I knew that she had gone to her room before leaving but hadn’t taken her purse, passport, phone, nothing that could be traced to her, but what if she had taken something after all…
A bargaining chip?
After all, she needed money somehow and I could not imagine that Amelia had just decided to leave it all up to chance. No, she would know that she needed money, if only to fill the tank of a very expensive car that didn’t exactly get the best mileage. So, what if her reasons for arranging the jet weren’t solely to fool us? After all, driving there first had been a risk in itself, for we must have only just missed her being there.
I pulled my phone from my back pocket and made the call.
“You found something?” Dom asked as way of answer.
“Perhaps,” I told him, not surprised that he hadn’t asked if I had found her. Because he knew as well as I did, that she would be long gone from here by the time we arrived.
“Then what do you need?”
“I want you to tell Keira to go to her room. Look again to see what is missing…it would have to be something of value,” I told him, knowing that an explanation wouldn’t be needed.
“You think she would pawn something to fund her escape?” he asked then relayed the message to Keira who didn’t ask questions.
“I think she bribed the flight attendant for more than just the use of her clothes. I didn’t think of it at the time, but her decoy told me she had been paid, yet Amelia’s purse remained in her room. So, it stands to reason she must have paid her with something, and I think Amelia would have bargained for a lot more than just a uniform.” He agreed before giving me what I wanted before needing to ask for it.
“I will have her account checked and have the girl questioned.”
“Good, my only hope is that Amelia slipped up and is still using her card, but I doubt it,” I told him making him agree once more.
“Knowing Fae, clearing her accounts would have been one of the first things she did, but it is worth looking into.”
“Well, knowing how much cash she has will at least give me an idea of the limits set against her…or should I say set against me. Let me know what you find,” I told him.
“Of course.” After his agreement, I hung up and went back to the uniform, hoping to find a receipt or something more in a pocket but what I didn’t expect to find was blood.
Blood…
That wasn’t hers.
Chapter 12
Devil’s Right Hand
I left the hotel with my hopes of being able to track her from the air crushed as it became clear, after speaking with witnesses, that it was as I suspected. No-one had remembered seeing a Ferrari of any kind in the parking lot. Meaning that my cunning girl had somehow managed to change her car. Now, how she had achieved that without having proof of ownership, I didn’t yet know but at the very least I was close to finding out. And the key had been her friend Wendy.
Dante had come through, as I knew he would for it was clear that he didn’t want me anywhere near her. So, with the ultimatum I had set against him, he had done the job. He had exercised that certain skill set he was known for and admittedly, was a master at. Doing what he did best, which was manipulating her dreams. Something I should have been able to do with just as much ease with Amelia, but something was changing in her.
She was getting stronger.
I’d never had a problem before entering her Void, especially while she slept. Which made me question now if my blood, my influence and essence in her was doing something more than just keeping her immortal? It made me begin to question the past and start asking myself if I had missed something?
Either way, it didn’t change the fact that the timing couldn’t have been worse, despite being at least assured that should she find herself injured in any way, that she would heal. But then I also knew that eventually my essence in her would run its course and when it did, then even in this way I could not protect her.
A fact I spent a great deal of time worrying about and ultimately dreading. But naturally I was hoping it wouldn’t yet come to that. That time, even though it felt like it was slipping through my fingers the longer she was gone from me, would run out for her long before it did for me. However, despite feeling confident that I was tightening the net around her with every hour that passed, I also couldn’t dispel the fabled tale of assumption biting me in the ass!
But as new information was coming in, I had to act accordingly, starting with the flight attendant. Dom had called me to let me know that my instincts had been right, the only thing missing from her room had been a diamond necklace that she had bargained with. Something I was happy to discover, he had retrieved. This was solely for Amelia’s benefit, for I could have bought her all the diamonds she wanted, I was fucking rich enough!
But knowing Amelia the way I did, then I knew that she would already be trying to think of ways of getting it back one day. Little did she know was that it was worth over two hundred thousand dollars. Something we discovered she had traded for nothing more than a small overnight bag, a uniform and a total of $1751.61, that she had drawn out at ATM’s on her way to New York.
Dom had been furious, doing little more than writing the girl a check for double that amount and telling her that she should count herself lucky that she received anything at all. If it had been me, she would have lost a lot more, not gained from it. For if it hadn’t been for the woman’s greed, then I would have most likely found her by now, seeing as she would have run out of gas and had no choice but to try and make it on foot.
However, this gave her enough money to make it to New York, which I discovered was her first destination after Dante had recovered a phone conversation Wendy had with her from her memories. He mentioned some cryptic shit about never giving Wendy access to any sporting goods, mainly the use of a bat and also the name of a friend of Wendy’s who worked at the New York Times.
Which was exactly where I found myself now, stepping through the glass front of the Times’ building on 620 Eighth Avenue, Manhattan. Doing so with the sole purpose of finding the next piece of the puzzle and discovering why the fuck she had wanted to meet with a reporter!
Thankfully, before Dante had given me this information, he also had the foresight to do a background check on the guy. I swear if he wasn’t a royal in his own right then I would have been tempted to bargain with him into joining my people and letting me become his sire. But then the big bastard didn’t exactly need an upgrade of power and nor was now the time to be making offers. As being tied to my life right now was looking more like a fucking death sentence than anything remotely close to personal gain.
He was most certainly efficient in what he did, that was for sure.
Like the information on the reporter, Micky Donnelly, who was nothing more than an unsuspecting family man who had on occasion rocked a few boats with some of the articles he’d had published in the paper. Granted, this was mainly with politicians and other businessmen in power, but as of yet nothing too bad that it had got him fired.
But my one and only question was why him? Something I was close to discovering as I made my way to his cubicle on the floor Dante had told me I would find him. I ignored all the looks I received, making it known I was interested in nothing but my destination. I swear, but I found myself cursing the use of elevators by the time I finally got there. Especially after one woman in a tight blue dress thought that by continuously ‘accidently’ knocking into me, that this was going to make me suddenly look at her differently. That I would look at her with anything but the indifference I had been showing her. Meaning that by the time I reached my floor, I was close to snapping and baring my fangs at her! Especially when the doors finally opened and she handed me her card telling me,