Frank sighed. He leaned back in the chair and kicked both feet onto the tabletop. A watery memory fought its way to the surface. Frank, at my parents’ house, doing the same thing on my mother’s coffee table. She’d hit him with a rolled-up newspaper. “I see your choice in companionship hasn’t improved since we last saw each other. I’d hate to have to haul you in when he goes down—because we all know he will. You’re just starting to get your life together.”
I was over eighteen, so they wouldn’t call my aunt, but Frank wouldn’t just let me walk out of that office without some kind of explanation. So I gave him one. The real one. “I was searching for information on someone who rents an apartment in that building. Me. My idea. My reason. Jax was helping me.”
“So he came back to town to help you break into an apartment office building?” Frank snorted. “And who were you digging for information on? And why?”
“I wanted to find the man who attacked me at school,” I said. Did it without a warble, too. “You can call the Huntington police if you don’t believe me. It’s the truth. Some guy attacked me.”
Whatever he expected me to say, that wasn’t it. Frank’s demeanor changed instantly, going from hard-ass cop to concerned family friend. “Sam, if something happened, you can’t take matters into your own hands. You need to let the proper authorities handle this. Does this have something to do with your car ending up in the river?”
“I think so. Yeah.”
He scribbled notes on the pad. I tried to see what he was writing, but Frank kept the pad tilted up, away from my prying eyes. “What makes you think this person—who did you say it was?—is the one who attacked you? Did you see his face?”
“I did some digging. That’s all I can tell you. His name is Bob Dowdy.”
All the color drained from Frank’s face. “When did you say the attack occurred? You went to Huntington, right?”
“Last month,” I said. “And, yeah. Why?”
“I don’t know where you kids are getting your information from, but you’re wrong about Dowdy.” He leaned in, hesitating for a moment before blowing out a loud sigh. “Bob Dowdy was a person of interest in several cases involving local missing girls, but he was found murdered. He couldn’t have been the one who attacked you. He’s been dead for months.”
Chapter Seventeen
Jax
When Spencer brought Sam out of the interrogation room, I was relieved to see the man didn’t look angry. It shouldn’t have surprised me. The guy had a soft spot for her—which had helped get her out of a lot of the trouble I’d gotten her into over the years.
He walked her across the room and pointed to the chair across from his desk, next to mine. “Sit.”
Silently, Sam did as instructed.
“How long are you in town, Flynn?” he asked, taking the seat behind his desk. “And how many more times do you expect to visit my station?”
“I’m only passing through. Don’t worry. Your women and children are safe.”
“Somehow I doubt that,” he mumbled.
I was about to make a smart-ass comment, but something about Sam caught my attention. She was leaning forward in her seat, subtly craning her neck to see onto the top of Spencer’s desk. I followed her gaze. There was a file with Dowdy’s name on the front.
“I don’t want Sam anywhere near you when you go down—because we both know you will. Your kind always does.”
Sam wanted that file. Only to get it, she’d need some help. “When I go down? Had that same talk with Lucy, did ya? I hear she goes down all the time.”
Spencer’s face turned a pretty awesome shade of red. The last I’d heard, he and his daughter, Lucy, hadn’t spoken in years. She was currently the main act over at the Double Trouble, Harlow’s premier adult entertainment venue.
Sam’s face got white as snow. Obviously the last thing she wanted right now was a throw-down between Harlow’s police chief and a cocky demon with an extreme attitude problem. Too bad, because she was about to get it.
“I gotta take a leak,” I added just as Spencer’s face reached critical mass. He was cruising for a heart attack if he didn’t calm down. Nudging Sam’s foot with my boot to get her attention, I gave a subtle nod toward the desk. Even if she didn’t manage to get the file, the whole thing was worth the grin she gave me.
“Sorry. No bathroom on the premises.”
I stood and met the older man’s eyes with a challenge. “I passed a bathroom on the way in here.”
“Out of order.”
“The hell is it is,” I shot back.
I took two steps and stopped in front of the large potted fern in the corner of Frank’s office. “Your choice. You cough up the key, or I water your plant.”
Frank stood, forgetting about Sam. The expression on his face was nothing short of joy. “You whip it out and I’ll toss your ass in jail.”
I couldn’t be sure, but when the sound of my zipper filled the small room, I thought I heard Sam groan.
We’d set up in the back corner of Jill’s diner on the edge of town. Sam was spread out on the other end of the table, trying to drown the ice in her soda. When she thought I wasn’t watching, she’d glance up and stare at me like she was trying to see into my brain. I wished she’d stop. There were waves of black and dark blue swirling around her head. It made the demon twitchy, while at the same time made me want to apologize for being such a dick right before the fire broke out. “Sammy?”
She hadn’t said more than ten words—none of them relevant—since we’d left the police station, and was staring at the file we’d taken. When the cop hauled me away, Sam snagged it. Eventually he’d notice it was gone and considering our combined history, put two and two together, but there’d be no way to prove it. “Are you going to tell me what happened? What did Spencer say?”
She sighed, and without looking up, said, “It wasn’t Bob Dowdy.”
“Huh?”
“The guy that attacked me. It wasn’t him. Dowdy isn’t the demon.”
“But the apartment? I don’t get it.”
“Dowdy has been dead for months. Cops found him facedown in a gutter on Hooker Avenue. They searched his house and that apartment. You said you found bodies there? Well, someone put them there recently, because they weren’t there when the cops went in.”
“Wait, why did the cops go in?”
“The police have been keeping it pretty hush-hush, but I guess they had him figured for that Gentleman Stalker.”
Shit. Now we were back to square one. “The demons must have killed Dowdy and taken the apartment. Please tell me you didn’t tell Spencer about the bodies…”
“No way. I’ll make an anonymous tip. If he finds out either of us was actually in the apartment, his head will implode.”
“But you told him about being attacked at Huntington?”
She lifted her gaze from the file, unapologetic. “I had no choice. I had to give him something. He’s not stupid, and if this thing really is taking girls, then it needs to be stopped.”
“We went over this before. The cops can’t stop it.”
“Why?” Defiance bloomed in her expression. She leaned back in the seat and folded her arms. “If the cops were unable to deal with a demon, then how were they able to keep you locked up for the afternoon?”
“Are you seriously asking me this? What should I have done, busted my way out the front door?” I snorted loudly, causing the people two tables over to glance our way, irritated. In a foul mood already—the damn demon was hungry again—I smiled politely and proceeded to flip them off. “I couldn’t have done it anyway. I don’t have a demonic arsenal, as you put it. I’m a little stronger, tougher, and faster, and have a lot more attitude than the average Joe. That’s it. Far as I can tell, other demons are pretty much the same.”