Hollownton Case File: Anthony Hollownton, #3.5

By Gretchen S.B.

Christina Mirin is a Nym caseworker, one of the best. When her boss hands her a new file personally she is expected to give immediate results. It isn't until she opens it that she realizes the person she's been ordered to investigate is her high school friend, Anthony Hollownton. They haven't spoken in a decade but the idea that he could be a part of the supernatural world seems ridiculous.

That is, until she starts nosing around. Her investigation doesn't just dig up information about her long-lost friend but seems to stir up a threat to not only him but Christina as well. Her connection to Tony sends her into hiding with nothing but hope that the threat won't find her.

But hope is a dangerous and untrustworthy thing, especially, as it turns out, if you're a friend of Anthony Hollownton.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gretchen S.B.
• Release date: Aug 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393931348

Gretchen S.B.

Gretchen is a Seattleite that loves her home. She has a day job as a Program Coordinator a local university. She is a struggling Indie Author, struggling as in she is trying to make her living writing books. She loves to read, write and create characters. As well as knit and binge watch Netflix. She is also on a sporadic book blog and internet radio show with some of her college friends. She currently lives with her husband and their mischievous Rotti mix, who always seems to find something new she shouldn't be chewing on. Gretchen loves to hear from her readers.

Book preview

Works by Gretchen S.B.

NIGHT WORLD SERIES:

Lady of the Dead

Viking Sensitivity

A Wolf in Cop's Clothing

Visions Across the Veil (A Night World Novella)

Hidden Shifter (Fall 2019)

Berman's Wolves Trilogy:

Berman's Wolves

Berman's Chosen

Berman's Secrets

Berman’s Origin (A Companion Novella)

Anthony Hollownton Series:

Hollownton Homicide

Hollownton Outsiders

Hollownton Legacy

Hollownton Casefile (A Hollownton Novella)

Romance Novellas:

The Tongue-Tied Hunter

Poker in Portland

Big City Bachelor

Pizza Pockets & Puppy Love

A Flurry of Feelings

Teacher’s Crush

Acknowledgments

THANK YOU TO MY EDITOR Lacie at Pelican Proofing and my proofreader Rose David. You ladies made this book readable for everyone. You have seen what it looks like without you, I am in awe of how you make my stories sparkle.

Thank you to T.M. Franklin for giving this book, and the whole series, such a beautiful cover.

As always, thank you to my friends and family who cheer me on as I work toward my dream of being a full-time author.

Last of all, but not least, is the Hubster. Although he hates to be mentioned, he deserves credit for all his support and taunts of Shouldn’t you be writing?.

Chapter 1

CHRISTINA, I NEED TO see you in my office. Charlie, Christina's boss, didn't normally sound so harsh when he spoke to her. His clipped tone indicated that whatever he wanted her in his office for, she was probably not going to enjoy.

All right, Charlie, give me a minute to save and I'll be right in, she responded, trying to keep her voice pleasant and not give away the fact that she already knew it was going to be bad news.

Oddly, there was silence on the other end of the phone. Charlie hadn't hung up, but Chris didn't know what her boss was waiting for. Fine, make it fast. I'm not sure how long this case can wait, and I've been told under no uncertain terms that you are the one to take care of it. I also have a meeting in fifteen minutes, and I would prefer to get this off my plate and onto yours before that. After another pause, she heard the telltale click of his hanging up. A thin veil of anxiety covered her. Christina was a caseworker for the Nym chain of command, meaning she was anything from their equivalent of a detective to a social worker. She also had a good amount of seniority which meant the cases that got thrown her way deliberately were usually the hairier ones.

Sighing heavily, she finished the sentence she had been writing before her boss’s call on her office line. After saving it on the internal digital filing database, she pushed up from her office chair, grabbing her keys. It wasn't that she expected people to break in, but she had personal information in her office, and it wasn't worth it to take the chance. She had seen caseworkers get fired for less.

As Chris stepped out of her office, she glanced both ways down the hall. The floor of the office building she worked in was all caseworkers. The half of the floor her office was in held the offices of the top caseworkers with seniority. Once she walked past the dozen or so offices, she would hit the back wall where the managers’ offices sprawled. If she continued walking, she would hit the small kitchenette and then the large open space where all of the less senior caseworkers had desks. Christina had an office for two years now and nothing would've made her go back to being in the loud open space where privacy was a dream.

Charlie's office was the last on the back wall, closest to the kitchenette, something he bragged about fairly regularly. His door was closed when she approached, also not a good sign. Normally when he called people into his office, he left the door ajar as if letting them know he was expecting them. If the door was closed, he either had forgotten to open it or whatever he wanted to discuss with Chris was private enough he didn't want ears overhearing.

Great, Chris muttered to herself as she knocked on the door. She only waited a beat before opening it, he was expecting her, and she could see through the small sliver of glass that ran beside the door that nobody else was in there with him.

Charlie looked up from his computer only long enough to wave her in. Shut the door behind you, he said quickly as his head bobbed back to the screen. His shaggy blond hair fell back into his eyes. Chris had no idea how he saw anything through his hair.

Without responding, she shut the door quietly behind her and sat down in one of the two visitors’ chairs on the other side of his desk. She waited quietly while he finished what he was doing.

Dramatically, he hit a few keys, as if to let her know that he was done with whatever he'd been working on. He slid his hands across the table and grabbed a very thin file off the pile on his cluttered desk and handed it to her. This case is a little unorthodox. Apparently, there was some discussion on whether it warranted being investigated at all until there was a development yesterday afternoon. You'll see that the top sheet in the file is a report from a young Nym police officer. He witnessed this event and reported it. Little did he know, someone along the lines had already had this individual on a watchlist. Because of this it got bumped up to priority and for reasons you'll understand once you check it out, it was handed to you.

Chris didn't like any of that. It didn't sound pleasant. Making eye contact with her boss without so much as touching the file, she inquired, What exactly happened yesterday that warrants it being given to a senior caseworker?

When it became clear she was not taking the folder from him, Charlie sighed and laid it on the pile of papers closest to her. This human you're investigating apparently walked through a heavy magical ward. In the report, the officer says the wards were made to deter anyone from even wanting to walk in the building. Apparently, all the other human officers took that as the deterrent it was. But this particular detective walked through the door as if it was nothing. The magic didn't affect him at all, there wasn't even so much as a shiver, I guess. You’ll probably want to interview the police officer who saw it happen, but I think we’re dealing with an undiagnosed Jesper, or at least a human sensitive.

Intriguing; Jespers were people who somewhere along their family line had human ancestors that reproduced with either a Nym or an Elder. That magic would weave its way down the bloodlines and the abilities that went along with it would pop up sporadically down the family tree. It was quite possible that whoever this Jesper was wouldn't even realize there was some kind of magic in their family tree. That meant this case could go one of three ways. Either this person wasn't a Jesper and there was some other explanation, or Chris would simply observe and report that there was nothing to worry about and they would simply have to monitor the individual. Or she would have to approach the Jesper and tell them what they were, this was the least ideal of all three options. People usually didn't respond well when you told them the supernatural existed and that they in fact themselves were supernatural.

If you have any other questions all the contact information for anyone involved is on the back sheet. And if there's nothing else that can't be answered with the contents of the file, I have to head to my next meeting. People higher up the food chain than me want a report on this by end of day tomorrow. So, you’ll need to either shuffle or drop the rest of your cases for a few days and find out what's going on.

Chris snarled at her boss's words; he knew her well enough to know it wasn’t directed toward him as much as the higher-ups who didn't seem to understand exactly what her job entailed. Chris handled anywhere from five to ten cases at any given time. It was a juggling act that one had to perfect by the time they were a senior caseworker. The fact that someone believed she could drop everything for one case was ridiculous.

Yeah, yeah, I know, Charlie empathized as he pushed his chair back from his desk.

Not wanting herself to spiral into a frustrated mess, Chris let the sharp comments she would usually make go. Slipping