Page 52 of Draven

Was it because he sensed my aura, or was it because he was told to expect me?

"Excuse me," I began, trying to keep my tone calm and non-threatening. “Are you Stan Monroe?”

“What if I am?” Stan asked, a little too defensively.

“I’m looking for someone. A friend of mine, Doyle,” I said, pulling out my cellphone and showing him a picture. “He contacted you two nights ago, about a red-haired woman he was looking for.”

Stan squinted at the photo for a few minutes, and I wondered if he was going to deny knowing Doyle.

However, he eventually shrugged.

“Yeah, sure I vaguely remember your friend,” Stan said.

I decided to press him further.

“What exactly did you tell Doyle?” I asked.

Stan seemed to be expecting something, as if he anticipated a payment.

Sighing, I pulled out my wallet and handed him a hundred-dollar bill, hoping to coax out the information I needed. But Stan didn't budge.

My irritation grew. I debated threatening the guy. After all, Stan was just a greedy, puny human.

Would he wet his pants, like Justin did, if I set fire to his bar?

Something must've shown in my eyes, because Stan took the hundred and swallowed, finally relenting under the pressure.

"I told your friend, yeah, the woman he was looking for came into the bar a week ago," Stan said.

I scrutinized him, weighing his words carefully.

"Are you sure she was the one he was looking for?" I asked, my skepticism evident in my voice.

"She was hard to forget, and she looked exactly like the picture he showed me," Stan replied with a nonchalant shrug. "Funny thing happened afterward."

"What?" I prompted, growing impatient for him to get to the point.

"That lady we were just talking about arrived at the bar," Stan continued. "Your friend approached her. They flirted a little and left."

A wave of apprehension washed over me as I processed Stan's words. Doyle meeting Belladonna was no coincidence.

It was all too convenient, too perfectly orchestrated. My instincts screamed at me that this was a setup, but I couldn’t back out now.

Zane offhandedly mentioned once that Doyle had a history with black witches, but he didn’t exactly tell me what it was.

Either way, I couldn’t allow a fellow pack mate to go through what I did under Belladonna’s hands.

"Did you happen to catch where they were going?" I asked.

Stan shook his head. "That's all I know," he said, returning his gaze to his laptop. It was clear this conversation was over.

To my surprise, the waitress in the bar spoke up. "I overheard those two talking about going to the Whispering Pines Cemetery,” she said. “It’s on the outskirts of town.”

My guard immediately went up at those words.

"And you remember all your customers?" I had to ask.

The young woman shrugged. "They were both outsiders, and I don't know. Something about the woman made it hard not to notice her," she explained.