A Handful of Skulls (Here Witchy Witchy Book 9) Page 3

  The idea that Boss Man had a date threw me off. I guess I never imagined that he had a life outside of PIB. “Did you know that Cornelius is missing?”

  Her face fell. “What? No. He said he was going to go visit family. What happened?”

  “He never returned back to his station. We have agents checking with his family as well.”

  She put the gun down and then headed to the other side of the range. I followed her as she started to pick up the casings. “He wasn’t acting strange or anything. We had a perfectly fine dinner. He paid, he dropped me back here. We’ve been seeing each other for a couple months. He was so excited to go see his family.” She sighed. “I don’t know why he would just disappear.”

  “So, nothing seemed out of the ordinary?”

  “No, sorry.”

  As a trained PIB agent, she would know what was out of character for someone she dated. We were taught to realize when people’s habits or behaviors changed.

  “If you think of something, please let me know. Agent Jefferson and I will be on campus for a few days.”

  She nodded. “I will.”

  I headed back up the hill. If we were supposed to observe as well, the best place to do that would be the meal hall, and it was just about time for that rush. Students also tended to talk more without professors constantly looking over their shoulders.

  I followed the vaguely familiar path to the meal hall. It hadn’t seemed like much had changed over the years, maybe some updates here and there, but not enough to really stand out. I walked into the brick building and followed the flow of students to the cafeteria. This had changed a bit.

  When I was a student, we had two or three choices, grill, salads, or a sandwich station. Now they had a little bit of everything. I watched as the students went through the different lines and found whatever they wanted to eat before shuffling to the checkout and then heading to sit in the dining room.

  I went through and grabbed a premade salad and a bottle of water. I paid and found a seat in the corner. A group of four students pulled together two tables near me and sat down to their meal.

  At first, they were eerily quiet, but one of the girls spoke up.

  “Marksmanship test today, Professor Bittman is brutal.” She sighed. “I doubt I’ll pass with a perfect score.”

  One of the two guys snorted. “It’s like she’s been angry the last week. She was fine before. Helpful even. Now she just seems grumpy all the time.”

  “Someone said she broke up with her boyfriend,” the second girl chimed in.

  Interesting. She hadn’t mentioned that to me. I sat back in my seat, and as quietly as I could, I opened my salad.

  “I didn’t know she was seeing anyone.”

  “An ex-professor, I think.” She waved her hand as if dismissing the thought. “Not that it matters, but he was here a few nights ago. I was out jogging off my extra burger and saw him pick her up.”

  Ah, so they had been spotted. Interesting.

  “He wasn’t an ex-professor,” the other male spoke up. “He’s an Agent, a high one at that. I heard him in the office talking to Captain Ridgway.” He lowered his voice, and I tried not to lean forward to hear him. In the end, whatever he said was beyond me.

  I made a note of what he looked like. Dark black hair, a stain on his gray shirt, dirty jeans. What the hell had he been doing before lunch?

  Liz came and sat down next to me with a tray of food. She said nothing, probably noticing my concentration.

  Whatever the cadet had said, the whole table was silent after. No one said another word until they left. Except the one cadet stayed. He looked down at his food and poked at it with a fork. He hadn’t eaten a thing in those twenty minutes.

  Liz looked at me and nodded. We moved to his table, and he looked up at us, eyes wide. “You’re not cadets.”

  I shook my head. “No, I’m Special Agent Abigail Collins, and this is Special Agent Liz Jefferson. You are?”

  “Trent.”

  “We overheard you talking about the person Professor Bittman was seeing.”

  He looked at me with wide eyes, and for a moment, I expected him to bolt. “I don’t want to talk about it here.” He glanced around. “Can we meet somewhere after classes?”

  I glanced at Liz, who nodded. “Pick the place.”

  I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea as he looked more like a scared bunny than anyone who wanted to willingly give information.

  “There’s a restaurant about twenty minutes out. Fremont Bistro.”

  “I didn’t know that place was still open.”

  He nodded. “Food’s gotten better over the years I hear. I’ll be there at six tonight, after my marksmanship test.”

  “Okay, we’ll see you then.” Liz leaned back in her chair. “This is important, so don’t blow us off.”

  He glanced behind him and then back to us. “I don’t plan on it.”

  He stood, threw his food out, and left the dining room. I looked at Liz. “He’s not going to show up, is he?”

  “I think he will. Whatever he knows, he’s scared of too many people finding out.”

  But he seemed to have told the others at the table. If he didn’t want it to get out, why tell them?

  “What did Bittman have to say?”

  “That they went to dinner. She didn’t want anyone to know they were going out together, so they both called it a meeting.” I shrugged. “Sounds like maybe there was more going on. The cadets said that Professor Bittman had been a little more grumpy the last couple of days. They’re all very nervous about their test coming up.”

  “Good practice, when are we not nervous when we pull our gun?” Liz snorted.

  I wasn’t as nervous as the first time I had to pull my gun, but she was right, there was always an underlying thought of ‘what if.’ What if I have to shoot them? What if I end up killing them? What are the consequences? It was a never-ending cycle.

  “What did Ridgway want?”

  “He wanted to let me know that he thinks this is a dangerous road. Boss Man was into questionable things when he worked here. He wouldn’t say what they were, but he thinks that’s why he hid his name from the Branch.”

  “And we all just went along with it.”

  “Because those of us at PIB understand the need to keep secrets.” She looked pointedly at me. “You, more than most people, understand how dangerous secrets can be.”

  That was an understatement. “Well, now we have to find out what his secrets are. Let’s head to the dorm and take a look at the PIB database.”

  She nodded. “That gives us a chance to get settled in too. I have a feeling we’re here for the long haul.”

  I sighed. “I hate working away from home.”

  “Mm, what do you think the chances of someone trying to kill you here are?”

  At first, I thought she was joking, but one look at her face as I stood up, and I realized that she wasn’t.

  And then I realized that since I had killed Ira, it was a huge possibility that Samuel would send an actual assassin after me or come after me himself again. “I honestly don’t know. I guess it depends on how many people got their hands on the Ira case file before it was sealed.”

  She nodded. “I tried my best to make sure no one else had any part of that. Your uncle was convinced we should just ‘misplace’ the case file, but you know I can’t do that.”

  “I know. I wouldn’t have approved of it either. Sealed was the best I could ask for, and even that, I’m not sure how I feel about it.”

  She snorted. “You were unconscious, you really didn’t get a choice in the matter.”

  “This is true.” I had been exhausted from my fight with Ira, and Oliver took me back to his house so I wasn’t on scene when PIB got there. They would have hospitalized me, and I had other business to attend to that I couldn’t do from the hospital. Like killing a traitor.

  She started toward the exit. “Come on.”

  I followed her out, and we headed
toward the dorms.

  The dorms where Ridgway sent us were more like mini-apartments than your traditional dorm, and we stopped by the car to get our duffel bags before heading over to settle in. Liz and I had separate rooms that were joined by a small common room with a couch and television. The rooms each had a bed, a desk, and a wardrobe in them, and a bathroom attached.

  “This is cozy,” Liz said after she dropped her bag in her room.

  I nodded and stood in the middle of the common room. “Nice of Ridgway to put us here and not in the traditional dorms.”

  “Though, there’s probably more gossip and drunk people in the regular dorms. Drunk people always talk.”

  And a lot of times they threw up. Which was gross, but Liz was right. “Are we going to a party tonight?”

  “Yep. Big tests today? Lots of celebrating tonight. So after we meet with ‘what’s his bucket,’ then we’ll go find the party of the night.”

  I blinked at her. “We’re PIB agents, how the hell are we going to get into a party? Cadets have seen us walking around campus.”

  “We look the part, we walk in, don’t ask questions, don’t draw attention to ourselves, listen in, and leave. That simple.”

  Things were never that simple, and I could think of so many ways that this could go wrong. I had no words for her, so I just shook my head.

  My phone rang just as she was about to talk. I answered it without looking at the screen. “Special Agent Collins speaking.”

  The phone crackled a little bit, and a broken-up voice started to come through.

  I put it on speaker so Liz could hear it too.

  “Twinkle…twinkle…little…star.”

  The voice sounded like a little girl, but more like a scratched record more than anything.

  “How…I…won..der…what…you…are.”

  “Hello?” I asked, but the voice and the crackling died.

  A robotic voice came onto the phone. “We know what you are Special Agent Collins, and the time is coming.”

  The line went dead, and I looked at Liz. She shrugged. “That was a bit creepy.”

  I stared at my phone for a moment. “Yeah, yeah, it was.”

  “It reminds me of something, I can’t put my finger on it.”

  It reminded me of something terrifying that I didn’t even want to think about. “I’m sure it’s just a prank call.”

  She gave me a look like she didn’t believe me, but let it go.

  Since my uncle always managed to have a bug on my phone, I texted him to see if he could track the call. His constant bugging of the phone used to irritate me, but I was getting used to it and starting to be thankful for it as of late.

  “I’m going to go down and watch the marksman tests. Want to join me?”

  I looked up from my phone and shook my head. “No, Bittman already saw me and knows why I’m here. I doubt I’m a friendly face for her. You go ahead. I think I’m going to take an afternoon jog to clear my mind a bit.”

  “Okay, I’ll meet you back here in a couple hours?”

  “Yeah.”

  Liz left the room, and the moment she did, my phone rang.

  “What are you doing at the Academy?” My uncle’s voice came across the line.

  “I’m on a case. It seems that we have an internal missing person. Were you able to listen to the call?”

  I could hear the clicking of keys in the background. “I was, the sound recording was taken from an online video recording of what is called the Edison Talking Doll, a doll made in 1890, creepy little thing.”

  I didn’t really like dolls to begin with, but there was one name that came to mind when it came they popped up. Drake. “He’s dead. I killed him.”

  “You did, but creepy little girl is still around. Keira I believe her name is?”

  Keira was one of Hannah’s fledglings. She was obsessed with dolls, both the normal and living variety. Drake was a man who was able to use life magic to use living souls to animate objects. It was one of the more terrifying cases of my life.

  “I would put a call into Mario and see if he’s heard from Keira recently. That’s the only person I know that would use a doll to contact you. As for knowing what you are, I’d say that they are talking about you being an elemental. A fact that’s been documented.”

  “When I fought Ira…”

  “Don’t let anything that vampire said get into your head, Abigail. Focus on the task at hand. Ira is dead, you made sure of that.”

  But Ira had said that my vampire blood was coming out, that’s why I could see him move toward the end of the fight.

  I took a deep breath. Oliver was right, Ira had just been trying to get into my head. That’s it. “If you find out anything more, will you let me know?”

  “Yes, until then, let me know if any other strange calls come through, or if you need anything while you’re at the academy. Are you there alone?”

  “No, Liz is with me.”

  “Good. She’s a good woman Abby, I trust her with you.” He disconnected the call, and I thought it was an odd way of ending the conversation. I shook my head and stuck my phone in my pocket. Contacting Mario was probably the best bet, but I didn’t want to get Levi and him involved if I didn’t have to. Though Levi and I had an understanding that we’d keep each other in the loop since I’d met Samuel.

  A glance at my watch told me it wasn’t even near dusk yet. I had plenty of time for a good jog to help clear my head.

  My jog took me along an old route, one I’d run with friends when I attended the Academy. The memories made me smile as I wondered where most of my classmates had gone. I knew one had gone AWOL and joined a cult. She was originally undercover, and well, shit happens, but there were others that I’d gone through my four years with.

  I came back to the dorms to find Liz standing outside the doors with her arms crossed. A man stood in front of her, his hands on his hips, just a couple inches from her face, and I could hear him screaming from the few yards between us.

  I gave Liz points for not screaming back at him or pushing him away. I jogged up to them and stood by Liz’s side. “Everything okay here?”

  “This doesn’t concern you,” the man growled at me. His nose was scrunched up as he closed his fists, and I waited a moment for him to physically lash out.

  “It’s okay Abby, he just thought he could intimidate me. He was there watching the tests and felt the need to follow me back here.” Liz’s voice was calm. “What he didn’t realize is that I’m here on official business, and telling me to leave Bittman alone wasn’t appreciated.”

  I snorted. “What did you do while I was running?”

  “I didn’t say a word to her. This thug just thought me being there was intimidating enough.” Liz shook her head.

  He glared at me. “I am not a thug. I’m her brother. She called me to tell me that people were harassing her about a disappearance. I don’t appreciate it. So back off. She had nothing to do with that idiot disappearing. If you want to talk to her, talk to our lawyer.” He stormed off, and I raised a brow.

  “Nothing says guilty like calling a lawyer.”

  Liz nodded. “I almost shot him when he came up behind me. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but a raging brother wasn’t it.”

  “So nothing interesting at the tests?”

  She shook her head. “Nope, all the students were silent, watching their peers, or studying their books. Bittman was composed and calm through all the ones I watched. So I came back here to see how your run went.”

  “It went well, helped me clear my mind. I’m going to grab a shower and make a couple phone calls. Then we can head to see the cadet.”

  Liz nodded, and we headed into the building. She unlocked the door to the dorm, and we both walked in. I took a moment to scan the common area to make sure that no one had entered without our permission. Nothing was out of place, nothing gave off the sense of danger, but it was just something I always did now when I entered a room.

  Liz seeme
d to be doing the same thing. “We need to talk to Bittman alone before she decides to flee.”

  I nodded. “I’ll see if Ridgway can give us her phone number or arrange a meeting. I don’t like the way that she’s acting.”

  “Agreed. Go shower so we can go meet with the cadet.”

  Liz’s phone rang, and I waited a moment to see what was going on.

  “Special Agent Jefferson.” She held up a finger. “Yes, sir.” She hesitated for a moment. “In the target?” Another pause. “Yes, sir, we’ll be down there in just a few minutes.” She disconnected the phone. “That was Ridgway. Your shower is going to have to wait. We have a body on the shooting range. In a target.”

  I blinked at her. “In the target?”

  “Yeah, come on.”

  She was already heading to the door while I was still trying to wrap my brain around what she was saying. Typically, the targets were paper or wood. I couldn’t imagine getting a body into one.

  We jogged down to the shooting range where a large crowd had gathered, most likely looking at the body. A murder on the PIB Academy, the papers would eat this shit up. Liz and I excused our way through, squeezing between the bodies of cadets that didn’t want to move out of our way or that didn’t hear us.

  I was expecting a paper target or maybe even a steel one, but what we found when we got there was a body covered in ballistic gel, and it looked just like Trent.

  I stared at it for a moment and said the only thing that came to mind. “I guess he’s not showing up tonight.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Liz and I cleared the area before we touched the body. I found myself glad we were on the edge but still within jurisdiction because Jason’s friendly face was just what I needed to see. He’d cut his hair recently, so it looked all professional. He was younger than me, but he looked just as tired.

  “Hey Agent A, Agent L, I hear you have a special one for me.” He looked down at the body. “Oh, that is interesting.” He knelt down next to the body and poked the ballistic gel. “Huh.”

  “Huh?” Liz asked. “Jason, that’s not a whole lot to go off of.”