Page 9 of Secrets Beneath the Waves (Beach Read Thrillers #2)

CHAPTER

NINE

Zeyla tossed her fork into the container that now had only a couple of limp pieces of romaine and none of the spicy chicken, cheese, and chickpeas she had been eating. Along with a whole bunch of other things she’d asked them to add—which they had upcharged Ramon for.

“You were going to explain about this guy?” He took the final bite of his hot roast beef sandwich.

She tensed in her chair, looking at everything but him. Wiping her hands on a napkin. “People think he’s just a myth. Like the boogeyman.”

“It seems like there’s a lot of those within Dominatus .” This wasn’t the first time he had heard a term like that about someone within their organization. Unsurprising, considering how readily they used fear to manipulate people.

Zeyla winced a little. “He’s real. He’s one of the only leaders who stays out of research or furthering the cause. He’s so quiet that no one knows where to find him. But I know he votes in their elections. I’ve seen his signature in the logbook.”

Ramon lifted his brows. “You know all their names?”

“It’s not like you can look up Count of Shadows in the phone book. You already looked for him online, right? So you know he’s basically a myth.”

“If he’s a person, then he’s not a myth.” Ramon took a sip of his drink. “That means he’s someone we can find. Have you ever thought that he could be the big honcho, leader guy?”

She shook her head. “The man over the whole group always lives in Europe. I’ve heard that he’s got a huge castle, but I’ve never seen it.”

From that the fact that she didn’t want to say or hear Dominatus aloud, Ramon gathered she also didn’t want to mention the name of the leader—the Imperatoris . “How did you get a look at the logbook?”

“Milo Hargrove, actually.” Zeyla sighed, as if she had been reluctant to tell him all this before, but now she was realizing she had no choice.

“He was one of them, years ago. He managed to get out and stay hidden. But if the Count of Shadows is the one who sent your friend to kill him, then he must have realized who Milo is.”

Ramon’s brows lifted. “Getting out is a serious accomplishment. I bet he had all kinds of knowledge about what they did and how Dominatus is run.”

“After a while, most of it was obsolete. But he never gave up looking for the Count so he could expose the guy.”

“Did he want justice or revenge?”

Zeyla shook her head. “He never explained to me why.”

“And you just went along with it, even now that he’s dead? The guy put your life at risk, but you still want to finish what he started?”

“It’s not like that.” She winced again, balling her napkin into a scrunched-up bundle in her fist. “You’re going to think this is so stupid. You’ll tell me it’s a terrible idea.”

“Why don’t you give me the benefit of the doubt, and we’ll see what happens?”

She stared at him for almost a minute before finally saying, “I want to give Kenna her father. Not that he’d be anyone she wants to bond with, considering he’s pure evil like the rest of them. But…I took Malcolm away from her.”

“You think this Count of Shadows guy is Kenna’s father?”

This was the first Ramon had heard anything about Kenna’s biological dad.

She’d been the result of the artificial insemination of Zeyla’s aunt, Amara’s sister.

Bred for the purposes of Dominatus so they could stake a claim in the world by filling it with as many people of theirs as possible. People whose genetics they had decided.

Kenna certainly couldn’t claim she was a mistake or the result of an accident. But who she was had made her a target of these people. Her and the baby she was carrying.

“Milo thought he was. He said so as soon as he saw a picture of Kenna.”

Ramon said, “Go back to the part about Malcolm.”

“It’s just that…I took Malcolm away from her. He’s my dad, and she thought he was hers for her whole life. But when she found out that one of their guys was her dad… I may as well have killed Malcolm for her.”

“I don’t think Kenna would agree with your assessment.”

“That’s why I didn’t want to tell you,” Zeyla said. “I’m just telling you how I feel. I’m not saying it makes any sense.”

“So you find this Count of Shadows, and Kenna gets a father? Why would she want a father like this guy? Not to mention you’ve never met him and have no idea what his name is.”

Zeyla stiffened. “Maybe she just wants to know where she came from. Isn’t that something everyone wants to know?”

Ramon shrugged. “I try to live in the now, not in the past.”

“Some of us don’t get to do that. When Amara finally told me who my father was, it meant something to me.

Even though he was dead by then. It meant that I had belonged to someone.

” Zeyla bit her lip. “I knew that Kenna would always hate me for the fact that Malcolm Banbury is my father and not hers.”

He started to object to that, but she cut him off.

“I just need a DNA sample from him. I can give her that much.” She took her cup and both of their containers to the trash and dumped them inside, not stopping to wait for him before she headed to the front doors of the restaurant.

Ramon grabbed his soda and offered his table to a waiting family before crossing the tile floor and heading for the door. She was already over by the car, leaning against it and looking up at the cloudy sky. He scanned the parking lot just in case Miguel had shown up after they went inside.

All he saw were families, young couples, and people on their lunch break from work. A slice of normal life that he didn’t often see. He operated mostly after dark and in places these people would never go.

“Zeyla—”

She cut him off. “Maizie found a storage unit that Mrs. Harrison started renting just a few weeks after Chelsea went missing.” She turned to the door and got in.

They did need to talk about why she felt such a driving need to put herself in danger just to get Kenna a paternity test. This whole thing was beyond a fool’s errand, not just because Miguel was here and probably still gunning for Zeyla so that he could complete his mission.

But right now, he would let her have a breather from the intensity of the conversation.

That didn’t mean they were done talking about it.

He reached the storage unit in just under twenty minutes—a brand-new-looking complex with a central tower of multiple stories of units that had to have some kind of central elevator. The rest of the complex had rows and rows of garage doors that all looked the same.

Zeyla gave him a code for the entrance gate. “Maizie said Mrs. Harrison rents unit 314.”

“Got it.” He eased the car slowly between rows, looking for the right number. “You really think there’s going to be something in here?”

“I don’t think she’s involved with what happened to Chelsea or any of the others,” Zeyla said. “But she’s definitely hiding something. She just had that look about her.”

“I was trying not to be biased toward her, but I got the same impression.” He spotted the correct number and pulled over beside it. “Will we need a key to get in?”

“Even better.” Zeyla waved her phone. “It’s all electronic access.”

By the time he was out the door and around the hood of the car, she had a green light on the panel beside the door. Ramon crouched in the center of the door and rolled it up to the ceiling. “Nothing to see here. Just your average, everyday breaking and entering in broad daylight.”

“Unfortunately,” Zeyla said, “the complex is currently having security system issues. So if anyone reports a crime, there will be no footage of whoever came in and maybe or maybe not stole something.”

“I guess that helps.” But he still didn’t like the fact they were currently committing a crime based on curiosity and not much else.

At least he wasn’t someone in law enforcement who would require probable cause and a warrant before finding out if Mrs. Harrison was really up to something.

He’d never liked going before judges and begging for a sign-off.

“Whoa.” Zeyla stepped into the storage unit, whistling. He followed her over to a chest freezer in the corner, the only thing in this unit. “What was I saying earlier, about having serial killer vibes?”

“How about we don’t leave prints at what is potentially a crime scene?” Ramon had grabbed plastic gloves out of the car and put them on now.

She looked at him. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Ramon lifted his brows, then pulled up the freezer lid. “ Whoa is about right.”

Zeyla peered over his shoulder. Inside the freezer, a man lay curled up with a young woman slumped on top of him.

Both of them were frozen solid. The man had a wound on the side of his head that might have been from being struck with a heavy object.

He couldn’t see any wounds on the woman.

Both of them wore summer clothes—shorts and a T-shirt for the guy, while the girl wore shorts and a tank top. Neither had shoes on.

“Do you have one of your untraceable phones?” Ramon asked her.

Zeyla pulled a cell phone from her pocket.

“We’re going to call 911 and leave the phone here.”

She tapped a few buttons on the cell, probably deleting her contacts and her message history. “It’s clean.”

“Get in the car.” Ramon shut the lid of the chest freezer on who he presumed was Mr. Harrison and the best friend, whatever her name was. It hadn’t been Chelsea Harrison because the girl didn’t have blonde hair.

He wiped any fingerprints from the phone and dialed 911.

Leaving the phone with the call connected on the top of the chest freezer, Ramon headed to the car. He didn’t roll the garage door down. The police needed no barrier between them and finding these two bodies, even if they’d find his prints on the door at some point.

He peeled out of the complex using the back entrance and sped away. They had to put as much distance as possible between them and the crime scene before the police showed up.

“She murdered them, didn’t she?” Zeyla ran her hands over her knees, her fingers tense.

“I figure they didn’t give her the answer she was looking for.”

She said, “Or Mrs. Harrison found Mr. Harrison with her daughter’s best friend.”

“Either way, she knows something about how they died.” He gripped the wheel and turned the next corner. “But we still don’t know if she has any connection to this guy you’re trying to find.”

Zeyla looked at him, but he didn’t let on that he saw it.

He didn’t need her reasoning to make sense.

As she had said, she was entitled to feel the way she felt, and it didn’t necessarily have to be logical.

He was glad she’d told him because at least now he knew why they were really here in Spokane.

“The question is, are you still only after DNA, or are you interested in finding a man who targets young women and makes them disappear?”

“You want to take him down?”

Ramon glanced over. “It’s the right thing to do.”

“And if he is Kenna’s father, then we’ll have done her a favor.”