Unspoken (Shadow Falls: After Dark #3)(23)

Holy shit! Her mom could see Mrs. Chi. How was that even possible? Maybe this was a dream. She pinched her leg. It hurt. This wasn’t a nightmare.

“Don’t look at her.” Della pulled her mom’s shoulders around so she’d face Della and not the dead woman.

Her mom blinked at Della as if confused. “They didn’t show her. They just said…”

That’s when Della realized that behind the table and behind Mrs. Chi’s bloody body, was a television. On the screen, a news reporter stood in front of the Chis’ store, recounting the horror that had taken place last night. Della’s chest burned again at the injustice of it.

She cut her eyes toward Mrs. Chi. So sorry.

Taking a deep breath, so cold her lungs were in danger of getting frost bitten, she tried to stop the panic from building. Stopping it wasn’t easy, not when Mrs. Chi looked down at her blood-stained blouse in puzzlement. She lifted her head, exposing her sliced throat again, and her eyes met Della’s. What happened?

Footsteps sounded behind her. “What’s wrong?” came her father’s panicked voice.

“The news.” Her mom, tears making her eyes shine, motioned to the television. “Mr. and Mrs. Chi were found murdered in their shop last night. That poor, poor couple. Who could do something like that?”

Murdered? The elderly woman shot up from the chair, and a … a bloody basketball rolled across the kitchen’s white tile floor, leaving a bloody streak until it bounced against her father’s bare feet.

Of course he didn’t feel it. Didn’t see it. This was for Della’s eyes only. Lucky her! Not. What the hell was Mrs. Chi doing with a basketball?

Mrs. Chi walked in front of Della. Her slanted eyes filled with puzzlement. Where’s my husband? Where did he go?

Chills ran down Della’s arms.

“How … how could that have happened?” her dad muttered, his gaze on the television, where the reporter continued talking. Then he swung around and stared right at her.

Did she still have bruises? She ran her tongue over her lip, it was all healed. Her face should be, too. So why was he …

“How could it happen?” he asked again, as if … as if she herself had the answer.

“I … don’t know.” Della answered, trying to read the emotion in his dark eyes. Emotion that looked a lot like …

He blinked. “That’s awful.” He stormed out of the kitchen almost as quickly as he’d come in.

Della rubbed a hand up her arm to fight off the cold, both from Mrs. Chi’s presence and from her father’s expression. Then she glanced at her mom. “What was that about?”

“What?” her mom asked, dropping down in a chair.

“Daddy … he acted as if…”

“As if what?”

“Nothing,” Della said and stared after her dad. Suddenly an answer started to come together—bits and pieces connecting, and with it came a lot of pain. Was that why…? Oh, God, she thought she finally understood what was really going on—what had been going on for months. With the understanding she felt the foundation of her life crumbling right under her feet. And there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.

Except go down with it.





Chapter Ten

Chase sat in Burnett’s office at the FRU headquarters. He knew it was Burnett’s because the walls were decorated with images of Holiday and Hannah. For one second, his tired mind wondered what it was like. To have a kid. With Della. Not that he was ready for that. Heck, he had to steal kisses. He couldn’t hold her when he wanted to. Or sleep with her when he wanted to. And he really wanted to.

His body recalled how it had felt to have her so close to him when he’d flown away from the weres. He let out a deep gulp of frustration, wishing that the remedy would come sooner rather than later.

The computer hummed, still thinking about Chase’s request. He had asked Burnett’s permission to use the computer, which had a few FRU programs on it, to do a search for anyone named Douglas Stone or Don Williams. It had found six people in the Houston area with the name Stone and ten with the name Don Williams.

Now Chase waited for it to spew out the addresses and information on them. Better to stay busy than just sit and twiddle his thumbs. But watching a computer screen wasn’t exactly busy. He stretched his neck to one side then the other. The chair squeaked and his neck popped, relieving very little of his tension.

The computer kept churning and so did Chase’s patience—from lack of sleep, no doubt. He really only needed three or four hours, but he’d been running on two a night for the last week and none at all tonight, so that didn’t help. Neither did thinking about Steve being back at Shadow Falls. Not that he was …

Chase Tallman wasn’t jealous. Nope. But damned if he didn’t feel something. Something that felt wrong, like too-tight underwear. And why the hell had he spent so much time wondering exactly what Della had told her girlfriend about the shape-shifter?

Leaning back in the chair, a frown pulled his lips downward and he raised his arms over his head, glancing from the computer screen to the blinds. The first rays of sun spilled through the slits and he groaned. The weres still hadn’t arrived from the local jail. They had only arrested four, three had gotten away, but one, the one they’d pulled from a tree, was hospitalized. Perhaps Chase should have felt a little bad, but he didn’t.