Page 137 of Reaper and Ruin

I was instantly reminded that although he was an idiot ninety-five percent of the time, he was also capable of snapping a man’s neck with no remorse.

And that was something to be respected.

I pressed my lips together and nodded. “She’s not dead.”

He went back to golden retriever mode and grinned like we were just out on a Sunday drive and not speeding toward Saint View on a rescue mission. “Do you think we’ll be able to get Violet back before school pickup? I promised the kids donuts.”

I left Whip to answer that question because Fang’s voice was saying hello in my ear.

“Fang. I need you to go to Clean Sweep and see if Violet or her boss, Francine, are there.”

To Fang’s credit, or maybe to the credit of the friendship that had existed between us for fifteen years, he didn’t question me. He stayed on the phone until a moment later, I heard the roar of his bike, and then the call cut out.

I called War next, then Hawk, then dropped the phone onto the floor at my feet and buried my face in my hands.

Whip’s fingers found the back of my neck and squeezed it. “Just breathe, okay? Fang will call back in a minute.”

But a minute could be too long, when every second felt like it lasted a year, and every tick of the clock could mean the difference between Violet walking away from this alive or us finding her dead and bleeding out somewhere.

I looked over at Whip miserably. “She’s fucking pregnant.”

Whip’s fingers tightened in the tense muscles in the back of my neck. “I know. It’ll be okay.”

But he didn’t know that. Couldn’t promise that by the time we found her she’d still be breathing.

All I could see in my mind was the night we’d found her covered in blood.

I was so fucking scared this time, it would be hers.

My phone rang, and I jumped like it had electrocuted me. I scooped it up from the floor with trembling fingers and answered. “Fang. Tell me you have her.”

Fang’s voice was grim on the other end. “There’s nobody here. The Clean Sweep car is gone too. We sent the prospects over to Violet’s apartment, but nothing there either.”

Whip’s calm voice pierced through the screaming in my head. “Ask him if he can see a roster there anywhere. They might just be at a job. We need to check the obvious first before we jump to the—”

Fang interrupted him. “I heard him. We already checked the roster hanging on the wall, but all the jobs on today have a red cross through them. War is calling around to the owners of the houses that were scheduled, but so far, all of them have said Francine cancelled the jobs.”

Well, that blew any ideas that Francine hadn’t planned this all out perfectly. I put Fang on speaker so everyone in the car could hear. “What the fuck do we do now?”

Fang was silent. Whip’s foot lifted on the accelerator, and the car slowed.

I wanted to scream at him to keep going. That we had to get to her.

But none of us knew where the hell to look.

“Hey, Siri? Take us to 1705 Fire Ridge Way,” X called from the back seat, then he swore under his breath. “Damn, there’s a really good burger bar just down the road. I hope we have time to stop there on the way home. Did you know they have the worldrecord for the most barbecued pork ribs consumed in an hour? Says it right here on their web—”

“X!” Whip snapped. “Why the fuck are we going to Fire Ridge Way? We already checked that house. There was nothing there.”

X blinked like that had been a dumb question. He held up his phone and spoke in his David Attenborough voice again. “When the male of the species has calm breasts, he can navigate thought quite well. When he is filled with an impeccable sense of humor and model good looks, as well as brains for days, he can make many a deduction.” He dropped his fake accent and picked up his regular one. “They’re not at Clean Sweep or their cleaning jobs or Violet’s apartment or Francine’s house. I figured if that house was good enough to lure Nyah in, then she might do the same with Violet. Where the hell else would she go to murder someone in the middle of the day? She’s not going to do it out in broad daylight. What other stomping grounds does she have? The bluffs are crowded with hikers and families at this time of day. She wouldn’t be able to lure Violet to the warehouse again, or to the house on Olympic Drive. The only place Francine has that Violet hasn’t been to is that house on Fire Ridge Way.”

“The only other house weknowof,” Whip muttered.

He was right. Maybe Francine had other places she could go. But we had to check all the obvious places first.

We were only a few streets away from the address, according to the GPS on the dash. Our little green dot moved faster as he put his foot down on the accelerator again.

Whip turned the corner, into the barely familiar street the three of us had checked no more than a week ago. Had we missed something? The place had been spotless, not a speck of dust out of place.