“Did she go into the toilets?”
“No, toward the exit. Seemed in a damn hurry, too.”
I swore again, this time silently. “Thanks for your help. Just... ease up on the drugs, okay?”
She nodded and walked unsteadily away.
“How in the fuck did Monica know about the tracker?” Ginny asked.
I turned the tracker off and shoved it in my pocket. “Someone obviously gave her the heads-up. You want to update Jack, then head outside and do a sweep?”
We’d lose direct contact while she was in hawk form, but it was the quickest means of checking the entire area.
“On it now.”
The line went dead. I hurried back down the corridor, stopped in front of the toilet, and said, in a loud enough voice to be heard over the pounding music, “Did anyone see a woman with scarlet hair, wearing a short white bodycon dress and sparkly heels come this way?”
“Why? You a cop?” a short woman asked.
“No. A concerned friend.”
It was said a little impatiently, and she sniffed. “You sound like a cop to me.”
“Cops don’t dress like that,” another said. “And they certainly don’t have jeweled belly studs.”
I knew several cops who actually did, one of whom was responsible for mine, thanks to a drunken bachelorette party decision that we should all get something to remember the night by.
We’d been thirty rather than teenagers at the time.
Rochelle, who was now seven months pregnant, had removed hers due to the discomfort it was causing during her pregnancy. While that was something I didn’t have to worry about—aside from the fact you had to have sex to get pregnant, the power that ran through me made it all but impossible to conceive—I’d downgraded mine a year or so ago to a simple diamond stud that I stuck on as needed with eyelash glue. I still loved “real” belly rings, even if there were some in the Society who considered them kitschy, and me way too old, but I’d discovered the hard way they weren’t always compatible with this job.
“The woman?” I repeated. “Did anyone see where she went?”
“Down the corridor,” the tall woman closest to the door said. “Seemed to be in a hurry.”
“Thanks.”
I eased past her, then broke into a run, my footsteps echoing softly through the half-lit darkness. Deep in the distance beyond the walls, something stirred.
Something that wasn’t entirely human.
I shivered and shoved my imagination back in its box. While I was totally capable of detecting the life forces of both supernatural or demonic beings, I didn’t have X-ray vision and couldn’t see through the many walls that currently divided me from whatever stirred in the streets beyond this building. My sense of movement was likely born of nothing more than fear—not fear of the unknown, but rather of making a mistake that could once again lead to the death of another....
It was a fear I wouldneverovercome, no matter how long I lived.
Another shiver stole across my skin. I did my best to ignore it and studiously but quickly checked the two rooms that led off the main corridor. One was a store, the other an employee locker room with bathroom facilities; both were empty.
The exit lay around the corner from the two rooms; I edged around, but again found nothing except shadows and dust. The latter stirred sluggishly, suggesting someone had moved through here recently. Whether that person was Monica or someone else was impossible to say.
The light above the exit was green, indicating it wasn’t locked, which wasn’t unusual during operational hours. Whatwas, however, was the fact that neither the door nor its handle held the pinprick glow of body heat that would normally linger if someone had very recently gone through the door.
And yet, where else could our bride have gone?
I had no idea, but I really needed to find out, and quickly. I pushed the exit bar down and warily opened the door. The night air was warm and danced delightfully across my bare stomach. It might be the middle of winter here in Brisbane, but for a born and bred Canberran used to biting winds blowing in at this time of the year, it was positively balmy.
The courtyard area beyond had once been a loading bay, and the faint drift of smoke coming from the half-stubbed cigarette sitting in one of the many ashtrays lining the concrete walls to the left and right suggested someone had been here recently.
Someone who might well have been waiting for Monica.
