Brian reluctantly tore his attention away from Abby. “Are you ready to go?” he asked Dante.
Cassidy turned away from Kyle. “Where are we going?”
“I’m not sure,” Brian answered. “We’ll find out as we go.”
“Are we leaving the campus?” Dante asked.
“I think so,” Brian said. “I’ll follow the trail until I lose it or it leads us somewhere.”
For twenty years, Dante prepared himself for the answer to his sister’s disappearance, but he suddenly wasn’t ready for them. However, he didn’t have many options.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“Kyle!” Cassidy called across the lawn. “We’re leaving.”
Kyle held up a finger before saying something to the woman. She shook her head and, keeping the book against her chest, rose. She lifted the blanket from the ground and twisted it around her arm in a fluid motion. The woman said something to Kyle before hurrying away with her head bent and her shoulders hunched as if she expected a blow.
Kyle took a step after her before stopping. His head tilted to the side, and he watched her for a minute before jogging back to them.
“Who was that?” Cassidy asked when he returned.
“Melanie,” Kyle said. “Her name is Melanie.”
“Well, look at you remembering her name. I’m proud of you,” Cassidy said and playfully bumped his hip.
Kyle’s half-hearted smile didn’t reach his eyes, and then he grinned. “I do remember it.”
Abby laughed as Cassidy rolled her eyes. “You’re such an ass.”
She’d been trying not to give him a hard time about women since realizing how difficult all this was on him, but sometimes, he asked for it. Being proud of himself for remembering the name of a girl he met thirty seconds ago was one of those times.
“Come on.” Cassidy looped her arm through Kyle’s. “Brian has a lead.”
“Let’s go then,” Kyle said and practically skipped back toward their vehicle.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Almost four hours later, and after a lot of stopping for Brian to look at the photo again, Brian navigated his SUV onto a long, paved road. As they passed beneath the dozens of cherry trees lining the drive, Dante studied the rolling green lawn spread out behind the trees. Wood fencing penned in the horses munching on the grass.
He frowned as he tried to figure out where they were going, but this serene landscape in the middle of Connecticut was not what he was expecting. He’d expected to trudge through woods or up mountains to a burial spot, not drive through the land of the wealthy.
Rocks crunched under the tires as they left the pavement for a circular, stone driveway in front of a large, gray colonial home. Potted plants with an assortment of colorful flowers hung from the porch beams, and flower boxes lined the railings. Bees and a butterfly hovered around the flowers, and a tiny hummingbird darted in to drink from one of the petunias before flying away.
Dante had never been this confused in his life. What were they doing here? Was Maya’s body in the basement or buried in the backyard? Had Brian led them to the door of a serial killer who liked flowers and horses?
“What is this?” he asked.
“This is where I was led,” Brian said. “The reason why is for you to discover.”
Dante glanced at Cassidy, who stared at the house with a furrowed brow. “I’d like to come with you,” she said.
Clasping her hand, he lifted it to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. If there was a homicidal maniac inside, he really didn’t want her near them, but she had come this far with him, and they were here because of her. He couldn’t tell her no. If there were a serial killer inside, Dante would kill them before they got the chance to hurt her.
“Then let’s go,” he said.
Dante opened the door and climbed out of the middle row of the vehicle. Taking hold of Cassidy’s hand, he helped her exit the SUV before closing the door. The others stayed inside the vehicle, but he felt their eyes as they traversed the slate walkway.
His boots thudded against the stairs and then the porch as he strode toward the ornate, wooden front door. The frosted glass on the upper half of the door held a pretty ivy design that made him ponder if this serial killer also knitted doilies. Dante stared at the glowing, orange light of the doorbell before ringing it.
He didn’t expect an answer; at two in the afternoon, most people were at work. However, the squeals of young children sounded from inside. The solid thuds of tiny feet raced toward the door.
“Stay away from that door!” a woman yelled.
The blood drained from his face as the children’s laughter raced past the door and on to somewhere else. Like a car unable to beat a train across the tracks, the past and present collided as those familiar tones caused his brain to misfire. His mind spun as he tried to process what he heard with everything he knew.
He tried to inhale, but his lungs refused to let air into them. A loud ringing started in his ears. Locks clicked, the doorknob turned, and still, he couldn’t breathe as the door swung open to reveal a beautiful woman with chocolate-colored hair and eyes so black they rivaled an onyx.
His breath exploded out of him as the woman’s hand flew to her mouth. Cassidy inhaled a sharp breath and stepped closer to him. From the corner of his eye, he saw her hand stretch toward him, but he barely felt her touch on his arm.
The ghosts from the past hovered around him again, except this time, they turned his flesh to ice. This couldn’t be real. Yet, no matter how many times he blinked, the woman before him didn’t vanish. Instead,
