Chapter 6 #2
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.”
“What?”
Pretty much the same response he’d had when he’d gotten the unwelcome news from Aaron.
“I guess she went to Laughlin to try to clear a house. The cell reception there isn’t very good, so she headed over to a local park to make some calls.
Except…her car is at the park, but she doesn’t seem to be anywhere around. ”
“What kind of park is it? Is it someplace where she might have gone for a walk or something?”
“I suppose so,” Caleb replied, irritation stirring. Not at Prudence — she’d asked a logical enough question — but at himself for not thinking of that possibility. “I don’t know why she’d do that, though. It’s pretty hot out right now for a casual stroll.”
“And you can’t reach her on her phone?”
At least he could answer that query easily enough. “No. I tried multiple times. Texts don’t go through, and calls go straight to voicemail.”
“Okay, that doesn’t sound much like Delia,” Pru agreed. “She never ignores calls during work hours.”
No, she didn’t. In fact, he’d been a little irritated now and then when she’d taken a call while they were together, even though he understood that was part of her business and she needed to be there for her clients.
Which was why he knew she would have picked up her phone this afternoon if she could.
“So you see why I’m worried. I want to go down to Laughlin to look for her…and I was kind of hoping you’d come with me.”
Not even a second of hesitation.
“Absolutely,” Pru said. “Should I meet you at your house?”
That would probably be the easiest thing. “Do you mind?” he asked. “Or I could come get you — ”
“No, it’s fine,” she broke in. “Just give me a couple of minutes to close out a few things here, and then I’ll head right over. Pueblo Street, right?”
“Yes,” Caleb replied. He didn’t recall ever giving her his address, but Pru was a private detective, after all. It was pretty easy for her to lay hands on information like that.
“I’m going to call an Uber, but I’ll be over as fast as I can.” A small pause, and she added, “It’s going to be okay. We’ll find her.”
“I know.”
They ended the call, and he slid his phone into his jeans pocket, then headed into the kitchen to put a few things together for their road trip.
Maybe not the full-on junk food extravaganza he’d first proposed to Delia, but a small cooling bag filled with bottled water, and then a tote from Trader Joe’s that he supplied with a bag of chips, some protein bars, and a package of teriyaki beef jerky.
They probably wouldn’t need most of it, and yet he didn’t want to head out without knowing they’d brought some supplies along.
Oh, who was he kidding? He knew he was doing all this so he’d have something to occupy his mind as he waited for Pru and wouldn’t keep dwelling on what might be happening to Delia while he was screwing around in the kitchen.
The doorbell rang, and he looked up from the Trader Joe’s bag, a little startled. He didn’t know exactly where Pru Nelson lived, but he hadn’t thought she’d be able to get over here this quickly, especially when she had to wait for an Uber.
He hurried out of the kitchen and went to the front door. When he opened it, though, he saw someone else entirely standing outside.
Ty Carter, the tennis pro and maybe angel. Or half angel. Or whatever.
What the hell?
“What do you want?” Caleb demanded.
“We need to talk,” Ty replied, apparently not put off at all by his rough tone.
Well, that was par for the course. Even when all hell was breaking loose inside a casino, the guy never seemed to lose his cool.
Because Caleb already had an idea what all this was about, he didn’t bother to argue, but instead stepped out of the way so Ty could come inside.
“Your seer has gone missing,” Ty said, and Caleb cocked an eyebrow.
“Is that what we’re calling her now?”
“Her powers will continue to grow in strength,” the half angel replied. “She doesn’t think of herself as a seer, but just as she has begun to see into others’ minds, she’ll also begin to look into the future.”
Too bad she hadn’t looked far enough ahead to learn that going to Laughlin had been a very bad idea.
“And I suppose you’ve shown up here to lend a hand?” Caleb asked.
“Yes,” Ty replied. “To be honest, I hadn’t thought we’d arrive at this juncture quite so soon. But she’s put herself in a place where our adversaries thought it best to move against her.”
Caleb didn’t bother to ask how Ty knew all this. When you were dealing with angels or part angels or whatever, you had to learn to expect the unexpected.
At least it seemed as if they were on the same side. Never in a million years had Caleb ever thought he’d be fighting on the side of the angels, but he’d been to Hell and knew all too well that throwing in your lot with a bunch of demons was a recipe for disaster.
Mostly, he wished he could have stayed somewhere in the middle and been allowed to live his life without a bunch of complications, but it didn’t seem as if the universe was going to grant him that grace.
“Well, I can probably use the help,” he said. “In fact, I was getting ready to head down to Laughlin. I’m just waiting for Pru.”
“‘Pru’?” Ty repeated, even though Caleb had a feeling the guy knew perfectly well who she was.
“Delia’s friend, Prudence Nelson,” he explained. “I thought it couldn’t hurt to have a private investigator along.”
Ty didn’t reply right away, and something in his expression was almost thoughtful, as if he was pondering this latest development and trying to decide whether he should argue or just let it be.
Apparently, it was the latter, because he nodded.
“She could be of some help.”
The doorbell rang again. Since they’d remained in the foyer while they talked, Caleb didn’t have to go very far to open the door and let Prudence Nelson in.
The last time he’d seen her, she’d had ombre purple hair that was almost inky violet at the roots and had faded to pale lavender at the ends, which had just barely brushed her collarbones.
Now, though, it had been dyed a deep forest green, striking against her pale skin and dark eyes.
As far as he could tell, she didn’t seem to wear anything except black, maybe because that way her clothes would always go with her hair, no matter what color it was that month…
or maybe week. He didn’t see her enough to know for sure how often she changed her hair.
The only thing he did know was that she must either have iron tresses or the world’s best colorist, because her shoulder-length locks didn’t look fried despite all the torture she must put them through.
She said a brief hello to Caleb, but almost immediately, her gaze tracked to Ty.
“This is Ty Carter,” Caleb said. He hated to waste time on introductions, but it would have been rude not to say anything at all. “Ty, this is Pru Nelson, Delia’s friend.”
“Hi,” she said.
“Hello,” he replied. For a second, his gaze remained on her face — not long enough to be considered rude, but enough that Caleb couldn’t help noticing.
Did the half angel think she was pretty?
Possibly. She actually was attractive despite the crazy hair, thanks to her delicate features and big dark eyes. Not his type — he wasn’t into the gamine look — but he could see why she might have piqued Ty’s interest.
If that was even the reason for the lingering stare. For all Caleb knew, the half angel was just trying to take her measure and make sure she’d be enough help to justify bringing her along.
Not that it mattered. This mission had been his idea, and he was the one who had the final say on who was included.
“Okay, enough chitchat,” he said briskly. “We need to get going. I know where Delia was when she disappeared, so we’ll go there first and see what we can find.”
“Sounds good,” Pru said. For the first time, Caleb noticed that she had a large black canvas satchel slung over one shoulder, and he guessed it probably held her laptop and whatever other supplies she’d thought she might need for the investigation.
“Yes,” Ty chimed in. “We should get on the road…before it’s too late.”