get her off the hook. Do you have that picture I asked you to bring?”
“Of course.” Hilda reached into her magical handbag and pulled out a small framed photo, the size one would keep propped on a bedside table. “That detective—”
“Detective Reese,” Darla helpfully supplied.
“—Yes, that Detective Reese, he wanted a picture, too, but I lied and told him I didn’t have one,” Hilda replied, a faint look of defiance adding color to her pale cheeks. Darla caught a glimpse of the photo as the woman clutched the frame to her with a possessive air.
The image appeared recent and professionally shot, although the setting was casual and outdoors. The photo captured the girl from the waist up, turned so that she peered back over one shoulder toward the camera. For once, it looked like Tera had abandoned the exaggerated makeup she usually favored, wearing just enough color on her wide brown eyes and full lips to accentuate those features. Her shoulder-length, dark blond hair was loose and windblown. One carefully manicured hand—the pink nails the same girlish shade as her bright lipstick—had reached up to brush an errant lock from her eyes.
In the hands of a less skilled photographer, the image might have appeared deliberately posed in poor imitation of some glossy magazine cover. Instead, it looked as if Tera had simply turned in laughing response to someone calling her name, her youthful beauty and exuberance captured forever in that one shot.
Breathtaking, Darla thought with a sudden feeling of dismay that she couldn’t quite explain or dismiss.
Hilda, meanwhile, had released her grip on the frame and was handing the photo over to Jake, adding, “Tera gave me that picture just a couple of weeks ago. I-I’d like it back when you’re finished.”
“Certainly. When we go back down to my office I’ll scan it, and then you can take it right back home with you again,” Jake assured her as she accepted the photo. “I’m going to make some fliers with her picture on them to start handing out around the neighborhood. I’ll leave a stack here to pass out to anyone willing to help, if that’s okay by Darla,” she added with a meaningful look in her direction.
Darla nodded, concurring with the unspoken suggestion that Reese would be the first recipient of same. In fact, as soon as she had the fliers in hand, she’d give the detective a call.
“Hi, Ms. Martelli,” came Robert’s voice from behind them. “What’s up?”
Using the back of his hand to swipe the last of the crumbs from his mouth, he leaned over her shoulder to see the photo Jake held. “Hey, that’s Tera. What are you doing with a picture of her?”
“You know her?” Jake demanded.
He shrugged. “I’ve seen her around with some of the other girls. I think she’s in college.”
“Tera is Mrs. Aguilar’s daughter,” Darla explained with a gesture at Hilda. “She’s gone missing, and Jake is trying to find her.”
“Oh, yeah? I saw her the other night.” He turned and started toward the best-seller display, only to stop in his tracks as he was pelted by a chorus of questions.
“Where did you see her?”
“You’re sure it was her? What night, Wednesday or Thursday?”
“Was she all right?”
This last came from Hilda, who hurried over and reached for Robert’s arm. The teen swiftly stepped back, holding up both hands in surrender.
“Whoa. Can you, you know, ask me one thing at time?”
“Robert, this is very important,” Jake told him, turning the photo so he could see it again. “You’re very certain it was this girl you saw, and not some other blonde?”
“Yeah. She’s not into the goth scene, so we’re not, like, friends or anything, but I’ve talked to her before. She was standing right under a streetlight when I walked past her.”
Jake tucked the photo under her arm and pulled out a notebook and pen from her coat pocket. “All right, we’ll assume it was Tera. Which night did you see her?”
The teen squinted in concentration as he counted back on his fingers. “Definitely Wednesday night.”
“Good. Now, what time?”
“I don’t know. Early. Maybe midnight?” Which time Darla personally wouldn’t have classified as early, but then she wasn’t eighteen anymore, either.
Jake nodded as she made another note. “Where exactly—I mean, besides under a streetlight—was she when you saw her?”
“She was a couple of streets away from here, near the house where that Curt guy bit it.”
“She was near Barry’s brownstone?” Darla exclaimed. Then, ignoring Jake’s okay-you-can-shut-up-now look, she demanded, “What were you doing there