“Tell me who,” she said quietly, hoping she couldn’t be heard outside the door. “I can’t help you if you don’t give me something more than this. Please, hear me. Tell me who’s hurting the others like us.”
Dragos.
She didn’t know which one of them said it, or even if—or how—she might have been heard through the barrier that separated the living from the dead. But the word branded into her mind in an instant.
It was a name.
Dragos.
“Where is he?” Dylan asked, trying for more. “Can you tell me anything else?”
But the group of them were already fading. One by one, they dissipated…vanished into nothingness.
“I almost forgot to give you these, honey.” Janet’s singsong voice in the doorway startled a gasp out of Dylan. “Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“It’s okay.” Dylan shook her head, still dazed by the other encounter. “What do you have?”
“A couple of pictures I took from the river cruise Mr. Fasso hosted earlier this week. I think your mom would like to have them.” Janet came in and put a couple of color prints on the desk. “Doesn’t she look nice in that blue dress? Those girls at the table with her are a few of the ones she was mentoring. Oh—and there’s Mr. Fasso way in the back of the room. You can hardly make him out, but that’s the side of his face. Isn’t he handsome?”
He was, actually. And younger than she imagined him. He had to be about twenty years younger than her mother—in his late forties at most, and probably not even that old.
“Will you take these to your mom for me, honey?”
“Sure.” Dylan smiled, hoping she didn’t look as rattled as she felt.
It wasn’t until Janet had toddled off again that Dylan took a good look at the pictures. A really good look.
“Jesus Christ.”
One of the girls seated at the table with her mom on that river cruise a few short days ago was among the group of dead Breedmates she’d just seen in the office.
She grabbed a stack of older photographs from the box she’d packed them into and sifted through the images. Her heart sank. There was another young woman’s face that she’d just seen in spectral form a minute ago.
“Oh, God.”
Dylan felt sick to her stomach as she bolted out of the office for the ladies room. She dialed the number Rio gave her and barely gave him a chance to say hello before she blurted out everything that had just happened.
“One of them said the name Dragos,” she told him in a frantic whisper. “Does that mean anything to you?”
Rio’s sudden silence made the ice in her stomach grow even colder. “Yeah. Son of a bitch. I know the name.”
“Who is he, Rio?”
“Dragos is the one who created the hibernation chamber in that cave. His son freed the creature that had been sleeping there. He’s evil, Dylan. About the worst kind you’d ever want to know.”
CHAPTER
Thirty-Three
S haron Alexander was making another pot of tea when a knock sounded on her twelfth-floor apartment door.
“It’s open, baby,” she called from the kitchen. “What’d you do, forget your key?”
“I never had one.”
Sharon jolted at the unexpected boom of a deep male voice. She recognized the dark baritone, but hearing it in her apartment—unannounced, and after dark—was something of a shock.
“Oh. Hello, Gordon.” She tugged self-consciously at her cardigan, wishing she’d put on something less lived-in, more appealing to a sophisticated man like Gordon Fasso. “I’m…well, my goodness…this is such an unexpected surprise.”
He sent his cool gaze around the small, embarrassingly cluttered apartment. “Did I come at a bad time?”
“No, of course not.” She smiled but he didn’t return it. “I was just making some tea. Would you like some?”
“No. I can’t stomach the stuff, actually.” Now he did smile, but the slow spreading grin didn’t make her feel any more comfortable. “I stopped by the hospital, but the nurse there told me you were released. I understand your daughter brought you home.”
“Yes,” Sharon replied, watching as he took a leisurely stroll around her living room. She smoothed her hair, hoping it wasn’t a complete disaster. “I really enjoyed the chocolates you gave me. You didn’t have to bring me anything, you know.”
“Where is she?”
“Hmm?”