Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 117510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 588(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 392(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 588(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 392(@300wpm)
“No, he’s done a good job of ensuring there’s no trace of him here,” said Knox.
Tanner tipped his head to the side. “I wonder why he didn’t remove all her stuff after her death.”
“Maybe he figured the people here would steal it and, in doing so, do the job for him,” suggested Larkin with a shrug.
Tanner pursed his lips. “Maybe.”
“She must have had someone teleport it all here,” said Harper. “If the locals saw this stuff being moved in here, she’d have been robbed within a week.”
Knox nodded. “I was just thinking the very same thing.”
“Knox!” Levi called out from downstairs. “You might want to come and take a look at this!”
Exchanging a look with Harper, Knox walked out of the room and then headed downstairs with his mate and the two sentinels behind him. He found Levi in the hallway, hanging out of a closet door. Crossing to the reaper, Knox realized that the closet led to a basement. “What is it?” Knox asked him.
“You need to see it for yourself,” said Levi.
Following the reaper, Knox descended into the dark space. The wooden steps creaked beneath his feet, and the banister shook as Knox slid his hand down its surface. He glanced at Harper over his shoulder. “Watch the banister, baby. It isn’t stable.”
“Neither is this staircase,” said Harper. The steps gave slightly, unable to fully support her weight. Stepping onto the cement floor, she frowned. No scents of must or mildew met her nose. It smelled just as fresh as the other floors, which meant that … “It’s been cleansed.”
“It has,” Tanner confirmed as he and Larkin joined them. Keenan was already there, drinking from his flask as he searched the shadowy corners.
Harper moved to the center of the space and did a slow spin, canvasing her surroundings. It wasn’t easy, since the single, bare bulb buzzed and flickered. But she could see that, like the rest of the house, there were damp spots and cracks in the floor and walls. There was nothing down there except for the furnace, water tank, breaker box, utility shelves, and stacks of dusty boxes, yet the space strangely didn’t feel unused.
She flexed her fingers as unease weirdly slithered through her, making her stomach quiver and her scalp prickle. “I don’t like it here. At all.”
“Me neither,” said Larkin.
“Do you feel it?” Levi asked Knox.
Gazing at a particular wall, Knox nodded. “There’s a … wrongness. Like something is out of place. Or as if we simply can’t see the space as it should be.” He stepped forward and laid his hand on the cold wall, “feeling” magickal energy, “reading” it. “Someone cast some sort of concealment spell.”
Harper’s brows shot up. “Concealment spell?”
“Yes,” said Knox, backing up. “We’ll need an incantor to unravel it.”
Harper looked at Levi. “Your friend’s an incantor, right?”
“I’ll call her,” said Levi, digging out his cell phone before heading upstairs to make the call.
Knox turned to Harper. “While we wait for her to arrive, we can interview the human outside.”
It was Khloë who had found someone that recognized Alethea’s picture. Harper had asked her to stay with the human to make sure he didn’t disappear. She’d also asked Khloë not to fully question him as Harper and Knox wanted to do that themselves.
Following Knox out of the house, she saw Khloë across the street, standing beside a dark-skinned kid who was straddling a bike. Spotting Knox, his brown eyes flickered nervously. The kid might not know that Knox was a demon, but he could still sense the danger in him.
Harper exchanged a quick, grateful smile with Khloë and then slid her gaze to the boy. “It’s Isaiah, right?” Khloë had told her a little about him.
He nodded curtly, trying to look tough. “Yeah.”
“I’m Harper. This is my husband, Knox.”
The kid tipped his chin in a “Sup?” gesture. He was cute with his small afro and the shaved lines at the sides of his head, Harper thought. There was also a badass swagger in his manner that most of the kids in that area had.
“Khloë tells us that you recognize the woman in the picture she’s been showing around,” said Knox.
Isaiah shrugged. “I saw her in the doorway of that house a few times. Never saw her leave, though.”
“Did she ever have visitors?” Knox asked.
“Dude, she had a lot of visitors. Only saw one person go there more than once, though. A guy. Most of the time, he’d take someone with him. Weird thing was he always left them behind. I figured he was her pimp or dealer or something.”
Knox narrowed his eyes. “Can you describe him?”
Isaiah’s brow wrinkled. “He only came at night. He was tall. Walked like he could handle himself, but he wasn’t built. Wore a long coat.”
“What color?”
“Dark. Not black, but dark.”
Perhaps navy blue like the cashmere coat that Sherryl had described, Knox thought. “Did you ever hear him speak?”