Conjuring Quantico (The Federal Witch Book 1) (16 page)

“A toy is a toy. How is it you found it? I paid for the best Magic available.”

“The FBI has access to someone better. We need to inform the task force and continue the investigation. Thank you for your time, Senator. We will be in touch when we learn more.”

“Young lady when your contract is up with them, you call me. I will triple whatever they are paying you.” I ignored his comment and shook my head at Cat.

“Ladies?” Nita motioned toward the door and we stepped out into the bright light of the afternoon. The Suburban sat right where we’d left it but it now featured a few new hood ornaments. Three men were attached to the car. One by each door and the third the hood.

Cat pulled out her camera and took pictures of the men. She was careful to get their faces and each one in the act of trying to break in. “It’s a new record, Aggy!”

“For cars. We caught more than that at my lab. Nita, do you want me to release them or do you want to wait for local law enforcement?” She had a shocked look on her face.

She told me to wait and called a higher up for a decision.

“We can’t take you anywhere, can we?”

“What about you? For a minute there I thought you were going to claw his face off.”

“Nobody tries to buy my friends!” I had to chuckle: that wasn’t exactly what he was doing, but I didn’t correct her.

Nita got off the phone and looked at us. “My boss says let them go. Keep those pictures he wants to see them. It’s political. Anyone else, I would have busted their ass for trying this!”

“Makes you wonder if they did it the first time you were here, doesn’t it?” She gave me a sharp look.

“Next time I don’t think I will do Madeleine any more favors. You two are trouble!”

Cat looked at her and laughed. “Me? I barely said two words in there.”

“To me you two are a group. I’ve known you for only a few hours and I see this investigation is going to suck!”

I gave the men a last look and spoke “Frjáls.” The men all dropped free of the car and fell to the ground. Nita stood looking down at the one by the driver's door as he woke up from the spell.

“Anywhere else you would be on your way to jail for this. Take this as your one and only warning.” She stepped over him and climbed into the car. Cat and I followed.

We drove off leaving the men lying on the ground. “Where to next?”

“Well, the other Senators and the Mayor all live in a gated condo complex in Alexandria. We need to drop that thing off to the forensics team first. I don’t want a repeat of that attempted break-in to damage the investigation. It worries me that they may have done that last time.” She looked really annoyed.

The condo complex was back the way we came just inside the city of Alexandria. It was a large complex with high walls and security cameras everywhere. Somehow our kidnapper had gotten in and stolen the three children from right under the complex security’s nose.

Nita showed her government identification to the gate guards, and they allowed us in. Three security breaches had them on a very high alert. The Senator from Georgia’s home was our first stop as it was closest.

Security had called ahead and his personal guards were standing by at the door. They were not the same ones I had confronted at Quantico. Cat and I let Nita do all the talking, but we took note of how she did it. We were still students. The Senator was not in residence but his wife was. She greeted us immediately as we stepped inside.

“Agent Lowrey, do you think she’s still alive?”

“Mrs. Payne, you know I can’t comment on an open investigation, but we have nothing that says she is dead. We would like to take another look at her room and the house. Will you allow us to do that?”

“Of course! Anything that will help. Do you remember the way? I can have one of the guards show you.”

“No thank you Mrs. Payne. I know the way. Thank you again.” Nita made a ‘come on’ motion with her head and we followed her into the rest of the condo.

“She seems like a nice lady.” Unlike the previous house this child’s room was upstairs.

“She is. I just wish this was under better circumstances. The Senator and his wife have a room on the lower level. This whole floor is devoted to both their daughter and grandchild. Their daughter has cancer and has been in and out of hospitals for years. She has a bedroom up here too but rarely is here to use it.” The top of the steps had a gate to prevent a child from falling down the stairs; it was open. The short hallway had three rooms and what looked like a bathroom. The door was open and I could see a sink.

Like last time I cast my diagnostic spell and sprinkled my herbs. All the doors lit up along with the walls and floor. “Wow! They went whole hog up here!”

I glanced at Cat and nodded. Concentrating, I could tell that the walls and floor spells were of a protection nature. They strengthened the structure of the house and prevented water breaks or earthquake damage. None of those would prevent a kidnapping. The door to the right was glowing orange. I carefully opened the door and looked inside.

“That is the mother’s room. According to my notes she has not been here in some time.” I nodded.

“Yes, the spells on the room are of a healing and regenerative type.” I turned and looked at Nita. “There is no magical cure for cancer. All of this is a waste of money.”

I opened the door on the other side. This room was warded, but not against kidnapping only for damage. I carefully scanned the room looking for magical traces. Like the other house there was something, but I couldn’t get a line on what it was. The room itself was clean. “What is in the other room?”

“It’s an entertainment area. They have game systems and a TV set up in there.”

“I’m getting the same weird traces in the air that I got at the other house, but no sign of a lure. If it’s here, that’s where we will find it.”

The recreation room was very nice. The games and toys were all carefully lined up and put away with care. The video setup was state-of-the-art. “This is a child’s playroom?”

“She special. Marcie Payne has a form of Asperger's syndrome. She is very obsessive about her toys and other possessions. Everything has its place. At first we couldn’t believe it was a kidnapping. Everything was too neat.”

I remembered my reading. Asperger’s meant she was higher functioning. I dropped into my meditative state and re-scanned the room. There was a slight trace of something on the display case in front of me.

“What’s wrong with this picture?”

Nita came over to stand next to me. “There’s something missing right there.”

“Yes, there is. That was where our lure was located.”

“Agatha? Can you come here a moment?” I stepped out of the room and went to Cat. She was just inside the bathroom door.

“What’s up?”

Cat pointed into the bathroom and toward the bathtub. There, sitting on the edge of the tub was our missing statue.

“Nita? Cat found it.”

“Is the same as the other one?”

“It feels the same.” I placed it in an evidence bag. “Was Marcie bathing when she disappeared?”

Nita had her tablet out and was scanning through it. “I don’t know. There was nothing said. We may have to re-interview the family. We did get lucky: Marcie labeled all of her possessions by date, time, and who gave it to her. The card on the shelf says that the dragon was a gift from ‘Peter’ at her sixth birthday party. Who is Peter? I need to call this in.”

I scanned the bathroom just to make sure. The walls were reinforced like the rest of the rooms. The only part of the upper level that wasn’t warded was the ceiling. No spells showed at all. I was staring at the ceiling when Nita returned.

“Nita? What’s up there?” I pointed at the door in the ceiling.

“My notes say it’s the attic. No fingerprints were found on the pull and nothing looked disturbed according to the agent who looked up there.”

“It’s the only thing up here not protected in any way. If Marcie was snatched out of her bath, the only way out with a wet and naked child would have been up. I can’t be the only one who thought of that?”

“You’re not. That was my idea, but the Russians said that it was impossible and found no trace on the door.”

I sighed heavily. “When this is all over, Nita, I really need to finish my lecture on what Witches can and cannot do. Watch this please.” I looked up at the door and telekinetically opened the door allowing the stairs to come down. I then grabbed Cat with my mind and she began floating up toward the hole. I carefully set her down and looked at Nita. She had her mouth open.

“That was telekinesis and about all I can do for the rest of the day. I only have a minor talent in that. This is how she was taken. Somehow they got her out of the attic. We just have to look. Dust can also be moved by someone with enough skill. You weren’t there but this jives with what the Russians said back in Director Mill’s office. They took her through the roof.”

“Damn. OK. I will call it in, again. I’m going to request a full team out here again. Let’s wrap this up and get over to the other condos. This proves we have a serial kidnapper or something like it.”

Chapter 12

We found statues in all the children’s homes. The forensics lab said that no trace evidence other than the children’s was found on any of them. Initial investigators missed them because they looked like toys. The lead agent on the case was blaming the Russian Mercenaries for the misstep. They still didn’t understand how those guys operated. I tried to keep my opinion to myself about it all. My FBI career hadn’t even started yet and here I was about to make waves.

They set up a command center in the parking lot of the complex. The forensics van and techs couldn’t be hidden this time. The news media swarmed like bees to honey outside the walls. Cat and I sat watching the circus from outside the command center. So far they had excluded us. I suspected that we would be included, eventually. At least they had food. I knew Fergus was hungry.

“It’s about damn time you remember to feed the Unicorn! I could have starved to death in your pocket. Look I’m already wasting away!” He was turning his head and trying to see his backside.

“You can afford to lose a little weight. You’ve had too many pizza parties with Chuck.”

The mini Unicorn put his nose in the air and snooted. “I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“So you deny ordering Pizza and salad from that place in town. What is it called? Anchors a Weigh? Shall I call your little girlfriends Jody and Anne and tell them no more orders?”

“How did you know about Anchors a Weigh?” He was peering up at me.

“The empty pizza and salad boxes were a bit of a giveaway but it was Grams who ratted you out. Pretty sneaky charging it to your phone bill. She said to tell you the chef salad three times a week is not a long distance call. She said if you want to keep doing that you have to call her and ask permission each and every time from now on.”

“Sorry, but I was hungry.” He hung his head and then looked up at me with puppy-dog eyes.

“Not falling for it this time, mister.”

“Wait, is that how Chuck has been getting all the pizza? I’ve smelled it on him and couldn’t figure out where it was coming from.” Now Cat was staring at him too.

“Fergus, I bring you plenty of hay and other things that Unicorns are supposed to eat. Not Chef’s salads and pizza!”

“Hey, bro’s before ho’s!”

“Eat your salad. We will talk about this later when we get home.” He turned away from us and pretended he didn’t hear me anymore. Unicorns.

“Hey Aggy?”

I looked away from Fergus. Cat was staring at our Suburban, several people were peering in the windows.

“Did you secure the car like last time?”

“I did. This should be fun to watch.”

Cat nodded.

The first applicant tried the door handles to see if they were locked. He tried all four doors and the rear hatch. He even checked the skylight to see if it was open. With his companions acting as lookouts he pulled out a lock-pick and tried to pick the lock. I laughed when after a moment one of his companions had to shake him.

“Are you going to let them get away?”

“Let who get away?”

We both looked up and said in unison. “Hi Nita.”

“Who are you letting get away?”

Cat pointed at the car. “Those guys.”

Before she could yell, I waved my hand and said. “Frjósa” The two men froze in the act of running away.

Nita looked down at us as we ate our food and laughed. “You two are a laugh riot.”

“We were hungry.”

“Is it just the three of them?”

“So far. Want to wait for more guys?”

“No, let me call it in. Can’t take you anywhere...”

I looked over at Cat. “Still want to be an FBI agent?”

“I still do. We can do better than these guys. I can’t believe that they are this ignorant about para’s after a hundred years of exposure to us.”

“I know… Oh, look there’s Nita.” Nita was now standing in front of our Suburban staring at the three frozen men. Standing next to her were three new Agents.