Page 2 of The Elementalist (Four Elements #1)

I blinked, absorbing her words. I hadn’t worked a wrongful death case in a long time.

My cases tended to be lightweights. Heck, my last job had been undercover work at the Shadow Pines Hospital, trying to find out who’d been stealing from their blood supply.

I never did find the bastard, although I was pretty sure the hospital was haunted as all get out.

Moving shadows, disembodied footsteps and breathing sounds, and the overall disconcerting feeling that someone was watching me.

Afterward, I had dreams of that place, nightmares where a tall man with a long face and Hollywood hair told me to forget what I saw.

Of course, I could never quite remember what I had supposedly seen, but the dreams were weird as hell.

She bit her lip. “Sheriff Waters and her team of klutzes aren’t saying much. It makes me wonder whose side they’re on. It’s why I came to you.”

I nodded. “What’s your name?”

“Crystal Bradbury.”

Aww damn. There it was. Bradbury… one of the Founding Families. I said the dumbest thing possible after hearing that. “You live in town?”

She shook her head. “Ironside.”

Okay, that surprised me. If someone with that name didn’t live in town, it meant something.

It might mean she just happened to have a surname that matched one of the oldest, most influential families in the area, but I doubted that.

Shadow Pines’ former mayor, Sterling Bradbury, had a reputation for being a real piece of work—that’s polite speak for asshole.

Fortunately, he’d been eaten by a bear or something out in the woods…

like so many other people in this place.

It’s an absolute wonder why anyone still went out into the forest for recreation.

With all the animal attacks around here, you’d think everyone would be hiding in their houses with the windows boarded up.

Another thing stood out to me. This girl didn’t resemble Sterling in the slightest. Though, sometimes genetics did weird things.

I knew the nearby town of Ironside, of course.

Locals called it a poor man’s Shadow Pines.

At least, that’s what my generation always called it back in high school.

Troublemakers often ended up being sent there to finish high school with the ‘less desirables.’ The town had a fair number of steel mills and mines, all started by the Founding Families years ago.

Only a handful continued to operate these days.

Ironside also had some factories and a lot of nature tourism.

With mountains on one side, forest everywhere else, it had become a beacon for people rebelling against urbanization.

Some called it a sister city. I always thought of it as an annoying little brother city.

Then again, I was biased. I grew up in Shadow Pines, and good or bad—mind you, this place had a lot of bad—I loved my creepy little hometown.

She must have seen the surprised look on my face, because she added, “You could say I started in Shadow Pines, and finished in Ironside.”

I put two and two together and figured she’d done something bad.

Or at least socially horrible. Bad enough to be cast out, most likely.

Or at least kept at arms’ length to protect the rest of the family’s reputation.

I’d probably have known exactly what she’d done if I bothered paying attention to the upper class around here, but I never understood the fascination with that.

Why would working-class people care who a celebrity dated, or freak out if they got in trouble with the law?

I would never understand that the same way I couldn’t fathom how people in the UK fawned all over their royals.

“You were a problem child,” I said.

She gave me a half smile. I had the feeling she liked to have fun, to enjoy life, but recent events had dragged her down. A murdered sister would do that to you.

“I was just being me,” she said, “but the Bradburys had a name to uphold.”

“Your father used to be the Mayor?”

“Yup. Mayor, asshole, you pick,” she said.

I recalled seeing him years ago. He’d smacked one of his sons, Arthur I think, over at the Pines Café.

The boy had to be twelve or so at the time and a paparazzi caught the moment of the slap with near perfect timing.

That photo was everywhere for months. Some called it the ‘slap heard ’round the world. ’

“We shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because they can’t defend themselves.”

“Are you sure about that?” she asked cryptically.

“Umm...”

“Anyway, I told Dana not to go out there. I mean, who wanders off for a party deep in the woods around Shadow Pines these days? How many people have to die before people get the idea that it’s not safe here?

If you ask me, it was a godsend that I was sent out of this town, even if the boarding high school had been more like a prison. ”

“That bad?”

“Compared to what I’d been used to, it felt like prison. Ironside has been good to me. It’s kept me alive.”

She had a point. The sheer number of deaths in this town has been staggering, along with numerous supposed incidents of supernatural activity. Spontaneous combustion. Reports of hauntings. UFOs sightings up the wazoo. Of wolves running free in the streets.

And, of course, the daddy of all rumors...

Vampires.

Yup, vampires. As in bloodsucking fiends.

Guess where my mind went while investigating the guy stealing blood from the hospital?

Yeah… a rational person would’ve assumed some wacko with a vampire complex.

Me? For some reason, as much as I couldn’t believe it, I half expected it to be a real vampire.

Probably because the basement hallway, according to witnesses, always stank of rotting bodies whenever blood went missing.

This town had a history of such crazy stories, and, with all the disappearances, I couldn’t help but wonder if the rumors might be more than a bunch of scared (and bored) locals running their mouths.

Hell, the newspaper got a hold of the blood theft story and went crazy with it.

People had been petitioning the mayor for years to make vampires illegal. You can’t make this stuff up!

Anyway, all were whisperings, of course.

All were laughed off. Nervously, that is.

Truth was, something was happening in this town, something damn strange.

A lot went on just below the ability of most people to realize it.

One would think that with all of the strange occurrences, I would actually be a busy private eye, but that wasn’t the case.

Most people didn’t talk about the strange happenings, and fewer still hired me to look into them.

Most people swept them under the proverbial rug.

Most residents, in my view, were hiding a lot of secrets.

A helluva lot of secrets.

Then again, I could be wrong, too.

Over the years and decades, Crystal’s family had suffered some of the greatest losses. And the tragedy evidently continues...

I recalled the case since I’d seen a bit of it on the news, but not the details.

A young-ish married couple slipped away from a party for a quiet walk in the woods and never returned.

The authorities called it another random animal attack in the woods.

One of dozens over the years. At the time, the names had been withheld.

Truth was, I had forgotten about them until now.

“The police claimed a mountain lion attacked them,” I said. “What makes you suspect something else?”

“Because she called me and told me something was following them.”

A cold chill swept over me. “Something or someone?”

“She said something.”

“Did she happen to say what followed them?”

“No. She was too busy screaming.”

“You heard your sister die? Over the phone?”

“Every strangled gasp and shriek, Mr. Long. Now, do you see why I want answers?”

“Yeah…” I picked up my notepad and asked the usual array of questions to establish the where and when.

Crystal hadn’t heard a big cat in the background. No growling, roaring, nothing. Nor did her sister mention a cat.

“Felines are rather stealthy. Perhaps she’d been ambushed?” I asked. “Sorry if I sound a bit oafish and insensitive, but there’s no way of tiptoeing around some of this stuff. I don’t mean to be cruel, just trying to take the most direct path to the answer.”

“I understand. It’s all right. And no, I don’t think she was ambushed.

Dana wouldn’t have had the time to call me if a big cat pounced on her without warning.

She called me while running away from something.

She said it’s following us. I heard them running, then some grunts…

and... all the screaming—” She broke down crying.

I sat there offering a comforting gaze, patiently waiting for her to regain her composure, wondering if I should comfort her, but concluding that would be overstepping my position. Dammit.

“She begged for her life, Mr. Long. Begged.”

“People don’t usually plead with animals not to kill them.”

“Now you know why I came to you. The police are no help. They decided it was an animal before they even went to the place it happened. As far as they’re concerned, a mountain lion did it and there’s no point arguing the point with them.”

“Yeah, I can see that.”

I was with Crystal. Something didn’t seem right, and I was happy to take the case.

More than happy.

My landlord would be too.