Nighthawk: A Superhero Story (closed for Siobhancan99)

[Halcyon638]

“Lizard Girl—there’s your superhero name,” Detective Knapp said. “That’s not taken, right? Don’t forget the Imperial’s still pissed about the whole armored suit heist. Watch your scaly back.”

“Uhhh…it’s literally my 2nd night,” the bouncer said. “Just don’t get me fired.” Monica entered the bar and grill where Amy Clemens had worked and began questioning the staff, but to little avail. Only a couple of the staff had worked with her.

“I remember Amy,” a middle-aged waitress with stringy, dark hair said. Looking at the pictures, she said, “None of those guys look familiar, though. Whatever trouble she was in with that boyfriend of hers, she never brought in in here. She was a good kid.”

 

[siobhancan99]

Monica nods. It was worth a shot. If Townes had been a regular customer, then it might have sealed the deal for her. He was suspect number one, but the trainer had kids... father 12 and all that. Still, he didn't have access to the building the harassing messages were sent from. That meant Townes, Cameron and Mateo were the number one suspects. She also pulled out her phone and did a quick search for Melanie Howe's TA, showing that picture to the woman just in case "How about this guy? Did you ever see him in here maybe talking to Amy? If not its ok. Just trying to rule people out."

 

[Halcyon638]

The waitress took a look, squinting a bit. "Sorry. You know who you should talk to is Corinne. Corinne Price. She and Amy worked here together and they were pretty close." She held up her phone with Corinne's phone number in it. "I don't know where she's living now or if she's still in the city, but we kept in touch a little bit after she quit here."

The patrons and other staff members snapped the occasional photo of Monica, and some were attempting to record videos as well.

 

[siobhancan99]

Monica obliged with a wave for a few of the patrons and figured she might as well get some good press, so she posed with one or two taking selfies. She texted the number, explaining what was going on and sent the pictures of all the suspects including Melanie's TA, just in case. She knew it was late, but figured if the woman even answered it didn't matter if she answered the next day.

After making her best effort to make a good impression, she headed home to get something close to a full night's sleep for once... hopefully.

 

[Halcyon638]

Monica arrived home to find a plate with a pair of chocolate chip cookies on it covered in plastic wrap sitting on the kitchen counter. A Post-It note read “From the LSA meeting tonight. Sleep tight, querida!”

It didn’t take long for Monica to fall asleep once her head hit the pillow. Before long, she was in a familiar, sinister environment. The windows of some sort of space craft or space station revealed an endless stretch of black void dotted by the occasional star. This time, two figures stood in front of the glass or whatever material was holding back the vacuum of space.

As the figures came into focus, she recognized two very familiar faces. The first was the dark-haired, dark-eyed man who had tormented her in previous dreams. This time, the man was not looking in her direction, but looking at a figure standing facing him with her side to Monica.

It was Monica’s mother.

The two figures spoke in hushed tones in Centauri. They were far enough away from Monica that even had her Centauri not been rusty, it would have been difficult to make out what they were saying. Her mother’s elegant, classical features were slightly altered by age, though she still looked at most in her late 30s. She wore a sleek, flowing, dark blue dress, and had a pained look as she conversed with the male Centauri.

There was a smug certainty to his face as they spoke. After what felt like minutes but was in actuality probably only seconds, Monica’s mother placed her hand forward in a wedge like shape, as if she were about to try to break a brick in a karate class. The dark-haired man put one hand beneath it and one hand over it. Monica recognized the gestures from childhood: they were the sign of an agreement, a formal one. Her mother had taken to using it when a promise was made with her daughter, such as the time Monica had been promised a new bike if she worked harder on her physical conditioning drills.

Now, both figures turned toward Monica. There was a deeply sorrowful expression on her mother’s face. “Monica,” she said in English. “I hope you understand…”

A terrifying yet somehow enticing smile spread across the stranger’s face.

That morning, Monica awoke early once more. Gabi was nearly on her way out the door for her first class, which started before Monica’s engineering class. She was dressed in another new, stylish, somewhat professional outfit and smiled widely when she saw her roommate emerge from her room. “Goood morning,” she said, placing her mail on the table. “Looks like I got a piece of your mail. It’s from…Howard County Corrections?”

Confused, she handed the letter to her friend. It was from Darius Griffiths, Amy Clemens’s boyfriend. “Hmm. You got a prison boyfriend I should know about?”

 

[siobhancan99]

Monica felt a little bad she was off fighting crime while Gabi was getting her cookies. She ate one before bed and it tasted like lies. She saved the other one for lunch the next day when she'd have fewer associations.

That night, she dreaded the return to the dream. It was all so real but it couldn't be... right? I mean her people were strong they weren't psychic. Part of her wondered though if their strength wasn't some kind of short range telekinetic power so.. maybe they did have psychic powers. Who the fuck knew.... well. probably an entire remnant of her civilization knew, and one of those remnants was at home.

When she got up she saw Gabi and some of her gloom was dispelled by the sight of her. She leaned against the table and started eating her second cookie "you look good, chica hermosa. Interviews today or something?" She was keenly aware of how slouchy she'd let herself become in that regard. Girls wore pjs to class and she'd had little incentive to dress up unless it was to hook Townes. Maybe she should make an effort today. "Oh the prison? wow that got back fast" she took it "So there's this podcast and it was about local murders and it seemed like this dude was not only framed, but there's some connections to the disappearance of Paige Howe and the murder of his girlfriend. So I got curious and I wrote him a letter and I asked if there was anyone he thought might have been behind the girlfriend's murder. If it is someone connected to Paige well. I was just kinda curious."

She picked up her phone while she looked over at Gabi, at the same time talkign but also firing off a short text to her father "are any of us psychic? having weird dreams about mom and not sure if its just internalizing my feelings of abandonment or if I'm potentially seeing something real and we never talk about this shit or home so... "

She looked over at Gabi as she set the phone down "do you want to see Ian's band thursday? Or we could stay home and play dnd unless you wanted to play friday night at my dad's house. He might make a little fun though."

 

[Halcyon638]

“Thanks!” Gabi said, taking a bite of a protein bar. “Oh, um…no, nothing big today. Just…I felt like a lot of my clothes were a little high school, you know?”

“Oh, wow,” she remarked at the letter. “I didn’t know you were, like, a true crime buff. I guess it makes sense with…” Her expression grew thoughtful. “That’s pretty amazing that he wrote you back. You’ve got to let me know what it says after class.”

The dark-haired girl paused in the doorway. “It’s totally up to you. He wasn’t asking me to go or anything because I went to his other show and I know how things are, but if you feel like going, I’ll definitely come with. I’m good with whenever you want to play! I mean, that’d probably be only like the fourth geekiest thing your dad has seen us do. Although maybe I’ll get a cloak to wear to really take it to that next level.”

Gabi waved. “Catch you at lunch, carino.”

Monica received a text from her father. “Please give me a call today. Also, let me know if you need a ride this weekend and if so, when I should get there. Love you.”

A moment later, Monica was holding the letter from Darius Griffiths in her hands. It read:

Dear Ms. Bergenson,

Thank you for writing to me. I am glad to know that someone still cares about this case and thinks I may be telling the truth. I am not a perfect man at all but I swear by Jesus that I didn’t kill Amy. I could never kill anybody but especially not the girl I loved.

To answer your question, there was only a couple of times that someone bothered Amy in the bar that I know of at least bad enough for her to tell her boss. I don’t remember the details really and I am sorry for that because maybe that could help you and me. The one thing I can think of is she went to Prospect U one semester and she said one of her professors was hitting on her and sending her sketchy messages and emails. This would of been back in the fall of 2019 before she disappeared in May. I mentioned it to the police but I am willing to bet no one looked into it.

I am hoping this helps you and obviously I hope someday I will be released but it is just as important to me that whoever did this is brought to justice. As for me I am taking it one day at time and praying that the truth will come to light. I hope you are doing good and maybe we will meet some day.

Thank you and God bless,

Darius Griffiths

 

[siobhancan99]

"you are not wearing a fucking cloak, Gabi." Monica rolled her eyes "I'm not gonna be Tom Hanks in that... movie or whatever. From Canada. Running around stabbing people." She stuck out her tongue to show she was kidding "Lets just ease into this." Blowing Gabi a little kiss she watched her leave and sighed and thought, not for the first time, "Do not fall in love with your straight Catholic roommate."

Monica thought about writing Darius back, but she didn't want to taint his recollection by suggesting some names. There was a better way of doing this. After a quick shower, she packed some work-appropriate clothes into a bag, then sat down and emailed Knapp. "Looking into a connection at the University to the Amy thing. Shouldn't be too hard if you have a minute. Can you get her list of classes from the school?" She assumed Townes would be on the list, but if she suggested Townes to Darius, she knew he'd remember that not because it was true but because he wanted it to be true. Maybe the next time she wrote to him she could tell him Amy's real killer was caught. She had to be careful there too. She'd need to write to him that she was sorry she didn't have anything to do with that. This was already close enough to her that someone really prying might make the connection. Probably not, but any barriers she could throw up she would.

In the meantime, she threw on a nice pair of slacks, a sweater, and some flats, then headed to class. On break, she called her dad. She usually tried to call right before lunch in case he was in a meeting. She could have waited till after dinner, but him asking her to call... it made her afraid that what she was seeing at night was real somehow.

 

[Halcyon638]

As Monica waited for her father to pick up, she received a text from the group. It was Porter. “I know it’s only Tuesday but I’m sort of trying to plan out some things and was wondering if you all wanted to do the hike on Saturday? I googled and it looks like a 3-hour drive. I can take anybody who needs a ride Saturday a.m. or at least 3 people. Gabi and Monica you are going down there on Friday, right?”

Gabi replied with an affirmative a few second later.

“Hey, honey,” James Bergenson said when he picked up. “Are you doing okay? How’s your week going?” After a bit of small talk, he asked Monica to describe her dream.

He lowered the volume of his voice. “I’m glad you told me this. So, there was a faction of Centauri called the Totality that worshipped some vague higher powers known as the Vast. Most of us being staunchly logical, the idea of there being some kind of space gods seemed pretty crazy, and their supposed follower were pretty crazy, too. Luckily, they were a fairly small if powerful group. In any case, the concerning thing is that they claimed to draw strange powers from the Vast, including some kinds of psychic abilities. It all seemed like nonsense to me, but…this sounds too consistent and detailed to be some kind of normal dream your brain is conjuring up. As to what the hell your mother’s doing there and what this agreement is…well, she was about as anti-Totality as you could get. I don’t know what the hell ‘Echelon’ could be referring to.” It was the one word the man hadn’t spoken in Centauri but had sort of…intoned in Monica’s head directly. In English? It was hard to say.

“There is…one possible way I can get some more information that might shed some light on this, but it’s a long shot,” her father said. “You let me worry about that, though.”

 

[siobhancan99]

Monica paused a long moment. She'd intended to talk a little with him this weekend about something related, so she just let it out.

"First, Don't do anything that would put you in danger. Second... I mean...now that you don't. You don't have to be here. Any more. Do you... do you ever think about going to find her? Do you think she's alive? Could this all be like some illusion and she wasn't there?" Her father, despite being good looking and making a lot of money for the depressed rural area she grew up in, had never taken up with another woman after all. "Do you you know... do you think about going after her? Do you think she still loves us? Did she ever?"

She sat heavily on the bench. She'd registered the part about space wizards or Jedi or whatever the Totality were putting themselves forward to be and part of her mind was already wondering if they weren't the ones that blew up the Centauri sun. But... seeing her mother, getting some indication she was out there, that she was alive... it opened a wound long thought healed. She felt her head spin and her chest tighten, and that ache of not having her there, of watching her over the course of a few years get so distant... the ache of her leaving like Monica and her father hadn't been more important than the ashes of empire. It was too much, and she was on the verge of tears. She and her father had almost religiously avoided talking about how they felt about her leaving. Monica had been 12 and he'd done a good job of not putting his adult concerns on his child. She wasn't a child any more though, and reticent as the Centauri were to discuss their feelings about anything this had been the elephant in the room for far too long.

"would she trade me for help putting shit back together?"

 

[Halcyon638]

“There is a…means of getting in contact with our people,” Monica’s father said cryptically. “It’s called a Beacon. I know of one located in central Michigan. Or at least there used to be one. I can get on a plane and go there or maybe drive…it’s maybe, 10, 12 hours one way. I’ve never used one before but…it could be something. I don’t think there’d be any danger in it.”

“Everything that matters to me is here. Well, I guess about a 3-hour drive from here, technically,” James said. “I don’t have any reason to doubt that she could be alive. She was going off to fight a war but…but if anyone could make it, it’d be your mother.”

He exhaled deeply. “I don’t think your mother ever fully…loved me. We didn’t choose one another. If anything brought us even remotely close to loving one another, it was you. We had the mission but you…raising you suddenly seemed even more important than the mission. More meaningful. She loved you, Mon. I know the decision was tough for her. It was a choice between disgracing her family and you. I think in the end, she’d just had it beaten into her over so many years—you choose duty and your family’s name over…in this case, giving you something close to a normal life. I think she still thought she was serving you by making sure the honor of your family line was upheld. In case you ever left here.”

“I can’t see her betraying you,” Monica’s father added. “Now, maybe this…deal she made…or is making, or…hell, who knows if it’s real. Or if you’re seeing the past. Or future. The Totality claimed they could do all kinds of crazy things.”

Monica saw Porter wave from across the quad, on his way to Melanie’s class.

 

[siobhancan99]

"fuck. This was so much easier when I was just convinced she was dead." She sighs "I..that sounds terrible. I don't want her to be dead. It's just easier to accept her as dead instead of someone who disappeared for seven years at the point in my life I probably needed her the most. It's hard to ... wonder if the negative things I see in myself and the enjoyment I get out of fighting are things I got from her, or I got because she wasn't there." She wiped her eyes and blew her nose, struggling with not crying. She waved to Porter across the quad, sort of half-heartedly. She sighed and swallowed "Anyway. Sorry to bring up old shit. Gabi and I will take the train to Harmer and you can pick us up there like 630 so you don't have to drive the whole way. Anyway. I should go. I have class and I'll need to fix my makeup."

She sat a long moment, trying to get herself together but it was of mixed success. She felt everything all at once. Hope her mother was alive, hate that she'd left them. Fear that what she saw was real, curiosity over this strange new group. She wondered how many of her people on earth, of the thousands of sleeper agents, had gone back to space. How many had ended up working for human governments. How many of THEM were secretly part of this cult. She assumed not many. She wondered not for the first time if "the imperial" was a reference to home. She wondered if Porter and Melanie would know she'd been crying in the quad. That was the most immediate problem and she slipped into a building then a bathroom to clean herself up before class.

 

[Halcyon638]

“Sweetie,” her father said, “with everything you’ve gone through, it’s amazing how well you’ve turned out. “I’ll never have any real regrets about your mother and I because of you. I love you.” After listening to her plans, he told her, “Sounds good. Looking forward to seeing you both. If you need to talk some more after…I know I’m not very good at these things but…at least I can listen. Let me know if you or Gabi have any food requests.”

“Sounds like everything’s in place for this weekend,” Porter said as Monica found her seat. “Well, just waiting on a text back from Hadley, but everyone else seems to be on board. Thank you. For inviting me,” he said, taking a swig of a smoothie of some kind.

“Good afternoon,” Melanie said to the class as she entered the room. She looked a little tired, if still elegant. She began that day’s lesson on psychological disorders, at one point discussing the stigma associated with mental illness and disclosing a bit about her own battle with depression dating back to her teen years, before encouraging anyone experiencing those issues to seek out assistance.

Monica had just a brief window now if she wanted to get back to her apartment and changed for work.

 

[siobhancan99]

"Porter, friends invite people places. It is part of the package" she grinned at him, though she didn't really feel much like grinning. She put on her mask though, as she so often did. As she schooled her face to make it so everything looked like it was OK, she thought about the lesson Melanie taught a few weeks ago about masks and why we wear them. She wondered, not for the first time, what she was getting out of all the masks she wore. She paused by Melanie's desk on the way out, just to say hi but she really did have to get off to work and change. On her way over to work she checked her burner to see if the waitress had replied with a positive ID or anything, and also if Knapp had emailed back. She didn't have much hope of either but she hated wasting time and she could look at the phone and also head to work.

Either way, she hurriedly changed in the bathroom into a T shirt and ripped jeans and a pair of boots, then got ready to work. She waved to the crew "so what are we building today? More importantly how can I help?"

 

[Halcyon638]

Melanie smiled at Monica and said hello to her on her way out of the classroom. When Monica checked her burner, she found that she had received texts from Corinne Price but no email from Knapp yet. The texts said: “None of these guys look familiar. Are any of them college professors? There was one creepy professor at Prospect U the one semester she took classes there. I told the police to look into them but once they decided on Darius as a suspect, that was a done deal.”

Unfortunately, a few follow-up questions didn’t yield any more details from Price; she couldn’t remember the subject but noted that one time Clemens had asked her to come stay with her while her boyfriend was out of town because she had received an upsetting phone call from the guy.

“We’re building dreams here,” Graham said, a tablet in hand as a speaker nearby played classic rock. “Right, Angela?”

“Sure,” the middle-aged woman replied as hauled a large wooden board across the area. He put the tablet down and scrolled through it.

“We’re pretty much all on saw duty today,” he said, motioning her over to look at the tablet’s screen, which displayed the various pieces of wood they’d need for the next set-related project.

“I got a bad splinter already,” Sam said, walking over to peer at the tablet.

“What do you want? A Congressional Medal of Honor?” Graham responded.

“Just a little sympathy, man,” Sam said sarcastically. “Hey Monica, settle an argument for us,” he told Monica. “What’s worse: a bad splinter or a blister?”

That evening, after Monica had gotten home, she received an email from Knapp. “Sorry for getting your message late. Will have to wait until the university is open again tomorrow but it shouldn’t be a problem to get those records. The lab people say they’ll have the DNA results by end of the day tomorrow, too. Sit tight."

Around 8 or so, she received a text in the group text from Nick: “Anyone hear from Hads today (and/or Hadley, you there?).” About 20 minutes later, Porter and Layla replied that they hadn’t. Gabi, standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes, glanced over at Monica. “You heard from her? I haven’t seen her today, but then I don't usually on Tuesdays.

 

[siobhancan99]

Monica felt a chill descend. Hadley's date. The weird need for secrecy. She wondered, briefly, if someone thought Hadley was her and this was about that but... Hadley had been in town the year before so she should be safe from people thinking she was the vigilante. Still, she felt very much like her friend was in danger "She's been real squirrely about this guy she's been seeing... she had a hot date last night. I'm gonna call her dad." She was aware that she might give herself away, having Knapp's number but that could be easily explained. Besides her secrecy mattered very little compared to Hadley's safety. She fortunately knew Hadley knew to stay away from Townes so... hopefully it wasn't him. It could just be run of the mill douchebaggery though or her just ignoring everyone. Still.... minutes counted in these things.

She fished out her burner for Knapp's number and had a brilliant idea. She could say she saw his card at the house and took it just in case. She called him from her own phone, waiting for him to pick up. If he did, she'd open with "hey, this is a friend of Hadley's and I got your number when we were at your house, you know, in case I ever needed a cop. Anyway... nobody has seen Hadley since her date last night and she's been.... weird about letting us know who the guy is and you're... you know... a cop... so we uh... thought you should um. know. or something." If he didnt answer she'd leave it as a message.

 

[Halcyon638]

Monica’s message went to the detective’s voicemail. About a half hour later, she saw his number pop up on her personal cell. “Hi. Thanks for telling me, Monica,” he said. “I’m on my way over to her dorm right now. Her roommate hasn’t answered. So, you don’t know who this guy is? Do you have any ideas who it might be? When did you see her last?” The words started to tumble out, growing increasingly agitated. She had never heard him this way before. “Anything you can tell me—anything you can think of, no matter how small—it would—it could be helpful.”

Gabi glanced over again. She had her earbuds in and couldn’t hear their conversation, but apparently seeing the serious expression on Monica’s face, came over and stood beside where her friend sat. “Mon?” she said.

 

[siobhancan99]

Monica sat a moment "hold on" she said to Knapp "Hadley. Nobody knows where she is. She had another date last night with her mystery man. Did she tell you anything about it?" She turned back to Knapp "im gonna see what Gabi knows then I'm gonna call Cameron from the play and see what he knows. Then I'll head out and look for her." Her baseline assumption was that Knapp would probably try to contact her alter-ego and she needed to be out of the house for that. "I'll call you if I find anything out" she turned back to Gabi "So do you know anything? She was pretty secretive with everyone I think..."

 

[Halcyon638]

“Okay. Thank you,” Knapp said. “If you call back and I’m on the phone, please leave me a message,” he said, hints of desperation creeping into his tone. “Let all your friends know they can—they should call me.”

Gabi tugged at her lip as her eyes widened. “No, she didn’t tell me anything. I didn’t know.”

A text came in from Nick. “Just heard from Hadley’s roommate. She said she hasn’t heard from her since yesterday before her date and just thought she’d gone home for the day. This is freaking me out a little bit. You all seriously haven’t heard from her?”

Gabi looked at Monica. “I definitely didn’t know. Maybe she’s out with her friends from New York! That guy friend of hers gave me his number. I’ll call him and see what I can find out.”

Monica managed to get a hold of Cameron. “She said she had a date. It was…shit, all I remember is she said she’d known him for a while. I asked her about it a bit because I was bored and that was all she would tell me. Do you think something’s happened to her?”

A few minutes later, Gabi informed Monica that Hadley’s friends from the NYC hadn’t heard from her either, or known anything about an upcoming date. Gabi picked at her lip. “This is…fuck. What do we do? Her dad’s a cop, right?”

 

[siobhancan99]

Monica hmmmed "remember that fucking weird loner boy Tomas she was super into that first weekend? He was part of the group and then he and that Layla girl just fucked right off. Maybe its him? Tell you what Gabi I'm gonna head out to Founder's square and see if she's down there anywhere. You get together with Nick and see if you can't chase down this Tomas dude. See if that's who she was with last night at the very least. Maybe have Porter get in touch with Layla, see if she's heard anything from the two. Here's her dad's number. You guys coordinate here and see what you can see. Also look at her wall and shit and see if there's any new guys posting or anything like that. I need to move around. I'll walk around and maybe rendezvous with Detective Knapp ok? I'll keep in touch and you guys let me know what you come up with."

 

[Halcyon638]

“Yeah, I remember Tomas,” Gabi said. “That’s true—I think Hadley was into him. I’ll check with everybody and see.”

“No way I’m letting you go to Founder’s Square alone at this time of night,” Gabi said, reaching out and grasping Monica’s forearm. “Why don’t we get a ride with Porter? He has a car, I guess. Then we can ask him about Tomas and Layla, too.”

She started to reach for her mid-weight jacket. “God. Do you think something’s really happened to her?”

 

[siobhancan99]

Monica sat still for a moment, really just hating life. She couldn't go change if she was saddled with Gabi, and if anything dangerous happened she'd have to just run and scream and pretend to be a co-ed or she'd give herself away. At the same time she could hardly tell Gabi to fuck off and leave her alone, as that would cause more problems and Gabi was just trying to be a good friend. Fuck. THe worst part is it made communicating with Knapp hard. She dug out her burner "one sec" and wrote an email "Aware of what's up. stuck in something. email if you need physical backup." She hoped Knapp wouldn't put two and two together, but he might. Fuck. she deleted it unsent "New plan. We all meet at Tomas' room. Call nick, find out where we are going."

 

[Halcyon638]

Gabi pulled on her jacket and stepped outside, placing a call on her phone and asking Nick about Tomas. Eventually, they all decided to meet up on the quad, figuring a central location was a good starting point. Porter, Nick, and Layla met Gabi and Monica around quarter to 10. The air was crisp and cool.

“I just messaged Tomas,” Nick said. “We keep in touch a little bit. He’s pre-med so he doesn’t really do anything outside of study. He says he hasn’t seen Hadley since basically the start of the semester.”

“Does anyone know Dylan Beaujon or Eve Hartle?” Layla asked, looking at her phone. “Hadley started following this Dylan guy about three weeks ago and this Eve girl a couple days ago. She was at Riverside on Saturday, right?” Layla said, referring to the club they’d visited.

When she held up her phone, Monica saw that it was Eve from Ian’s band, but Dylan looked unfamiliar. He was an attractive, clean-cut guy with sandy blond hair and looked to be in his late 20s. His Instagram profile read simply: English grad student focusing on the War on Terror and contemporary lit. His account was private.

“Just got a text from Hadley’s roommate,” Nick said. “Her dad’s pulling in now. We don't really think something's happened, right? She probably ended up hooking up with some dude and lost her phone or something, and maybe she's just...back home or something. NYC, you know?" There was a hint of desperation to Nick's voice. "You know how's she's always going on about how awesome it is there. She's probably hanging out with some cool kids right now."

“I found Dylan Beaujon,” Gabi said. “I think. That’s weird. It says he’s an instructor at the University of Northern Arizona. Looks like the most recent photo he posted was 4 days ago.” His most recent photos were of food, mainly breakfasts. As recent as 8 days ago, there were photos taken at a bookstore in Arizona.

 

[siobhancan99]

"I doubt her hot date was with Eve, since she was uh... emphatic with me that she was not gay at all even in the littlest bit. Hadley I mean. Though maybe she just doesn't go in for blonds." She considers ""Fuck. Eve is in a band with my friend Ian, who Hadley said is hot and I said under no circumstances was she to have anything to do with him because he's a fucking drug addled loser who destroys everything he touches. So naturally... Is she following Ian?" She frowned "I mean, I might be a little uncharitable towards Ian but... He's got all the right beats for Hadley. He's attractive, he's alternative, he's in a band. Her New York friends are all artsy. Gabi... call Ian and see if he's seen her. I need to call her dad, then Eve lives on west campus and we can pop over there and see if she's seen or heard from her."

She fortunately had Eve's contact info. First though, Knapp. She called him and when he answered she said "Listen if Hadley is on your phone plan you should call your provider, say the phone is lost and ask where it is. if it is off now, they can still give you the last location of the ping."

 

[Halcyon638]

Gabi tried Ian’s phone. Monica’s call to Brendan Knapp went straight to voicemail. “No answer,” Gabi said with a frown. “Doesn’t look like she’s following him either.”

Monica received a text back from the detective. “Thanks. Will keep you posted. Please send me a list of all Hadley’s friends that you know about.”

A text to Eve received the following reply: “Shit, I’m sorry to hear that. No, I haven’t heard from her. I just talked to her for a few minutes in the club and that was pretty much it. Hope you find her soon and let me know if I can help.”

Not long after, Gabi received a text message. “It’s Ian. He said he vaguely remembers meeting her when she was with you but that’s it. He said if we needed anything to let him know.” She had a thoughtful look on her face. “She really loves Founder’s Square. Maybe we should just go down there and drive around?” Gabi looked at Porter.

“What if the cops want to, like, question us?” Layla said. “Shouldn’t we stick around?”

“Not seeing anything on our socials,” Nick said, “but then, it would help if I knew what the fuck I was looking for. Fuck it. I’m heading back to my dorm.”

“Nick—” Porter began.

“I’m going to see if I can get into any of her accounts,” Nick said.

“Hacking?” Gabi said. “You can actually do that?”

Nick nodded. “I’ve done it before. It’s not like in the movies, though. It takes hours.”