“Yeah. Mean anything to you?”
He closed his eyes. Mae. “Her middle name had been Marie.” It was just close enough to hurt. “What else did you find?”
“Well, she keeps her digital footprint minimal,” Blaze continued. “The picture of her on her company’s site isn’t her. It’s some stock image from a model's portfolio. A generic corporate placeholder, so to speak. Your girl doesn’t put herself in the public eye from what I can tell. Every press mention routes to her partner Roman Calloway or project managers, leaving her behind the curtain.”
That was not the Julia he knew. She loved putting herself out there, taking chances, going on adventures that made people turn their heads. She wasn’t an attention-seeker by any means, but she didn’t run from it either, especially when she had earned it.
“What else?” Elvis asked.
“She went to college on the West Coast, graduated high school in Oregon, although there’s nothing before her junior year.”
Elvis swallowed hard. “That’s when Julia disappeared.” He leaned his shoulder against the wall, pulse ticking louder in his ears. “Anything else?”
“I’m still looking, but I thought you’d want to know what I found so far.”
“Thanks,” Elvis said after a moment. “Keep digging.”
“Already on it.”
Elvis ended the call, shoving the phone back into his pocket. He stood there a little longer than necessary, staring at the scuffed concrete floor while fifteen years collapsed into a tight knot in his chest.
He’d gone to her house that morning ready to pick her up for school, bouncing in his seat, visions of the future dancing in his mind.
However, when he got there, he’d found an empty house with no explanation.
And now she was there, in the casino where he was working.
He pushed away from the wall and went back to work with a sigh. This day couldn’t get over with fast enough. As it was, it passed without incident.
It also passed with no sightings of Delaney. No accidental run-ins. Nothing. It was obvious she was avoiding him, and he couldn’t really blame her. He hadn’t exactly given her a chance to ease into whatever she was hiding. He had merely confronted her and demanded answers. Not his best moment, he knew.
With the day over, the Silvers forced him to join them at the bar, not giving him a chance to escape to his room this time, and Hawk was no help at all.
“You hid in that room all night last night,” Hawk said, giving Elvis’s shoulder a shove toward the bar. “You’re not doing it tonight. So, let’s go.”
Elvis growled, but he allowed himself to be shoved. If he were honest with himself, he probably needed the distraction. Last night all he did was sit in his room and mope, going down memory lane and cussing at the woman pretending she didn’t know him. He didn’t need another night of that if he could help it.
Levi ordered whiskey like he owned the place, buying a round for their small group. Colin, however, stuck to beer, nursing it slow like he was budgeting brain cells for later. Barrett immediately found a waitress with a crooked smile and leaned into her personal space with practiced charm, earning himself a polite laugh and absolutely nothing else. Hawk claimed a corner stool with his back against the wall and clear sightlines to every exit and reflective surface, posture relaxed but eyes constantly moving.
Elvis downed his first drink too fast and ordered another.
Levi noticed, one brow cocked. “Easy, Jenkins. That’s not water. And I need you functional tomorrow.”
Elvis looked at the fresh drink as the server set it in front of him. “Feels more medicinal at the moment. And I’ll be fine tomorrow. Don’t you worry.”
Colin snorted. “That’s not how medicine works.”
Barrett glanced over his shoulder. “Depends on what you’re trying to cure.”
Elvis said nothing as he took another sip of his second drink, but he didn’t down it as fast. Levi was right, and he needed to keep his wits about him just in case there was another confrontation.
A few minutes later, the bar filled with summit attendees shedding badges and pretending they weren’t still talking shop. Someone queued up karaoke in the back corner, and the bass from the speaker thumped low through the floor. Hawk glanced at Elvis with one brow cocked, but Elvis simply shook his head. Not tonight.
Ten minutes in, a woman slid onto the stool beside him, a seductive smile on her lips. She was pretty, with dark hair and even darker eyeliner, possessing curves that knew exactly what they were doing. She smelled like vanilla and a hint of jasmine and leaned in close enough that her knee brushed his.
“You look like you could use some company,” she said, almost purring.
Old Elvis would’ve smiled at her.
