out in groups of six or eight, mostly guys, loud and sloppy. They slap-fought as they drifted toward La Rambla. Lots of yelling in English. Kill you brah, how can you say Durant is better than Kawhi.
Rebecca worried about the women with them. But they weren’t her problem tonight. And she couldn’t imagine her daughter with them. Kira had a weakness for frat boys, sure. But her type was more Ralph Lauren than Animal House. She wasn’t a huge drinker, either. She’d seen Tony’s awful nights.
The cokeheads were still up, too. Though they were less of a nuisance. They hung in groups of two or three, sniffling and blinking under the weak streetlights. They were Spanish and French and Italian, divided almost evenly between men and women. Rebecca could see how their Eurotrash glamour might have seduced Kira. Under normal circumstances, she would have been less than happy to see her daughter with them. Tonight, she wouldn’t have minded. We’ll talk about this later, ’kay?
But what Rebecca wanted was irrelevant. Kira was nowhere. Not with the drunks, not with the cocaine cowboys, not with the Irish bachelorette party Rebecca had seen marching down the sidewalk wearing foot-long rubber penises for necklaces.
She must still be with Jacques. If she’d left him, she would have called or texted. Even if she’d lost her phone, she could have borrowed someone else’s. Maybe she was too busy with Jacques to give them a heads-up. But why wouldn’t she at least tell Tony where she was?
The other scenarios ranged from bad to worse. Kira was drunk and lost, despite the map Rebecca insisted she carry. She was stumbling around the less pleasant parts of El Raval, near the harbor. She’d been hit by a car, taken to a hospital. She’d been mugged, robbed, left unconscious.
Worst of all, she was with Jacques, but not voluntarily.
The bureau rarely involved itself in standard crimes-against-persons cases. The FBI doesn’t get its hands dirty, local cops said. They weren’t entirely wrong. So Rebecca had never faced the raw moments of victim notification, telling family members their loved ones had been killed.
But in Texas, years before, she’d gotten into a serial killer case. The Border Bandit. Some deaths had initially been classified as accidental, undocumented immigrants who’d died from exposure or animal attacks. But the Texas Rangers ultimately linked the killer to almost two dozen victims, maybe more; evidence showed the perp had worked the Mexican side of the border too. Rebecca interviewed their parents and siblings. Sometimes they turned tight-lipped. She wondered if she was too hard-edged, too northeastern, for them. Now, even with Kira not really gone, no police department in the world would take a report at this point, Rebecca understood as she never had before why those mothers and fathers had hated talking.
Her phone buzzed, and she reached for it, Kira—
Nope. Brian, At Mansion. You close? She wanted to scream. After three hours. How would she feel after three days, three weeks?
* * *
She saw her husband standing, arms folded, outside The Mansion. He was scanning the street as though if he just looked hard enough he’d see Kira. Rebecca tried to ignore the ugly thought, I’d trade you for her. In a second. Traitorous, but no doubt he felt the same. Your spouse rented you. Your kids owned you.
“I keep thinking I’m going to turn a corner and there she’ll be.”
“How’s Tony?”
“Quietly freaking. He wanted to come but I told him no, stay there in case she comes back. He’s blaming himself for not telling us.”
Yet another reason to find Kira, like they needed one.
“Becks? We’re gonna find her.”
She almost snapped at him, something nasty like, Glad we cleared that up. Instead she hugged him, felt his strength. The only person in the world who loved Kira as much as she did. “Come on, let’s see if the manager shows us the video on his own or I have to choke him out.”
* * *
The Mansion was mostly empty, three guys finishing beers at the bar. The music was still playing, turned down, a song old enough for Rebecca to remember from two decades before. I know who I want to take me home, take me hoooome… “Closing Time.” Semisonic. The more things changed…
The bartenders were already sorting glasses for the next night. Despite its end-of-the-world look the place ran smoothly. The professionalism might help them. The manager wouldn’t want them angry.
They waited as the music stopped and the bouncers shooed the last stumbling kids into