Lucy finished the last of the pizza slice, dusted crumbs off her hands, and looked at Gabriel. “How did you find me?”
“Finding people who get lost down here is one of the things I get paid to do,” Gabriel said. “Illusion Town doesn’t have its own Guild yet, so the local authorities coordinate with the Cadence organization. When they realized you had vanished into the tunnels, the police asked us for assistance. I pulled the assignment.”
She took another slice of pizza and narrowed her eyes. “I didn’t just vanish, you know. I was kidnapped.”
She waited to see how he would take that news.
He watched her with an unreadable expression. “I was told you’d had too much to drink at a wedding reception, did some drugs—Chartreuse—at an after-party, walked home alone, and wandered into the Dead City ruins. The theory is that you got disoriented from a combination of booze, drugs, and the heavy paranormal currents inside the ruins. You went into one of the towers and found a flight of steps that took you down into the tunnels.”
“Everyone believes I got stoned and fell down a dust bunny hole? That’s crap. I’m a professional weather channeler. Do you really think I’d be that stupid?”
“The energy inside the Dead City is … unpredictable.”
“I’m well aware of that. I can handle it.” She ate some pizza and gestured toward the box. “There’s another slice. Help yourself.”
“Thanks.” He took the last slice of pizza out of the box. “There is also a theory that you were depressed because your ex recently filed for divorce.”
“It was an amicable divorce.”
“Didn’t know there was such a thing.”
“It was just an MC, okay? Not a real Covenant Marriage.”
An MC—Marriage of Convenience—was little more than an affair with a few legal provisions attached. Either party could end it simply by filing the paperwork. A Covenant Marriage, on the other hand, was extremely difficult to terminate. It was not unheard-of for some people to conclude it was easier and a whole lot cheaper to arrange for an unwanted spouse to suffer a lethal accident.
The last thing she wanted to talk about was the fact that she had been dumped. Time to move on.
“I assume you found me because you followed Otis?” Lucy said.
Gabriel took a healthy bite of pizza. “He certainly got my attention.”
“How?”
“He approached me in the Dead City ruins near the Storm Zone Wall about an hour ago. I was trying to locate the staircase you might have used to go into the Underworld.”
She thought about that for a beat. “You knew where to start the search? Sounds like my message to Veronica got through. Amazing. The kidnappers drugged me at the reception, you know.”
“Did they?” Gabriel said, his tone a little too polite.
She knew disbelief when she saw it. She sighed and reminded herself he had no reason to believe her version of events.
“By the time they put me in a cab I was hallucinating wildly,” she continued. “When I got out of the cab I was at the edge of the Storm Zone, so I ran for the nearest hole-in-the-wall. I managed to get on my phone long enough to leave a message for my friend Veronica. I knew she was working that night. I only had a few seconds. No time for a detailed message, so I texted my location.”
“Storm Zone Wall.”
“Right.”
“The cops told me that much. They said that when your friend saw the text she didn’t know what to make of it at first. She thought maybe you were at an after-party that was being held near the Storm Zone. When she got home in the morning, she realized you hadn’t returned. She filed a missing persons report, but the police wanted to wait the usual twenty-four hours before they got serious about opening a case. Evidently your friend insisted they send a search and rescue team into the ruins to start the search immediately.”
Lucy smiled. “People, especially men, tend to do what Veronica wants them to do.”
“I haven’t met the lady, so I’ll take your word for it. Your father was notified, and he put pressure on the locals, as well. The result was that after forty-eight hours of searching the ruins and the nearby neighborhoods, the authorities decided they needed outside help. The Cadence Guild was contacted.”
“And here you are. I must admit this is pretty damn impressive rescue work.”
“I lucked out when Otis showed up with the pizza. He was wearing this around his neck.” Gabriel reached into the pocket of his leather jacket and took out a dainty black crystal necklace.