Page 93 of Devil's Riches

My shoulders immediately sagged with relief. I must have overreacted. Everything was fine inside. Alexis’s phone had simply lost service, or the battery had died and she hadn’t noticed yet.

“Yes, her,” I said. “Could you please get her for me? I need to talk to her.”

“Sorry, sir. I think she left earlier.”

“That’s impossible. Her car is here.”

The maid’s polite smile wavered. “Maybe I’m mistaken, then. Let me check with Mr. Paxton.”

She gestured for me to step inside so I could wait in the foyer while she went to find out what was going on. I could hear sounds of merriment coming from somewhere else in the house—music, laughter, clinking glasses.

Edward showed up in the foyer a moment later. “Nate! What a nice surprise,” he said, striding toward me. “What are you doing here?”

I gritted my teeth and shook his hand. “Hi, Mr. Paxton. Sorry to barge in like this, but I really need to find Alexis.”

His forehead creased. “Is everything all right?”

I couldn’t let him know I was onto him, so I forced an amiable smile. “I’m fine, but one of her friends is having some sort of emergency with her cat,” I said. “She’s been trying to get hold of Alexis for the last couple of hours, because she’s upset, and she ended up calling me when she couldn’t get through to her. She isn’t answering my messages, either, so I thought I’d come here and let her know what’s going on.”

“Well, that’s nice of you, but she isn’t here anymore. She and Sascha had a few too many drinks earlier.” He paused and leaned his head closer with a conspiratorial smile, as if we were close friends sharing an inside joke. “You know what young women can be like with their liquor. They have no idea how much they can handle.”

“So where are they?”

“They were feeling sick, so I arranged for my driver to take them home,” he said. “I’m going to get someone to take Alexis’s car back to her tomorrow.”

I nodded slowly as I considered his words. Alexis could’ve been in the black car with her sister earlier. I just didn’t see her because of the tinted windows. The sickness story made sense, too. After all, I saw Sascha puking her guts up when she left the car for a moment by the gate.

“They should be home by now,” Edward continued. “By the way, when you see Alexis, could you give this back to her?”

He pulled her Fitbit watch out of his jacket pocket and handed it to me. “She accidentally left it here,” he said. “She took it off to show it to me earlier. I couldn’t believe it wasn’t a normal watch. Technology these days is amazing, isn’t it?”

That explained why the Fitbit app said she was still in the house.

“I’ll make sure she gets it back,” I said, slipping the watch into my pocket.

“Thank you. And please tell her I hope she feels better soon,” Edward said, patting me on the shoulder.

I forced another smile. “All right. I’ll head over to her apartment now.”

“Actually, you might want to check her dorm. I think she told the driver she wanted to go there. Not the apartment.”

“Right. Thanks.”

I left the estate, got in my car, and sped to Blackthorne as fast as I could. Everything about Edward’s version of events seemed to make sense, but at the same time, something felt deeply wrong. I had no idea why Alexis would’ve chosen to go back to her dorm instead of my place, unless she was embarrassed about me seeing her drunk. But that didn’t make sense. I’d already seen her at her worst, and she knew that, so I couldn’t imagine her slinking off with humiliation over a bit of drunken vomit.

The lights were off in her dorm when I arrived, and no one answered when I knocked. I fumbled in my wallet for the copy of her key I obtained weeks ago and slid it into the lock. The door swung open, revealing an empty room.

Shit.

I returned to my car and headed north to Avalon City, heart thudding painfully in my chest. There were only two valid explanations for Alexis’s absence at the dorms. The first was that she’d changed her mind about where she wanted to go and told Edward’s driver to take both her and Sascha to their shared apartment. The second was that Edward was lying about everything.

I hoped the first one was correct, because if Edward was lying, then that meant Alexis was in serious trouble.

It also meant I’d failed her. I told her I’d never let anything happen to her again, and now…

Stop,I told myself. She’s probably with her sister right now, and she’s too drunk to realize her phone is dead. That’s all.

I arrived at the apartment and thumped on the door. No one answered.

---