Page 55 of Secrets Beneath the Waves (Beach Read Thrillers #2)

CHAPTER

TEN

Light footsteps on the living room floor roused him, and Dante opened his eyes. As he watched, Jules quietly lifted her black jacket from the hook next to the door and reached for the knob.

Dante repressed a sigh. “Do you actually have a death-wish, Jules? Because it would be helpful for me to know that.”

She yanked her hand away from the doorknob. In the wan moonlight filtering through the windows, he caught a glimpse of her face. His chest clenched. She looked terrified. What was that about?

He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the couch. “What is it? Has something happened? Is he here?” He reached for the holster and Sig he’d set on the coffee table before stretching out on the couch.

She shook her head. “No. He’s with my mother. Or was, an hour ago.”

“What? How do you know?” Dante shot to his feet, grabbed the holster, and strode across the room toward her.

“Can I fill you in on the way?”

“Of course.” He followed her out into the cool night. She started for her car, but Dante touched her shoulder. “Let’s take mine. I can put the light on the dash so we can go faster.”

“I wasn’t planning to stick to the speed limit, but fine.” She followed him nearly at a run to his car.

Other than issuing a few terse directions, Jules didn’t speak until he had pulled onto the road, rapidly accelerated to twenty over the limit, and then set the lights on the front dash to prevent them from being stopped.

When she gave him the name of the institution, a dozen questions fired off in his mind.

Dante kept them to himself, only sent her a sideways glance.

“What makes you think he’s with your mother? ”

“I woke up a few minutes ago and found an email from her. Here.” She pulled the phone he had given her from her pocket and hit a couple of buttons before reading him the few lines her mother had written.

Even with twelve years of crazy on the job, Dante had never experienced anything like this.

They absolutely had to find this guy and bring him in or who knew what perverse insanity he would indulge in next.

He stepped a little harder on the gas. “Good news is, there’s a better-than-average chance he’s finally made the mistake we’ve been waiting for.

The place has to have tight security and cameras and staff or other residents who would have seen him. ”

Jules had lowered the phone to her leg and was gazing out the front windshield. He reached over and lightly squeezed her forearm. “If your mom’s okay, this might be the break we’ve been waiting for.”

Still staring ahead, she murmured, “That if is doing a lot of work in the sentence, but I hope you’re right.”

Neither of them spoke again until he had arrived at the building and wheeled into a parking space. Jules leapt from the car almost before it stopped moving, and Dante had to jog after her to catch up, reaching behind him with the key fob to stab the lock button as he did.

Jules clearly knew her way around the place.

As soon as she announced her name over the intercom in the lobby, the lock clicked.

Dante reached around her to haul open the heavy glass door.

Then he followed her as she ran to the elevator and up to the fifth floor.

Jules leaned against the back wall, watching the numbers and drumming her hands on her thighs.

The second the door slid open, she dove through and took off down the hallway.

Two nurses, both male, sat behind the desk at the nurses’ station. One called out, “Jules?” as she hurried past, no doubt confused about her presence here at five in the morning. She only held up a finger and kept going.

Thankful for his uniform, Dante paused long enough to say, “She just wants to check on her mother and then we’ll come back and speak with you.”

Both men nodded as he took off again. When he reached the room Jules had disappeared into, Dante slowed to a walk, not wanting to alarm either of the women by bursting in with his hand on his weapon.

Light glowed softly, as though a lamp was turned on next to the bed.

All appeared quiet. No sign of the man they were hunting, which was both good and bad.

Although her mother was hidden behind a wall, he could see Jules, who had dropped to her knees next to the bed. Dante inched along a short hallway with a bathroom on his left and a kitchen sink and counter to his right.

“Jules?” Her mother’s voice was frail and shaky. Was she hurt? Afraid?

Without glancing in his direction, Jules held up a hand, and Dante stopped and propped a shoulder against the wall, listening to make sure everything was okay.

“Yes, it’s me, Mom. I got your message, and I came to see if you were all right.”

The bed creaked as though her mother was in the process of sitting up. “Message? What message?”

Jules did shoot him a look then. Had her mother not written that email? Maybe the killer had used her phone to send it to her and had never been near this place. As much as he hated that the guy was still tormenting Jules, that would be a relief.

“Didn’t you send me an email about a man here visiting you?”

“A man?” Her mother sounded confused. “No. I don’t think so.”

“Oh, okay. That’s good.” Jules reached for her mother’s hand and cradled it between both of hers. “I’m sorry to wake you then. I just wanted to check on you.”

Dante caught the movement of her mother’s free hand as she reached out and rested her fingers on Jules’ cheek.

“I’m fine, my darling. You don’t have to worry about me.”

The words seemed to release the tension in Jules’ body. “I’ll try not to. Go back to sleep now.”

The bed creaked again. Dante waited, content to watch Jules in the soft lighting, the look on her face as she gazed at her mom. What had happened to her mother to put her in a place like this? What had happened to both of them?

Although his chest ached, Dante reminded himself that was none of his business.

As he was at least partially responsible for what she was going through, he would stick around until the killer was brought in and then he would bow out of Jules’ life.

On more than one occasion, she had made it perfectly clear that was what she wanted, and he had to respect that.

Which meant he could not get emotionally involved in this case. With her.

Yeah, okay. Keep telling yourself that, buddy.

His colleague’s taunt echoed in his mind. All right, maybe it was a little late. Thankfully, Jules didn’t know that, and she never needed to.

Still on her knees, she gestured for him to come farther into the room. Grateful for the distraction from his disturbing thoughts, he shoved away from the wall and walked toward her. Her mother, as pale and frail as she sounded, lay on the bed, her eyes closed and her breathing even.

Jules pressed a palm to the bedside table and pushed to her feet. Taking a step closer to him, she whispered, “Do you see anything to suggest that guy was in her room?”

Dante wandered around, checking the windows—both locked—the dresser, the floor. Nothing appeared amiss to him. The most likely scenario was that their perp had used her phone again to freak Jules out. He stopped next to her. “Nothing that I can see.”

Jules drew in a deep breath. “That’s good. He must have sent that message himself to make me think he was here. I’ll close my email account as soon as I get home, and that should be the end of it.”

Dante suspected they were far from the end of it, although he wasn’t about to say so. Hopefully if she did close her email account the chilling messages would end, anyway. “Good plan.”

Her features softened as she grasped the top of the blanket and tugged it higher, to her mother’s chin.

Dante took a step toward the door. It wouldn’t hurt to talk to the nurses, see if they had seen anyone.

Maybe get a warrant to review the video from the cameras they must have mounted around the place. And he’d walk around the?—

Jules drew in a sharp breath, and Dante whirled around. “Jules?”

Her cheeks had gone even paler than her mother’s.

He closed the space between them. “What is it?”

With a trembling finger, she pointed to the silver necklace around her mother’s neck. “That’s my locket. The last time I wore it was the night we met at the pub. As soon as I got home, I took it off and set it in a china dish on my dresser. I haven’t touched it since.”