Page 70 of Truthfinder’s Promise

22

Meredith took a circuitous route to her mother’s mausoleum, just in case Julian was having her watched. She hadn’t been followed, which was a bloody miracle considering how many times Julian had texted her in the last day. Obsessive didn’t begin to cover it. She’d responded just enough times to prevent him from actually calling.

Outside the mausoleum, she stopped long enough to lay a simple ward around the structure, tying it to her as the focal point instead of the actual building, so it would be easy enough to reabsorb upon her departure and not be a colossal waste of Aspect if she didn’t need it. Out of an abundance of caution, she made it a fully impervious ward. Any insects or other living creatures who wanted to come this way tonight would have to wait an hour or two.

Precautions in place, she turned to face the center of the room. Unlike her house and grounds the mausoleum had only one potential location for a secret room: underground. The floor was smooth white marble of a seamless construction, not a grout line in sight, which spoke to the probable involvement of an elemental Aspecter in the building process. No part of the floor itself could move or slip aside to reveal a passageway. Which meant the entrance had to be through the stone coffin itself. Considering it was supposed to contain a body right now…

“I seriously hope the entire coffin moves,” she muttered. It would be just like Savannah Townsend to make someone climb past her dead body to get to the things she’d hoarded in life.

Meredith dropped to her hands and knees beside the sarcophagus, inspecting where the base met the floor, running her fingers along the seam. Once she’d gone around it twice she had to admit there wasn’t a seam. Definitely an Elemental Aspecter involved in the building process, and Savannah had had them fuse the marble base of the sarcophagus to the marble floor.

Which left her with the sarcophagus lid. Which would open to the place where a body was supposed to rest. Where her mother’s body was supposed to have rested.

“You were a sick, sick woman, Savannah.” Unsurprisingly, the empty coffin didn’t answer.

The stone lid extended a couple inches past the sides. She ran her fingers underneath the lip, feeling where the two met. She felt the crack that proved it was indeed just a lid, but when she tried to shove it to the side, it didn’t budge in the slightest.

Ancient Greek and Egyptian sarcophagus lids could weigh up to several tons and therefore be immovable by one woman without the aid of modern machinery. Since this one was a modern style, even though the lid appeared to be made of marble, she had been operating under the assumption that it was light enough to move. Because her mother would have to have moved it on her own every time she’d come here.

Certain spells could enhance strength, and Battle Aspecters like Valkyrie could do so as easily as breathing, but Savannah hadn’t had Battle Aspect, and even that wouldn’t move this thing if it weighed a few thousand pounds.

She lost track of time as she circled around and around the marble coffin, running her fingers over the intricate carvings, searching for any way it might open. Her hands took on a thick layer of stone dust, her skin drying and cracking.

She was crouched down, the fingertips of her left hand wedged in the space between two carvings, feeling for cracks or seams or hidden buttons, when something slammed into her wards. The force and surprise of the attack sent her shooting to her feet. One of her fingernails caught on the carving and ripped.

“Son of a bitch.” The nail had torn almost clean off, blood streaming from the wound as whoever was outside continued to launch a barrage of assaults on her wards. They were physical assaults, not magical, almost as if whoever was outside was trying to beat through with brute force.

“Jensen?” she asked when she stepped into view of the mausoleum’s doorway. He checked himself from where he’d been ramming the ward with his shoulder. His eyes were a little wild, something distinctly lupine in the irises.

“Let me in.”

She decided to magnanimously ignore that he’d ordered rather than asked, and made a Jensen-sized hole in the ward that sealed up after him. He was extremely pissed off, if the expression on his face was any indication.

“What the hell is this?” He shoved something blue into her face.

Meredith looked down at the sticky note she’d left on the kitchen counter because she hadn’t wanted to bother anyone before she headed out. Or, if she was being truthful, because she hadn’t wanted anyone to come with her.

“That is a note I left for you.”

“Precisely,” he growled—and it was definitely an actual growl. Could he partially shift his vocal cords? How much control did that take? Or was it a lack of control that caused such a partial shift? “A note. A fucking note.”

She took the piece of paper, because it seemed to be offending him, and tucked it into her pocket. “You have something against notes?”

Meredith asked the question with sugary sweetness, like he was being ridiculous. “I have something against being uninformed and purposefully left behind when you’re going off on a hunch that could mean the life or death of my sister and could get you killed.”

“I would have called if I’d found anything.” Her tone was calm and measured. “I wasn’t followed and, as you discovered, I took precautions.”

Precautions. Maybe his shoulder would be sore later from trying to beat his way through her precautions, but he hadn’t precisely been thinking. He’d just known that she was gone, and a dozen what if scenarios whirled through his head. What if Julian found her when she was alone? What if someone else connected to her mother found her? What if she got into a car crash driving like a speed demon? What if she got hurt?

He’d been gripped in the kind of fear he hadn’t ever wanted to feel again after Natalie disappeared. The fear that something terrible had happened to someone he loved.

Shit. He couldn’t love her. He liked her just fine. He liked her a lot. They’d had an instant, mutual attraction the moment they’d met. She was fun and sexy and easy to be with, and yes, he wanted to see where it might go.

But he couldn’t love her. He wasn’t ready to love her. Not when he could lose her. Not when he couldn’t protect her because how could he protect her? He hadn’t even been able to protect Natalie.

“Hello?” Meredith snapped her fingers a hairsbreadth from his eyes and he jerked back. “You look like you got hit by a battering ram.”

He shook himself, and his gaze fell to the hand she had clutched to her chest. “You’re bleeding.”