“Local feds are skeptical, but informed.” Custo pulled away from the lot. “Apparently, Homeland Security has released a report on the wraith phenomena, though detailed accounts are lacking. The Phoenix branch is running a search on area crime with the parameters I provided from Segue. Anything on your end?”
Adam shrugged his frustration. “The kid claims he knows a woman matching Talia’s description. Says she runs with the university street crowd, possibly an addict and a prostitute.”
Custo scowled. “Another dead end, then?”
“I don’t know. The kid said the woman always has a book, used to hang out in the university library until they kicked her out. Says she talks smart and can pass for one of the students.” Adam shifted in his seat. In spite of the heat, excess stress and tension had him edgy, his body complaining for a hard run. He contained the energy with grim determination. First things first.
“He was sure it was her, just a strung-out version of her.” Adam stared out the window. The deep blue of the sky paled to white overhead as the sun fell farther to the west. Night coming on. Another day lost.
Two months had passed since Talia O’Brien and her roommate, Melanie Prader, disappeared. The Prader family had peppered the University of Maryland campus with a picture of her face and had even managed a TV news spot, the girl’s mother pleading over a bold caption that read: Have you seen Melanie?
For all his resources, Adam had done little better. He reached beyond the campus to a statewide and then national missing-persons search for both Talia and Melanie. He looked at government institutions, cults, organized crime, calling in favors and motivating the flow of information with the flow of cash. He’d covered the Internet as well, his people insinuating themselves onto message boards, friendship lists, as well as public and private forums. Disturbing forums.
And he’d been inundated with hits:
“Hooked up with the hot one with the short hair in a bar in Chicago…”
“The woman with the long hair looks exactly like my sister’s kid’s preschool teacher…”
“The blonde chick lives in the basement of a campus library. Fifty bucks, and I’ll tell you which one…”
Another dead end? Not acceptable. Talia O’Brien was the only person in his six years of searching to use the name Shadowman in any kind of context that would help his brother. If she still lived, he was going to find her.
Adam forced himself to speak in the present tense. “Talia O’Brien is dependable, steady, and reliable. Predictable. She’s been in school all her life. I’ll bet she feels most comfortable near a campus. If one kid has seen her, others will have, too. I want to ask around.”
“I get why she’d choose Arizona in the winter when it’s warm, but why the summer when it’s hot as hell?” Custo merged the car onto a freeway marked 101. Traffic ran fast and free down lanes burned almost white and radiating heat in upward waves.
“If she’s here, she has a reason.”
Adam knew Talia, had studied her the way she had studied her academic subjects. One of the first things he did was contact the university to get his hands on her work. Her papers were creative, twisting logic, but she supported her conclusions with an abundance of data. Her life was ordered and planned with study time and classes blocked out in her planner for the semester she had never completed. Her books were even tabbed with color-coded stickies, a system it had taken him two frustrating days to decode. Talia O’Brien liked control. He doubted very much she was a strung-out prostitute. It was simply not in her nature to succumb to that degree of chaos.
They exited the freeway at University Drive and trolled a palm tree– lined street along the outer perimeter of campus. Two kids lounged in a boxy shadow made by the setting sun ducking behind a building.
Custo slowed to a stop. Adam hopped out, Talia’s picture in hand. The heat outside immediately leeched fluid from his body, drying him from the inside out.
One kid shook his head. The other’s gaze flicked up at the photo and back down to his iPhone. “Haven’t seen her.”
Four blocks later, a thicker group gathered in the parking lot of an old 7-Eleven. Dark, short men, brims of baseball caps pulled down over their eyes.
“No la ví.” Haven’t seen her.
Another group—older teens mixed with university bums this time—swelled in a parking lot in front of an old strip mall. Their attention was trained on a young man, a Caucasian with dreadlocks, holding court from a tall concrete wall that separated the parking lot from the adjacent business.
Adam tried a kid first, maybe fifteen. He held out Talia’s picture.
“Nah. Haven’t seen her.” The kid popped his skateboard. His shirt was salt-stained from perspiration.
Adam’s own charcoal-green polo had dampened on his back. He held up a twenty-dollar bill. “Can you tell me where she might hang out?”
“You her old man?” Gaze appraising, the boy spoke with a cynical maturity beyond his years.
“Brother,” Adam corrected. Brother was the most important relationship in his life. It did him good to remind himself of the bond every chance he got.
The kid snatched the twenty. “She might hang out under the overpass at Dobson and Granite Reef, but I doubt she’d be there now. Night’s coming on.”
“Oi!” shouted the man with dreadlocks from the wall.
Adam ignored him, addressing the crowd. “All I want is to take my sister home. Get her the help that she needs. I am willing to pay anything to get her back.”
The boy slid his gaze over to Dreadlocks, waiting.
“Do you know how much anything is?” Adam pressed. “Enough to buy a comfortable life for each one of you.”
Come on, give me something.
The group hesitated on the edge of interest. Even to Ad-am’s ears, a big cash outlay sounded like a false promise, but he meant every word. Whoever helped him find Talia O’Brien would be set for life. Based on appearances, these kids had nothing to lose.
Dreadlocks jumped off the concrete wall and sauntered over to Adam. Dirty jeans. Limp black T-shirt. Flip-flops. Braided hemp cord knotted around his thin wrist.
He glanced at the picture. “Yeah, I’ve seen her.”
“Where? I’m going to need specific information.” Adam didn’t have time to waste here. Police might have a better handle on university sublife. Local hangouts. Ideal abandoned buildings.
Dreadlocks looked over at the sun, now dipping below the tree line, and frowned. “Come back tomorrow. Sun sets and the beasties come out. I got to get my people inside.”
Adam’s attention arrested. “The beasties?”
“Demons. It’s the end of the world, man, but no one can see it except us. End of the world.” He gestured to the blaze growing on the horizon. “Sun sets fast here and the beasties come out. You ever heard of Sweet Drink?”
“No.”
“It’s a band, man. Their music tells how it’s gonna be. How it is. End of the world. End of death. It’s coming with the setting sun. Listen up: Demons walk and demons feed. Take away all human need. Join the army. Break the curse. The human race to crush Death first.”
“I don’t understand,” Adam said, but the lyrics still sent chills across his hot back and reminded him somehow of Jacob.
Dreadlocks cocked his head. “You musta inherited that money then, ’cause I’m saying it as plain as I can, and you just don’t get it. I’m saying the sun is setting, and if your sister has any brains at all she is going inside somewhere or she will be the demons’ feed.”
“Where inside?” Adam pulled out a hundred, held it up.