Page 35 of Lure

“You were referenced in some gossip pieces,” Alphabet said over his shoulder. “One of them was about this event, so I backtracked to it.”

“Okay.” I elongated both syllables because that didn’t feel like an answer.

“We’re focusing on the intelligence we have,” Bones said, tugging my attention to where he stood with a marker in hand. It was funny, he looked like a teacher. “In this case, we’re looking to see if anyone was watching you.”

Goosebumps raced over my flesh and I folded my arms. “Watching me? Like a stalker?” I frowned. “I’ve had an occasional fan but nothing like that.” At least none that I’veknown of. “Most of them are just wealthy bored men who want to have some arm candy or want to invite me to parties.”

Most of them were not my type. I wasn’t for sale. I didn’t intend to negotiate for advances or business opportunities that way. Fortunately, it hadn’t been an issue for me. There was a lot I was willing to do for myself, that just didn’t happen to be one I wanted to explore further.

“Something like a stalker,” Voodoo said as he returned with a tablet of his own. “But not a stalker exactly. Your sister is missing, you were taken in front of her place. One logical conclusion is to presume she was the target and they took you, possibly thinking you were her.”

“Or they were double-dipping,” Lunchbox said, his mouth compressing and a muscle ticking in his cheek.

“That doesn’t seem unreasonable.” Yet the way they were talking, they didn’t seem to be on board with the idea. Except.. I frowned. “You said you tracked her until Wednesday and no sign of her after that?”

Bones touched a finger to his nose then pointed at me. “They already had her at the time they took you.”

I rubbed my hands over my face and then pushed off the sofa. I was tired of sitting still. “So we’re really not any closer to understanding what was going on?”

“Yes and no,” Alphabet said, tossing the words over his shoulder as he kept typing on his laptop. “We have more variables to work with and I have a working theory that you were both targets. Whether it was for different reasons or the same—the jury is still out on that. But I don’t think it’s a coincidence that you were taken outside of her place. I also think you fucked up their plans when you went down for that weekend away.”

Clearly not fucked them up enough. They’d successfully taken me. My mind flashed back to that room, the crying women. Then the man?—

Nope.

Arms folded to hug myself, I paced the room. Goblin was sprawled on his back on a dog bed not far from where Alphabet sat with his laptop. The dog’s tongue lolled from the side of his mouth and in that brief moment of quiet, the only thing audible was his gentle snoring.

“The trickiest part isn’t identifying thewho,” Voodoo said as he rolled a coin over his knuckles back and forth. His attention on the timeline. The fact he could manipulate the coin without looking at it riveted me for a moment. “We’re going to get there. The who will take a minute because there is more than one. That’s the part that bothers me.”

The goosebumps on my arms seemed to intensify. The soft swish of the marker on the white board squeaked periodically as Bones added more details to his timeline. Details like dates, places, and then more question marks. Weirdly, there was something relaxing about how neat his handwriting was.

Circling the room slowly, I made myself keep moving. The sense of everything closing in on me was inescapable. Didn’t mean I would just stand there and let it overwhelm me. Lunchbox stood fixed as he watched a series of pictures flicker past at a high rate. The one he’d pointed out earlier from the Met stationary next to it. Could he actually process any of those images or did he not want to miss a match?

I stared at the man, the one Lunchbox said he’d seen before. Nothing about him leapt out. He was maybe five foot ten or eleven. Medium brown hair. Everyman face. Even his suit was bland considering the event. He was the picture of utterly forgettable. The cameras would skate right past him.

I wouldn’t even look at him twice.

Sad comment on my part, but true. The scrolling images paused as a second image popped up. The markers wereflashing. Dots on the eyes, the cheekbones, the jaw—but the two guys weren’t the same.

It listed a possible match of 57%. That didn’t seem like a lot.

“Save?” Alphabet asked.

“Yeah, could use prosthetics to change his look,” was Lunchbox’s answer.

Could use…

“Why would anyone use prosthetics to change their look to follow me? That’s nuts.”

Almost as one, all four men looked at me.

“It’s nuts, right?” The shivers seemed to intensify. Was the room freezing or was that just me?

“Maybe,” Lunchbox was the one that answered. “It’s still a close match, so better for us to keep it for reassessment. We can’t leave any stone unturned.”

The last almost sounded like an apology. Then the images started flicking again and his attention returned to the screen while Bones went back to writing. I couldn’t fathom any of this.

None of it made sense.

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