Page 47 of Hexes From Exes

“How am I supposed to know that?! I’ve been looking for you! And you were gone! I was alone, and Rick is alone.” Zed’s voice broke, and Cass swore she saw tears in his eyes. She reached out to place a hand on his shoulder but stopped just before making contact, thinking better of it.

“Zed, go home and shower, get some rest. I’ll talk to my department. We’ll figure this out.” Cass hoped it wasn’t a lie.

Chapter Twenty

At 5:25pm, Stephanie stood near a grey BMW, trying to ignore the fact that she was sweating her ass off. It was now Tuesday, and Stephanie had gone through the gamut of emotions about Rick going MIA.

At first, she figured he was busy.

Then she was sad. How could this happen again? Did it not matter the species, a dick was a dick?

At last, she landed on anger. Explosive, absolutely feral rage. She needed to direct that anger somewhere, and the best person to do that was at Rick himself. The problem was she didn’t know how to find him. If he wasn’t answering his texts, she had no other way to contact him. She even considered lurking around the Museum of Antiquities to see if she could find his ex. She realized how unhinged that sounded but didn’t care. The fact that she didn’t know what Cass looked like – or even if she were using that name in the human world – was the only thing keeping her from stalking through the museum and cornering everyone.

She did, however, know of some people who might be able to contact Rick. After Diego sprinted out of the restaurant on Saturday night, Stephanie had no other way to get ahold of him. He’d moved and she had no idea where he lived or worked. He also wasn’t answering his phone and had blocked her on every social media.

Fred wasn’t as lucky.

She started by shooting him a text, which he ignored. So, she tried to call and was sent straight to voicemail. Either Diego warned him about the fact that Stephanie was aware of what they’d done, or he’d somehow recognized Rick from the conference. Unfortunately for Fred, Stephanie knew exactly where he worked, and she knew that the BMW with the vanity license plate that read MEDSLAYER was most likely his.

She saw Fred leave his work building at 5:32pm, putting on his sunglasses and heading across the lot to his car. He was too busy looking at his phone to notice Stephanie until it was too late. When he looked up, he jumped, nearly dropping his phone in the process.

“Hello, Fred,” she said coolly.

“Oh, hey Stephanie,” he said, his head jerking around the parking lot. He was hoping for witnesses, so he’d be safe if she decided to do something to him, like murder him in broad daylight. She considered it, but she needed information from him.

“You’ve been ignoring my calls,” she said, tapping her fingers on her arm. She didn’t dare touch his car in the summer sun, it was likely to burn the top four layers of her skin off. She used her body angled in front of his driver’s side door instead, cutting off his ability to drive away and evade her.

“Have I? You must not have my new number…” He trailed off as she pulled out her phone and pressed a button. In response his own cell phone started to buzz loudly in his hand. “Nope, seems like I have the right one.”

“What do you want, Stephanie?” Fred asked, dread filling his voice.

“How’d you do it?” she asked.

“Do what?” Fred asked, not even trying to sound convincing anymore.

“How did you summon a fucking demon to send after me?” she elaborated.

Fred cringed, his head darting around the parking lot again. “Look, it wasn’t me, okay? I mean, I was there, but I have no idea where he got it from!”

“Who? Got what?” Stephanie pressed.

Fred looked like he was hoping the sun would burn him to ashes on the spot. To his dismay he was still standing, sweating under its rays and pinned by Stephanie’s unyielding gaze. “Okay, fine. It was Chad. He figured it all out. He’s been…well, he’d found Diego and Monty and Tom…”

“TOM?” Stephanie barked, her eyes wide. “Fucking Tom?”

“Look, we don’t like him either. But Chad somehow found out we’d all dated you and, well, he convinced us that if we got together, we could make you pay. It wasn’t my idea, it was Chad’s. He did all the leg work.”

“It wasn’t your idea, but you were there and didn’t stop him,” Stephanie accused bitterly.

Fred had the decency to at least look ashamed. “Yeah, but…look, it was a stupid idea. I didn’t even think it would work. When the demon showed up…” He shook his head, shuddering. “That’s when I realized we fucked up.”

“And yet you didn’t stop it,” Stephanie repeated.

“No, I didn’t,” Fred admitted.

“Fine. Where does Chad live?” Stephanie asked.

“Uh…” Fred started, shifting his weight.