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“Who told you about him?” Dante asked, confused.
“The Shadowman.”
Amara was surprised when she got the call at nine.
She and Morana had been lounging in Tristan’s cottage, talking about their lives and spending a girl’s night just being friends, chilling with another female companion, someone they had both never had in their lives.
Amara had talked to her about her arrangement with Dante over the years, her accelerated degrees that had allowed her to get into practicing therapy, and her reasons for running away. Morana had confessed about her father's situation, about how lost she felt some days and how Tristan anchored her, about how she wondered about Gabriel’s actual daughter and her fate. They also talked about wedding plans while sipping on hot chocolate, and for the first time in her life, Amara felt how much having a true female friend did wonder for the soul. Morana was a true girlfriend of her heart, the kind who would drop everything and be there for her at any time of the day, the kind she could text the weirdest stuff and she would just text back weirder, the kind whom Amara could trust with her baby if one day something ever happened to her.
Her day had started so well, with Dante waking her with a soft kiss as he left, telling her Vin would be there for the day. She had spent her morning seeing her friend – her once-chubby now-hottie friend – and reconnecting with the man he had become, realizing that while he had hardened, he was still the same boy underneath she loved. He was another true friend of her heart, one who had made her day just by spending time with her.
So the call had surprised her. Now, sitting beside Morana in the passenger seat of one of the Outfit sedans as she drove to a location, Amara didn’t know whether to be worried or not.
“I knew the airport guy had done us a solid this time,” Morana told her.
“Yes, but why would Dante call me to come to the location? And ask me to call in my contact at social services?” Amara asked, baffled.
Morana shrugged, swerving, overtaking a car, going at a speed much higher than Amara was used to, but doing it confidently. “Who knows? Is your contact sending someone to the location?”
Amara checked her phone. “Yeah, they should be there in about twenty minutes.”
“We’ll be there in ten.”
“The GPS doesn’t show that,” Amara pointed out, and her friend just gave her a grin, accelerating even more.
Amara laughed, holding the handle by the door. “Just don’t get us in an accident, please. There’s a baby the size of a bean on-board.”
Morana gave her an amused look, slowing down a bit as they came to a turn. “I know. Tristan told me. He said you kept touching your stomach yesterday and I quote ‘asshole probably knocked her up’.”
Amara sputtered a laugh, not really surprised at Tristan’s observation or comment.
“Any news on Nerea?” Amara asked.
“Nope,” Morana sighed. “I’ve been keeping an eye on her movements but they’ve been clean so far.”
Amara nodded. Just as she’d expected. They chat up the rest of the way about the baby, becoming silent as they turned on a dirt path lit by moonlight, and saw the woods.
“Is it just me or is this place straight out of a slasher flick?” Morana muttered quietly as she drove over the path, to the edge of the wooded area. The headlights lit the way, showing nothing but trees on both side, and darkness beyond.
“This is creepy,” Amara agreed, watching the GPS show their destination just a mile ahead. “Are you sure we’re on the right path?”
The answer came in the form of three SUVs, a police cruiser, an ambulance, and a creepy as fuck house lit up by the headlights of all the vehicles. Morana parked the vehicle beside the police cruiser and they both got out, exchanging a look before walking towards the front of the house where people were standing covering the front steps of the house.
The closer they got to the group, the more Amara realized there were small people sitting on the steps, huddled in blankets. Small boys.
Heart pounding, she watched as Morana split to the side of the house, where Tristan sat on the ground talking to one boy. Leaving them to it, she turned to see Dante standing with no jacket, his shirt sleeves folded over his forearms, hands on his hips as he listened to a cop say something. His eyes came to her, went over her from head to toe, before he extended his hand to her, calling her silently to his side.
Amara walked on her wedges to him, looking around the scene, questions in her eyes. Dante slid his arm around her waist, continuing his conversation with the middle-aged cop, balding.
“Five of them matched the missing person reports filed over the last year,” the cop told them, ignoring her. “We’ve called their guardians; they should be here by the morning. We’ll take their statements after.”
Dante nodded, mindlessly rubbing the side of her hip, even as his focus was on the conversation along with hers. “What about the boys at the hospital?”
The cop shook his head. “We’re trying to locate their files but nothing is coming up. Reckon we’ll have to search the last five years or so. They’re at the hospital for now. We have a man on them.”
“Make it two,” Dante ordered, and Amara wondered if he could actually order a cop. She knew the Maronis had a lot of the departments in their pockets, but she didn’t know how deep it went.
“I’ll have to call in social services on this one,” the cop said.
