The Witch's Initiation. Elle James

for Aurai Chattox.

      Cal lifted the dry erase marker and added a dark slash before all the hash marks three weeks prior to the girl’s disappearance.

      The lieutenant’s brow rose. “What’s that for?”

      “One missing maintenance man. I spoke with HR this morning. I’m their new maintenance man as of today. The prior guy never showed up for work three weeks ago. Since he had only been on the job for a couple of months, they assumed he’d just quit. They didn’t have any emergency numbers to contact next of kin, and he didn’t return their calls.”

      Marty’s brows pulled together into a V. “And they didn’t file a missing persons report?”

      “No family to miss him.” Cal shrugged. “Think he might be our kidnapper?”

      Brigid shook her head, her gaze fixed on the board though she appeared lost in thought. “I don’t think so, but we should add him to our list of people to find.”

      “Two other incidents happened off campus involving a professor and a student,” Marty continued. “Both separate, but somewhat the same. A female student who’d been part of the sorority Aurai was pledging tried to commit suicide by slashing her wrists,” Marty said.

      Cal sucked in a breath. “How is she?”

      “She’ll live, but she’s in the hospital, recovering from blood loss and she’s under psychiatric observation.”

      “The professor?”

      “Ran her car into the Chicago River.”

      “Accident?”

      “No, she’d left a suicide note at her apartment. Her sister found it.”

      “And her prognosis?”

      “Dead.” Marty pointed at the time line where two more marks broke the line, one before Aurai’s disappearance, one after. “Her car was found this morning by a bicyclist.”

      Marty faced Cal. “Your job is to work the school staff, ask questions, get answers. Your connection to the sorority will be Deme Chattox. I expect you to pass information to her and gather it from her on a regular basis. Brigid will be working with the rest of the team on the outside of campus, questioning other victims’ families and acquaintances.”

      “When will I meet the other team members?” Cal asked.

      Marty smiled. “Soon enough. For now, get inside the campus and find out what the hell’s going on.”

      “Will do.” Cal stood tall, all but saluting his superior. “And thanks for your confidence in my abilities.”

      “Don’t thank me. Prove you deserve it.” Marty started to turn away but stopped. His voice lowered, and he pinned Cal with an intense stare. “And Cal, be open-minded about the strange and unexplainable. There’s been some really weird stuff going on you probably aren’t aware of.”

      Cal’s gut tightened at the tone of Marty’s voice, a chill rippling across his skin. “Yes, sir.” As he turned to leave, he caught a glimpse of Brigid fingering the medallion she wore around her neck. The metal was shaped into a star with five points inside a circle. He’d seen a similar one, but where?

      As Cal left the war room, Brigid fell in step beside him, her fingers still wrapped around the metal.

      An image of Deme lying nude in his bed flashed through his mind. When they made love, she’d taken off everything but the medallion—a pentagram just like the one Brigid wore. She’d said it was a gift from her mother and she never removed it.

      When Cal stopped to face Brigid, she looked up at him, her brows rising up into her black hair.

      Cal reached out and touched the pentagram at Brigid’s neck. “Does your medallion have meaning?”

      Brigid’s lips curled upward. “Deme didn’t tell you?”

      “Tell me what?” He had a feeling Deme had kept a lot more than her family from him, and the anger at being kept in the dark rose to the surface and boiled there.

      “It’s a pentagram. The sign associated with the Wiccan.”

      He had an open mind when it came to people of different religious persuasions. To each his own as long as it didn’t interfere with others’ beliefs.

      But he also believed that everything had a logical explanation. Magic and what some would call woo-woo was just superstitious bullshit some people used to scare and control others. The lieutenant had said the Special Investigations Team, or SPIT, as Cal had shortened it, was responsible for taking on the cases that didn’t have an obvious explanation. It was up to them to find it. But logic could be found in every situation.

      He nodded toward the pendant. “Does it represent your religion? Your faith?”

      “Most definitely.” Brigid held the pentagram out in front of her to the end of the chain. “You see, our mother was a witch.”

       Chapter 5

      After Deme cleaned the water from her dorm room floor, she set out to find Rachel, Aurai’s roommate. She’d scanned the roster she’d been given as the resident assistant and found her listed on the same floor several doors down from where Deme’s room was located.

      Girls ducked in and out of rooms, wafts of perfume or hair spray filling the air with each passing. The cloying scents overwhelmed Deme. She didn’t use scented candles in her apartment or in her rituals, preferring the natural odors the earth gave off. The sharp aroma of pine sap, the earthiness of decaying leaves or the extravagant natural fragrance of roses blooming, in her mind, could not be duplicated.

      On every door she passed, the Greek letters for gamma and omega hung. Some of the rooms had the girls’ names hanging on cute signs. The more young women she saw, the more surreal the experience became. Each girl seemed perfect. Thick, beautiful hair, perfectly coifed, figures a model would die for and skin as smooth and blemish-free as a newborn babe’s.

      Where were the late teens with acne scars? What happened to bad hair days and the few extra pounds the sedentary life of a college coed generated?

      Perhaps Rachel was a thorn among the roses of the sorority sisters. Deme had received text messages from her sister describing her first impressions of her dorm room and her roommate. Aurai had given Deme the impression that Rachel was a plump young woman with frizzy hair and thick glasses, her face riddled with pockmarks from a bad case of acne.

      After all the Barbie look-alikes, Deme could appreciate a real girl with curves and flaws. She’d be more human, more approachable than the other residents of the Gamma Omega dormitory.

      Deme paused in front of the room her sister had occupied up until forty-eight hours ago. Her chest tightened, her hand shaking as she reached out to knock. Deep in the back of her mind, Deme desperately hoped Aurai would open the door and hug her, telling her the cry for help was all in her imagination and that everything was fine.

      Her eyes stinging, Deme blinked. And if wishes were horses…She tapped her knuckles on the hard wooden door and waited, refusing to hold her breath. No matter what she told herself about wishing things better, she couldn’t slow her heartbeat. As she waited, her blood slammed through her veins, pounding against her eardrums.

      “Just a minute!” a voice called out from inside.

      After what seemed a very long time, but in fact had been only a matter of seconds, the door swung open.

      A dark-haired beauty peered out, her eyes widening when she saw Deme. “Oh.” Her gaze darted to each side of where Deme stood. “Can I help you?”

      “Hi, I’m Deme Jones, the new R.A. for the dorm.” She stuck out her hand. “Are you Rachel?”

      Rachel nodded, taking Deme’s hand in a limp grip, her dark, shiny hair falling into her smooth-skinned face. She had her purse slung over