“Where did it go?” Dakota called from outside the car.
“What are you doing? Does it matter where the bastard went? Let’s make like a fucking tree and leaf this place.”
She ducked her head into the cab and scowled at me. “Really? That’s what you’re going with right now? Make like a tree?”
“Uh, I said a fucking tree. And if you don’t like it… fine. How about this? Let’s make like sheep and get the flock out of here.”
“You’re not curious about that apparition at all?” Dakota asked, pulling her head from the car’s interior and moving forward a few steps, standing in front of the car’s headlights.
“Not at all,” I said. I won’t lie, though… the light did a great job of highlighting her backside features and I wasn’t much interested in anything else. I took full advantage, checking out her ass. I probably should’ve been watching for signs of danger, but gosh darn, those jeans made it hard—no pun intended.
Dakota’s phone vibrated in the cupholder. I glanced at it out of reflex and saw the caller. “Hey,” I called out to her, “Dr. Tacet is calling you.” The caller ID showed his full name as Mortimer Tacet. “What kind of name is Mortimer, anyway? He literally sounds like a villain from a bad cartoon.”
Dakota walked back to the car, her hair tangling in her face as a gust of wind threw it around. Ducking into the driver’s seat, she grabbed her phone and answered. “I’ve been ignoring you all day on purpose, Tacet. It’s my day off and I don’t want to hear from you.” She hung up, tossing her phone back in the cupholder and shutting the driver’s door.
I stared at her with a pinched face, thinking it pretty strange how she’d responded to the call. “Isn’t he the one dealing with Mel’s body?” I asked. “Why aren’t you answering him?”
“Because he’s a fucking creep who doesn’t understand social conventions or personal boundaries.” She grabbed her phone. “I’m just going to block his calls for the rest of the night.”
“Uh, no you’re not. Let me reiterate for you—he has Mel’s body. What if he found some new evidence? Call him back.”
Dakota shook her head and her phone lit up as she unlocked it. “Oh, look here.” She held the screen to my face, showing me her voicemail notification. “He left a fucking message two hours ago. So, why call again? Stupid piece of shit.”
I adjusted in the seat, finding her behavior toward Dr. Tacet disturbing. I’d needed to get Mel’s body out of Medea’s chamber and bury it, and Dakota had put me and Xander in contact with Tacet. Yeah, he did look a lot like an oversized, gangly corpse himself, and he had a lazy left eye, which freaked me out… but why that didn’t explain why Dakota was acting so strange. She must have really hated lazy eyes.
Hitting the play button and putting her phone to her ear, she listened to message. Her face went from a grimace to slack and open. Her breathing labored a little as she moved the phone from her ear and restarted the voice message, putting it on speakerphone.
“Clark, it’s me… Mortimer. I, uh, I have some bad news, and well—I’m not exactly sure how to say it. That girl your friends brought in here the other night, well… she’s gone missing. Give me a call back. You know my number.” The line went dead, steeping us in silence.
After a second, I said in a weak voice, “Did he say that Melanie’s body is missing, or did I misunderstand him?”
Dakota sucked on her lower lip and nodded confirmation.
“What the fuck, Dakota? We’ve been stamping through this field all day long, ignoring his thousands of calls about my daughter’s missing corpse.” A tingling shuttered across my skin as I suspected that Dakota had brought me out here as a distraction. “Take me to him. Right the fuck now.”
Dakota put the car in reverse and backed away from the shoulder. The weight that had sat in the air all day faded as we gained separation from Dyer Lane.
“We’ll meet with Xander—”
“No,” I said, feeling heat burn my face as my vision tunneled. “Fuck him. We’ll go to Tacet right now.”
Dakota slammed on the brakes in the middle of the road. I jerked forward, thrown back as the seat belt locked. The stench of burnt rubber worked into the vehicle. Dakota glared at me with wide, wild eyes. “Listen,” she said. “I’m sorry about Mel’s body and that I didn’t take the call earlier.” She wiped her hand under her nose. “There’s just… there’s shit going on that you don’t need to know about. I swear, had I any idea his calls were about Melanie, I would have answered on the first ring. But I didn’t know.” She paused, heaving for air. “We’re going to Xander’s. Your beat to shit and angry and frustrated and fucking hurting—”
“Don’t you dare put me in a fucking box. I live with Xander, and I deal with that shit every single day. Do you understand me? If I want to speak with Mortimer to see what happened to Mel’s body, then that’s what I’m going to fucking do, whether you drive me there or I have to walk there.”
Dakota bit her trembling lip. “You’ll walk your skinny ass there from Xander’s house, then.” She grabbed her phone before I had the chance to reach for it and call Tacet myself, placing it under her ass.
As we drove back to Xander’s apartment, Dakota turned the radio on low, but neither of us spoke. I barely heard the music. My thoughts centered around my daughter—how she’d gone missing yet again. What was I supposed to make of that? How was I supposed to respond?
Our silence continued as we walked up to Xander’s front door. It stood ajar. I grabbed Dakota’s arm to prevent her from entering. “Get your gun,” I whispered.
She nodded, drawing
