Cries in the Night (34 page)

“Will do,” Pam answered and picked up the phone.

Jenny and I reached the conference room. I opened the door and stood aside, allowing her to enter first. “Please, sit wherever you’re comfortable. Can I get you a cup of coffee, a soft drink or water maybe?”

Jenny collapsed on the chair closest to the door, apparently barely able to hold it all together for much longer. “A bottle of water would be great. I’ve been rushing around since five this morning.”

“Is that when you found out she was missing?” I opened the small refrigerator in the corner of the conference room and pulled out two bottles of water.

I set one on the table in front of her after taking the time to twist the top to break the seal, a throwback to my bartending days.

Before she could answer, the door opened and Dallas walked into the room. His expression was calm and professional, but behind his back he gave me a thumbs-up signal. “How can we help you, Miss …?”

“Jenny Caldwell, this is Dallas Smith … my brother and also a co-owner of Scandals,” I finished the introductions.

Dallas reached out and shook her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Jenny.” He sat down across from her.

I picked up a writing tablet and pen from the sideboard and sat at the head of the table. “She’s here to talk about her sister …”

“She’s gone missing,” Jenny explained.

“How long …?” I started to ask, but the door opened behind me and Tulsa entered.

“Mind if I sit in?” Tulsa asked. “I’ve been trying to focus on designing our website, but my head’s killing me.”

“No, not at all.” Inwardly I sighed. If every member of my new family popped in, I was never going to have a chance to find out about this intriguing young woman’s problem. Oh, who was I kidding? I really just wanted to get to know her a little better. I decided to cut the introductions short. First I nodded at Jenny, then at Tulsa. “Jenny … Tulsa who is one of my sisters and yet another co-owner.”

Tulsa and Jenny exchanged friendly nods, then Tulsa moved to the other end of the table.

“Back to
your
sister,” I tried to get everyone to focus. “Let’s start with her name.”

“Angela … I call her Angie.”

“How long has she been missing?” I asked again.

“Three days.”

Dallas and Tulsa exchanged skeptical looks, and I had to admit my alarm level dropped dramatically.

Jenny leaned forward in an attempt to convince them of the urgency. “She’s never done that before.”

“How old is she?” Tulsa asked.

“Twenty. She’ll be a junior at UT in the fall … graphics arts major.” Jenny must have realized she was losing her audience because she heaved a big sigh and slumped back in her chair.

I felt sorry for her. I’d lost a few audiences in my day, and I scrambled to find a way to get the crowd focused again. “So, you think she’s in danger?”

Jenny’s eyes filled with tears. “I don’t know. This isn’t like her. She never stays out all night without calling or leaving me a note or something … and that was usually only for field trips or something school related that I knew about in advance.”

“You live together?” Dallas prompted.

Jenny nodded. “Our parents died five years ago when I was eighteen and Angie was fifteen. I had just graduated from high school, but I couldn’t let them put her in foster care. I was able to sell the house and make enough to get us a nice little duplex near the campus. I found a job at a day care center so I could be home at night to help her with her homework.” A wisp of a smile touched her lips. “My mom really wanted us to go to college so I was determined that Angie would finish high school and go to UT.”

“What about you?” I couldn’t resist asking.

“There was only enough money for one of us, and Angie has so much talent.” Jenny tried to act like it didn’t bother her that she had missed out on college, but I could tell it did.

“So, she’s a twenty-year old college student who didn’t come home after a Friday night party,” Dallas summarized. “Have you checked with her friends? Classmates … teachers … neighbors?”

Jenny shook her head. “This is going to sound mean, but she doesn’t have any friends … not close friends anyway. We live on a really tight budget. I still work at the pre-school and bartend on weekends. She has a full course load every semester, including some classes this summer. Once a week we’ll hit one of the happy hours on Sixth Street as a treat and to save on food money. Neither of us has any time for friends.”

Yeah, been there, done that. I certainly knew my way around the happy hours and cheap buffets in Vegas. Becoming a professional magician wasn’t like getting a job as a dentist. You didn’t just get a degree and open an office. You had to learn, mostly on the job and usually without pay. I worked any odd job I could find, including bartending for the casinos and private parties. On my desperate weekends, I worked as a waiter for a catering company and sometimes parked cars for events. You wouldn’t believe the kinds of offers those gigs generated … some for pay, some legitimate, but most would have made it hard for me to look at myself in the mirror the next morning. I’ve done lots of things that I regretted, but none that I was ashamed of.

“How about a boyfriend?” Tulsa was blunt. “Maybe they decided to spend the weekend at South Padre Island.”

“No boyfriend. Angie was serious about school and her art. She has classes Monday through Thursday, then works at her shop all day Friday and Saturday.”

“Her shop?” I echoed.

“She makes money painting portraits, designing signage and doing tattoos out of a little hole in the wall studio a couple blocks from the campus.”

“
Longhorn Tattoos
” Dallas asked. When Jenny nodded, he said, “I know where that is. I park in a lot a couple blocks away and pass that shop when I go to classes.”

“Oh, you’re a student?” Jenny’s question was more out of politeness than curiosity. She clearly couldn’t think of anything other than her sister’s safety.

“Yeah … law school,” Dallas told her. “So, she missed her classes today?”

“Yes, and she just wouldn’t do that … unless she was in trouble. She knows I worry about her.”

“Does she have a cell phone?” Tulsa asked.

Again Jenny nodded. “I tried calling her, but it went straight to voicemail.”

“Did you try to calibrate her cell phone location … you know using GPS?” Tulsa asked.

Jenny shook her head and her eyes widened. “I didn’t think … You can do that?” A glimmer of hope chased the despair from her expression.

“If she has it turned on, it will. Give me your phone, and I’ll check it out.”

Jenny pulled her cell phone out of the side pocket of her purse and handed it to Tulsa. “It’s under her first name.”

Tulsa nodded, already focused on flipping through screens and clicking buttons.

“Have you gone to the police?” Dallas asked.

“Two days ago. But they blew it off.” Jenny snorted her disgust. “They kind of came to the same conclusions you did …
kids
, they said,
go missing all the time. Boyfriend, party, long weekend trip to Cabo
. He was doing some paperwork … he barely looked up at me.”

“APD is pretty good at what they do, but they’ve had a lot of financial pressures,” Dallas offered.

I frowned at Dallas’ total lack of empathy. Sure, what he said was true, but it wasn’t what Jenny needed to hear right now. Dallas could use a little help with his stage presence. “Any luck, Tulsa?”

“No … I’m not getting any ping at all.” She handed the phone back to Jenny. “The battery could be dead, her phone may be turned off or she could be out of range. We can try again later.”

Jenny’s shoulders slumped. She stared at the phone in her hand as if her best friend had betrayed her. It was the last tenuous thread with her sister, and now that, too, was broken. Her voice was barely above a whisper as she said, “Thanks for trying.”

I wished desperately that I could tell her everything was going to be alright, and her sister would show up, probably with a sunburn and an STD. But I couldn’t.
I’d seen the dramatic emotional swing she’d had when she thought they could find Angela using GPS and then the disappointment. She had no one else to turn to for help. Just Scandals … and me. Impulsively, I leaned toward her and covered her hand with my own. Hers was much smaller than mine and so cold. “We’re going to do all we can to find her. Did you check out her studio for any notes or phone numbers?”

“Sort of, but I didn’t notice anything unusual.”

“I think we should start there. Maybe she has an appointment book or an address scribbled on something,” I suggested, trying to remember all the cop and investigation shows I’d seen.

She brightened slightly at the hint of a positive plan. “Listen … I only have $400.” She reached into her purse, took out four well-worn hundred dollar bills and placed them on the table.

I took the money, examined it, turned it over, then counted aloud as I transferred the bills from my right hand to my left. It was a move I’d learned when I was twelve and trying to make money for lunch … except this was a reverse version. “One hundred, two hundred, three hundred, four hundred, five hundred. You must have made a mistake.”

Jenny stared at the stack of bills in my hand. “But I’m sure I gave you only $400!”

I put the money on the table and pushed the five hundred dollar bills back to her. “First things first. Don’t worry about the money until we solve the case. If you have some time right now, let’s go look at her shop.”

A little confused, she picked up the $500 and placed it in her wallet. “I took the day off, so I’m ready … let’s go.” She stood up and began to walk to the door.

“Dallas? Tulsa?” I asked. “Are you coming?”

Dallas shrugged. “I’m in.”

“I’d better get back to the website,” Tulsa said. “It’s vintage … I mean, like a time capsule from the ’90s. No focus on mobiles, no video in the hero area, no scrolling and the color scheme makes me epileptic.”

“You’re talking Greek again. I swear, the only time I see you smile is when you’re throwing out computer lingo.” I turned and followed Jenny who was already in the lobby, her foot tapping impatiently.

Christopher and Killeen entered from the warehouse doors. He was over six feet tall, and Killeen was only a couple inches shorter. They made a stunning couple and even Jenny, who could think of little other than her sister, stopped and stared.

“Good morning,” Christopher said as soon as he saw Jenny. “I’m Christopher and this is Killeen. We’re …”

“Let me guess … another brother and sister,” Jenny interrupted.

“Uh … brother, no. Yes to the sister,” Christopher answered with a smile. “It’s sort of complicated.”

“Jenny’s our newest client. We’re going to see if we can find some clues about where her sister might be,” I explained.

“Glad you two finally decided to show up for work,” Dallas said, only partially joking. As a law student, only two years short of his degree, he valued commitment and punctuality. He was struggling to adjust to the wildly disparate habits and quirks of his new-found family.

Killeen blushed, but Christopher just laughed. “The alarm didn’t go off. Did you hear it?” he asked Killeen.

“No, I didn’t hear a thing,” she answered, her big blue eyes trying to look blankly innocent, but failing miserably. “Must have slept right through it.”

“All I can say is, I’m glad the walls at the mansion are so thick,” Dallas commented, “Or none of us would be getting any sleep.”

“Speaking of mansion, can you meet us there around two?” Christopher asked.

“Why?” I asked.

“Our landlord wants to meet all of us this afternoon,” Killeen explained.

“Our landlord?” Dallas echoed.

None of them had any idea who that mysterious entity was. It was one of the unknowns that we were all trying not to think about. Apparently, Roger had done the person a favor and had been given the use of the mansion for an unspecified time for only $1.00 a year. That had been great for Roger, but now that he was gone, there was the distinct possibility that we would be kicked out. My portion of the inheritance and my salary at Scandals meant I could afford something pretty nice on my own, but the mansion was huge and luxurious with a live-in cook named John and a house manager named Gerald who took great care of us. Besides, I was just getting to know my new brothers and sisters, and separation would slow down that process.

“Are you going to tell us his name or is it a surprise?” I asked.

Christopher glanced over at Jenny, then back at me. “I don’t actually know. His agent called and set up the appointment.”

“Unless we stumble on something urgent, we should be back by then,” I told them. To be honest, I didn’t think we were going to turn anything up at Angie’s shop, but it was a great excuse to spend more time with Jenny. And maybe we
could find something that would reassure her that her sister was merely careless and not actually in danger.

“He insisted on meeting at the house. They’re still making repairs from the fire, and I was hoping it would be finished before he found out. The kitchen looks pretty rough.” Christopher added, “I tried to set it up somewhere else, but no luck.”