Snared (Elemental Assassin #16)(20)

At this point, though, she was too tired and heartsick to argue, so she got to her feet and let Sophia lead her out of the restaurant. The bell over the front door chimed at their passage, ringing out like a low, mournful dirge.

Silvio moved over to stand beside me. “You know that girl is probably already dead. Or if she’s not dead, she probably wishes that she was.”

I sighed. “I know. But a favor is a favor, and I’m going to do my best to find her. What have you found out so far?”

Silvio started swiping through screens on his tablet. “It looks like Jade told you the truth about her sister. Elissa Daniels is squeaky clean as far as I can see. No arrests and no criminal record of any kind. She’s never gotten so much as a parking ticket. If she got into trouble last night, it probably wasn’t of her own making.”

I nodded. “What about her friends? Anyone that Jade didn’t know about? Maybe another boyfriend besides Anthony Fenton?”

He shook his head. “Not that I’ve been able to find by examining her social media, but that doesn’t mean anything. I’ll start looking more closely at her and her friends’ sites right now.”

“Good. You stay here and do that. And text me that headshot of Elissa that Jade sent you.” I grabbed my jacket off the rack behind the counter, shrugged into the black fleece, and zipped it up.

“What are you going to do?” Silvio asked.

“Start at the beginning. I’m going to the club where the charity dinner was held last night. I’ll get the security footage and see if I can spot Elissa on it. I’m also going to nose around the building and see if I can pick up anything with my Stone magic. If someone snatched Elissa from the dinner, then maybe he left some sort of clue behind.”

Silvio nodded. “I’ll call you if I learn anything new.”

“I’ll do the same.” I sighed again. “Although I don’t think that either one of us is going to like what we find.”

? ? ?

The waitstaff came back from their extended break, and I left the Pork Pit in Catalina’s capable hands for the rest of the day. After checking to make sure that no one had booby-trapped my car while it was parked on the street, I got inside and headed toward Northtown. While I drove, I called my friends to fill them in on the situation.

First up was Bria.

“Detective Coolidge,” she said through the sound system in my car.

“Hey, it’s Gin. Are you at your desk? I need a favor . . .”

I told her everything that Jade had told me, including about her less-than-helpful trip to the police station earlier today. After I finished, I could hear Bria typing on the other end of the line.

“I don’t see a missing person report on Elissa Daniels filed anywhere in our system,” Bria said. “Who did Jade talk to?”

“Some cop named Sykes.”

“Sykes,” she snarled, a note of disgust creeping into her voice. “That lazy slob. All he does is sit around, eat doughnuts, and misfile paperwork. He probably just wadded up Jade’s report and tossed it into the trash the way he does all the others.”

“Sounds like a charming guy,” I said. “Real dedicated to protecting and serving.”

“You have no idea,” Bria muttered. “Anyway, give me all the info, and I’ll see what I can dig up.”

I repeated everything I knew about Elissa and her disappearance and suggested that Bria call Silvio so the two of them could pool their resources and exchange information. Bria agreed to get right on it and also to tell Xavier what was going on. She promised to call with any updates, and we both hung up.

Next on my contact list was Finn.

“Why, hello there, darling,” he drawled in a deep, suave voice. “You have reached the always awesome and ever-charming Finnegan Lane. How may I be of service to you today?”

“It’s Gin. Does Stuart Mosley really have the flu?”

Silence. I didn’t often throw Finn for a loop, but that wasn’t the response he’d expected.

“How do you know that Mosley is sick?” he asked. “And why are you so interested in my boss’s sniffles?”

I filled him in on the missing girl. “Did you know that your boss likes to squire sweet young things around Ashland?”

“Well, yeah,” Finn said. “It’s no secret. He’s done it for a while now. Ever since his wife died. He told me once that it helps to keep the society sharks at bay. The ones who want to take a big bite out of all his money. Do you actually think that Mosley might be involved in this girl’s disappearance?”

Worry rippled through Finn’s voice. He liked Mosley a lot and thought of him as a mentor the same way I thought of Fletcher. Finn didn’t want to think ill of his boss. Neither did I, but Mosley was far too mysterious for my liking.

“I don’t know, but he was the one she was supposed to meet last night. Mosley definitely has his secrets, and I want to be sure that kidnapping college girls isn’t one of them,” I said. “Can you find out if he really was sick at home last night?”

“I’m on it,” Finn said.

He also promised to contact Silvio and Bria and see what he could do to help them drill down into information on Elissa and anyone she might have had any contact with.

Last but definitely not least, I dialed Owen and told him what was going on.