Chapter Twenty-Five – Sam

 

“No,” I said into the phone as I cruised down highway 69 in search of the turnoff into the old property, “I’ve got her in the car with me right now. She’s got insight on the story and the area.”

“I don’t like it,” Tabitha said, her words clipped again like an angry first grade teacher addressing a student who was acting out. And, technically, I guess I was close. “I don’t like it at all.”

“Well, I’m the one doing the reporting, boss, not you.”

“I take it you still haven’t told her, then?”

“Nope.”

She sighed audibly into the phone, her breath like Hurricane Tabitha in my ear. “Dammit, Sam. I thought you said—”

“I did. And I changed my mind. We’re running that story as is. And, if you don’t like it, you can just fire me.”

Faith looked over at me, eyes wide in surprise. “What?” she mouthed.

I waved her off as I shook my head.

“What?” she asked, confusion replacing the frustration and anger for a brief moment while she muddled out what I’d meant. “Oh, dammit, we need to speak in code now?”

“Look,” I said, “I’m not calling to discuss that story. I’m calling to see if you can help me do some research on a couple things.”

“Dammit, you’re the most frustrating shifter I’ve ever dealt with.” She groaned in frustration. “You know that? You’re supposed to listen to my advice, and you use me as a glorified Moneypenny or research assistant, and that’s all. What’s the point in my even giving you advice if you’re not going to fucking listen to it?”

“In all fairness,” I said, keeping my tone light and conversational, “you’re less Moneypenny, and more M.”

“Fuck you, Samuel.” There was more exasperation in her voice than animosity, though, so I just laughed. “It’s not funny.”

“Especially not after I give you what you need to look for.”

She sighed again, this time with wind speeds that weren’t quite gusting at a hundred-eighty miles per hour. “Okay, let’s hear it.”

“You’re going to love this. Need you to look into two different things.”

“Three,” Faith added from the passenger seat. “Have her research the town of Garrison as a whole? All the people in that restaurant followed us out, not just the workers.”

“What was that, Sam?” Tabitha asked, her voice concerned. “Did I hear that right?”

I mumbled to myself. “Yeah, you heard it right.”

“Tell me what’s going on?”

“Research first. I’ll have a full report for you tonight, I promise.”

She sighed. “Okay. Go.”

I took a deep breath, and, disregarding my safety when it came to driving with a phone pressed to my ear, I laid out everything I needed information on. The house we were heading to, Ironside and G&I Meat, and Garrison’s town history.

“As much as you can get me.”

“Think all three are involved somehow?”

I glanced over at Faith before putting my eyes back on the road. She continued to sit there, her hands folded primly in her lap as she watched the right side of the road for any sign of an old gate or entrance to the abandoned mansion’s property. “I’m not sure, yet. Faith has a pretty strong feeling about the mansion we’re headed to, and the coin toss seems to agree.”

“You decided this on a coin toss?”

I shrugged even though she couldn’t see it. “What else should I have done? Eenie meenie miny moe?”

“Catch a shifter by his toe?”

I laughed despite the gravity of the situation. “Something like that. Send me what you have when you can?”

“How’s your cell signal out there? Can I send this to your phone?”

“Awful in Garrison,” I said, “but it’s been passable since we left the city limits. I should be able to get whatever you send, might just take a while to download.”

“Then I’ll send it over as I compile it.” She paused, and I heard her lick her lips. “Sam?”

“Yeah?”

There was an edge to her voice when she replied. “I hope you know what you’re doing. You’re having me work partially in the dark, and you know I don’t like that. And neither does Kris.”

“Well, Kris isn’t Harrington,” I said, not even thinking before I said it.

“No,” Tabitha agreed, “you’re right. But she’s pretty damned close. Besides, you know how the colonel would have felt about you bringing a civilian along for the ride like this.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I know. But hey, Tabitha? Get me the information, and we’ll talk soon, okay? I’ll give you the lowdown on all this. Promise.”

“You better,” she replied, just before hanging up with a clash of her receiver on the office phone cradle.

I dropped my phone in my lap, turning my full attention back to the road. “Sorry about that,” I said. “Newsroom bickering.”

“Sounded like it,” Faith replied. “Pretty serious, too.”

“Nah,” I said. “Tabitha and I argue back and forth. She might be pissed, but she’s a professional. She’ll get us what we need.”

The interior of the car was filled with just road noise for a moment, the singing of the tires on the Texas highway as pine trees zipped past us.

“Sorry,” Faith said after a moment or three had passed, her voice filled with genuine commiseration. “About, you know, getting you into trouble with your editor. I wouldn’t have pushed so hard if I’d known it was going to cause problems with your boss.”

“Hey,” I said, reaching over and putting my hand on top of hers, where it was placed right in her lap, without even thinking it through, “don’t worry.”

I swallowed hard, swearing silently at myself as I felt the warmth of her coming through to my hand, realizing what I’d just done.

Instead of jumping in surprise, or giving me a weird look, though, Faith’s hand seemed to instinctively flip around and grip mine right back, just like I’d done with hers earlier in the cafe when we’d been pretending to be a couple.

“I’ll try not to,” she said. “Especially since it seems like we have more than enough to worry about already.”

“Exactly,” I said, with a grin and a nod.

Just as I turned back to the road, though, Faith bolted upright in her seat, squeezing my hand like a vise grip. “Sam! Stop!”

“Holy crap!” I shouted, slamming on the brakes and locking the wheels. “What’s wrong?”

“There!” she shouted, her whole body turning around in her seat as she swiveled around to gaze out the back. “We just passed it!”

My heart had already begun to slow as I released a relieved breath and began to pull the car onto the highway’s thin shoulder. I’d been terrified for a moment that something awful had just happened, or that we’d just passed another dead animal, or worse. After checking both ways to make sure the highway traffic was as scarce as back on Garrison’s Main Street, I swung the Camaro’s front end back around and began to creep along, my eyes scanning the now-left side of the road with intense curiosity.

“Do you see it?” Faith asked, pointing up ahead on the road. “It’s right there!”

I strained forward, continuing to peer out at the thick, luscious foliage of the piney forest that coated both sides of the road.

“I don’t see anything,” I replied, shaking my head. It wasn’t that I had bad vision, or something. As a shifter, I had better vision than any human could ever hope to have. There just wasn’t anything for me to see, at least not any kind of clue or landmark that stood out from the sea of green.

“There,” Faith repeated, her voice straining like she was desperate for me to understand. “That little break in the trees.”

“Oh,” I said, my eyes narrowed as I finally saw what she’d been pointing to.

The road leading off the highway was little more than a deer trail, or wagon road. It was just barely wide enough for me to even consider fitting my old girl down it. I came to a stop, continuing to stare at the break.

“What’s wrong?” Faith asked after we’d sat there for a moment.

“I’m thinking.”

“About what?”

“About,” I said, slowly, contemplatively, as I looked at the limbs crowding in over the rutted dirt road, “whether or not this story is worth my paint job.”

In the end, though, it was.

Too bad what I should have been concerned with never even occurred to me. If I hadn’t been able to see that road while we were practically parked on the highway, how the hell had Faith when we were careening past it at over sixty miles per hour?