Circle of Dreams (The Quytel Series Book 1) Read online

  Bri crept quickly upstairs to her bedroom and changed into jeans, a T-shirt, and her running shoes, careful to stay out of range of the windows. Grabbing her mother’s coin, she stuffed it deep into her front pocket as she sped down the second-floor hallway toward the guest bathroom.

  When she’d moved in two years ago, Jonah had insisted on installing a hidden safe room, similar to the one in the house where she’d grown up. The door seam, disguised in the intricate tiling, made it impossible to spot even to a trained eye.

  From the hidden room, Bri could crawl through the walls and slip out to the front lawn via an escape hatch in the foundation, carefully concealed by cypress bushes that retained their green, leafy thickness year-round. Mack had presented her with several scenarios, all of which included waiting until dark to use the escape route, unless of course the house caught fire. The room and passageways in the walls had been lined with a fire-retardant protective shielding just in case.

  At the time, Bri found their paranoia irritating. She’d humored Jonah by proving to him she could secure herself inside, wait, then slowly, quietly traverse the interior of the walls to the yard below. They’d gone over it so many times, she could do it in her sleep if she had to.

  Now she tripped the well-hidden switch, and the door swung open. The room had enough space for her to stand up. A small bunk jutted out from one side and three lockers were stacked along the opposite wall; one with guns and weapons. Another stored food and water, and the last held other necessities like money and clothes. She could stay in there for a week if she needed to, which she might, depending on who was outside and what they wanted.

  Heart pounding, Bri secured the door behind her, blocking out all light. More than anything she hated waiting, not knowing. Damn her father. This was probably his fault.

  Cole hadn’t slept much last night. Visions of coldhearted women with eerie glowing eyes and deflated bodies had invaded his dreams. He stretched, the leather of his jacket cracking. Blinking, he narrowed tired eyes against the blaring florescent airport lights overhead.

  The first plane north to Seattle left at six, and he didn’t have nearly enough coffee to make that one. Twelve-ounce cup in hand, he scanned the departures screen. Maliha had booked him on the eight-thirty flight, first class. He found his gate and tossed back the rest of his coffee before heading to the security line.

  The deep pulsation beat out of sync with his body. The wolf paced, clawing at the ground, watching the pearl, on guard against this unknown threat, though just as helpless as Cole to do anything about it. He felt like a damn compass, and that made him crazy. During the night the pearl had throbbed and built to an unbearable compulsion to follow wherever it led, and right now it meant heading north.

  The gate attendant announced first-class boarding as he arrived at the gate. People smashed into lines, and Cole hung around the periphery of the crowd until nearly everyone had boarded. He didn’t necessarily trust himself in crowds when he felt this edgy, and planes were always a bit tricky for him. Being in the air interrupted his connection to the earth. The first time he’d flown, he thought he might pass out or go crazy without the stabilizing force he hadn’t realized was such an important part of him. He hated flying, but it was part of the job.

  He found his seat, a window in the second row. His sister was a miracle worker, the seat next to him blissfully empty. He had the feeling Mali had bought the other seat as well to spare him having to deal with the idle chitchat of a fellow passenger on top of everything else.

  As the plane taxied to the runway several minutes later, Cole leaned into his seat and closed his sandpapery eyes.

  The effort to keep the beast in check during the flight couldn’t compare to how edgy he felt at the discordant beat of the pearl lodged in his sternum. He was accustomed to having another being living inside him, another heartbeat, another will, but this thing made him want to crawl out of his skin. He remembered how difficult it had been to get used to the feeling as a child, especially as the wolf grew in strength.

  Memories of himself with his twin drifted along the surface of his awareness—running, playing, fighting, always fighting to survive, to live, it seemed. Their mother had somehow managed to escape from the terror of their father’s brutality, a simple human with two small shape-shifting pup-children evading an entire pack. She’d started a new life for all of them; no pack, no help if they were discovered.

  Their mother had forced them to spend hours in front of the mirror, watching their high cheekbones and straight noses contort into the sleek muzzles of their wolves; embracing the pain and beauty of it until she’d been satisfied they could do so on their own without shame and in full control.

  “You see,” his mother would say, her arm around his shoulders, love shining in her eyes. “Beautiful!”

  “You’re not like this,” Cole remembered stating. He must have been five or six at the time.

  She would hug him and give him a smile of unconditional love when she answered, “That’s right, sweetheart, I’m only half like you. You and your sister are incredibly special, and you have to be very careful about who you trust with this secret.”

  And she’d been right. Cole sighed; his mother had never hated them for what they were, even though she had every right to.

  Now the wolf’s chin rested on his paws, watching the luminescent pearl. A new favorite pastime. The compulsion was an invasion, a virus his body had no hope of fighting, taking him over from the inside out. Cole forced his mind away from the stark fear of where he might find himself at the end of all this.

  After what seemed an interminable time, the pilot announced their final descent. The plane jumped as they entered the Seattle cloud cover. The pulse jolted with the movement which nearly sent him to the floor. A moment later, it miraculously aligned with the rhythm of his body. His internal agitation dropped several notches. Even the wolf was calmed by the increasingly soothing beat. Interesting. A game of hot and cold, with him on the right track.

  They touched down with a bounce and a squeal of brakes. He flipped on his phone and a message from his sister blinked across the screen. He called her immediately without listening to it.

  “Anything?” he asked as soon as she picked up.

  Tired and irritated, he counted on Mali to have a visual match for his sketch. Some clue about who, or what, the woman might be and where he could find her. This internal compass was all he had to go on, and it wasn’t much.

  “A couple of strong possibilities,” Mali began, but paused.

  He knew by the tone of her voice he wasn’t going to like what she found. “Yeah?”

  “The closest match is dead.”

  “Great.” His gut told him that wasn’t what the vision had been about. There had been too much power, and it had felt too vivid. He hoped like hell he wasn’t chasing a ghost. “She didn’t by any chance die in Seattle, did she?”

  “No such luck for you, my friend.” He could almost feel his sister’s grim smile on the other end of the line. “The next closest match is probably our person.”

  Silence beat for several seconds and Cole sighed internally. “What is it?”

  “She’s a reporter with the Seattle Times. Her father is a wealthy businessman in Arizona and has companies all over the world, probably got her the job.”

  “Perfect.” All he needed was a nosy reporter with resources who might try to uncover their secrets. “If she’s the one, I’ll find her.”

  “You’re confident.” Mali laughed at him.

  The pilot came on again to tell them they had to wait for a gate to open up, and it would be a few more minutes. Cole grimaced.

  “It’s gotten me this far.”

  “Exactly.” Mali’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “So this woman’s name is Brianna Doherty. Her father is Jonah Drummond.”

 
“Why the different last name? Is she married?” Why the idea bothered him he couldn’t imagine.

  “Calm down.” She laughed again, this time with more genuine amusement. “Turns out Drummond adopted her when she was five after her biological parents mysteriously disappeared, presumed murdered. They never found the bodies.”

  “How long ago?” Cole asked.

  “Twenty-five years,” she told him. “The good news is I have three potential locations for you to start with . . .”

  Cole felt the weight of his sister’s silence on the other end of the line. “And the bad news?”

  “She’s published at least one story on the murders we’ve been investigating. She doesn’t mention the others in southern California, but there will be a follow-up coming out in tomorrow’s paper. I have a bad feeling about this. I haven’t been able to shake it since you had that vision.” She hesitated. “I’m worried about you.”

  Cole rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. “Yeah, I know.”

  The flight attendant announced the gate was finally open, and they would only have to wait a few more minutes to deplane.

  “I emailed you all the information and arranged for Danny to pick you up,” she told him. “He’ll bring the car, fully loaded.”

  Good. That meant he’d have access to all the equipment he might need while in the area, technical and hardware.

  “Perfect, thanks,” Cole replied.

  The plane rolled to a stop, and the door opened.

  “How are you feeling?”

  He shrugged, trying to keep his irritation at the whole situation to himself. “I sense this is the right place. The compulsion feels stronger although not as agitating. It’s hard to describe. I’ll call you once I check this woman out.”

  “Okay, we’ll wait to hear from you. Jay and Dean are following a lead that came in right after you left this morning. I’ll fill you in later.” She paused. “Cole, please be careful.”

  “I’ll be back before you know it,” he assured her.

  Heart heavy, Cole disconnected the call. He hated it when his sister worried about him, although given their line of work, it happened frequently.

  Stepping out of the terminal at Sea-Tac, Cole took a deep breath of damp air and scanned the milling crowds. He recognized Danny’s skinny frame and sandy brown hair waiting slightly behind the other limo drivers. He held a card reading C.C.

  Danny often worked with their team when they were in town. Loyal and trustworthy, he knew the area like the back of his hand, bringing them out of nearly as many scrapes as their psychic abilities had. He didn’t know if Danny understood the team’s full potential, but he didn’t ask unnecessary questions, remaining discreet and dependable. Above all, his sister trusted the guy, and that was all Cole needed.

  Danny greeted him with a professional nod. “Mr. Courtland, welcome back.”

  “Good to see you, Danny.” Cole followed him the short distance to the waiting limo.

  Once they had settled in, Danny glanced in the rearview mirror. “Where can I take you today?”

  Cole immediately turned on the computer installed securely in the backseat and logged in, pulling up the information Mali had sent him. “I need to check out a couple of different places. Let’s start with the Seattle Times office downtown, and make it subtle.”

  Cole was certain he hadn’t been followed, since watching his back had become second nature. And if this woman was a reporter, he wanted to be sure he didn’t lead any unnecessary craziness to her doorstep.

  A picture popped up on the newspaper’s website, a damn close match to his sketch. The rich blond of the woman’s hair and the deep green of her eyes leapt off the screen and made her come alive. His body reacted with an electric jolt of pure physical attraction, man and beast instantly drawn to her. The pearl throbbed in sync with his heartbeat, and he felt it all the way to his groin.

  Not good.

  Cole ran a hand through his hair, forcing himself to focus on the task at hand. He’d started with the most obvious of the three possible locations. It was a weekday; likely she’d be at work, although what good reporter was ever at her desk? As the black Mercedes with tinted windows picked up speed heading toward the freeway, Cole settled into the soft leather seat and dialed her work number.

  It rang a few times, and her voicemail picked up. “You’ve reached Brianna Doherty at the Seattle Times. Please leave me a message, and I’ll call you back as soon as I can.”

  He hung up. Her voice didn’t sound tough enough to be a hard-nosed reporter for a major newspaper. It had a soft musical quality that made his skin tingle. Cole shook his head, disgusted with himself. He hadn’t even met the woman but her picture and voice turned him on. He pulled up her story about the murders and started to read.

  Two people were found murdered in an abandoned warehouse in the Foss Shipyard on Sunday, all fluid drained from their bodies. The police and local scientists are at a dead end . . .

  Cole grabbed his chest as bile suddenly rose in his throat and his throat closed.

  Danny glanced at him sharply in the rearview mirror. “Are you okay?”

  The out-of-sync beat wreaked havoc with his nerves, creating an internal agitation that made him want to crawl out of his skin. His eyes snapped to Danny’s. They had entered the city limits, using the freeway, and the further they drove, the worse he felt.

  “Stop the car,” he bit out.

  Two minutes later, Danny exited the highway and pulled to the side of the road, waiting for instruction.

  Only slightly more settled, Cole took a deep breath, his mind grappling to examine every detail of the vision that had landed him with this compulsion. Flashbulb memories surfaced—a pulse of light; power burning on the woman’s face, beautiful and pained; her luminescent image superimposed over another. Even from this distance of time, he couldn’t resist the strength of her draw on him.

  The pearl would show him the way.

  Cole checked the addresses again. Which one? A sudden urgency took hold, and he gave Danny her home address. The driver pulled onto the freeway, away from downtown, and several minutes later they deftly navigated the residential streets of Seattle’s Green Lake neighborhood.

  The area was lush with trees, flowers, and greenery, Craftsman style houses mixed in with a few Victorians. The pearl pulsed, a second heartbeat in sync once more with his body. He was on the right track. If a wolf could purr, it felt like that. The animal had never reacted like this to anything, and it was more than unsettling.

  The car slowed and pulled close to the curb two blocks away from the address. He got out, silently signaling for Danny to wait on the next block. With a pat on the roof of the car, Cole did his best to blend in with the morning shadows as he scanned the quiet street, searching for anything out of the ordinary. His gut told him he wouldn’t like what he found when he got to the reporter’s house, and his gut was rarely wrong. He’d learned over the years to pay attention to it.

  Rounding the corner, Cole slipped behind a large oak tree, taking in every detail of the house, an old three-story Victorian, beautifully maintained, with dark green trim accenting bright white siding. Not many folks would probably be at home in such a quiet neighborhood, this time of day.

  A black Suburban was parked across the street. From his vantage point, he saw the faint outline of bodies barely visible through the darkly tinted windows.

  The vehicle had three occupants and he trusted his instincts which told him they were staking out the reporter’s house. He had to get inside fast without being seen. Luckily, her neighbors favored large bushes, a good hiding place. Cole crouched behind an enormous hydrangea and planned his route into her backyard.

  Heat shot through him, and the wolf growled for release, lips curling to reveal teeth gleaming like knives. Not yet, old f
riend. With practiced patience, he breathed away the primitive instinctual drives of his animal nature, grounding the excess energy into the earth even as he honored the wolf’s need to lash out against the threat.

  The men in the Suburban were not at all subtle, suggesting a confidence in their ability to complete their task without many witnesses. Or they didn’t care, much worse. They seemed to be waiting, likely for the order before moving in. Patient bad guys made fewer mistakes.

  Keeping a careful eye on the parked car, Cole slid around to the side of the neighbor’s fence, scanning the reporter’s house for movement. He flowed like a whisper across the ground, asking the earth for guidance and a noiseless tread.

  A bank of thick roses provided reasonable cover as he edged along the side of the house, out of view of the street. He carefully entered the backyard, around the high cedar fence.

  Cole examined the security cameras with an educated eye, wishing for Maliha’s talent at moving undetected under the most watchful of systems. He could almost hear her say, “I told you so, little brother.” There didn’t seem to be a system she couldn’t understand or disable, and the reporter’s was high-tech.

  Staying out of the range of the cameras, he zipped up his leather jacket and approached the back door, low to the ground, proceeding slowly. Tuning in to the deep green earth-energy stream flowing with life and information, Cole sifted through data for any recent history of movement in the area. No one had been around this section of the house in the last few days. He sniffed the air, hoping to catch the scent of an intruder. Unfortunately he could only discern the cool freshness of a well-tended garden.