Page 56 of Bishop's Flight
Carwyn was starting to question the man’s casual attitude to his son wanting to virtually murder other humans. “Does he visit a Discord server for that?”
“No, he and his buddies just group chat in the games they play.”
Carwyn looked at Brigid. “Group chatinthe games? I didn’t know that was possible.”
“Sure, most of them have that option.”
Brigid lowered her voice. “We’ll have to ask Lee if Lucas got any messages from Angel that way. If we could find out where they were meeting…”
“Agreed.” He glanced out the window and saw that the car was slowing down. “We’re at Jessica Mathis’s house?”
“This is the address.” Their driver craned his neck. “No lights on.”
“It’s nearly midnight,” Carwyn said. “Should we risk it?”
“Lucas doesn’t have time for us to be polite.” Brigid barely waited for the car to come to a stop before she was leaping out. She was halfway up the walk before Carwyn could catch up.
He followed her and waited on the narrow stoop while Brigid knocked on the door.
A few seconds later, she was about to raise her hand again when someone looked through the window. “Who are you?”
“We’re private detectives, and we’re looking for Jessica Mathis,” Brigid answered. “We’re so sorry to come so late, but there’s a missing boy involved.”
The face disappeared and the door opened to reveal a woman in her late fifties or early sixties who vaguely resembled Jessica Mathis’s driver’s license photo. “A missing boy?”
“Ms. Mathis?” Carwyn hung back and spoke softly so as not to startle the woman. “Are you Jessica Mathis?”
“I’m her mama.” She pulled her robe closed at the neck. “I watch the kids on the nights Jessica works, and I got dogs and a gun inside, so don’t think of tryin’ anything.”
“We don’t mean to startle you or make you uncomfortable,” Brigid said. “If Miss Mathis isn’t here, would you be able to tell us where she is? Again, we wouldn’t bother her, but time is very short in this case.”
“That sounds awful.” The woman frowned. “You said a missing boy?”
“He might be a runaway, but he might also have been taken or tricked somehow. We’re hopin’ that your daughter has some information about where he might’ve gone. They were online friends.”
The woman’s eyebrows went high. “I hope you don’t think that my girl would be fooling around with no teenage boy. She’s a good woman and she’s got two kids of her own to take care of.”
“There’s no indication of that.” Carwyn was quick to reassure her. “Their texts seemed purely friendly. We think he might have confided in her, something like that. Like a big sister maybe?”
The woman seemed to relax. “Okay, that makes sense. She’s kinda the mama bird, you know? All her friends, she’s always takin’ care of them if you know what I mean.”
“One hundred percent,” Carwyn said. “We know she’d be worried about Lucas too.”
“That his name?” The woman gave them a wide-eyed stare. “Poor kid.” She took a deep breath. “Jessi works at the Dirty Martini lounge on weeknights. It’s not too busy, and she makes real good tips ’cause it’s by the airport. You should be able to talk to her there. I think her boss is sweet on her. You need directions?”
“Dirty Martini lounge by the airport?” Carwyn nodded. “I’m sure our driver will know it. Thank you, ma’am. Thank you very much. We won’t take any more of your time.”
They turned to go and the woman shouted after them, “I hope you find him.”
Brigid turned. “Thank you. We will.”
Jessica Mathis might have only beenin her late twenties, but she definitely had a maternal air about her. She had soft brown hair cut in shaggy waves and vivid blue eyes with a kind expression. She looked like the girl next door as she gently chastised two drunks and told them to eat something before they got sick, even as she was handing them another drink.
She took her break just before one and met Carwyn and Brigid at a back corner table in the wood-paneled bar. “You said Lucas is missing?” She shook her head. “That’s horrible. I haven’t heard anything on the news about that.”
Brigid skirted the question. “Well, you know they don’t treat teenage boys going missing the same way they treat younger kids or girls.”
“I guess so.” She looked worried. “I should have known something was wrong when he didn’t send me a message after my match on Tuesday. I beat the pants off that guy, and usually Lucas would be the first person to message me.”
