Page 6 of Secrets of the Frostbound Cottage

The way her eyes lit up at the plants, I had a sinking feeling my apartment was about to become the set ofExtreme Plant Makeover: Elven Edition.

Chapter Four

Twenty minutes later, I’d given Orla a brief tour of my tiny apartment and grabbed a small go-bag containing some spare clothes, a spray deodorant and a hairbrush on the off chance that I’d need to look respectable at some point. I was currently wearing coffee-stained jeans with frayed edges and a rip in the knee. On second thoughts, I packed some suit trousers, just in case.

Orla was happily talking to the snake plant on my windowsill, relief still rolling off her. I didn’t tell her that such feelings were premature. I was good at finding things, yes, but who knew in what state I’d find her parents – if I found them at all? I squelched down such negativity. After what she’d been through these last nine days, she deserved to keep hoping.

I called a final goodbye and hustled down to my car, which was parked on the road. The sight of my rust bucket made my soul ache. I’d named her Rosie, hoping it would improve her reliability, but if anything it had made her worse. Maybe she was more of a Gertrude.

Rosie, bless her unreliable heart, looked like she was auditioning for the role of ‘car most likely to spontaneously combust’. The petrol gauge no longer worked, so I had to take a fingers-crossed approach to driving. After one spectacular twelve-hour long breakdown, I’d taken to carrying a huge plastic container of petrol in the boot, which was fine as long as I didn't get into an accident and die in a fiery inferno.

I really hoped I’d make it to Little Rollright. The driver’s door wouldn’t open (again), so I climbed in through the passenger side, performing what could only be described as a twenty-point wriggle into the driver’s seat.

Finally ensconced, I typed Little Rollright into the GPS on my phone. I tried to ignore the tightness in my chest; any missing person’s case was personal, but this one hit so close to home it made my heart ache. Nine days missing.Nine. It couldn’t end well.

I’d been responsible for breaking a lot of bad news during my career. Usually, it was about cheating spouses or wayward children who, sometimes quite rightly, had no intention of ever going home to their parents. But I’d never had to break news like that whichI’donce received, and I hoped to hell this wouldn’t be the first time.

I found Rosie’s key among the jumble on my keychain, which now weighed enough to qualify as a weapon, and cranked her into life. She sputtered awake with all the enthusiasm of a pensioner being dragged to a nightclub. I gave her an encouraging pat on the dashboard. ‘Good girl, Rosie. Let’s at least try to make it to Oxfordshire, yeah?’

As I started to back out of my parking space, my phone rang. The name Dean appeared on the screen and a satisfied smile pulled at my lips. He was one of the contacts I was waiting to hear from. Fingers crossed he had good news about BonBon.

The first time I’d seen Dean was in a bar seven years ago, and my initial thought had been that he was certainly worth taking home for an evening. That was until I started talking to him. Learning about him as a person didn’t make him any less attractive, it just shifted the source of my attraction towards him.

He was single, thirty-three, and worked in the intelligence unit of the Met police. While he loved his job, it definitely came with its fair share of frustrations. I’d figured out straight away that I could have one night of fun then never see him again because that was how I worked – or I could see if we could strike up something close to a friendship where he trusted me enough to help out occasionally on cases.

All these years later, I knew I’d made the right choice, even if the sight of him in tight jeans and a plaid shirt occasionally made me doubt myself. It didn’t help that I knew he felt the same way. In those seven years, his longest relationship had only lasted six months and he always said it was because he was holding out for me. I was pretty sure he was only half joking.

Almost every conversation ended with him asking me out for a drink, but I always said not yet. I didn’t say no because I really wanted to say yes. It wasn’t just a case of not wanting to mix business with pleasure; IlikedDean. He was a great guy and the closest thing to a friend I had in the human world, but I didn’t want to be responsible for breaking his heart. He knew nothing of the magical world and, by our laws, that was the way it had to stay. Besides, he liked non-magical Beatrix, the martial arts teaching, head screwed on, kick-arse PI.

I didn’t think a Met intelligence officer would cope well with finding out that the real me was a magical orphan whose inheritance involved becoming the guardian to an all-powerful, dangerously magical flame – even though I was a magical washout. For the moment I was wilfully ignoring my destiny, butI knew that one day it would knock so hard I wouldn’t be able to ignore it. Then again, maybe telling him the truth was what he needed to move on and forget about me, at least in a romantic sense.

I shifted the car back into park. ‘Dean,’ I said. ‘Have you got some information on the dog theft?’

‘It’s so great to hear from you too, Stonehaven,’ he replied snarkily. ‘I’m really well. It’s lovely of you to ask.’

I rolled my eyes but I couldn’t help the little smile that flickered at the corner of my lips. ‘I’m sorry, you’re right,’ I said, a shade more warmly. ‘Dean, it’s lovely to hear from you – especially if you have news about the dog theft, which I seriously hope is why you’re calling. The owner is going crazy, and if I don’t come up with a lead soon I’m going to give her your direct number and tell her you’re the man to talk to.’

He probably didn’t realise how dire that threat was, but I truly was tempted so he could be the lucky recipient of the two-hourly calls instead of me.

He chuckled. ‘Fine. I guess I should be flattered. Most women just want me for my abs.’

‘The dog, Dean?’

He sighed, though I could tell it was in jest. ‘Yeah. So there’s been a spate of dognapping cases around the Greenwich area. That’s where yours was taken, right?’

‘Yup.’

‘Well, the case is about to split wide open,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘About half an hour ago someone rang in with a noise complaint, said they’d heard lots of dogs barking about two miles from the latest theft.’

It sounded positive, but not the smoking gun he seemed to think it was. ‘Surely you lot get a fair few noise complaints about dogs?’ I said dubiously. It was a pretty big leap from a complaint about barking to feeling confident he’d found a dognapping ring,and I didn’t have time to chase up a dud lead when Orla was counting on me to find her parents.

‘The person who called said it sounded like there wereloadsof dogs, like a kennel. And it wasn’t in a residential area – it’s industrial.’ He stressed the last word, as if I needed it reinforcing.

‘No dog pounds or boarding houses near there?’ I sat up a little straighter. Maybe itwasa smoking gun.

‘None that I could find,’ he said smugly. ‘In fact, the area has a load of empty units – it’s near-enough abandoned.’

I started to smile. ‘So it’s the perfect place to hide a bunch of kidnapped dogs.’

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