minutes to get from where I was to where I needed to be. I retied my ponytail, threw up a deflective mirror shield with four flicks of my right wrist, and hoped everyone was too busy with the time-honored practice of separating tourists from their dollars to pay attention to the witch on a mission.
I honed in on the handful of yachts at the first dock, in particular, the sharkskin gray, custom-painted exhibit of excess floating close to the pulse of darkness. My ex’s family ran a realty firm. Along with a roster of exclusive listings, they owned a fleet of gas-guzzling vehicles and a yacht.
In fact, they owned that yacht, The Merry Widow, Doug’s mother’s nod to her marital state, not the famous opera.
I had no way to reach Tanner through non-magical means, but I could blend in better without a six-foot-tall druid by my side. I made it to the booth at the head of the boarding ramp the same time a float plane took off. The slippery connection flew from my grasp, whip-like and slick as the plane headed toward open waters.
Dammit.
Shielding my eyes, I could see heads behind the plane’s tiny windows. I flagged the navy blue-clad baggage handler rolling his cart up the ramp.
“Where’re they headed?” I pointed to the plane and made sure he acknowledged the badge affixed to my waistband.
“Vancouver. Private charter.”
Nothing else I could do. My hope sank as the plane disappeared. I turned to walk back to my car, discouraged but still alert to other signals, when the baggage guy added, “If it’s any help, they were staying on The Merry Widow.”
Six o’clock had come and gone. Market stall workers were breaking down their tents and mismatched trestle tables and loading their vehicles. I made it to my car, only to find Tanner pacing bumper to bumper.
“Where were you?” he demanded.
Fingers tapping on the roof of my car wasn’t the signal I was looking
