Page 103 of Spooked

“But he was our best lead. Our only lead. What can we do without him?”

“Eat lunch?” Jerry nodded along the street. “The café over there got a great write-up in the guidebook. The sandwiches are to die for.”

Don’t snap, Indi. Just breathe.“Do you ever think of anything but your stomach?”

“Rarely, but it’s been known to happen.”

Tulsa checked her watch. “Lunch? More like brunch. I want to try the pastel de nata—you know, those little tarts with the custard?”

“What about Meera? Don’t you think she’s more important than dessert?”

“Relax, sweetie. Have a donut. It might help your mood.”

I looked to Ari, hoping she’d be the voice of reason, but she’d been corrupted.

“We did skip breakfast.”

“So?”

“And we should talk, come up with a plan.”

“But—”

“We need to do this properly. We’ll be able to see people coming and going from the hostel while we eat, and I’m going to look through social media check-ins for people who stayed there at the same time as Meera did.” Ari touched my arm in a kind gesture of support. “Plus you should eat. You’ve barely touched a mouthful this whole trip, and you already look thinner.”

“I just hate wasting time. Hate the thought of sitting in a café while Meera…while Meera…” A sob welled up in my throat. “If she’s still alive”—I dreaded to think of the alternative, but the realist in me understood it was a possibility—“she could be hurt.”

“We’ll find her faster by making a plan than by running around like headless chickens and antagonising the main suspect further.”

“Hey, what did you think of the chicken last night?” Jerry asked Tulsa.

“Overcooked and kinda bland.”

“Same. There’s a place on the other side of the city that’s meant to be better.”

I put my head in my hands and wished Brax were here. These two gave a whole new meaning to the word “impossible.”

* * *

“We have movement,” Jerry said as she sipped a cappuccino.

The café was a tourist place with the prices to match. At one time, I’d never noticed the cost of things, but the move to LA had changed me. Now I shopped by special offer rather than brand, and I winced at thepreçocolumn on the café’s menu.

Jerry had already eaten a sandwich the size of my head and washed it down with a pint of cola. Now, it seemed, she was going for caffeine overload. This was her third coffee. And me? I’d picked at a salad.

“What movement? Where?”

I started to turn, but Tulsa grabbed my head and held it still in a vise-like grip.

“Don’t look.”

“What’s happening?”

“Silvio’s loading a trash bag into his trunk.”

“I fucking knew it,” Jerry muttered.

“What’s in the bag?” I asked.

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