Page 9 of Mending Fate

I glared at him. “Aye, Keli knew that Lumen and I had been seeing each other, but that’s no longer an issue.”

Both brothers gave me nearly identical expectant looks.

“It has nothing to do with finding Evanne, and that’s what’s important,” I reminded them.

“Aye, all right.” Brody held up a hand. “What did you learn, Eoin?”

“Evanne didn’t mention anything about going anywhere with her mother, and from what Lumen said about how much Evanne shares with her, that most likely means Keli didn’t plan this.”

Hope had my heart rate leaping. “That’s good, right?”

“I think so,” Eoin agreed. “That means she most likely didn’t have passports and plane tickets already purchased. No money stashed or go bags.”

My brother’s logic eased some of my tension. “Which means she’s still in the US.”

“Not a small bit of ground to search,” Brody said, “but a far sight better than trying to find her in other countries.”

“We need to know what resources she has available.” Eoin leaned forward and grabbed a pen and paper. “Alec, you’re going to look into that since you have access to financial records, that sort of thing. Talk to your accountant, your money manager, whoever’s involved with the money you give to Keli and Evanne. Find out if they know about other accounts Keli might have, other sources of income. Debt. Credit cards. Cash. Jewelry. Anything she could use to fund this.”

I nodded, impressed with Eoin’s handling of the situation. When he’d said he’d come to help, I hadn’t expected this level of professionalism.

“Brody, you’re going to handle the social media aspect of things. Any accounts Keli or Evanne have, get into them. Go through Keli’s friends and followers. See if she contacted anyone before she ran. Make a list of people who seemed like they’d be willing to hide Keli if she needed it. Focus on men who might be trying to get in good with Keli and on women who came from situations where they wanted or did escape from ex-boyfriends and ex-husbands.”

Judging by the surprise on Brody’s face, he hadn’t been expecting this from Eoin either. I had no doubt that Brody was also thinking that perhaps what had happened to Eoin wouldn’t send him spiraling back down to where he’d been before he’d enlisted.

“I’m going to check out transportation. Airports, rental places, train stations, bus depots. I’ll need some pictures of both Keli and Evanne to show around. If you have a family picture of me and Evanne, even if it’s a group one, that’ll help too. Prove I’m not some pervert searching for a little girl and just claiming to be her uncle.”

“I have plenty of pictures on my phone and laptop.” I started tapping at the keyboard. “I’ll get several printed up.”

“Good.” Eoin leaned forward, his expression earnest. “Don’t worry. We’re going to find them, and Evanne will be fine.”

For the first time since I’d realized Evanne was missing, I truly believed that things would be okay. We could do this. We could find Evanne and bring her home.

Six

Lumen

I made it.

The last hour had been pushing it, my nerves stretched to the breaking point, my head pounding. Between the kids asking where Evanne was and Eoin’s visit, my missing student had been on my mind, but so had Soleil since my check-in with Brie had resulted in learning absolutely nothing new.

What that meant was that, when I was thinking about one of them, I was feeling guilty about not thinking about the other. And when my attention was on my students, I felt like I should be worrying about one or the other…

Needless to say, by the time I stepped out into yet another dreary day, my head felt like it was going to explode. All I wanted to do was go home, take a long hot bath, and curl up in bed with a book.

But there were two missing girls, and I had to find at least one of them. I wouldn’t be able to sleep or relax or do anything but worry and feel sick until they were both safe and sound. Alec probably had half the state looking for Evanne. I would work on Soleil.

I called Josalyn while I rode the bus to the group home.

“Any news?” I asked.

“Not yet,” she said with a sigh. “But I was able to file a missing person report finally. I don’t know how much good it’ll do, but it’s there, at least.”

I didn’t need to ask why she thought filing a police report wouldn’t help much. No matter how much the authorities wanted to be able to follow every lead on every missing person report, they just didn’t have the manpower to do it. Unfortunately, a fourteen-year-old foster kid fell into the ‘most likely a runaway’ category, which meant it would be a lower priority than, say, a missing person with evidence of foul play.

“And no one’s heard from her?”

“Not that I know of.”