Page 76 of Falling For You

The silence lasted long enough that I had to check the screen to see if the call had dropped.

"Daphne Alistair?" His voice climbed. "The woman who brings flowers to the bar?"

"I'll explain everything when you get here. I need you at the precinct." I pressed my palm against the wall. "Please. I can't do this alone."

"Of course. Be there in fifteen."

"Thank you. Zeus is preparing the warrant now."

Zeus called me to his desk within the hour. He handed me a packet with the signed warrant and everything they had on her.

"I've opened a case on the sister. McCarthy's out of state. Lockwood's being handled. Bring Alistair in tonight. We'll figure out the rest after."

I looked at her photograph.

I kept waiting for something in my chest to harden. For the anger to come, or the coldness, the thing that was supposed to happen when you found out someone you trusted had been lying to you for as long as you'd known them.

It didn't come.

We drove to Daphne's duplex first. Four streets off Ashmont. Nobody answered. Jeremy checked the alley side and came back shaking his head. Her car wasn't in the drive or on the street.

"Do you want to try the shop?" Jeremy was already looking down the street.

We drove to the shop. The lights were off and the door was locked. The buckets that usually sat on the sidewalk were gone, brought inside for the night. I knocked three times, hard enough to move the glass in the frame. Nothing.

"Maybe she's hiding here." Jeremy had his flashlight against the glass, trying to see in.

"Why would she be hiding? How would she know we were coming?" I stepped back and looked at the dark storefront. Daphne closed at six. It was past ten. She wasn't hiding. She was somewhere else.

I pulled the packet out of my jacket and found the employment line. Custodial, overnight, and the name of a property on the Strip. She'd told me once, the first week I moved to the block, that she cleaned at one of the casinos a few nights a week.

What if she was working tonight?

I read the property name again.

The Golden Hour. Lockwood Development.

Daphne cleaned at Preston Lockwood's casino.

"We have to go." I was already walking back to the car.

"Where?"

The Golden Hour was lit up like every other building on that stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard. Valets pulling cars around, taxis idling along the driveway, the normal pulse of a casino on a weeknight.

Security met us in the lobby. I showed the warrant and my badge.

"We need to see Preston Lockwood. We have reason to believe his life is in danger."

The man behind the desk made a call, then waved over an escort. "Mr. Lockwood's office is on twenty-two. I'll take you up."

The twenty-second floor was carpeted and quiet. A receptionist at a desk near the elevator bank looked up when we came through. Security explained we were LVMPD.

"I'll let Mr. Lockwood know you're here." She stood and walked down the hall toward a set of double doors.

Jeremy and I waited at the desk. He leaned in and lowered his voice.

"Shouldn't we be looking for Daphne? She's somewhere in the building."