Thirty-One
THIRTY-ONE
Mia
THE NEAREST POLICE station was in Lafayette Square, a little more than a mile north of Soulard, across the interstate. This late at night, I’d expected it to be quiet. Instead, the lobby held more than a dozen people in various states of coherence and inebriation—all of them complaining loudly about having to wait, or not getting the help they needed, or not being taken seriously by the harried looking beta desk sergeant.
I cringed back as a wild-eyed, emaciated man with several missing teeth barged into my personal space.
“You! You can get her t’ listen t’ me!” he slurred, reaching a hand toward my face. His foul breath hit me like a toxic cloud.
Emiel grabbed him by the wrist before he could touch me, his grip like iron. “No,” he said simply, staring down at the man with what I’d come to think of as his ‘scary-blank’ expression—the dead-eyed one that promised very bad things to anyone who dared cross him.
Meanwhile, Zalen hooked an arm around my shoulders, tugging me against him. My jolt of adrenaline faded to a faint hangover of shakiness as I huddled inside his alpha aura.
“It’s all right,” he murmured. “We’ve got you.”
The crazy-eyed addict gibbered apologies, trying to jerk his wrist free of Emiel’s hold. Emiel let him go, watching him unblinkingly until the man scuttled back to the far side of the room. I focused on breathing, Zalen’s tropical musk going some way toward distracting me from the prevailing smell of stale urine, vomit, and industrial cleaners.
There was a line, of sorts, among the chaos, with two people in front of us. No one else bothered me, flanked by two alphas as I was. I tapped a foot nervously, my thumb running over and over the imperfection of the cracked screen on Nat’s phone, nestled in my jacket pocket.
It was probably only twenty minutes until we got to the front desk, with its protective glass and sour-faced occupant. It felt like two hours.
“Hello. Yes,” I said quickly. “We need to report three missing persons.”
Her jaded gaze flickered over us, the unhappy lines around the corners of her mouth deepening further. Was it because I was an omega with two alphas? A relatively light-skinned woman with two Black men? Both?
I didn’t have time to be angry about it.
“How long ago did they go missing?” she asked, sounding bored.
I hesitated, looking to Zalen.
“About three hours ago,” he said.
She let out a longsuffering sigh. “So, they’re not exactly missing , as such—now, are they? More like running late.”
I puffed up like an angry hedgehog, ready to lose my proverbial shit on this uncaring beta bitch. Emiel’s hand on my elbow stopped me.
Zalen’s spine was ramrod straight, but his voice was level and matter-of-fact as he said, “The old wives’ tale of needing to wait twenty-four hours before reporting someone missing is, as I’m sure you’re aware, just that—an old wives’ tale. Our two friends, along with this woman’s husband, disappeared from a prestigious restaurant opening in Soulard. I should add that she and her husband own the restaurant in question. You may have heard of it. The Elderflower Inn?”
The desk sergeant eyed him up and down, visibly unimpressed. “Can’t say that I have. As you say, you can file a report if you want to do that.”
I could practically hear the unspoken addendum. But it’s just going to sit on someone’s desk gathering dust for the next few days . Bitterly, I wondered if it would end up in the same stack as the police report about Joe releasing cockroaches in the dining room and bringing the health department down on us.
“My husband would not abandon our business on its most important night of the year!” I snapped, guilt niggling over the fact that I’d briefly believed exactly that. “And our... friends —” I stumbled a bit over the descriptor. “—wouldn’t get up to go to the restroom and then just disappear, ignoring calls and texts!” I fumbled in my pocket. “Here, I’ve got Nat’s—my husband’s—cell phone. An employee found it in the alley behind the restaurant with a cracked screen!”
She looked at the phone in its black case with limited interest. “Seems like he must have dropped it,” she said.
Boiling anger swelled inside me; a thousand times worse than when I’d thought Nat had bailed on our reopening a few hours ago. Emiel’s hand on my elbow gave a warning squeeze. He hadn’t said a word himself, and I wondered if it was because he didn’t trust himself to keep his cool. Let Zalen handle it , that squeeze said.
“I can see you’re very busy tonight,” Zalen began. “Short-staffed, as well, I’m guessing. However, we do want to make an official report.”
“Fine,” the woman said blandly. “You’ll have to wait for someone in the back to go over the paperwork with you. Take a seat.”
I stared at her, and then at the lobby full of drunks and addicts. “Take a seat where ?” I asked, and only received a shrug in reply.
In the end, Emiel glared at a pair of men who were taking up way more space than they needed to on the single, unpadded wooden bench seat that ran along one wall. I sat on it, staring into nothing as he and Zalen flanked me like bodyguards, holding the chaos at bay.
According to the clock hanging over the desk, I sat there for an hour and twenty-four minutes, my ass slowly going numb and my head pounding out a throbbing beat of pain. Eventually, a uniformed officer ushered us through a door and took our statements, writing everything down. He seemed a bit less inured to our worry and fear than the desk sergeant had been, but the hint of pity lurking behind his hazel eyes wasn’t reassuring.
“Don’t you want my husband’s phone?” I asked as he started gathering up the completed paperwork. “For evidence, I mean?”
“No, you’d better hang onto it,” he said. “I hate to be blunt, but it’s going to be a while before anyone digs into this case. And the vast majority of ‘missing persons’ show up on their own in twelve hours or less. If he does, he’ll want his phone.” His brows drew together. “You have checked back at your house, right?”
“We’re separated,” I said faintly. “It’s not my house.”
“Well, you should go check there before you panic—all right, ma’am?” The man lifted the pile of papers and tapped it on his desk, neatening it. “I’ll get this sent off to the appropriate team, and they’ll contact you if they need more information.”
Without knowing exactly how it had happened, I found myself on the sidewalk outside with Emiel and Zalen, staring at the tall, narrow front of the brick building.
“It’s not the worst idea to look in at both houses, and maybe the Hope Project as well,” Zalen said, checking his phone for any replies from the others.
“Byron and Nat both left their vehicles near the restaurant,” I said, though of course Zalen already knew that. We’d also made it quite clear in the police report, for all the good it had done.
“I know,” Zalen said. “But it’s something. Are you okay to check Nat’s place on your own, Mia? Emiel, you can check at the house, and I’ll check the Project. We can meet back in Ladue.”
“Yes, okay,” I said faintly, hoping against hope that we’d somehow completely misinterpreted what had happened.
It was a vain hope, as the dark, empty house in Jennings proved. The place was locked up tight. I let myself in and turned on the lights, locking the door again behind me.
“Nat?” I called... but of course, Nat wasn’t here.
Acting on some nebulous idea of looking around to see if anything seemed out of the ordinary, I did a complete walkthrough of the modest space. Everything looked normal. All my energy seemed to flee at once—the brutally long and stressful day finally catching up with me. I flopped down on the living room couch, staring up at the ceiling without seeing it.
After a few minutes, I dug out Nat’s phone again. It was an invasion of his privacy and I knew it, but I woke it up anyway. A bloom of ugly dark purple pixels marred one corner under the crack in the screen, but it was still usable. The lockscreen was a photo of the two of us from years ago, when we’d first been dating. I remembered the day—a visit to Forest Park where we’d strolled through the art museum and visited the big cats at the zoo. I was wearing sunglasses, holding up a frozen Coke like it was a toast. Nat looked tanned and happy, his gaze fixed solidly on me as though nothing else around him mattered.
I swallowed hard.
The phone was locked with a biometric fingerprint, but when I swiped up, the prompt appeared for a four-digit PIN. I tried the first four digits of his birthday. Then the first four digits of mine. When that didn’t work, I paused for a minute, then entered the street number of the Elderflower Inn. Immediately, the home screen popped up.
I wasn’t sure what I was even looking for. I pulled up his email, but everything on the first two pages was restaurant and reopening related. Vendors, Quickbooks notifications, payroll, tax payment receipts, and so on. I scrolled through his contacts next, still not knowing what I expected to find.
Emiel and Zalen were both in there. I wasn’t sure why the knowledge gave me a warm feeling, but it did. I was surprised to see Byron’s name as well. I guess it made as much sense as Emiel being there... but I hadn’t gotten the impression that Nat and Byron liked each other all that much.
Curiosity won over the last remnants of my scruples, and I pulled up Nat’s text chain to Byron.
Hey , read the most recent . It’s been a while. I really need a hookup tonight. You free? Super 7 on Broadway, like before?
I blinked. The date was... holy crap . The date was right around my last heat. The one I hadn’t wanted. The one I’d spent with Zalen and Byron.
Struggling to make sense of the text, I scrolled back to see the earlier ones. Two other appointments to meet at a motel. A very familiar motel.
And that was all.
‘You found yourself a house full of rich alphas who absolutely dote on you. I met a stranger in a hotel room three times, and I’ve spent pretty much every spare moment since then reevaluating my life choices, now that it’s too late to do anything about them,’ Nat had told me, when we’d been talking about our relationship.
Three times. At the Super 7 on Broadway. With Byron.
The damaged phone slipped from my fingers, bouncing on the shag carpet at my feet.