Page 6 of Girl, Unseen

‘Don't tempt me.’ Papers rustled. ‘What's so urgent you're calling at seven PM?’

Ella leaned against the wall. Her legs ached from standing through the lecture, and the blisters from the Oregon fire two weeks ago still made every step a reminder of what happened. ‘Got an unusual missing persons case at NYU.’

‘Since when do we handle missing persons?’

‘Since this one walked out of a locked room mystery.’ Ella pulled up the mental snapshot of Marcus Thornton's file. ‘Professor of Geology. Perfect attendance record for twelve years. Never missed a class, never even called in sick. Then Friday he vanishes. Phone dead. Car gone.’

‘And?’

‘And his rock hammer's missing.’

‘His what?’

‘Exactly. Who takes a rock hammer when they're planning to disappear?’

‘Dark...’ The warning in Edis's voice could have stripped paint. ‘We've got actual cases. Real ones. With bodies and jurisdiction and those pesky things called evidence.’

Ella guessed this would be the director’s response. Time to play her trump card. ‘Come on, sir, you’re always saying we need to stay in the university’s good books. Especially NYU.’

‘How did the talk go? You didn’t bore them, did you?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Good. How’d you find out about this missing professor situation?’

‘One of the other professors collared me and Hawkins. She’s in a real state.’

Ella could hear Edis hammering away at his keyboard. ‘Tell her we’ll keep it on our radar, but it’s up to the cops to summon us, not citizens.’

Guess the trump card didn’t work. Maybe her ace in the hole would work better. ‘He drives a Mustang.’

The typing on the other end stopped cold. Ella smiled. Everyone, even Bureau directors, had their pressure points. For Edis, classic cars ranked right up there with national security.

‘What year?’

‘Not sure. But he restored it himself. Ground up.’

‘You're playing me.’

‘Only because it's working.’

A sound that might have been a laugh. ‘Alright. Convince me this isn’t a simple missing persons case.’

Ella thought of Olivia Westbrook's haunted expression, the way her hands kept twisting together as she talked. Fear had tells, just like lying did. ‘Something's wrong here. People don't just vanish anymore. They leave digital footprints, credit card trails, cell phone pings. This gent, Marcus Thornton, doesn’t seem to have any of that.’

‘You already looked into his bank statements?’

‘No. I was being dramatic.’

‘What’s saying this guy didn’t just need a break from grading papers?’

‘With a rock hammer?’

‘Point taken.’ Edis shuffled some papers. ‘What's the local PD saying?’

‘Still trying to trace his dead cell phone, but you know they’re just buying time on the off-chance he shows up again.’

‘And you think they're wrong?’

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