Unlike most missing children posters I had seen in the past, forgotten pictures at the front of grocery stores or desperately flashed on the five o'clock news, many of these faces were not chubby cheeked children.
The youngest I saw could pass for twelve but the older half looked almost like adults. Every face was a pair of unblinking eyes and smiling mouths. Family and school photos.
My mouth went dry. I looked around the shop one more time. The kid talking to Leandra could just as easily be on this bulletin. He would have fit into the line up perfectly. I counted quickly. Five, ten, eighteen posters, not yet faded with time. How many kids didn’t get posters put up?
There in the corner. I recognized that face. From the night I fought Mr. Relentless in the streets. She had been the angry girl I met with at the beginning of the night. It was difficult to confirm her identity. She looked so different in the school picture on her poster. I had only met her briefly with shadows obscuring her face in a dark alley, but I was sure it was her.
“I’m going to make sure Leandra doesn’t notice, and you take a photo of every poster,” I told Diana.
She didn’t move. I nudged her with my shoulder. “You good?”
Her voice caught in her throat at first. Almost a choked cry. She swallowed and tried again. “They look like my little sisters.” I had seen her three younger sisters running around her family’s restaurant back in Summersville when we worked there. The youngest must have been ten.
I laid a gentle hand on her shoulder, and she almost jumped at the contact. “We’re going to figure out what’s going on here. I promise.”
I walked to the cash register to strike up a conversation with Leandra about whatever my fake school project was about.
I met Diana outside ten minutes later. Leandra had been as slow to give me useful information as I expected. She had stuck to the concrete, public details of the game store. She and her husband opened the shop back in the 80s. Both of them grew up in Old Stones and knew how tough it could be to be a kid in the city. They wanted to give back to the community.
She gave me enough information to write a puff piece about the store, but nothing that could aid in my current investigation. Maybe I would suit up for patrol early tonight and swing by in a mask. She would be more forthright then.
In silence, Diana and I walked down the street. I couldn’t think of anything to say. My plans may have brought us to Stones, but there was no way I would have predicted this kind of information being dumped on us.
A block and a half from the storefront, Diana broke the silence. “What did you mean by breaking into the police station? Aren’t you supposed to stop people from committing crimes?”
I had almost forgotten about that part of my plan. I'm glad she reminded me.
“It’s for a good cause, especially knowing what we know now.” I stopped walking and turned my full attention on her. There was plenty of foot traffic, but they parted around us with a few scowls. “I need to know how many other missing cases there are and if anything else has been happening in the district.”
She quirked up her eyebrow at me like I was stupid. Her whole demeanor shifted. It was like she shrugged off a heavy coat. “So you want to break in just to get some data and reports?”
“Yeah, that’s what I just said.”
“You’re an idiot.” She kept walking.
I hurried to keep up. “I would like to argue that I am not, but please enlighten me.”
“You understand that I’m your tech person right? I was hired by the Conspiracy to work in their tech labs, I run comms and surveillance for you every night, and I am enrolled at the University of Nova City for technological engineering and computer science.”
Like I didn’t know what her qualifications were. Not to brag, but I was the one who told the Conspiracy about her. I knew they would be idiots to pass her up. There was the added bonus of not having to worry about her knowing my secret identity if we were working together, but mostly I did it for her future. “I know all of that.”
“I can hack a police database no problem.”
Duh.
“You are the best thing that has ever happened to me!” I shouted into the sky. Unlike my interruption in the flow of foot traffic, this outburst drew no attention from the crowd. Just another day in the city. “I know you have your laptop on you. Should we just find a bench and look at all their secrets now?”
She kept walking back toward the metro station. “I need the rest of my gear, and we should probably be getting back soon. I need to get to class.”
I followed. “You said it’s not until three and it’s only one. We have plenty of time. I know how much you want to visit the parks in New Star, so what if we head there and you can go straight to class from there. It can be my apology for wasting your day off even though it definitely wasn’t a waste and I was totally justified in bringing you to Stones.”
But when she tapped her card at the metro terminal, I could tell that we weren’t going to New Star. She was heading for a line that would take us right back into the heart of Queen Plaza. “I thought you would be in more of a rush to get this info.” She checked the time on her phone and looked nervously down the tunnel where the train would eventually appear.
“I think it can wait a few hours while you’re in class.” She looked at the time again. “Are you late for something I don’t know about?” Then in a hiss, “Do you have a secret date that you didn’t tell me about?”
She recoiled from the very thought. “No, I tell you literally everything that happens in my life. I just don’t want to be late for the first day of class.”
The White Palace was Queen Plaza's ritziest hotel. Located smack dab in the middle of the city, it was the hub of tourist. The streets circled the building like a giant roundabout before radiating off like spokes on a wheel. Under any other circumstances, Diana and I would never be able to pay for a room even in our dreams. Thanks to one of Rory's old friends who had connections to the hotel, we had one of the cheapest suites set aside for us. It was supposed to be a temporary fix, but no one had told us to move out yet.
We loaded into the elevator with a couple of the rich guests. Maxwell was inside to push the buttons for the guests. Apparently once you get to a certain level of rich, button pushing isn't worth your time.
He asked the other guests what floor they were going to, but just nodded formally at Diana and me. "Good afternoon, Anna, Diana. The usual floor?"
It was a game we liked to play with him. The rich people always looked shocked when us two kids in cheap business casual started acting like regulars with more cash in our bank accounts than Diana has in student loans. Maxwell was always game to play along.
"You know us so well," Diana said with a clearly fake, posh accent.
"Anything for our most loyal customers." He winked at us, and Diana was trying not to snort.
The old women who had loaded into the elevator with us tried to hide their surprise. All three of them were scrutinizing our outfits. One narrowed her eyes at me like I was a trust fund baby who was running amuck and spending all of daddy's money.
The doors opened on mine and Diana's floor first. "We will see you tomorrow," I said in an equally terrible accent.
Diana and I were still laughing when she pulled out the keyboard to let us into our suite.
I put an arm out to stop her before she could swipe the card. Any laughter that had been bubbling on my lips a second earlier was gone. In its place was heavy dread. It weighed in my stomach like ice, almost as bad as the deep ache of my permafrost.
Before Diana could complain, I put my finger to my lips and silently shushed her. With my free hand I pointed at the door. The gap between door and frame was barely noticeable. Had I not been so worried about what we saw in Stones and subsequently on such high alert, I wouldn't have paid it any attention.
Tonight it sent off all of the blaring alarms in my head. I pulled Diana a few doors down the hall constantly checking over my shoulder to our front door. No one appeared from within.
“We probably just forgot to close it,” Diana said. I was being pretty obvious in my paranoia, but even if I wasn’t, Diana could have told when my anxiety spiked. That was another thing I was working on with my therapist.
“I definitely closed it.”
She tried to pull me back toward the room, but my feet stayed planted firm on the carpeted floor. “Then maybe a maid accidentally went in because they didn’t know we were long term residents.”
“The Conspiracy got broken into today,” I blurted. “That’s the reason we didn’t have to go into work. I should have told you and I’m sorry that I lied. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal and I was going to tell you.”
She stopped trying to pull me away. “Anna! We need to have a serious talk about this, but I promise that whatever happened at the Conspiracy today is unrelated to why our door is barely cracked open.” She didn’t break eye contact with me, just forced me to look into her dark eyes and focus on my breathing. “I promise.”
After thirty seconds and a few deep breaths, I nodded. I didn’t believe her at all. There was most definitely something dangerous waiting on the other side of our door, but panicking about it wasn’t going to help anyone.
“Stay behind me and be ready to run for help.” I walked back down to the door on my tiptoes. Even my breathing was muffled, but the blood rushing through my system roared in my ears. Diana waited on the other side of the doorway. Without making a sound, I mouthed to her, “Three, two, one.”
Alright, place your bets now. Who or what is on the other side of the door?
I'm sure it's going to be totally fine and nothing dangerous at all 😉
m nicole