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The thumbnail I’d been absentmindedly chewing fell out of my mouth. “Wait… did you say murdered?”

“Uh-huh. Assaulted with some sort of ‘slashing-type weapon.’” The quote marks were evident in the way he said it, as if he was reading from his notes. “Pronounced dead on site.”

“Wow.” It sounded appalling to hear it told so plainly, but I also felt a stab of vindication. If someone had slit his throat with a “slashing-type of weapon” years ago, how different would Amber’s life have been? I wondered if she knew. Wondered if she felt the same sense of victory. Wondered if she was feeling anything at all these days.

I shook that last thought off. “I guess it’s not uncommon though for pedophiles to get offed in jail, right?”

“‘Offed.’” Joe seemed amused at my use of slang, as he often did when I tried to talk the lingo. “Not uncommon, no. But keep listening. It gets weird. The cops never fingered anyone with the job, but I have a source there telling me that everyone knows who did it. Nick Delatano. He’s a mob fall guy.” Joe paused. “That means he took the blame for something or other or protected someone more important than him and he’ll get rewarded for it somehow. Basically, he works for mafia, even in prison. And not just mafia, Emily – a special branch called the Philadelphia Greek Mob. Heard of them?”

“I haven’t.” Though my skin was already prickling with the mention of the word “Greek.”

“They’ve been what some call ‘dormant’ for the last decade or so, but what that really means is they’re just operating under the radar. They’re like the Italians, you know, um, specialists in money laundering, tax evasion, extortion, drug trafficking. Murder. Only they’re from Greece.”

I swallowed. It had to be coincidental. “Mob guys can hate child molesters too.”

“Not denying that. But supposedly Nick didn’t even know James Pries was a sex offender. So why was a mafia guy taking a hit out on a child predator?”

Even though the thought had already taken up residence in my mind, I wasn’t ready to believe it. “There could be a hundred reasons. Maybe they fought over toilet paper. Maybe James fought back when Nick was making him his bitch. This probably has nothing at all to do with Amber.”

“Maybe.” Joe’s tone said he didn’t believe that for a second. “It’s just interesting considering the last man she was seen spending time with was Reeve Sallis, who also has mob ties.”

“Rumored mob ties.” Jesus, even to myself I sounded defensive.

“Yeah, yeah, ‘rumored.’” He was quiet for several seconds. “I just can’t get that picture out of my mind, the one of Sallis with Vilanakis. Not many people can get that close to Vilanakis.”

I knew the picture. It had been one of the earlier things that Joe had uncovered about Reeve. I’d seen the picture myself on the Web, but hadn’t known the significance of the second man. His name wasn’t even labeled on the post. It was a crappy phone pic taken at a family dinner and shared on a personal blog. I’d thought nothing of it until Joe had emailed it to me almost two weeks before Christmas with a simple message: “Michelis Vilanakis. Known crime boss. What’s the connection?”

It was the moment that the plan I’d been knocking around in the back of my mind seemed to become necessary.

Then why was I so eager to dismiss the connection between the mafia and James Pries now?

If I was being honest with myself it was because of Reeve. Because now I’d met him. Because now I didn’t want to think of him as that dangerous. Because I didn’t need any reason to be more attracted to him than I already was.

But Joe was right. “I know. I know. Just, there hasn’t been anything to prove that and I don’t want to make connections that aren’t based on anything verifiable in case it causes us to neglect other important facts that will help us find her.”

“Find out what happened to her,” Joe corrected. He made sure I never forgot that he believed we were looking for a dead person.

It was one of the first things he’d said when we’d met. “You know, after forty-eight hours missing, the odds are that the victim is deceased.”

“Amber’s not a statistic,” I’d said firmly. “I know her. She knows how to lay low, how to disappear. In fact, I don’t even know that she’s missing. Just that she needs my help.”

“No one can find her. That means she’s missing. She’s been missing for several months. She’s not going to be alive.”

“Well,” I’d said. “We’ll just agree to disagree.” I’d realized I was lucky to have someone help me at all. If we had different bets on the outcome, that was fine. The search process was the same either way.

Still, I reminded him of my stance as often as he reminded me of his. “What will you do when you find her alive and well?” I asked him now.

“Let you say, ‘I told you so.’”

“Oh, I will.” I chewed my lip as I debated whether or not to share the information I’d learned since last speaking to Joe, knowing he’d want to know my source. Since any detail could prove important, I settled on disclosure. “On the topic… did you know that Reeve lived with his maternal grandparents in Greece for a couple of years after his parents died?”

“No. Where did you hear this?”

It was the question I’d been dreading. I hadn’t told Joe what I was doing, nor did I plan to. Whether or not he tried to talk me out of it, he certainly wouldn’t approve. “It doesn’t matter where I heard it. But it’s credible. Maybe that’s where the rumors of ties to Greek mafia started?”

“Huh. Maybe. Or that’s when he started working with them.” Joe sounded like he thought the latter was more likely. “You didn’t happen to learn the maternal grandparents’ surname?”

“Isn’t it Kaya?”