Free Spellbinder by Collin Wilcox Page B

Now Mitchell slowly shook his head as he doggedly continued: “And, when she was in the parking lot, she apparently took a wrong turn. Someone blasted her with a horn, and she got rattled, I guess. So, without looking behind her, she put the car in reverse, and stepped down on the gas, hard. There was a woman behind her, with two little kids—two girls, three and five years old. And—” Mitchell blinked regretfully, shaking his head. “And all three of them are in the hospital. One of the girls—the older one—has a skull fracture, and she’s unconscious. The other one—the youngest one—has internal injuries.”
    “Where’s Mrs. Holloway?” Flournoy asked sharply.
    “At police headquarters,” Mitchell answered, for the first time looking at Flournoy directly. “Hollywood division. I have a friend there. He called me, as soon as he saw her come in. She hadn’t been booked when he called. And, just a few seconds later, Miss Fletcher called me.”
    “Why the hell did she call you?” Flournoy asked. “Why didn’t she call me? Or Austin, for Christ’s sake?”
    “Because,” Mitchell answered stolidly, “Miss Fletcher didn’t know what happened, when she called me. She only knew that Mrs. Holloway was missing.”
    “In other words,” Flournoy mused, “it’ll probably be some time before we’ll be notified officially. There’re procedures the police follow—red tape.” As he spoke, he tugged sharply at his right earlobe. It was the only sign of stress that Flournoy ever revealed.
    “That goes for the reporters, too,” Elton offered. “They probably don’t know, either.”
    “Don’t bet on it.” Flournoy was standing now. His legs were braced, his head held aggressively high. With the situation assessed, he’d made his decision and was ready to act. Watching him, Holloway realized that his heart was hammering. The demon had come awake, threatening to kill him where he sat helplessly gripping the arms of his chair, as if it were his only refuge. Around him, the room was tilting precariously. Multicolored spots were everywhere, madly dancing.
    “You stay here with your father, Elton,” Flournoy ordered. “Don’t take any calls, except from me.” Without waiting for a reply, Flournoy turned to Mitchell. “You come with me, Lloyd.”
    Not moving, Mitchell questioned Holloway with his dark, steady eyes.
    With great effort, Holloway nodded. Whatever else happened, he must let Flournoy leave—before Flournoy discovered that the demon within him had awakened.
    Because, surely, Flournoy and the demon would ultimately join together. It was inevitable.

Six
    F ASTENING THE TOP BUTTON of the suede jacket, Denise tucked her chin down into the soft woolen scarf she’d twisted twice around her neck and thrown back across her shoulder. She’d crocheted two matching scarfs during the month before Christmas, and put them both under their small Christmas tree. Unwrapping the present, Peter had teased her about the matching scarfs, accusing her of a his-and-her motorcycle jacket mentality. But then he’d kissed her—tenderly, yet fervently. She’d been sitting on the floor, unwrapping a gaudy, overpriced present from Elton. She’d put the present aside and kissed Peter back, hard. Moments later, they were making love on the floor, amid the crackling confusion of discarded Christmas wrappings. It had been a wild, wonderful meeting. Whatever happened between them, now or in the future, she would always remember that Christmas morning.
    “How come you never wear your scarf?” she asked.
    “I wear it all the time. When it’s cold.”
    “It’s cold tonight.”
    “Tonight, yes. But not when we left the city.”
    She looked up into the night sky. Low clouds were scudding across an almost full moon, high in a star-spangled sky. They were walking on a narrow gravel path that twisted down a hillside to the parking area shared by a half dozen houses built high on a Mill Valley hill that overlooked San