Of Blood and Magic

Crazy Hair Brained Idea

Year: 2004

Third POV

As Christiana steps outside the doors of the Shreveport Regional Airport, she is assaulted by the wall of heat and humidity. Immediately, it had (Switching between current tense and past tense is kinda confusing.) her second guessing this wild goose chase she had assigned herself. She wiped the sweat from her brow and shook her head. Who was she kidding? What if these people wanted nothing to do with her? Who was she to just waltz into their lives and make herself at home. Just because she'd lost her family doesn't mean that some long lost relatives she hadn't ever met owed her the time of day. Christiana flinches, unsure if it's from the fresh painful memories or the sweat dripping in her eyes.

Flashbacks from that day arrive unbidden. It was raining, an oddity for Los Angeles. The LAPD knocking on her door. "There's been an accident. We're so sorry. Please come with us." Ryan Scott, her adoptive parents' driver, wheezing in agony through the oxygen mask as he painfully related the story. Some guy high on who knows what blew through the red light in his sports car. Ryan swerved to avoid the car but fate had other plans. Her father Rowan was pronounced deceased at the scene. Her mother Shanon succumbed in the back of an ambulance on the way to the hospital. The other driver had of course walked out of the wreck with barely a scratch on him. Ryan had sustained a broken collar bone and an insurmountable pile of guilt.

Tears mixed with the sweat as she chuckled and sobbed. Chucklesobbed? She let loose another chucklesob that made the other departing passengers glance her way. Ryan didn't deserve the guilt he felt. There was nothing he could have done different. Hell, since the accident he still called Christiana and her sister Rosie at least once a month to check in on them. Christiana hadn't always answered the last couple of times he'd called due to the stress of this venture she was on, but that hadn't stopped him from checking in periodically. She wiped the tears and sweat from her eyes, vowing to call him once she was settled in for the night.

The thought of where precisely she was going to stay for the night brings her back to the present. She glances longingly back at the airport security checkpoints as she walks outside into the pickup and dropoff area. It would be so easy to turn around, buy another ticket, and leave this whole hare brained idea behind-

"Miss McKenzie? Christiana McKenzie?" yells a gruff voice a couple cars away.

Christiana turns, spotting a clean shaven man with graying hair standing next to a silver four door sedan. He's holding one of those ridiculous signs with her last name on it, and looks as thrilled as her about this entire ordeal. He raises an eyebrow and repeats the question.

"Miss McKenzie?"

"Yes! Hello!" She wipes the sweaty tears from her eyes once more. "You must be Mr. Clark!"

The man nods curtly. "Yes ma'am. May I help you with your bags?"

Christiana takes one last look at the airport. The baggage claim, the terminal walkways, the ticket kiosks...

"Ma'am?"

She snaps back, taking in a deep breath. She hoists the backpack off her arms and hands it to him.

"Right, yes, sorry. My bags. Yes please." He was more clean cut then she was expecting for a private detective, although she hadn't quite known what to expect. He definitely had the air of someone former military or law enforcement. He was wearing the pre-planned outfit so she could easily identify him; a blue LA Dodgers Baseball hat, an all black tee shirt and jeans, and a bright silver watch with a dark leather band. Where he found one of those hats all the way here in Louisiana is beyond her, and she noticed some of the people milling around the pick up and drop off area doing double takes and squinting disgustedly at him. Football was king here, and anyone who may have enjoyed baseball sure as hell didn't have any love for teams from the West Coast.