Eternal (Shadow Falls: After Dark #2)(77)

That night, Della laid in bed with the Smurfette doll sitting on the bedside table staring at her.

Why did the stupid thing mean something?

Because he’d bought it for her. Because he’d been embarrassed and still bought it for her. Because it was apparent that he’d been thinking about her when he saw it.

She recalled Holiday’s words of warning. Just be careful.

She would, she told herself.

Before she let any of this get carried away she wanted …

What did she want?

The answer came to her. She wanted to know for sure that she trusted Chase. Wanted to make sure that he wasn’t keeping more secrets.

While she was listing off wants, she grabbed her phone just to make sure she hadn’t missed a call from her mom.

No call.

She half-ass debated calling again, but then it just hurt too much.

If her mom didn’t care enough to call back, Della wasn’t calling her.

*   *   *

Thursday, right after classes, Della’s phone rang. Expecting it to be her mom, she hurried and caught the call without even looking at the number. It wasn’t her mom. Burnett again—needing to see her. She took off, and swore not to think about her mom again. The camp leader was waiting on his cabin’s front porch. Not a good sign.

She followed him into his back office because Holiday had someone in hers. He leaned against the desk and motioned for her to sit down in the chair. One glance around, and Della knew Holiday had done a room makeover—a crystal paperweight sat on the desk, along with more colorful pictures of Hannah, Burnett’s little pride and joy. In the corner of the room hung a plant, a live plant. The room no longer looked so stark.

Or it didn’t until Della noted Burnett’s expression.

Something was wrong.

“What is it?” Della asked.

“We tried to run down Damian Bond in California. He’s not staying where he told the girlfriend he was, and he was let go from his stunt job two days ago. But I checked, and so far, he’s still scheduled to fly back on Friday afternoon. So I was thinking, why don’t you take tonight off, stay here, and get some rest.”

“It’s because I slept late yesterday, isn’t it? I was fine today.”

“It’s not that,” he said. “Well, maybe a little bit. You’ve been going nonstop. I know you were out running last night until almost two. You can’t keep pushing yourself like this. I know, I’m an agent. You need to calm down, breathe.”

Della held her temper in check. “I’m fine. I don’t need that much sleep anymore. You should know that, too. And I’m still breathing. Can’t you hear me?” She inhaled.

He frowned. “I can see it in your eyes. This case is all you think about. You have to learn to let go. It can eat you up inside if you don’t learn to set it aside.”

“I’ll let go and relax when we find Natasha and Liam. You told me yourself, they don’t have much time.”

He exhaled in frustration and Della sensed that he knew something more. What was he not telling her? “There’s something else, isn’t there?”

When he didn’t answer immediately, she wanted to scream, but she forced herself to stay seated and ask again in a calm voice. Hey … if he wanted her calm to work on the case, she’d give him calm … even if it killed her.

“What are you not telling me, Burnett?”

He moved around the desk and sat down in his chair. “One of the other weres who was arrested finally decided to talk yesterday. He validated what Jason Von told you. And what the Vampire Council dug up in their files. But…” He paused. “He also said it was four weeks ago when they took Liam. He knows exactly because it was his brother’s birthday.” Burnett shook his head. “Della, there’s no way they could have survived this long.”

Still holding her emotions in check, she said, “You were there when the ghost did her thing. She spelled out ‘alive.’ You saw it. How can you still question it?”

“Even Holiday said that ghosts sometimes … get confused. It could be Natasha is the ghost and she doesn’t want to accept—”

“No.” She shook her head. “We don’t know that they put them in that tunnel, or whatever it is, four weeks ago. They could have just locked them away recently.”

Burnett’s expression stayed firm, and Della saw it in his eyes. He had proof, or he thought he did.

“What else? Just tell me what you know,” she said and her heart gripped from what she knew she didn’t want to hear. What she knew she didn’t want to believe.

He let out a deep breath. “I wanted Holiday to be here. She’s supposed to be done in just a few minutes.”

“I don’t need Holiday, Burnett. I just need to hear what’s going on.”

He nodded. “They were kidnapping fresh turns and using them to host underground fight matches.”

Della remembered the vision she’d had yesterday … now it made sense.

Burnett settled deeper into his chair. “We discovered the same thing happening in Dallas and were able to stop it. We arrested those involved there, and even freed several of the fresh turns that were being held. They were actually bringing them in from other countries.”

Della kept listening, but so far, he hadn’t said anything that proved to her that Natasha and Liam were dead.