Jack rolls his window all the way down. A cool wind claws through it, thick with dust and heavy with the scent of creosote. A raindrop splatters on the windshield. Then another. The dashboard thermometer begins to fall.
“Do you see that?” Jack asks, stiffening.
Julio swears under his breath and reaches for the door handle.
I don’t trust the reckless look in his eyes. “What are you doing?”
“Amber’s in there alone. I’m not leaving her.” The sky blackens overhead. Thunder rumbles in the distance. I throw open my door and run after him. Behind me, Jack’s door slams and I hear the fast fall of his shoes on the pavement.
Julio rushes through the vestibule door. He stops dead in the center of the lobby. A gust of hot air rushes in with him, rustling papers on the receptionist’s desk and throwing them end over end across the marble floor.
Julio hardly breathes as he follows the drifting papers into an empty sitting room. A broken lightbulb crackles under his foot. He weaves slowly between the overturned chairs and the shattered lamps, his shoes soft on thick rugs littered with scattered magazines and toppled brochures. The TV on the wall flashes images of tornado damage in Oklahoma and Texas.
Amber’s scent is everywhere. And by the looks of the room, she wasn’t alone.
Julio shakes me off, pacing like a caged tiger when I try to reassure him that we’ll find her. He storms back into the lobby just as the receptionist returns. She clutches her chest, nearly dropping her phone when Julio flings open the door to a stairwell and sniffs around inside.
“I’m so sorry. In all the commotion, I didn’t realize anyone had come in,” she says. “What can I do for you?”
Julio ignores her, nudging his way past a man with a walker to sniff inside the open elevator doors. “She’s not here,” he growls. “She never even made it upstairs.”
“We’re looking for someone,” I explain to the receptionist. “She came in about thirty minutes ago. Red hair. About my age.”
“Oh, the poor dear,” the woman says, pointing to the next room. “She’s waiting in the...” Her face pales as she takes in the mess. “Oh, my. I’ve no idea where she went. She was just here a moment ago. By the sounds of it, she’d traveled a very long way to get here. I felt terrible, having to break the news.”
Jack approaches her desk. “What news?”
“Her grandmother passed,” the woman says delicately. “Less than a month ago.”
Jack’s eyes catch mine. We were on the boat. On our way here. Amber had no way of knowing.
“Your friend... she didn’t take the news well,” the woman says with another pained glance at the sitting room. “I was calling a nurse to come check on her, but it seems she’s already gone.”
“Was anyone else with her?” I ask.
“No,” the woman says, fidgeting with her necklace. “As far as I could tell she was alone.” The dark sky, the quick-passing storm, the ransacked room. It’s possible Amber was just grieving. She could havecaused all that on her own. If so, maybe she’s still somewhere close. “Although I did notice a few young people loitering out front. Were they friends of yours?”
Julio stops pacing, his attention laser-focused on the receptionist.
“Do you remember what they looked like?” he asks.
She thinks for a moment. “There were two young men. One of the boys—the blond one—was handsome, if a bit intimidating. He and his friend were a little banged up. I thought maybe they were football players, as big as they are. And they were wearing patches on their jacket sleeves, like a uniform or something. There was a girl with them, with short dark hair.”
“Doug,” Jack mutters.
“And Denver and Lixue.” I remember their three shadowy silhouettes herding me toward the building in the alley, while the fourth Guard on their team waited inside. “Noelle must have been around back.”
Julio looks like he might be sick. Amber firebombed their cars and ran them off the road. I don’t want to think about all the ways they’ll make her suffer for it if they’ve caught her.
“Did you see where they went?” I ask.
“No.” She looks back at the mess in the sitting room. “It was so strange. She was crying on the sofa in the lounge. I couldn’t get her to say a word. I held her hand, but she was so cold, I thought she might be in shock. So I went to the office to call a nurse, and the next moment, you were here. I never even heard what was happening in the next room. It must have happened so fast. She must have been very distraught. If she had left through the lobby, I’m sure I would have seen her. She must have left through the courtyard out back.”
“Thank you,” I manage to say. “I’m sorry for any damage she caused.”
I turn away, my mind churning over all the possible scenarios. Was she attacked here, while the receptionist was gone? Or did she wreck this room all on her own and simply walk away—from us and her own grief—before Doug and the others realized she was gone? If so, where would she go? I turn back to the receptionist. “Excuse me. Could you tell me where our friend’s grandmother was buried?”
The receptionist wrings her hands. “There was no burial. Your friend’s grandmother didn’t name any next of kin in her living will. She requested her ashes be scattered by one of the nurses here. We had no idea she had a granddaughter, or we would have waited.”
