It irritated her. “I don’t know.”
“It will help you take your mind off yer sister. I’m sure the police are doing all they can to find her,” he said.
Were they? The officers last night didn’t seem too concerned Evie was missing. They assumed she had gotten out of the museum with the rest of the patrons. But if she had, then she would have been at the flat when Chloe returned home, and she wasn’t.
If the police weren’t going to do anything, then she would have no choice left but to go to the embassy and see if she could get help there.
“What do you say?” he said.
Maybe Bruce was right. She needed to go to dinner with him to take her mind off things. Worrying was doing nothing but making her sick to her stomach.
“All right,” she finally said.
“Good. I’ll pick ye up at six.”
He hung up before she could object.
***
When Chloe returned to her flat, she went straight to Evie’s guest room. She started going through all her things, looking for clues about what might have happened to her. She placed the clothes in a pile on the bed and then searched the zippered compartments of the suitcase. On the outside, there were two pockets. One small, one large. Her passport was in the large one. When she slipped her hand inside the small one, she felt something.
She pulled out a white business card with embossed gold lettering readingMystic Treasures.
“Where the past meets the present,” she read aloud.
There was one name below that line.Moira.
Who was Moira and what was Mystic Treasures?
There was no address or phone number. She got out her smartphone and did a quick search for Mystic Treasures. Nothing came up. No shops in the area. She tried another search for the area near Evie’s apartment back home in the States. Again, nothing.
She stared at the card for the longest time, wondering where and how Evie had gotten it. If she hadn’t brought it with her, then where would she have gotten it in Edinburgh?
The airport seemed unlikely.
And then she remembered something about the day they were out shopping on the Royal Mile. When they were going to have lunch, Evie had seemed distracted as she peered across the street at…something. What was it? She had told her and Bruce to go ahead, and she would catch up. That she would only be a moment.
Bruce had taken her by the hand and turned Chloe toward the restaurant, so she hadn’t seen where Evie went.
By the time she had joined them for lunch, her face was flushed, and her hands shook. She’d seemed nervous. Chloe had never asked her about it because they were still with Bruce, and she didn’t want to question her in front of him.
None of this made sense to her. The only way to figure out where Evie had gone that day was to try to retrace her steps. That’s exactly what she was going to do.
A quick glance at her watch told her it was nearly time for Bruce to pick her up. She frowned. She didn’t want to go to dinner with him, but she had agreed, and she didn’t want tocancel at the last minute. She slipped the business card in the back pocket of her jeans.
In the bathroom, she brushed her auburn hair and swiped fresh lip gloss over her lips. Staring at herself in the mirror, her normally bright emerald eyes were glassy with bags under them. Fatigue lined her face. Though she had managed to sleep some last night, it was restless, and she was still exhausted. She used a bit of concealer to hide the shadows, but it didn’t seem to help.
She had to get through this dinner with Bruce. Once it was over, she told herself she would head to the Royal Mile to see if she could find the mysterious Mystic Treasures.
A knock sounded on the front door. She grabbed her purse and headed to open it. As she passed through the living area, she glanced at Evie’s small handbag on the table and her shoes on the floor. A pang of worry went through her.
“I’m going to find you, Eve,” she said. “I swear it.”
Then she whisked open the door to see Bruce standing on the other side.
“Hi,” he said.
He acted like he wanted to come in, but Chloe pushed past him, pulling the door closed behind her and locking it.
