happened to remember today.
Her thoughts returned to Alex, and she suddenly realized she had an advantage in this case. Since he was famous, she could find out a lot about his life just by looking online.
And boy, was there a lot out there.
All the girls he dated, slept with, and left with a broken heart. A list of his many properties, a photo of his yacht, and a lot of pictures of him shirtless.
Nothing useful, but way too distracting.
As she starting digging deeper, she began to realize that there wasn’t much information about his family origins. If he was shooting for mysterious to enhance his stage persona, mission accomplished. A few gossip websites insinuated his family came to the States around the turn of the century, but there was nothing to be found about where they were from or how they left. Or why.
“Rumor has it the Volman family had to escape from Eastern Europe because of witchcraft accusations,” she read aloud.
Laurie paused and sat back against the desk chair.
Eastern Europe. Romania. That had to be more than just a coincidence. She swore under her breath. There was something there, but she couldn’t quite grasp it. Something in her gut was telling her Volman wasn’t the kidnapper. It wasn’t that he was gorgeous and famous; pinning these disappearances on him just didn’t seem like the right answer. But that same feeling in her gut was telling her he knew something.
A soft crackling sound rushed past outside her window, and her hand instinctively reached for the gun in the upper desk drawer. It was such a soft rustle, it would have been easy to ignore it, but she knew her apartment well enough to know which sounds belonged and which ones didn’t.
A gust of wind assaulted the room when she opened the window, but other than that, the balcony was empty. Empty, but it didn’t feel that way. Laurie had the firm impression that somebody was watching her right at that very moment. The air felt thick, almost erratic … as if something had just cut into it and left its essence behind. She felt her stomach tighten and closed the window.
When she finally went to bed, she slept with the gun under her pillow.
Chapter 4
Alex finished his brandy and looked at his watch.
He had been waiting all day for Miss Cole to show up, but now that it was almost dinnertime, he wasn’t sure what he would say to her. He wanted to ask her what exactly she had felt before “hearing” the name Corneliu, but he wasn’t sure how to do that without exposing himself. He’d made some phone calls that morning to find out more about her. Where she lived, who she really was, what her superiors thought of her. She had a track record for breaking difficult cases, which meant that if he was going to lie, he needed to come up with something credible.
He hadn’t been able to reach Corneliu yet, but his sources had told him his cousin was supposed to be in town. And that was a very bad thing.
He was about to step out of the study when the phone rang.
He knew it was Anton before he answered. One of the good things about being a family of warlocks was that they all had an otherworldy connection to each other. He and Anton had grown up together, almost as brothers, and their connection had always been one of the strongest in the family. As children, they used to play tricks on the other cousins and drove the kids — and the parents — insane. The connection had only gotten stronger over the years.
“ Buna seara . Any news?”
“Not the kind you will like, I’m afraid. I did some research on the ritual.”
“Can I stop it?”
“Not exactly. But you can choose to perform it yourself.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“Well, the ritual works only once on Samhain , for whoever finishes it first. If you manage to open the door, you’ll be the one who receives all the power, and you can choose what to do
Her thoughts returned to Alex, and she suddenly realized she had an advantage in this case. Since he was famous, she could find out a lot about his life just by looking online.
And boy, was there a lot out there.
All the girls he dated, slept with, and left with a broken heart. A list of his many properties, a photo of his yacht, and a lot of pictures of him shirtless.
Nothing useful, but way too distracting.
As she starting digging deeper, she began to realize that there wasn’t much information about his family origins. If he was shooting for mysterious to enhance his stage persona, mission accomplished. A few gossip websites insinuated his family came to the States around the turn of the century, but there was nothing to be found about where they were from or how they left. Or why.
“Rumor has it the Volman family had to escape from Eastern Europe because of witchcraft accusations,” she read aloud.
Laurie paused and sat back against the desk chair.
Eastern Europe. Romania. That had to be more than just a coincidence. She swore under her breath. There was something there, but she couldn’t quite grasp it. Something in her gut was telling her Volman wasn’t the kidnapper. It wasn’t that he was gorgeous and famous; pinning these disappearances on him just didn’t seem like the right answer. But that same feeling in her gut was telling her he knew something.
A soft crackling sound rushed past outside her window, and her hand instinctively reached for the gun in the upper desk drawer. It was such a soft rustle, it would have been easy to ignore it, but she knew her apartment well enough to know which sounds belonged and which ones didn’t.
A gust of wind assaulted the room when she opened the window, but other than that, the balcony was empty. Empty, but it didn’t feel that way. Laurie had the firm impression that somebody was watching her right at that very moment. The air felt thick, almost erratic … as if something had just cut into it and left its essence behind. She felt her stomach tighten and closed the window.
When she finally went to bed, she slept with the gun under her pillow.
Chapter 4
Alex finished his brandy and looked at his watch.
He had been waiting all day for Miss Cole to show up, but now that it was almost dinnertime, he wasn’t sure what he would say to her. He wanted to ask her what exactly she had felt before “hearing” the name Corneliu, but he wasn’t sure how to do that without exposing himself. He’d made some phone calls that morning to find out more about her. Where she lived, who she really was, what her superiors thought of her. She had a track record for breaking difficult cases, which meant that if he was going to lie, he needed to come up with something credible.
He hadn’t been able to reach Corneliu yet, but his sources had told him his cousin was supposed to be in town. And that was a very bad thing.
He was about to step out of the study when the phone rang.
He knew it was Anton before he answered. One of the good things about being a family of warlocks was that they all had an otherworldy connection to each other. He and Anton had grown up together, almost as brothers, and their connection had always been one of the strongest in the family. As children, they used to play tricks on the other cousins and drove the kids — and the parents — insane. The connection had only gotten stronger over the years.
“ Buna seara . Any news?”
“Not the kind you will like, I’m afraid. I did some research on the ritual.”
“Can I stop it?”
“Not exactly. But you can choose to perform it yourself.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“Well, the ritual works only once on Samhain , for whoever finishes it first. If you manage to open the door, you’ll be the one who receives all the power, and you can choose what to do
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