Page 253 of Dark Love

“Because I’m Marlie’s lawyer.”

“You didn’t believe her. She said you didn’t believe her. How could you not believe her?” Tears fill Dahlia’s eyes.

I can’t let Dahlia vilify Dyce for something she didn’t do. “Dyce did believe Marlie. But remember that promise I made you make? I asked Dyce to do something similar.”

“You did?” Dahlia’s voice gets really small.

“I had to.”

“People could die,” she repeats.

“Yeah, Dahl.”

“I hate bad people.” She tucks her head into my neck.

“Got it!” Shock shouts. “And the phone number she called from. Let's see if I can get the location of the phone.”

“When she hung up, Marlie said she was a few blocks from his house. That she was going to get proof the Plant was terrorizing her.”

Could there be proof in his house?

“She didn’t need to get proof.” Dyce pulls something out of her pocket. “I have all the proof she’ll ever need. Including Plant showing up at the safe house she was hiding in up until today.”

Dahlia lifts her head off my shoulder. “Safe house?”

“Yeah. Even though I had to pretend to let the case go, I put Marlie in a safe house.” Dyce takes another step towards us. “He shouldn’t have been able to find her, but he did.”

How? This isn’t the first time Maddox has used a safe house. He knows how to hide a person.

That’s a question for later.

“Plant wasn’t the one that took her.” Shock’s hollow voice doesn’t bode well for finding Marlie.

A clear video feed of a street fills the wall.

There’s sound, but it doesn’t catch what Marlie’s saying on the phone as she walks by on the other side of the street.

Marlie isn’t running, but she’s not ambling down the road. Two seconds later, a man passes by the same spot. “Freeze that.”

“Freezing and enlarging,” Shock nods.

“That’s not Plant,” Dyce says what I’m thinking. “He looks similar. Close enough to fool Marlie, while giving Plant an alibi.”

“An air-tight alibi.” Shock flips the screen over to the police department feed where Plant is joking around with a dozen other cops at the exact same time.

“That isn’t good, is it?” Dahlia asks.

“No, Dahl, it isn’t.” The likelihood of finding her just dropped.

“That guy is wearing makeup… and a prosthetic.” Imogene points to our kidnapper.

And they dropped even more. “Shock, tell me you can track this guy.”

“I’m trying, but this guy is a pro.”

“Does that mean you can’t save her?” Dahlia turns to me with expectant eyes.

Time for some hard truths. “Most likely not. If Shock can find her before they transport her out of the country, there’s a possibility. But once they do that, it’s almost impossible.”

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