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“Got it.” Eddie leaned down to me and he smelled like coffee. “Be careful, you hear me? Anyone who hides their identity does so because they are hiding from their past. They’ll do whatever they can to keep their secrets from being exposed.”
Now, I fully understood their concern. They weren’t only thinking of the present, but who knew if Wayde was a serial killer? I took Eddie’s advice to heart, even if I seriously had no idea how to keep my ass safe or what I needed to keep it safe from.
I hoped I wouldn’t be faced with the situation where I’d have to figure it out.
“They love you,” Kipp whispered, dragging my attention to him, which probably looked like I examined the yard to my right. “See how much they want to protect you?” He winked. “They love you almost as much as I do.”
I gave him a small smile, keeping silent because of Amelia. But when Alexander added, “I can see why they do,” I glanced over my shoulder and offered him the smile, too.
Amelia gave me an odd look, which I assumed was because what Alexander said had been so random. Even to me it seemed odd how when I looked at Caley now, I couldn’t see her. The perfectly put together blonde knockout that Caley was would never allow her makeup to run under her blue eyes as it did now, nor would she not remove the pieces of grass I spotted in her hair. But Amelia didn’t know Caley like I did.
Not paying Amelia any attention, I turned to the porch as I watched Eddie and Dane trot up the stairs. My mind raced, but I also wasn’t the cop in this equation. I worked for the Memphis cold case division, yes, but I was so far from being a police officer it was laughable.
When Dane and Eddie entered the house, I looked to Max, who now leaned against the porch railing. “What do you think Wayde is hiding from in the past?”
“I have no idea,” he stated.
“Or maybe we don’t want to know,” Gretchen whispered.
I glimpsed at Alexander then, and the pain in his eyes at the obvious implication of what Wayde had done was clear-cut. Turning to Max again, I asked, “Do you think this is the answer to solving Alexander’s death?”
“You must be wrong,” Amelia interjected, and her voice trembled. “Wayde couldn’t have done this to Dad. He was his friend. ”
“We’re on the right track here,” Kipp muttered. “I keep having a thought I can’t push away.” I tilted my head to indicate I listened to him, and he continued, “Nettie’s diary implied if you traveled to the Netherworld, you would die. What if Wayde thought, that first night when you came to White Castle and talked to Alexander, you would find out nothing, and then thought you would die on your trip into the Netherworld?”
I hadn’t even considered that, but Kipp was right. Wayde had shown a slight surprise, and maybe even a tinge of annoyance, after my trip to the Netherworld to see Kipp. Had he thought my traveling there would, in fact, kill me?
What in the hell had I done to Wayde?
However, match that with my going to the cemetery by the house, and how the date of Nettie’s death had been chiseled out of her tombstone, and Wayde’s guilt firmly cemented in my mind.
He hadn’t wanted me to know about Nettie and the finer details of her life, because then I never would have traveled to the Netherworld. Now, I fully suspected he had killed Alexander, and had planned to kill me discreetly, too. But why? To hide this other identity?
Even if I had come to the Animus, I never would have found out his true identity; only with the help from Max and Eddie did this come about. It made no sense he’d think otherwise.
Max paused, maybe at the hitch of my breath while Kipp talked, then he finally said, “To be honest, unless Wayde confesses, we’re still at a dead end on the case. It’s impossible to search for evidence that doesn’t exist. But we can always press him once we have him in custody.”
Part of me felt so frustrated. I had wanted Wayde to piss off since I came to White Castle. Now that he did, and even if he wasn’t who he said he was, or that his presence put me in danger, he knew where the Lux was located. I needed the spell that Wayde said would save Kipp.
Without Wayde, I had no hope in hell of finding an answer to end the craziness that consumed my life. Besides all that, I now realized I made a horrible error in judgment. I had magically bound the promise to Wayde that I would try to help solve Alexander’s murder and Wayde had bound the promise he’d help with Kipp. But did he really promise to help?
“I could promise the power does exist to reconnect your ghost with his body, and I possess that knowledge,” he had said.
Perhaps I’d been so desperate at the time, I didn’t read between the lines. Now, my head was clear, and Wayde, in fact, made no promise at all. Yes, the power existed. Yes, Wayde knew of a way. But that didn’t put t
he book into my hands, did it?
Max hesitated again, and I noticed the dark circles under his eyes, indicating exhaustion. “Cruisers are patrolling the city streets now looking for him, and we’re also keeping an eye on this house and on his home in Baton Rouge. He’s going to have to show his face sometime, especially considering he has no clue we’re on to him.”
I had heard all of what had come out of Max’s mouth and did agree at this point, Wayde didn’t know we knew of his dirty secret. However, one thing Max said made my heart stutter. “Pardon, his what?”
Max’s brows rose. “His, what…what?”
I glimpsed at Kipp, who all but vibrated with what I could only assume was adrenaline, and something close to hope and excitement coursed through my veins, too. I turned to Alexander, and a slow smile spread over Caley’s face.
Alexander needed the spell book as much as Kipp and I craved to get our hands on it. He required a spell that would force him to cross over, regardless that his murder wasn’t solved. And he’d spent an entire night searching the grounds and the house for the Lux, since he knew what it looked like, but he came up empty.
No one had mentioned the existence of another house owned by Wayde. In fact, I could hardly believe what Max had discovered without even knowing it. “Did you say that Wayde owns a house in Baton Rouge?”
