28. Rafe

Rafe

I n the back of my mind is the refrain that she doesn't know where we are. She has no idea where we are. We don't know how she's doing. We shouldn't be separated. At all. My instincts aren't screaming, they are roaring.

Yet, here we are. I follow Dane into the library and to Louis' section at the back. Dane starts pulling books out, tossing them aside. His anger grows and grows until I grab his arm and stop him.

"What's wrong?"

I almost scoff at my ridiculous question.

He passes me a book. I turn to the back and look inside. Over the top of the drawings are the words ‘Haha'. I put the book down and pick up another one.

This man is psychotic, and he's starting to piss me off.

A thread of an idea teases me, and I rush back the way we came, finding the grumpy librarian.

"Excuse me, Miss."

She snaps her head in my direction and glowers. "What do you want?"

"I'm looking for an old friend, but I can't remember his name. I just know he went to school here."

"What year?"

"Um, I'm not sure."

She huffs. "I've got copies of all the school yearbooks. "

"Oh, wow, that would be great," I say. I wonder if Louis knew she kept yearbooks.

Gideon floats along behind me, and I notice the woman seems to recognise him. She smiles softly at him.

"How are you doing, Mason?"

"Good, ma'am. Just trying to help my friend."

"Such a good boy," she mutters and pulls out a stack of books and hands them to me. "Have at it, but keep it quiet."

"Of course, thank you."

She sniffs loudly and pulls her pink cardigan tighter around her and walks away.

I carry the stack to the table and sit down. There's hardly anyone in. Just a young couple whispering in the corner. I wonder if Louis and Jax were like that as teens, then I decide I don't want to know.

"This is going to take too long."

"We don't have anywhere else to be," I snap at him. "Grab a book and start looking."

"For who?"

"For anyone."

Gideon grumbles but pulls up a chair, grabs a book, and starts to flip through it.

I'm on the eighth book when I flip it and pause. "I found him."

Gideon launches around my side of the table. He leans over, then flips the cover back.

"Wrong year. Lee is younger than that."

My heart starts to thud as what he's saying sinks in. "Oh, god. How did we miss that? How the fuck didn't we see that?"

I flip the page back open, and Gideon and Dane lean close, staring down at a spitting image of Lee Banewood smiling back at the camera.

"We need to go right now," I say with a trembling voice.

** *

"What do you mean, she's not here?" I shout at River over the phone.

"Sparrow took her out. There was no one home, and it wasn't until Melonie came and told me that I thought to sound the alarm."

"Sparrow has her," Gideon murmurs.

"We don't know for sure." Dane snaps, his ire is a thing of beauty.

"No, we're guessing, but either way, Sparrow intends to harm her. What if she's locked up in the Psychiatric center again?"

My thoughts are whirling, frantic. I shudder, but another idea bursts into life. It's daring.

"We'll talk to you later, River." I cut him off and hang up the phone. "We need to find Descario."

"What?" Dane shouts. "That fucking cop?"

"Detective, yes. She's the only one who can help us."

"The ghosts could help," Gideon mutters.

"No, they can only help to a point. She needs people on her side. She needs to be tracked and located and with us getting to her quickly. We're going to Descario."

I abruptly pull the car into a U-turn and floor it.

We arrive at the police station, and I storm inside. An older man looks up and scowls at me. His face is heavily lined, and he looks worn down.

"What are you doing?" Gideon hisses and snatches at my arm. I yank it away from him.

"Maria Descario! Jax Shade needs your help," I roar.

The woman comes out of the frosted glass doors a few minutes later. "You called?" Her sarcasm isn't surprising .

"My name is Rafael Whitelock, and my brother, Terrance, disappeared after he kissed Jackie Blackwell. We came here looking for answers, and we think we know what happened."

She stares at me for a good, long minute. "Come with me."

We follow her into a room where she sits on the other side of a desk and stares at me.

"What do you want to tell me?"

"Everything," I say quietly. "When I was a little kid, I died in the car my friend was driving. Ever since then, I can see ghosts…"

***

"You're wrong. There won't be anything here," Descario hisses, but she kicks open Wayland's back door and leads the way inside. "If he was being blackmailed, he would have told me. If he was in trouble, he would have told me."

"All the evidence points to him!" Gideon snaps and pushes past me.

"You're wrong, and I'm going to prove it-"

Her voice dies away as she gets a look at the destruction and festering mess that is Wayland's home. The couch is torn and the springs exposed. There is rubbish all over the floor, old food cartons and bags of trash. The walls are covered in splatters. The smell alone is enough to make my nose burn.

There's even a photo of Descario on the wall with knives puncturing her image.

"You all right, Detective," I ask gently.

It takes her a moment. Her mouth opens and closes, and she squeezes her eyes shut in pain before nodding.

"I'm fine. Start searching. If he's in league with the Black Dahlia Serial Killer, find me that proof! "

Hours later, Gideon's shout rings through the house. "Found it."

We all rush into the back room of the house. It's only slightly less fetid due to a lack of food rubbish, but it still looks like a bomb hit it. The wall of boxes leans precariously. And I spot a dead rat on the newspapers covering the ground.

Gideon is leaning over a little metal box, and inside, are photos. He pulls them out and hands them to us.

Sparrow and Wayland hugging, arms around each other. Over and over. More of them. Wayland and Sparrow growing up and with each other, at all the milestones.

"They were in love," Descario says in shock.

"No, I don't think either of them knows how to love," I argue. "I think they just used each other for power."

Underneath that photo is a letter, and Dane unfolds it, reading in silence.

"Wayland was being blackmailed," Gideon argues, holding out a ledger. "We should go to Sparrow's next."

Desciario nods. "All right, it might take me a bit, but I'll see if I can get the address."

"We need to go now!" Dane whispers in a shocked voice. He's staring down at the paper, his face white as milk. I peer at the letter in his hand, reading it, feeling the blood abruptly drain from my face.

"Wait!" Gideon shouts. "Oh, god!"

***

Descario's SUV flies us through the night. She parks at the shopping center car park, and when I lean forward; I see why.

"What, aren't we going in? What's going on?" Gideon shouts .

"Road spikes," Descario says grimly. "Wait, is that van open?"

I peer through the windscreen and then jump out of the car. Dane and Gideon are moments behind me. She staggers towards us, looking confused. She doesn't even hear the man creep up behind her.

There's nothing we can do. We're too far away.

Dane screams her name. Over and over, but the man puts a hand around her neck, and she collapses in his arms.

The sonofabitch lifts his arm and waves at us. Like this is a game. Like it's funny. Like he won.

I can't help but stare as we race across the car park, our shoes slapping the wet pavement, watching the woman we're in love with disappear with the man from all our nightmares. And, I think, maybe he has won.