“Yeah, one other girl is presumed dead by the police. We don’t know her name. Her parents wanted to keep it out of the papers.”
Fiona flinched a little, her eyebrows furrowing together. “That’s a little suspicious, don’t you think?”
“What do you mean?” Gage asked.
“Well, if you were a parent, wouldn’t you stop at nothing to find your daughter? Maybe if they released her name, somebody who knew her, who knew that a creepy guy was hanging around her, would help them lead us to the killer. It’s just fishy, that’s all,” Fiona said in a rush, pausing to breathe for a second before speaking again. “I think we need to start coming up with a suspect list. People to check out, people to keep watch on. We need to figure out who the missing girl is and look into her father. And Mr. Greenwood, too.”
“Mr. Greenwood?” Gage asked, wanting to spur her thoughts to keep her analysis going. This was the side of Fiona that he needed for work, the side that looked at a situation from an entirely different angle than Gage. She was able to see things that he couldn’t, feel things that were beyond him. She was smarter than him, really. That’s what it came down to. He needed her mind.
“Tori mentioned having fights with him in a few entries,” she explained, having apparently skimmed several diary entries that she hadn’t read thoroughly. “It’s probably nothing, but we’ve got to look into it. I see stuff like this all the time nowadays. There’s a lot of domestic violence out there.”
Gage nodded, even though, personally, he didn’t feel like there was anything suspicious about Mr. Greenwood. Why would he come to a P.I. about his daughter if he was responsible for her death? She’s not dead yet, he corrected himself internally. There’s still hope. We can still find her.
Gage and Fiona got off at the stop nearest the clubhouse, and he began leading the way, even though Fiona probably remembered the path from the train stop. “We’ll get my guy, Jack, on this right away,” he said reassuringly. “We’ll be able to see if Tori was complaining a lot to her friends about her dad, too. We should be able to tell if there was any violence in the house.”
“You can read people’s text messages?” Fiona asked.
“Uh, well, Jack can,” Gage said, keeping his voice low so that bystanders couldn’t hear him.
But Fiona’s voice only got louder as her disbelief grew. “Is he in the fucking FBI or something?”
Damn, she’s smart, Gage thought, and he didn’t know why he felt surprised. She was never slow to pick up on things he tried to hide. “I can’t answer that,” he said with a laugh, looking over his shoulder to smile at Fiona, who returned his grin for the briefest second before it faded away. Gage savored that smile, locked it up in his brain so he could look back on it later.
“Here we are,” Fiona said under her breath as they approached the clubhouse. Gage walked up to the back entrance, knocking on the door three times in quick succession.
“Yo, it’s Gage, open up!” he shouted, knocking a few more times until the door finally swung open.
“Hold your damn horses, Gage, damn,” a woman said, scowling down at him until her eyes flicked over to Fiona, confusion playing over the woman’s face for a second before it was replaced by recognition. “Fiona, hey, girl, what are you doing here?” She shouted, quickly jumping out of the clubhouse and colliding into Fiona, smashing her into a hug. Gage saw Fiona’s expression change from fear to resignation as she slowly returned the hug, patting the woman on her back slowly.
“Hey, Gwen,” Fiona said, apparently remembering the woman’s name, even though, as far as Gage could remember, they’d only spoken a few times in the past, well over a year ago.
“Where have you been, girl? We’ve been missing you so much,” Gwen said, still clasping Fiona to her body as if they were best friends. “Come on, let’s get a drink, huh?”
Gage was tempted to make a comment about Fiona having already had enough to drink tonight, but he bit his tongue. He didn’t want to embarrass Fiona in front of the MC crew. Throughout their relationship, Fiona mostly avoided coming to the clubhouse. They never really discussed it, but Gage got the sense that she was uncomfortable hanging around the MC. Maybe she didn’t trust them or thought they were criminals. But to be fair, Fiona didn’t like most people. She kept a very small social circle, only trusting a handful of people at a time.
Gwen ushered them inside the clubhouse, and only a few seconds passed before several members noticed them, slamming their drinks down and yelling at Fiona to come over. Gage had to suppress a grin; no matter how standoffish Fiona was, the club always accepted her, always wanted her to be a part of the family.