Page 14

While I had expected pleasure,the peace and comfort took me by surprise. Thanks to his abilities, my fiancé clued into my state of mind, and he went out of his way to pursue my peace and comfort even more than our pleasure. At some point, the significance of having lost so much time hit me hard.

I tried to avoid crying in front of anyone, but once the first tears appeared, I proved unable to fight them off. Bradley held me until I ran out of tears, and then he worked to replace my anguish with better things.

My new and improved physical therapy plan exhausted me, and when we weren’t indulging, I bathed with Bradley while reading books, ate, or slept. After describing what I remembered of the house, Bradley began his search using a map app to attempt to find the place. He figured, in my condition, it couldn’t have been more than two to five miles from the beach, as he doubted I would have made it farther than that without collapsing.

Considering how I struggled to stay awake, I agreed with him. Rather than go on a trip to Hawaii, Bradley issued a single threat, one that made it clear I was a goner: I could either go on a drive to see the houses he found or else. The else involved not needing any condoms because he’d be too busy arguing with me over visiting the houses to indulge.

Bradley’s father, who’d been sacrificed to go out and buy me some clothes and everything else I needed to survive away from home, snickered every time we saw him, although he was kind enough not to say a word about my new state of supremely frustrated.

“I will make you pay for this,” I swore, ridding my purse of all things sexual save a single strip of condoms, which I hid in the inner zipper pocket.

“Will you be naked when you’re making me pay?”

His new favorite retort, considering he kept his promise to abstain until I agreed to go on a drive to look for the house, would drive me insane. “I won’t be if you keep making up these stupid rules!”

“I’m not going to make you go into the house, but it would be really nice if we could identify the place so we can start putting together a case. There are a few properties we want to check, and none of the road view pictures show the right windows, so we need to go prowl around and have a look. Unless your kidnappers are in league with one of us, all they know is that you escaped. We haven’t made a formal announcement that you have been found. The last thing they’ll expect is you to return to where you were kept. It’ll be fine.”

“But it might not be.”

“Janette.”

“You’re going to make me do this, aren’t you?”

“It’s a good idea. If you can get over this, the next thing you know, you’ll be taking that new foot of yours on a test drive.”

That got my attention. “Test drive?”

“My future wife obviously needs a car, one that is hers and hers alone. But until she’s able to face difficult things she does not like, it’s probably not safe to set her loose in a dealership to meet her next new car love.”

Bradley Hampton did not pull his punches. “You fiend.”

“Dad will be with us, so it’s not like we’ll be alone. We’re just going to drive by them unless we need to go crawl through some bushes for some reason.” Bradley smirked at me. “And I have a very extensive list of things I plan to do to my future wife upon our return from said trip.”

“I feel like the therapists have gotten to you. I haven’t even met the therapists, but I feel they are ruthlessly using you as part of some treatment plan. But you have the goods, and you’re not afraid to bar me from enjoying the goods.”

“We’ll both be armed, so it’s fine. We have our licenses, and we have approval to carry in California. The cell licensing comes with a fancy badge we get to show the cops. It tells them we’re allowed to carry our guns around. You can even carry your gun in your purse.”

The gun in question waited for me on the desk, and I read between the lines, got up, grabbed the gun cleaning kit, and went to work on doing a full check of my firearm. “I thought the cells only let us investigate things, not override state laws regarding firearms.”

“That was changed after you were kidnapped. We got the approval because we have demonstrated we have at-risk members in our cell. I think the FBI is really hoping our cell works out, because then we can augment their forces. Just go on a car ride to have a look, and then I’ll sacrifice my wallet to your car shopping ways. Any car you want, and it’s yours. We’ll even tag-team drive it back across the United States if you’d like. We can get back to New York in a few days rather than fly if we take turns driving.”

With that level of bribe on the table, I foresaw an uncomfortable few hours of looking for the last place I wanted to visit. “Chinese food. Spicy Chinese food.”

“It won’t be the same as what we get at home, but we can go look for Chinese tonight as a reward for doing something unpleasant, time allowing.”

“That better not be you saying I have to choose between Chinese food and you naked in bed,” I grumbled.

“You don’t have to choose,” he promised. “Can I text Dad that you’re ready to deal with our tyranny?”

“Fine, but if I cry, it’s your fault.”

“If you cry, I’ll give you tissues and offer my shoulder. It’s okay to be stressed and upset over having lost months of your life. I would probably be crying in your shoes, too. It’s a lot to miss. And there’s no getting any of it back.”

I appreciated he hadn’t tried to pretend otherwise. “I hate it.”

“Me, too. We lost a lot of time. I thought about cuffing us together, but I was told that would be a really bad idea.”

“Why?”

“It seems that a woman who was chained in some strange house is not to be subjected to any restraints of her person.”

I frowned, as I could think of many wonderful things we could do with a pair of handcuffs and a few hours. “There is a difference between unwilling restraining and willing restraining, and I’m not seeing me saying no to being cuffed while you cater to me. You’re good at that. Your magic is far more potent than I anticipated. I do not understand why you are an only child. After about ten minutes, my common sense flies right out a window, so it’s a good thing you’re the one in charge of the condoms.” If the condoms became my responsibility, I’d be investing in pregnancy tests every month. “You need a warning label, and I need to get a ring on your finger so all other women know you’re mine.”

“Now that I have some first-hand experience of what my father can do, I don’t understand, either. As we’re getting married, rings seems like a reasonable investment. If wearing a ring that states I’m yours makes you happy, we can go get engagement rings.”

“You might talk me into getting into a vehicle with you to look at these houses if we’re also looking for rings in the same trip. I am not brave enough to ask why you’re an only child. You were probably some form of demon infant. I can even accept we might not get to look at cars if we’re getting rings instead.”

“I think my parents don’t like helpless humans they’re responsible for. Honestly, I don’t actually know if my parents actually wanted kids. It was expected of them. While I’m a loved child, they prefer their humans capable of talking back. That takes a few years of careful training. They’d rather skip the first years, I think?”

I gasped. “No!”

“Well, you do like babies. Right?” Bradley’s tone implied he knew damned well how much I loved having little babies around, but he meant to make me say it.

As lying wouldn’t do me a lick of good, I bobbed my head. “My mother told you I do. I love when patrons bring the babies to the library. Everybody will often toss me to the infant wolves, as I can keep them happy most of the time while the parent—or parents—do what they need in the library. Once, I got to limp around the library with a baby in a sling, and it was amazing. She was such a good little girl. Mr. Tawnlen often lets me help when we do programs for children. We don’t have a lot of that in our specific branch, since we usually cater to the politicians and have a more specialized stock, but we have a corner for kids, especially since we will get single parents who are job hunting. On those days, Meridian helps the parent while I keep an eye on the kids.”

“When you’re ready to have kids, simply take our stash of condoms and toss them into the garbage can. That is my cue to get to work.” Bradley snickered. “And I might even be extra generous and get some form of restraint just to celebrate my conquering of your person.”

“Hey! Why is it you’ll be conquering me?”

“We can take turns if you’d like.”

I checked my firearm, put her back together, slid her into her holster unloaded, put a prepped magazine in one of the inner pockets, and gathered everything I would need for a day out of the hotel room. Then, to make it clear we were leaving, I got changed, put on my shoes, and stood at the door to wait.

Laughing, Bradley put on a suit and fiddled with his tie while shooting sly smiles in my direction before he texted his father to notify him of my surrender. Five minutes later, Mr. Hampton knocked on the door. I let him in. “Bradley’s being mean.”

“Figured out how to get you on the move, did he?”

“Rudely. He did so rudely. And then he added some bribes, and it turns out when he’s rude and bribing me, I’m weak.”

Bradley’s father chuckled. “You’ll be fine. With luck, we won’t need to get out of the car. What’s the plan, son?”

“We’re going to drive through the entire neighborhood while Janette checks out the houses and the yards. I suspect the illusionist targeted her with magic, so it’ll look one way for us but entirely different for her, so I’ll ask her what she sees every house until we figure out where she was held. We’ll record the location on our phones, take some pictures, and then go about the rest of our day.”

“What else is on the agenda?”

“We’re going to a jewelry store. She seems to have an impression I’m being hunted by women and wants to establish that I’m her territory. After the jewelry store, if there’s time, we’ll hit up some car dealerships so she can look around.”

“You are her territory.”

“You know that, I know that, but while she knows that, she’s a little jealous.”

“A little?” Bradley’s father laughed. “If rings are what you want, rings are what you’ll have. If I let you two into a car dealership, you’ll have meltdowns. I have a test you must pass before either of you purchase anything other than family cars. I’ll make some calls. But you won’t be getting near any sports cars until I’m sure you won’t crash it having an episode. That goes for both of you.”

Damn. Bradley had obviously learned how to be domineering from his father. “I surrender. Again.”

“Good girl,” his father praised. “Do you have everything you need in your purse?”

I read between the lines, although I wasn’t sure if he meant my firearm or the ridiculous variety of birth controls that’d been left for us. “I have everything important in my purse.”

“Your gun, Bradley?”

“I’ll carry mine in its case. She has hers in her purse.”

“Good. Hurry on up, then. I want an address so we can start pulling our own weight. The others are investigating without us, and I’m feeling outclassed. Of course, now that we know more, it’s easier to investigate. Mickey’s gotten some good leads about the various men and women who could have pulled off the operation, and it’s interesting.”

“Interesting how?” I asked.

“You’ll find out soon enough,” Bradley’s father promised.

Within an hourof searching for where I’d been held, I understood what Bradley meant about the illusionist having targeted me.

The house didn’t exist, not in the way I remembered. The woods dividing the properties and leading towards the ocean was real, and without magic twisting my sight, I got my first real look at what had been my world. Instead of a three-storied house, I’d been held in a sprawling Mission-style manor. The window I’d escaped from hadn’t been a window at all, but a patio door leading to a rose garden and a path leading to the woods, where someone had set up a table with chairs to enjoy the shade.

I pointed at the home with its neighboring woods with their odd trees, at least odd compared to the more common palms and coastal scrub. “That’s the place. I remember those trees.”

“That’s some pretty damned impressive mental manipulations, Dad. That’s not a brick and stone house. They flat-out erased her ability to perceive anything outside of what they wanted her to perceive.”

Mr. Hampton grunted and kept driving while Bradley snapped pictures of the place with his phone. “She probably wasn’t even kept in a spare room, she might not have even been chained at all, and it’s even likely she was treated well and let loose when her depression became more than they could readily cope with. The books were probably real, and they would have kept her somewhere comfortable while she read, and the illusionist—possibly some other talent—would have overrode any of her natural inclinations. The operation wouldn’t have been covered under much of an illusion, because it would have been too dangerous. They would have needed to be able to monitor her health, so they would have only done minor illusions to trick her into cooperating. The trauma would have done most of the work, since Janette’s already known to suffer from trauma-induced amnesia. That’s Mickey’s theory at any rate. And since the illusionist was overriding her perceptions and taking control that way, I won’t be able to get any information from her even if I tried.”

“How did you get such a clear reading on the operation, then?” I asked, a little annoyed over Bradley’s father talking about me like I wasn’t there.

“It’s the same reason I can’t really read you when you are in a calmer environment. Unlike Bradley, who is predominantly attuned to positive feelings and emotions, my talent shines on the other end of the spectrum. I can identify major sources of trauma and get readings from them. I don’t quite get a front-seat view, but it’s close enough. Think of my ability like having a surround camera or snapshot of what was going on at the time of a traumatic event. I can peek into what happened there. Bradley can, too. He really shines at reading inorganic objects, since he has a better view of them than I do. But his organic reading is rather useless unless you happen to be his future wife, in which case, I think you will find his abilities much to your liking. He can get organic readings like I can, but his general nature and inclinations makes it far more traumatic for him.”

No kidding. “That is the understatement of the year, Mr. Hampton.”

“He’s just too sensitive, and he gets emotional feedback. I don’t get the same emotional feedback he does. So, I can view what happened to you rather like watching a movie, where Bradley experiences it more as feelings to go along with the movie. If he had tried to read that operation, he would have ended up screaming or crying.”

I grimaced. “He can get feedback like that?”

“He has to deliberately make the attempt, and he knows better than to try to peek on traumatic events unless absolutely necessary. That’s why he tends to stick to inorganic objects. The feedback is limited.”

“I hadn’t realized that was how it worked,” I admitted.

“He thinks of it like a dirty little secret,” Bradley’s father admitted with amusement in his tone. “It’s also part of why he pushed so hard for your contract. He knew you were interested in him from the start, and he’s always been interested in you. He’s just a little shit who isn’t good at leaving the nest without a swift and hard kick to the ass.”

“I didn’t want to scare you off,” Bradley stated, and he glared at his father, leaned back in his seat, and crossed his arms. “If you scare her off, I’m not going to forgive you.”

“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”

I snorted. “That’s not going to be a problem.” I doubted I’d be willing to let him leave my sight, outside of going to the bathroom on his own, anytime soon. “Can I leash him?”

“I don’t care what you do to him as long as you bring his still-living body home for visits.”

Yep. Bradley was a loved child. “I have a question.”

“What is it?”

“Why did you only have Bradley?”

Bradley’s father sighed. “There were complications with his delivery, and we were advised to avoid having future children. As I love my wife as much as I do my son, we took that seriously. I had a vasectomy a few weeks after his birth, and she underwent treatments herself. After she finished breastfeeding him, she had a partial hysterectomy to make certain there would be no risk of pregnancy. We were told in no uncertain terms a second pregnancy would likely become lethal for her and the baby. So, we plan to adopt again now that Jez is heading out the door with her attorney. We’re thinking we’ll pick up some siblings this go around, as we survived having two children under the same roof with only minimal struggle and loss of sanity. We think we’re practiced enough now to handle the mayhem.”

Oh. My eyes widened, aware I counted as the most troublesome of any children in their lives. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. You haven’t done anything wrong. The only reason we didn’t tell you was because you hadn’t asked. But, you’ll both get a rather thorough lecture on what to look out for should you decide to have children. And if you’re thinking anything self-deprecating, you’re Bradley’s perfect woman, and while you are trouble, you’re treasured trouble.”

Damn, Bradley’s father didn’t pull his punches. “I’ll try to be less trouble moving forward.”

“That’s all we could ever ask of you, although we all know you were born trouble. May you have several just like you.”

“With how we look at babies?” Bradley chuckled. “And I’m nowhere near as bad as Janette.”

“Oh, you’re bad,” Mr. Hampton muttered. “Especially around baby animals. Baby humans? You sigh. Dramatically.”

“He does not!” I eyed Bradley with interest. “Do you?”

“I might be guilty of such a thing.” Bradley shrugged. “I’m my father’s son.”

“I, too, am guilty about sighing dramatically around babies of any species. His mother is, too. Although honestly, our sighs are a bit more regretful in nature, as we probably would have had one every other year had things been different. But we’ll have to be careful about how we adopt moving forward, especially if that bill continues moving forward. Now that we’ve detoured from what’s really bothering Janette, let’s get back on subject. Yes, Janette. I was aware it was entirely possible everything you experienced in the past nine months is essentially a lie. The operation was traumatic, and I’ve already informed the doctors and therapists—and the FBI investigators I’ve been dealing with—that we will not be even considering attempting to break through whatever the illusionist did to you. It has too much risk of long-term psychological damage, more than you’re already facing.”

Well, shit. “You’ve been talking with the FBI?”

“I may have done a rather full reading when I checked your foot up to the operation. I was able to verify that you had your memories overwritten and suffer from trauma-based amnesia. Dr. Mansfield has verified your medical situation as well. There’s no point in questioning you because the entirety of your testimony is essentially compromised. You can’t tell them what happened because the evidence has been sealed or removed from your memories. With the evidence of trauma, interviewing you beyond what we’ve already done would be considered cruel and unusual punishment. They try not to do more damage to the victims than necessary. You’ll be interviewed, but it will be to have someone verify you’re speaking the truth. I’ve been verified as speaking the truth, so you’ll be questioned for maybe ten minutes and you’re done.”

“That’s it?” I blurted.

“Your testimony can’t be used in court because you’ve had your memories overwritten or erased. There are no three-storied houses anywhere here, not within walking distance of the beach. Dr. Mansfield estimated your max range, in your current health, was no more than four or five miles.”

“How many miles are we from the beach?”

“Two by the most direct route, and there are walking paths through the trees to reach the park. I suspect you were escorted to the beach and monitored from a distance. After putting that much work in on making certain you were physically healthy? Your kidnappers would not have taken risks getting you back to civilization. Once you were near the library, they probably released whatever hold they had on you so you could behave normally, although it’s likely they implanted a suggestion to request help from a trusted party. I would have presumed your parents, but I won’t lie, it was rather pleasing to see you went straight to Bradley.”

“I’m pretty happy over that myself,” Bradley stated, and he smiled at me. “You can leash me if you’d like until you’re more comfortable. I’m not going anywhere, at least intentionally.”

“Let me see if I understand this. Because of the illusionist, my testimony is so questionable they’re not even bothering?” Having been completely eliminated as an information source shocked me even more than the realization everything I’d lived for almost nine months had been a carefully constructed lie. “But why?”

“That’s what we wish we could find out.” Bradley’s father drove us back to the beach, found a spot, and parked. “We’re missing something. Why take you? If the goal was to kill Senator Westonhaus, a second bullet would have done the job rather than a complicated kidnapping. It was immaculately timed. You stayed and helped catch the goats, and the kidnappers waited until the streets started clearing out to make their hit. They made certain to have a viable escape route, likely using illusions to prevent anyone from using the street. I think you were the goal. Senator Westonhaus was just a bonus, and one they gave up at the first sign of trouble from the FBI.” Mr. Hampton grunted, killed the engine, and got out of the vehicle. “It seems I have taken us to a beach, so you’re just going to have to get out and play outside for a while before I take you to a jewelry store.”

I removed my seatbelt, got out of the vehicle, and snagged my purse. Bradley tucked the metal box containing his gun under an arm. “You can put that in the trunk,” I said.

“While I could, I am going to hit someone with it if they look at you wrong,” my fiancé informed me. “Lenard keeps trying to make me learn alternative self-defense methods. This is my latest alternative method. If I can’t readily access my firearm, I will just beat off any close-range assailants with it. The gun’ll be perfectly safe in its case, even if I fling it at someone.”

“How far can you fling your gun case?”

“A surprising distance, and if I do it right, I can make it spin on the way to my target. The corners are fairly sharp.”

Ouch. “You have my approval. Do whatever is necessary to make it hurt more if you need to use your case as a weapon.”

Bradley laughed, and he joined me, wrapping his free arm around me. “If we pretend we don’t have a babysitter here, we can take a romantic stroll along the beach.”

“I’d rather find out why your dad brought us here, although I do like the water and the idea of a nice walk.”

“That’s why I brought you here, in part,” Bradley’s father said. “I want to see the trail, where you came out at, and how easy it would have been for you to emerge relatively unnoticed, although I suspect the illusionist obscured your presence here. At that talent level, frankly, they can change reality for just about anyone using their talent.”

“Including tricking us into believing someone shot in the head hadn’t been shot at all.”

“Precisely.”

I pointed at where I’d emerged from the forest, wondering how much of my adventure escaping had been an adventure at all, rather than something meticulously planned so I could resume my life. “I came out over there somewhere.”

“Then let us go walk over there to see what there is to see.”

Bradley stared at me with a raised brow.

“What’s that look for?”

“I’m just waiting to see if I have to maintain my current rudeness, or if you will cooperate without a fight.”

“Your current rudeness should be counted as ruthless, cruel, and unusual.” While I hated losing, we’d both win later if I cooperated, so I headed for where I thought I had emerged near the beach. Sure enough, a well-beaten trail curved through the trees in the direction of the manor I’d been held at—or had believed I’d been held at.

I hated not knowing.

Bradley’s father chuckled. “Reward programs work better on your mother, just for your information.”

Hugging me close to his side, my fiancé grinned at his father. “I’m saving the rewards for when I’m absolutely certain she will otherwise fully resist my suggestions.”

“That is not necessarily a bad idea, but I’m warning you it’s a horrible idea doomed to backfire on you. The last time I tried that on your mother, it landed me on the couch for a week. She wouldn’t talk to me for days.”

I could see his mother doing that. “That must have been quite the sin.”

“I suggested we dress Bradley up and put him where he might be photographed before we signed the contract for you. I may have suggested we could get grandchildren in a hurry if we got him onto one of the eligible bachelor lists.”

Bradley sighed. “He really did, too. And Mom really did put him on the couch for that. Apparently, she assumed my father wanted to sell me into sexual slavery.”

“I’d buy you,” I announced. I blinked, realized what I’d blurted out, and sighed. “Of course, at the time, I was fairly willing to sell my body if it meant my parents could have a comfortable retirement.”

“Technically, you did. I am grateful Dad suggested I be put up like a stud on auction, though. It made me consider the contracts. It didn’t take me long to figure out you were the one I wanted.”

“I raised him to actually use his intellect. I didn’t pay for all that damned schooling for it to go to waste.” Bradley’s father angled for the path, and we followed him.

Once to where I’d emerged and spotted the beach, I took a long and slow look around. Everything seemed as I remembered, with one exception. People made use of the trail, but when I’d gone on it, I’d been alone. “Nobody was using the trail when I came out.” Somehow, I kept my voice steady. “I don’t understand why. Why take so much of my life?” At a loss of how or why everything had happened, I gestured to my foot. “Why do all of this?”

“I have an educated guess,” Bradley’s father announced, and he tapped at his phone’s screen before turning the display towards me. “Do you remember this person?”

I narrowed my eye at the young businessman in a perfect suit, and I went cold at the memories. “Yeah. His bodyguard was the one driving the other car.”

It amazed me my voice didn’t betray me. I turned the phone enough Bradley could view the picture, too.

“Yeah, that’s the guy.” Unlike me, Bradley’s tone took on a dark edge, filled with anger.

His father turned his phone back around and tapped at the screen before, showing us the picture of an older woman. “Do you know who she is?”

I shook my head, as did Bradley.

“This is Eulalia Castor, his uncle’s wife. She was born in Spain before moving to the United States to marry his uncle. When his uncle died, she returned to Europe, where she has been living ever since. However, she owns a holiday home here.” After a moment of fussing with his phone, he showed me a picture of the house with the patio and rose garden skirting the trail leading to the ocean. “Eulalia remarried, which is why she is now a Castor, but her second husband also died. He got drunk and killed a car filled with kids in Germany. She has made it her life’s mission to treat victims of severe accidents, where they were not in the wrong. Like you. She, however, typically lives in Europe, skipping between Spain, Germany, and Italy. However, she has been on leave for a period of a year due to adopting a child with her third husband, who opted to take her name rather than give her his. Familial problems, according to the internet.”

“Okay. We’ve been gone from that house for less than twenty minutes. How did you find all of this out?” I demanded.

“Eulalia Castor is one of twenty people globally who is capable of performing the operation on your foot, and we researched all of the known talents. She’s specialized in severe bone trauma repair in addition to organ trauma recovery. Honestly, if the two of you were to join forces, I doubt you’d ever lose a patient on the table, at least a patient who had any real chance of being saved. The only thing she can’t do is blood and lungs. There’s something about it that escapes her abilities. You can do everything she cannot.”

I blinked, and I took the phone from Bradley’s father, tapping at the screen until the older woman’s face reappeared, her dark hair touched with streaks of gray and lines marring her face. Her brown eyes held secrets, as shadowed as the haunting ghost of her smile. “You think this woman is the one who did the work? On my foot? But why?”

“When her husband killed those kids, she wanted to make a difference. Perhaps she felt you were much like her, wanting to make a difference. More details than I like about the accident were revealed after you were kidnapped, as were details of your efforts in the hospital. A lot of people you saved appealed through the media to bring you home safe and sound. They wanted to save you much as you had saved them.”

“But I disappeared before that happened, right? I mean, nobody was making appeals before my disappearance.”

Bradley’s father nodded. “But in the medical field, they knew. Doctors talk with each other, especially about challenging cases. I am of the opinion Dr. Avers disliked you because you could do what he could not. You’re a miracle in the operating room. He doesn’t approve of exsanguinators working in a hospital setting, mainly because he’s one of those idiots who thinks you drink blood in addition to manipulating it.”

“What a fucking moron,” I muttered, shaking my head. “So, this is her house?”

“That is her house, and she would have access to the top specialists. It would be trivial for her to put together the type of team needed to do your operation—and the kind of people she could put together would be happy to do it and erase the evidence while doing so. Dr. Mansfield thinks it would have taken them two months to prep you for such a procedure, including removal of as much infection as possible, and then four to six months of recovery afterwards.”

“Which would put us to now, if I recovered on the slow end.”

“Which puts us to now,” he agreed. “Dr. Castor is scheduled to do a convention talk in a few days in Spain.”

I narrowed my eyes, staring at Bradley’s father, wondering how he’d found out—and just how closely he’d been following the doctor. When I said nothing, Bradley asked, “What is she talking about?”

“Treatment options for patients with trauma-induced chronic injuries with a focus on critical bone recovery, repair, and rehabilitation.”

“That sounds eerily familiar,” I murmured.

“The rumors have it she is going to propose a new controversial treatment method for particularly severe injuries.”

I held my foot out, glared at it, and pointed at my shoe. “You’re trouble. Look what you’ve done. You’ve gotten us into trouble. This is all your fault.”

“You’re struggling to cope with this, aren’t you?” Bradley’s father asked.

I shrugged. “It seems pretty far-fetched some random woman from Spain would get a bunch of her doctor friends together, kidnap me, and do a ridiculously expensive and controversial treatment on my foot. It’s ludicrous. And expensive. They could have taken you for a financial ride your bank account would never forget.”

“But it stands high odds of being true.”

“Why do you think it might be true?” I blurted.

“Dr. Yvon is one of her friends and associates,” he informed me.

My mouth dropped open, and I spluttered. “Wait. Didn’t he say something about a treatment plan?”

“That he’d been working on one for a long time, yes.”

I snapped my teeth together, but after a moment, I blinked. “Did he literally admit his involvement to our faces?”

Bradley covered his mouth, and after a moment, my fiancé giggled. “He must have been pretty pleased with the work because it was partially his work, and Dr. Mansfield has no idea he was involved. He was like a proud peacock over your foot. And he ended up coming here because he’s friends with Dr. Mansfield. Hell, for all I know, maybe he became friends with her because you’re her patient.”

“Why are you laughing?” I demanded.

“It’s hilarious. For months, we’ve been worried the killers got a hold of you, but no. Vigilante magical physicians booked a vigilante magical librarian for a kidnapping and an operation. And they covered their work using a senator believed to be a target, copycatting the actual serial killers to pull it off, because everyone thinks the killers did it.”

“But why shoot me?” I asked, pointing at the scar on my arm. “Wouldn’t doctors not want to do that?”

Bradley’s giggles grew into full laughter. “Someone had to get shot for it to work, and how better to paint you in a good light? The videos had you shoving the senator out of the way, and then you were shot after you hit him. That implies the shooter waited until you could be grazed. You hitting your head probably hadn’t been part of the plan, but with a bunch of doctors behind the kidnapping? The only thing they were likely worried about was killing you outright. That they completely erased that you were shot at all comes across to me that they wanted to minimize how much you suffered while in their care.”

“But why the senator, then? Why grab him at all?”

Bradley shrugged. “That’s easy. The illusionist would have painted an alternate reality, and since they’re obviously strong enough to do that, they’d just create the reality that best fit their dialogue before dumping him somewhere, making it appear the FBI had performed a daring rescue—in reality, it was probably just a calm drop off where the FBI agents all believed it was more of a daring rescue rather than them dumping an unwanted victim.” At the rate Bradley grinned, I worried he’d lost his mind. “This actually makes sense.”

“Don’t mind him, Janette. This is the first scenario we’ve come up with that actually fits all of the pieces we have. A copycat to get you out of the way so they could do a severe act of kindness is excessive—and it fits. And it would protect you for months. The real killers wouldn’t want to get you out of the way because the real killers are probably having a field day because somebody copycatted them to get rid of you. The real killers probably think they have a copycat group of supporters, and they panicked because they missed the senator. Why you were taken just didn’t fit any of the puzzle pieces we had. This actually all fits. The senator wasn’t the goal at all. You were. And there are connections that would make it easy enough for them to plan your kidnapping.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “I don’t understand.”

“I do,” Bradley stated, clearing his throat. “The New York Public Library has a lot of specialists, right? Mickey talks to the paper pushers all of the time. He’s become quite close with one of the acquisitions experts for the main branch. That acquisitions expert? She’s a former doctor.”

“What kind of doctor?”

“Trauma recovery. The grind got to be too much, so she retired and became a librarian instead. She still wanted to help the public. She’s worked with Dr. Castor; you don’t get two specialized doctors like that who handle severe cases without overlap, and Opal was the best in her field for rehab. Mickey found out when trying to get more information on what would be needed to help your foot heal. It’s been one of our coping mechanisms,” my fiancé admitted. “The therapists approved, too. If we were looking into ways to help your foot, we would always maintain the mindset you still lived out there somewhere. Dr. Mansfield suggested the therapists on the recommendation of a friend.”

“Yvon, by any chance?” I asked in a wry tone.

“Entirely possible, especially since Mickey was researching alternative treatment methods to see if we could do anything to help you heal.”

I showed off my foot. “I’m confused. Do I send chocolate, cards, or flowers? Do I have to thank them while informing them their methods might have scarred me for life?”

“No,” both men stated.

I could understand Bradley’s father refusing, but I didn’t understand why my fiancé rejected my idea to show some gratitude. “Why not? If you’re right, they were doing a really good deed in a somewhat traumatic fashion. Except beyond being really lonely, it wasn’t really traumatic. Excluding the part that was so traumatic I seem to have completely blocked it out.”

“That part is the reason why,” Bradley’s father replied. “That could have killed you.”

“But it didn’t.”

“You were gone for almost nine months,” Bradley added. “I definitely didn’t appreciate that at all.”

“Well, I can’t say I liked it.” I pointed at my foot again. “But I appreciate this.”

“She makes a good point, Dad. I mean, I’m forced to appreciate it, too. She’s not hurting every time she takes a step. It’ll hurt when the weather changes, and it’ll hurt and get sore because it was so extensively injured, but she’s not going to hurt all the time anymore.” Bradley sighed. “And even if we could prove it, why would we? I still don’t understand the motive. The expense for this would be huge. That many specialists on that complicated of an operation? Who paid for it? Why?”

Mr. Hampton shrugged. “It’s not that expensive, outside of the machines, when all of the specialists are doing the work because they want to. You’re assuming they paid for anything. Dr. Castor is a researcher. She surely owns her own lab equipment. Other specialists of that tier are wealthy enough to own their equipment. All they’d need is a matching blood type for transfusions as needed, and an illusionist could easily just steal some from a blood bank without anyone being the wiser for it. Blood gets tossed with unfortunate regularity. All an illusionist would have to do was flag the blood they needed for her as tainted or spoiled when it wasn’t.”

Turning, I wiggled out of Bradley’s hold, threw my hands up, and marched towards the beach. “I am going to steal a seashell from state property. There, a crime you can actually solve.”

“I don’t have any handcuffs. I don’t like this game,” Bradley complained.

Bradley’s father snickered. “You might not, but I do.”

I halted, spun around, and gaped at Bradley’s father. “Take that back!”

“Why?”

“You do not have handcuffs.”

“I always put a pair of handcuffs in my luggage. There might be someone I wish to cuff during my trip. Of course, that someone is usually my wife, but that’s neither here nor there.”

“Dad!”

“What? I’m old, not dead.”

I raised a brow, looking Mr. Hampton over. “There’s a name for men like you, Mr. Hampton.”

“What’s that?”

“Silver fox.” I smirked at Bradley. “I’m a lucky woman. Just steal your father’s cuffs and don’t question it. Just pray they’re new.”

“They’re new,” Bradley’s father said with laughter in his voice. “There are some things a man just doesn’t share.”

“Thank heavens for that,” Bradley muttered, and as he could sometimes be wise, he fled towards the beach to escape from his father’s insanity.

I admired the view.

“Sometimes, that one isn’t the brightest crayon in the box. I swear I gave that boy the talk when he was fifteen. I even told him how to safely use handcuffs for entertainment purposes. They’re fuzzy, they’re new in box, and there are two pairs. It’s more fun that way.”

“Not four pairs?” I asked, unable to keep from raising a brow.

“There are better cuffs for that, and they’re made of leather. I even acquired a gag so you can shut him up if he protests too much.”

“On the outside, you look all refined and dignified, but here we are, discussing bondage on a beach.”

“I don’t recommend bondage on a beach. The sand gets everywhere.”

My eyes widened, as his tone carried the weight of bitter experience. “Oh.”

“Oh, indeed.”