Page 51 of Unbound

“You gonna tell me what the hell that was about?” Antonio asks once we’re a block away.

“It’s one of the names in the notebook.” I realize I started in the middle of my explanation. “Eudora Claire Bellamy,” I backtrack. “Marie told me the Bellamy family hunted demons alongside the Blackwoods. That can’t be a coincidence. Her name is in that notebook.”

“If the Bellamys trapped demons the way the Blackwoods did,” Leo says slowly, thinking out loud, “then theoretically there could still be demons locked in Bellamy prisons.”

“Exactly.” I pull out my phone. “I need to talk to Marie. She made it sound like she knew who Eudora was.”

“Call her,” Antonio says, like it’s that simple.

“I texted her and she hasn’t replied.” I’m painfully aware that I sound like a teenage girl refusing to double-text her crush. I just really don’t want Marie to dislike me. I’m desperate for that witch connection. Which, yes, definitely makes me sound like a thirteen-year-old girl obsessing over whether her crush likes her back. I open the photos on my phone and look down at the reports as we walk.

“She’s seventeen,” I read aloud. “Claire is her middle name and what she goes by.” I keep reading. Then stop. “Wait. No way.” “What?” Leo asks. “She ran away from a group home just a couple weeks ago.”

“So she’s alive?” he asks.

“I mean, she hasn’t been found dead.” I scan the report more carefully.

“The article I found online was old, but it looks like the general information was accurate. Claire has a history of running away. She’s tried multiple times to get back to family on the East Coast.” I swipe to the incident report, which gives a much more detailed look at what was happening before her disappearance.

“There’s a report written by a local cop.” I’m so focused on reading that I walk directly into Antonio. I put one hand on his shoulder and use him as a guide so I can keep reading without worrying about where I’m going.

“Okay…” I skim the report and paraphrase as I go. “It says that about two weeks before her most recent escape, she started acting strangely. She seemed agitated and complained about headaches.”

I scroll. “Several days before she disappeared, she claimed she was hearing voices, but she has no prior history of mental illness.” My pace slows. “The staff said she became desperate to find her family because she believed they could help her.” I keep reading. Then stop entirely. “The security cameras malfunctioned at the exact time she escaped.”

“Sure they did,” Antonio says. All three of us look at one another. Something is definitely wrong here. And I can’t ignore it.

“You’re gonna hate me for suggesting this,” Leo says once we get into the car.

I already know what he’s going to say.

“Text Ryder.”

Yep.

Exactly what I expected.

“He still has all his Order credentials. He can run a search on her.”

“No,” Antonio says as he gets into the driver’s seat and starts the car, blasting the a/c. “If the Order has anything to do with this, they could have her name flagged. We’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way.”

“You’re encouraging me to hack into a secure network?” Leo asks with fake disgust. He’s actually annoyingly good at that kind of thing. “You know, it’s been several years since I’ve been on the FBI watchlist.” He’s only half joking.

“It doesn’t look like she has a criminal record,” I say, reading through the rest of the reports. “She just runs away, gets caught, and ends up back at the group home.” I frown. “What I don’t understand is, if she’s a Bellamy, why is she living in a group home like an orphan?”

“Call Marie,” Antonio repeats.

Almost as if he summoned her psychically, my phone rings.

Marie. “Give me a million dollars,” Antonio says, holding out his hand. Nothing happens. “Damn.” He points toward my phone. “Answer it.”

I pick up. “Hey, Marie. Funny, I was just about to call you.”

“My intuition is back on,” she replies. “I did a little more digging into Eudora Bellamy.” Something in her tone makes me straighten. “I heard some crazy rumors, and I know better than to gossip, but this one got me.”

“What kind of rumors?”

“You said Eudora was kidnapped by the Order.”