Page 47 of Hunting Pretty

“Hetook her,” Aisling wailed, her voice growing louder. “He took her and no one will believe that he took her.”

“Ava,” Lisa warned, her voice a hiss.

I shook my head. I knew we were getting too much attention. I knew I should work on calming Aisling down rather than pushing her.

But we were so close to a lead. A real lead.

Just a little more.

Just a little further.

“He fucking took her,” Aisling screamed.

I reached out over the chaos of ceramic and tea and grabbed her arm, getting her attention. “Aisling, who ishe?”

A long dark shadow came to loom behind Aisling. “What is this commotion?”

The dean stared down at us in obvious disapproval, his eyebrows furrowed over his glasses, his gray vest over his thin shoulders.

At Darkmoor you studied and kept quiet. It was not the place for mental breakdowns. And certainly not in public.

“Ms. Barry,” he said, placing his hand on Aisling’s shoulder, “you don’t look well.”

I forced a smile up into the dean’s stern face. “She’s grand, Dean McCarthy. We’ll take her home.”

The candlelight flashed in his small circular glasses as he tucked his chin into his chest.

“Ms. Barry, come,” the dean said in a firm tone, brooking no more argument. “I’m taking you to Dr. Vale. He’ll give you something to calm you down.”

Fuck.

I glanced at Lisa.

Her eyes were lowered, deferential to the dean’s power.

I couldn’t blame her. Lisa was on a scholarship to Darkmoor. It would be foolish to bite the hand that tossed the crumbs.

With Ebony as my mother, I could crash my Mercedes into the campanile and stumble into Journalism Research Methods drunkandhigh in time to fail the pop quiz, and it wouldn’t matter.

Aisling pulled her hand from mine and I thought I saw something in the last look she gave me before she let the dean tug her away. It was almost like an apology.

Aisling wanted oblivion. The good shit from the college’s on-site therapist. If she knew anything more, she didn’t want to remember it.

I sagged in my seat as the dean guided Aisling through a back door and out of the dining hall.

“I guess that’s that,” Lisa said, throwing the tea-soaked napkin onto the linen tablecloth and nodding thanks to the server who tugged the whole tablecloth into her plastic tub before wiping down the table and replacing it with another pristine white tablecloth.

Like nothing had ever happened.

Except I knew for sure that Liath had been taken.

And I had a new lead. My next clue.

Her last known location.

Descending the narrow stairs and pushing through the heavy iron door of The Vault felt like stepping back in time. Or crashing a séance.

There was candlelight everywhere. Flames flickered from brass sconces on rich panels of wood lining the low walls. On crowded tables, ruby-red wax accumulated like stalagmites.

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