Page 1017 of One More Kiss

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More than two hours later,we pulled into the parking lot of a giant chain-store gas station with a cartoon of a buck-toothed beaver on the sign.

“These places give me the creeps,” Connor said, shaking his head.

I had to agree. “They’re like the convenience-store equivalents of the big-box stores. But tackier.”

I walked around the outside of the enormous building. One side was dedicated to gas pumps for cars, the other given over to diesel pumps for eighteen-wheelers. Several electric car charging stations had been added to the front of the store’s parking lot.

On the side devoted to big trucks, I found a set of dumpsters tucked up against the outer brick wall of the store.

“What do you want to bet this is where they found the tracker?” I gestured at the ground around the dumpsters, littered with small bits of trash.

“I recognize one of the scents here,” Connor replied, taking in a deep breath. “It’s the same as one at the docks. I’m guessing it’s either Johnson or someone who was following him.”

I nodded and closed my eyes, sending my magical senses questing outward, then pulling them back to myself.

There was definitely something here, a tiny remnant of something magical. Focusing in on that smidgen of magical residue, I expanded my sense of it and then jumped in, like diving into water. It enveloped me, soaking into my skin, immersing me in the sense of it.

Then, thoroughly saturated in it, I pushed my senses outward again, scanning the nearby area.

There. About a mile away, I sensed a stronger smudge of the same magical fingerprint, a remainder of the spellcaster’s aura.

Anyone looking for magical residue here would now find my own mystical footprint in the midst of this parking lot.

That kind of residue meant that few mages could work anonymously—not really.

But this wasn’t anyone I recognized.

Then again, I had avoided most of the magical community since my newsworthy magical explosion in college. I was unlikely to recognize any but the most well-known magic users.

“I’ve got something,” I said, gesturing Connor to follow me back to the SUV.

Driving slowly, I kept my mystical senses homed in on that bit of residue I had felt. It took us back onto the highway, then off again at the next exit. A small state highway wound back around the direction we had come from. And then I lost the trail.

“We passed a dirt-road turnoff about a quarter-mile back,” Connor pointed out.

I let my senses spread outward, searching again for the flicker of magical residue, and decided checking out the dirt road was worth a shot. Turning around, I backtracked and took the turn.

The road, graded with white caliche rocks, wound into the countryside outside the town. On one side, a wide, open field held longhorn cattle, happily grazing behind a barbed-wire fence. Tangled regrowth, mostly thorny mesquite, Johnson grass, and cedar trees, along with several bushes I didn’t recognize, lined the other side.

Of course the magic was coming from the other side of the overgrown wilderness that had taken over the once-cleared ranchland.

I pulled over to get a closer look and pointed through the brush. “It’s somewhere in there, maybe a few hundred feet back?”

“This is where I can come in handy.” Without another word, Connor turned his back to me and began stripping off his clothes.

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