“Did you know my mom’s boyfriend is Bethany’s uncle?”
“No.” I frowned as I focused on the road. Immediately my mind went to the shoe box full of prescription pads in Bethany’s old house. Was that the connection? “I didn’t really try to get to know her,” I said after a few moments. “Hell, I didn’t really try to get to know any human girl.”
“So you’ve never…dated a human girl before?”
“Dated? No.” The question knocked me off guard. I glanced over at her, deciding how to answer the question. “Hung out with? Yes.”
Kat looked away quickly, and she didn’t respond.
I let out a low breath and forged on. “Anyway, I didn’t know they were related.”
A moment passed. “Do you think that’s weird? I mean, he’s related to Bethany, who’s sort of like me now, and he’s messing around with my mom. We know that someone had to have betrayed Dawson and Bethany.”
I considered it. Even if he was the man the prescription pads belonged to, what did it mean other than him living there? That is, if he lived there and those pads weren’t for someone else. But then there was a stethoscope. Some doctors owned their own stethoscopes, but even if Will saw Bethany injured, how would he have known to put two and two together? How would he know about us, the Luxen, and what we could do?
Again, there were more questions than answers, but some damn interesting new questions were raised. I was going to have to look into Will.
“It’s weird, but how would he know what had happened?” I asked that question a lot. “He would’ve needed to have some inside knowledge of the whole healing process to know what to look for.”
“Maybe he’s an implant.”
I looked at her sharply, but didn’t say anything. Anger thinned her lips, and I knew if I told her what I’d found in Bethany’s house and the possible link to the man her mom was dating, she’d probably cut him the first chance she got.
Wrong or right, her confronting Will without any concrete evidence was the last thing we needed. After a few moments, I cleared my throat. “I’ve been thinking about what Matthew told us—the whole marrying DNA thing.”
She tensed as she stared straight ahead. “Yeah…?”
“I talked to him later and I asked him about the connection, if it could make someone feel anything. He said no. But I already knew that. Thought you should know.”
Kat nodded. “What about the whole you die, I die thing?”
“What about it?” I kept my eyes on the road. “There isn’t anything we can do about that other than not get ourselves killed.”
“There’s more to it than that,” she said. “We’re really joined together, you know. Like, forever…”
“I know,” I said quietly.
Neither of us really spoke after that, because what else could be said? We were joined together. Forever. And knowing that didn’t send me screaming off into the night.
We arrived at the abandoned industrial park near midnight. We did a drive-by to make sure there were no cars around. There were three buildings nestled together near a field covered in white. One was a squat, one-story brick building and one in the middle was several stories high, and that was the one I wanted in. I pulled behind one of the buildings, parking the SUV between two large sheds with the front facing the only entrance.
Killing the engine, I turned to her. “I need to get in that building.” I gestured at the tall one. “But you need to stay in the car while I do this. I need eyes on the road and I don’t know what’s waiting in there.”
“What if someone is in there? I want to go with you.”
Bringing her here was one thing, but I drew the line. “I can take care of myself. You need to stay in here, where it’s safe.”
“But—”
“No, Kat, stay here. Text me if anyone comes in.” I reached for the door. “Please.”
She stared at me a moment and then nodded curtly. I hesitated, wanting to kiss her before I got out of the SUV, but figured I better not push my luck. Quietly closing the door behind me, I darted around the side of the building, past the padlocked, windowless steel bay doors, keeping an eye out for security cameras, and found none. I reached another door, the entrance I’d seen Vaughn head in and out of. This door would be way easier to manipulate than the others. Placing my hands on the door near the lock, I willed the internal gears to turn. The click was like learning a whole new season of Paranormal Hunters was starting sooner than expected.