Page 64 of Secrets Beneath the Waves (Beach Read Thrillers #2)

CHAPTER

EIGHTEEN

Dante stared at the phone screen, his mind refusing to compute the three words Jules had sent— thats not him.

Was that true? How was it possible that the police scouring the land around his family’s property could have closed in on a man who happened to be in the vicinity and who at least closely resembled the partial sketch Dante had drawn?

He had been a little disconcerted about the discrepancies that existed between their prisoner and the drawing he’d done, but the man was Caucasian.

He did have a long face and deep-set eyes, if more brown than amber.

No scratch marks on his cheeks or arms, although he could have been an extremely fast healer.

Dante had comforted himself with the fact that Jules had been going from her notes , not from a clear picture in her mind.

Any exact details she had failed to add to her mental inventory would have been lost by the time she tried to describe the features to him.

And, of course, without the description of a nose, they didn’t have a full picture to go by.

The phone buzzed again, and he lifted it quickly to scan her next text.

Straightening abruptly, Dante yanked open a drawer and withdrew another sketch pad.

He’d left the one with the partial drawing at the cottage, although he had studied the picture enough it was burned into his mind.

He recreated what he’d had with fast, smooth strokes before adding in the new details Jules had sent him.

Beneath the tip of his pencil, a face rapidly formed. Before he could add the final details, his phone vibrated against the wooden surface of the desk, and he snatched it up.

the uber driver

He frowned. The Uber driver? What did that mean?

Was she taking an Uber somewhere? No doubt she would have headed either to Brie’s parents’ place to see her friends or the hospital to visit her mother as soon as she could, so she was likely on her way to one or the other.

Dante frowned. Why wouldn’t she have taken her own car?

the uber driver

No. Could it be that the man they were searching for was, even now, taking Jules somewhere in his vehicle?

Although his fingers had grown numb, Dante managed to add the last details to the rendering before tossing his pencil on the desk and sprinting for the lab.

He’d get the tech guys to run the sketch through facial recognition as well as trace Jules’ phone, see if they could get a bead on her location.

In minutes, both processes were underway.

Dante paced the hallway outside the lab.

Thoughts of where Jules could be, what she might be going through, were driving him nearly out of his mind.

Finally, when he was about to lose it completely and go storming in, a tech opened the door and held out the phone Dante had given him.

“Here. I’ve loaded the software so you can follow her route. ”

Dante snatched it and glanced at the screen. “The dot isn’t moving.”

“No. According to the records, it hasn’t moved in twenty minutes.”

“Meaning they have arrived at wherever this guy is taking her?”

The tech didn’t quite meet his eyes. “That’s possible. Although, as I’m sure you know, it’s much more likely that at some point he took the phone from her and dumped it. Still wouldn’t hurt to check it out.”

Dante nodded. “I will.” He held up the device. “Thanks for this. You guys will text me if you get a hit on the facial recognition, right?”

“Of course.”

“Appreciate it.” Already striding away, Dante called the words back over his shoulder. Yeah, he did know that the most likely scenario was that the killer had taken Jules’ phone. He was far too smart to allow her to keep it, knowing how easy it would be to track.

Even so, Dante was heading to the spot. If Jules wasn’t there, maybe there would be some clue, however small, that would help him to find her.

Already he knew Jules well enough to know that she wouldn’t give up without a fight, so neither would he.