Blue Moon: Blood Moon Trilogy #3 (23 page)

“And Cordelia?”

“She’s alive.” Nick sounded confident, but he must have picked up on my hesitation. “Bobby wouldn’t have kept her alive all these years just to kill her now. He needs her to get close to us. To get close to you. He knows you formed a bond with her, and if I know him the way I used to, he’ll use her as leverage. He’ll wait for you to offer to take her place.”

He was right.

“Look, it’s late, and we’ve been through so much tonight. Let’s try and get some sleep and evaluate this with fresh eyes and alert minds in the morning, okay?”

Agreeing, I waited for Nick to lie down before sidling up to him. The fire was so warm we didn’t need blankets over us, so we just laid in silence, watching the flames dance across the logs, casting eerie shadows along the walls of the cabin. I finally found a moment of peace where my body relaxed, and my eyes were just starting to feel heavy when there was a dull vibration in my jeans pocket. At first, I didn’t know what it was, so I ignored it, but when it vibrated again, Nick chuckled, half-asleep.

“Your thigh is buzzing,” he mumbled lazily, running his hand up and down my back to rouse me a little more.

It buzzed again, and that was when I recognized it as my phone; someone was calling me. Sitting up, I fished it out of my pocket and looked at the screen. In my hazy-minded state, I wasn’t sure what I was seeing initially, but soon my brain connected the dots.

“It’s O’Malley,” I announced, confused as to why my old colleague would be calling me at this hour. “Hello?”

“Brooke, hey.”

It was weird, yet also really good to hear his voice at such a tumultuous time. It invited memories of happier times—even if those times were soon followed by tragedy. “What’s up?”

O’Malley sighed heavily. I’d worked with him long enough to recognize when he was upset about something—even over the phone. “I know it’s late, but I’ve been trying to call you off and on for the last couple of weeks.”

“Okay,” I said, slowly becoming more alert as the panic in his voice spiked. “What’s going on?”

There was a moment of pause, the silence on his end deafening. It was so quiet, I briefly wondered if we’d been disconnected. I was about to say something when O’Malley broke the silence first.

“It’s your parents,” he said, throwing me off and making my heart race and my stomach lurch. “They’re missing, Brooke.”

“
W
hat do you mean, they’re
missing
?” I demanded, jumping to my feet. I had to be hearing things. It was late and I’d had a really awful day. Clearly, I’d misheard him. Nick stood up immediately, following me as I left the room so as not to disturb Colby and Zach.

“I’m sorry,” O’Malley said. “It’s exactly as I said. They’re missing.”

“Since when?”

O’Malley sighed, and I pictured him scratching the back of his neck the way he did when he was flustered. “All I know is that your dad was supposed to be back in the office on the seventh of January. He apparently called in saying he’d be taking a few extra days, and we haven’t heard anything since.”

My heart plummeted into my stomach, and I felt as though I might throw up. “That was over two weeks ago,” I pointed out. “Where the hell could he be?” I paused, before asking a question I probably already knew the answer to. “Have you checked his house?”

“This isn’t my first missing person’s case, Leighton,” O’Malley shot back, sounding annoyed.

“Sorry, I just don’t know what to tell you. I dropped them off at the airport myself. They left.”

“Did they say anything about extending their vacation? Maybe they landed here and then decided to go somewhere else?”

I shook my head. “But why wouldn’t they tell me?”
Maybe they tried; you’ve been locked up for a couple of weeks, remember?
I pushed the thought aside, because they’d have gotten a hold of Nick if that were the case…unless he was too busy searching for me to be bothered by something as trivial as a phone call. Damn it.

“Maybe they wanted a little alone time?” he suggested a little too freely.

My nose scrunched up in displeasure. “Gross. Don’t ever insinuate that again. They’re still my parents.”

O’Malley chuckled lightly, able to lighten the mood just a little. “My apologies. I’m only trying to figure out what happened between there and here. The plane landed on schedule, we saw the tapes. They definitely arrived here, but that’s where the trail goes cold.”

“Wait…” I interjected. “So they made it back?”

“Right. But their bags were never claimed—which is a huge red flag, as you know. You’re sure they hadn’t tried to contact you?”

I opened my mouth to answer, but then stopped myself, because, truthfully, I had no idea. I had been without my phone while being held prisoner. It was entirely likely they’d tried to contact me. What if they thought I’d been ignoring them, and that was why they had given up?

“I know there’s not much you can do from there, Brooke, but they’re your folks. I figured you had a right to know, and, if I’m being entirely honest, I was really just hoping they turned around to spend more time with you.”

He was right, there wasn’t much I could do from here… The next words that left my mouth were a surprise, even to me.  “I’ll fly out as soon as I can.”

Nick inhaled sharply. “Brooke, we’re kind of in the middle of a crisis,” he hissed under his breath, and I held a hand up to silence him. Waves of annoyance flowed off of him, but he held his tongue.

“No. I know you’ve got a lot going on in your life, and the last thing I want to do is pull you back here if it’s going to remind you of everything you’ve lost.” He cursed under his breath, regretting what he’d said. “Sorry, I really didn’t mean to bring that shit up again.”

“It’s fine,” I assured him. “And if my parents are missing, then of course I’m going to come help. Don’t be stupid.” I turned away from Nick, not wanting to witness the daggers he was glaring at me, and I lowered my voice. “I’ll fly out as soon as I can. I’ll keep you posted.”

I hung up my phone and slipped it back in my pocket. I procrastinated on turning back around, knowing Nick was waiting to argue with me. I knew I couldn’t avoid it forever, so I slowly turned, and I could only describe the look he was giving me as exasperated.

“They’re my parents, Nick. I can’t ignore this.”

“Don’t you think the timing is bad?”

I stared at him with wide eyes. “Bad timing? Of course I think it’s bad timing…is there ever really a
good
time for your parents to go missing? Or to have two of your friends brutally slain in their own home? Want to ask me that again?”

Nick’s silence told me he wasn’t going to argue further, but I knew him well enough to know that he had other plans. “We’ll leave first thing in the morning.”

It shouldn’t have surprised me that he would assume he was going with me, and honestly, I would love nothing more than to have his support during all of this, but there was the minor issue of the cops watching our every move.

“No,” I told him. “I need you to stay here. Take care of the Pack while I’m gone—I’m not even sure if I’ll be able to go without asking the cops. I’m hoping they’ll show me a little leniency when they check with the department in Scottsdale that my parents really are missing.”

“You must be insane if you think I’m letting you go alone,” Nick argued.

Taking a breath, I stepped forward and placed my hands on his chest. “Nick, it’s not that I don’t want you to go with me, but, with everything that’s going on here, I need you to stay. Marcus appointed us to watch over his legacy, and we can’t both leave. Imagine what the coven might do.”

“Well, by your same logic, you can’t go alone,” he pointed out.

I bristled, resenting that he thought he could just tell me what to do. Then he looked at me, and something gleamed in the cool aqua color of his eyes, giving me pause.

Smiling, I agreed. “I’ll take Jackson.”

“And Roxy,” Nick offered. “Jax is still recovering, and Roxy proves quite useful in the field.”

Not wanting to argue with him, I accepted his proposal. “Okay. I’ll take Jackson and Roxanne with me to Arizona.”

Pleased with my submission, Nick led me by the hand back to the living room. “We should get some sleep. You’re going to have to explain to the police everything that’s happened before booking a flight.”

Nick held me close as the fire crackled at our feet. Ten minutes ago, sleep seemed attainable, but now, with the added stress of my parents being out there somewhere—missing—I couldn’t stop my mind from working overtime.

I tried to think up all the reasons they might have gotten on another flight after arriving home, but I had nothing. Their plane landed, they were on it…so what happened between getting off the plane and claiming their bags?

The constant wondering and worrying was starting to make me antsy, and while I never thought I’d be able to fall asleep, I finally slipped into darkness.

I sat in the interrogation room in one of the Calgary police precincts for the better part of an hour after coming down of my own free will and explaining to the cops why I needed to go back home to Arizona.

Even though I felt agitated and anxious, I remained calm and collected on the outside. I didn’t want to give them the impression that I was a flight risk. They needed to know that my story was true and that this wasn’t just some ploy to allow me to escape their justice system.

Soon, the door opened, and I sat up straight as Detective Matthews strolled in. I couldn’t get a read on him, so I was forced to wait until he spoke.

“Well, Miss Leighton, we’ve spoken with the precinct in Scottsdale, and they’ve confirmed your story.”

“I wish I could say that was a relief,” I mumbled, my heart clenching with worry for my parents.

“Yes, I suppose that’s anything but comforting right now.” For the first time since I’d met him the day before, I caught a glimmer of sympathy in his eyes.

“Anyway, since there’s no concrete evidence against you in the double homicide at your home, I’ve received the go-ahead for you to take a
temporary
trip back to the U.S. I couldn’t secure you more than a few days, though, so if you take longer, I’m afraid there’ll be a warrant out for your arrest.”

Relieved, I stood up. “Thank you so much, detective. I’ll be back in a few days, I promise. And my friends? Like I said, I just…I can’t deal with this alone. I need their support more than anything right now.”

“Since it’s just the two of them accompanying you, we don’t see a problem with it. But the same rules apply.”

“Absolutely. That won’t be a problem, and you have all of my contact information should you need to get a hold of me. I plan to cooperate in whatever way I can, I just…I really need to deal with this situation back home.”

“Believe me, Miss Leighton, we’ll be in contact. There’s a lot we’ll need to discuss with each of you who lived in that house at the time of the murders.”

It didn’t seem to matter that I was a homicide detective or that I’d dealt with more than enough murder in my personal life; every time he brought up Marcus and Miranda’s deaths, I felt a pang deep in my heart—deeper than I’d ever felt before. I could only attribute it to the wolf losing her Alpha the way that I lost a friend. It was a hurt I’d never really anticipated, but it also made the wolf vengeful.

Nick was waiting for me out in the lobby of the department, and he stood immediately upon seeing me. “So?”

“We’ve been cleared to leave today, but only for a few days.”

Nick wrapped an arm around me, and we headed for the door. “Better than nothing, I suppose.”

As Nick and I climbed into his truck, I turned to him. “He said they need to talk to each of us in detail. Do you think they found something? What will the autopsy report say? Will the DNA tests come back inconclusive?”

Nick rested a hand on my thigh after pulling out onto the street and navigating the city. “Take a breath. Whatever they find, we’ll face it. Does having a bunch of humans poking around our business complicate things? Absolutely. But it’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last. All we can do is try to find a way to navigate the situation and turn it around without letting them know we exist.”

“What if they found the pit?”

Nick shook his head. “If they found it, we’d all be in cuffs. You already know that. You’re just letting your paranoia get the best of you.”

As a cop, I knew he was right. If I’d been investigating a case and stumbled across a hidden room like the pit, I’d haul each and every occupant of the house into the station and interrogate them until I was blue in the face.

My stomach growled loudly, reminding me that I hadn’t really eaten anything since the day before. I’d been too preoccupied with everything that had been going on to remember.

“I’ll go through a drive-thru before we head out of town. I’m getting hungry too.”

“Thanks,” I responded with a smile. “I didn’t realize how long it had been since I’d eaten.”

True to his word, Nick pulled into a drive-thru. I was instantly too hungry to really care that it wasn’t nutritional or that it tried to pass itself off as “real food.” Nick ordered me three burgers and an order of fries.

Sadly, even that didn’t satisfy my hunger, and I also ate one of his five burgers. I wasn’t proud of it, but it quelled my hunger pangs for the most part.

When we arrived back at Vince and Layla’s house, it felt like a missing person’s headquarters. Voices buzzing, people running around talking about strategies to find Cordelia. The pressure was on, and a part of me felt guilty—like I was abandoning them in their time of need. Like I was abandoning Cordelia.