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I hesitated, wondering about the sudden change in subject again. While I had been the one to mention my wedding, I didn’t expect her to linger on the subject.
“Most of them,” I said. “How about you? Have you ever been engaged?”
She shook her head. “No, though I’m in a serious relationship now. You know I was with my ex-boyfriend for a long time. But after we broke up, I met someone new. I’m happier than I’ve ever been at this point.”
“Who are you seeing? Or is it a secret?” I had barely asked the question when the waitress brought our lunch. As she cleared away our chowder cups, setting the plates in front of us, Daya suddenly became intensely interested in her food. She motioned that her mouth was full and, once again, I dropped the subject.
When she next spoke it was to ask me about the cats. I realized I wasn’t going to get any clear-cut answers from her. Rowan was right—Daya was hiding something. But what it was, I had no clue.
She took over the conversation, switching it to pleasantries and town gossip. I listened, occasionally interjecting an answer, but I felt suddenly uneasy.
Not certain what was going on, but always one to try and listen to my intuition, I let the rest of the lunch date pass on a superficial level. But I knew that Daya was hiding something, and she wasn’t about to be forthcoming with it. Filing away everything I could for future reference, I finished my steak and then—as she tossed her money on table and pled an upcoming appointment—I waved goodbye, watching her walk away.
CHAPTERNINE
The snow was still coming down thick and fast when I left the restaurant. I was almost to my car when, over in the corner of the parking lot, I caught a glimpse of Daya standing next to her car. A man stood next to her, his arm around her waist.
There was something odd about him that made my alarm bells ring—a tingle of energy that I could feel all the way over where I was. They were so focused on each other that they didn’t see me staring at them. Without thinking, I raised my phone, zoomed in, and took a picture. I snapped a second as the man turned ever so slightly, and managed to catch his face. Then I slid into my car before he saw me and noticed what I was doing.
I headed home, trying to remember if I had taken out anything to thaw for dinner. If not, we could have spaghetti—ground beef was easy enough to cook from frozen, and we were both fine with jarred pasta sauce. Grating cheese took a few minutes, so that wasn’t an issue, either.
Pulling into Jitterbug Jolt—an espresso stand—I ordered a triple-shot peppermint mocha with extra peppermint. As I took a long sip, the warmth and caffeine flooded through me and I smiled. While the lunch hadn’t gone the way I planned it, I at least had something to go on—the mancouldhave been her brother or a friend or somebody like that, but it was something to look into.
As I pulled into Killian’s driveway, a police car pulled in behind me. I was getting out of the car when Millie Tuptin—the chief of police—stepped out of the cruiser. She motioned to the front door and I unlocked it. Millie followed me in, a somber look on her face.
“What’s up? Is it something about the fire?” I asked, shrugging out of my jacket and hanging it in the hall closet.
“Let’s go in the living room,” she said.
Worried now, I followed her. I gestured her to sit. “What’s going on, Millie?”
“I’ll come straight to the point. Ellison escaped. Nobody knows how he got the ankle monitor off. It shows no sign of tampering and was sitting on the counter in his parents’ house. They have no clue of where he is—and the police believe them. Anyway, you need to keep an eye out, because we don’t know what he’s up to or where he went.” She leaned forward. “I wish I had more information.”
I stared at her, unable to process what she was telling me. My ex had attacked me and had been placed under house arrest instead of going to prison because his parents had needed his help. But now, I wished with every fiber of my being that he’d been tossed in prison and left to rot.
“How can someone get an ankle monitor off with no signs of tampering?”
“We don’t know. I suspect he had magical help,” Millie said.
“Ellison hates magic. He was thrilled when he found out I didn’t know that much about my magical abilities.” I couldn’t understand how he could flip so drastically.
“Maybe he saw it as the one way to get out of his punishment. One thing’s for sure—when he’s caught, he’ll be heading directly to prison and will likely get an extended sentence since he’s pulled this stunt.” She paused, then added, “Do you feel like you’re in danger?”
“When he showed up and tried to punch me, I knew that he wouldn’t hesitate to take it even further. I guess he couldn’t stand to see me happy and that it wasmylife moving forward and not his.” A sudden flash of anger raged through me. Howdarehe put me in this position? “I wish he was here right now. I’d show him what he’s taking on. Killian would rip him to shreds and I’d be right there to help.”
“Easy now,” Millie said. “We don’t know that he’s in town, but we’ll keep watch and I’ll have a patrol car drive past your house a couple times during the night and day. There’s a statewide APB out on him, and when we catch him, you know he won’t be getting out for a long time.”
“I’d like to believe that,” I muttered. “But all too often I’ve seen justice go undone. I’m not talking about you, Millie, but the system is flawed, and people—women especially—are going to continue to die until it gets fixed.”
While Ellison had refrained from physical abuse while we were together, he had snapped afterward and tried to hit me, putting a hole through my wall. I had secured a restraining order against him, but apparently that was moot now.
“I wouldn’t put it past him to come after me,” I said.
I knew too many women who ended up bruised and battered from the very men who were supposed to love them. And it crossed lines, too. Domestic violence abusers, while primarily men, could be women, and their victims could be men or women, in straight or queer relationships.
“We’ll do everything we can to find him before he shows up here.” She stood. “I’m sorry I had to tell you this, and I’m even sorrier we don’t have better news.”
I walked her to the door and waved as she headed out into the snow. The minute I closed the door, I put in a conference call to Rowan and Teran.
