Shit. Shit.
By some miracle, Caleb’s voice was nearly even as he asked, “Any sign of a struggle?”
“No. The car’s locked, and nothing seems to have been disturbed. She just…isn’t here.”
Goddamn it. All his instincts had been screaming at him that Delia should never have gone down to Laughlin unaccompanied, but she’d insisted that she could take care of herself.
Most of the time, she could.
Only now, it seemed as if the worst must have happened.
He couldn’t say any of this to Aaron, of course. The guy didn’t know anything about who he was — or what, more to the point — so Caleb knew he couldn’t explain that his demonic gut had told him that going to Laughlin had been a spectacularly bad idea.
No, now all he could do was try to figure out what had happened and what he could do to discover where Delia had gone.
“I’m coming down there,” he said.
“Why…are you a P.I. or something?” Aaron replied.
Good thing he was ninety miles away, or Caleb would have been sorely tempted to sock the jerk in the jaw.
“No,” he gritted. “I’m her friend. And I’m going to find out what happened to her.”
Even as he spoke, though, he thought of someone in Delia’s life who actually was a private detective.
Pru Nelson. She might be a good person to bring along, especially since, although she didn’t know the whole truth about him, she at least understood that some pretty crazy shit had gone down in Las Vegas over the past few months. Most likely, she wouldn’t bat an eye at any possible supernatural involvement, since she already knew about Delia’s ghost-whispering sideline and had dipped her toe into some of the freakier stuff like ley lines and energy convergence during the demon-fueled tournament at the Desert Paradise casino.
Also, Pru was Delia’s best friend, and Caleb knew she’d want to be involved in tracking her down.
“What’s the name of this park again?” he asked.
“Heritage Park. I guess the formal name is the Colorado River Heritage Greenway Park, but no one really calls it that.”
Not too surprising. The name was kind of a mouthful.
“Okay. I’ll be down there as fast as I can.”
“Do you need me to wait here?” Aaron asked, and now he sounded especially reluctant.
“No point,” Caleb said shortly. “Delia’s already gone. I suppose you can go back to wherever you’re staying. You’ve done enough.”
“Hey, I didn’t have anything to do with this — ”
Caleb lifted the phone away from his ear and pressed the red button to disconnect the call.
Asshole. As far as he was concerned, Aaron Sanchez had everything to do with this. If he hadn’t begged Delia to go to Laughlin and try clearing the ghost from his grandmother’s house, none of this would have happened.
Delia would still be safe.
Caleb made himself drink some water, and then he picked up the phone again and went to his contacts list. Luckily, he’d put Pru’s information in there a while back, so it would be easy enough to reach her…especially since it was now the middle of the afternoon and there was no way even a night owl like Prudence Nelson wouldn’t be awake and ready to go.
Sure enough, she picked up the phone on the second ring. “Hi, Caleb,” she said, sounding friendly enough…but also puzzled, as though she couldn’t quite figure out why he’d be calling her, rather than Delia.
“Hello, Pru,” he responded. “I have a bit of bad news.”
“What is it?” she asked, her tone sharpening at once.
“Delia’s missing.”
