Black Beast (26 page)

Someone crazy. She thought of the witch, of his burning green eyes. Someone desperate.

Someone looking for a book. A very special book.
And they must have been furious when they had discovered that it was no longer here.

Perhaps it hadn't been the witch, after all.

Catherine found herself recalling Chase. His desperation to get his hands on the spell book.

He'd practically waved money in her face.

And then there were the red-eyed people who had tried to kill her before she made it to work.

She thought of the book, back in her bedroom, with its strange black aura that had matched those behind the tinted windows of the car.

Her meddling was the catalyst.

It's all my fault.

Chapter Ten

Myrna was still talking but Catherine was no longer paying attention. Her meddling in the affairs of the otherworldly had spilled into the human world. She had to make this right. The continued safety of her family depended on it. Her own safety depended on it. But how?

“I'm going on lunch break,” Myrna said at last. “Lord knows I need one. I have my cell phone. The police chief said he'd call back. If he does, redirect him to me.”

She was leaving? Good, that would give her time to think. Smile in place, Catherine nodded and said nothing.

“You can look through the new arrivals. See what's worth keeping. But don't touch anything. It's evidence.”

All of it?
“Look but don't touch. Got it.”

With a final mistrustful glance that suggested she knew she was being mocked, but couldn't quite put her finger on how or why, Myrna left. Her red VW pulled out of the lot at a snail's pace.

She thought of the witch, and how he had flushed her out of hiding through fire and flames. Maybe there was a way to do the same with the would-be thief.

The moment Myrna's car was out of sight, Catherine got down on hands and knees, searching through the rubble for the bookmark with Chase's number. She finally found it beneath a small mountain of books that had tumbled from the counter. The writing was smeared but still legible.

Taking a deep breath, Catherine picked up the phone and dialed the seven digits.

The phone picked up on the second ring? “Hello?” There was no mistaking that nasally voice.

“This is Catherine. I'm calling from work.”

“Catherine!” He sounded genuinely pleased to hear from her. She wondered if he got many phone calls from girls. She wondered if he got many phone calls at all. “Have you started studying for that lab yet? It's, uh, pretty lucky how we got the two smartest people in class as our lab partners, huh?”

She stared at the back wall, furious with the fresh reminder of David's cowardly betrayal.

But Chase was quick to bring her back to the present. “Did you, uh, want something?”

“Yeah. It's about the book, the one you wanted to talk to me about?”

He almost squealed, he was that excited. “Did you price it?” His voice was aggressively eager. “How much is it? I can come over now if you want—”

“I—ah, yes. I mean, no. No, actually, there's a problem.”

“What?”

She held the phone away from her mouth to draw in a quick breath. Hesitation could be taken as a sign of weakness. She could hear Chase's indignant protests even at this distance.

“It turns out the book was fairly valuable. Not like a first edition Joseph Conrad—” she faked a laugh “—but it was a collectible item and last night, somebody—a local gang probably, the police are saying—broke into the store and stole it.”

If Chase was innocent, he would believe her. He would be disappointed, yes, but reasonably complacent. After all, these things could happen to anyone.

On the other hand, if he was guilty, he would know for a fact that the book hadn't been stolen—at least, not by a gang—because he would have already tried to steal it himself and found it missing. He would, naturally, suspect her.

She only hoped that he did so in a way that proved damning.

Chase still hadn't said anything. Telephones were difficult for Catherine because while she was free to interpret the hidden nuances in the speakers' voices, she couldn't see or smell them. People's bodies betrayed so much more than their voices, especially if they were practiced liars.

“Are you still there?”

Just when she was about to hang up he said, “Yeah. I'm still here.”

She continued her ruthless assault. “The entire bookstore was practically destroyed. Broken glass, toppled shelves. Guess somebody wanted that book more than you.”

“You should have sold it to me before! Then this never would have happened!”

Disappointment? Or thinly-veiled threat?

She was secretly glad he was being so pettish. It gave her permission to lash back at him.

“There's no point in raising your voice. The price you were asking wasn't fair. I could have gotten fired if I'd sold it to you for what you were asking. Do you realize that?”

Sourly, he said, “I told you I was willing to pay more—”

“That doesn't do either of us much good,” she said, “now that the book's gone.”

Chase slammed down the phone without another word.

And Catherine was no closer to knowing whether Chase was guilty than before. If he was guilty, he would be suspicious now, too, making things twice as difficult. She let the phone fall back into the cradle, and raked her hair out of her face. She might have expected as much.

Seconds after she set the phone down, it began ringing again. She picked up. Warily. “Yes?”

“Catherine? Oh my God, I just got Myrna's message. She sounded frantic.” It was Sharon. Catherine let out her breath as the other girl said, “What's going on? You working right now?”

“Yes, I am, but I'm supposed to keep the line open. Can you call me on my cell phone?”

Her cell phone immediately began ringing.

“Thanks,” Catherine said shortly, in lieu of hello. “Where are you? Are you coming in today?”

“All Myrna told me was that she had something important to tell me—hello, redundant much?—and that I was supposed to get there after school if I could, which I can't. I totally forgot: Mike asked me out for coffee and I didn't want to say that I had to go work at the library because how lame is that? He's so mature, already graduated too, and I'm so embarrassed about this dumb job.” Sharon drew in a gasping breath. “Why? She didn't say anything, did she?”

“Your absence was noted, if that's what you're asking.”

Catherine went on to describe what she'd seen, and how everything had been searched through and destroyed but nothing—not even the money in the cash register—had been taken.

“Yeah, that doesn't sound like any dumb-ass gang I've ever heard of,” Sharon scoffed.

But she, like Myrna, like the cops, didn't have any idea who would do such a thing.

“Does that mean the store is closed?” she asked, almost as an afterthought.

“No. We're still open for business.”

Things had actually been slightly busier than usual, mostly because people wanted a glimpse of the damage for themselves. Catherine had never understood this human fascination with disaster. Most creatures run when they sense danger. People grab a six-pack and a folding chair.

“Do you think she'll fire me? For um, you know, not being there?”

“You're not coming in…at all.”

“No, 'cause I'm still out with Mike. I just wanted to call and, like, check in.”

“How thoughtful of you.”

Sharon changed the subject. “Do they have any leads? They must know who did it. I mean, there's gotta be, like, security cameras or something, right?”

“The cameras don't work. Security never got around to hooking them up.”

“Dang.” Another silence. “Do you think whoever did it was creeping on us in those bushes?”

A red VW pulled up in front of the bookstore. “I gotta go,” said Catherine. “She's back.”

As she hung up the phone, she distinctly heard Sharon say, “Cover for me!”

The door opened. Myrna tossed her counterfeit Coach bag into the closet. “I hope that wasn't a personal call, Catherine. I told you I needed the line open.”

Catherine held up her cell. “It was Sharon. She wanted me to tell you that she couldn't come into work today. She had a, um, doctor's appointment. But she's sorry about what happened.”

In addition to the take-out bag from lunch—ugh, wherever she'd been, they weren't using pure beef—Myrna was carrying some green fliers. Catherine eyed them but did not comment just in case it would lead to further grunt work. But Myrna was too quick and Catherine found the fliers being shoved into her hands, leaving her with little choice but to accept them.

“Make sure you hand these out to all your little friends.”

Little friends? Catherine stared at them as if they were covered in flesh-eating bacteria.