The Prof Croft Series: Books 0-4 (Prof Croft Box Sets Book 1) Brad Magnarella (ink book reader txt) 📖

“Fine by me.”

Besides needing to sort out my thoughts, I wanted to get a hold of Caroline. With the vampire’s opiate leaving my system, my wizard’s intuition was tapping the base of my skull again, telling me something was off.

“There were no calls,” Tabitha said languidly from her divan.

I shushed her as I finished dialing my voice mail service. But she was right. Zero messages.

I thumbed the switch hook for a fresh dial tone and then spun Caroline’s number. As had happened last night and this morning, the call went straight to her recorded voice: “Hi, you’ve reached Caroline Reid. I’m sorry I’m not here to take your call…”

I waited out the rest of the message, then cleared my throat.

“Hey, Caroline. It’s Everson again. Look, I’m getting a little worried here, so if you could call me as soon as you get this, I’d really appreciate it.” I could understand her turning her phone off for the night, but it was two in the afternoon.

I leaned my arms against the kitchen counter, my sternum and jaw aching from my encounter at the checkpoint, my head pounding from my meeting with Arnaud, and now my stomach in nervous knots for Caroline. And I had been planning to spend my spring-break week in a bathrobe and furry slippers, catching up on some arcane reading while sipping artisan coffee.

A bout of hard knocking shook the door.

I raised my head. Did I even want to answer that?

“Oh, I forgot to mention,” Tabitha said. “I caught a couple of men watching the building. They disappeared when you showed up with the detective.”

“You know, that probably should have been the first thing you told me when I came through the door.”

“No-o-o, I was supposed to say ‘welcome home,’ which I did. I then started to ask why your face looked like a walnut, but I caught myself and asked if you were all right. Also like you told me. The information about the men watching the building must have gotten lost in your labyrinth of etiquette.”

“Never mind.” I pushed myself from the counter and walked warily toward the door. The men were probably blood slaves sent by Arnaud, maybe to ensure I was fulfilling my end of the bargain. As long as I remained on my side of the threshold, I was safe. The power of my wards, which I had spent the last six months rebuilding, would keep them out.

“Were they dressed in suits?” I asked.

“Long coats and hats,” Tabitha replied. “But they didn’t look like male models.”

I lifted my cane from the coat rack beside the door and peered through the peep hole. I saw what Tabitha meant. The men in the hallway weren’t blood slaves. If anything, they looked like something out of 1920s New York, in their Homburg hats and knee-length wool coats.

The two men glanced around impatiently. The larger one in the fore knocked again.

I twisted the three bolts open and cracked the door. “Yes?”

“You Everson Croft?” the knocker asked.

“And you are…?”

“I’m Floyd and this is Whitey, my associate. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

I studied Floyd, with his stout frame and dark eyes that moved back and forth over mine. Whitey was much thinner, with white hair and pale eyes that looked everywhere but at me.

“Can we come in?” When Floyd saw my hesitation, he added, “It’s about your friend, Caroline.”

A charge went through my chest. “What’s going on? Has something happened?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out.”

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” I said quickly, opening the door and gesturing toward the sitting area.

In the shock of hearing Caroline’s name, I hadn’t thought to ask who they were. Some part of my mind had slotted “Detective” before their names, but the men hadn’t flashed badges. And why would they have hidden from Vega when we pulled up? Then the familiar-sounding names clicked.

Oh, crap.

I wheeled in time for a brass-knuckled fist to plow into my jaw. Already weakened from my sparring session at the checkpoint, my chin crumpled in a rude spear of light, and I dropped straight down. Floyd and Whitey were members of the city’s Italian crime syndicate. Moretti’s men.

I went to raise my cane, but it had tumbled from my grasp. And my casting prism was shot.

Floyd squatted beside me, near enough that I could smell his cold aftershave. “Now that I’ve got your attention,” he said in a whisper that managed to sound intimate and menacing at the same time, “you want to tell me where she is?”

Beyond him, Whitey had closed the door and drawn a vintage Colt pistol, his pale eyes flicking around the apartment. I couldn’t see Tabitha, but I hoped she had enough sense to keep her head down.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, blood trickling into my throat.

“Caroline was your date last night, wasn’t she?”

How did he know that? “A provisional date. It was something we were trying out.” When Floyd’s face wrinkled in confusion, I started again. “Yeah, yeah, we met up at a fundraiser for the mayor.”

“So where’d you take her after?”

“After? I didn’t.”

Floyd peered up at Whitey as if to say, “Can you believe this guy?” then turned and cracked his brass-knuckled fist against my face again. A flash lit up my right eye and spread into a bruising throb. But Caroline’s wellbeing was my immediate concern, not the state of my face.

“Eyewitnesses saw you leave with her,” Floyd said.

“What?” I felt like I was in a Twilight Zone episode. Then I remembered the apartment building’s concierge, Javier. “Wait, wait, ask the guy who works the door. He saw her leave.”

“He was one of the witnesses,” Floyd said from over me.

“The hell he was. When I talked to him last night, he told me she left alone…” My counterargument trailed off as I realized that’s not what Javier had said. Not exactly. I replayed the odd exchange in my mind.

Did she leave with someone else?

What you mean, Mr.