Surrendering(88)

Dev and Ren brought Mike up to speed on everything, at least he thought it was everything, but who really knows? They couldn’t be trusted. They set him up in a small extra office on the main floor, complete with Internet connection. While the vamps were on the ground scouting Door County, he was using his police connections in other parts of the country to glean any additional information he could on the other missing girls. With so many missing girls, it was tedious work.

Kate had done a very good job describing the girls she’d seen in her most recent dream pretty well to one of Dev’s vamps, who had the skills equivalent to a police sketch artist. He was actually still trying to process the reality of dreamwalkers. Next thing he knew, someone would tell him witches were real. Jesus, don’t even go there, Thatcher.

Attention turning back to the list of the missing girls who’d been both officially reported as such and who were linked with the psychotic-to-the-millionth-degree vampire, he was down to the last two of twenty-nine pictures. Some of the eleven women Kate had seen in her dream hadn’t been officially reported missing that he could find. Conversely, of the reported missing women, only six matched to the pictures the artist drew. So either the rest were dead, or they were held in another part of the compound Kate hadn’t seen. Obviously the women he couldn’t match were missing women not yet reported. He would get to that task next.

He picked up the last two pictures, pulling them apart so he could study both of them. His eyes drifted to the very last picture, held in his right hand and he instantly lost the ability to breathe.

Staring back at him was…Jamie. His Jamie.

Except it was an older version of Jamie. A sad, vacant, shell of the young, beautiful and vibrant Jamie he once knew. This couldn’t be right. Jamie was never found, but she was presumed dead, so…no. This had to be her doppelganger. It wasn’t Jamie. It couldn’t possibly be.

But his gut told him another story. Jamie had a small, dark mole on the very right side of her upper lip. He used to lick it when he kissed her. He loved that mole. It was sexy as hell.

And the gaunt face staring back at him had that same dark mole on the right side of her upper lip.

So if this was, in fact, Jamie—his Jamie—that meant not only was she not dead, but she’d spent the last eleven years in the hands of one sick fuck and Mike had done nothing to stop it. He’d done nothing to help her.

Jamie was alive. He’d been right. Vamps were responsible for her disappearance. And she had been in a never-ending living hell on earth, only wishing she were dead.

He promptly leaned over the desk losing his lunch in the wastebasket. Christ, hot wings are a fiery bitch coming back up.

Like a pussy, tears streamed down his face, but he didn’t care. And of course, karma being the fickle bitch she was, Giselle chose that moment to stride into the office without knocking, like she owned the place.

Just. Fucking. Great.





Chapter 56





Dev





Frustration rolled off him in waves. For three days, they had searched the Door County area for any sign of Xavier, running into dead end after dead end. They had split up into three teams, covering about ninety percent of the area so far. Unfortunately Manny had extra duty, as he would scout locations the other two groups found that were possibilities. So far, nothing, nada, zilch, zip, zero. And it frustrated the fuck out of Dev. His sparkling personality was taking a nosedive and most everyone was giving him wide berth. Everyone except his precious Kate, that is. She calmed him.

Kate hadn’t had any more dreams and was equally as frustrated, but he was equally as grateful. While she wanted to help, he didn’t want her anywhere near Xavier, even if he couldn’t actually see her. Who knew what that vile monster had up sleeve and if he could trace her to his mansion. He’d called in extra security the past few days. Call him a paranoid SOB, but no one was dying under his watch. Especially not the love of his life. Hell…she was his life now.

Rom had his computer wiz research the names on all the property deeds in Door County and the surrounding areas, trying to match any to the known vamps in Xavier’s entourage. Two possible hits, but both turned out to be nothing.

Tonight they should have the remaining areas searched and if they came up short, he wasn’t quite sure what his next move would be. And Dev was never without a Plan B.

While they hadn’t found Xavier yet, they were making progress in other areas.

The detective had positively matched all but one of the eleven missing women from Kate’s dream. Some of them hadn’t been previously identified as the original twenty-nine missing, so that brought the total missing women now up to at least thirty-two.