Page 55 of Grave Kisses
“Okay,” Chrissy says, drawing in a deep breath. “I know everyone is angry. I know everyone wants to beat the dog shit out of Jeff until he tells us what we want to know, but that is not going to help find Kendra. We knew this was a possibility and we planned for this. She might not know how ready we were for this, but we are. Don’t let doubt cloud your judgment.”
“We need to get into Alan’s house,” Dad says quietly.
“Why?” I ask, narrowing my eyes at him. He sighs heavily, and I know he is hiding something. “What did you do, Dad?”
“Son,” Mom scolds.
“No, it’s okay,” Dad says. “The necklace that she wears. The metal heart. Alan gave that to her.”
“Okay? And?” I ask. I’m trying not to sound so irritated, but I am. I know what is happening to Kendra, and it’s fucking killing me inside.
“And… He gave that to her and drilled it into her head that she had to wear it because it would keep her safe. She always thought it was something sentimental… but it’s a tracker.”
“Well, shit,” Decan laughs. “The man is dead and gone, but he gets to save her one last time. Where was the info for the tracker?”
“It’s in the stuff from his safe,” Dad says. “I tried to get to it without her knowing, but I couldn’t. It’s in a journal and inconspicuous enough that you don’t know exactly what you are looking at. I know how to read it because he showed me. He wanted someone other than himself to be able to access that. I had access to the safe the entire time, but Alan made me promise to not say anything unless I absolutely had to… I knew he was dying...”
“Okay,” I sigh. “So, we find it, and we find her?”
“Kinda,” he says. “It’s all of the information we need to track her. It is accurate within one hundred feet. When he was alive, he was able to switch out the pendant a few times to make sure that it was working properly. He was afraid that Archer would come for her, so he wanted to be able to find her. There’s somethingmissing from this, though. There was a lot he didn’t explain but said that he needed to when he was ready.”
“So, first,” Decan says. “We need to get that information. In order to do that, we need to figure out where it is. That means we need to play nice with Jeff.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea for Jeff to know that there’s a way to track her,” Hannah says. “Even if he is not involved with something with Archer, I would not put it past that fucking creep to find her and keep her for himself.”
“We definitely should be working the angle that he is somehow connected to Archer,” I say. “If there is a connection, we need to find it.”
“The chief of police should be here in just a second,” Decan says.
“What?” I ask. How?”
“It’s a long story. He will help, though,” she says.
“No. If I am going to trust him, I need answers,” Bellamy says.
“Jesus. Fine. He is kind of… a mafia boss of sorts. I might have fucked him a few months ago as a one-night stand. I didn’t know who he was until we went to talk to him, and well… he is eager to help.”
Bellamy gasps, and I can’t help but laugh. “Christina Marie Teller! Did you offer yourself up to the sheriff to help find Kendra?”
Decan is grinning from ear to ear watching her blush so hard she might catch fire. “Yeah, Chrissy. Did you?” She glares at Decan, and he chuckles.
“I agreed to a date. That’s it,” she says firmly.
“Correction,” Decan says. “She agreed to a date, and I have to be there too. Not that I would miss this for anything.”
“Hell yeah, girl!” Julie says happily. “Kendra will approve.”
“Anyway,” she says, looking at her phone. “He is here.”
“And he is the chief of police?” I ask.
“Yeah. For now. It’s temporary, since the last guy died. He… I don’t actually know what he was doing, but I’m not about to ask,” she says.
I check the camera at the front gate and confirm it is just one man in a car. When I let the gate open, I wait for him to pass through before closing it back. We all wait around for the man. When he knocks on the door, I think that Chrissy might actually run away.
Bellamy shakes his head at his little sister before pulling the front door open. When he doubles over laughing, I step to theside to see none other than Andre DeLuca. Chrissy groans when Bellamy is practically wheezing.
“What am I missing?” Hannah asks.
