Chapter 34- Lucien
Closing my eyes, I laid back in the spare bedroom the Safaryans had offered me. Even now the smell of Sloppy Joes was filling my senses. Nova had told me to go and rest because I was about to fall over, she’d call me for dinner later.
Albie had shown up as promised. We went over every detail we could think of. And we still came up with zero. I was still waiting for the rest of the members of Tainted Ink to reply.
They’d gotten worried too and started hitting up the group chat. The only one that hadn’t said anything was Miguel.
Something just didn’t sit right with me about him.
He had weird eyes.
I could see him so clearly in my head the night I'd taken Simone home from the club.
He had wanted her.
But I’d been a surprise. He hadn’t seen me coming.
Albie had charmed one of the girls, Mallory into giving him Miguel’s address. The phone rang in the dark and I reached for it, hoping to see that it was Simone calling me.
Instead, it was an unknown number with a Chicago area code.
“Hello?”
“Hello, I’m calling for Simone Delaflur?”
I paused.
“Who's calling?”
“Ah yes,” the man on the other end of the phone cleared their throat. “This is Dean Smith. I’m the investigator working on her arson case.”
I sat up on the bed, the phone tight to my ear.
“She’s not available right now. But can I give her a message?”
“Well, I really should be giving her this information directly.”
“You can pass it along,” I stated calmly. “I’ll make sure she knows.”
He relented.
“Well, the police pulled the tapes from all the surrounding businesses. I had a hunch from the flame patterns I found, that the accelerant used was poured leading out of the doorway. Honestly, I thought that Ms. Delaflur was responsible.”
My lip curled into a sneer.
“Never, that place was Simone’s baby.”
Dean Smith was patient and agreed with me.
“Well we know now from the footage gathered, it was a tall lean male wearing a baseball cap. We see them unlocking the door, and exiting. All of this was caught on tape. Anyway, please have Ms. Delaflur contact me…I’m still in the throws of the investigation but I’m looking to have a complete picture in the next few weeks.”
A chill ran up my spine.
“I’ll pass the information along. Thank you.”
Starring at Simone’s phone in my hand, I tried to will it to do something. Reveal her location. Anything. My stomach rumbled and I knew I needed to eat something to keep up my strength.
Simone had been missing for nearly more than a day now.
