Outclassed: Spellslingers Academy of Magic (Warden of the West Book 2) Page 5

  Gray’s penetrating gaze gave me pleasant chills. “We should get a move on,” he said, ignoring my question. “I don’t think the League tracked us here, but you never know.”

  I tried to shake off my disappointment. After all, the vampire wasn’t the reason I was here. That reason was Karl Muldoon—and I was determined to find out how he ended up strangled and discarded in the bottom of the river.

  6

  With its white double-fronted façade and sweeping driveway, the Muldoon residence looked like something out of a movie.

  “Cute place," Gray said.

  I arched an eyebrow. “Sure. If you like living like a pauper.” I straightened my shoulders, preparing for the onslaught of lies sure to tumble from my lips. “What's our story?"

  "You’re asking me now? We’re about to ring the bell.”

  "I meant to ask earlier, but I got distracted by the tunnel troll. And the League. And the stolen—sorry, borrowed motorcycle. It’s been a busy day.”

  Gray chuckled. "I'm just yanking your broom. I know it’s been intense, but this is a good lesson. When you’re a warden, it’ll be important to think on your feet. You won't always have a chance to plan out your strategy."

  “So, basically, you’re using your procrastination as a lesson for me." I gave him a serious case of side-eye.

  "I don't procrastinate," he argued. "Every move I make is carefully calculated.”

  "So, the fact that you haven’t checked in with me since the last time I saw you—that was a calculated move?"

  He blew out a breath. "Listen, I didn't realize it was a big deal to you. I thought you were settling into your new life, and I didn't want to be a distraction. I live a solitary life, Morrow. I thought you were hoping to escape that for yourself."

  He had a point. "It would have been nice to hear from you again. That's all." That was the closest I would get to expressing my interest in him. He was right. It didn’t make sense for me to get involved with someone like Gray. I needed to focus on Spellslingers and my new life there. Now wasn't the time for a romantic attachment, no matter how alluring he was.

  “Remember,” he said. “No magic. We don’t want to attract the League here, too.”

  No, we most certainly did not.

  We stood under the portico and I rang the bell. With a house this big, I expected a servant to answer, so I was surprised to be greeted by an adolescent girl. Her hair was styled in a messy ponytail and she looked no older than twelve.

  "Hi, is your mom or dad around?" I asked, forcing a cheerful smile.

  The girl gave us the once-over. “Hmm. You don't look like salespeople or religious zealots. We've had a lot of cops and investigators, but you don't look like those either."

  Well, she was astute. I'd say that much for her. "We’re not selling anything,” I said. “Religion included.” I was about to say that we were, in fact, investigators, when Gray interjected.

  “My sister here is a psychic," he said. “We thought you might be interested in speaking with her.”

  A psychic? I kept my arm still, although I really wanted to elbow the vampire in the ribs.

  The girl appeared unimpressed. "Like the kind on TV? My mom watches those shows. I think they look pretty stupid."

  I could understand her attitude. Unless you'd grown up experiencing the unbelievable, you'd likely find it far-fetched. At least now we knew which parent to focus on, though.

  “We would love to speak to your mother," I said. “Is she available?”

  The girl folded her arms. "You’re the psychic. You tell me."

  Ooh, she was good. “Yes, she’s home. She's in the gym."

  The girl's eyes rounded. “Okay, I’ll go get her." She turned back quickly. "Come in and close the door. Dad gets mad when we let the air conditioning out. You wouldn't believe how much it costs to cool a home this big."

  We stepped into the grand foyer with its black and white checkerboard flooring. Everywhere I looked was pristine elegance.

  "How did you know about the gym?" Gray asked, once the girl was out of earshot.

  "Just a lucky guess," I said.

  Gray shook his head. “No, it wasn't. Tell me your reasoning. I think I know, but I'd like to hear it.”

  I glanced around the extravagant interior. "That little girl is Karl's younger sister, either half sibling or step. That means this is Mr. Muldoon's second marriage, or at least not Karl's mother. There’s too much of a gap in their ages to be full siblings. If Mr. Muldoon has as much money as it seems, he married a younger woman this time around. The second wife probably worries about losing her husband to yet another younger woman, so she obsesses about staying fit. She doesn't have to work, so she spends a lot of time in the home gym.”

  Gray stared at me for brief moment. "You're right. It was a lucky guess.”

  As I was about to follow through with my plan to elbow him in the ribs, Mrs. Muldoon emerged from downstairs. Sure enough, she wore yoga pants and a fitted tank top that accentuated her fake boobs. I also noticed a hint of plastic surgery on her face. No doubt she made monthly visits to her doctor for Botox injections.

  “Hi there. Stormy says you’re a psychic," Mrs. Muldoon said.

  “That's right," I said. "We wanted to talk to you about your stepson, Karl."

  "The police said a psychic was a terrible idea," Mrs. Muldoon said. "Did my husband call you? I know he felt bad for being such a jerk about it."

  I noticed Stormy lingering on the staircase behind her mother. Despite her precociousness, I had a feeling that the young girl was having a difficult time processing her brother's disappearance. If he lived at home, that meant they had some kind of a relationship, despite the age difference. There was every chance he was a doting older brother. She was probably desperate with worry. I still remembered how I felt when my mother failed to come home after her hospital shift. Under normal circumstances, the police would have been able to identify her and show up on my doorstep. Thanks to my mother's determined secrecy, I was the one who had to go in search of her. It was only when I arrived at the hospital that I was informed of her death. We’d often discussed a contingency plan in the event that my father found her first, so I immediately left town. If the police had found me, they would have taken me into foster care and I would’ve been officially in the system.

  “Your husband didn’t call,” I said. "It was one of the police officers who came here. I won't say which one, but he felt that it would be inappropriate to mention me when your husband was so clearly against it."

  A believable lie, under the circumstances.

  "It was the Italian one, wasn't it?" she said. "I could totally tell he was open to it."

  I offered a vague smile. "Like I said, he would rather remain anonymous. Is there somewhere we can talk?" I inclined my head to indicate the presence of adolescent ears. If there was anything unsavory about Karl's life, I didn't want to tarnish his sister’s memory of him.

  “Absolutely. Let's go into my study," Mrs. Muldoon said.

  Her study looked like a room out of Barbie magazine. The furniture was lacquered in pink and the paintings on the wall were Andy Warhol meets My Little Pony.

  I stifled a laugh as Gray settled into a pink chair that resembled a flamingo.

  "Do you have any idea where Karl might be?" she asked. “My husband still seems to think he took off for Japan for a last-minute vacation. His passport is missing, but it hasn't been used as far as we know."

  They didn't even know that Karl was dead. I wondered whether the body would at some point be returned to the human world, so that the Muldoon family would have closure.

  “Why Japan?" Gray asked.

  "He has an adventurous soul,” I said, careful to speak about him in the present tense.

  Mrs. Muldoon lit up. "That's right. I guess I won't ask how you know. He’s been talking about visiting Japan for ages.” She plucked her phone from the desk and began scrolling through photos. “Karl is always off on an adventure. He’s been
scuba diving in the Red Sea. He kayaked solo in South America. He nearly died on that trip. My husband had to send a plane for him.”

  “Karl doesn’t work?” Gray queried.

  Mrs. Muldoon squinted like Gray had asked whether the young man might be on Mars. “No, he’s been pursuing his passions. Karl wears a shirt all the time that says ‘Living the Dream.’ That’s his motto.” She found an example on her phone and showed it to us. Karl was beaming on a sailboat, looking every inch the athletic explorer that he was.

  “His father didn’t want him to move out and earn a living?” Gray asked. I wondered whether this conversation struck close to home for the vampire. Although I knew he was estranged from his family because he left the AMF, that was the extent of my insight.

  “It comes up every so often,” Mrs. Muldoon said. “But then he sees how fulfilled Karl is and finds it hard to put his foot down. All we want is to raise happy kids, you know?”

  “What about Karl’s mother?” I asked. “I don’t see her in the picture.” Literally. Every picture I saw with Karl consisted of the family members in this household.

  “Because she isn’t,” Mrs. Muldoon said, her expression sour. “Laurie took off years ago, as soon as Karl turned eighteen and she stopped getting child support from my husband.”

  “Would it be typical for Karl to leave without telling you?” I asked.

  “Not really,” she admitted. “But he and my husband had a fight the day before he disappeared, so we figured he left in a huff and that we’d hear from him.”

  “But you haven’t,” I said softly. He didn’t know it yet, but Mr. Muldoon’s last conversation with his son would be an argument. My heart ached for the family.

  “Stormy pretends to be cool…I know she’s worried, though,” Mrs. Muldoon admitted. “She adores Karl. She’s supposed to be leaving for summer camp, but she refuses to go until we’ve heard something.”

  I pretended to channel my psychic skills. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Muldoon. Stormy will go to summer camp, and she’ll have an amazing time.”

  Mrs. Muldoon’s thinly sculpted eyebrows lifted. “Really? That’s wonderful.” She leaned forward. “And what about Karl? Is he having an amazing time?”

  My throat tightened. I was an adept liar when it came to non-emotional subjects. Lying to a concerned stepmother, however, was an entirely different experience.

  “It would help if I had something of his,” I said. “Would it be possible to see his room?” Maybe there would be a clue there that connected him to someone in the paranormal world.

  Mrs. Muldoon smacked her forehead. “Of course. How silly of me. Right this way.”

  Gray and I followed her to the rear of the house. The backyard was a calming oasis with a rectangular pool in the center and gardens bursting with color on either side.

  “This pool needs an oversized swan,” I said quietly to Gray, and his mouth twitched.

  “Karl’s bachelor pad is the cottage there.” Mrs. Muldoon pointed to a house at the end of the property. It looked far too big to be called a cottage. “We’ve been leaving it unlocked.” Her eyes brimmed with unshed tears. “Stormy likes to sit in the room and pretend to talk to him, like she does when he’s home.”

  My gut twisted. Stormy would never speak to her brother again. It was an awful burden to be here, knowing the truth. We had to figure out what happened to Karl. He deserved justice.

  I opened the door to find Stormy seated cross-legged on the couch. She was focused on the television, and I realized that she was playing on a game console.

  “I figured you’d need to come in here eventually,” Stormy said. “The psychics on television always need a piece of hair or an article of clothing to feel connected to the missing person.” She cast a sidelong glance at us. “What are you really looking for? Money?”

  “I thought you believed our story,” I said, coming to sit beside her.

  She shrugged and carried on playing. “I knew it would make my mom happy. She feels pretty powerless. So does my dad. It sucks.”

  “How about you?” I asked. “How do you feel?”

  Stormy ignored me. Instead, she shifted her attention to Gray, who was busy examining the contents in the room. “You’re oddly quiet,” she told the vampire. “Are you the muscle?”

  Gray turned and smiled, careful not to show his fangs. “I tend to let the professional do the talking.”

  “Are you together?” Stormy asked. “Is that why he goes places with you? Like a Bonnie and Clyde thing?”

  I nearly burst out laughing. “No, Stormy. We’re not like Bonnie and Clyde. At all.” I was relieved Gray had the good sense not to ask who Bonnie and Clyde were.

  “Karl promised he’d take me to the Galapagos Islands when I turned thirteen,” Stormy said. “He said I’d be old enough for the hiking and diving then.” Her expression grew downcast. “It’ll never happen now.”

  “What makes you so certain?” I asked.

  Stormy chewed her lip. “I don’t think he’s coming back.”

  Gray and I exchanged looks. Stormy seemed to know more than she was letting on.

  “Why?” I asked. “Did he tell you where he was going?”

  The young girl dropped the controller on the plush carpet. “Not exactly. He said he was going on the adventure of a lifetime, to a place no one he knew had ever been.”

  “Did he say where?” Gray asked, his full attention now on the younger sister.

  “He said I wouldn’t believe him if he told me,” Stormy said. “I begged him to tell me, but he said he couldn’t.”

  “Did you tell the police or any of the investigators?” I asked.

  “The police basically patted me on the head and told me to go play in my room, like I was five years old,” she scoffed. “I wasn’t here when the investigators came. I was at my friend Mindy’s.”

  So Armitage and his team didn’t speak to Stormy. I wondered whether they knew about her at all.

  “What about your parents?” I asked.

  “I told them, but they just think he was talking about Japan.”

  “But you don’t?”

  She shook her blond ponytail. “He’d been acting weird before he disappeared.”

  My radar pinged. “Weird how?”

  “It was after he went to a party at Brittany Henshaw’s house,” Stormy said. “He started talking about how cool it would be to be immortal.”

  Gray began to choke. “Do you know why? Maybe he watched a movie or read a book about it?”

  Stormy snorted. “My brother didn’t do anything passive. He was always on the go. Even this game console is in here for my benefit, not his.”

  “So, you think his weird talk about immortality stems from the party?” I asked.

  She nodded vigorously. “I told him he’d miss us after we were gone. That all the vampires in movies get sad when they realize they’re alone in the world. It’s a huge burden.”

  I hastened a glance at Gray. The vampire remained stone-faced.

  “Did he specifically mention vampires?” I asked.

  “No,” she replied, drawing her knees to her chest. “It couldn’t be anything like that, obvs. I thought maybe he was going to join some scientific experiment. You know, donate himself for a top-secret study. That’s so Karl.”

  “Any idea where we can find Brittany Henshaw?” I asked.

  “She’s two blocks down. Number fifty-two. She’s usually lounging by her pool with her vapid friends.” Stormy peered at me. “You’re not here for money, are you?”

  “No, Stormy,” I said softly. “I’m here to help your brother.” I couldn’t save him, but I could still help him by finding his killer.

  “Why did you lie to my mom?” Stormy asked. “Why not just tell her you’re investigators?”

  “Because we’re not,” Gray said. “We don’t have the kind of credentials they’d be interested in.”

  Stormy nodded, seeming to understand. “When you talk to Brittany, tell her you’re
writing a story on my brother’s disappearance. She’s more likely to talk.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  Stormy snorted. “Because she’ll want to be quoted. She’s like the girl of a thousand selfies. She’s completely in love with herself.” The young girl paused, lost in thought. “She was always nice to Karl, though. I think she was really into him.”

  Part of me wanted to reassure the girl, but I knew there was nothing comforting I could say. Karl was dead, and he was never coming back. It was a pain I was intimately familiar with.

  “Thanks for your help, Stormy,” I said.

  She peeked out from behind the tops of her knees. “If you find out what happened, will you promise to tell me?”

  My response got caught in my throat.

  “We’ll try,” Gray answered for me.

  Stormy picked up the controller and began to play, her blue eyes solemn.

  We left via the gate in the backyard. I couldn’t face Mrs. Muldoon and pretend to do a reading. It would be more than I could handle.

  “Will they ever know what really happened to him?" I asked Gray, once we were safely away from the house.

  Gray’s expression clouded over. "No, it isn't possible under the circumstances. With his injuries…there’d be years of an investigation here that would lead nowhere. The family would suffer for years. The body will likely be cremated in our world and remain there. That’s standard procedure.”

  “The family will suffer for years not knowing whether he’s alive or dead," I said. "Isn't there some way to give them closure?"

  Gray’s face hardened. “Welcome to the job, Morrow.”

  7

  Sure enough, a bikini-clad Brittany Henshaw was on a lounge chair by her pool, flanked by two friends in equally small swimsuits. They appeared to live the kind of life I only ever saw on television. Then again, my own perception of normal life was skewed, given my upbringing.

  Brittany flicked up her oversized sunglasses when she saw us. “You’re blocking my sun. If you’re here to fix the pool heater, you need to go to the clubhouse.” She waved a hand airily over her head, to indicate the small building behind her.