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“Have you tried the rangers?”
“Yes, but they think I’m being paranoid, and I’m not. I know I’m not.”
I seriously doubted they’d said or thought any such thing, but there was little point in saying that. It was pretty obvious she wasn’t in any state to listen.
“When did he go missing, Mrs…?”
“Hardwick. Marion Hardwick. And I haven’t seen him since yesterday afternoon. He went to a party at a mate’s, and hasn’t come back.”
“And you’ve talked to them? Asked when they saw him last?”
“Of course I did.” Her voice was a mix of indignation and desperation. “They said he left them at midnight to walk home. But he never made it here, and he’s not answering his phone.”
“Have you tried to find his phone via a locator app?”
“Is something like that even possible?”
“Yes, but only if it’s been previously set up.” I sighed and rubbed my head. Maybe if I did this quickly enough, Aiden’s plans for the evening would not be curtailed yet again. “I’ll need something of his—something like a watch or a neck chain he wore on a regular basis—to find him. And you’ll need to come here.”
While instinct might be suggesting whatever had happened to her son wasn’t related to the events of last night, I wasn’t about to take a chance. Our reading room was probably one of the safest places in Australia when it came to dealing with any sort of magic or occult entities. Not only was the café surrounded by multiple layers of spells that guarded us against all manner of things—from preventing anyone intending us harm entering the café, to protecting us against a wide variety of supernatural nasties—there were also a whole range of additional measures within the reading room. No spirit or demon was getting in there, even if it somehow broke through the main spells.
?
?I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” Mrs. Hardwick said. “Thank you for doing this.”
“It’s not a problem.”
She hung up. I took a deep breath and rang Aiden. “Guess what?”
He groaned. “You’re getting another bad feeling?”
“No. This time it was a rather desperate call from Marion Hardwick—”
“Whose son is missing,” he finished.
“I take it she’s been to the station already?”
“Yes, and this is not the first time the kid has disappeared. The last time he hitched a lift down to Melbourne to see some band with a girl he’d met the day before.”
I frowned. “How old is he?”
“Sixteen going on thirty.” Aiden’s voice was dry. “He’s basically a good kid; he’s just a little headstrong.”
“I take it you’ve had people out looking for him?”
“Yes, but there’s no sign or scent of him on the usual tracks back to his mom’s place.” He paused. “You want me over there?”
“No, because I’m actually not getting any bad vibes about this disappearance at the moment. If that changes, I’ll call you.”
“Fine. But let me know if you’re not going to be ready by seven, so I can cancel the dinner reservation.”
“Where were we going?”
“It’s a surprise, and will remain that way until we get there.”
“And if we don’t?”
“Then it’ll wait for another day.”
