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Pen looked at her phone. “I don’t know, maybe thirty minutes ago.”
Ava was already making a call. “Quinn, where’s Tara?”
Aine was sitting close enough that she could hear Quinn tell her sister that their friend was already on the plane, and she was on her way back from the airport.
“How did she get a flight that fast?” Ava asked after she thanked Quinn and hung up.
“What did she say?” asked Pen.
“Tara’s flying to LAX and getting a connecting flight to New York from there. Quinn is on her way back now.”
“We don’t know it was Tara,” murmured Aine.
Both Ava and Pen looked at her like she’d grown a third head.
“Who else would it have been?” asked Ava.
Aine shook her head. “You’re right.” She looked at Pen. “Tell Ava what we talked about.”
Pen gave Ava a detailed timeline of how Tara’s behavior had gotten increasingly worse over the course of the last year. A few minutes later, the front door opened and Quinn walked in.
“What’s happened?” she asked. “Why did you want to know where Tara was?”
Ava told her about the missing money and jewelry, and Pen gave her the condensed version of what she’d just finished telling them about their friend.
“It’s been a hard eighteen months,” said Quinn after digesting everything the two had said. “Is she on any medicine for depression or anxiety or anything like that?”
It was a good question. While Aine hadn’t thought she needed it, the psychiatrist she and Ava both saw after their ordeal with their father had asked her if she wanted a prescription for something to help with anxiety.
“Maybe, but that doesn’t really explain the extreme mood fluctuations. Unless she isn’t taking them as prescribed,” answered Pen.
“The worst thing is that she took the bracelet Striker gave Aine for Christmas.”
“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry,” said Quinn, coming over and putting her arm around Aine’s shoulders.
She couldn’t stop her eyes from filling with tears. He’d entrusted her with something priceless, and now it was missing. If only she hadn’t taken it off before they took a shower at the inn.
“We don’t know for certain it was her,” Aine murmured.
“Again, Aine, who else would it have been?” asked Ava. “We should check with Saylor and Sally, plus Gunner’s and Zary’s mothers.”
“Where is Zary?” Aine asked.
“Lia was having a hard time falling asleep. She was rocking her the last time I checked.”
Quinn stood and walked over to the window. “So, ladies. The question now is, if we believe Tara did take money and whatever else, what are we going to do about it?”
—:—
“I want to run something by you,” said Razor once they were on the plane that would take them to Colombia.
“Shoot,” said Striker.
“I have an idea what Ghafor is stockpiling weapons for, or who—FARC.”
Striker nodded. It wasn’t a surprise to hear Razor’s theory, given the tentative peace agreement the Marquez-led Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, aka FARC, came to in 2016 was already falling apart.
He’d expected it wouldn’t be long before it did after the last Colombian election. The then-president and broker of the peace, Juan Marquez, was defeated by Petro Santos, who had emerged the leader of those opposed to the treaty.
