“You can ask,” another bridesmaid said, “but we’re sloshed. Don’t expect accurate answers.”
“It’s about Angelica.” Someone shoved a beer into my hands. For the hell of it, I drank some. “Has anyone heard from her?”
The bridesmaids moved as one entity, all shaking their heads at once.
“Damn,” I muttered. “What about her social media? Has she posted anything since she left?”
“Nope.” Casey tossed me her phone. “Have a look. Last thing on her Instagram are some pictures from the bachelorette party.”
I scrolled through Angelica’s feed, but there wasn’t much to look at. Like Megan Hollows, her Instagram page boasted selfies, exciting landscapes, and the view outside a plane window. She’d posted consistently, like most people our age, at least once every day until the night she disappeared.
“What about her family?” I asked. “Who does she live with?”
“Her boyfriend,” Casey said. “Carson. His number’s in there if you want to get a hold of him.”
I located Carson’s number, tapped his name, and put the phone to my ear. After several rings, a deep voice answered: “Yo, Case. What’s up?”
“Hi, Carson. This is Jacqueline Frye. I’m a friend of Angelica’s,” I said. “I was wondering if you’ve heard from her lately.”
“Nah, she said she was off the radar for the wedding,” Carson replied. “She wanted alone time with the girls. I respect that.”
“She hasn’t contacted you at all?”
“Nope.”
I chewed on my lower lip. “Listen, Carson. Something’s happened here in Chicago. Angelica supposedly left the hotel to go home.”
“What do you mean she left?”
“She’s gone, and so is all of her stuff. Are you sure she hasn’t come home?”
Carson’s voice pitched in panic. “No, she’s not here. Where’s Casey? Has she talked to Casey? We’ve been arguing, but she wouldn’t have left me—I don’t think. God, what if she left me?”
“Carson, calm down,” I said. “I don’t think Angelica has left you.”
“Then where is she?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.” I paced on the outer edge of the bridesmaids’ party, doing my best to avoid wayward axes. “What about her parents? Any friends or family she might have gone to see?”
“We don’t know anyone in Chicago,” Carson replied. “Her mom passed away, and she doesn’t speak to her dad. All her friends are there with her for the wedding.”
I scribbled the details in a small notepad. “Don’t worry, Carson. I’m going to find Angelica. I just needed to confirm she wasn’t with you.”
“Wait, who are you again?”
“My name’s Jack. I’m an investigator.”
“Whoever you are, please bring my girlfriend home safely.”
With my promise to Carson sealed, I did the one thing I usually never resorted to during one of my own investigations: I went to the police.
I sat in a waiting room for a good fifteen minutes before anyone bothered to glance at me. Being patient was so much harder than being pushy. My leg jiggled up and down. How did anyone ever get anything done by waiting all the time?
At the twenty-minute mark, the young rookie behind the front desk made eye contact with me for the second time and quickly looked back at his paperwork. Gritting my teeth, I stood up.
“Excuse me,” I said to the rookie. “I’ve been waiting to file a missing persons’ report for almost a half hour. Do you have anyone I can talk to?”
“All the officers are busy right now,” the rookie replied. His eye twitched. Liar.
“Aren’t you an officer?”
He stammered. “Uh, yeah, but I’m not, like, a fully-fledged—I’m supposed to man the front desk.”
“Time is of the essence here, stud,” I said. “You’ve got a whole set of files sitting on a desk back there about the women who have gone missing from this city in the last few months. And you’ve got a murder case you haven’t solved yet. If my missing girl is linked to the others, I’d like to know sooner rather than later.”
“Sorry, miss. I don’t have access—”
“Jones!”
The rookie jumped, squared his shoulders, and straightened the collar of his uniform as a tall woman with familiar features came around the corner. She patted the rookie on the back with a little too much force.
“Make yourself useful, Jones,” she ordered. “Get us some coffee. What do you like?” she added to me. “Latte? Or green tea? Jones, here, makes a decent matcha latte.”
Jones blushed deeply.
“Matcha sounds good.”
The woman smacked Jones’s shoulder. “Off you go then.” As Jones scurried off, the woman turned to me. “I know you. You were at the crime scene outside the Saint Angel a few nights ago.”
Her face clicked in my memory. “Kate, right?”
“Detective Kate Arnold.”
As she shook my hand, we sized each other up. In stature, she reminded me of Evelyn: tall, broad, and well-muscled. That was where the similarities ended. Kate had dark hair, brown eyes, and thick browns. She didn’t quite exude the same “don’t mess with me or I’ll punch you” vibe that Evelyn toted around most days.
“I overheard you talking to Jones,” Kate said. “You got a missing person?”
“Angelica Taylor,” I confirmed. “She disappeared the night after Megan Hollows died.”
Immediately, Kate drew her notepad out and began writing. “Got a time frame?”
“Between midnight and seven a.m.”
“What was she wearing?”
“No idea. Pajamas maybe? All the bridesmaids got matching silk robes that day.” I took out my phone and showed Kate a picture of Angelica from the spa day. Her vacant smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Pink. Embroidered with their names.”
Kate studied the picture. “Did you contact any of her friends or relatives?”
“I called her boyfriend. He said she never came home, and she doesn’t have any other family to go to.” I leaned on the front desk. “When I went to Angelica’s room, it was spotless, like someone went in and cleaned up a crime scene. Megan Hollows disappeared the same way. The hotel thought she’d wanted to ditch her bill, but she ended up dead in the alleyway outside. That can’t happen to Angelica.”
Kate regarded me with such deep intensity that I wondered if I had said something wrong or offensive. Then
