Ask Me If I Care (SWAT Generation 2.0 #4) - Lani Lynn Vale Page 0,64
exactly why I was there.
My brows furrowed. “Do you want me to leave?”
He rolled his eyes. “That’s what you got out of what I said?”
“What are you weirdos doing talking on my porch at three in the morning?” Ares asked, opening the door so hard that the both of us startled.
Downy ruffled Ares’ hair. “I like the hair natural, baby. It’s my favorite.”
Ares rolled her eyes, them going from me to her dad and back.
“What’s wrong?” she asked now.
Trigger walked inside as if he owned the place.
Downy pushed past her inside, and that was when I realized that she didn’t look as if she’d been sleeping.
“You weren’t sleeping?” I asked curiously.
She scrunched up her nose. “Couldn’t sleep,” she admitted. “I thought about coming over but…I didn’t want to wake you up.”
I pulled her into my arms and pressed a kiss to her neck, causing her to shiver.
“You should’ve come,” I replied huskily. “I wanted you there anyway.”
She squeezed my hips, then leaned back and frowned at me. “What’s going on?”
I sighed and pushed her lightly, telling her without words to go inside.
She did, but not without giving me a ferocious frown first.
Downy was sitting on the coffee table with his head in his hands.
“Shit,” Ares said. “What is it? Just tell me.”
I closed the door and cleared my throat.
I made eye contact with Downy and realized he was allowing me to take lead on this.
Which sucked, but it was also an honor. He realized that Ares was mine now. Not his.
“Sweetness, sit down.” I sighed.
She did, looking from me to her dad and back.
“I got a call tonight from my dad,” I said softly. “There’s no really easy way to tell you this but, they think Abilene was murdered last night.”
At first, I don’t think it quite registered with her what I said.
She stared at me, dumbfounded for a few seconds, then shook her head.
“But…what?” she asked. “Why would they think that? I just got a message from her…”
My stomach clenched. “You what? When?”
She walked to her phone that was sitting on the edge of the couch and picked it up. Walking over to stand between her father and me, she opened her phone and then showed me a text message that was received about an hour ago.
About two hours after her suspected murder.
I called my dad immediately.
“When did the call come in that the body was found?” I asked curtly.
Dad was silent as he made sense of what I just said.
“Umm.” He paused. “Around midnight. The girl went missing somewhere between two and four. The librarian saw the girl leave at two and that is her last known whereabouts. She never came home and the brother got worried and called it in. Blasted it all over social media after that. Body spotted by a motorist at midnight.” He paused. “Called you at two-thirty…”
I rolled my eyes at how specific he was being. But my dad was all about specifics.
“Ares got a message that says, ‘hey, just wanted to let you know I’m okay’ at…” I trailed off as she pointed the phone in my direction. “Two-thirty a.m.”
Two and a half hours after her death.
What the absolute fuck.
I hit the information button above the name, then pressed the phone icon.
Downy looked at me with worried eyes when he saw the call button pop up.
Without another word, I hit dial.
The phone rang twice before there was a maniacal laugh at the other end of the line and a man said, “Took you long enough to figure it out.”
My eyes met Ares’ gaze, and it was no secret that she was freaked.
“Not going to talk?” the man said. At least, I thought it was a man. His voice was distorted. Likely he was using some sort of electronic device to disguise his voice. “That’s okay. I got a lot of things to say.”
Still none of us said a thing.
“I’m so fuckin’ tired of you,” the disembodied voice growled. “Always thinking you’re better than me. Well, honey, you’re not.”
My brows rose.
“You just think you’re so smart, don’t you, Daddy’s girl?”
The moment those words were out of his mouth, disguised voice or not, I knew. My eyes caught Ares’ gaze, and I knew that she knew,