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Ria squinted in focus for a moment. “They came the same direction we had.”
My heart picked up as the lines connected, stomach twisting into knots.
“They knew her route,” she murmured. “They came from Abe’s and followed her route to Spades.”
“They were watching her.” My shaking hand lifted to my beard. “Turn around.”
“What? We’re almost to Fr—”
“Frank just met her last night,” I said. “It’s Eric. It has to be Eric.”
* * *
As we drove to his house, it all replayed in my mind.
I’d never liked Eric, but he was more tolerable than Tommy. Tommy was loud and proud of being a piece of shit. Eric just stared with a devilish look and drank his beer.
He’d been at the bar twice in the last week. He usually only came on weekends, but he’d been here twice this week—including the night Brooke cast the surveillance spell. He’d been playing a game of darts when we came inside and she and I talked over the bar. He’d left minutes after she had.
I hadn’t thought anything of it because he’d been around for as long as I could remember. I didn’t like him, but he’d never done anything bad enough for me to kick him out, unlike the countless times I’d had to tell Tommy off.
Even as we drove, I questioned it. Sure, the parallels were there, but it seemed like a stretch.
Until I saw the car in front of his trailer with Florida plates.
“That’s the car that picked up Misty.” Ria’s voice cracked as she approached. “That’s…”
“Block it in,” I said, unbuckling my seatbelt. I lifted the blade from the floor to my hand, grasping the hilt, but holding the point upright toward my skin, tucked beneath my jacket.
I didn’t know if Eric would try to haul ass out of here. I certainly didn’t want to kill him before I knew where Brooke was. But his bike wasn’t here, and that was concerning.
He may not have been here, but someone else was. Maybe Brooke was. Maybe Misty was.
I didn’t know, but I wasn’t taking any risks.
“Stay here.” I started from the car.
“You’re full of shit.” She jumped out behind me, hurriedly stowing her keys to her pocket. “I’m not—”
Brooke would kill me if Ria got hurt on my watch. But I didn’t have time to argue with her, so I said, “Teleport out if shit hits the fan.”
“Always do,” she muttered, jogging up beside me.
I inhaled deeply as we drew closer to the door, smelling. Eric’s scent was obviously here, although, it wasn’t close. It was more of a residual odor. The other scent was stronger, drifting directly from its source. A woman, but she was human, and older. Definitely not Brooke, and since Misty was in her twenties, I doubted her either.
What concerned me was that neither of their scents were here at all. Not Brooke, not Misty. Wherever he’d taken them, they weren’t here.
But hopefully, she could point us in the right direction.
Ria pounded on the door before I’d gotten the chance, rolling to the tips of her toes to peer in through the small pane of glass. Silence followed for a moment, and I slammed my fist against the door that time.
Footsteps finally sounded on the other side.
Just as it pulled open, letting out the dense scent of cigarettes and beer, a woman with curlers in her hair said, “What’s—”
Ria rushed forward with a blade to the woman’s throat, pinning her to the wall just inside. “Where the fuck is he?”
Not what I was expecting, but I wasn’t protesting.
