Page 36 of Unspoken (Shadow Falls: After Dark #3)

Chapter Thirty-six

Chase parked his car in front of Kirk’s two-story cabin that was built on stilts. Its balcony actually hung over the water. The noon sun was centered in the sky and water reflected it in diamond sparkles. No cars were parked in the driveway.

But Kirk and Kirk’s friends didn’t always travel by car.

He cut the engine off and got out. He lifted his face in the breeze and caught the lake’s scent as well as a fleeting trace of vampires. More than one.

He relaxed when he didn’t detect Eddie. Another intake of air and he recognized the scents of the council members. Others were strangers.

Chase debated leaving. He really wanted to chat with Kirk, alone.

Of course, since he’d gotten their scents, one of them had surely gotten his.

Leaving wasn’t an option now.

***

“Hey,” Della said and looked up at Steve, trying to suppress a frown at seeing him. If he’d come to “talk,” well, he’d come at the wrong time. Because damn it, she just had too much on her plate to deal with this right now.

“Can I join you?” he asked.

“I’m not in any mood to—”

He dropped down anyway. She stopped trying not to frown and let it happen.

“How are you?” he asked and he looked at her like Steve always looked at her, with concern and patience.

“Terrible,” she said. “And I’m not very good company. So why don’t—”

“I heard some of what happened. That had to be hard.”

“I know, but—”

“Della, you’re avoiding me. Sooner or later we need to talk.”

“Then later it is.” She shot up to her feet.

He caught her. “Don’t do this.”

“Don’t what?” She jerked free and then felt like a bitch again, but she wouldn’t have to be a bitch if people would just leave her the hell alone! “Look, I’m sorry, but I’ve got too much shit going on to pile more shit on top of my other shit.”

“Fine!” he snapped. “But don’t run off. Sit down. Please.” His warm brown eyes looked up at her. “Talk to me.”

“Are you deaf? Did you not just hear me? I don’t—”

“Not talk about our shit, about the other shit. You don’t have to go through this alone.”

She wasn’t, the thought hit. She had Chase, but she might not when he returned, because she was gonna kill him for not texting her back. And she had Kylie and Miranda—though, after being such a bitch yesterday, they might not be on her team anymore. But she didn’t say any of that.

Looking at him, she blurted out, “I’m sorry.”

She dropped down and hugged her jean-covered knees. “My dad’s murder trial is days away. My sister hates me. My mom is dying inside. I know my dad’s going crazy. I’m pretty sure he knows I’m vampire. And it’s my fault. I’ve done this to them all.”

She could have kept going and told him about almost seeing a little girl get her throat slit, about how the smell of death kept following her around, but she didn’t. Even she couldn’t handle that much pathetic.

She pressed her forehead to her knees and swallowed, trying to fight her need to cry.

“What is Burnett saying?” Steve asked.

“He just keeps telling me it’s not as bad as it seems. But the police have a weapon with my dad’s DNA on it. Or rather my uncle’s DNA, but they don’t know he’s alive.”

Steve frowned. “I can see how that’s hard on you. What is this?” he asked, pointing to the papers.

“That’s the DA’s file on the case.”

“Wow, you got it?”

“Burnett did. I’ve been trying to find something that might help.”

Steve picked it up. “Do you mind? Maybe you need a fresh pair of eyes.”

***

Chase clicked the button to put the top up on his car. He hit the locks, and then started walking toward the door. No doubt they were waiting for him by now.

He tilted his head to the side and listened to see if they were talking. He heard a duck call to a mate on the lake, a fish splash in the water, and a motor on someone’s boat move down the lake.

But not a word came from the house.

He walked up the length of the driveway. The hair on the back of his neck stood up. Sensing that someone was watching him, he looked up, and just then the drapes in the front window fluttered back into place.

He ran a hand over the back of his neck, fighting the crazy sensation that trouble waited. But this was Kirk, he told himself. He trusted him.

Didn’t he? Right then Chase saw two guards standing at the back of the property.

“Is this a bad time?” Chase asked, knowing the council inside were listening.

“Yeah, but you’re already here,” came Kirk’s reply. “Come on in.”

***

“They never arrested your dad back then, right?” Steve asked Della when he finished reading.

“No,” Della said. “But according to Derek’s detective buddy, who read the old case file, he was the only suspect. They just didn’t have enough proof to take it to court.”

Steve looked back at the file. “So we know he called 911, but then he says he couldn’t remember anything. Was he checked for a concussion?”

“The file doesn’t even say if he was taken to the hospital. My dad’s not much help. He says he doesn’t remember, and my uncle told Chase that when he got to the house my dad was unconscious.”

“And you don’t believe him? Or you do?” Steve asked.

“I don’t know,” Della said. “I mean, this Douglas Stone guy really exists. He’s bad, and he was out to stop Chase from trying to prove this. So maybe I do believe my uncle didn’t do it. Oh,” she grabbed the file and flipped pages and pointed down, “and I just found in the transcripts of the 911 call that my dad told the operator ‘he’ broke in but that ‘they’ were hurting his sister. Doesn’t that mean there were two people there that night? And that kind of supports my uncle’s version, because he said Douglas Stone got there first and then he arrived.”

Steve sat there thinking. “But why would he think your uncle was hurting his sister?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he was unconscious when Feng got there and just heard them screaming or something. But the thing is that my mom said that shortly after all this happened they had to put my dad in St. Mary’s hospital, that hospital for crazy people. Which is more proof that he saw something. But my dad’s lawyer is afraid to request the files because he thinks something in there could hurt the case.”

“Or it could prove that he got attacked and that’s the reason his blood was on the knife. Those files might help his case.”

Frustration welled up and started spilling out of her and she moaned. Really loud.

Realizing how crazy she looked, she said, “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Steve asked.

“For bitching. I told you I wasn’t good company.”

Steve hesitated. “Are you sure it was St. Mary’s Psychiatric Institution?”

“That’s what my mom said, why?”

“Well, what if you could get your hands on those files and find out if they would help or hurt your father’s case? And if they help, you can tell the lawyer to get them opened and used for evidence.”

“How?” Della asked.

Steve shrugged and looked hesitant to say it. “My mom works there one day a week. Well, she volunteers and visits some of the people who don’t have insurance. I don’t know if they have the old files there, but they might.”

“Your mom would actually give them to me?” Della asked, not believing it.

“Oh, hell, no,” Steve said. “I’m thinking if I found out where they keep the files, I could go, then leave a window open and you could take a peek at them.”

“God, I love you,” Della said and hugged him.

It only took a second for Della to realize what she’d said and to realize how awkward it felt. Her arms around Steve. Steve’s arms around her.

Surely Steve didn’t think she meant that she loved him like… “love” love.

Or did he?

Oh, hell!

***

Chase moved faster up the steps. He saw the two guards start toward him as he entered the door.

Kirk, along with the other councilmen, waited in the entryway.

Chase stared at Kirk’s face, trying to read him. “What’s going on?”

Chase heard the guard’s footsteps move up the porch.

“Stop,” Kirk growled. “There will be no bloodshed!”

The two sets of footsteps halted.

Chase looked at the man whom he’d grown to love and trust, and just like that he knew he’d been wrong. Kirk knew about Stone. The whole council was in on this. “Why are you protecting Douglas Stone?”

Councilman Powell’s shoulders gave, as if in defeat. “The guy you call Douglas Stone is my son.”

Chase looked from Powell to Kirk. “And you knew who killed Eddie’s sister and you lied to him all these years?”

“I didn’t know at first,” Kirk said.

“None of us did,” Powell snapped.

Chase felt his eyes grow hot and stared at Powell. “Your son is a monster. He not only killed Eddie’s sister, but he recently killed another woman. I watched them take her body, piece by piece, out of a house just yesterday. And someone in the gang he runs nearly killed a child.”

“I’m not surprised,” Powell said. “I stopped trying to excuse his behavior years ago. I know what he is. I know he has to be stopped.”

Chase looked back at Kirk. “Then what’s the problem? Tell me where he is and I’ll bring him in.”

“That’s the problem,” Kirk said.

Chase’s fury rose higher. “You’re protecting him, even knowing what he is?”

“We’re not protecting him,” Kirk said. “Stopping him. Killing him isn’t a problem. But you can’t take him in to the FRU.”

“Why not?” Chase asked.

***

As soon as Steve left, Della went inside. When Miranda and Kylie walked in from their last class three minutes later, Della sat at the kitchen table. She had three Diet Cokes waiting in the fridge and an apology resting on the tip of her tongue.

“Looks like the vamp has finally decided to talk,” Miranda said.

Kylie elbowed her. “Yes, and being her friends, we’re here to listen.”

“I’m sorry.” Della stood up and got the three Diet Cokes out. “I was a real shit, wasn’t I?”

“Yup.” Then Miranda ran over, throwing her arms around Della in one of those bear hugs that just about hurt. “But like Kylie said, we forgive you. We will always forgive you. But I hate it when I see you’re hurting and you won’t talk to us!” Her hug actually got tighter. “So can you please not do that anymore?”

“I’ll try really hard,” Della managed to say. “But, speaking of hurting, can you stop hugging me now?”

Miranda released her.

They all sat down in their designated places.

“Who’s going first?” Kylie asked.

“I think Della should,” Miranda announced. “She’s the one who is worse off.”

Della didn’t like to go first, but she put that aside. “My life is effed up.”

“We’re gonna need more than that,” Miranda said.

“Every time we think we have a lead on Douglas Stone, the guy who probably killed my aunt, it goes away. Now, not only is he responsible for killing my aunt but his gang is the one who killed Mr. and Mrs. Chi. My mom is losing it. My sister hates me. I’m pretty sure my dad thinks I’m a monster—of course I told you that, right?”

Kylie nodded.

Della inhaled and continued, “Chase thinks the Vampire Council knows something about Stone and he left to go there this morning and we haven’t heard a peep from him. I’m worried sick something has happened. And you might think things couldn’t get worse, but they do! I told Steve I love him.”