Okay, you know the drill. None of the characters you recognize belong to me. They are the property of Laurell K Hamilton. This fiction is not authorized. I am not making any money from it. It is purely for my and perhaps your enjoyment.
Rating: PG-13 to be safe though I don’t think there is anything that bad in this chapter.
Thanks to everyone who continues to read and give feedback. You guys are the best. J Special thanks to my most awesome beta and soul sister who did such an awesome job of catching my mistakes and getting this back so fast to me! Much Love Looney Tunes!
Hugs,
Maggie
What If: Chapter 3/?
Noah was beginning to get worried. Maggie hadn’t come home in over three days. He didn’t notice too much the first day. He was busy with Micah. When he came home to an empty house he thought she must have gotten paged with an emergency at the hospital. She often forgot to leave a message when she was focused on work. Now it was nearly two days later and she still hadn’t come home to sleep or even take a shower and change.
This wasn’t like her, he grimly thought. They had tickets to a performance of a traveling Broadway show she was dragging him to see. It was definitely not like her to miss that. The sheer joy of making him squirm over having to sit through it should have had her running home to get ready. Smiling, he realized the truth was he didn’t mind going as much as he pretended. The light in her eyes and soft relaxed smile she got watching a live show was worth all the cheesy characters breaking into song every three minutes. Shaking his head, they wouldn’t make the show now; he tried to figure out where his mate could be.
She wasn’t responding to his pages. He had called the hospital but nobody at the desk knew where she was. He wished he knew her coworkers better so he could just run over there and ask around. He was wary of hospitals though. They reminded him too much of things best forgotten so he wasn’t in the habit of visiting her there. At least her lab at the lair had a less institutional feel to it. He supposed he could ask Dr. Lillian to check around. There was one major problem with that idea though. He was afraid to admit to anyone that he couldn’t find her.
He didn’t really expect to her still be at the hospital anyway. If she had been working on a case the past few days, she would have remembered to call him by now. If she wasn’t at the hospital, where the hell was she? He had already checked the security cams at the lair himself so he knew she hadn’t been to the lab in the past few days. That wasn’t like her either. Something was definitely up but what?
There hadn’t been any major fights in the past few weeks.
Sure, there was some bickering about him being overprotective and her being too
nosy concerning his business. That was just the usual stuff they butted heads
over on a regular basis. It wasn’t something she would leave him over… Was it? Yeah her
car was gone but surely she wouldn’t leave him without at least talking to him
first. It wasn’t like her to do something so heartless. Looking at the clock he
realized it was almost midnight. It wouldn’t do much good to go searching for
her at this hour.
He’d wait until tomorrow then talk to Micah about his options.
His Nimir-Raj would know something was up anyway. He always read Noah’s
emotions so easily no matter how well he hid them from the others. Well he was
their leader after all. The guard figured it was to be expected that the Nimir-Raj would be able to read his cats.
The only reason he hadn’t talked to him before now was that Noah had made plans to take a few days off. Maggie and he had meant to spend the weekend together alone and go to the show. He figured while she was in a good mood from the show, he’d broach the idea of her agreeing to more measures to ensure her safety. ‘Humans First’ had been nasty of late. Sure the group was always looking for a reason to take away the rights of vampires and shifters but recently a faction of them had decided to take the law into their own hands. As Micah’s guard, Noah was a pretty visible in the were community. He had thought a few days alone combined with one of her post show highs would be the perfect time to press his case for new security measures.
The sun rose the next morning to find Noah asleep on the living room sofa. Stretching, he woke. Moving to the front door he stepped out to get the paper. The half empty driveway was a reminder that Maggie was still not home. Damn! Had she left without a goodbye? He tried to tell himself again that it wasn’t her style but now he wasn’t so sure. She was very good at avoiding confrontation at all costs. He figured it had something to do with her past but he wasn’t the only one that kept secrets. At any rate he knew his Angel well enough to know that she was more likely to sidestep a problem and run if she felt cornered than face it head on. Was he something she felt she needed to run away from?
He headed back to their bedroom and began searching. Nothing was out of place at first glance. He went over to search the closets only to find her luggage still put away in the back corner, her clothes hanging neatly as always. He headed across the room to the dresser drawers. There didn’t seem to be anything missing but damn it! There had to be a clue here somewhere. He began searching the drawers for some scrap of paper, anything thing she might have dropped or left in a pocket that might explain where she was. Clothes went flying all over the room and still he came up with nothing.
The young guard stalked down the hallway to his girlfriend’s office. While he waited for her computer to boot up, he paged through her daily planner. The only note she had on there for the weekend was their trip to the theatre. Paging back to the day she had disappeared, a sprawled note with Nathaniel’s name and little else was all he found. Next was a full-scale search of her office drawers. Dumping out the top drawer yielded only writing utensils, note pads, and paperclips. He couldn’t find the key for the lower drawers so he picked the lock. All he got for his efforts were patient files and some blank prescription pads.
Noah headed over to the file cabinet, intent on picking that lock as well when a voice behind him caused him to stop. “Redecorating Superman?”
The guard turned to find Luna staring at him from the doorway with a raised eyebrow. Then he looked around at the chaos he had created of Maggie’s neat office. He wasn’t sure which embarrassed him more, Luna sneaking up on him, or being caught destroying his own home like a deranged lunatic. Catching a glimpse of Luna’s grin it wasn’t a hard decision; being caught by Luna in this state was going to be far worse.
“Don’t you ever knock?” He muttered, moving over to the computer to search the hard drive.
The female leopard moved further into the room, crossing her arms in front of her. “Yes and I did… Several times. You were apparently a tad distracted. What are you doing?”
The male leopard growled before turning to glare at his pard mate. His green eyes sparkled with the gold of his cat. “WHAT… DO… YOU… WANT!”
Luna’s eyes began to shift from blue-green to emerald, her beast not appreciative of his tone. She placed her hands on the desk in front of the other guard, fighting the urge to allow the shift to proceed to her claws. In a soft menacing voice she told him, “First off, I want you to knock off the dominance shit because we already know who is alpha here. Second, I came by to ask you a question. You answer it and you can go back to whatever bug you have up your butt.”
Noah took several deep breaths, struggling to regain control. He finally lowered his eyes to desk in front of him. “What’s the question Wonder Woman?”
“Have you seen or heard from Nathaniel? Nobody at the house has seen him in a few days and Anita is about to go ape-shit.”
The young man sighed. “No I haven’t. Let me know if you find him. I’d help you look but I’m trying to locate Maggie at the moment.”
His pard mate shook her head at the destruction around her before asking him, “Did you think she was hiding in a drawer here or was it a computer file?”
He sighed. “I don’t know what to think at this point.” As
Luna turned to leave, Noah picked up Maggie’s date book still opened to the
last entry. “Hey Wonder Woman. How long has Nathaniel been missing?”
She turned back. “Four days. Why?”
The male guard looked from the book to his friend, “Because that’s the same amount of time Maggie’s been missing and he’s the last entry in her appointment schedule that day.”
The pair shared a tense look, one that said both knew what they were most likely facing but neither one of them wanted to admit it. The female guard gave her friend a half-hearted smile. “What are the chances Maggie and Nathaniel ran off for the weekend together?” She wiggled her eyebrows trying to lighten the mood.
Noah smiled briefly. “Well he probably wouldn’t have made as big of a fuss at Phantom of the Opera as I was sure to, but he’s not really her type. Plus I have the show tickets.” He ran his fingers through his short hair. “Which means most likely it wasn’t their idea to disappear. I thought she was just upset or something. Damn it!” He swallowed his pride then. Some things, some people were more important. He turned to Luna with pleading eyes. “You’re the cop, where should we start looking?”
“I should tell you to file a missing persons report with the department.” Raising a hand before he could object, “But since a pard member is involved and Maggie does work for Jean Claude, alerting Dolph probably wouldn’t be our wisest move. I’ll call in a request to be on the lookout for her car though. That might give us a starting place to look. In the mean time, we try to find anyone that saw them. I was going to go check Guilty Pleasures before I found out Maggie was missing too. Do you have any idea where they were meeting or what the appointment was about?”
He shook his head. “I have no clue. The only thing I know for sure is that they didn’t meet at the lair. I went over all the security tapes for the past few days and she’s not on any of them. I wasn’t looking for Nate but I don’t remember seeing him on any of them either.”
She nodded then turned to leave. Walking down the hallway
she called out. “I’ll check GP and let…”
She stopped abruptly causing Noah to slam into her. “Where
are you going?”
”With you.” A determined glint shone in his eyes. At her perturbed look
he added. “Wonder Woman I can’t sit here doing nothing. You’re right. I’m not
going to find her in the filing cabinet or the computer hard drive. Unless you
have something else I can do to help, I’m going with you.”
“You could check the hospitals,” At his pained expression she sighed. “I know, I know. I’ll have Lillian check out the hospitals. You aren’t going anywhere with me in this condition though. You’ll frighten off any potential witnesses.” She waved at his disheveled appearance. “Go shower and change while I make a couple phone calls.”
He looked warily from the front entry to the bathroom down the hall then back at her. When he made no move to get going she shook her head. “Superman I promise you I won’t leave the house without you but we’re wasting time. I have phone calls to make. Besides I’m not going to come sit in the bathroom with you just to allay your fears. You aren’t teasing me with the full show if I can’t have the finale.” She wiggled her eyebrows at him. “I can’t have the finale can I?” At his stoic expression she leaned against the wall in the hallway. “I didn’t think so. Get changed or you can’t ride along.”
“Fine.” He stomped down the hallway though she noted with amusement that he left the bathroom door open just in case.
Shaking her head the female guard headed back to into Maggie’s office and grabbed the phone. Her first call was to department. Not wanting to give too much away, she told the dispatcher that Maggie’s car had been reported missing and possibly stolen. It wasn’t exactly a lie; it just wasn’t the primary focus of her search. Her next call was to the were clinic and Doctor Lillian. The rodent physician hadn’t seen Maggie either but she said she’d ask around.
Luna looked up as she hung up the phone to find Noah standing in the doorway. There was a pained expression as he asked, “Lil hasn’t seen her either, has she?”
She shook her head, “Nope Superman but that doesn’t
necessarily mean anything. You know Lil and Maggie are the only two were docs
Jean Claude trusts. It stands to reason if one of them is around, the other is
off catching up on other things.”
”What other things Luna? She’s not here!” He growled.
Recognizing the fear behind the growl, she walked over, laid her hand on his chest and rubbed cheeks with him soothingly. “I don’t know so let’s go try to find out.”
Nodding he turned and led her out of the house, stopping to lock the door as they headed for Luna’s truck.
With Luna behind the wheel they made it to Guilty Pleasures
in record time. There weren’t many people around this time of day so they
parked out front instead of opting for the employee parking lot in back. The
pair headed inside to find
He looked up from wiping down the counter. “Hey Noah, I’m
not surprised to see Luna but what brings you here? Jean Claude hasn’t
mentioned needing any new security cameras set up.”
Luna sat down at a barstool with Noah hovering close by. He muttered, “I wish
he had,” before raising his voice to tell the manager, “
The man shook his head, “No not in a few days. I thought Jean Claude gave him some time off.”
Luna sighed. “Well that puts us back to square one on anyone
seeing him or Maggie around.”
Raising an eyebrow,
A stiff nod was the only reply he got from either leopard. He rubbed his chin, thinking back. “That’s odd. She was with Nat last time I saw him.”
The pair exchanged a look before Luna asked “How long ago? Did they say where they were going?”
He shook his head. “They didn’t say that much. Came in to pick up paychecks and I had a check for Maggie for supplies from Jean Claude as well. Some guy came in asking about a job and I had to turn him down. Neither Nat or Zane thought he was a shifter.” Perking up, he added, “Hey I think Maggie was saying something about the three of them grabbing dinner when they left here.”
Luna stood as she stared at the man, “The three of them?”
When he nodded she asked, “Have you seen Zane since then?” At his grimace she
turned to her pard mate. “Superman….”
The male guard waved her away as he pulled out his cell phone walking away from
the bar to try to get better reception. “I’m already on it.”
Noah came back a few minutes later, his worry-lined face all the answer his comrade needed but she asked regardless. “Any news on Zane?”
He sighed, “No. Cherry hasn’t seen him since the day Nat and
Maggie apparently disappeared. Nobody has. Something tells me we need to find
them soon Wonder Woman.”
She nodded. “We will.” Turning back to
The man behind the bar just shook his head. “Luna if I knew anything else I would tell you. The only person that I remember coming in while they were here was that kid. He seemed normal enough. He seemed a bit disappointed when I told him that we only hire shifters but that’s not a reason to attack Maggie and the boys…unless he needed money and was going to try to rob them for their checks.”
The male guard gave his companion a questioning look. She shook her head. “No I don’t think they were robbed Noah. We would have found them by now if….”
The leopard was interrupted by the ringing of her cell phone. Looking at the caller ID she whispered “work,” before she stepped away to take the call.
She returned a few minutes later to find the men huddled close looking at a map of the city. Noah, sensing her approach, told her, “We were just sectioning off the city, looking for the most likely places to search. We were thinking maybe we could get some of the other shifters to help search in the daytime and have JC’s vamps keep an eye out at night.”
The guard nodded at her pard mate, smiling grimly. “Good thinking but we might not need a big search party. We need to go.” Grabbing her bag she headed for the door, waving at the men over her shoulder. “Now!”
Noah looked from the manager to Luna’s retreating form. He followed her out the door praying they were on their way to Maggie and it wouldn’t involve a trip to the morgue. With the way Luna looked, anything was possible.