Hard To Bear (7 page)

“Don’t make me stick you with my hatpin,” Blanche threatened.

Dr. De Rossi had strolled up and was surveying the whole exchange with amusement.  “Oh, my, I can see I’m in for quite an evening,” he said, looking not at all displeased.  He had an accent that Coral couldn’t place – Italian, maybe? He was dead sexy for a man of his age, anyway.  He looked dashing in his tuxedo and he had a sort of courtly old world air about him, like the descendents of royalty.

“You got that right, honey,” Blanche said.   She linked her arm through his, and
Maybelle quickly linked her arm through his free arm, and the three of them drifted off into the crowd.

Melinda stood there with her mouth hanging open. 
“I will see you on site tomorrow morning. Good night,” Flint said, turning away from her, and she stood there for a moment longer, uncertainly, before she turned and stomped off, looking as if she’d just sucked on a lemon.

“She works on my construction crew.   That was completely inappropriate  behavior on her part,
and I apologize,” he said.

Coral
shrugged, trying to keep her tone casual.  “Listen, that was very gentlemanly of you, but I know you don’t want to go out on this date any more than I do.    Why don’t we just do what we originally planned? Meet me at the Donut Hole tomorrow morning, fifteen minute interview, and we’ll also consider it a date.  We’ll both get what we need.”

“Certainly not.
  I wasn’t lying when I said I was looking forward to a date with you.   Dinner, and a boat ride on my family’s lake. Does tomorrow night work for you?”

“
Ahhh – well –“

“I’ll pick you up at your place at six p.m.”

“Well, I-“

He
grabbed her hand in his, brought it up to his lips, and kissed it.  The feel of those soft, luscious lips on the back of her hand sent a flood of desire raging through her body, and she barely was able to swallow the whimper that rose to her lips.  At least, she hoped she’d swallowed it.

He winked at her, and turned and walked away. 

She was dismayed to realize that her body was reacting as if he were a rock star and she was a screaming fan at a concert.  Her nipples were swollen and sensitive, rubbing up against the fabric of her bra.  Her cleft was damp with the juices of her arousal, and her heart had sped up as if she’d just run a marathon. 

If one chaste kiss on her hand
had this effect on her, how would she survive an entire evening with her dignity intact?

The next morning…

             
Blanche might be crazy, and a loudmouthed troublemaker, but she did show up bearing coffee and donuts,  which redeemed her considerably in Coral’s eyes.

             
She set the bag of donuts down in front of Coral and plopped into a chair next to her.  Maybelle immediately scooted her chair closer, because she clearly couldn’t stand to be left out of anything that involved her frenemy.

“I’ve got it,”
Blanche said triumphantly.

“Got what? The clap
?” Maybelle grabbed a donut from the bag and bit into it.

“
Ladies, ladies! Language! There are virgin ears here!” Coral clapped her hands over her ears in a show of protest.  Sadly, it was practically true. She was almost a born-again virgin.

“No, you senile ol
d goat, I’ve got the connection,” Blanche smirked.  “Both of the missing people are from families who are Original Shifters.”

“
Hmmph,” Maybelle frowned, pursing her lips. “I suppose that’s true.”

“Original shifters? What’s that? Is that something like Original Gangsters?”

“Good heavens, you city folk.” Maybelle leaned back in her seat. “This requires a little history lesson. Did you know that Central Florida was one of the first places that shifters were first discovered and acknowledged, way back in the early 1800s?”

“Vaguely.” Coral was lying.
History wasn’t her strong suit.

“Are you familiar with ley lines?”

“Somewhat.   From what I understand, ley lines are invisible lines of power that travel underneath the Earth.  In areas where ley lines intersect, there are more shifters and witches born than in other areas.”

“
Well, there’s an area of swampland a few miles outside of Blue Moon Junction where three ley lines intersect.  It’s one of the few places in the world where that happens;  in most places there are only two. It’s also the only area in the world where three ley lines intersect and where there are also people living nearby; the other areas are under a volcano and deep in the ocean.   It’s believed that from time to time, something causes the ley lines to flare up in power just like a solar flare, and that’s what happened here back in the early 1800s.” Maybelle paused to take a bite of donut.   “Up to that point, shifters and witches were believed to be myths and fairy tales.  In the early 1800s, as I’m sure you know, all of a sudden there were so many shifters and witches being born that mankind finally had to accept that they were real.  And this area of Florida was where it happened first, although there was a big population boom all over the country.”

“So, what does this have to do with the missing shifters?’

“Well, the
shifters who first came out of the closet, so to speak, are known as Original Shifters.  Marie Kirby is the descendent of Cyrus and Elizabeth Kirby.  Cyrus was a wolf shifter.  David Bollinger is a panther shifter. He’s the descendent of Zachary and Primrose Bollinger.  Primrose was a panther shifter.”

“Interesting.” Coral frowned. “Of cour
se, Adrian Freidman was a human, not a shifter, and he wasn’t from this area at all.”

“True. The connection could just be coincidence,”
Blanche admitted.

Coral leaned back in her chair, tapping her pen on the desk.  “Adrian was working on a story before h
e disappeared.  Maybe his story is somehow tied in with their disappearance.  Except they disappeared after he did, so…damn it.”

Frederick, who had been editing a picture on his computer, rolled his eyes. “Or, maybe you’re a crazy conspiracy theorist who’s so desperate for a story she’ll invent one if she has to? Hey, by the way, do you want me to blow this up and make an 8 by 10 glossy for you?”

He swiveled the screen towards her. It was a picture of Flint from the bachelor auction, looking achingly handsome in his tuxedo.

“I’d
like something blown up.” Coral glowered threateningly at Frederick. He didn’t look worried.

“Remember, I want all the details. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m
taking Bettina out for a coffee date.”

Coral raised an eyebrow at him.  “
Remember what I told you.  I’m bigger than you. I can hurt you.”

“Oh, go type an obit,” Frederick said, tossing a paper clip at her, which of course got caught in her curly hair.

              “You dropped your purse, by the way,” Blanche said, handing it to her.

             
“Thank you, Blanche. Ladies, thank you for the insight into the missing people.  Who knows, it may lead to something.  Let me know if you come up with anything else. And stay out of trouble, ha ha, as if.  I have to get to work now.”

That afternoon,
finished with all of her newspaper busywork, she looked up the address of Marie Kirby’ s parents, and David Bollinger’s wife.  She went to the house of Marie’s parents first.

They lived in a small bungalow style ho
me, colorfully painted, with knee-high ceramic planters full of coleus on either side of their front door.

The door flew open before Coral even had a chance to ring the doorbell.

Marie’s mother Allegra was a pretty, dark-haired wolf shifter in her fifties, but her face was pinched with worry.

“
Hi, I’m Coral Colby.  I’m a reporter at the Tattler.  I’m sorry to intrude, but I’m wondering if you’ve heard from your daughter yet.  The reason I’m asking is that I got a visit from a woman named Molly Friedman-”

“I know who she is,”
Allegra interrupted. “She came to speak to me. We still haven’t heard from Marie, and she was due to come home a week ago.  She never got on her flight.  I don’t know if it’s connected to the other disappearances or not. Do you have any news?”

“
I don’t, I’m afraid, but I’m looking into the disappearances to see if they might be connected.  And nobody has any idea what happened?”

“
Nobody,” Allegra said, hugging herself.  “We actually flew to France, and we weren’t able to find out anything new. All we know is that she checked out of her hotel there, was on her way to meet friends in London, and apparently never boarded the train. Her friends called us, and we called the police and reported her missing. Interpol isn’t helpful at all.  We even contacted the Shifter’s Council, and they haven’t been able to come up with anything.”

Each shifter species had its own Shifter’s Council, who oversaw all shifter matters that couldn’t be resolved by their local pack
or pride.  Overseeing all the statewide shifter’s councils was a national council.  Threats against shifters, or problems within shifter packs that required legal enforcement, were dealt with by the Enforcers, a branch of the National Shifter’s Council.

“Are the Enforcers still investigating it?” Coral asked.

“They don’t seem to be placing a lot of importance on it,” Allegra said, her forehead puckering with worry. “You’re Ginger’s sister, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Is she… the real thing? I mean, I don’t mean any offense-”

“No offense taken, Mrs. Kirby. You have every right to ask. My sister is certified, and she is very good. If Marie were dead-” Mrs. Kirby’s flinch
ed as she said that, and Coral felt horrible.  “Ginger would have sensed it. How long after Marie’s disappearance did Ginger step in?”

“
Marie’s friends contacted us when she failed to meet them and they couldn’t get ahold of her.  Ginger was called in about a week after that.  She went to her room, handled her things, and she said Marie isn’t dead. So there’s still hope, isn’t there?”

“
Of course there is,” Coral said.  Ouch. The look on Mrs. Kirby’s face ripped at her heart-strings.

She left, promising to let Mrs. Kirby know if she found out anything more.

Then she headed over to the Bollinger’s residence, a large, new, mini-McMansion with an obscenely big lawn.   The woman who answered the door there, a sleek panther shifter with a helmet perfectly styled hair, wore a lime-colored tennis dress, and held a Martini glass. 

She looked Coral up and down with disdain.
“Whatever you’re selling, we don’t want any,” Mrs. Bollinger said.

“I’m not selling anything.  I’m a reporter doing a story on the disappearance of several people, including your husband-”

“Well, you better not find him, because I don’t want him back,” Mrs. Bollinger slurred, and slammed the door in Coral’s face.

Hmmph
, Coral thought. No wonder he keeps running off.  She felt bad for his teenaged kids, though.

She was done for the day at the newspaper, so she headed back home, feeling frustrated.  She kept running into dead ends, and she
felt like there was some bigger picture here that she was missing.

  Her phone rang, and she fished in her purse and answered it.
“So, what did you find out, Nancy Drew?”

“I think the appropriate literary reference would be Brenda Starr. And I found out plenty.” She hadn’t, but she didn’t want to give Frederick the satisfaction of knowing she kept running into dead ends.

“Yeah? Spill it!”

“Nope. It’s a secret. And now, I’m going home to get ready for my date.”

Coral was renting a small cement block house painted in a shocking shade of turquoise, which was apparently common in Florida.   Her whole neighborhood looked like a row of different colored Lego blocks, each plopped onto an emerald square of lawn. 

She stood in her bedroom pawing
through a dozen different outfits, trying to decide what look she was going for.  Should she dress sexy, and make him sorry he’d ever stood her up? Conservative as a nun, to show him she wasn’t the least bit interested?

Her cell phone rang as she stood there in her underwear, looking at the half dozen dresses she’d pulled out of the closet. 

She grabbed it and answered without bothering to look at the screen to see who was calling.

“I’d go low-cut, if I were you,” her mother said.

“Mom!” Coral yelped, looking around the room.  “Do you have a hidden camera in here? Do you? You better tell me.” She wouldn’t put it past her.

“No, but I called the gossip columnist at your newspaper to get the lowdown of what you’ve been up to. So, you’re going out with a bear shifter tonight?  And a wealthy one, too, that’ll be nice.  I never expected to have bear cubs as grandchildren, but a cub is a cub-”

“You are a crazy woman.  I am not marrying this man, he’s a rude, stuck up jerk.  And Ginger is pregnant with twins, how many
grandcubs does one woman need?”