Page 59 of Reaper and Ruin

I followed her up the path, X to my left, Whip on my right.

X sniggered. “Wouldn’t it be funny if the reason neither of them are answering their phones is because they’re naked, tangled up in a sex swing, and that’s what we’re about to walk in on?”

“Funny for who?” I asked. “I really don’t want to see my new boss’s balls.”

X waved his hand at me. “Yeah, yeah. We all know you only want to see Whip’s. You’re a one testicle kinda dude.”

“That sounds likeIonly have one testicle.” I didn’t know why I was engaging.

“Want Whip to check for you?”

“Vi,” I asked. “Would Francine notice if you borrowed about twenty bottles of bleach?” Then I turned to Whip. “Think that’ll be enough to drown him in?”

Whip’s lips turned up slightly, but we’d reached Nyah’s front door, and all three of us fell silent as Violet wasted no time in rapping her knuckles across the scratched wood.

There was no sound from inside.

X stepped up to the windows. “Dibs on first peeps. If there is a sex show going on inside, you all wait in line behind me.” He cupped his hands around his eyes to shield them from the late afternoon glare and peered through the glass. “Damn! Nothing but empty house. How dull. I want a refund.”

Violet knocked again, harder this time, her phone to her ear once more, but again, no answer to either the door or her call. She glanced back at me. “Can you pick the lock?”

I eyed it and then nodded. “Easily. But do you really want me to? Bit of an invasion of privacy?”

She stepped back. “You’re right. I’m overreacting. But I just don’t think she’d go AWOL like this. I’m really worried she might be seriously unwell in there. What if she’s passed out or something?”

I was forever a bit of a pessimist. It was hard not to be when you’d been raised in a town where nothing much good ever seemed to happen. Worry niggled in the back of my mind too. She was a single female living in a shitty neighborhood with even shittier security. That lock was flimsy at best. One swift kick would have it flying open, even if I hadn’t been able to pick a lock.

I still had the tools in my pocket from the warehouse though, and there was no point in breaking her door when I didn’t have to. I had the lock open in less than a minute, and the four of us edged inside.

“Nyah?” Violet crept down the hallway, presumably to where the bedroom was.

X followed closed behind, like her second skin.

Both came back quickly.

“There’s nobody here,” Violet told me and Whip.

I reached out and rubbed her arm. “Like we said, she’s probably with Dax, having a sex marathon.”

“Ah, no,” a voice said from the doorway.

We all turned in that direction, taking in Dax standing there, staring at all of us. “Is she not here? She was supposed to meet me after work, but when she didn’t show I called Francine, who said she hadn’t come in at all.”

Worry prickled at the back of my neck. “Who else does she know in town? Friends? Family?”

Dax and Violet both shook their heads.

Violet’s voice wobbled when she answered. “She moved here to get away from her family. She didn’t want to be found. What if…?”

I put an arm around her shoulder. “No need to go there. There’s no sign of her purse or phone or keys. She might just be out shopping or maybe she went for a hike and she’ll be back soon.”

Dax nodded. “True.”

A little of Violet’s panic ebbed away. “If her family had busted in here in the middle of the night there would have been a broken door, right? And they wouldn’t have let her take her phone and keys and purse. Right?”

But my gut churned with the thought of another option. One I didn’t want to voice out loud, because if it were true, it woulddevastate both of them. “Right,” I agreed instead. “We just need to give it some time. There’s a reason the cops wait twenty-four hours before filing a missing person’s report. It’s because people, at least adults, almost always come back within that time.”

But the words sounded weak in my ears. “Why don’t Whip, X, and I go out for a drive around and see if we can find her. The two of you wait here in case she comes back.”