“Be thinking of where you want to have dinner,” he called over his shoulder as he jogged away.
Her laughter floated to him on the breeze, giddy and happy.
Twenty-Eight
Eden was pacing up and down the sidewalk in front of Miss Belle’s Boutique when they pulled up, her jaw set, her stride agitated. Fox went to her, but didn’t crowd her. She didn’t want a hug and a kiss and an assurance that he would make it all better – not ever, but especially not in front of half the club like this.
She halted when he stepped up onto the sidewalk, and turned a look on him that was outwardly pissed, but through which he could read the faint touch of desperation and helplessness. “If I’d come two hours earlier,” she said, shaking her head, lips pressing together until they turned white. “Christ, Charlie, I could have prevented this!”
“What is it?” Ghost asked, joining them. “What happened?”
Eden took a breath, and smoothed both hands along the crown of her head, flattening nonexistent flyaways from her tight ponytail. When she spoke, she was more collected. “I came to speak with Allie’s friend, Nicole, the one who told me that Jimmy left the party right after Allie. She’s not here. Her boss said a man came in asking after her, and that she left with him, someone the manager had never met before, who introduced himself asFred.”
“Shit,” Fox muttered.
“Her break is only supposed to last thirty minutes, but she’s been gone two hours, and she isn’t answering her cell.” Eden propped her hands on her hips and kicked at a bit of loose gravel on the sidewalk. “They’ve taken her. Iknowit.”
“Well,” Ghost said, expression hard. “It looks like it, but we don’t know.”
Eden challenged him with a sharp look, and he lifted a hand, palm-out in supplication.
“If we tell her folks, they can’t file a police report until it’s been twenty-four hours.”
“I thought you owned the police in this city.”
“Eden,” Fox warned, under his breath.
“I do,” Ghost said, meeting her glare with an implacable gaze of his own. “Part of it, anyway. An important part. Her parents can’t file a report, but I can get Fielding to set some guys on it. In the meantime, let’s see what we can do. Did the manger get a good look at the guy?”
“A good one. Tall, white, early-thirties, dark blond hair. She said he had an ugly nose.”
Ghost nodded. “I’ll see if Vince can spare a sketch artist. It was only the one guy?”
“Yeah. She said Nicole seemed nervous, but she went with him; greeted him by name.”
“So the dealers were introducing themselves at the party,” Walsh said, joining them. To Eden: “Do you have a picture of Nicole?”
“I took one the first time I spoke with her.” She pulled out her phone. “I’ll text it to you.”
Fox surveyed the sidewalk, the street. It was just before lunch in a bustling part of the downtown shopping district, just one red light down from the club-owned properties on Main. No place to hide, a high chance of being seen. “There had to be a vehicle. A van or a truck. Something with a door he could shove her into and then take off. He wouldn’t have risked taking her far, not when she could scream for help or cause a scene.”
“So we’re looking for a kidnapping van,” Eden said. “I’m sure there’s not any ofthosearound.”
“What about traffic cameras?” Walsh asked, pointing to the intersection, and the camera mounted above the stop lights.
“I’ll ask Vince about that, too,” Ghost said.
Fox could tell by his expression that he could feel the reins sliding through his fingers, his control of Knoxville pulling against his grip.
He also had the sense that this tug-of-war was only beginning.
~*~
Rottie slipped his phone into his pocket and glanced back at them over his shoulder. “Ghost said there’s a lab team on the way. I want to do a walk-through before they get here and trample everything.” He glanced toward the alleys of bent grass that zigged and zagged across the field behind the mill. “Again.”
Carter turned – before they started off, following Rottie and Hound’s careful tracks through the waist-high grass – to look back at the mill. It wasn’t quite noon yet, the sun still behind it, and the building’s shadow stretched toward them across the ground, as steep-roofed and sinister as the rickety structure itself. It had a smell of dust, and rotting wood about it, undercut by the algae tang of the stream that ran beside it. Though the Interstate was within earshot, the rush and hiss of passing traffic loud from the bridge overhead, it felt a world apart down here, like they’d stepped back in time, or entered an alternate dimension. One filled with the droning of flies and bees, studded by the low voices of their own group – and yet, somehow, for all that, afflicted with an eerie sort of stillness. It was a building that seemed to watch them. It had seen things, Carter thought, fought off a shiver, and followed his brothers.
A glimpse from the corner of his eye proved that Reese walked beside him, his bright hair tied back into a utilitarian knot. He hadn’t bothered to cover the bandages on his hands or arm; they’d been affixed with a knowing hand, as tight and tidy as hospital wrappings.
