Page 61 of Dark

Nodding, she followed me into the kitchen, taking a seat at the bar while I pulled out fresh butter, set milk warming in a pan, and filled her in on everything Brody had learned.

While I talked, Hayden picked at her nails, frowning out at the moonlit yard. “How lucid did he seem to you?”

“Enough.”

“That’s not an answer.”

I flipped her toasted bread slices and added cheddar cheese. “Only one I’ve got. With Ferals, it comes and goes. Phase of the moon. Daylight versus night.”

“Something isn’t right,” she said in a low voice. “You’ve seen the texts I’ve been getting. This whole time we’ve been operating under the assumption Topher wants to abduct me, to take me from you. So why did he barely even glance my way out on Bluff Point?”

Silently, she passed over her phone.

Unknown Number: run

Unknown Number: don’t trust him

Unknown Number: not much longer and we’ll be together

Unknown Number: tell him to stop touching what’s mine

And… wow, she was right.

“When did these come in?”

“All in the last hour.”

I shut down the screen. “If you’re right—”

“—then these texts aren’t coming from the same person. And they haven’t been, all along.”

“This guy… whoever he is—”

“Or she.”

“—or she. This is personal. Now that we have the connection to Topher, we get Brody to pull every missing persons report, every cold case file from the past eighteen months. Everything since the disappearances started ramping up.”

She nodded. “Cross check everything for a link to him or me.”

I slid the grilled cheese in front of her.

Hayden picked at the edges. “I don’t trust Lacey Blair.”

“Really? You were pretty subtle about it back when you tried to claw her face off in front of half of Lindley County PD—”

“And you’ve ruled her out why again? Because your dick is some sort of magical truth wand?”

Burn. I raised an eyebrow. She stared me down.

“For a lot of reasons, none of which are my place to tell. But let’s just say arranging a hit on you would get her expelled from the pack, and would mean she’d have to leave Blood Moon and wouldn’t be able to tell her family why.”

Hayden nibbled of a corner of her sandwich while I turned back to the stove, stirring cocoa and peppermint into the pan of hot milk. “I know the rumors, but what really happened back in high school between her and Dallas?”

I poured her drink into a cup, topped it with whip and drizzled a chocolate-syrup heart into the foam. She took it, clacking her teeth zombie-style when I flicked a dot of whip onto her nose.

“Ben kept a pretty tight leash on all of us, at least when it came to human girls. So even though everyone could tell Dallas liked her, it wasn’t going to happen. Pretty sure Lacey thought it was a money thing and he didn’t correct her. They sort of settled for tormenting each other. Senior year there was this huge party south of town. Dallas snuck out. They got wasted and ended up in the back of his truck.”

“Oh no.”