Chapter 52
MAEVE
I sat the desk in my room and stared at the notes I’d made on my computer, but I wasn’t really seeing the words.
Something wasn’t right.
It had been four days since we’d called in to Ethan’s show — since Bram had called in to Ethan’s show — and we were still debating what to do next.
Maybe we can take a few runs together…
Either Ethan had let it slip that he was somewhere there was skiing or he just wanted us to think that’s where he was.
Bram wanted to leave for St. Moritz now. He was out for blood, tired of chasing Ethan around the globe only to see Ethan slip away again.
No one understood that feeling more than me.
Remy and Poe voted for waiting to see if Aloha could get more out of the phone or if some new tip would arise that would give us more confidence we had Ethan’s location right.
I vacillated between the two options, torn between wanting to do something — anything — and not wanting to burn time running off to Switzerland when we couldn’t be sure Ethan was there.
I looked at the cities Aloha had given us from the phone, cities where Ethan Todd was known to have stayed for long periods in the past: Prague, St. Moritz, London, Paris, St. Kitts.
St. Moritz was the only place that had skiing.
My phone rang and Olivia’s face lit up the display.
“Hey!” I said. Olivia usually texted.
“Hey!” I could tell she was excited right from the start. “Guess what happened to me today?”
“What?” I admit it: I was only half paying attention.
Prague, St. Moritz, London, Paris, St. Kitts.
“I was at the mall in Greenvale with Madison?”
“Yeah…”
“And we were just, like, walking around and stuff and then this guy came to me and said he was a scout for a modeling agency in the city and he thought I should come in for a test! Can you believe that?!”
I sat up straighter, all my attention now on Olivia.
“Wow… that’s crazy. I mean, it’s not because you’re not beautiful, but it’s kind of weird in a mall, isn’t it?”
“Not really,” she sounded offended. “He was there for an advertising campaign. He gave me a card and everything!”
“What’s the name of the agency?” I asked.
“Oh my god, Maeve, I should have known you’d be weird about it.”
“I’m just looking out for you. There are a lot of creeps in the world. You know June would say the same thing if she was still here.” It still hurt to talk about June, but it was getting easier, and I’d promise Olivia — and myself — that I wouldn’t avoid doing it anymore.
She sighed. “Hang on. I’ll take a picture of the card.”
I heard her fumbling with her phone, then heard the ding of the text come through.
“Happy, Mom?” Olivia joked.
“Very,” I said. “Just promise you won’t call until I check it out.”
“I promise.”
“Thanks for calling me,” I said. “Regardless of whether this guys is legit, it’s exciting, and if you’re interested in modeling you should ask mom to look into agents or something.”
After a year and half in the manosphere, there was nothing I wanted less than to be on display where a bunch of men could ogle my body.
But Olivia’s life was her own, and I was happy she hadn’t been tainted by Ethan Todd’s view of the world. She was fifteen, and she’d already had so much taken from her.
She deserved to be excited about something.
“Thanks,” she said. “Maybe I will.”
“I’ll look into this and get back to you,” I said.
“K, love you!”
“Love you too.”
I hung up the phone and pulled up the picture on my phone. The business card looked innocent enough: the words Premier Modeling International emblazoned in gold over an address in the city.
A man’s name — Dan Dethot — was typed in the same gold script over the words International Talent Scout.
I looked him up first, but nothing came up, so I turned my attention to the modeling agency itself. There was a generic listing online for an agency with the same address in Manhattan, but I was way past the point of taking anything at face value.
I started backtracking through the companies ownership, and it didn’t take long for the red flags to appear.
The company was owned by another company called Capital Holdings. And that company was owned by another company called Pacific International.
I looked at the card again and pulled out a pen from the top drawer of the desk, then wrote the name Dan Dethot.
It was a weird name.
Dan Dethot…
I rearranged the letters.
Tate Donah.
Nate Doth… no, that didn’t work. There was an extra D.
Then I saw it.
I wrote out the name, crossing out the letters from Dan Dethot until I’d used them all to spell Ethan Todd.
And then it all made sense.
I jumped up from my chair and tore through the house looking for the Butchers.