to
chat; theirs wasn’t that kind of relationship. His reply doubled
the weight of the lead in her stomach.
CHAPTER
3
“ No, Mom and I finished lunch over two hours ago,” Gabi told
her stepfather around the sudden tightening of her throat. She had
to remind herself not to crack the phone she was holding to her
ear. “As far as I know, she was heading straight home. You’ve tried
her phone?” Stupid question, but she had to ask it. The Werewolves
moved closer around her, her alarm registering loudly to their
fine-tuned senses.
“ Give me the number,” Trish mouthed before disappearing to the
sitting room. Gabi held her free hand open as she listened to Evan,
trying to ignore the rising anxiety in his voice. Kyle deposited a
pad of paper and a pen into her grasp. She jammed the phone under
one ear and quickly scribbled a mobile number down as Trish
reappeared with a small laptop. It was open and booting up before
Trish set it down on the kitchen counter. Kyle slapped the notepad
down next to it.
“ Right,” Gabi told Evan, sounding far more calm than she felt.
“Stay at the house, near the phone. Use your mobile to contact any
of her other friends you haven’t already tried. Do not leave the
house. I need you there so that you can let me know the moment she
walks in the door. Okay?” She paused, waiting for his reply. He was
slow to give it, reluctant to leave the search in her hands. “I
have the resources to look for her, you know I do. Promise me
you’ll stay there and not try anything stupid. Please.” Her words
finally reached him, and his gusty sigh of capitulation hurt her
eardrum.
“ Just find her, Gabi, swear you’ll find her.” His words were
harsh, harder than she’d ever heard him.
Gabi ended the
call and took a moment to send a quick fervent prayer to whichever
God was listening that her mom was simply broken down somewhere in
a bad signal area or had gone shopping and her phone battery had
died. But the wretched little niggle in the back of her mind told
her that wasn’t the case.
“ Her phone is definitely turned off, but I have the location of
the last tower it pinged,” Trish said, her voice tense as her
fingers flew over the tiny keyboard. “Do you know her license plate
offhand?”
Gabi paced over
to stand behind Trish where she could view the compact screen. She
rattled off her mother’s car license plate number, barely resisting
the urge to throw her phone at the nearest wall. Ross, Rory and
Derek crowded up behind her, but a quick look from Kyle had them
retreating before she could snarl at them. As Trish typed, pulling
up pages of data, Kyle carefully pried the phone out of Gabi’s
white-knuckled grasp and set it on the counter.
“ Breathe, Gabs,” Kyle reminded her.
She gave him a
curt nod, grateful he hadn’t tried to tell her everything would be
fine. In their world there were no such guarantees.
“ Her phone’s last ping was somewhere between First Avenue and
Arnold Street at thirty-two minutes past one,” Trish said. “I’m
going to try to bring up surveillance footage from the
area.”
“ That’s only a couple of blocks from where we had lunch,” Gabi
said, “and only a few minutes after we left.”
“ Which side would she have been traveling from?” Trish
asked.
“ We were at Minaro’s, down on Third Ave,” Gabi told
her.
Trish quickly
scrolled down a list of files and double-clicked on one. A video
began to load.
“ I’ll start with the camera coming from that side. Hopefully we
can track her progress from there.” The video began to play and the
other Werewolves inched closer again. Kyle bristled, his Wolf
taking exception to their proximity. “Hang on a second. Kyle, turn
on the TV.” Trish paused the video and shoved a small gadget the
size of a USB stick into the laptop. As the TV flared to life, the
paused video appeared there too. “The more eyes the better,” Trish
explained as she hit play. “What car are we looking