Page 58 of Bite of Passage
Nausea rolled around inside her.
She unlocked and cracked the door.
“Gemma Leight?”asked the forty-something brunette officer with dark eyes.A slithery sensation slipped across Gemma’s shoulders.
She nodded in reply.
The lady flashed her SFPD badge.“I have a few questions about Dylan Holder’s disappearance.Did you know he was missing?”
She nodded and widened the opening of the door “He’s been missing at work for a while.What’s this have to do with me?”
The cop’s odor reminded her of the damp basement in her foster family’s house back when she’d been in elementary school.“Where were you on the night of April twenty-fourth?”
“I don’t remember.That’s two months ago.Hold on.I’ll grab my phone—it has my calendar.I work late at the hospital sometimes.”
“We’re pretty sure he was coming to your place that night.”
“That’s weird.Why would he come to my place?We had one lousy date and no relationship beyond that.I for sure didn’t invite him here.He sent threatening texts to me all the time for a while.I’d block him, but he kept buying new phones so I wouldn’t recognize the number.I was going to report him for stalking, but then his messages stopped.”
“When did the texts stop?”
“I thought he finally got the message.I can’t remember when they stopped.Here, I’ll check my phone.”
“Did you kill him?”
Yes.But not directly.That thought probably showed on her face.“What?No.Why would you ask something like that?Was he found dead or something?”
“He disappeared.He lived with his mom, and she’s been on a mission to find out what happened.She swears the only thing that would keep him away this long is if he’s dead.”
Whoa.She didn’t know Dylan still lived at home.He’d been a doctor.Maybe things had been complicated, and his mother needed help.
Gemma grabbed her phone off the kitchen counter.
The officer scanned her place as if searching for something.Good luck finding anything of Dylan’s.
“What was that date again?”
The cop provided it.
Gemma scrolled through her calendar.“Looks like I was off that night.He didn’t text me.”She rotated the phone to show her calendar.
The woman didn’t seem interested.While still visually inspecting her apartment she asked, “Can anyone corroborate you were here?”
She shook her head.Her mind jumped to Skarde.“I was alone.”
The officer removed a small yellow crystal from her pocket and held it in front of her.It was a triangular stone on the top and jagged at the other end where it’d been broken from its seating inside a larger rock.She waved it in Gemma’s direction.
These weren’t humans.Their visit had nothing to do with Dylan and everything to do with what dangled around her neck.
Nothing happened when the officer did a second pass of the crystal around Gemma.
Do not touch your neck.Thank goodness her boobs hid things well.
While walking around the room, the cop held it over various objects.The officer’s crystal glowed a bit when it got close to the side table where she’d removed the necklace earlier when she went on a walk.
“I’m going to need you to come down to the station with me.”A small smile creased the woman’s lips.Excitement danced in her eyes.
Gemma squinted at the nametag on the officer’s chest.“Officer Milano, are you arresting me?On what charges?”
