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She picked the phone up and was in mid-text, insisting Chase be careful, when it rang. She hit receive call and put it to her ear. “Chase?”
“Della?”
“Mom.” Della closed her eyes.
“Who’s Chase?”
“A friend,” Della said. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, I’m returning your call from this morning,” her mom said.
“I know, I just … I wanted to see how you’re doing.”
The silence on the line had Della’s eyes stinging again. Knowing her mom, she was either trying to figure out a way to sugarcoat things or trying to come up with an out-and-out lie.
“The truth, Mom.”
“We’re dealing with things. You shouldn’t worry.”
Della heard the lie in her mom’s tone. Just as she heard the pain in her voice. Her mom was about to break, and Della wasn’t there to catch her. Nobody was. Her sister was wrapped up in her own concerns. Her dad was drowning in emotional crap due to the murder case. And it was Della’s fault. All of it. She’d done this to them.
“How can I not worry? Is Dad okay?”
Her mom’s breath shook, a telltale sign she’d succumbed to tears. “Uh, I’m getting another call, I need to go.”
There was no other call. Della would have heard the click. “Please, Mom,” Della said, but it was too late. Her mom had hung up.
Della called back, but it went to voice mail. She pulled her knees up and let herself cry right along with her mom.
* * *
Kirk wasn’t at the council’s office. No one was. And when Chase looked in the window, the furnishings were gone.
They’d moved. They did so regularly, fearing the FRU might catch up with them. And no doubt, with Chase working for the enemy, they were probably worried about him turning them in. While he wasn’t second-guessing his decision, and he understood their reasoning, it still hurt knowing they’d consider him their enemy.
He’d been relieved that the FRU hadn’t asked him to hand over info about the council. But surprisingly, Burnett, meaning the FRU, had more information on the council than he would have guessed. He’d known the location of Hell’s Pit.
I trust Kirk, Chase had told Burnett. And he did. Kirk, a friend of Eddie’s, had always been around when Chase was growing up. But did Kirk know Powell was protecting Douglas Stone?
Chase got back in his car and drove toward Brown Lake, Kirk’s home for the last ten years. The place Chase had spent many of his summer vacations since he’d been turned.
Chase’s only worry was that the lake house might be where Eddie had gone. He hoped not. He didn’t want to have to lie to Della or Burnett about knowing Eddie’s location. Nor did he want to hear Eddie say he was turning himself in.
Chase knew Eddie had his finger on the pulse of his brother’s case. But it wasn’t over yet. Chase still had a little over a week to track down Stone. And Chase wasn’t going to slow down.
While his tires ate up the pavement, his phone in his black suit coat pocket beeped. He pulled it out and read Della’s two-word text.
If he called her she’d ask him where he was going. He wouldn’t lie. But he didn’t want to talk about this now.
He’d call her later, when he was sure Eddie wasn’t there. When he knew he didn’t have anything to lie about.
* * *
Sitting on the porch, Della had read over the file so many times she practically had it memorized. But she reread it again. And she finally found something that she hadn’t noticed before. In the transcript of the 911 call, her father had said he had broken into the house, but that they had hurt his sister. They being more than one.
What had her father really seen? She tried to imagine what her father must have thought seeing his twin brother, who he thought was dead.
She tried to envision what Bao Yu must have thought, facing a vampire. Had Bao Yu seen Feng at all? Was it the shock that made her want to blame Della’s father?
