Page 23 of Possession

“Bet your fucking ass.” I shook out my sore fist and decided I’d need to look for the iodine too. “I shot a man last week, Hollister, so believe me, a punch is nothing. Remember that if you decide to run your mouth again.”

“It isn’t true.” He rubbed his jaw, then slowly shook his head as if to clear it. “I haven’t been with Grace, before, during or after. Do you think I’m insane? I saw how you looked at her from the first minute she walked into your office. Why do you think I’ve been looking out for her? I knew you’d bungle it and not do your job, so someone had to.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It didn’t take a genius to figure out you were sleeping together. Someone saw you coming out of the bathroom at almost the same time, looking like, well…like you hadn’t been fighting over the last roll, we’ll say.”

I didn’t want to take apart everything he was saying. Not now. “What do you mean you’ve been looking after her?”

“Being a friend to her—which wasn’t a hardship, by the way, because she’s awesome—and you know, going out to the house to make sure everything was all right out there. I should’ve confronted her about doing something like that, but to be honest, I didn’t know how. I figured she’d come clean to you eventually and you’d work it out between you. In the meantime, I kept watch.” He let out a long breath. “I never would’ve guessed something like last weekend could’ve happened. Since when does Marblehead have crime? And it wasn’t like she wasn’t set up okay. The power thing was a problem, but her studio was pretty cozy all in all. I did a walk-through and?—”

My head was on the verge of exploding, between the information deluge and my headache. “Back up. You knew she was staying illegally at the house. How?”

“After I played a hunch and discovered the gallery wasn’t a home address at all, I found out her last known address was the Marblehead house. Her grandmother’s place. So, it wasn’t a leap to think maybe she was having trouble letting go. I followed her there one day, then sneaked in the same way she had after she left so I could make sure she wasn’t in desperate straits or anything.”

I scrubbed a hand over the back of my neck. “Her set-up there seemed pretty desperate to me.”

“When you eat rationed freeze-dried food for months on end, then we’ll talk about desperation, okay?”

I had no answer for that, because suddenly everything was becoming clear. Where Grace had been going on the afternoons that I was still at the office, when I was occupied and couldn’t be as concerned with her whereabouts. Where she might be right now. She was probably just innocently working in her studio, but goddammit, there was no innocence in her being alone at that house.

Not with those bastards still on the loose and the cops drawing a blank. They’d called us the other day with their idea of assurances, claiming they were gathering evidence to pin the break-in on a kiddie crime ring in the neighborhood, but I believed that I’d shot a teenager about as much as I believed that Grace was out buying supplies.

“She was supposed to meet me for a late lunch today. She never showed.”

No, she was taking advantage of my being busy with the party to return to the house that was more than four walls and a roof to her. It was a home, and I’d been a fool to believe she would ever willingly leave it. No matter how dangerous it was for her.

Or for me, knowing she was there alone. Unprotected.

There’d been a delay in setting up the security system to my specifications. I hadn’t pressed it as much as I should have, since the cops had assured me they were doing extra patrols in the area.

Stupid. So stupid. I’d gotten soft in my years away from the streets. Worse, I’d been too busy worrying about Grace wanting to stay in my house. What her angle was for being there and wanting to return to work. Because she couldn’t want to just be with me.

That wasn’t possible. There always had to be a set-up. A long con. That had been true in the past, hadn’t it?

But Grace was different. So, different.

“Did you call her? I bet she’s at the house.” Though why would she miss a lunch date? That wasn’t like her. Not in the slightest.

“I went by the house, and her car was there, but she wasn’t anywhere around. And I found this.” Jack pulled out a small leather-bound book from his inside pocket. Journal-sized. It had a flimsy lock that any five-year-old could’ve picked with a bobby pin. “It was at the top of the stairs leading down to the beach. I didn’t see it there the last time I came around, though I might’ve missed it.”

“You didn’t miss it,” I muttered, flipping the book open. I recognized Annabelle’s looping handwriting immediately.

Grace had found Annabelle’s journal, and evidently there was something in it worth her losing hours over.

But where the hell was Grace?

Knowing it would be a futile effort, I pulled out my phone and dialed her number. It went straight to voicemail. “Call me. We’re worried about you.”

I hung up and met Jack’s gaze. Now I had a reason his cuff link might be at the house. I had to believe he was on my side. That someone was, and that he could help me locate Grace.

I would make a deal with the devil himself if he would bring her home to me, safe and sound.

Gripping the journal, I stared at Jack. “We have to find her.”

Jack nodded and gestured into the hallway. “Let’s go.”

Perception

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