Read Online Taken (Ava Delaney #4) by Claire Farrell - Free Book Online

was
proud of myself for holding in my flinch.
    “Something new
come up?” he asked at last.
    I smiled
sweetly. “You might know if you didn’t give up before we got
started.”
    He glared at
me.
    “All right, no
need for the evil eyes. We reckon that book was stolen from Eddie’s
shop, and we think Illeana had another hiding place because Carl
found other stories that might be supernatural, and there are bits
and pieces that don’t make sense. Like they have a few pieces of
the puzzle missing. We were going to talk to Callista again to see
if there’s anything she might have missed.”
    “Something
electronic maybe? I didn’t see a phone or a laptop in those boxes.
Maybe she even had a couple of flash drives hidden around the
place. We’ll never find them.” He frowned and leaned forward. “That
book. It would be pretty hard to steal from Eddie. He keeps that
place locked tight.”
    “He’s upped the
ante recently. I can feel the change when I walk in there. Lots of
extra padding. So maybe he knows someone stole something.”
    “Maybe he
thinks it was you.”
    I hadn’t
thought of that. “Why wouldn’t he say something?”
    He snorted and
lifted his drink again. “You know what these old things are like;
they live on secrets and lies. You track down any witnesses
yet?”
    I shook my
head. “That’s the biggest reason we think we’re missing some info.
I mean, she got that image from somewhere. You can’t be the only
survivor. But the worst thing is how far back some of these
articles go. There are legends in certain villages about these
things. That’s how many families were targeted.”
    “But why?” he
muttered. “Maybe we need to go visiting these places then, Ava. The
myth might tell us more than anything recent. People just don’t
believe what they see anymore.”
    “Go where?”
Carl asked as he sat heavily next to Peter.
    Esther took the
seat next to me and placed a suspiciously blue drink in front of
me. I cast a glance at Finn, who waved.
    “Does he think
I’m stupid?” I asked, eyeing the glass warily.
    “Don’t worry,
it’s blue food dye. He thought it would be funny,” Esther said.
“Nothing fae about it.”
    I sniffed the
drink to be sure. “Fine. But I wouldn’t put it past him to slip me
another one. He enjoys tormenting me.”
    “Where are we
going?” Carl repeated.
    “Anywhere
there’s been a sighting of those monsters in the last century,”
Peter said confidently. “You’d be surprised how many old wives’
tales are scarily accurate.”
    “Esther, were
there any other things in Illeana’s belongings? A personal
computer, flash drives, anything up to date, basically?” I
asked.
    She shook her
head. “Sirens are pretty old fashioned. I don’t think she would
have kept stuff like that in her house, although, she was keen on her gadgets. I’ll check the headquarters and see if I can
find anything, but I’m pretty sure someone cleared everything out.
Maybe they left something behind.”
    “Or maybe they
took it,” Carl said. We all turned to him. “Think about it. Someone
put her on to this stuff. Someone high up. Someone was actually
able to steal from Eddie, and he hasn’t retaliated. Why not?
Because he suspects it’s someone with more power than he. But if
they’re that powerful, they wouldn’t want any evidence lying
around.”
    We all absorbed
the idea, and it made a whole lot of sense to me. “Who then?
Fionnuala?” The starkly terrifying head of the council was fae, so
in theory, she would know the right thief. Fae magic was the most
powerful.
    “Maybe. She’s
the highest you can go here, and it can’t be Erossi. He would want
everyone to know what he was doing, the cocky git,” Peter said.
    “What about
Koda?” Esther asked.
    “He’s not
exactly on top form,” Peter said.
    “What about…
another consultant,” I said, mulling it over. “Someone Eddie owes a
favour to, maybe.”
    “The witch?”
Carl suggested. “She’s always