Page 34 of Valentine's Day Treasure

“We should go to the Presidential Suite,” Dahlia said.

“Let’s check it out,” Beckett said, opening the door.

But Mac was standing there, and he had someone with him who Dahlia had never seen before. A human? The guy was a foot shorter than Mac’s 6’3’’, with salt and pepper hair. He was dressed in a maintenance uniform and had snow on his shoulders and in his hair.

Mac looked past Beckett saying, “Ah, Cerise, could we get a little help?”

“Uh, sure?”

“This is Chet, he works maintenance here, and apparently they have a building across the way in the woods, and well, he says he saw some wolves out there.” Mac rolled his eyes and tilted his head.

“Uh…okay, I see.” Cerise said.

“We told him you could explain to him what he really saw—foxes, right?”

Mac was nodding while he spoke, with his eyebrows raised, his intense gaze on Cerise almost comical as he tried to signal to her what he wanted her to do. Dahlia hid her face, trying not to laugh. Cerise’s power was mind control, and she’d had to fix this kind of thing before.

“Sure, I can do that,” Cerise said. “Hi.”

“What are you, a scientist or something?” Chet asked.

“Wildlife biologist,” she said smoothly. “What exactly did you see?”

Chet spoke excitedly, pointing at the forest. Cerise listened, nodding along, until she’d heard the whole story. She was silent for a moment and then she moved closer to Chet and spoke firmly.

“What you saw were definitely foxes.”

Chet shook his head and frowned. “But—”

“My colleagues and I recently completed a study of those woods,” she continued, cutting him off, “and we catalogued several foxes that were abnormal in size but were, in fact, foxes. We’re now working on getting grant funding to study what makes them so large. It’s really exciting stuff.”

Dahlia watched Chet’s face as Cerise spoke, and she could see the exact moment when Cerise ‘pushed’ him, as she called it. His frown relaxed and he looked thoughtful, then calm and full of trust.

“Huh… I’ve never seen a black fox,” he said, tapping a finger on his chin, one eyebrow raised. “Or a white one with boots.”

While Cerise continued talking in soothing tones, Dahlia pulled out her phone and googled ‘black fox’ to see if there actually was such a thing. She found pictures of black foxes and discovered they were black because they had melanistic coats, but they were called silver foxes, because of their silver undercoat. There were also white foxes, of course, but they lived in the arctic. Hopefully Chet didn’t know that.

“Oh, I see,” Chet was saying. “Fascinating. They live in these woods, you say?”

“They do.” Cerise nodded with a smile.

“Problem solved,” Mac said, clapping once, then rubbing his hands together. He opened the door then not-so-gently shoved Chet toward it.

Perfect,Dahlia thought. She took one last look at the image of the silver fox, and then imagined it, projecting an illusion across the parking lot.

Chet saw it and yelled as he pointed. “Whoo, there’s one!” He ran out the door.

Mac stepped outside, then turned back to Cerise. “Thanks.” He looked at Dahlia. “Nice one,” and then he pulled the door shut behind him.

Cerise grinned at her and gave her a thumbs up. They ran to the door and opened it. Chet had stopped on the far side of the parking lot and was looking every which way. The fox had only lasted a moment and he wouldn’t see it again.

“Now we can go,” Beckett said from behind them.

Beckett seemed to know where he was going, so the rest of them followed him. He took them past the front office, to the next door, and then he went inside, bringing them to the end of a long hallway.

“Mmm,” Beckett growled. “I smell steak.”

“Me too,” Crew said.

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