Taken by the Beast (The Conduit Series Book 1) (6 page)

“Lucky bastards,” he muttered.

Though I tried to fight it, I couldn’t help but smile. Sure, I had embarrassed myself. And I had probably given Ester at least a month’s worth of ammunition. But things felt better in Dalton’s arms. He was warm. He was dry. And what was more, he was inviting—the sort of inviting I hadn’t felt in a long time.

“It’s going to be all right,” he said, in a slightly more serious tone.

And the thing was, at least for a moment, I believed him. Maybe everything would be all right.

A huge boom rocked from above. I jerked, looking up. Another boom shook the roof, followed by the creaking and breaking of wood beams.

The entire club ground to a halt, music and all. Everyone looked up, staring at the source of the strange noise. Then another crack erupted, and something crashed through the ceiling.

A woman screamed. Her scream became many screams. People ran, some filing for the door, some too drunk to know where the door was. I weaved through the crowd, easier to part than it had been minutes ago.

And as I neared where some of the crowd had gathered, I saw exactly what had shaken them up so much.

Lying lifeless and bloody on the floor, covered in scratches and bite marks, was a woman. A woman with dark hair and bright eyes.

A woman—another one—that looked a lot like me.

I hadn’t been inside The Castle in days. No one had, what with the crime scene tape stretched across it, blocking the entrance with its creepy yellow and black barrier. That didn’t stop people from talking about it, though.

Not five minutes went by without me overhearing someone recall that gruesome moment. Either they were recounting what they saw firsthand (with a few embellishments thrown in for good measure) or they were repeating what they heard from a friend who
had
been there. No one seemed to have seen exactly the same thing. The only thing everyone agreed on was that they were absolutely, never ever, under any circumstance, without question, going back to that club.

They had even taken to calling it “The Casket” instead of “The Castle.”

Turned out the only thing worse for a business than a small town murder was an
unsolved
small town murder. And worse for me, the girl—like every other who seemed to get herself in trouble within a twenty mile radius—looked disturbingly like me. But she wasn’t me. I was me.

In the two days since that girl came crashing through the roof, I had been through three rounds of police questioning, and within the confines of those sessions, I learned that Abram had only moved to town a few months prior. I also learned that he came from old money. I did not, however, find out Abram’s address. And since he had deliberately been sending me to voicemail for days now, I was starting to worry.

It wasn’t that I cared, per se. He was, after all, an arrogant prick. But his business had fallen through, the last time I saw him, he was sick, and if I knew the people in this town the way I thought I did, there were probably more than a few who thought he was the murderer.

Which was absolutely ridiculous. Abram was a lot of awful things, but he wasn’t a killer. He just wasn’t.

Right?

And while the town and the police had already asked him their fair share of questions, I wasn’t about to let him off the hook from mine. I had waited long enough and damned if I was going to wait any longer.

I found him exactly where I thought I would: at the first place I had ever seen him—the bottom of the stairwell leading to The Castle’s entrance. He stood there, his back to me, arms folded, staring at The Castle’s door from the bottom of the stairs. His black slacks matched a t-shirt that hugged his arms, chest, and shoulders in a way that made him look impossibly large and defined.

“Be careful,” he said without looking up at me. “I’m not in the mood to catch you today.”

Gritting my teeth, I padded my way down the steps. “Don’t worry,” I answered, infusing a light tone in my voice that I didn’t really feel. “I think I’ve got this much under control.”

“Really?” He swerved to face me, cutting those dark eyes right in my direction. The stubble on his cheeks had been shortened since last I saw him, but there was still a hint of darkness in his expression, which matched his eyes perfectly.

“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked, settling next to him.

“It means it would be the first thing you had under control.” He sounded more tired than angry, but that didn’t stop the rage from bubbling up in my chest.

“You can’t be serious.” I pitted my hands on my hips. “You’re not seriously going to blame this on me!”

“No,” he said, raising a mitt-like hand to shush me. “You didn’t kill that girl.”

“Carla,” I said, moving closer. “The paper said her name was Carla Rogers.”

“I know her name, Ms. Bellamy. Trust me, in the last few days, I’ve learned more about that girl than I ever cared to know.” One of his hands balled into a fist at his chest. “She was a graduate student, she came here from Anchorage, and according to her friends, she had just went through a bad breakup with her boyfriend and wanted to go out that night to ‘relax a little’.” He shook his head morosely. “She was a baby.”

His words broke at the end, and my heart ached to tell him everything would be okay.

“Abram, I—”

“Stop,” he said, his voice sharp enough to silence me. “You didn’t kill her, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t facilitate the tragedy. Make no mistake, that girl is dead because of your actions.”

If I could have seen my own face, it would have no doubt been a trip. What the hell was he talking about?

“
My
actions?” I balked. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Precisely.” He growled, turning to me, his arms crossing across his massive chest. God, why was I always looking at his chest? I forced my attention up to his face as he continued. “The upstairs was supposed to be closed off, Ms. Bellamy. No one—
no one
—was supposed to be up there! I made that explicitly clear to you many times!”

He was closer to me now, his mammoth chest heaving in huge, infuriated breathes. His teeth ground together, his lips curled back, and there was a fire in his eyes that would have scared me if it didn’t intrigue me so much.

“So how did it happen, Ms. Bellamy? How did that poor girl end up in a place inside
my
club that
you
ensured me no one would enter?”

Maybe I should have been afraid. Maybe I should have been repentant. He had, after all, made it crystal clear to me that upstairs was off limits to everyone
but me, employees included.

But I wasn’t repentant, and I sure as hell wasn’t afraid. I was angry, I was outraged, and what was more, I was right.

“She fell through the
roof
, Abram,” I said. “Not over the balcony.”

A vein pulsed along his temple. “You can’t
get
to the roof without access through the second floor,” he said through gritted teeth. “So I ask you again—How. Did. This. Happen?

“You know what?” I jabbed his chest with my index finger. His pecs
were firm and unyielding, which I probably would have paid more attention to if I wasn’t enraged. “None of this would have happened if
you
”—I poked him again for good measure—“would have done
your
job!”

His dark eyes widened, but I didn’t let him respond. I had too much to say. “That’s right, you
arrogant asshole
.” Jab, jab, jab. The last poke of his chest hurt one of the knuckles in my pointer finger, so I finally dropped my hand away. “If you would have actually taken the time to be where you were supposed to be instead of laying it all on my lap, then maybe things would have turned out differently.”

“Don’t you dare,” he said. He stepped so close to me that our chests pressed together. His head had to crane down to look at me, and I think I trembled a little then, but not out of fear. “I’m not the one who allowed a murderer through the front door.”

Abram was a big guy, even compared to a tall, curvy girl like myself. But I swallowed the lump in my throat and steeled my gaze up at him. “And what the hell was I supposed to do about that?”

“What I hired you to do!” he said. “You told me you could do this. You sold yourself as some street savvy siren who knew everything there was to know about running a nightclub. Where’s that woman, Ms. Bellamy? Because, from where I’m standing, all I see is some blubbering little girl making excuses!”

Before I could stop myself, my arm reared back. My hand flew toward him, ready to smack him in his smug, gorgeous face.

Instead of me hitting him, however, he grabbed my arm with his hand and held it steady in the air, staring at me with fierce eyes and flared nostrils. He was so close to me, his chest heaving against mine, that his breath mingled with my own. I sensed he was angry enough to want to do
something
, but I didn’t know what. He was a brute, but he wasn’t the type to hurt a woman.

He
was
the type to not completely control his temper, though.

“Maybe I should find a new place to work,” I said breathlessly, his hand still cupping my arm.

“Maybe you should,” he answered, his tone firmer than my own.

I tried to muster up some of that confidence I felt the first day I strolled—or rather fell—into this place. “Your club will never recover from this without me, though.”

His grip on my arm faltered a little, but he didn’t let go. “I guess we’ll see.”

For a few more moments, I stared at him, my breaths matching his. What the hell did he want from me?

I pulled my arm away and glared. Turning around, I huffed as I made my way back up the steps.

“The police tape comes down on Wednesday,” he said from behind me. “We’re open for business again the next day. Will I see you here?”

“I guess we’ll see,” I muttered, rolling my eyes and walking away.

***

As I drove back to Lulu’s, I tried shaking off thoughts of Abram, but it wasn’t all that easy. He was such an ass—such an absolutely infuriating prick—but I couldn’t stop thinking about him. Did he hate me as much as he seemed to? And if he did, why did I care?

It was a stupid job. Sure, it paid well, but even if I lost it, I could get another one. It would probably be better, too, because I wouldn’t have to deal with a boss like him.

I jacked the radio up, but Florence and the Machine didn’t help. All the chords either made me think of how mad I was at Abram or how mad I was at myself for still thinking about how mad I was at Abram.

By the time I got home, I knew what I had to do. The only way to stop thinking about a bad guy was to start thinking about a good one.

I scrolled to Dalton’s name in my phone and placed the call from the driveway—only because it was sort of awkward to talk to someone you are hot for in front of their sister.

Lulu’s little brother. God, what was I thinking?

When he picked up on the other end, I actually grinned a little.

“Took you long enough,” he said. “I was beginning to think I lost my charismatic charm.”

“Remember that time you saw my boobs?” I asked playfully.

I practically heard him blush on the other end of the phone. “I do.”

“Well, usually a guy has to buy me dinner before he gets a look at the goods. It’s time for you to pay up, Big Boy.”

***

The next night at Luigi’s, Dalton was an entire forty-three minutes late. Still, when he came rushing through the door, a frazzled blur of apologies, he
was
carrying a bouquet of fresh white roses.

“An interrogation ran long. I would have called, but I was this close to a confession,” he said, coming tableside with his thumb and forefinger inches apart in front of him.

“Really?” I asked, taking the roses and setting them on the table. “How did it go?”

“Better than this date so far. Are you mad?” he asked, spying the placement of the flowers.

“Not mad, just hungry,” I answered.

He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “Can we start over?”

“No,” I said. “You’re doing fine.”

“Am I?” He smiled and waved away the waitress before she could make it to the table. “Because you seem a little preoccupied.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

Of course, I
was
preoccupied. I had spent the entire day fuming about Abram, counting down the hours to this date, and hoping that Dalton’s easy-going demeanor would help clear my mind. But here we were, him standing as though he was patrolling our dinner table, and me still unable to stop thinking about my boss.

But Dalton’s presence
was
melting away my stress. He was sweet. He was funny and charming. He bought me roses and apologized when he did something wrong. He didn’t scream at me and blame me for things that were beyond my control. He wasn’t Abram.

More importantly, we clicked. He knew me. We grew up together. He wasn’t some snide mystery man who pushed me away every time I got close to him. Why was I still thinking about Abram?

Ugh! That man was so infuriating that he made me mad even when he wasn’t around!

As Dalton sat down and started perusing the menu, I pretended to do the same, even though I had already read it six times. The fact was, Dalton was a good guy—the perfect guy, actually. It could be good between us. No, scratch that. It could be
great
. We could be ‘Nicholas Sparks, clutching each other in the rain and dying in bed together’ great.

I couldn’t let my anger toward my jackass boss ruin something that wonderful, could I? Nope, not today. I knew what I had to do.

I reached over, took Dalton’s hand in mine, and squeezed it. “Thank you for the roses, thank you for the jacket the other night, and thank you for the lobster roll I ordered before you got here. If I’m preoccupied, it’s because I’ve had a lot on my mind. But that doesn’t matter anymore, because you were right. I have to quit my job, and I’m going to do it tonight.”

Dalton managed to stop me from getting up in the middle of dinner to rush over to The Castle and quit, which turned out to be a good thing, since the date turned out to be pretty enjoyable. Especially since Dalton couldn’t be happier with my decision. Even before dead sorority girls started falling from the rafters, Dalton didn’t think I belonged there. And, while I still wasn’t sure what he meant when he said I ‘wasn’t the right type of girl for a place like that,’ after everything that had happened, I wasn’t sure I disagreed with him, either.