SECRETS
Cole’s snoreswere so loud, I could hear them from where he slept in the hallway. I was surprised no one had called the police yet to report the vagrant camping out beyond my door. It was endearing to know he was true to his word, unwilling to leave me vulnerable to the outside world. However, it was really hard to sleep like this.
Bean was currently belly up, with all four paws in the air. He purred softly, a gentle sawing noise that I wished I could increase the volume of to drown out the other noise. Even the pillow over the head trick wasn’t working. This guy really needed to see a doctor about that. It couldn’t be healthy.
My cell phone lit up, illuminating the room with a gentle glow. “What now?” I asked into the darkness. Damian’s number flashed across the screen, and I hurriedly pressed the accept button. I was anxious to know where he’d gone earlier when he vanished from the kitchen without a trace.
“Damian, hello?” I said quietly.
“Hey, Dahlia,” his voice sounded tired. I looked at the time and saw it was just past two in the morning and cringed. “I’m sorry about earlier. I imagine I have some explaining to do.”
“Yeah, just a little bit,” I responded, switching ears and laying back on my pillows where it was comfortable. “Where the hell did you go, and why didn’t you say anything before you left?”
Silence answered my question.
“You still there?” I asked.
“Yeah, I’m still here. I just don’t know where to start.” Damian sighed and I heard him turn over. He must have been in bed too. “I didn’t think you would answer. I figured you’d be asleep.”
“I was trying, but no dice.”
“Me neither.”
I waited for him to start talking. When he didn’t offer anything more, I urged him on. “Is there something going on you want to talk to me about?”
“Yeah, umm, when I left earlier, it was to meet up with a private investigator I hired. I got the call while Cole and Sterling were fighting. I tried to get your attention, but you were trying to separate them, so I thought it was best if I just went and called you later. After the meeting, I wasn’t sure what to say, so I’ve just been laying here thinking about it. But you need to know what they told me.”
“What is it?” I asked, feeling the trepidation wash over me like a cold rain.
“I had him investigate Cole and Sterling because I wanted to be sure everyone was on the same page, and I felt like some of their stories just didn’t add up. Well, I was right, kind of.” Damian paused again, and I was getting really tired of the dramatic emphasis. Whatever he wanted to say, he needed to get it out in the open before I lost my damn mind.
“Damian, can you please stop pausing for dramatic effect? I’m dying over here. Is there something I should be worried about?” I slung my legs over the bed and sat upright as if, somehow, that would help me concentrate on what he was saying more. Bean growled and jumped down to find a quieter place to sleep. Cole still snored away in the hallway, completely undisturbed by my rising voice. Some watch-Incubus he was!
“Pretty much everything Cole said was true. He was a foster kid. His parents were killed in some kind of accident when he was five and the agency placed him in another family like us shortly after. He met a young Succubus also in their care. Her name was Fallon. Well, Fallon was kind of bad news. She got him in all kinds of trouble and by the time he aged out of the system, they’d already been through something like seven different families. The last one was human because the agency ran out of places to put them. They lived together after that, and from everything the investigator told me, they were claiming to be husband and wife, until she up and disappeared.” Damian took a breath. “She was pretty hard to track down, but Cole was right. She’s mated and living in Washington State with her Incubus, and they even have a kid.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ve yet to see where the problem lies here.”
“The problem isn’t with Cole,” he said. “Even though he was a troubled kid, and he has a pretty good rap sheet, it’s all minor stuff. Some trespassing, petty thefts, even a drug charge, but he wasn’t using as far as my guy could find, just distributing for cash. I guess that’s not much better than using, but we don't have to worry about him being some kind of addict.”
“I’m assuming the problem is with Sterling, then?”
“Yeah,” he said. “There’s a big problem with Sterling.”
“How bad can he be?” I asked. “He’s a cop. They have to do background checks and stuff to even get those kinds of jobs.”
“You know as well as I do that humans can only find so much on our kind. If we do anything wrong, like really wrong, only the agency will know about it. It would never be found on any human database. By the way, his name isn’t really Russell Sterling. That’s the first thing you should know.”
“You’re scaring me.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t want to scare you.” Damian cleared his throat. I could imagine him lying in his bed in the darkness, gazing up at the ceiling. In my mind, he was thoroughly naked, the moonlight reflecting off his perfect skin, as he tried to formulate the perfect words to deliver unwelcome news to me. Somehow, that made the delivery easier for me to swallow.
“Please, just tell me.”
“He’s a killer,” he said matter-of-factly. “But not how you think, if that makes sense?”
“It doesn’t,” I told him. “I’m going to need more than that to go on. Who did he kill?”
Damian hesitated.
“Damian!”