“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.
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
