Snared (Elemental Assassin #16)(24)
By this point, it was after four o’clock, and I headed home to plan my next move. Beating down giants was hard work, so I grabbed some dark chocolate brownies from the kitchen, put them on a napkin, and carried them into the den. While I ate, I popped the first DVD into the TV.
These security cameras showed the outside of Five Oaks, and the footage was exactly what I’d expected: limos, sedans, and SUVs pulling up to the front of the club and dropping off rich, important, powerful, and dangerous folks. The low resolution on the cameras made the images a bit grainy, but I still recognized several faces, including some underworld bosses. People got out of their cars, handed off their keys to the valets, and hurried into the waiting warmth of the club. Nothing unusual or suspicious.
Finally, a yellow cab pulled up to the club, and Elissa Daniels got out, paid the driver, and headed inside. I stopped the footage so I could get a better look at her. Elissa was just as pretty on camera as in the photo Jade had shown me, and she’d dressed up for the dinner. Her blond hair hung in loose waves around her shoulders, and she was wearing a long black coat over a short, fitted red dress, along with matching red stilettos.
I looked at the time stamp on the bottom corner of the video. Six fifty-five. Right before Elissa was due to meet Stuart Mosley at seven. I scanned through the rest of the footage on the disc, but Mosley never appeared. It looked as if he’d been telling the truth about being sick and skipping the dinner. So I switched DVDs, moving on to the footage from inside the club.
Once I knew what time Elissa had arrived and what she was wearing, it was easy to track her through the footage on the other discs, specifically as she entered the country club ballroom, since several security cameras were trained on that area. She looked around the ballroom, searching for Mosley, then headed over to the bar and ordered a glass of champagne. She sat there sipping her drink for about ten minutes before she got a call, most likely from Mosley. Elissa nodded and talked for about a minute before ending the call.
After that, she snapped a photo of her champagne glass and texted it to someone, most likely asking her sister to come have a drink. Of course, Jade didn’t come, but Elissa continued to sit at the bar, sip her champagne, and people-watch, content to enjoy the rest of the evening just as Mosley had told her to.
Until she got a message, apparently.
Elissa had just finished her champagne when her phone lit up. She stared at the screen for a moment, then signaled the bartender that she wanted to pay her tab. Five minutes later, she left the ballroom, so I popped in another DVD that showed the outside of the club again. Sure enough, Elissa was standing by the entrance, pacing back and forth, and checking her phone over and over again.
A cab arrived just after seven thirty, and Elissa slid into the backseat. I froze the footage again so I could get the cab’s number—227—and texted it to Silvio and Finn, asking them to find out who the driver was and where he’d taken Elissa. I also sent them both another text asking if they could hack into Elissa’s phone records. I wanted to know what message had gotten her upset enough to rush out of the country club and head off to parts unknown.
After that, there was nothing for me to do but wait, so I called Sophia, checking on how things were going with Jade.
“She’s wearing a path in the floor,” Sophia rumbled. “Woman won’t sit still. She’s making me dizzy.”
“Just keep an eye on her. Try to get her to eat something and lie down for a few minutes. She needs to rest. She’s no help to anyone if she’s an exhausted bundle of nerves.”
“Will do.” Sophia paused. “I feel sorry for her. Hard to lose your sister. Hard to be the one who’s lost too.”
Sympathy and sadness rippled through her raspy voice. Years ago, Sophia had been kidnapped by a couple of sadistic Fire elementals who’d delighted in torturing her, and they had come back and taken her again last summer. The things that she’d endured . . . They made me sick to think about, and I still didn’t know how she’d found the strength to survive them not once but twice. Sophia knew better than anyone how horrifying it was to be ripped away from your family, with no hope of escaping or ever seeing them again. I wondered if that was what Elissa was feeling right now. That sickening misery, that dark despair, that utter hopelessness.
But more than that, I wondered if she was still feeling anything at all—or if she was already dead.
“Gin?” Sophia asked, breaking into my turbulent thoughts.
“Yeah,” I murmured. “It is hard to lose your sister.”
The two of us hung up, and I got to my feet and walked over to the rune drawings on the mantel. Sophia’s comments made me think about my own lost sister, and I ran my fingers over the ivy vine pendant that was draped over the matching drawing. My sister Annabella’s rune, the symbol for elegance.
I wondered what Annabella would be like today if she’d gotten the chance to grow up. She would have been thirty-six, five years older than me, maybe married, maybe even with a kid or two. I could almost picture her standing before me, with the same blond hair, blue eyes, and pretty features that Bria and our mother had.
My gaze moved over to my mother’s snowflake pendant and drawing. Eira would have been in her fifties now, no doubt with some gray hair and a few wrinkles, but still a distinguished beauty.
But I would never know the answers to my questions.
Mab Monroe had burned my sister and mother to death, right in front of me, and I hadn’t been able to do a damn thing to save either one of them. Even now, all these years later, I still remembered the intense heat of Mab’s elemental Fire searing the air. The red-hot flames of her magic streaking toward Eira, almost in slow motion. My mother mouthing the words I’m sorry to Annabella and me before disappearing into that ball of Fire. Then Annabella rushing downstairs to meet the exact same fate.