Page 17 of Clover

“Where’s Clover? I was hoping she was here. I have more stories to swap with her.” Her smile is light and innocent. Arrow, the only one of us incapable of keeping a secret, is the first to speak.

“She’s not here,” He says.

“Where is she? When will she be in?”

“She’s not going to be coming in tonight,” Rosie offers cautiously.

“Why not?”

It’s at this point that she’s starting to catch on to the mood in the space. Realizing we aren’t smiling or laughing or joking around. Our silence and lack of eye contact are all she needs to know to connect the dots that something isn’t right here. Then she sets her sites on me. Eyes narrowing and lips pinching, she fists her hands into her hips and stands tall. For her, that’s a decent five foot ten inches. She still has to tilt her head back to look me in the eyes. The soft grey irises rimmed in black stare me down like she’s the older sibling between us. When I don’t break, she squints harder and steps forward, jabbing one strong finger into my chest.

“Phoenix Elvis Colton! What is going on? Where is Clover? Tell. Me. Now.” Punctuating each word with a jab to my chest. My too smart for her own good sister demands using my middle name. Which yes is Elvis. My parents were really into him at the time. I don’t know, don’t ask me. The fact that she’s using it, though like all women when they use middle names, means she’s pissed, and she won’t leave me alone till I tell her.

I keep my eyes averted, rubbing the back of my neck. Trying to think of some believable lie to appease her to get her off my back. All the heat and anger that was just welling inside has fizzled under her scrutinizing glare.

“You will tell me right now, or I swear when I see Clover next, I will tell her about your secret stash of Jane Austen novels.”

“Okay, okay. Easy. Geesh, why don’t you just tell everyone all my secrets while you’re at it?” Waving my hands in the universal ‘ok, I give up please stop talking now’ gesture, I take a moment to order my thoughts and calm the raging bull inside my stomach. Then I tell her the truth.

“Clover is missing. And we think that Braxton Shaw has something to do with it,” I mumble out.

“What! When? How? Where?” She’s too eager to know everything that’s happening that she can’t even fully form a sentence.

“Calm down, Raven. We’ll explain everything, but you have to promise to keep it quiet. We’re working on finding her, and until we know Braxton is to blame, we can’t involve the council.” At least not yet. If this continues any longer, I’ll be making decisions without their approval that they won’t like.

Sitting down on a bar stool, she sets down the paperwork she’s carrying on the bar. She obviously came into work on the books for the bar. Explains why she’s here. And we explain to her everything we know and have done over the past almost forty-eight hours since she disappeared. After the story is finished and she’s brought up to speed, she just sits there quietly. Chin in her hand and brow furrowed in deep concentration. Presumably going over the facts and hopefully coming up with an idea of what to do next. Because I’m completely lost at this point. My only option remaining is beating it out of Braxton. An idea which, when offered a second time, was notcompletelydismissed. But rejected all the same. For the time being.

Damn politics.

“So, you’ve checked all his properties around town. And there’s no sign that she was ever at any of them,” She doesn’t ask a question but states the facts of the situation, pondering them.

“Have you tried looking into his digital footprint?”

“His what?”

“Digital footprint. Ya know, what he’s done online or on his phone. Tracked his transactions and phone calls. Hacked into his security system?”

What. The. Fuck!

Why didn’t I think of that? Why didn’t any of us? I was so blinded by rage. Apparently, I wasn’t thinking and following steps that we’ve always taken in the past when looking for someone.

“Shit, you’re right,” Arrow blurts out.

“But how do we do that without involving the Syndicate? We can’t exactly call up the Smiths. That’ll raise too many suspicions, and they’ll ask too many questions.” Rosie rambles on, obviously thinking out loud. But she has a point. We don’t know how to do any of that hacker shit. We’d have to call the others or find someone to do it. That would cause questions that we’re not fully equipped to answer just yet. Especially since it’s a Shaw, we would be hacking. Not to mention it could take up a lot of precious time we could be spending pulling out all of Braxton’s teeth until he told me where she is.

“Well, I know someone who might be able to help,” Raven offers quietly. Not sure who Raven could possibly know with the skills and discretion to do what we need. But I am suddenly very interested in finding out.

“Who do you know that could help?” I ask suspiciously, voicing my thoughts.

“Well, promise you won’t freak out, but I kinda ran into Blake Smith outside The Robin’s Nest the other day, and we got to talking. We’re kinda online buddies. He would do it for you. He’s not like a lot of the others, and he’s not going to go blabbing to the Syndicate.”

Okay, I really don’t have time to comprehend Raven, my little sister, being “friends” with Blake Smith. So, I’m just going to have to file that away under ‘things to freak out over later’ and to find out the whole story behind that relationship. For now, I give her a stern scowl. She just shrugs and brushes me off. She has way too much confidence for an eighteen-year-old college freshman.

“And what makes you think he would be willing to hack a member of the Shaw family?” Zander counters.

“Because he hates them almost as much as we do. We’re not the only family that has issues with them, ya know,” She states matter-of-factly. She’s not wrong. I know many people that don’t exactly have the warm and fuzzies for the Shaw’s.

“And he’s capable of hacking into Braxton’s private security cameras?” I ask hopefully. If we can get our eyes on the inside of his home and clubs, we might be able to find Clover.

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