Page 86 of Now Until Forever
“She was there. That’s how.”
“No. I mean, how do they have her gait to match?”
Tony shrugged. “Social media. Or a video provided by Carlos and his dad. Either way, they compared it with footage from the morgue, and it matched. It was Luci in that room with those people.”
Eliana shook her head. “No. There’s no way she’s cooperating in something like that. She’s not some crazy, true believer type. She lives by her own code.”
“Maybe you don’t know her as well as you thought you did.”
Eliana flipped up her hood and shoved the door open. Right now, she didn’t want to have a conversation with him about how much she did or didn’t know Luci. What she knew of Carlos’s sister convinced her that Luci would never do this. That meant someone had scrambled her mind so much that she believed and went along with it.
Cognitive reprogramming. Brainwashing. Or some kind of pharmaceutical substance that altered her mind. Maybe even Elysium with the app—or a version of it—and it was all suggestion. It made her sick to her stomach to think that Luci was being manipulated in that way.
Eliana strode right to the punch cards and scanned for Carolena’s. She found it tucked in, down at the corner. The timer had been stamped a couple of days ago, when Carolena had come in for work. “She never clocked out. And she hasn’t been here since.”
“What’s that?”
Eliana turned and shoved the card at Tony. “Carolena!”
He shot her a look. “Why didn’t you tell the driver to go by her place so you could see if she’s there? Maybe she got sick.”
“She isn’t answering the phone. She hasn’t been here.” If her friend was sick, she would’ve called in. “She’s missing.” Eliana didn’t like the fact she’d been so caught up in other things that she’d forgotten to check on her friend, aside from just calling her and hoping she’d answer.
“Sylvia looped in the cops yesterday. The two detectives investigating Splitfield’s death, and the Dreamer from your building, went to Carolena’s house this morning. They’re on their way here with an update.”
Eliana sucked in a breath. They’d interviewed her before…and now they were on their way here?
“Don’t worry about it, Eliana. We’ll figure out what happened to her.” Tony sounded earnest and genuinely concerned, though only because he knew her mother and owed her family enough that he was prepared to protect her.
He wasn’t the only one in this with an ulterior motive.
Eliana’s stomach clenched. “Detectives Wallace and Maloney are on their way here?”
He nodded. “They should be here pretty soon. If they’d found something at Carolena’s house, though, then they would’ve stayed. So she isn’t there.”
Eliana pulled out her phone and texted Carlos because he’d told her to let him know if she would be seeing Maloney—but not why on earth he needed to know that. “I want to talk to Sylvia. Find out what the Board has learned looking for Luci.”
“We can do that.” His phone beeped. “Come on. The detectives are in the briefing room.”
She wanted to drag her feet. Maybe she shouldn’t be talking to them at all. But if she did, it was possible she could learn information from Maloney about…whatever the connection was that the FBI had found between her and whatever was going on.
Could Eliana get them to provide her with information she shouldn’t know?
Detective Maloney stood by the window in the briefing room, staring at the low clouds and the pouring rain hammering the window. Today she wore a black suit and a blood-red shirt.
Wallace had a smudge of something on his tie. “Morning.” He nodded.
Tony crossed the room and shook his hand. “Good to see you.”
Eliana pulled off her coat and put it on the back of a chair to dry. Even though she hadn’t been outside in the rain for more than a minute, she was still soaked. Without the wig, which she hadn’t worn since the vault, she shouldn’t meet with any guestsor visitors—or even volunteers. Or she should just give up the wig thing and accept the inevitable fact that everyone in Chicago would know who she was. And bank on the fact that most people didn’t care.
Problem was, the few people who did care.
Focus.
Eliana didn’t want to act suspicious in her greetings, so she jumped right in. “Have you found Carolena? I’m not sure anyone has done a search of every room in the building.” She glanced at Tony, because she didn’t want to do it alone and she wasn’t in charge.
As much as she’d like to find her friend, the idea of discovering her in the same condition as Splitfield made her want to throw up.
