 Forge sat on the back steps of Boggs’s Castle, watching Moose in the backyard. Lucas walked down the steps and sat beside him. Moose chased a leaf, pounced on it, stumbled, and rolled over. He stood up and barked at the leaf. They both chuckled. Simon’s car pulled in the drive, and he looked at Moose as he walked up the path to join Forge and Lucas. “I think he’s already bigger.” When Forge looked up and nodded, Simon asked, “Any word from Robert?” Both Lucas and Forge shook their heads. Simon sighed and sank down onto the steps with them. Moose pawed at a stone, backed up, and barked at it, making all of them laugh. “It is good to have a dog here again, though I’ve forgotten what puppyhood was like. Thank you, both of you,” Forge said. Simon snorted. “You’ve said the same thing about puppies every time there was a new one.” Lucas put one arm around Forge’s shoulder and hugged him. “You’re welcome, but it wasn’t an entirely selfless act.” The computer in the basement chimed. At once they were off the steps and moving. Forge darted across the yard and scooped up his puppy before sprinting after Simon and Lucas into the house and down the basement steps. Lucas hit the button activating the microphone and connecting the call. “Robert? What’s going on? We’ve been trying to reach you.” “I’ve been waiting for the email with those details you were going to send,” Forge added. They heard a sniff and what sounded like someone wiping their nose with their wrist. “Rob… my dad…. Agent Turner is…. He couldn’t respond to your calls. I’m sorry. He passed away not long ago. Who is this?” Forge had to take a moment to steady himself and focus. “My name is Jonas Forge, I’m a detective. Robert, your father, and I worked together a few times along with two associates of mine.” He bit his lip and squeezed his eyes shut for a few seconds. Lucas and Simon each said hello in turn, and all of them offered their condolences. It was Lucas who asked, “Who is this? Blair, his son?” “Yeah. You can call me Alucard.” Present Day “I remember being there, at the school, when the robbery happened,” Blair said. “I wanted so badly to help my dad with his investigation and to be like him. It was the night of the robbery we started talking seriously about me joining the FBI. They were recruiting more and more students studying computer sciences. I applied to the college I was attending because the FBI recruited heavily from it, and my dad really loved the idea I wanted to follow in his footsteps.” Forge put one arm around him and squeezed before rubbing his back a few times. “You are like him, and you do more than you’d ever have done in the FBI, I’m sure.” “It’s possible you saw our suspect. Do you think that’s what your dad meant about learning things about him?” Declan asked. “I should have told him the truth about us the minute he mentioned that painting. I should’ve been on the next flight to New Mexico and backed him up,” Forge said. “I’m so sorry, Blair.” “It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault as far as I know. He died from injuries and complications caused by a car accident.” Blair understood, now, the feelings he knew originated from Forge. “Don’t blame yourself.” “But if I’d told him, made him understand what we were really dealing with, beforehand, he might not have died. I always thought it was too much of a coincidence he died when he did,” Forge said. “He never let on he knew about vampires and werewolves, but by that time I suspected he did. I convinced myself it was my imagination running wild, and I was seeing things that weren’t there. It made sense, though. He helped us research the paranormal. Why wouldn’t he accept that he had a friend who was a vampire?” “Except Simon and I thought the same thing. We’re all to blame,” Lucas said softly. “You thought our thief was responsible somehow for Robert Turner’s death?” Declan asked. Blair looked from Forge to Declan, then at Lucas. This was the first he was learning of that theory. Forge shook his head and sighed. “I don’t know. I didn’t know then, and Robert was FBI. Getting information from them wasn’t going to happen. It was their case by that time, and to them I was nothing but a small-town buttinksy cop who’d bungled it the first time around. I had nothing but official channels to go through, and they were all closed. Robert and I shared information on a variety of things, but it was never official. He was my FBI contact, and once he was gone, so was my ability to get inside information.” Declan shifted so he faced Blair completely. “Tell us everything about this car accident. What about the other driver? Were there any passengers?” “There was no other driver. My dad lost control of his car and crashed into a cement wall,” Blair said. “Wait a minute. Are you telling me your father, an experienced FBI field agent, with, I’m presuming, defensive driving training smashed into a wall during an investigation and nobody at the FBI thought it was even a tiny bit suspicious?” Forge’s temper started to rise and Blair didn’t need his empathic bond to feel the effects. “Oh, hell, no. A lot of people at the FBI thought those events were very suspicious. My dad’s car was only a few weeks old. He’d just bought one of the new models to come out that year. He either jumped or was thrown from the car, no way to tell, but the doctors said he shouldn’t have lived, and it was miracle he did survive. The car was so badly burned there was almost no evidence recovered, and what they could find didn’t show any tampering.” Blair stopped and glanced around at the other men. “He survived the crash and died a few days later from a blood clot, but he never woke up. The people he worked with did what they could with what they had, but it wasn’t enough. It’s not a closed case, but it’s a cold case now. Whatever he knew that could have shed light on what happened died with him.” Quarry is available in eBook, paperback and through Kindle Unlimited.    
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