I swung the car into our street and slowed as I neared the beautiful old maple tree that marked the road that led down to our house. But something caught my eye—the brief glint of sunlight off glass deep in the trees. It took me a moment to realize what it was.
The windshield of another car.
A chill ran down my spine. They were waiting for me. So much for them not knowing where my dad lived.
I pressed the accelerator and zoomed past. No car came out of the trees to follow.
God, all these years of thinking he was safe, of thinking that the scientists didn’t know about him and couldn’t bother him—and yet at any moment they could have so easily swept him into their vicious little net.
So why hadn’t they?
Marsten wasn’t one to hold back from acquiring more test subjects, so maybe they simply didn’t realize Dad was dragon. Maybe they’d been watching him for a while, but had never seen him change, never seen him play with fire, and just presumed he was human.
But how would they have known where he lived in the first place? It wasn’t something Mom could have told them, because she didn’t know. They’d snatched her before we’d moved to America.
And all I’d taken over to Scotland with me was some cash and a couple of credit cards. I’d had no intentions of being there long, and had figured I’d have no reason not to be there illegally. God, I’d been so arrogantly confident—and a stupidly easy target.
Could I have told them?
As I’d told Trae, I’d been knocked out many a time over the years. Maybe they’d found some sort of truth drug that worked with our body chemistry. Maybe I’d babbled my heart out, and just hadn’t known about it.
And if that were the case, it was just as well I didn’t know all that much about my relatives. At least I wouldn’t have been able to betray them as well.
So what did I do now?
With a shortrange tracker embedded in one of my teeth, I couldn’t go too near those men. It’d be my luck that they’d have a receiver.
But I still had to get to the house. Still had to see how my dad was. And that left me only the option of going through the trees and walking along the shore. That should put enough distance between the tracker in my tooth and any receiver the men might have.
I drove off the highway and followed what looked to be little more than a deer track deep into the trees, until there was nothing more to see than shadows and tree trunks. After switching off the engine, I opened the door and got out. The scent of balsam and rotting leaf matter filled the air, but I could feel the closeness of the bay. The energy of it seemed to caress my skin, making it tingle.
Home, I thought, and felt a smile touch my lips.
I shoved the car keys into my pocket and walked through the tree trunks, following the faint whiff of water down to the bay’s boulder-strewn shoreline.
I had no real memories of Loch Ness. I might have been born in its dark, murky waters, but Dad and I had moved here when I was barely six years old. This was the home of my heart. It was here I’d been raised, here I’d learned how to swim and dive, to hunt and fish, and to be all that a sea dragon could be. All under my dad’s watchful gaze and tutelage.
The image of him sitting on a chair, casually drinking a beer as the moonlight played through his blond hair, had tears stinging my eyes. Damn it, I missed him. Missed him so much my heart seemed to ache under the weight of it.
And suddenly I was running up the beach. Waves lapped at my toes, tingling touches of power that seemed filled with welcoming. But I no time to stop and play, because time was running out for my dad.
Our old log home, with its sharply angled green-iron roof and vast array of windows came into view. Despite the urgency hammering at my soul, I slowed. There was no sign of movement near the house, and no sound to be heard other than the whisper of water across stone and sand. There was no sign that anyone had been near the place for months, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t.
I jogged into the shadows offered by the pines, spruces, and cedars that formed a U-shaped windbreak around our house, and slowed as I neared one of the side windows. With every sense alert to catch any sound or movement, I crept forward and peered past the sill. The living room was filled with sunshine, and dust lay thick on the coffee table and along the top of the old leather sofas. Dad had never been the world’s best housekeeper, but even he wouldn’t let the dust get this thick.
Frowning, trying to ignore the fear beginning to clog my throat, I ducked past the window and moved to the back door. Again, no one appeared to be near. After another quick look around, I slipped my hand past the potted remains of a sorry-looking raspberry bush and lightly dug at the soil. My fingers touched metal and relief slithered through me. At least some things hadn’t changed.
I pulled out the key, wiped off the dirt, then slipped along the porch to the door. The key slid in after a bit of jiggling, and the door opened.
The ticking of the grandfather clock sitting in the dining room filled the silence, and the air was thick with age and dust. I walked through the mudroom and laundry room into the kitchen. The dishes that lay in the sink were coated with sludge so thick it had to have been brewing for weeks, at least.
Dad wasn’t here. And he hadn’t been here for some time, if those dishes were anything to go by.
Again fear ran through me, thicker than before. I took several deep breaths to calm myself, and tried to remember who he might have turned to if things had taken a turn for the worse. Really, there would only be one person. Our family had never been big on making friends, and we’d pretty much kept to ourselves over our years here. I had friends at school, of course, but none of them ever knew what I was. Or what Dad was. That was a secret I had never been tempted to reveal—not after my mother’s kidnapping and our subsequent flight.
I couldn’t remember Dad with friends. It was always just him and me, and I think he preferred it that way. Which meant he could only have turned to old Doc Macy for help.