Once Elissa actually got inside the club at around eight thirty, I switched to the interior footage so I could track her movements. Instead of heading out onto the dance floor or over to the bar, she hugged the wall, keeping to the fringes of the crowd, her head moving back and forth. She was obviously searching for someone. But who? Maybe Silvio was wrong, and she had a guy on the sly, someone other than her official boyfriend.
I followed her through the footage. Elissa glanced down at her phone, then back out into the crowd. She started to move closer to the dance floor, but something caught her attention, and she turned toward the elemental Ice bar instead. She stopped short, her entire body stiff with shock, her mouth wide open in a silent O of surprise. She stayed like that for several seconds before a passing waiter bumped into her, jostling her out of her daze. Her face crumpled, her shoulders sagged, and she whirled around and started pushing her way back out of the club.
I stopped the footage and called up another angle, trying to see what had upset her. It took me a few minutes, but I realized that Elissa was staring at a guy and a girl at the end of the bar. On the footage, the two clinked their beers together before downing their drinks. Then the guy pulled the girl over onto his lap, and the two of them started doing things that were better left unseen. I zoomed in on the amorous couple, took a photo of their faces with my phone, and texted it to Silvio: Who are these people?
My trusty assistant texted me back less than a minute later. Guy is definitely Anthony Fenton, Elissa’s boyfriend. Girl looks like Rose Sears, one of Elissa’s friends.
And just like that, everything made sense. Maybe Elissa had suspected that Anthony was cheating on her. Maybe another friend had seen Anthony and Rose at the club and had tipped her off. Maybe she’d even put a tracking app on his phone, like Silvio had on mine. Either way, Elissa had found out that Anthony was at Northern Aggression last night, and she’d come here to see what he was up to—which was basically screwing another girl in plain sight.
And just to twist the knife in a little deeper, it hadn’t been some random girl but one of Elissa’s friends, someone who knew exactly how much Elissa liked Anthony. No wonder Elissa had rushed outside. I wouldn’t have wanted to stick around for that kind of betrayal either.
I put my phone aside and went back to the security footage. Elissa hurried out of the club, stumbled into the closest parking lot, and leaned up against the side of the first car she came to. Given the way her head was bowed and her shoulders were shaking, I could tell that she was crying her eyes out, something that she did for a good ten minutes. Lots of people walked by her, heading to and from the club, but a crying girl wasn’t an uncommon sight at Northern Aggression, and no one stopped to ask her what was wrong or offer any kind of help.
Finally, Elissa straightened up, wiped off her face, and made a call, probably for another cab. Then she started pacing back and forth in the parking lot, blowing her nose and wiping away a few more tears while she waited. Eventually, though, something caught her attention, something that made her stop pacing. She looked over to her right and stood there for several seconds, frowning.
And then Elissa slowly started walking in that direction. A minute later, she disappeared around the far corner of the club, as though she was going around to the back of the building.
And she never returned.
I watched the rest of the security footage, both inside and outside the club, but the minutes turned into an hour, then two, then three, and Elissa never reappeared. So I went back and called up some different angles, but the cameras only covered so much space, and I couldn’t see what might have caught her eye.
I double-checked all the footage and angles, with the same result. Elissa had just vanished into thin air, and no one had seen her since.
Not good. Not good at all.
I leaned back in the chair, drumming my fingers on Roslyn’s desk. Three things could have happened to Elissa.
One: a cab could have shown up and taken her somewhere else.
Two: she could have found someone willing to give her a ride to her next destination, wherever that might have been.
Three: she could have been kidnapped right here at Northern Aggression, conveniently out of view of any of the security cameras.
Since Elissa hadn’t come home and hadn’t responded to any of her sister’s frantic texts or calls, I was betting on option number three. And if that was the case, then I had no idea how I was going to find her. Hundreds of people, cars, and cabs came and went every single night at Northern Aggression. Sure, some people might dimly remember seeing Elissa crying in the parking lot, but once folks’ money ran out and their party was over, they were focused on getting to their cars and going home—not what anyone else around them was doing.
Either way, Elissa was still gone and most likely in serious, serious trouble.
If she wasn’t already dead.
I hated jumping to that scenario again, but I was an assassin, and I’d seen plenty of the worst of human nature up close and personal—including my own.
But I’d promised Jade that I would do everything I could, so I rewound all the security footage and watched it for a third time, focusing on everyone close to Elissa. So many people were crammed into the club that it was hard to keep track of everyone, much less pick out anyone who might have wanted to hurt her. No one paid her any special attention, and no one followed her outside. The most obvious suspect was Anthony, the sleazeball cheating boyfriend, but he’d been so busy macking on Rose that he’d never even realized that Elissa was here and watching the two of them break her heart.
I drummed my fingers on the desk again, thinking about the surrounding area. Parking lots flanked Northern Aggression, and the nearest businesses were several hundred yards away. Those businesses’ security cameras would be aimed at their own properties, not farther down the street at the club. It was probably a dead end, but I grabbed my phone and texted Silvio anyway. He texted back a few minutes later, saying that he would look into getting all the security footage from the surrounding businesses. I thanked him and emailed copies of the Northern Aggression footage to myself, Silvio, Finn, and Bria, just in case they might see something that I’d missed.
Once I’d finished, I left Roslyn’s office, strode down the hallways, and slipped out the club’s rear exit. There was one more thing I wanted to check.
The back door opened into another paved lot, although no one parked back here, not even the staff, since the asphalt was so cracked and pitted with potholes. Dumpsters and trash cans overflowing with cigarette butts, used cocktail napkins, and empty liquor bottles ringed the area, forming a haphazard maze of rusted metal and rotten garbage. Shards of glass glinted like diamonds against the broken blacktop, and the stench of sour spilled beer permeated the air. A few lights glowed at the corners of the building, but they did little to drive back the darkness. Even the loud, continually pulsing music faded to a faint hush back here, and the relative quiet was somewhat shocking after the constant noise inside the club.