Chapter Two
“J, J, J, J, J!” the little boy squealed as he ran away from his attacker. Joey made a fake lunge for the three-year-old Greg. The toddler dodged on his little legs and ran laughing to his other uncle, Justin, for help.
“Tree!” JC warned, scooping Greg up right before he ran smack into the undecorated Christmas tree drying out in the kitchen area of their cabin.
“Uncle C, Uncle C! Joey’s gonna get me!”
JC laughed as he bounced Greg into the air. “Not while I’m here! I’ll protect you.”
“Yay!” The child stuck his tongue out at his Uncle Joey. “Ha ha, Joey. C’s here!”
“Awww, c’mon Uncle C. Can’t I have just a little tickle war with him?”
“Now, Joey, you know we can’t allow that. You never win, and you’re a sore loser!” Justin said, taking the child from JC’s arms and twirling him around like an airplane. “Besides…It’s getting just a little late. If Lance were awake, he’d kill us for keeping Greg up past eleven.”
Joey shrugged. “Oh well. A cranky Greg will be Lance’s problem…Won’t you?” he asked the little boy as he blew on his tummy.
“No fair! That tickles! And Uncle J said nooooooo tickling,” Greg instructed, shaking his finger at Joey.
Making a face, Joey scooped him away from Justin. “So, is it my turn to read you a bedtime story yet?”
Greg giggled as he tried to get down. “No! You did last night!”
“Awww, shucks. I guess that means it’s Chris’ turn!” Joey yelled as he airplaned Greg over to where Chris was concentrating on his video game and dropped the toddler in his lap.
Chris looked up, confused for a moment before having Greg in his lap, smacking his face, registered. “Oh! Bedtime!”
“And he comes out of his video game coma,” JC announced dryly as he sat back into his chair, getting back to the song he had been writing before the hell-on-two-legs toddler had run headlong for the tree.
“No. No bed! Uncle C!” Speaking of the devil… JC looked down at the leach attached to his pant leg, which Chris was currently trying to remove. JC stared at him, rather than trying to interfere between Chris and the kid. It was something they all made an effort to do, not wanting the kid to grow up playing all five of them against each other in order to get what he wanted.
“Chris! No bed! I wanna do the tree!”
“Tell you what,” Chris said as he hefted the kid to his shoulders. “Tomorrow, as soon as we all get up, we can do the tree. Tonight, after you’re in bed, we’re gonna set it up, so it’s all ready for you to go at it tomorrow!”
The little boy pouted, then thought about it for a minute. “Kay. Will you read Thomas for me?”
“Thomas it is,” Chris agreed as he entered the bedroom that the tyke shared with Lance. A few minutes later, he was back, with a stumbling, eye-rubbing Lance.
“Why’d you let me sleep so long?” he complained as he descended the stairway.
As JC watched him with raised eyebrows, he took another look around the cabin they would be spending their holidays in. If JC were to buy a mountain getaway, this would be it. The living room was the central feature, with its ceiling rising all the way to the pitched cabin roof. The furniture was focused towards the huge fireplace against the back wall. There were two circular staircases on either side of the cabin; four bedrooms and two baths upstairs. Downstairs, underneath the bedrooms were the kitchen, dining room, office, another bedroom, and another bath. Even though he had to share a bedroom with Joey, who snored like a bear, he loved the place.
There was a get-back-to-nature theme to the place, JC decided, looking at all the wood finishing on the walls, the wood furniture, the colors of the cabin all browns, tans, burgundies, greens, and creams. Everything was so…natural. Peaceful. Calm. Quiet.
Up until a three-foot snowball rolled through the doorway right then.
Everyone in the cabin stood up. The three bodyguards who had decided to wrestle the tree into its stand dropped it unceremoniously on its side (they had been losing horribly, so it wasn’t a hard choice for them to make). The two FBI men drinking coffee in the kitchen had their guns unholstered before JC could blink. Chris dropped his controller. Lance looked up from his mystery novel. Joey actually put his sub sandwich down (which was a rare occasion indeed, since Justin had a habit of stealing Joey’s food). Justin never even noticed the 9 inches of Subway left and took his headphones off when he felt the cold rush of air, putting his Discman down on the couch. Even Marissa, Justin’s self-centered latest girlfriend, put her Cosmopolitan magazine down and stood to see what had interrupted her scholarly reading.
“Bedroom. Greg!” the snowball managed to get out between its great puffs of breath and chattering teeth.
The bodyguards looked at each other for half-a-second before Lonnie and Mike ran up the stairs, leaving Tyson with the tree. Agent Callaway and Agent Mendoza picked up the snowball between them. It took JC a second to realize the three-foot snowball was actually a five-six or so young woman. Other than that, JC couldn’t tell much. She was covered in white from head to toe; it must be quite a snowstorm outside, since he couldn’t even tell if she was wearing a hat or gloves. Everything was just…white.
Mike came out of the bedroom then, and everyone glanced up as he walked along the open hallway that looked down on the living room. When he noticed the toddler in Mike’s arms, JC felt like twenty-pounds had been lifted from his chest. He could breathe again.
“The window was open, but Greg was still in his bed, counting the glow stars on his ceiling.”
“How’d the window get open?” Mendoza asked gruffly. He looked at Chris and Lance. “Did one of you leave it that way?”
JC thought it was a rather dumb question, since they had both turned as white as ghosts when Mike had made his announcement. “No. I double checked that it was locked before I left the room,” Lance confirmed.
Lonnie came out of the room then, shaking his head. JC cursed silently. Window open, but the Cougar had escaped yet again. With the bodyguard’s negative answer to whether there had been anyone hiding in the room, all eyes turned back to the snowball, who had thawed enough for JC to see that she had worn no hat or gloves and her fingers were bright red. JC thought that she made a much prettier girl than she did a snowman; blonde hair, light brown eyes…and freckles. He decided that he had a thing for freckles; they were so damn cute.
He shook his head, wondering what the hell he was thinking. This girl was probably the Cougar’s partner…and here he was thinking about her freckles.
He frowned at her.
But if she wasn’t working with the Cougar…then the freckles might be cute.
His frown lessened.
And she had warned them in time to keep Greg in the house rather than in the Cougar’s clutches.
His frown disappeared and a half-smile replaced it. Yeah, he liked freckles.
**********
Devon decided, as everyone stared at her, that now would be the perfect time to sink through the floor. Especially when she caught sight of Agent Callaway on her right. Of all the freaking agents to be on the Bass case, they had to choose Dick Boy and his I-have-no-feelings-whatsoever control freak of a partner Mendoza?
“Devon? What the hell are you doing here?” Callaway asked as he roughly shook her arm. Mendoza, realizing who it was dropped her left arm and went back to the kitchen counter.
Staring at Callaway, Devon realized that she didn’t even know his first name. Though Callaway was one of THOSE agents who felt the need to style himself after every FBI stereotype ever invented, it still didn’t say much for her. Who slept with a guy without even knowing his first name?
“I came to warn you that the Cougar was going to hit tonight,” she chattered, trying to pull her jean jacket closer around her. The thing was soaked with all the melted snow and it was worse than useless. When she looked up, hoping to see a glowing fireplace somewhere, she realized everyone was starting at her (except the leggy, exotic beauty who had gone back to reading the “How to Keep Him Pleased” article in Cosmo, which Melinia had read to her before the Bass case hit Vegas). And it wasn’t nice staring. It was oh-my-you’re-in-league-with-the-Cougar staring.
“What?” she asked irritably as she brushed away the snow that had yet to melt off her shoulders. She looked around the cabin, which was entirely visible from the front door in the kitchen. And there he was.
Oh Lord, he looked even better in real life than in that old picture from the file. His hair was longer, shaggier (which made Devon itch to run her fingers through it). He had scruff on his face, and though it usually disgusted her on most guys, his scruff brought automatic thoughts about how it would feel against…various…parts of her body as he worked wonders with his full, sexy mouth.
And he really did deserve to have her in love with him, she realized, as he stepped forward, taking his overly large Maryland Terrapins sweater off and handing it to her. “Thanks,” she shivered, jerking her arm away from Callaway and peeling off the wet jacket. She threw the sweater on.
“Now, explain,” Callaway commanded gruffly as he grabbed her arm and forced her onto his recently vacated kitchen stool. Glaring at him, she jerked her arm away again, hitting him in the stomach in the process, and wandered over to the fireplace, holding her hands out to it. They still glowed an angry red.
“I tried calling to the Reno office to warn someone but the hotline guy wasn’t exactly putting a priority on it. I left Melinia in Vegas trying to get a hold of someone, but I’m guessing she never did. And I drove my baby all the way here, going a hundred miles-an-hour, except when climbing the mountains in a snowstorm where I was forced to slow down to sixty, just to warn you. I almost slid off the road three times AND my baby broke down at the gate from being overheated, though with the snowstorm that caused me to crash into the front gate in the first place, I don’t see how that’s possible. THEN I had to run the half-mile from the gate to the front door, during a goddamn blizzard, and you all look at me like I’m Jack-the-freaking-Ripper.”
“How’d you know the Cougar was going to be here tonight?” Lance asked as he held his son like he would never let him go again. JC brought over the ottoman and placed it in front of the fire for her. Devon sat down gratefully, turning to face everyone and warming her back.
“Wait. I want to hear this. But we need to check the perimeter,” Mendoza ordered. He pointed to Mike, Lonnie, and Tyson. “You three go make sure all the windows in the house are locked. The rest of you stay here.” He and Callaway were out the door in the next second. The bodyguards rolled their eyes at being ordered around by the G-man, but did as he said.
Lance walked over to where Devon was sitting and sat on the couch in front of her, laying Gregory on the couch next to him. The toddler yawned and rolled over, burying his face in the cushions, finally tired. Lance looked away from the little boy, towards her. “Thank you. I take it you know Callaway?”
“Yeah. Oh! I’m Devon Wallace, one of the FBI Vegas Transferors, not some weirdo off the street. I’ve been typing up the notes from this case for the past three days, which is how I figured it out. I’m not buddies with the Cougar, like some of you might think.”
Joey whistled and suddenly discovered the ceiling to be a fascinating thing indeed, as he scuffed the toe of his shoe on the hard wood floor.
“Didn’t think so,” Justin assured quickly.
“Nope, nothing of the sort,” Chris agreed just as quickly.
“So, how did you figure it out?” JC asked, pulling up a foot stool to the fire. Devon could see that he was cold without his sweater, but there was no way in hell he was getting it back any time soon.
“And why didn’t anyone figure it out before the Cougar got the window open?” Lance asked, growing agitated as he looked at his now-sleeping son. He started to pace around the living room, circling the couch. It made Devon a little ill to watch him turn in circles and she turned back to the fire. She noticed that JC had too.
“He acts on the patterns of the full moon, but only if there’s a blue or a blood moon,” she informed them. No one said anything and she glanced over her shoulder to see that everyone had the Huh? look on their face, except the girl who never glanced up from her magazine. Even the bodyguards had come back by this time and were giving her the same bewildered look.
She had opened her mouth and was about to explain when the front door opened and Callaway and Mendoza came back in, stomping their feet. The wind blew in around them, swirling snow inside before they managed to push the door back against the raging storm.
Callaway gave her a look, as though he knew she had been talking when she wasn’t supposed to be. She rolled her eyes, but closed her mouth and looked at him expectantly, even though she knew they hadn’t found anything. The Cougar was too smart to get caught because he hadn’t left the freaking perimeter of the house. And there wouldn’t be any footprints to follow. There was a blizzard going down out there and it had brushed her footprints away as she ran towards the house. The snow was so thick she’d only been able to see one of the houselights and had followed that till she hit the house. Course, she did hit a tree too on the way, she remembered, rubbing her forehead.
“Nothing. No sign of him,” Callaway said, confirming her thoughts.
“Course not. The snow’s coming down so fast and thick and with the wind blowing, he could have been walking next to you the entire time without you even knowing it,” Devon pointed out. Callaway glared at her and she glared back.
“How’d you get through the gate, Wallace?” Mendoza asked.
“When my baby hit the gate, it knocked the thing open enough for me to squeeze through. But I think the Cougar already had it unlocked and ready, cause there was a black SUV parked there. I didn’t think it was any of yours; I guessed it was his.” When no one contradicted her, Devon assumed she had been right.
Callaway had run to another room off the kitchen when she’d started talking and came back out now. “The gate security’s down. All the video cameras are out; he must have knocked out the power for the security.”
“Or the snowstorm did,” Mendoza mused.
They both turned to her, pulling the kitchen stools to the edge of the tiled floor, the boundary between the kitchen and the living room. Devon guessed this was her cue.
“Okay, so looking at the dates, I figured out that he kidnaps the boy when there’s a full moon. The first, there was a blue moon. In October, there was a blood moon.”
“Wait,” Callaway interrupted as she took a deep breath to explain the rest. Devon knew what he was going to ask. She had never spoken of the Wiccan moon calendar; she’d wanted to forget her growing up years, when everything she’d done was dictated by the moons. She hadn’t even been allowed to go to her senior prom because there was a blood moon. Not that anyone had asked her; everyone on that side of Vegas was scared of her grandmother, the Las Vegas witch.
But she let Callaway ask anyway. “What are blue and blood moons?”
“A blue moon is a moon with a blue circle around it. A blood moon has a red circle. It’s actually astrophysics, not magic, although a lot of Wiccan and spiritual folklore claim their magic has greater power at these times. Crystals in a top, extremely thin cloud layer reflect the moon’s light. The crystal’s angles determine the color and the size of the ring. Blue’s the easiest, and most common color of the spectrum, and then it moves through the spectrum, till purple, which is the hardest color and almost never happens. And it happened tonight. You can see it even from Incline Village and Carson City; just not out in the valleys hit by this low snowstorm. And that’s how I knew that he would hit tonight, and why I think tonight would have been his last night; no more cat-and-mouse stuff for him.”
“Why would the game end tonight?” Callaway asked.
Devon looked around the room again, having turned to face forward when she’d started talking. She could tell that they’d never really thought that the Cougar would END the game in the no-more-Gregory sense. Devon knew from the files that because Gregory had never been harmed and was always returned, they had thought the Cougar was one of Gregory’s mother’s relatives. Someone who loved the boy, but hated the father and wanted to play with his emotions.
“The game would have ended tonight because it’s the dark month of the year. February is the blue month and there was a full blue moon. And yes, it was full,” she added when Mendoza opened his mouth. “It was February 28 there, but February 27 here, and there was a full moon that night. April is the green month and there was a green ring, but not a full moon, so he didn’t take the boy. June is the month of the orange moon. Again, the night he left something, there was an orange ring, but no full moon. Yellow is July’s color. And October’s moon is already called the blood moon. So having a blood moon during the month of the blood moon meant it was time to take the kid again. And tonight, it’s a purple moon, the rarest of rings, during the Dark Month. I can’t ever remember that happening before, not while I’ve been alive. I think he thinks it’s the sign he’s been waiting for, that all of the powers are with him.”
Lance had gotten nervous while she’d been talking and was pacing again. Devon felt bad for him; all this talk of ending the game wasn’t exactly a comforting topic of conversation for the father of the child. Justin was munching a sub sandwich. The girl was still reading her magazine (who the hell was this chick anyway?). Joey was sitting on the piano bench and the three bodyguards were sitting at the dining room table. And JC…he was sitting next to her, fingering his hemp necklace and running it around and around his neck. Devon feared he might be getting a rope burn at the back of his neck, but didn’t say anything.
“Well, the Cougar’s long gone by now, Mr. Bass, so you don’t have to worry for now,” Mendoza instructed. Lance sat back down next to Gregory, pulling the couch blanket off the back of the couch and covering his son with it.
“Umm, actually,” Devon said meekly. Oh man, they were going to kill her. “He can’t be gone.”
“You got in, I’m sure he can get out,” Callaway reasoned.
“I dunno,” Joey murmured, looking out the dining room window. “It’s coming down pretty fast.”
“Uh…even if it wasn’t, he can’t really drive away,” Devon said. She pulled a set of car keys out of her back pocket and dangled them in front of her.
“Please tell me those aren’t his!” Mendoza growled.
“Well, he left his car running and ready for a fast getaway. I wasn’t sure if I would make it in time…”
“So you took them. Dammit, Dev, that was stupid!”
“Oh, shove it, Agent Callaway. Even if I hadn’t, I still don’t think he’d be leaving without Gregory. This is the night he’s been waiting for. And he thinks he’s invincible tonight. He won’t just say ‘Shucks,’ and head home!”
“Shut up, you two,” Mendoza said, glaring at the two of them. “We’ll just have to make sure he can’t get to the child.”
“So, he’s out there, but he can’t get to the kid and he can’t get away. What does this mean?” JC asked, looking at the agents and at Devon.
Devon turned to him. “Have you ever heard the term ‘loose cannon?’”
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