Page 86 of Silver Fire

Gray eyes flashed furiously at him. “I will not listen to your absurd theories. How dare you accuse Polly of being involved with scum like Justin!”

“What is going on here?” Stephen asked, standing by the doorway.

“Do you have Polly’s number? Can you call her?”

“I’ve been calling her all day,” Stephen said quietly.

Sophie glanced at Derek who was watching her carefully. Her nostrils flared. “No. There has to be an explanation. Something must have happened to her.”

“Sophie—” Derek tried to pull her in his arms.

“No, Derek!” she shouted and shoved him away. “Stephen, pull up her address. We can go check on her.”

Derek pulled out his phone. “There’s a faster way to do this.” He called AGS.

“Anything?” Viktor was definitely not one for pleasantries.

“Viktor, I need you to initiate a missing persons check on Polly Smith. Sophie’s assistant has gone missing.”

“Interesting. I’ll have Tim activate the search tree.”

“What’s a missing persons check?” Stephen asked, when Derek ended the call.

“AGS has direct access to police and hospital records. The search should turn up missing person reports filed or any Jane or John Doe that may have turned up in the specified period.”

Derek made another attempt to curl his arms around Sophie. This time, she did not push him away and instead rested her face on his chest.

It had not taken long.Half an hour later, Derek got the news. Jesus Christ, how could he tell her?

“What?” Sophie whispered, her eyes were already filling with tears. This was the first time Derek had seen them. After all the craziness that had happened to her, his woman was close to breaking.

“A Jane Doe was brought into the MPD coroner’s office this afternoon. Tim had it matched to information on Polly Smith.” Derek exhaled deeply before continuing. “There’s a 99% match on dental records and fingerprints. I’m sorry, Sophie.”

“How?” Sophie asked, her voice cracking.

“Angel, I don’t think—”

“How, Derek?” she repeated, her voice high-pitched, her eyes wild.

“Sophie, calm down,” Stephen said. “Derek, just tell her!”

“Derek!”

“Fuck,” Derek cursed as he ran his fingers through his hair. “Autoerotic asphyxia.”

Stephen let out string of expletives.

“She was strangled?”

Derek glanced at Stephen, who shook his head.

“I saw that,” Sophie said, narrowing her eyes at the men. “Tell me the damned truth!”

When Sophie started swearing, she was passed the point of pissed.

“Sophie, she was strangled during sex,” Derek said.

Sophie walked around her desk and sank into her chair. “Do they know who did it?”

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