“Yes.”
“Where exactly is it?”
More rustling sounded on the other end before Preston spoke again. “I’m coming with you.”
“No. Tell me where it is.”
“I’m coming with you. If Jasmine is like this because of me or doing this because of me, then I’m coming with you.”
Dante gritted his teeth against his mounting frustration. He could hang up and catch a taxi to the waterfront, but there were a lot of buildings there. It could take hours to figure out where Jasmine had Julie. And he had a feeling that if he said no, Preston would go on his own.
“Tell me where to meet you,” Preston said.
Dante tried one last time to get him to stay out of this. “She’s not like this because of you. From what you’ve told me, she was losing control before you broke up with her.”
“I don’t care. She has my sister. I’m coming with you.”
“Fine.”
He glanced around his location, but he wasn’t far enough away from Jasmine’s apartment to have Preston meet him near here. He couldn’t send Preston straight to the waterfront in case he beat Dante there. The last thing he needed was the guy walking straight into Jasmine’s hands. There wouldn’t be any reason to keep Julie alive then.
Then he thought of a neutral location. “Meet me near Lavender Moon, but don’t go inside.”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
Dante hung up and called Cassidy. He would keep her from being involved in this, but she would worry if she didn’t hear from him. He wouldn’t tell her what he discovered in Margie’s apartment until later.
“Hello,” Cassidy said breathlessly as wind blew across her mouthpiece.
The sound of her voice melted some of his lingering revulsion over the brutality he just witnessed. He ached to hold her again. She was the only one who could make this day any better.
“What are you doing?” he asked. “You sound like you’re running a marathon.”
Cassidy chuckled. “Sort of. I’m running late for work and just got to the bar. How are things going with you?”
“I might know where Julie is.”
“That’s great! Where?”
“The waterfront. I’m heading down there now to check it out. I’ll meet you at Addy’s in a little bit.”
“You shouldn’t go alone.”
“Preston is coming with me.”
Cassidy didn’t know how to feel about that. She believed Preston didn’t have anything to do with Julie’s disappearance, that he cared about her and wanted to find her, but she didn’t trust him with Dante’s life.
“I’ll meet you down there,” she said.
“No. You have to work, and I’m not entirely sure where it is on the waterfront. There are dozens of possibilities, if not more. I’ll be fine.”
“Dante—”
“I’ll be fine,” he assured her. “Don’t worry about me. Go on stage and wow them; I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“But—”
Dante waved at a taxi, and it pulled up to the side of the road. “I have to go, but I’ll be in touch soon. I love you.”
Before Cassidy could reply, he hung up.
Chapter Forty
Cassidy stared at her phone with a mixture of dread and annoyance. She’d been around enough alpha males to know when they were shutting her out for “her safety.” However, Dante shouldn’t be doing this alone. Okay, he wasn’t doing it alone, but he shouldn’t be doing it with someone he barely knew.
Dante was trying to keep her safe and acting like an idiot. When she prodded at the bond connecting them, her apprehension flared when she discovered that he’d shut her out. What was he trying to keep hidden from her?
Cassidy returned her phone to her pocket as she contemplated the phone call and what to do. The waterfront was a vast area with a lot of buildings. If she left now and went down there, how would she find him? If she stayed here, how could she keep from going insane?
When a shadow fell into the room, she looked up to see Rick in the doorway. “Are you going on tonight?”
“Yeah,” she muttered because she didn’t know what else to say.
She hadn’t had enough time to process Dante’s phone call. Should she walk out, go to the waterfront, and try to track him through their bond? It was still so new; would she be able to do such a thing?
Still uncertain about what to do, she left the room and walked down the hall to the main bar. By the time she got to the end, she knew she couldn’t go on stage. Dante said he would be fine, but she couldn’t shake the uneasiness gripping her chest like a boa constrictor held a rabbit.
Kyle was starting his shift and flirting with the women as he poured his first round of drinks. She glanced toward the end of the bar, but Julian and Aida weren’t here yet, and they probably wouldn’t arrive for another hour or two.
She stepped up to the bar as Kyle flipped a glass through the air and caught it behind his back. When Kyle spotted her standing at the end of the bar, he frowned before glancing at the clock. He set a martini before a pretty woman who smiled and batted her lashes at him. Then he walked down to meet her. Resting his palm on the bar, he leaned closer to her.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Dante called. He has a lead on Julie. He’s going to meet Preston, and they’re going to go to the waterfront.”
“That’s good news.”
“We barely know Preston.”
“He’ll be fine. Preston’s an arrogant ass, but he means well, and he wants to find his sister.”
Cassidy glanced around the bar before her eyes fell on the stage. Normally, when something was bothering her, she climbed onto the stage and forgot about it. Now, the idea of standing there and trying to lose herself, while not knowing what was going on with Dante, made her want to claw off her skin.
“I’m going after him,” she said.
“No, you’re not.”
“I can’t stay here and pretend everything’s okay while having no idea what is going on. I have to make sure he’s safe. I don’t know why, but I have this terrible feeling, and I have to make sure he’s okay.”
“You can’t go alone. I’m coming with you,” Kyle said.
“We can’t both lose our jobs.”
“I’ll convince Rick it was his idea.”
“You can’t do that.”
“If you’re going, then so am I. So, I either tweak Rick’s memories a little, or we get fired. Now, let’s go.”
Preston stood a few doors down from Lavender Moon when Dante’s taxi pulled to the sidewalk in front of him. Dante opened the door, and Preston jogged over to slide into the cab next to Dante. Once inside, he gave the address to the driver and turned to face Dante.
“Are you sure about Margie?” Preston demanded.
Dante glanced at the driver. He already planned to leave the man with no memory of this ride. If the police managed to track him this far, the driver couldn’t give them a detailed description of him. It had been almost ten years since he left the force, but some of the officers there would remember him.
“I’m sure,” Dante said.
Preston blew out a loud breath. “That’s horrible. This is all horrible.”
Dante didn’t argue with him. He’d seen enough from vampires and humans over the years to know they could do some gruesome things, but Jasmine was on a different level. It took a genuinely twisted soul to slaughter a friend.
He’d worked out some more of the details of what he believed happened on the drive over to meet Preston. He suspected Arnold’s arrival angered Jasmine, and reacting on instinct, she killed him instead of changing his memories. He believed Arnold’s death was what spurred Jasmine into killing Margie.
Once she’d experienced what it was like to kill another, she kept on killing. Or maybe she started killing a while ago and was tired of restraining herself from destroying Margie. Either way, it resulted in the loss of two innocent lives.
&nbs
p; After killing Margie, she most likely used mind control to keep Julie obedient while she took her out of the building. Now he had to stop her from fulfilling whatever she had planned for Julie. It had to involve Preston somehow, but she’d had Julie for two weeks now, why hadn’t Jasmine made a move sooner?
“Are you sure Jasmine hasn’t tried to contact you?” Dante asked.
“No,” Preston said. “I haven’t heard from her at all.”
“If it’s not to use her against you, then why does she have Julie?”
“I think it is to use her against me,” Preston said. “And I think she’s been waiting for something.”
“What?”
“Today would have been our six-month anniversary.”
“Shit.”
He sat back in his seat and watched as the taxi weaved its way through a bunch of old, wooden buildings. Some were abandoned, but others still had businesses running out of them.
Most of the businesses were closed for the night, but a couple of employees mulled around outside. They sat in plastic chairs, drinking beer and playing music. Their laughter floated through Preston’s cracked open window. They paused talking to watch the cab pass by before resuming their conversation.
The taxi turned onto a side road that ran horizontal to the ocean at the end of the street. The paint chipping off the buildings revealed rotten, termite-riddled wood. Some of the buildings sagged like a giant had placed its palm against their roofs and pressed down. The weight of an imaginary giant squishing the buildings would also explain the numerous broken windows.
“Stop here,” Preston said.
The cabby pulled over in front of a droopy, blue building with an open front door, missing shutters, and glass littering the ground in front of its missing windows. The place looked like the only thing to touch it in years was termites, rats, and bats.
Preston opened the door and exited as Dante paid the driver and changed his memory of this ride. The briny scent of seawater filled Dante’s nose when he climbed out to stand beside Preston. He licked the salt from his lips as the slight breeze caused it to stick to his skin and clothes. A few pieces of trash skittered across the road a hundred feet away, but nothing else moved in the growing twilight.
“This is it?” Dante asked.
“Yeah,” Preston said. “The party was on the third floor.”
Dante tilted his head back to take in the third-floor windows. In the growing dusk, he couldn’t make out much about them, but it looked as if something was behind the broken glass pieces clinging stubbornly to the remains of their old existence.
He wasn’t sure any floor could hold their weight, never mind the stairs it would take to get there, but they hadn’t come this far to turn back now. Julie had to be here. If she wasn’t, then he didn’t know where else to look for her.
Dante removed one of the stakes he kept tucked inside his jacket. “Let’s go then.”
Chapter Forty-One
Glass and debris crunched beneath Dante’s feet when he stepped inside the cavernous main room of the dilapidated building. He didn’t understand how this place could stand up against the wrath of Mother Nature, let alone hold a large group of partying humans and vamps.
Rays of fading daylight filtered through the windows and the numerous cracks in the sides of the building. Rats chattered as they wobbled out of their way.
Why would anyone come to a party here? Dante marveled. His idea of a good time and Preston’s idea of a good time were two completely different things.
Preston led the way through the main room and into some smaller back rooms. The air was redolent with the ripe aroma of fish. He guessed it was either once a fish market or a storm had washed thousands of fish into here at some point, and the rats had feasted on them.
When they entered another back room, the light spilling in from a broken window high in the wall revealed a set of stairs. Dante eyed them warily and craned his head to see into the shadows above. He could barely make out the top of the stairs as the shadows lengthened in the dwindling daylight.
Dante paused before stepping onto the stairs. He didn’t think they’d hold one of the too fat rats, never mind him, but Preston didn’t hesitate. The stairs creaked as Preston climbed, but they held steady; Dante reluctantly followed him.
If they did collapse, he hoped a stray piece of wood didn’t stake him on the way down. When they arrived at the second-floor landing, Preston continued on to the third floor. Dante was a little wary of how much confidence Preston had in the stairs, but he’d come this far; it was too late for second-guessing.
They were halfway to the third floor when Dante clasped Preston’s arm, holding him in place. When Preston turned toward him, Dante lifted a finger to his lips. With the sunlight rapidly fading, the inside of the warehouse was growing steadily darker, but Dante could see the impatience on Preston’s face.
Still, he didn’t move as he strained to hear something more. The breeze whistled through the holes in the walls, and the rats squeaked, but he didn’t detect anything else. If someone else was in the building, they were extremely quiet, or the soundproofing on the third floor was exceptional.
“Let me go first,” he whispered to Preston.
Preston rested his back against the wall to let Dante pass. His shoulder brushed against Preston’s chest as he crept up the stairs. Dante didn’t like having his back to Preston. He kept his senses attuned to the building and Preston in case the kid decided to attack him.
When he reached the landing, there was only a few feet of space between him and the heavy metal door across from him. The locks on the outside of the door gave him pause. Opal had spent a lot of money securing some of her locations, but then, she’d also made a lot of money off them.
She wouldn’t want anyone coming back here after the party was over and snooping around or vandalizing things. He didn’t like the sight of those locks, but they made sense, and there was no turning back now.
Dante half turned toward Preston as he stepped off the stairs and onto the small landing. Sweat beaded his forehead, his eyes were wide, and his skin paler than usual. If he had murderous intentions running through his head, he was covering them well.
When Dante tried the knob, he wasn’t surprised it turned beneath his hand. He clutched his stake tighter as he pushed open the door. It creaked as it swung inward, and after a couple of feet, its rusty hinges stopped its inward swing. Adrenaline pulsed through his veins as he stepped back in preparation of something rushing out at him.
The flames of dozens of white candles danced within the half of the room he could see. A chill ran down his spine when he spotted the hundreds of black roses scattered between the candles.
That can’t be a good sign.
Pushing the door further open, he discovered more white candles and black roses scattered across the floor. And then his heart leapt into his throat when he spotted Julie, kneeling at the far end of the room. Her eyes bulged over the gag muffling her strangled cries. She jerked toward them, but the rope binding her arms behind her back and to her ankles kept her from moving far.
She’d lost weight since her picture, and her stringy hair hung limply around her dirt-streaked face, but he didn’t see any bite marks or bruises on her.
Dante scanned the rest of the room to make sure Julie was alone; she was. Preston went to step around him, but Dante seized his arm to keep him in place. He turned to survey the lengthening shadows creeping across the stairs like insidious wraiths looking to hide whatever evil lurked below.
Julie was the bait to draw them here, but where was the trap?
And then, from somewhere below, a board creaked. This time, a rat didn’t cause it—or at least it wasn’t caused by any of the four-legged rodents. Another creak told him that whoever was behind them, wasn’t alone.
“Would you please sit still?” Kyle asked as Cassidy practically danced beside him in the back of the Uber.
“I can’t,” she muttered. “Something’s wrong; I can
feel it.”
“Why don’t you connect with him?”
“I can’t; he’s shut me out.”
Kyle grasped her wrist when her fingers tapped impatiently against her knee. “Calm down; we’ll be there soon. Should I call Julian?”
She didn’t want her brothers involved, but her anxiety was turning into a living, breathing monster seeking to tear out of her like a deranged alien. It took everything she had not to claw at her chest like a crazed animal so she could set it free.
Pulling out her phone, she checked the time and reassured herself that Aida was still at the gallery. She didn’t want Julian here, and she really didn’t want Aida involved.
“Yes,” Cassidy whispered before realizing she could be signing her brother’s, and therefore Aida’s, death certificate. “No! No, don’t. If something happens to him, it will destroy Aida too, and I can’t lose both of them.”
“Julian can take care of himself.”
“I know that, but if you weren’t at work, you wouldn’t be here. I won’t have either of you getting killed because of me.”
The driver cleared her throat and shifted uncomfortably in the front seat. “It’s okay,” Kyle assured her in the soothing tone of a vampire using his ability on another. “You’re safe.”
The woman’s shoulders slumped as she flashed Kyle a smile. He settled back against the seat as Cassidy returned to tapping her fingers on her knee. Staring out the window, she willed the traffic to get out of their way. Unfortunately, it didn’t work.
She was certain they were going to be too late to stop whatever was unfolding.
Chapter Forty-Two
Dante tugged Preston through the doorway and released his arm. He scanned the room again to make sure no one was hiding inside it before closing the door behind them. He reached for the locks, but his fingers fell on twisted metal. The locks, having been beaten off with something, were gone.
Relentless (Vampire Awakenings Book 11) Page 22
