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“None of that tells us much,” Greer stated.
“There’s something…a man they kept calling Cardinal. He has a house in Lake Placid, said he stays there every other week. He might be worth talking to.”
“If Glenwood is the lodging town near here, Lake Placid isn’t too far. It might be worth checking out,” Greer suggested.
Zane stroked his chin and nodded in agreement. “Alright. At this point it wouldn’t hurt.”
“How are we going to know which house is his?” Addy asked.
“The nicest one?” Darrian more questioned than asked.
“That was very helpful,” Nyx deadpanned.
With a sigh Zane turned around, tapped his fingers on the arm-rest, and then just like I knew he would, twisted back to ask my opinion. He should have learned by now to do this in the first place.
“What do you think?”
“I think we need to drop our handicap off in the lodge town with Greer, because we’ll need Trix, and continue on our way. Come back for them when we’re done.”
“You’re going to leave me?” Darrian asked, sounding offended.
“We’ll Zane isn’t going to keep carrying your ass around,” Addy snapped.
“You can’t—.”
“She’s right, I’m not. You can either go to the town and wait, or get the fuck out and I’ll see if you’re still here on my way back through.”
I laughed at the baffled expression on her face. What had she been expecting? She and Z were friends; nothing between them would ever develop past that. He wasn’t going to piss off Addy to please her. Siding with any woman over yours, even if she was wrong, that was reasonable grounds to have your balls removed.
You either pretended to agree or shut the fuck up until further notice. It was that simple.
In the end, Darrian wisely chose to keep her mouth shut, settling the debate with silence.
Turned out Lake Placid was closer to the town than Greer had estimated.
We dropped him and Darrian off and ensured they had a room at the town lodge, and then continued on our way.
Approximately twenty minutes later we were leaving the truck in an old alleyway and footing it through a lucrative neighborhood.
“It’s really quiet,” Trix said, turning her head left and right to take in the massive houses surrounding us.
The silence didn’t bother me. If anything it gave me the time to reflect on everything that had transpired over the last twenty-four hours. It was one thing to assume someone was dead, another to see that person’s dead body. No amount of amount looking at the past would change the future, though.
Ace was gone, and the only positive I could make out of his demise was that he no longer had to suffer in silence like the rest of us did. He was free from the hell we called Badlands.
I couldn’t pinpoint why Ace’s death was bothering me on the level it was. I barely knew the kid, but it sure as shit put some things in perspective.
Nothing in life was guaranteed, things could change in the matter of a few seconds. That mutilated body could have been any one of us, but as long as I was around it would never be Nyx.
As if she knew where my thoughts had gone, her soft touch traveled down my wrist to my hand, dainty fingers thread through mine. Neither of us said anything or looked down to acknowledge the gesture, but I made sure her hand wouldn’t slip away from mine.
“There’s no sign of life here,” she said, drawing me out of my head.
“Not a single house has a light on,” Addy added, “Do you think there’s no power in this area?”
“Could be possible, but look.” Zane pointed upward, bringing attention to the fact the street lights were on.
“So it’s possible Darrian gave a false lead?” Trix checked.
