We flew to Flagstaff the next day and got a rental car at the airport. The plan was to drive to the gas station first and see if we could talk to the manager. Hopefully, he’d be more helpful than the dickhead on the phone. Maybe he’d heard from Allie, and even if she’d quit her job, he may have an address for her. It was a long shot, but I didn’t know where else to start. Calling the police in Flagstaff would give me squat. I’d learned as much from my conversation with Vegas Metro. With only Allie’s name and no evidence she’d been kidnapped, or was being held against her will, they had nothing to go on.

I entered the address of the gas station on my phone’s GPS and turned up the volume for AJ to hear as he drove us to the location in the rental. We were approaching from a different direction this time. Instead of exiting from the Interstate, we came through wide city streets with large intersections. I was taking action and it felt good knowing I was here in Allie’s hometown, instead of miles away in Texas, though my Spidy senses weren’t tingling. I had no idea if she was even here. Actually, my gut was so tied up in a mixture of anxiety and excitement, I couldn’t accurately judge my instincts right now. For all I knew, I could be chasing a ghost.

When the voice on my GPS announced, “Your destination is ahead on the right,” my pulsed picked up. Would she be there? Would she rush into my arms and cry, “I missed you,” and all this worry would be for nothing?

I leaned forward in my seat, craning my neck, scanning the view for the familiar gas pumps out front of the convenience store and a repair garage in the rear.

“There it is.” I said. “Turn here. Pull in.”

“I got it, I got. Calm down. I heard the directions and I know how to drive.”

When the tires hit the dip in the pavement at the entrance to the pump area, I noticed there were no cars at the pumps. “Wait, wait…” AJ slowed the car to a crawl. “Something's wrong. Why are there no cars?”

AJ nosed the rental into the same spot he’d parked his old Camry the night we needed the tire. I glanced to my right and there was the repair garage, the large steel rollup doors, sealed tight, the black letters over a blue background CLOSED was displayed on the door to the office.

AJ said it for me. “The repair garage is closed and it’s the middle of the day.”

“Oh, shit. This isn’t good.”

We both peered out the front windshield and looked into the convenience store. It was dark inside, no signs of activity there, either.

“Where is everyone?” AJ asked, more to the wind than to me.

“I was thinking the exact same thing. Where the hell is everyone? Did this place go out of business?” I was still straining to see into the dark interior of the store. “Fuck. I can’t believe this shit.”

“Yeah, fuck,” AJ said quietly, his eyes darting around the building, to the pumps, repair garage and back to the store window in front of us.

I snapped back to reality and turned to AJ. “It can’t be out of business. It was doing a great business, the night we came. Plus, I just called yesterday and talked to that dickhead. I mean, what the fuck? He didn’t say anything about going out of business.”

“Great business? The night we came no one was here except the guy you thought had a gun. And the repair garage wasn’t open that night either, remember?”

“Fuck, I can’t believe it.” I kicked open my door. We were parked on the side of the building and I wanted to get a better look inside. Was today a holiday? Could it be closed for a holiday?

AJ rolled down the window and called out, “Where you going?”

I ignored him and headed for the double glass entry doors. As soon as I rounded the corner of the building, I could see there was a sign plastered on the front door and the windows were covered from the inside with brown butcher paper and masking tape.

CLOSED FOR REMODELING

“Fuck!”

AJ heard me and leaned his head out the driver’s window. “What? What is it?” From his angle he couldn’t see the sign.

I stomped back to the car. “It’s fucking closed for remodeling.” I yanked open the door and dropped into the seat.

“So it’s not out of business.”

“No, but what good does this do? I still can’t talk to the manager.”

“On to plan B?”

I clicked on my seatbelt and opened the GPS app on my phone. “Plan B. The Beaver Street Brewery. Go!”

AJ nodded and turned the key in the ignition. On the flight to Flagstaff, AJ and I’d worked out a plan of action. We’d start with the gas station, talk to the manager, this time, not some reject from the public school system, and then go to the bar. Basically, retrace everywhere we went with Allie the night we were here.

My hopes were dashed at the gas station, and although I’d tried to prepare myself for plan A being a dead end, the disappointment I felt was like bricks on my shoulders and every minute that went by added another one.

AJ drove as I worried. We rode in silence for a while, the voice of my GPS the only sound breaking the heavy silence. AJ’s eyes flicked to my face, the road, the walking boot on my left foot and back to the road again. Staring straight ahead he said, “We’ll find her. Don’t worry, man. We’re gonna find her.”

* * *

The front of the Beaver Street Brewery had a sidewalk cafe enclosed in a waist-high black, wrought iron fence. There were rustic wooden benches, with equally rustic thick wooden tables for patrons to sit outdoors and drink or smoke since that wasn’t allowed inside.

The tables matched the heavy wooden front door of the establishment, a massive solid chunk of timber, lending itself to the woody, brass-trimmed pub atmosphere of the place.

I stepped through the doorway into an alcove, no bigger than a large coat closet, and waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. The place was jammed. There was a pretty young girl working the hostess station, and a couple stood in front of her talking, as she perused the seating chart on the podium.

We pushed past the waiting customers, motioning to the hostess above their heads that we’d go to the bar. I didn’t want to be seated. After the disheartening event at the gas station, I had a feeling we wouldn’t be here very long.

I spotted two openings near the end of the bar closest to the large, glass front window and the heavy wooden front door that opened to the sidewalk/patio seating area. Music was playing and it was difficult to hear much except for the chatter of happy, drinking customers.

I stood, casually leaning against the bar. I wasn’t here to get a buzz or fill my belly with a juicy burger, like the one the guy next to me just crammed in his mouth.

My thoughts flashed back to the night I was here with Allie. I looked past Wimpy and his hamburger to a table in the middle section where we’d sat. Heat flooded me as I remembered the kiss, the sweet taste of Allie’s lips on mine. Then I remembered how we flew out that back door, so hot for each other, so consumed with the fire between us, oblivious to the world around us.

A waitress turned in our direction, tossed a rag on the bar and started toward us. She wore the same skin-tight t-shirt with the bar’s logo as the night she served us when we played the drinking game.

I elbowed AJ. “Hey, it’s her. What was her name?”

“Um, shit, I don’t remember. Was it something with a C?”

Standing in front of me now, I wasn’t so sure she was the same waitress and I was out of time. She smiled and I gave her a big grin in return. “Um, do you know a waitress named, Carol, or Connie…” My eyes stuck on the plastic name tag, pinned to her shirt and I smiled. That was it. “Or...Carrie?” Now I remembered.

I tossed a glance at AJ and he nodded. “Yeah, Carrie. That’s the one.”

She narrowed her eyes with a sidelong glance. “I’m the one, what?”

“You’re friends with Allie, right? Allie Artemis.”

The woman still looked suspicious, so I explained. “My friend and I came in here, oh, about a week ago or so, to meet Allie and her friends, Jen, um, Stephanie, and a guy named Matt.”

She relaxed and her expression brightened. “I remember you. Allie was quite taken with you.” She smiled, her eyes trailing from my biceps to my shoulders and then landing on my face. She lingered on my bruise. No longer deep purple, but fading and still not a pretty sight.

“Although, I’m not sure that’s such a good thing,” she said. “What the hell happened to your eye?”

“Jade happened to my eye. That’s why I’m here. Well, one of the reasons. It seems you and Allie are friends. I could tell from the way you two talked that night.”

She nodded. “I’d do anything for Allie, I always have her back and well…” She glanced at my foot and frowned. “Aw, Jesus. Did Jade do that too?” She lowered her voice, a look of concern on her face.

“Yeah.” I held her gaze as she looked up. “He caught us out back in the alley. We were...well, you know getting hot and heavy and Jade caught us.”

“The fucker put a gun to his head,” AJ added. “About killed him until I showed up.”

She pursed her lips and I continued, “We took off. Jade was knocked out and we ran for our car. Then a few miles down the road, yours truly, pops up in the back seat. She ran away.”

Carrie’s face turned into an expression of fear and understanding. “That's awful. I don’t blame the poor girl. What else could she do? She had to get away from him.” She shook her head and rested a hand on her hip, sliding two coasters in front of us like she was going to serve us a drink, but I didn’t have time for that.

Then she just stood there, like she was waiting for us to order. I glanced at AJ. This was odd. If she was Allie’s good friend, and Allie was missing, why wasn’t she pumping me for more details? She should’ve been jumping over the damn bar, demanding I tell her more, unless...she knows something.

I drug my teeth across my lower lip and then continued. “So we were on our way to Vegas for spring break and we took her with us. Couldn't let her go back to...” I paused, trying to catch some glint of recognition in her eyes. “Did she tell you any of this?” Maybe she’d called Carrie while on the road, or something. I didn’t know why, but something about the way Carrie was acting made me think she knew more than she was letting on.

She shook her head and I continued, “After a day or two in Vegas, Asswipe, broke into my hotel room and then...this.” I pointed to my eye. “Plus a few more injuries and he took us both.”

Carrie stopped me and said, “Took you where?”

“Well that's the thing. I don't know where he took Allie. I was thrown in a van and drugged. Then they drove to God knows where...some abandoned house in the middle of fucking nowhere. All I can remember on the ride out there was that at some point the van stopped and Allie got out with, I think with Jade. Because the other guy was driving the van.”

Carrie said, “What a fucker. I always told her, stay the hell away from Jade. He's just plain evil. So how’d you get back?”

“I got lucky and someone found me. Well, let's just say, that's a story for another day. The point is I'm here and I have no idea what happened to Allie. I've got to find Allie, like right now, make sure she’s okay. You have any idea where she is?” I held her with my gaze. If she knew, she’d better tell me. “I've been worried and who knows what Jade did to her, or if he's holding her, keeping her against her will.” My mind was about to explode just thinking about it.

Carrie bit her lip, as if in thought. She bounced a glance to the back of the bar and then to me, leaning heavily on the bar, and looked hard into my eyes, as if assessing my worth. “Well, I can see you're a good guy and you care about Allie, you’re worried about her.”

AJ leaned in, too, and said, “I can vouch for Cam.” He clapped a hand on my shoulder. “He’s solid. One of the good guys.”

Carrie lowered her voice again and said, “Let me tell you a thing or two about Jade’s MC, the Black Vandals. I could tell you where to find them, but…you might end up worse off than you are now.” She nodded to my boot. “I warn you, his MC is powerful in this town and the cops just look the other way.” She nodded, solemnly. “Vandals get away with a lot of shit. Be careful.”

That was it? A stern warning about Jade? She wasn’t going to tell me anything about Allie? I wasn’t buying it.

“So that’s it? You don’t happen to know where she is by any chance.” I studied her eye movements again. I’d learned in Behavioral Psychology class, people dart their eyes to the side when they tell a lie. She’d already done that, plus looked to the back of the bar several times during our conversation, so I had a sneaky suspicion something was up.

With a look of resignation, she lowered her voice and said, “Look, I probably shouldn't be telling you this, but I've been helping hide her.”

My eyes brightened and I opened my mouth to ask her where, but she stopped me with a hand held up. “She’s...she's leaving town. She has a plane ticket. I don't know. I think she has a flight to catch tonight.” She glanced at her watch. “Soon. Like, she’s probably already left to go to the airport by now. I haven't had time to go look and check on her…” She paused, a look on her face like she realized she’d said too much.

“What? Well, where is she? Is she nearby?”

The woman didn't answer.

I tilted my head, narrowing my eyes. “Is she here? At the bar?”

“Look, she's got to go. It's for her own good. She needs to get away from Jade, away from here.”

My jaw clenched and my hand gnarled into a fist. “Just tell me.” I demanded. “Please, I’ve got to see her. I've got to talk to her. I can't let her go without telling her…just please.”

Carrie leaned back and placed both hands on the bar. “It’s too late. Like I said, she's probably already left for the airport. Sorry. I guess you're out of luck.”

My heart dropped to the floor and I closed my eyes. I’d just missed her. I came so close, but was too late.