Page 124 of Secrets Beneath the Waves

He blinked. “Sorry. Did you say something?”

“Yeah. I said thank you, but my car’s parked right outside the station. I’m fine to get myself home.” She folded the blanket neatly and set it on the chair.

“All right then.” Dante unsnapped the flap on the pocket of his shirt and dug around in it until his fingers closed around a business card. “If you think of anything else, call me, okay? This number goes straight to me.” He held the card out.

“Okay, thanks.” When she reached across the table for it, her fingers trembled. Exhaustion, no doubt, on top of everything else. She unzipped the bag she still wore across her chest and stuck the card in it. “Oh, speaking of calling you, did anyone find my phone? I dropped it in the alley when I heard the woman scream.”

Hope sparked inside him. “Your phone? Any chance you took any pictures before you dropped it? Or video?”

She shook her head. “No. I was talking to my friends when I heard the scream.”

His eyebrows rose. “Talking to them? As in on the line? Could they have overheard anything?”

“No. We were messaging each other.”

The brief spurt of hope fizzled. “Ah. Well, I’ll have to check with the investigators when they get back to the station. I’m sure someone would have picked it up. Is there another way I can get hold of you if I need to?”

“Here.” Jules pulled the notepad closer and scribbled something in the top corner. “My email address.”

“Thanks. I’ll let you know when you can come here to get it. Since there’s a slight chance the suspect might have seen it and picked it up after you left, they’ll probably need to log it into evidence and dust it for prints.”

“Ugh. If he did touch it, you’ll let me know, right? I won’t want it back if that happened.”

“I promise I will.”

“Okay then.” Jules rounded the table and headed for the door.

“Jules?”

“Yeah?” She stopped in the doorway and looked back, one hand pressed to the frame.

“My email address is on that card as well, in case you need to contact me before you get your phone back.”

“All right.”

“Be careful, okay?” A deep uneasiness had settled in his gut. He shouldn’t let her go. He had no grounds on which to keep her here, though. Certainly, she wouldn’t voluntarily stay simply for the pleasure of his company, not after the way he had treated her earlier.

Her brow furrowed, although she nodded. “I will.” Pushing away from the door frame, Jules added, “I guess I’ll see you around.” She disappeared into the hallway before he had a chance to respond. The same way he’d left her at the table in the pub.

Dante glanced down at the notepad, reviewing the few details she’d been able to provide.

Like her vague, non-committal farewell before she took off, they were slightly better than nothing, although precious little to move forward with.

Dante shoved that thought from his head. He needed to focus on the case and not let anyone or anything—including a mesmerizing pair of turquoise eyes—distract him. Hopefully the CSI team would have better luck gathering evidence at the scene than he’d had getting anything from their one witness tonight.

If not, Dante had a sinking feeling that Jules Adler could find herself in the crosshairs of a man whose face she couldn’t visualize but who likely had every one of her features permanently etched into his brain.

CHAPTER

THREE

Although she doubtedshe would sleep, Jules carefully undid the clasp on her silver locket and laid it reverently in the china dish on her dresser before lifting the blankets and sliding beneath the soft, cool sheets. When she’d arrived home from the police station half an hour earlier, Jules had headed straight to her computer to email Brie and Kelli, who had to be going out of their minds wondering what had happened to her. No doubt, if and when Jules did get her phone back from the police, there would be a hundred texts from the two of them, demanding answers and expressing concern.

Hopefully they’d both gone to bed and were sound asleep by now, but Jules wanted them to see the message that she was fine first thing in the morning. Not wanting to get into everything that had happened last night, she only shared that she had lost her phone and would need to email for a few days.

After punching her pillow a couple of times to fluff it up and then tugging her whiteNo Coffee, No TalkeeT-shirt down over her flannel pajama bottoms, Jules crossed her arms on top of the duvet and stared up at the ceiling, at the faint glow of moonlight drifting through the glass to shimmer across the stucco. Given the privacy fence lining the back of her postage-stamp-sizedyard, she usually left her blinds up and curtains open, as she loved falling asleep to the soft light and the gentle shadows of tree branches slow dancing against her walls.

The soft light and slow dancing that were doing nothing to still her racing thoughts tonight. What was up with Dante de Marco’s Jekyll-and-Hyde behavior? If she hadn’t met him earlier, on their sorry excuse for a date, she might have actually thought the man she’d encountered at the police station was a decent human being.