“Stop, I’ve heard enough.” Jake covered his mouth with his hand.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, it’s a tincture of plants with a touch of ginger to help heal the sore and remove the residual effect of the poison.”
Jake paced around the room as Isabella collected the files from the floor and lifted the chair, gripping the back and staring at him.
“Marcus, you need to question Doctor Davies—Elizabeth. I’m sorry, but when Zephra did the walk-through after you left, something about her story didn’t add up. She’s lying…” Isabella announced.
Marcus snapped his attention to Isabella.
Jake rushed to her side, grabbing her arm. “What the hell are you playing at, Sparkles? What, Liz didn’t quite pass your magic test and all of the sudden, she’s a suspect? She’s one of us. She’s part of Orion, for fuck’s sake. She’s been working around the clock, looking after Ella’s brother.”
Observing the two go head to head, Marcus rubbed his forehead. The doctor had not been acting like herself for some time. There had been peculiar sensations pulling at him, which he could not ignore any longer. Could she be involved with the Morrigan?
“Jake, we’ve all been working long hours—it’s what we do.” Isabella shrugged his arm off as they glared at each other.
Damn it, the last thing he needed was for the team to turn on each other.
“There’s more to it than that. I took a sample home from the walk-through, a small sliver of the memory to replay and expand it. I’ve been working on it for the past twenty-four hours. It required a deep submerging. But I know now, Ella’s no longer here with us…” Zephra said.
Gazing up at the ceiling, he waited to hear the witch’s explanation, because her words chilled him to the bone. “What the hell do you mean? We know she’s not here. Tell us something we don’t know. Like where the hell is she?” Marcus growled, slumping down in the leather chair and rubbing his neck, still sore from the tincture.
“What I mean is, she’s no longer on this earthly plane,” Zephra announced.
Does she mean Ella’s dead? Surely, as soulmates, he would know. At times, he had sensed his wife. He had heard her calling to him. Shutting out the noise around him, he opened his mind and lifted his head, reaching out for Ella. The steady beat of her heart, which he normally could hear, was absent. Shifting his gaze to Isabella, he opened his mouth, but the witch spoke before he could.
“Is Ella dead?” Isabella asked.
The heating system knocked against the wood, moaning and groaning as it kicked in, and he wondered whether it was possible that Ella was lost to him forever. But he shook his head in denial. Impossible.
“I would know if she was—I would.” Both witches stared at him and his shoulders dropped. Who was he fooling—he’d slept with a fake version of his wife. All certainty evaporated.
“Right now, I cannot sense her soul, only her magic, which is shifting and growing. It’s as if she’s been split in two. It’s possible, but it doesn’t help as I don’t know where she is. What I do know is that she left the medical center via a doorway. The magic I sensed is from the person who opened a portal there, and it’s the same one that’s hovering all over you. Elizabeth must have been there when it happened because Ella didn’t leave the center, that much I know.”
As the witch discussed her findings, Marcus pushed aside the events of the last twenty-four hours. There would be time to deal with that nightmare when he recovered Ella. And if that meant interrogating the doctor until he had the truth, that’s what he would do. If Elizabeth was involved in any way, she had deceived them all.
“Isabella, where’s Nate?” A need to know where his son was flashed like an alarm. He had not set eyes on him since he’d left for Boston, content that he was being cared for by the witches.
“I left him with Mrs. Brown, the housekeeper, when I heard the yelling from the office,” Isabella said.
“Good. Let’s go and chat with the doctor.” Marcus headed for the exit, but Jake blocked his way.
“Tell me—do you believe Elizabeth’s involved?”
Right now, his gut told him yes, but his heart sank as he stared at Jake. He couldn’t help feeling torn. But if the doctor had anything to do with Ella’s disappearance, he could kill her with his bare hands. Burying his emotions deep, he responded, “We have to investigate every lead, and if there’s so much as a whiff of her being involved—I can’t ignore it. Would you?”
Jake shook his head and stepped back.
This highlighted why Steel made it a rule to disallow romantic entanglements within the teams. But the man had not been able to stop them and neither had he. “I’ll conduct the interview with Isabella. You watch from the viewing room, if you want.”
His close friend nodded without complaint, and they charged out of the office, headed for the kitchen. Soft, familiar voices greeted them from the living room, causing Marcus to change direction and he padded softly through the open doors. Jake and the witches were close on his heels. Standing there with Nate in her arms was a disheveled Elizabeth. Mrs. Brown, the housekeeper, held her arms out, pleading with the woman.
“I only turned my back for a moment. I’m sorry,” Mrs. Brown said, her eyes full of concern.
The doctor wore faded jeans, her hair held back into a messy ponytail as she cradled Nate. But in her free hand, she gripped a slim blade that she waved around.
Quickly assessing the situation, Marcus
