Hmm.Now that I actually had more than a few fleeting seconds to think things over, I realized just how much wasn’t adding up here.
Melony had surprised Greta and me at the house earlier that day. And when she left us, I ran to my house and found Fluffikins waiting. He conjured a broom and flew me back to the PTA complex with him. He’d also said Melony wasn’t able to travel by magical means.
If that was the case, how could Melony have had the time to find Parker and follow him to the edge of town, have a talk, and then have a confrontation within that space of time before Parker joined us at the conference room table?
Yes, he was the last to arrive, but still we were only talking a span of maybe ten minutes here. For the first time since moving to this little town, I wished I’d brought a car with me. The town was considered tiny because of its population, but it still boasted a fair amount of land.
I punched my address into the maps app. Mrs. Haberdash’s property—including my guest house—was centrally located, which made it easy to walk into town when I needed to. That had been a big selling point for me, actually.
Now that I was studying the map, I noticed we were dead center in the square-shaped area of the city’s boundaries. I used my index finger to tap the city border and added it as a destination point. My app informed me that the quickest route by car would take about twelve minutes.
I didn’t have exact timestamps for the events of this morning, but the accepted timeline seemed off.
Parker had either gotten confused or was purposefully lying to the board. Greta had already confirmed that.
But he’d also proudly told me he was a local, born and raised in Beech Grove. In fact, it was one of the first things he said to me—well, after accusing me of being a murderer, that is. I doubted he’d have made an error in calculating the time given his familiarity with the town, and I also doubtedhe’d tell a lie he knew could be easily disproved.
So why hadn’t the others noticed this inconsistency?
Or had they but chosen not to acknowledge it?
I was missing something big here, and I doubted I was the only one.
See, this was exactly the kind of thing that happened from making decisions too fast! Yet another reason it was so important for me to start my days with a slow, contemplative shower. Thanks to Fluffikins, I hadn’t even gotten a quick and cold shower that morning.
I’d only had a single serving of coffee, too.
And it wasn’t even eight o’clock yet.Yawn.
I rummaged through the late Mrs. Haberdash’s jewelry box and lifted a large emerald ring to inspect it more closely.
“Drop that,” someone ordered from the doorway in a gruff voice. Despite the added vitriol, I instantly recognized the speaker.
I turned to face Parker, holding the ring tight.“Make me,” I challenged through clenched teeth. I was taking a big chance here and prayed my instincts were bang on.
He paused for a moment, but that was enough to confirm my suspicions.
“You’re not Parker,” I said, slipping the ring onto my finger and placing a hand on each hip in open defiance.
27
Parker unleashed a fiery blast and sent it careening right at me. Yeah, this definitely wasn’t the same guy I’d met the day before.
I tried to dodge, but the surge of magic shot out so fast I didn’t have a chance. The flames crashed straight into me, but I hardly felt a thing. Only warmth, acknowledgment. The light in my chest glowed as the borrowed angel armor absorbed the full impact.
“They know,” Parker growled, and for a moment he looked too stunned to take any further action.
But that moment quickly passed and he hurled himself onto me, trapping my smaller body beneath his large, muscly one.
“Let me go!” I flailed against him.
“Tell me where the others are,” he demanded, but still he couldn’t force me to do it against my will. This wasn’t Parker. He didn’t have the same powers.
“No,” I told him with another grunt. “I won’t tell you anything until you explain who you are and what you want.”
If I could get and keep him talking until Greta returned, then everything would be okay. I was definitely doing my job as bait. Now I just had to hope my fisherman would come to the rescue before the armor took one too many hits and I got gobbled up whole.
“Who are you? Why are you even a part of this?” fake Parker demanded rather than offering any answers of his own.
“I’m Tawny,” I said blithely. The goal was to keep him talking, so if he wanted to hear about me, I was more than ready to offer up some info. “I’m just a temp.”
“They took your magic and kicked you out. Why are you in this house? What are you looking for?”
I absolutely was not going to tell him that I was only here to distract him, so instead I reached for my writer skills and concocted a story—a bit of pure and simple fiction to save the day.
“I live in the guest house out back. When they took my magic and kicked me out, I figured I’d been stiffed. I needed the money, though, that’s why I even took the lousy job in the first place. Figured with everyone’s attention focused elsewhere I could creep in here and find something to hock. Make sure I got some kind of payment for all my efforts.”
“You made a bad choice,” he hissed above me. “Because, see, now that you’re here, I can’t just let you go.”
“Then let me help you,” I suggested, giving up the struggle. The safest way to avoid getting hurt was to make him think I was on his side.
But it was to no avail.“I don’t need help from a normie. This will be easier without you here to get in the way.” He sent another surge of flames into my body, but I felt nothing this time. Just how long could this angel armor hold out? I really, really didn’t want to find out.
“What’s protecting you?” my attacker asked, further proof that he was not the Parker Barnes I knew and had even begun to care about a little.
“I don’t know,” I lied. I would have shrugged, but I still couldn’t move beneath him. “Magical residue, maybe? As you said, I’m nothing but a normie. Please just let me go.”
Another roar of ineffectual flames crashed against me.
“Use me as bait,” I suggested in a squeaky voice. Panic had begun to set it. Would Greta make it back in time, or would the next blast be the one to break through my armor?
“What?” he asked, his hand lifted to conjure another blow, then paused.
“Don’t just kill me. Use me as a bargaining piece for whatever it is you want.” If I could be the bait for the good guys, then I could be the bait for the bad guys, too. Only Greta had the full picture. I had to trust that she would be back soon and make sure I escaped this scuffle alive. I mean, if you couldn’t trust an angel, then who could you trust?
He pondered this for a few moments, and when at last he spoke again, it wasn’t to me. “There you are. Now get in here, and help me tie her up,” he said, pressing me harder into the ground. My face now lay flat against the heavy pile carpet in Mrs. Haberdash’s bedroom.
The echoing footsteps paused just outside the doorway.
“Well? Were you able to incapacitate any of them?” fake Parker pressed.
“No, unfortunately. They went to the power points as you anticipated, but they were unable to complete the ritual,” a husky feminine voice answered.
I couldn’t see much from my unfortunate position, but it was enough to recognize the pair of feet that joined us, dressed in thick black combat boots and a long flowy skirt.
Melony had arrived.
“Why not?” the man holding me down asked with a growl.
“One of their members suspected something and came to alert the others. I was just about to converge on the cat when it happened.”
“What did she say? Come out with it already!” My attacker shoved me into the floor with all his might, but the angel armor held strong.