Chase chuckled lightly. “Burnett knows you well.”
Della shrugged, but didn’t answer, too busy studying what was happening in the other room in hopes of learning a thing or two.
Burnett leaned back in his chair, squaring his shoulders, making the guy sitting across from him appear smaller. Did he do that on purpose?
Finally, Burnett spoke, but looked back at the file. “She doesn’t normally go so easy on lowlifes who threaten her life.”
“I told you we weren’t—”
“Jason Von, right?”
When the kid didn’t answer, Burnett leaned forward, his eyes glowing. “Is that your name?”
“Yes,” Jason said.
Burnett nodded. “Look, Jason, I’m not going to beat around the bush. All eight of you are going down for attempted robbery, two of you get the added bonus of assault. Our facilities are almost filled. We have two spots left at Burton. It’s not a walk in the park, but Parkrow, our other facility, it’s rough. Only about fifty percent who go in, come out. And twenty-five of those will end up killing themselves. And the first two of the five of you with the lesser counts who tell us what we need to know will get to go to Burton.”
He pulled a photograph out of the file and pushed it in front of the rogue. The rogue, who suddenly seemed too young to be up to his yin yang in this kind of trouble.
“Are you going to be one of the lucky Burton attendees?” Burnett tapped the picture with his index finger. “I need info on this kid.” He looked the guy straight in the eyes. “Do you know him? Have you ever seen him before? I know he was hanging out in your gang’s territory.”
The vamp, probably no older than Della, glanced down at the image, and his eyes widened with recognition. In his round brown eyes, Della saw something else. Fear.
“He’s afraid,” Della said.
“He should be,” Chase answered. “I’ve seen Parkrow, you might as well go to hell.”
“No,” Della said. “When he looked at the picture he was afraid. He knows something and is scared to tell.”
The kid looked back up at Burnett. “I…”
“Burton or Parkrow?” Burnett said.
“I … uh,” the vamp stuttered.
“Fine,” Burnett said. “Parkrow it is.” He stood to leave.
“No,” Della muttered. “He knows something.”
Yes, he knows something. Find Natasha.
The voice echoed in Della’s mind. She looked at Chase to see if he’d heard it, but he didn’t appear to have.
Still reeling from the voice, Della got a fresh scent of werewolf again. She looked behind her to see if a were had somehow snuck in the room, but nope.
She inhaled again to see if she’d been mistaken. The scent hung on. And the familiarity of it tickled her senses. This was the same scent she’d gotten back at the restaurant.
“Do you smell that?” she questioned Chase.
He looked confused, but lifted his face and inhaled. “Smell what?”
Damn! The ghost was trying to tell her something. But what?
Her gaze shot back to the kid, to the fear in his eyes. “I don’t know shit,” he said.
Della saw his left eyebrow wiggle. Just like Chase’s wiggled when he lied.
Burnett stopped at the door. “You’re going to regret this.”
He’s lying. The ghost spoke again.
Burnett turned the doorknob. “No!” Unable to stop herself, she took two steps to the wall and raised her fist.
“Don’t!” Chase shot forward as if to stop her.
Too late, she pounded on the glass.
Both Burnett and the rogue vamp’s gaze whipped toward the wall. The kid looked kind of shocked, but Burnett looked pissed, and not just kind of, but full-blown, over-the-top pissed.
He shot out of the door. No doubt coming to have a powwow with the person who’d dared to knock. But that was okay. She needed to see him, too. She started toward the door when it flung open and banged against the wall so hard that tiny white pieces of Sheetrock fell like snow from the ceiling.
“What the hell are you doing?” Burnett roared. “You never interrupt an interrogation.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chase moved closer to her, almost as if fearing Burnett would strike her. Della knew better. Not that she didn’t fear Burnett. She feared disappointing him, feared he would see her weaknesses. But she never feared he would physically hurt her.
“I’m sorry, but he knows something,” Della snapped.
Burnett’s scowl deepened. “I know he knows something!” He tossed up his hands in frustration. “And he was about to tell me what he knows!”
“No he wasn’t. He was going to vague up the truth because he’s afraid.”
“No, he’s going to tell me the truth because he’s afraid!” Burnett demanded.
She shook her head. “You need to ask about the werewolf.”
“What werewolf?”
“I … don’t know. But if you ask … Wait, just let me ask him, I’ll act like I know more and I’ll get the truth out of him.”
“What?” Burnett seethed, and when she didn’t answer instantly, he shifted his glare to Chase. “What the hell is she talking about?”
Chase appeared confused, but then his light green eyes met hers and he almost smiled. “I’m clueless, but I’d bet my right arm that she’s onto something. If you’re smart, you’ll trust her.”
Burnett looked back at Della. “I do trust her. But I still need an explanation.”
Della gave one. One word. “Ghost.”
* * *
Della stood outside the door gathering her courage and pulling the elastic band of her big-girl panties up. She’d asked for this, now she had to come through.
Even with the core temperature of a vampire, she felt little pin-sized drops of sweat appear on her brow. Nerves. Nothing but nerves.
What if she was wrong? What if she’d only imagined the smell of were? What if the kid didn’t know crap? What if she failed? Both Burnett and Chase were watching back in the room with the glass wall.
Lordy! What had inspired her to do this?
Find Natasha.
Oh, yeah, that was what. The voice. The ghost.
Stiffening her spine, remembering Natasha and Liam’s lives were on the line, then cramming any sign of insecurity deep inside, she opened the door.
Remembering how Burnett’s presence had filled the room, she stepped inside. She didn’t immediately look at the vamp.
“They sent you in?” he asked in a condescending voice.
She crossed her arms and finally looked at him. “It’s because of what I know.”
“What do you know?” he asked, his brown eyes not showing the same fear as they did with Burnett.
She swallowed a lump of doubt. She considered picking him up and slamming him against a wall. But she suspected Burnett wouldn’t respect that.
“Cat got your tongue?” he asked, almost smiling.
Failure loomed right ahead, but she wasn’t going down without a fight.
She pulled out the chair across from him, letting it screech across the tile floor, and dropped down into the seat. “I know that you were about to vague up the truth when answering the agent.”
“You know that, huh?” He smirked.
She wanted to smack him. “Yeah, you weren’t planning on telling him about the weres.”
The look in his brown eyes told Della she was going to be able to walk out of here with her head held high.
“You don’t understand…” He paused, then added, “Shit!”
“Give me the names now and you’ll be placed in the best facility.”
He actually seemed to cringe. “I think I’d rather take my chances at the bad prison.”
“Really?” She leaned in, purposely getting into his space, hoping to push him to talk. “’Cause I’m imagining about half the convicts in Parkrow are werewolves. And from gangs,” she added, hoping like hell the weres he feared were wrapped up in a gang. “And you know we’re going to find answers and they’ll assume you were the snitch.”
He jumped up, grabbed the chair with his chained hands, and tossed it against the wall. It clattered against the floor a few inches from where she stood. It wasn’t so much an attack on her, as an expression of fury.
Della held out one hand to the wall where she knew Burnett and Chase watched, hoping they’d realize she was asking them not to come in. Getting the rogue angry was part of her plan.
She went over, carefully picked up his chair, and dropped it back down by the table. “Sit down!” she ordered, and when she stared him in the eyes, she was reminded how young he was. Being young didn’t excuse his behavior, but she again felt fortunate that she’d had her cousin to help her through the turn, then Shadow Falls to keep her grounded. Had this guy had anyone?
When he didn’t immediately respond, she tried another tactic. “Look, I know you’re pissed. And you’re probably scared. But tell us what we need to know, and I’m thinking the FRU will make sure you stay alive long enough to make something out of your life.”
He practically flung himself into the chair. His pride looked chipped, he looked … desperate. She knew that feeling too well.
“I … don’t know much. I saw a group of weres with that kid. I think his name was Liam. Marco was going to try to recruit him when we spotted the weres with him. He backed away really quick like. He said the weres were bad ass, said they collected fresh turns and it wasn’t worth fighting for him.”
“What’s the name of the gang?” Della asked.
When he didn’t answer, Della banged her hand on the table.
“I don’t know. He didn’t say the name of the gang. I’m not even sure they are a gang.” He paused a minute. “He said the name of one of the weres though. A Damian Baker, or maybe Bryan, a B name. That’s all I know.”
Della believed him. She started to leave, but then remembered getting the familiar trace of a were at the restaurant.
“Does Damian or one of his friends hang out at Buck’s Burgers?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I guess they could.”
“What did the weres look like?”
“Like all weres—dirty dogs.”
Without warning, she got this empty-pit feeling in her stomach. Hunger to the point of pain, and she knew it came from Natasha.
“I’m going to need more than that!” she said, and her hollow-feeling gut said she was going to need it quick if she was going to find Natasha and Liam alive.
* * *
Burnett interrogated the other rogues using the info Della had gotten from Jason Von. He ended up getting more info. The name of the were seen kidnapping Liam was Damian Bond. Burnett was going to run the name through the FRU’s computer database to see if they came up with anything.
Before they left the FRU office, Burnett called her aside and told her how well she’d done in the interrogation. Yet even now, still whirling in the feeling that Natasha and Liam were running out of time, Della couldn’t bask in the compliment.
In spite of Burnett’s orders to go straight home, she and Chase had gone by Uck’s Burgers. At almost one in the morning, it was closed, most of the businesses were, and they sat in the parking lot, top down. No weres were in the area that they could smell. It was quiet, and they shifted their seats back just bit, comfortable in the night and the silence, and just watched the stars.
“I see the little dipper,” Chase said.
“Yeah. I just spotted it.”
“My mom was a stargazer,” Chase said. “Sometimes, at night, she’d bring our sleeping bags out, and we’d just lay out there and stare up at the sky.”
“That sounds nice,” Della said, and glanced at him. “Do you still miss them?”
“Yeah, but it’s not as bad as it was.”
After another ten minutes, with thoughts of pissing off Burnett, she told him they should go.
When Chase pulled into the Shadow Falls parking lot, she snagged the diary, offered a quick “later,” and leapt out of his car without even opening the door. She had the craziest feeling that if she didn’t get away he might try to kiss her.
As she moved from his car, she felt him looking at her.
“See you tomorrow,” he said and got out.
She didn’t look back, but damn it if a part of her didn’t feel as if she was walking away from something important. A part of her wanted to turn around and fall against him, to ask him to reassure her that they would find Natasha and Liam.
“I’ll miss you,” he called out just as she passed through the gate.
Me, too. The thought ran through her mind, but she refused to say it. Then she remembered something and turned around. Before she spoke, she turned her head slightly to hear if anyone was around. No one.
“Make sure you look into me meeting the council.”
She watched him wave and get into his car. She stayed there and watched his taillights disappear down the street. Funny how her request sent him driving off, when before he’d seemed happy to linger. Was there something to that?
Chapter Twenty-eight
It was almost two in the morning when she walked into her bedroom. The cabin was silent. Only the soft sounds of Miranda and Kylie sleeping in their beds filled the space. Della stripped off her clothes, donned PJs, crawled into bed, and hugged her pillow. Her mind spun, too hyped up to sleep.
Now, in bed, feeling a slight unnatural chill, thoughts of Chase faded and became replaced with thoughts of …