Beauty & The Beast (Book 1)

57. Think you know someone

Alex walked down the street, in thought, listening to the police sirens passing, wondering why she hasn't heard back from . She'd left a message for him to meet her at the coffee shop again.
She slows when she sees the headline of the newspaper and her eyes grow wide. She stares at his photo.

"Guess he's not coming," a woman says behind her and she gets to her feet, looking at her. "It wasn't suicide."
The woman takes her arm and pulls her to the side, out of the way of everyone walking by. "The people who killed your friend, they have eyes  everywhere," she looks around.

"I'm - I'm sorry," Alex shakes her head. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You're terrified," the woman says and takes her hand. "And you're a bad liar so don't waste time with an insane bluff. I just need to know one thing. Do you really care about Vincent?"

Alex blinks. "Who are you?"

"Someone who wants to help him. To make him normal again. Just like you."

"Why should I believe that?"

"Because you don't have a choice," the woman shakes her head. "You were there in the woods. Another posse of those Black Ops will be coming. He can only hold them off for so long."

How did this woman know all of this? Alex was afraid, she wanted to help Vincent. She didn't know if she could trust this woman, but she knew about Vincent and she knew what happened. She must know how to help him right?

"That's your fear isn't it? That next time he won't be so lucky to make it out alive?"

"How do you know so much?"

"Because we created him. The group I represent was responsible for his condition. The hell he's been through," the woman closes her eyes. Alex could tell she was sincere in her words. "And we wanna heal him. Fix the mistakes that we made."
Alex blinked her drying wide eyes. It couldn't be this easy could it? Why hasn't Vinvent and Catherine gone to these people? "You do want that don't you? To have the man you fell in love with back?" Maybe that's why... Catherine liked him this way...

"I don't know," she wasn't sure, shaking her head. She didn't know if, even if he was back to normal, if she could look past him killing all those people like that.

"Alex, these mutations, they'll only grow more grotesque. It's only a matter of time before you don't even recognise Vincent. Unless you help us," the woman smiles comfortingly.

That was all Alex really wanted. To help Vincent.

******

"Alex. Alex Salter," Cat tells the credit card company again, having held on for too long by this point. She was trying to track down Alex the old fashioned way. It was taking a lot of time. "Was there any charges to her credit card since yesterday?"
She was told that the cards were cancelled and when she asked by who they told her by Alex herself.
"She did?" she questions. Tess hums behind her and Cat thanks the person on the line before she hangs up.

She turns in her chair and points at the huge box of chocolates in Tess's hands. The humming had been her eating out of it.
"Looks like big boss man came through."

Tess sits down. "No, these came for you," she says, looking around on her desk for somewhere to put the box.

"Wait, you're eating my Valentine's chocolates?"

"They're cream filled!" Tess defends. "You hate those!" She finds a spot and puts it there. "Looks like your non- secret, secret admirer doesn't know you too well."

Cat can only chuckle and Tess hands her a file across the desk.

"Got Evan's report. It all looks pretty clean. The bullet angle's accurate for a suicide."