Oh my God.Tears threaten to prick my eyes, but I blink them away.I will not break down.I will not do anything but stay strong and find Monica before something awful happens.
The elevator dings its arrival on floor thirty-five and I rush off, but I stop right in the middle of the main hallway, my head jerking back and forth as I try to figure out where Monica went. My eyes latch on to a vision of a woman with blond hair walking into a hotel room at the very far end of the hallway on my right, and I sprint down there at full speed, yelling for Monica.
But Monica just steps into the room. All I hear is the faint click of the door before I can reach her.
Shit!
As I’m hauling ass toward the room, outright fear pricks at my stomach, and the realization that I just might be in way over my head becomes an all-consuming thought. And there’s only one person I want to call in this moment.
Only one person I know and trust to help me.
Quickly, I hit send on the call as I reach the door I think Monica went into. It’s ringing, and I’m listening as closely as I can for anything that sounds like my friend on the other side of the wood.
And when I hear “What are you doing?” I know that it’s Monica. I know that she’s in there.
“Hannah?” Dom’s voice pipes from the speaker. “I’m so glad—”
“Dom, I am really scared. I think I need your—” I start to say, but the door swings open violently, and an older woman with gray hair and matching gray eyes stares at me, her chest moving up and down with labored breaths.
“Who the fuck are you?” she asks.
“Where is Monica?” I ask, but just as the last word leaves my lips, the woman makes an erratic movement with her hand, and before I know it, excruciating pain starts at the top of my head and rolls all the way down my spine.
Ow. Fuck.
My ears ring and my vision goes black, and then nothingness consumes me.
44
Dominic
10:05 p.m.
The instant I sawIncoming Call: Hannahon my phone, every hope and wish and prayer I’ve been putting out into the universe for the past week and a half filled my head and had my heart racing anxiously inside my chest.
But when I answered, all I got in return was outright panic in her voice and her telling me she’sreally scared.
“Hannah?” I say into the receiver, plugging my ear with one finger to drown out the noise from the schmuck singing karaoke onstage at Honky Tonk Parade. “Hannah? You there?”
I hear Hannah say, “Where is Monica?” but that’s followed by rustling and static and sounds I can’t make out.
“Hannah?” I say her name again, but she doesn’t respond.
“Hannah?” I say louder this time, loud enough that Shane is now looking at me from the across the bar top table with puzzled eyes. “Hannah? Are you okay? Hannah?”
Silence follows, more rustling, then an ear-piercing scream from a female voice.
I’m on my feet now and Shane is on his, too, his eyes fixated on my face. “Dom?” he questions, and I try to keep listening to the call as closely as I can, but at some point, the line just goes dead.
“Something’s wrong. Hannah’s in trouble,” I say and quickly open the Find My app in my phone, hoping that Hannah is still sharing her location with me.
“What do you mean?” Shane asks, but I’m too busy searching her location to answer.
Relief fills my chest when I see her name in my list of people I can track, but when I see her current location, fear makes a gallon’s worth of adrenaline to dump into my veins.
“She’s at the Swan,” I say, already heading for the door.
“The Swan?” Shane follows, but he’s still confused. “That fancy-as-fuck hotel in West End?”
