Page 70 of Bitten By Desire
“No way.” She grabbed my arm. “We’re sticking together.”
“Fine. Basement first.”
She groaned as I pulled her toward a closed door. But…it was an empty closet. We saw the downstairs powder room, another closet, the kitchen, and the pantry before I finally opened a door with a set of stairs. “Bingo.” I flicked on the lights.
“I really don’t like this,” Zoey said.
But she kept her hand on my arm as I started going down the stairs.
“Emma, I really,reallydon’t like this.”
“You already said that.” My phone started buzzing. I couldn’t deal with Bennett right now.
“Ah, you have a phone call. We should probably go back upstairs so you can answer…” Her voice trailed off when we reached the bottom step. “Huh.”
Damn it.The basement was completely empty. Just a slab of pristine concrete. No doors leading to secret rooms filled with creepy old portraits. Absolutely nothing. It looked like he’d never even stepped foot down here. And that honestly didn’t seem very vampirey of him. Didn’t vampires like cold damp places? Or was that just bats?
“Well, that was fun,” Zoey said. “Oh well. Nothing creepy or suspicious here. We should probably skedaddle.” She pulled me back up the stairs.
I had been so sure that I’d find the portraits. I actually hadn’t even considered not finding them…. “The attic!”
“No.”
“If the basement is empty, there has to be a creepy attic.”
Zoey groaned. “There’s nothing creepy about this house. It’s practically brand new.”
“At least let me look in his bathroom to see if he has brown colored contacts.” After I found proof that he was a contact-lens-wearing liar, I’d get her to go in the attic with me.
“Okay, but if they’re not there, do we get to leave?”
“Yes.”
She stared at me. “You promise?”
“Of course.”No. Absolutely not.If I couldn’t find proof of his fake brown eyes, I’d be even more likely to run up into the attic.
She sighed. “You’re a terrible liar. But fine, let’s go raid his bathroom. How long was his meeting for?”
“No idea.”
“Emma!”
“It’s fine, he seemed really busy.” He hadn’t. It had seemed like he’d gotten caught in a lie and made up a meeting to get away from me. But he clearly wasn’t home. So we were all good.
We hurried up the stairs. I grabbed the doorknob of the first door we came to and tried to turn it. But it didn’t move. “This is suspicious all by itself. Who locks doors in their house?” I shook my head. “Actually, his office was locked when I came here for my interview. He used a key to get in. Maybe he’s hiding something in his desk!” I was about to run back downstairs, but Zoey stopped me.
“Weren’t you in his office last night?”
“Yeah but I didn’t get to snoop around. He didn’t let me out of his sight. You know…because he’s hiding something.”
“Or because he was busy hooking up with you on his desk.” She smiled at me.
I glared at her.
Zoey let go of my arm and tried the next closed door. It was locked too. “Let’s just focus and find his bedroom. Because I’m getting the hell out of here when we discover that all of this is in your head.”
It wasn’t in my head.
