Between the Spirit and the Dust

Chapter Twenty Three

“What is it?” barked Gabriel into his phone, pacing up and down his floor. “What’s the update with Jenna?”

“Sir, I’m afraid it’s bad news."

Even from across the line, Maurice, the most experienced surveillance specialist from Zeus Consulting felt terrified of Gabriel St. Clair. He’d heard some bad news about the young heir but who was Maurice to question his methods? Now, as he waited for Gabriel to take in the awful news that he was about to deliver, he wished he’d paid more attention to what the rumors had said about Gabriel.

After a beat of stony silence, Gabriel asked, his tone dropping dangerously low, “What does that mean? You’re going to have to clarify yourself." 

“I mean to say that… I’m afraid Ms Greenfield is dead.” Maurice shuddered at the thought of it. Maurice had brought Jenna Greenfield to the young St. Clair’s place just a few days ago…and now the pretty FBI agent was dead.

Come to think about it, she had been behaving pretty strangely when she met Gabriel as well. The whole drive to his apartment she had been muttering under her breath about mind-readers and about how she was in danger because she was going to get found out. 

And when she’d met St. Clair, her reaction had been even stranger. She’d practically burst into tears when she saw him and then the young St. Clair had ordered Maurice out of the room.

Call it an occupational hazard but even though Maurice had left the room physically, he’d left one of his tiny bugs in the room. He was in the business of gathering information after all and nothing about the situation seemed right to him.

And Maurice had heard the strangest things. He didn’t know what to believe, only that Jenna had been terrified and St. Clair unsympathetic. She had been adamant about leaving the FBI’s employment and refused to listen to anything St. Clair said. Or at least until St. Clair offered Jenna a million dollars if anything untoward happened to her while she was carrying out their agreement. The money was to be transferred into some man called Jerome Draper.

And something bad had happened to Jenna after all. A million dollars for her life… Was that really worth it? 

“Sir are you still there?” asked Maurice hesitantly, realizing that the other man had not spoken for a while" 

Gabriel cleared his throat. “Yes. Yes I am.” 

Maurice gritted his teeth, getting ready to deliver the second piece of bad news. “That’s not all, Sir. I just received news from my team that your sister has disappeared.” 

“I do not have a sister.” 

Maurice gulped audibly. He had forgotten that although it was common knowledge about the St. Clair’s employees that Gabriel had a half-sister, the young St. Clair had never liked her. In fact, it might’ve been more accurate to say that he hated his sister. “Oh, right, um. I mean, uh, I was referring to—”

“That’s enough,” said Gabriel, cutting in. “What can you tell me about her ‘disappearance’?” 

Beads of sweat started forming on Maurice’s brow as he carefully considered his next few words. He would not want to be on the other side of Gabriel’s rage but how else was he going to deliver the news? “Well, the team stationed at Brown University was keeping watch on her, like you asked. They were following her and everything seemed to be going as planned but then…they lost track of her for a few minutes and then, it was like she disappeared into thin air.”

“Very clever, Sophia. A concealment spell,” murmured Gabriel.

Maurice frowned. Had he heard correctly? Did Gabriel just say something about a spell?