“We just have to make sure we don’t do anything that makes him take it any further.”
I gusted a breath and looked out into the night. The windshield wipers squeaked slightly as they swept the rain away. I shook my head. “Okay.”
“Just okay? No atta boy? No ‘Heeey, duuude, that took balls’?”
I laughed softly and shook my head again. Eli Younger was entirely too pleased with himself. But he did do good. We had footage and names, neither of which we would have been given had we gone in with an honest request. But still. “I think you were thinking with your little brains, dude.”
• • •
When we reached home, my first action—after getting Evan to remove the security spell from the house for a while—was asking for news of Molly, to which the Kid said, “No. Nothing. Nada. Not yet. The cops are searching the mountain roads for any car that might have driven off the road. She isn’t in any hospital and I’ve checked them all. She hasn’t used her cards or an ATM. I’ll tell you if I get anything. Don’t ask me again. Gimme the CD.” All the words ran together, accompanied by a jittery hand-waving motion for me to hurry up and give him the data from Guilbeau’s. He sounded grumpy, but I sorta understood that. His work space had been invaded by Big Evan, who had been pacing while we were gone. Pacing a lot. Passing by Alex’s work space every few minutes and asking the same questions I was asking. It had to be nerve-racking.
I speed-dialed Troll from the living room, while watching the CD with Eli and Alex. He answered on the third ring. Instead of replying to his “Janie girl,” I said, “What, exactly, did the girls say to you when you dropped them off, and what, exactly, did they say when they called you for a pickup last night? This morning. Whatever.”
“Deon drove them out, and according to him, they were whispering and not sharing, which he considered way more than rude, and he sulked for hours. But when they called for a ride home, Rachael said, ‘Hey, Sugar Lips. Can you pick us up at Guilbeau’s?’ I said yes. When I got there, they weren’t out front, so I went inside. They weren’t there either. I called Rachael’s cell and was sent to voice mail. I asked to see the security footage and was told to get lost. End of story.”
“She calls you Sugar Lips?” I tried to put the vision of Troll with the endearment of Sugar Lips and couldn’t make my brain fit around the two concepts.
“Yeah, when she’s feeling friendly. Whaddaya got?”
“We got the security footage from the restaurant.”
“What’d you do, pretend to be cops?”
“No comment,” I grumbled. “It shows several people, including the girls, leaving Guilbeau’s, and I’d like you to take a look. Can you come over?”
“Yeah, but unlike you, I don’t fly over brick walls, so I’ll be walking around. Tell your shooter I’m on the way.”
I closed the cell. Eli said, “Sugar Lips?”
“Yeah. Ick.”
The Kid said, “Before he gets here, two things. One, Reach sent me his search on Rachael and Bliss. There have been no financial transactions or cell phone usage since they disappeared. He’s set up an automatic ding if they use their credit cards, ATM, cells, anything, everything, anywhere, and will notify us if they pop up used. I can take over on the other parts of the search from here. Okay?” I nodded. “Two, I found security footage of Molly turning in her car in Knoxville. Evan and I already studied it and got nothing. You wanna see?”
Eli and I all but scampered over, to see footage of Molly entering a rental car cubicle. “McGhee Tyson Airport. High volume. High security, even on the rental agencies,” the Kid said. Molly was clear on the camera, not hidden by a glamour or some kind of spell that would mess with the digital stuff, which could mean that she expected us to find this footage. She was wearing a coat, brownish, and sturdy shoes; she handed a woman behind the counter something—keys, most likely—and turned and walked away. The screen flickered to another angle and we saw her walking down the concourse, no luggage, no bag. Which meant she had other transportation already secured.
“That’s it for the car rental security cameras,” Alex said. “I can’t get into the airport security footage without incurring the wrath of my parole board and my brother.”
“I told him to stop. We’ll find Molly another way,” Evan said from the kitchen, sounding gruff. “Meanwhile, you have footage of the missing hookers.”
“Call girls,” the Kid said. “Very expensive, high-class call girls who my brother threatened with bodily harm if they gave me a freebie. Totally unfair, dude.”
“When you’re twenty-one,” Eli said, sounding as if he’d said it a thousand times already, “and you’re off parole, and your record has been wiped clean, you can break any law you want and buy any hooker you want and get any disease they have, and go to jail for your good time. Till then, I’ll break your legs if you try.”
“Not fair, bro. Anyway, here’s the footage you got from the restaurant,” he said. “I’ll try to sharpen it, but digital can only go so far. That stuff on movies and TV, where they telescope in and make out writing on people’s shirts and focus on tattoos and see eye color, is totally fiction. We won’t get much better than the fuzzy stuff you already saw.”
We were still watching the footage, the Kid trying to sharpen the digital images, and taking off still shots, when the knock came. I walked through the house, opened the front door, and said, “Come on in, Sugar Lips.”
Troll grunted and moved past me, his bald head catching the foyer lights, his eyes taking in the repairs. “Whatever it is, Katie ain’t paying for it.”
“I know. My nickel.” I closed the door and he followed me into the living room. I introduced Big Evan and Troll, and the two huge men sized each other up. I just hoped the floor joists held.
“Molly’s husband?” Troll asked.
“The same,” Evan said.
“You’re the one who made the spell for Rick—my nephew a couple generations back. I owe you one.”
“Nothing owed. Blood-servant for Katie?”
“Primo.” The guys bumped fists and Troll pointed to the back windows, now covered with plywood. “Your work?”
“I thought my wife had left me and come here.”
“Jane don’t swing that way.”
“That’s not— Never mind. Jane is helping me find my wife.”
“Good. I like Molly. Met her when she was visiting. She didn’t look down her nose at my girls. I like that. High-class lady, your wife. If I hear anything about her, I’ll let you know.”
They bumped fists again and I made a little roll-’em motion at the Kid. The footage started. “We want to know the names of the vamps and humans leaving the restaurant, and the name of the driver of the car they got into.” I handed him a spare spiral pad and a pen.
Troll started taking notes as human-shaped forms left the restaurant. Twice he asked to see a section again, and several times he pointed to heads and said, “Don’t know ’em.” But his list of names was twelve long by the time we reached the section of the girls leaving the restaurant and getting into a black cab limo. He watched that part four times before he finally said, “I don’t recognize the driver, which I should if he drives for a vamp. And that isn’t a regular licensed driver either. The car is personally owned.” He pointed to something attached to the dash and said, “Radar detector. They’re legal in the state, but no company allows them in their cars, and if a driver had one he plugged in, why have it in the city? Makes no sense. More importantly, these are heads.” He tapped the screen and I studied what I had thought were shadows. They were sitting in the seat facing back, and while they were indistinct, we could see Rachael and Bliss clearly. Bliss’ eyes were wide and her mouth was in a little O of surprise and delight. Rachael was laughing. “There were people already in the car. People they recognized and felt safe with.” He sounded long-suffering.