Hard To Bear by Georgette St. Clair Page A

someone,” Blanche said.
    Note to self, Coral thought: do not piss off Blanche.
    Blanche quickly pried up the trapdoor which had been cut into the floor, and then lit their way down the steps into a small secret room, using a small flashlight she had on her keychain. 
    They were in a small dirt cellar, which felt cold and damp and made Coral sneeze.  The room was empty, except for a metal box in the corner.
    Coral’s hands were shaking with excitement as she pulled it open.  “Blanche, you’re a regular Nancy Drew,” she breathed reverently, pulling out a stack of reporter’s notebooks and a leather-bound journal.
    “Well, course I am. Nobody can snoop like Blanche Briard. So what’s it say?” Blanche demanded eagerly, reading over her shoulder.
    Coral quickly flipped through the journal, including the part where he’d briefly dated Bettina but thought she was too clingy.    Towards the middle of the journal, she came to what she was looking for. 
    She skimmed through it quickly.  A few weeks before his disappearance,  he’d received a call from an investor corporation in New York, alerting him to strange goings on in the area outside of Blue Moon Junction.  The investors were interested in buying a parcel of property outside of Blue Moon Junction to use as a landfill.  They wanted land that was cheap and undeveloped.  The property that they were trying to buy had already been purchased, and they couldn’t find out who had bought it.
    Then they tried to buy up a different parcel, but that had also been recently purchased.  They found the same for half a dozen more parcels, all in the same area.   All of the property was marshy, landlocked, and undeveloped. Undesirable, remote property.  All recently purchased.
    Then they began researching who owned the parcels, and found that they’d all been brought up by corporations who o nly had p.o. boxes as addresses, and no public information about the corporations could be found.
    Adrian began trying to find out who’d been buying up all the land, and kept running into brick walls.
    After a couple of weeks of research, he wrote, “I told the police that I’m pretty sure I was followed yesterday, but they don’t seem to take me too seriously.”
    Well, that was news.  Why hadn’t the police mentioned that? And why did they claim that they had no reason to think there was anything suspicious about his disappearance?
    In one of the notebooks, he’d listed the parcels of property that had been purchased, and next to the list he’d written the word “Metamorph?”
    “This is very strange,” she said.  “Some secretive corporation is buying up all this property, and when Adrian starts investigating, he disappears.  But how does this tie in to the Original Shifters disappearing? Or does it?”
    “We need to go back to your office so we can get an idea of where that property is, but I think one of those parcels is in the area where the three ley lines cross,” Blanche said.   “There used to be a settlement out there, which is why all kinds of shifters started appearing, but then when the rail line was built, the town moved to be closer to the railroad.  Nobody has lived out there for a hundred and fifty years or so.”
    Coral sneezed for the dozenth time.  “Let’s go,” she agreed. “I’ll meet you back there.”
    She stopped by Kray’s house to let him know that she had decided the house wasn’t quite what she was looking for,  as Blanche got in her car and headed back in to town.
    Her cell phone rang as she climbed into her car.  It was Flint.
    “How’s my favorite redhead?” he asked.  His voice was so deep, so rich, and so damned sexy that it sent a flood of heat rushing through her.
    He’s lying to me about why he’s in town, and he dumped me this morning to run off to deal with his crazy lady friend, she reminded herself firmly.  And all he wanted was a summer fling, anyway; he’d flat out told her that.  There’s no