“I have to make sure my mother stays safe.”
“He said he would bring her with him,” Logan said. “When they get here, we’ll take her away from him.”
Elena didn’t miss the look Asher shot him, but the hunter didn’t protest Logan’s words.
“I can’t ask you to do that; you could get killed,” Elena said.
“You didn’t ask us; I offered. And if he takes you back to the compound, what will become of you?”
Elena had no idea what would become of her. Mateo would take her as his bride, but would he keep her alive afterward?
For some reason, she didn’t think so.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Do you want to marry him?” Logan asked.
She recoiled as if he’d thrown a glass of ice water in her face, but she hesitated before replying. If she said yes, they would most likely leave without protest. If she said no, they would stay and possibly get killed, so could she and her mother.
When she met Logan’s eyes again, it was clear he already knew the truth. He was waiting for her to say it. She glanced at Asher, who gave her a brief nod.
“That bastard most likely murdered my father,” Elena said as she stared at Asher. Then, she shifted her attention to Logan. “No, I don’t want to marry him.”
“So, you don’t think we killed your father?” Logan inquired.
“No,” Elena admitted. “I’m still not sure how much to trust you, and I don’t know how Mateo did it, considering he wasn’t in the compound when it happened, but he did it somehow.”
“How do you know he wasn’t in the compound?” Logan asked.
“He came through the gate after me. I saw him getting out of his car near the wall to talk to someone while parking outside my parents’ house. He had someone else do the dirty work for him, but it was for him.”
“Could he have left the compound after the murder?” Asher asked.
“I guess. I don’t know how long it was until they found my father’s—" her voice broke on the word—“body. So I… I guess he could have. Do you know?”
“I don’t,” Logan said. “We were the first to discover it, but Juan let us into the building with your father’s office and left us there. So, no one can vouch for us. I suspect your father died shortly before we arrived.”
“Whoever did this expected us to be the ones who discovered him,” Asher said.
“Yes,” Logan said.
Elena sank onto one of the chairs by the window and lowered her head into her hands. Tears burned her eyes and clogged her throat, but she held them back. Later, she would take another shower and let her grief out again, but she had to keep it together until then.
“He has my mother,” she whispered.
“And we will get her back for you,” Logan vowed.
Chapter Fourteen
They decided notto stay at their motel and picked a new one, closer to the Arizona border. It looked far more remote from its website and Google Earth images. She called Mateo back, with two minutes to spare from her allotted ten, and gave him the name of the new motel.
Soon after, they left the motel and drove to where Elena told Mateo to go. When they arrived at the new motel, Logan went in and used his vampire mojo to get them another room.
He couldn’t use any of his bank or credit cards in case the hunters were monitoring them. They couldn’t know he and Asher were with Elena, and since they spent their cash on supplies, Logan had to use his power of mind control to get a room.
It creeped her out, but she couldn’t stop watching him through the large picture window as he spoke with the middle-aged clerk. She shouldn’t have allowed this to happen, but they didn’t have any other choices.
She’d already told Mateo she had a room here, he was on his way, and they had no other way to get a room that wouldn’t make them trackable. Still, self-loathing and guilt churned inside her, and it didn’t improve when she saw the instant Logan took control of the clerk’s mind.
