“Exactly. If the clothes were worn and the cups were drunk out of, they might find DNA evidence. But that’s if the person is in any of the systems we can check against. And the tests will probably take weeks.” He closed the laptop. “I’ll make an appointment with the FBI to find out what they’ve learned from the house they have under surveillance. Maybe she’s there. It’s not nothing. Eventually, we’ll find her.”
Meanwhile whoever had subdued them and stuck them with needles was still out there.
She felt fine right now, but how long would that last?
Chapter Thirteen
“Then what did you guys do?”
Eliana stared at Carolena across the cafeteria table and frowned. Their plates were empty, but she still had eight minutes on her lunch break. “Nothing. He gave me a ride home. I checked on my neighbor, tried to call my mom. She didn’t answer. Then I went to bed.”
“Huh.” Carolena smoothed hair back behind her ear.
“What?”
Carolena scanned Eliana’s face with a steady gaze. “Maybe you need a makeover.”
“Carlos and I have known each other our entire lives. A makeover isn’t going to make a difference at this point. And I don’t even know if I want one.” Eliana looked down at her security guard uniform, black slacks and a white short-sleeved shirt.
There wasn’t any ketchup from her burger on her clothes, just some sesame seeds that had fallen off the bun as she ate. She brushed them off.
Her hair was in her usual work wig secured in two braids. Minimal makeup, but not none like her mom. She didn’t wear it thick and heavy, like some women did. Like Luci had alwayscaked on her when they went “out.” That had never been her thing.
Carolena’s makeup was skillful and understated. She looked great, and it made Eliana want to ask how to do that. Made her want to buy some stuff, or a kit or something. But she had slightly more important things to do than to figure out makeup in her midtwenties.
Eliana wasn’t going to quit trying to get in the vault just because she’d learned it required DNA access. And she didn’t plan to conduct a heist, or drug Tony to use him so she could get in. Though both of those ideas did sound adventurous. What she was going to do was stick to the script and find a new way to discover the secretsDominatuskept locked up in the vault. Maybe there was even something about the Reverence Sisters in there. It could all be connected.
Maybe if this was a case her mother was working it would be.
Eliana was going to have to wait and see if the same held true for her, but she wasn’t going to count on it.
“A dress. And heels.” Carolena leaned back in her chair. “You guys can talk over dinner with candles and sparkling wine.”
“Pretty sure a cop can see through what is a date and what isn’t.”
Carolena shrugged. “Maybe hewantsto take you out.”
Eliana was about to argue with that when something slammed into the window behind her. Conversation throughout the cafeteria stopped, and Eliana turned to look. A heavy splash of purple paint dripped down the window.
She pushed her chair back and went to the window, which started at her knees and stretched above her head, its width the entire east wall of the room. Normally, she loved the sunlight that lit the whole cafeteria, but today the clouds hung heavy with moisture threatening rain. Which would be good to rinse the paint from the outside of the window now.
“What on earth?” Carolena stood beside her.
Below them on the street, the usual group of a dozen or so protestors had swelled to a throng of almost a hundred.
Eliana shook her head. “They’re going crazy.” She spotted a man slam his picket sign over someone else’s head. Two women scrabbled, vying with each other for…she didn’t know what. “I need to go to the lobby. Make sure we’re good.”
“Of course, we aren’t good! Look at it down there!” Carolena spoke loudly over the raised conversation around them. She flung her arms up and nearly smacked the older guy, a scientist, standing closest to her. “It’s pandemonium.”
Eliana grabbed her elbows, holding them gently but firm enough that her friend focused on her. “Go back to your office. Let me worry about outside. By the time you leave at the end of the day, I’m sure things will have blown over. And if they haven’t, I’ll walk you to your car.”
Carolena nodded. “Okay. Thanks.”
Eliana put her dirty dishes in the tub by the door and headed for the lobby. She didn’t like the idea that people might be getting hurt outside, but it was better than rehashing everything that had happened with Carlos the day before.
At the last second, she turned to the room. “Everyone stay in the building until Security clears the entrances and exits!”
No one responded, but that didn’t matter. They had their orders.
