Stacia Kane - Finding Magic

She raised her eyebrows. “Some of us are full of shit.”

“Now, was that really necessary? You wound me.”

“Oh, did I hurt your widdle feelings?”

“You can make it up to me.” He was closer now, not close enough to be entirely inappropriate but close enough that she started both panicking and wishing he’d get closer; close enough that she wanted him to touch her and was afraid he would. “How about having dinner with me on Friday? And Randy’s having a party in his room, we can—”

“I can’t.” She slid away. “Too much studying to catch up on.”

“Come on, Chessie, everyone will be there. One night won’t—”

“Sorry.”

His head tilted. “Another time?”

“Maybe.” She shifted the file in her arms. Ordinarily she wouldn’t mind talking to Doyle, but Jillian could call her any minute and she wanted to try to at least learn something before that happened. So it wouldn’t look like she’d been wasting her time. So it wouldn’t look like she didn’t deserve to be there.

“Well.” He raised his hand like he was about to touch her, but stopped. “If you change your mind …”

“Sure.”

“Have fun with your week, anyway.”

She watched his back as he strolled down the row of cabinets and turned, disappearing past the next aisle of books. How much of that interest was in her, and how much was just curiosity about her training?

They were probably about equal, really. Yeah, he’d asked her out before, but yeah, he was also ambitious and arrogant, which meant he’d do anything to get some kind of inside or advance information.

Whatever. She had far more important things to focus on just then. Like Mark pollert. Like the names of the ghosts Summoned from the City, and who they might be to him. All but one of them had also died before Haunted Week, so she grabbed their files and carried them and the pollerts’ to a table by the wall, where no one could come up behind her.

Jason McBride’s was the first file she opened. Jason had been forty-three when he died, a sudden heart attack while at his job as … oh. Oh. Well, damn. Jason McBride had been a social worker for Child Protective Services, the BT version of the Church’s Department of Minor Care. Chess could only imagine how lousy things must have been for kids BT, given that they had to have improved under the Church and they hadn’t exactly been great for her.

But then, as she kept reminding herself, she must be an anomaly or something. Because contrary to what she’d grown up believing, the Church actually did care about her; they’d found her, they’d rescued her, and look at her now. Actually working for them, working with the Black Squad, getting ready to have an actual life beyond anything she’d ever dreamed of. They deserved her loyalty for that, her gratitude, and she’d give it to them.

But whoever had done the job of “protecting” children before the Church … they deserved nothing, and she scanned the photo of Jason McBride with little curiosity. He had that wispy, ineffectual look she’d seen so many times, the kind of guy born to be stepped all over.

Not that it mattered what he’d been in life. In death he was a killing machine like 99.9 percent of all ghosts, an ethereal shark endlessly searching for human chum.

Just like Marie and Ryan Wagner, the other two ghosts. Aw, a married couple, how sweet. Ryan had been a salesman, Marie a teacher—and Chess could just bet she knew who one of Marie’s students had been.

Too bad she couldn’t confirm it. If the name of Mark’s school had been in his file—and Chess imagined it had been, because everything like that would be—it either hadn’t been in the part she could access or she just hadn’t written it down, which was more likely.

But Jillian could access the files. So could Elder Griffin, couldn’t he? And since Doyle had actually talked to him and requested his training week be in Debunking—and why had no one told her she could do that? Or maybe Doyle had just created his own opportunity, which seemed more likely—and since Elder Griffin had actually seemed pretty decent to her when she’d met him, maybe she could ask him about it. Let him know she was taking the assignment seriously, that she was using her head.

Files weren’t supposed to leave the library, at least that’s what she thought she remembered being told. But taking them to Elder Griffin’s office wasn’t—No, they weren’t supposed to leave, and she didn’t want to take a chance. So instead she quickly scribbled down the names and their places of employment, shoved the files back into their approximate places in the cabinets, and headed for the wide staircase and Elder Griffin’s office.

The hall was empty. Well, sure—it was getting close to six, and the offices technically closed at five-thirty. Most employees stayed later than that, but no regular people sat on the benches waiting for appointments. A Goody Chess wasn’t familiar with passed her on the steps, but that was it.

Which was why she was able to hear the voices inside Elder Griffin’s office so clearly when she raised her hand to knock.

Actually, that was a lie. She heard murmurs beyond the door, and one of those murmurs sounded exactly like Elder Griffin saying her name. Her hand froze just before hitting the wood—good thing, too, because it turned out the door hadn’t latched, and that’s why she could hear.

Shit. What should she do?

Listening wasn’t the right thing. She knew that.

But doing the right thing wasn’t exactly her strong suit. Not really possible for her, even; she was a walking wrong thing, wasn’t she?

So she listened. She inched her head forward, careful to keep from view and very careful to keep from accidentally touching the door and opening it, and heard Jillian say, “She’s very standoffish, actually. She’s already made an enemy of Trent.”

“Oh?”

“Trent’s not the easiest guy to get along with, but it’s like she’s gone out of her way to be disrespectful to him.”

Pause. A pause, while Chess’s stomach twisted and her eyes started to burn. She’d gone out of her way to be disrespectful to Trent ? When she’d taken every bit of shit he’d flung at her until just a few hours ago and finally made one single comment in response?

What the fuck, Jillian? She’d thought … well, she hadn’t thought she and Jillian were becoming friends, because she didn’t want friends, and she especially didn’t want friends who seemed to be only interested in simpering and obsessing over men. But she’d thought there was some kind of respect there, that Jillian had at least liked her okay, had valued what she’d contributed so far.

Apparently not. Good to know. She felt sick.

Elder Griffin spoke; Chess put Jillian’s betrayal aside—for the moment—to listen. “But you’ve had no problems, aside from her … standoffishness?”

“I don’t know. I kind of think she resents me, resents having to clear her actions with me. She keeps wanting to go off on her own.”

“She does not follow directions?”

“She follows them, she’s just really caught up in her own ideas. I don’t think she sees this as a team effort.”

“Does not work well with others,” Elder Griffin said.

“I don’t think so, no. She’s just kind of cold. I tried to engage her, let her know she could talk to me, but she didn’t.”

“And you feel the connection she discovered between your victims was merely luck.”

“Well …” Jillian hesitated. “Not entirely. She wanted to look into the New Hope Mission from the beginning, and of course I gave her permission to investigate Mark Pollert. I thought it would placate her, get her to open up a little. So she had some okay instincts there, except I think maybe her fixation on Pollert came from feeling the energy of a sex spell he’d made. She seemed really, well, fixated on that. But—”