“Well, you don’t sound fine. How are you getting home? Do you need me to pick you up? I’ve got a full class load today, but I can come later on tonight or first thing tomorrow morning. Or I can call you a ride. I must’ve been all wrong about him, Kenz. I’m sorry. I pegged him as a good guy. What did he do? He didn’t hurt you, did he?” Martin’s concern was touching.
“God, no. He’s a wonderful man.” As tears formed on the backs of her eyes, she took a deep breath and hoped her voice sounded strong. “An emergency came up that he hadn’t expected, and he had to leave. I’m sure I’ll be hearing from him soon, but I just wanted to make sure my classes were covered for tonight. No big deal. Really.”
Why did she feel she had to gloss over the ugly details? Of course, she couldn’t tell Martin the whole truth about Dom, but she didn’t feel compelled to tell him that Dom had abandoned her, either. What did it matter if Martin knew she was stranded with no means to get home? Why did she care if Martin detested Dom or not?
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. He’ll be back soon, I’m sure.” She forced herself to sound chipper as she changed the subject. Divert and distract. That was always her motto. “Oh, you should see it here, Martin. It’s gorgeous. I can’t wait to head out to the beach. I just wish I’d thought to bring along my sketch pad.”
“Listen,” he continued. “I’m glad you called. Have you talked to Mary yet?”
“The department secretary? No. Why?”
“It’s probably not anything to get worked up about, but two odd fellows came to the university the other evening asking about you. They were quite the duo, both tall and skinny, and shabbily dressed.”
The room started to spin, and she willed herself to breathe.
“Mary called me wanting to know if she should give out your contact information. Evidently, they inquired about a Mackenzie Shaw, not Foster-Shaw, so she wasn’t sure if it was you or not. I told her not to tell them anything, so they insisted on speaking to me.”
She felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach with a baseball bat. The attack on herhadbeen premeditated. She hadn’t just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, like she’d thought. Those monsters had sought her out. She grabbed the edge of the counter for support.
The day her father went missing, had this happened to him? Her mother had prepared his after-work snack like she always did. Sliced dill pickles and black olives on the same yellow plate with a chip on the edge. It sat untouched on the coffee table for three days. The police officer who came to talk to her mother ate all the dried out, three-day-old olives. She’d laughed about it later to her mother and couldn’t figure out why her mother had cried. What was so sad about eating old olives, she remembered thinking. Funny what a kid remembered.
Did two Darkbloods follow her father around all those years ago? Had they waited for the right opportunity to attack him? Had her father been as terrified as she had been? And how about Stacy? Had her cousin known what was happening to her?
She didn’t trust the ligaments in her legs to support her weight any longer, so she sank to the kitchen floor.
“Do you know what they wanted?” she managed to ask.
“Just that they needed to speak to you about some matter from long ago. You’re not in the witness protection program, are you?” he asked with a laugh.
She forced herself to laugh, but didn’t trust herself to speak. If only he knew what was really going on.
“I don’t know if they’ll come around again—they didn’t leave any contact information—but I thought I’d give you a heads-up.”
She fought to keep her voice from cracking, but her hands shook violently and the phone almost fell from her grasp. “Thanks for looking out for me, Martin.” She had a glimpse of Dom raising a stake above his head and pounding it into that guy in the dark warehouse parking lot. “Must be someone else they’re looking for, but thanks for letting me know.”
As he walked down the labyrinth-like hallway toward the computer lab with Lily and Jackson, Dom felt as if someone had reached into his chest with a knife and sliced his heart in half.
Mackenzie!Something was wrong.
“Go,” he told the others. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
He fumbled with the cell phone and dialed her number. Two rings, then her voice. For real. He leaned a shoulder unevenly against the wall.
“Mackenzie, are you okay?”
She didn’t answer him right away, but he could hear her breathing. “Yes.” Her voice was thin, barely audible.
She had been worried or scared a moment ago, he was sure of it, but now she just seemed angry. He slid down the wall and sat on the floor of the sterile hallway, cell phone cradled against his ear.
“What’s wrong? What just happened?” Dom asked.
“Other than you leaving me last night?”
“Mackenzie, I’m sorry. I wanted to stay, but you saw what I was capable of.”
“I saw a warrior last night, Dom. A man who was willing to fight for me, even to die for me. And yet?—”
