I turned toward Carol. “Why didn’t you sleep? I mean, besides the obvious. I know you’re worried about Bryan, but we called Vance. He’s out looking for him now.”
Carol glared at me, which was unsettling. She almost never got angry and never glared at us, or me, rather. Carol was one of the most good natured people I knew.
Deva gave me an exasperated look. “We’ve been here all night,” Deva said. “Beth only just ran to her shop to get a couple of things done.”
I gaped at them. When they left, they hadn't mentioned anything about staying up or looking for Bryan any further than calling Vance. “I’m so sorry. I would’ve come with you. I thought we’d get Vance on it and let him find Bryan.”
Carol let out a tiny sob as Deva’s phone rang again. “If these employees don’t start showing up for work, I’m going to lose my mind,” she muttered. “Hello?”
I focused on Carol while Deva walked away laying into someone. Silent tears were streaming down Carol's face, and I leaned closer to her so I could rub soothing circles on her back. “I’m sorry. I’m here now. And I have a possible lead.” I grinned at her, and my words seemed to have the desired effect.
Her face brightened up. “Oh?” She sniffled and reached into the sleeve of her cardigan, pulling out a tissue that she used to wipe her eyes and blow her nose before tossing it on the dirty plate that was still waiting to be picked up. Weird.
I lowered my voice so that no one else could hear us as I said, “I’m meeting Trista here in about an hour. She needs help with a rogue shifter. We can both go and maybe we’ll come across something that will help us find Bryan.”
She blinked at me a few times and turned away from me. At first, I thought she was truly angry with me but then she shifted back around and had her laptop in front of her. After lifting the screen, she tapped her laptop, using the fingerprint button to log in.
As she navigated to the notes, she'd been taking she chewed on her lower lip, aggravating a patch that already looked raw, probably from her doing the same thing all night. “She’s one of the vampires I’ve been researching. I’ve been looking online for any mentions of any of the ones you told me about last night.”
“Did you find anything?” I asked, scooting the chair I was in closer to her. I pushed the scone toward her again. “Eat.”
She sighed and nibbled the edge of the pastry. “No. Nothing. It's like she doesn't exist, same for all the vamps you mentioned. It's like they've systematically wiped themselves from history.”
“Well, chin up. Let’s see if we might catch a break today.” I gave her an encouraging smile, but she didn't return it. Instead she just frowned at her laptop screen as she went over her notes again. Not that there was much read to begin with.
Deva walked back over and slid her phone back in her pocket just as a large group of construction workers walked into the front door. “Geez,” Deva muttered. “I better go help Rachel. She won’t be able to keep up with that crew. Especially if they're just getting off shift.”
“She’s struggling to keep employees?” I asked after Deva had walked away. “That’s new.”
Carol shrugged. “I didn’t know until today, or last night, or this morning, whenever it was that people started to not show up.”
I kept pushing the food on Carol. A few minutes later Deva came back with Beth in tow. My blonde friend looked just as tired as Deva and Carol, though she didn't have the redness and puffiness that Carol had from crying.
“I postponed our jobs for the next few days,” Beth said. “So we can focus on Bryan and Vance’s stuff.” Beth sounded relieved, which I could understand, I didn't exactly want to be working on cases while all this was going on either.
“That’s good,” I said. “Why don’t you see what you can do from your end while Carol and I go on this case that Vance called me about?” I took a moment to explain it to Beth, but Deva jumped to her feet in the middle of my explanation. “What?” I asked. We all swiveled in our seats to watch Deva as she made it through the crowd in record time, anger fueling her strides.
She hurried over to the kitchen door right beside our table, where an exhausted young man stood in the doorway. I could just hear them speaking over the crowd. “Where have you been?”
“I’m sorry,” he said and rubbed his eyes. “I had a thing.” The kid looked like crap, and that was being nice. The bags under his eyes were nothing that a kid his age should have, let alone how pale he looked.
“A thing?” her voice rose an octave. “Athing? Do you know how difficult it makes it on the rest of us when you just don’t show up?”
They disappeared into the kitchen. Carol, Beth, and I exchanged glances. “He’s gonna regret being late.” If we'd been in a cartoon, she would have grabbed him by the ear and dragged him after her, the double swing doors hitting him on the butt as they went.
I was kind of glad it happened with the kid. It made Carol laugh, which was something she really needed to do right now.
As much as I was glad for the temporary reprieve I was also worried about this meeting with Trista. What was a shifter doing bothering vampires? And why couldn't they handle it themselves?
SEVENTEEN
Daniel
Ugh,I thought to myself. My eyes were going to burn out of my head if I didn't take a break soon. I’d been looking at old files for so long all the words were beginning to run together. In my younger days, I felt like I was better at this crunch time research. But, apparently, those days had long since passed me. Now, I liked being able to stay moving most of the time. I liked being out and about and not just wasting my time setup at an unwanted desk at the police station.
But that was the life of a cop. It wasn't at all as glamorous as television made it seem. And yet, I wasn't sure there was anything left to research. Every possible case that I thought might connection to Bryan's kidnapping had been a dead end.
“Coffee,” I muttered to myself. I wasn’t on the fad coffee train or anything like that. When Starbucks had exploded across the world and created a craze for coffee, I’d kept on making my Folgers at home, exactly how I liked it.
