Free Deep Dark Secret by Sierra Dean Page A

okay?”
    The bathroom door slammed behind him, and I was left alone in the hall with nothing but a blinking phone and a thousand unanswered questions.

Chapter Ten
    Some things in life will stick with you forever.
    Desmond’s tortured expression was one of them. The seven voicemails from Detective Mercedes Castilla were another. The first half dozen were mysterious and vague. “Secret, it’s Cedes, call me, chica , it’s important.” They escalated, her voice worried by the last message. “I need you to call me ASAP. This can’t wait. I wanted to warn you before he used his phone call, but if you don’t call me back, I can’t. Please, Secret, call me back.”
    What was so important? And who was she talking about? Had Nolan gotten in trouble? Or, God forbid, had Keaty been arrested for something he couldn’t explain? My cell’s answering machine told me I had an eighth and final message.
    “Secret.” Right away my whole body went cold. I’d been pacing my living room, watching the bathroom door for any sign Desmond might come back out, but once I heard my name spoken with such familiarity, I had to sit down. I recognized the speaker’s hushed pitch with just one word. That voice had once haunted these walls, had whispered sweet nothings to me in my bedroom. It twisted my guts into knots and made bile wash up the back of my throat. “Hey, Secret. It’s, uh, it’s Gabe. Gabriel Holbrook?” Like I’d fucking forget. “See, um, thing is, I’m in a bit of a bind, and I didn’t know who else to call.”
    Now all of Mercedes’s messages made sense. She’d been with me through the whole Gabriel mess. She knew how long it had taken me to recover. No wonder she’d wanted to reach me so badly.
    The voicemail continued, Gabriel’s recorded voice oblivious to what he was doing to me in the here and now. “So, I’ve been arrested. I didn’t do anything, but I need your help. See, um…it looks like the cops think I’ve killed someone.”
     
    A half hour later I was in the police station, sitting at Mercedes’s cluttered desk. I watched as she and Detective Tyler Nowakowski had a heated exchange behind a wall of windows at the back of the room. Judging by her pissed-off expression, Tyler’s red face and the number of times the two of them pointed at me, it seemed to be going in my favor.
    What Cedes had failed to mention in her many messages was that she wasn’t in charge of Gabriel’s case. She’d been here when he was brought in and had tried to call me then. Her panic set in when Gabriel had told Tyler who he wanted as his one phone call. Not a lawyer. Not a family member. Nope, stupid Gabriel Holbrook had asked to call his ex-girlfriend, the private investigator.
    Normally that wouldn’t have been so weird.
    Problem was, Tyler and I had a history, and it wasn’t an entirely pleasant one. We’d had one date, orchestrated by Mercedes, and it had gone really well until he witnessed me slaughter three vampires, and I had to have his memory erased. Or wiped as Shane had so charmingly phrased it earlier. Tyler didn’t remember the incident, but he hadn’t trusted me since. When I’d gotten caught up in a nasty murder investigation over Christmas, his distrust turned into outright suspicion.
    He thought I was trouble, and he wasn’t wrong.
    Being the first choice of contact for a suspected murderer wasn’t going to help me convince him otherwise, and it wouldn’t help Gabriel’s case either. I shouldn’t have cared what Tyler thought of me, but I did. On more than one occasion I’d wrestled with the idea of telling him the truth. Mercedes knew about vampires, and she was able to deal with it. Maybe Tyler could too.
    But every time I thought about it I convinced myself it was stupid. It was also profoundly illegal, and as a Tribunal leader I’d be putting myself and the council at astronomical risk if I exposed us to human authorities.
    The conference-room door banged open, and Tyler and Mercedes