Both Ryan and Zack turned to look at me, faces grim.
“Oh shit,” I breathed. “Who?”
“His sister Amber and his mom,” Ryan said. “They both went missing a few weeks ago.”
It fit all too well. I sank to sit on the futon as dread clenched at my gut. “Pull a pic of Amber,” I said dully. “I bet she’s our vic from the trailer.”
Chapter 15
Tears of fury stung my eyes as I mercilessly whisked the surviving eggs. A photo of a smiling Amber in her wedding dress confirmed her as the murder victim. Poor Idris. No wonder he was cooperating. Sister tortured and killed, and no telling what they threatened to do with his mom, if she was even still alive. And Idris was the kind of guy who’d do everything he could to protect anyone—even a perfect stranger. This surely ripped his heart out.
Ryan came upstairs but didn’t wisecrack about the ferocity of my egg-murder, which told me his news wasn’t particularly good. I dumped the eggs into a pan on the stove. “Anything?”
“Not really. They were abducted from a mall parking lot in broad daylight,” he told me, voice flat. He pulled two mugs down from the cabinet, filled both with coffee. “They had lunch with some ladies from their church, left the restaurant, but never made it to their car.” Impotent fury swept over his face. “Security cameras malfunctioned, so no vid, and no witnesses have come forward.”
I jabbed at the congealing eggs and let out a number of curses.
“You asked about the last call made on the phone Idris used,” Ryan said as he dumped cream and sugar into one of the mugs, left the other black, then brought them both to the table and sat. “It was from the Austin area about two hours earlier.”
I scraped eggs as I did my best to cling to the sliver of hope that offered. “They stole a cell phone in Austin and headed northwest. Called, then turned off the phone and probably ditched it for good measure.” I sighed. “Not much help. Thanks for checking though.” But then I frowned. “I keep coming back to Tsuneo being in this area. That means something. Maybe Idris was here with him, and they’re moving him somewhere else?”
Ryan grimaced. “‘Northwest of Austin’ covers a lot of ground. We need another lead.”
He was right, damn it. The location clue had felt like a big victory but was virtually useless by itself.
I removed the eggs from the heat, clicked the burner off and mentally shifted gears. “Give me your opinion on something.” I pulled two plates from the cabinet and divided the eggs onto them. “If you were holding Idris against his will and wanted his cooperation—having already killed his sister—would you also kill the mother?”
He remained silent for a moment then shook his head. “Makes more sense to keep her as insurance. A hostage.”
Thin relief went through me. I placed the pan in the sink, nodded. “My thought as well. So, the good news is that she’s probably not dead.” I set one of the plates and a fork in front of Ryan. “The bad news is they almost certainly have Idris’s cooperation.” I grabbed my plate and a fork and thunked down into the chair across from him, mood suddenly bleak over our lack of progress. “Now I know why Idris told me to stop looking for him.”
“You like him a lot,” he observed.
I squirted ketchup onto my eggs, ignored Ryan’s wince as I did so. “He’s like a kid brother. A seriously talented and really great kid brother.”
“I’m sorry. This must suck for you.” He forked some eggs into his mouth, gave me an approving nod.
“It does.” I offered him a slight smile. “You’d like him too.” I paused to eat. “Mzatal loves him,” I said after a few minutes. “Like a son.”
Ryan leveled a deeply skeptical look at me. “Mzatal? Like a son?”
“Yeah.” I started to dump sugar into my coffee, then remembered Ryan had already fixed it the way I liked it. “Crazy, I know, but he really does. Mzatal hasn’t stopped looking for Idris since he was taken.” I took a long sip of coffee, then lowered the mug and gave an evil smile. “And Mzatal slammed Jesral after he and Asshole sent Idris to Earth. It was fucking beautiful.”
Ryan let out a bark of laughter. “I bet.” He scooped up the last of the eggs. “Thanks for breakfast.”
“Anytime.” I finished my own then stood and cleared the plates. “Should I call Pellini and let him know we have an ID?”
“Yes, and tell him we’ll send over details shortly.”
Ryan returned to the basement to finish his report. I retrieved my phone, thumbed through the address book to Pellini’s name, and pressed call. It rang half a dozen times before he picked up.
“Pellini,” he rasped in a sleep-clouded voice.
“Hey, it’s Gillian. Wake up.”
I heard some mumbling and scuffling, then, “Yeah. I’m here. You got something?”
“An ID on our vic,” I told him. “Garner and Kristoff will be shooting the details your way shortly.”
“This just come down? Who is she?”
“Found out in the last half hour. Her name’s Amber Palatino Gavin from Seattle.”
“It’s a solid ID?”
“Unfortunately, yeah.”
“Unfortunately?” he asked, puzzled.
“Turns out she’s the sister of a friend of mine. A guy I’m trying to find.”
He blew out his breath. “Coincidence?”
I hesitated, unsure how much to tell him or how to frame it in a way that didn’t sound weird.
“Kara? You don’t think it’s a coincidence, do you?” He sounded tense, but his tone held none of its usual belligerence or mocking. “Look, anything you can tell me is more than I got now. Maybe we can meet to talk about it? I’ll buy you a beer. Or lunch.” His words tumbled over themselves. “There’s this Italian place that’s pretty good and not expensive. I mean, like a business lunch. Work.” He spoke the last in a rush as if to be absolutely certain I knew it wasn’t a date-type thing.
Good god, an offer of a date from Pellini would put me right over the edge.
“Um, my schedule’s pretty packed right now,” I demurred. “Here’s the info I have.” I gave him a rundown of the basics with Idris, that he was missing, family name, vitals, told him we’d stumbled across the ID on Amber while researching Idris’s family. Everything I told him was true, but guilt nagged. I knew a lot more that I wasn’t telling him, but I couldn’t do so without delving into demons and lords and general weirdness.
He listened, asked a few questions. When it was time to hang up, he didn’t. “Maybe when your schedule clears up we can get a beer?”
“Uh,” I said in a brilliant delaying tactic. “Sure. We’ll talk about it then.” I disengaged quickly and hung up, more than a little weirded out by his persistence. Was it because I was in better shape now, or was the reason more sinister? Then again, his desire to be friendly could just as easily be completely benign. Last year, after a particularly ugly incident, Ryan had influenced both Pellini and Boudreaux to lighten up and not be such assholes to me, and since then the two had been far less hostile. Perhaps Ryan’s little tweak had started a chain reaction of don’t-be-a-dick.
I was drying the last of the breakfast dishes when Ryan emerged from the basement, dressed for work, empty coffee cup in hand. “We’ve sent the info on to Pellini and Boudreaux.”
“Thanks. Pellini will be glad to get it,” I said then scrunched my face. “He wanted me to meet him for lunch.”
Ryan let out a snort of laughter. “Lunch with Pellini? That’s a first.”
“He wanted to talk about the case, but I gave him the non-demon facts over the phone. There’s not all that much.” I shrugged, frowned. “He’s acting a little weird, though he’s not being a total asstard the way he used to.”