Protector (The Witches of Cleopatra Hill Book 5) by Christine Pope Read Free Book Online Page B

there in the center of the room, her hands still spread in that gesture Caitlin was coming to recognize as her “divining” one. Then she shook her head. “Not really. Maybe the faintest trace of some kind of energy pulling toward the south. But nothing beyond that.”
    “But what do we do now?” Caitlin asked. She knew she sounded frantic, but she didn’t much care. Her friends were still missing, taken the Goddess only knew where by a trio of warlocks who clearly had no compunction about using them to power their own hideous rituals.
    “We don’t panic,” Luz said. Her expression softened, and she came back over to where Caitlin stood next to Alex, then laid a hand on her arm. “We are certainly not going to let the matter go. Valentina promised to contact Maya while we came over here, so she knows of the situation. I think now we should go and speak with her.”
    “Go up to Scottsdale?” Wait, what was the point of that? She couldn’t leave Tucson, not if her friends might still be hidden somewhere within the city limits.
    Sensing her turmoil, Luz pressed her fingers against Caitlin’s arm for just a second, as if to reassure her, and said, “My dear, Maya will most certainly want to speak with you. We will send out the word here in Tucson, so that all of our clan members in the city will be on the lookout for your friends and the warlocks who have kidnapped them. You will not be abandoning your friends, only leaving for a few hours. You can come back here afterward.”
    “I don’t know if it’s a good idea to have her staying in a condo by herself after what happened,” Adam began, his tone dubious, and Luz broke in, saying,
    “Of course not. It would probably be best if she stayed with you.”
    Caitlin felt her eyes widen. Had Alex’s mother seriously just suggested that she stay with her son?
    He didn’t look all that enthused by the prospect. Not making eye contact with either of them, he said, “Are you sure that’s such a good idea?”
    “You are the best suited to protect her,” his mother said, her tone so matter-of-fact that it didn’t leave much room for argument. She glanced over at Caitlin. “Unless you would prefer that we send you home to Jerome so your family can watch over you?”
    No, that didn’t sound good at all. Never mind that she didn’t actually live in Jerome anymore, but in the apartment she shared with Danica in Flagstaff. That sounded even less secure than going back to her old room in her parents’ big Victorian house on Paradise Lane. Yes, she supposed the Wilcoxes would make sure she was looked after…if her parents would even agree to her going back up to Flagstaff after what had happened…but that was the coward’s way out. Hide up in northern Arizona while those bastards still had Danica and Roslyn with them? No way.
    “No,” Caitlin said, her tone firm. All right, it would be beyond awkward to go and stay with Alex Trujillo, but at least she’d still be here in Tucson. “I don’t want to go to Jerome.”
    “Well, then,” Luz said. “I think we should be on our way to Scottsdale.”
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    A fter leaving the house the warlocks had so briefly occupied, Alex and his mother took Caitlin back to the store. Just for a few minutes, enough so he could tell Manuela that family business had come up and that she’d have to keep an eye on things for him, and so he could trade the shirt he wore, the one with Caitlin’s bloody handprints on the sleeve, for the fresh one he kept hanging in the office, just in case he spilled something on himself during the workday.
    Manuela nodded and said it was no problem, but he could tell from the inquisitive gleam in her eyes that she really wanted to know what was going on, and would probably be on the phone the second they left, trying to ferret out what she could from the family grapevine.
    Good luck with that, he thought, because no one else knows anything about all this. Except Valentina, and she knows how to keep