✅🎊✂️ Hypnosis Won't Take Me There!! [alternative cut]

Chapter 404: Not Found

Britney had the pages of information open on the screen in front of her. She scrolled past them so fast that her friends could barely follow what she was looking at, but she was probably taking everything in. Lucie glanced over her shoulder, carefully sucking a thick milkshake through a straw.

"Going away somewhere?" she asked after a long pause. There wasn't really any reason to ask, because the tall goth wasn't particularly interested to getting away to the land of more sun and higher prices. But Lucie needed to say something to distract from the fact that her nails were tapping on the tabletop in time with the frustratingly-catchy bubblegum pop blaring through the speakers. She didn't know the artist, but she couldn't be caught listening to this. Lin smirked, but didn't say a work.

"Nope," Britney shook her head, but never took her eyes away from the screen. After a few seconds she reached out with one hand for her own drink, a coffee as black as her outfit, and took a long sip before she continued. "Looking for hotels in Kolechia."

"Why?" both of the others spoke together. Britney wasn't the most talkative of people, but she was normally confident and outgoing enough among her friends. But when she focused on something so intently, it was equally likely that she wouldn't notice the people around her, or that she would share her process in as much detail as possible. But it was too late to take the word back now.

"They all use the same booking system," Britney answered, eyes still busy. "When you try to book a stay, you have to pick your days. And for some reason you can often choose a room as well. I don't know who came up with it, but it means that if you try to make a booking on their website, you can see all the other bookings. It's pretty weird actually."

"Yeah, but... why? Where even is Kolechia?"

"Eastern Europe. Language closely related to Belarusian, but not mutually comprehensible. Relatively poor country, but a little tourism boom from people who like wilderness pursuits. Forest hunting, trekking, and so on. Also the only country where it makes sense for a phone service to be offered in English, Latvian, or Kolechian.

"Right now, I'm collating all the booking data from these hotels. Looking for a place that's had the same room booked continuously for more than a couple of weeks. See if we can find her."

"Who?"

Britney turned and looked at Lin as if she'd grown another head. Lin put her drink down, a black smear from her lipstick marking the straw, and stared back.

"Oh, yeah," Britney seemed to collect herself. "Caught up in the problem too much. You remember Adi went missing? Well it turns out she was kidnapped by the babysitter, and yesterday she tried to make a call home. Didn't get to say anything, but I've been able to confirm that the call came from Kolechia. Now I'm going through all the hotels there, narrowing it down to those that have had at least one room booked continuously from the day after she disappeared up to yesterday. I figured that the more we can narrow down the location. And hopefully with a list of possible addresses..."

"The police will be able to send someone!" Lucie grinned, and briefly jumped up and down with a flutter of tiny bells. "You're like an honest to gourd private eye, Brit. How do you know how to do all that stuff?"

"Well, it's not quite that simple, " Britney admitted. "Adi's mom confirmed with the police that she'd gone to Kolechia after I knew it had to be. Said they'd flagged her passport, and someone interviewed the customs officer at the airport. The officer and the cameras both look like she was going along compliantly. There's no evidence of a struggle, no evidence of coercion, and she's old enough to make her own decisions. So the cops won't do anything. Unless we show them what he's actually holding over her, which would get all of us in some kind of trouble."

"Ugh. So what are you going to do? Can't let your friend get taken away like that, right? Going over there yourself? Hire a hitman to extract her?"

"Nice ideas, but I don't know. Right now, we can't do anything. I've checked all the hotels, put them all together, and I don't know what else to do?"

"How many hotels are there to check? Her dad's rich, right? So he could go over and check all of them out. At least find out if the staff have seen her."

"How many hotels have had a room occupied for the entire period," Britney sighed. "That's the problem. The answer is none. I checked all of them, and I know that's all of them because they have to be registered with the tourism bureau. We don't know where she is."

There wasn't anything the goth girls could do to help. Just was a dead end.