“I’m new, Mr. Asher. I don’t know your men. He had a security badge. Ray sent him up. He came up from downstairs.”
“You said you left around midnight, so why were you called back?”
“He said his wife needed him and could I fill in his shift. I said OK.”
Ray comes down the hallway, breathless from running up three flights of stairs. “She got a text, Vaughn. Two, last night.”
“Who from?”
He throws up his hands. “Unknown number. The first one told her to come up on the roof.”
A shooting pain runs across my shoulders as I tense up.
“She must’ve hesitated, because she didn’t text back. So the next message asked if she was coming. That’s it. That’s all there was.”
“What time?”
“Twelve twenty-five.”
I push past them and run down the hallway. I exit the apartment and take the stars up to the roof three at a time. The door is not even closed all the way.
“Fuck. You didn’t secure the roof? The buildings next door are all connected. This is a huge fail!” I look at Ray like he’s an incompetent asshole and he goes still.
“Boss, look—”
“She’s been fucking kidnapped! That freak came and got her. Took her right out of her apartment and you assholes never even saw him!”
“Vaughn,” Ray says, his hands up, palms out, like he’s warding me off. “We have cameras in all the hallways like you requested. We can look at the footage—”
“Then go look at it, Ray! For fuck’s sake! She’s been missing all goddamned night! Go check the fucking footage!”
“You think the guard was the kidnapper?” Bigmy asks.
I watch Ray as he disappears down the stairs and then turn back to Bigmy. “Do you?”
“We should call the police.”
A ping distracts me from any thoughts of the police. It’s coming from Grace’s desktop. I walk over to her desk and stare at the screen.
“Twitter,” Bigmy says.
“Yes, thank you. I can see it’s Twitter.” But the part I’m having trouble with is that Grace just posted an update.
Grace @FilthyBlueBird
#TimeToDelete. I’m over it. Have a nice life, bitches.
I take out my phone and press Grace’s number. Is it possible she just left? She walked out on me? She walked away from her whole life?
No.
No, she’d never do that.
Except she already did once. She got herself a new identity and walked into the sunset, leaving behind everything she ever knew.
I bend over the desktop and grab the mouse, then click refresh on her profile page.
Sorry, that page doesn’t exist!
She did it. She deleted her account.
My phone buzzes in my hand. I press accept and put it to my ear. “Yeah.”
“We got the footage. She leaves her apartment at twelve thirty-five and never comes back.”
“How the fuck does that happen, Ray?”
“Vaughn, I was here for eighteen hours yesterday. I have to sleep sometimes. This guy on camera, he’s legit. He’s my guy.”
“So where is he? Bring him in. I want to talk to him.”
“I already called him. He’s on his way.”
“Good. You let me know where he gets here.”
“Should I call the police? Or should we wait and see?”
I scrub a hand down my face as I try to work through the consequences. “Yeah. Call them. Tell them Grace has been kidnapped and we need to bring in the FBI.” I end the call and look back at Bigmy. “Do you think she just deleted that account?”
“Well… you did piss her off. She was pretty hot last night when she kicked you out.”
“It almost doesn’t matter, does it? I mean, we can call in the police and FBI all we want, but the truth is, that last Twitter message is the only thing they’re gonna care about. Couple that with the fact that she’s already pulled a disappearing act when her life spun out of control, and I already know where this is going.”
“What do you want to do, Asher?”
God, that hurts too. No one calls me Asher but Grace. I find a contact in my phone and press send. Three rings later and the call is picked up. “Conner. She’s gone.”
“What?” He sounds asleep.
“Grace. She’s been taken again.”
“Vaughn, fuck. How do you know?”
“She’s missing and she got a text last night to go up on the roof. She never came back. And… and she just deleted her Twitter account. She’s being erased. That sick freak is erasing her as I stand here. I need you to check all her accounts. Her bank, her credit cards, her Starbucks. All of it.”
“Yeah, sure, V. I’m on it. I’ll call you back as soon as I know anything.”
I thank him and end the call and then immediately place another one. This time I get Grace’s voicemail.
“You’ve reached Daisy Bryndle.”
I put it on speaker.
“I’m deleting this number and moving on. I can’t live in the public eye. I need my privacy. Thank you and goodbye.”
“That’s wrong.”
“What?” Bigmy asks.
“She would never call herself Daisy Bryndle.”
He huffs out a long gust of air. “We need to call the police, Asher. And the FBI. Every minute that passes, she gets farther away.”