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If he heard me, he made no sign of acknowledging it. He continued to pace the floor until Holden finally chimed in. “Hey, Fido. The lady asked you a question. ”
Normally Holden’s dog jokes rankled Lucas in the worst way. Tonight he merely stopped his caged-animal back-and-forthing and stared at us both as if he’d forgotten where he was. “What?”
“How long has it been since someone spoke to Kellen?” I repeated.
“Jackson was with her last, and that was Monday. None of her friends have talked to her since then. No one in the pack has heard from her either. ” This wasn’t entirely surprising since Kellen was not a werewolf, but it was interesting she hadn’t talked to her human friends either.
I immediately shifted gears from worried-friend mode to PI mode. “Where was she when Jackson saw her?”
“He dropped her off in Chinatown on Monday night. He was supposed to pick her up later that night, but she texted to say she wouldn’t be needing him. That was it. ”
Chinatown? What was Kellen doing in Chinatown? I could understand her blowing off Jackson, one of Lucas’s young werewolf lackeys, especially if she thought another plan would be more fun. Kellen was constantly in search of the better party. I was no stranger to getting a text-message blow off from her at the last minute. But text messages were also easy to fake. And if someone knew her habits, they’d know a text wouldn’t be questioned by anyone familiar with Kellen’s laissez-faire attitude when it came to polite behavior.
I pursed my lips together, mulling over what little information he’d given me.
“You could have called me to ask this. ”
“Maybe I would have if you’d answer my goddamn calls,” he retorted. There was the bristling anger I was more familiar with from him. Good, I needed him angry. Just like Holden couldn’t handle me being a simpering wussy, Lucas was useless to me—and more importantly to his pack—as an unstable, worried brother.
“It’s probably nothing. ” Once again I ignored his rage. Point two for me. Aside from the huge coolness deduction I’d lost when I kicked him, I was definitely looking like the more emotionally stable of the two of us. Perish the thought.
“She has never, never ignored my calls, Secret. Not since…not since our parents died. ”
So even the media-darling wild child still had a responsible side when it came to family. I loved Kellen and thought of her like a sister—before I’d known I had one of my own—but I never stopped learning things about her that surprised me. I assumed she’d be flighty and unreliable, especially with Lucas. This new tidbit was making my It’s cool, don’t worry argument harder to stand behind.
“There are a dozen reasons she might not have called. You know how Kellen is. ” It didn’t take any wild stretches of imagination to come up with a plausible story to explain her absence. “She could have gone on a last-minute vacation, probably to Cozumel or something. Her phone got wet, she hasn’t realized she’s missed any calls, so she doesn’t even know you’re worried. It’s only been forty-eight hours. It’s hardly time to send out the National Guard. ” I held my hands open in front of me and raised both eyebrows, trying to convey a certainty that said, See, see how easy this is to believe?
“I don’t know. ” Hearing him say those words so often in such a short span of time was making me both nervous and annoyed. My desire to slap some sen
se into him made my fingers burn.
“We both know her,” I reminded him. “She is a sweet, well-meaning girl, Lucas, but she isn’t always the most…considerate of how her actions impact others. ”
He nodded, and I could see I was getting somewhere. Which was good, because the sooner he accepted the wisdom of my words, the sooner I could get him the hell out of Holden’s apartment.
“I’m worried,” he said. “I have so many enemies. And if they can’t get to me or to you… I’m worried someone might have done something to her. Something bad. ”
The stupid part of me that once loved him wanted to go to him. I wanted to hold him and tell him everything would be okay.
Instead I internally Moonstruck-ed myself.
“Would it make you feel better if I looked into it? Keaty and I have contacts. I can ask around, make sure nothing bad has happened to her. I’ll get Mercedes to run the usual checks, and we’ll put your mind at ease. ” My friend Mercedes was an NYPD detective, and one of these days she was going to get sick of doing under-the-table favors for me. I wouldn’t blame her, either, considering how many times her life had been put in danger because of her friendship with me. But for now, at least, I knew running some checks wouldn’t kick me out of her good books just yet.
Another bonus of being the jilted bride was people were willing to be extra nice to you.
Being a woman scorned and almost killed at a wedding covered by the international press meant I also got a lot of cool free designer stuff mailed to me. But that was beside the point. My new Hermes bag wasn’t going to make Lucas feel better about his maybe-but-probably-not missing sister.
“You’d do that for me?”
Holden huffed out a disgusted grunt but said nothing.
“No. I’d do it for Kellen. For you I’m going to say go take a shower and shave. Don’t let any of your pack, or God forbid my uncle’s pack, see you looking like a homeless grad student. You’re a king, for fuck’s sake. Start acting like one. ”
He bristled visibly. “What did you just say to me?”
“I said suck it up, buttercup. You can’t be worried about a human if your pack is in such a fragile state that you can’t show up to your own wedding. You have bigger fish to fry. ”
“Secret…” Ah, the familiar, impatient, warning sound. He’d loved to scold me like I was a naughty child, and not in a kinky way. But he didn’t get to talk down to me anymore.
