Free The Departed by Shiloh Walker Page A

days.”
    Tristan’s image flickered, wavered. “Then it hasn’t happened yet—they won’t do it until Halloween. We can still save her…”
    * * *
     
    HER first look at the hotel had already told Dez everything she needed to know—it would be way too pricey for her peace of mind if she just did the rack rates. No help for it, but she’d be damned if she paid rack rates.
    So she called a friend. The travel agent had a line on all sorts of good deals. Even then, it wouldn’t be cheap. Fortunately, Dez had money in her account and it was even more nicely padded now since she’d deposited the check from Myra. A check that had been far too generous.
    Forty-five minutes later, she was checked in, following a uniformed bellhop to her room—assuming you could call his pseudo-safari gear a uniform. She smirked a little, shaking her head. But hey, she wasn’t carrying the suitcase or even her vanity case. If they wanted the bellhops wearing pseudo-safari gear or even real safari gear, so be it.
    Once he’d tackled the dangerous task of stowing her suitcases in her room, she gave him a couple of wrinkled ones from her pocket and shut the door, studying the room. She’d spent the previous night sleeping at a roadside motel with a full-size bed. The mattress had sagged in the middle and it had creaked and squeaked every time she moved.
    This room looked like paradise.
    Good thing, considering how much she was paying.
    Sighing, she made her way over to the bed and collapsed, facedown, without bothering to strip off her jacket. She barely had the energy to toe off her shoes. Five minutes horizontal—that was all she needed. Just five minutes.
    It took only forty-five seconds for him to find her.
    The temperature in the room dropped and she sighed, turning onto her back and watching as Tristan shimmered into view. “You can’t sleep!”
    “I’m not,” she said simply. Sitting up, she braced her elbows on her knees and stared at him. “I’m tired, I’m stressed, and I just needed a few minutes.”
    “We don’t have a few minutes.” He started to pace, something that managed to stir up the air currents in the room, making it feel like the air conditioner was on. She was glad she’d left her jacket on. “We have to start looking for her now before it’s too late.”
    “Okay.” She rubbed her hands over her face and stood up. “But you’ve got to help me out. Where do I go? How do I start?”
    She expected him just to give her a blank stare.
    But to her surprise, he gave her another one of those grim smiles.
    “We should see if any of my so-called friends are around.”
    “And where do we find them?”
    “In the water park…most of us used to work here.” His image wavered, shoulders going up and down almost as if he’d sighed, and a strange, whispery sound slithered through the room. “It’s how it all came up. We had this thing going—not quite a club, really. We thought we were too cool for that. We called it a fraternity. We didn’t do mean shit—a few of them tried but I can’t stand mean shit. We were talking about our senior year—making it memorable. I was all for that—something people would never forget. But then…”
    His eyes closed a moment, then he opened them and looked at her. A smile twisted his lips. “I thought I was the one in charge, you know? I was such an arrogant idiot.”
    Her heart broke for him.
    “Have you remembered anything else about that night?”
    “No.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter, either. All that matters is this.”
    It wasn’t all—she could see that. He was still clinging to his rage, and that rage was going to chain him here if she didn’t help him. But for now, she’d go along with it.
    What they’d done to him, it did matter, it had to matter. But she wasn’t going to harp on it now. Not when they might be running on so little time. Giving him a smile, she said, “If you say so, Tristan. If that’s what you want. Well,