“Look, I’m at a police station. In London. I can’t talk for long. You know how I told you I hired a P.I.?”
“Yup.”
“She’s dead. Murdered.”
“Hell . . . That’s rough.”
“It’s awful. Really awful. I found the body. But I need to tell you what she found out. She found out that your wife came here, to England, and then went to Greece.”
I sat up bolt straight. How did your wife and England and Greece fit together?
“Gray,” she said, “did you hear me?”
“I don’t get what you’re saying.”
“Rosemary showed Evie’s picture to some airport staff in London. They identified Evie. She was here a few days ago.”
“Evie doesn’t even have a passport.”
“I don’t know how they got her out, but it seems that they did. On a private aircraft. She was seen here, Gray.”
“They? Who is they?”
“I don’t know. Rosemary had something to tell me about that. But now she can’t. I’m all alone with this now.”
“You said you’re at a police station? Tell them all you know.”
“That’s the problem, Gray. Rosemary said there are people in the police force who we can’t trust. She also said it’s too soon and we need to find out more first, or the doors that are open now will be slammed shut. She was a detective and then a P.I. for years. I trust her judgment.”
“Look, I don’t know why your P.I. was showing Evie’s photo around, but the people who said they saw her were mistaken. I think you must be upset because of what happened to your investigator and—”
“No. Of course I’m upset, but you have to listen to me. There’s one thing more the crew member remembered. When he was guiding Evie onto the jet in London, he saw her bracelet. And he remembered it because it had tiny charms of war hammers and swords and things on it. He thought that was strange for a woman.”
The muscles along my spine pulled tight. “I bought her that bracelet. Only a couple of days before she left me. She’d seemed really down, so I bought her something to try to make her laugh. I’d forgotten about it . . .”
“Gray, listen to me. This is real. This is happening.”
Constance’s sharp voice pulled me back. But was the bracelet enough proof? I didn’t know Constance’s P.I. and what she was all about. Something flashed through my mind. The bracelet hadn’t been found at the site of the burned car.
I exhaled a tightly held breath. “I don’t understand who would go to all the trouble of getting two women all the way from Australia to Greece. I know what Evie and Kara were involved with, but still, there must be thousands of women in Europe these people could have picked instead. And how did they get Evie and Kara to go along with it?”
“I don’t know the answers,” she said. “Maybe these people blackmailed them. Or threatened them. Look, please don’t tell any of this to the police yet. I can’t talk long, but I’ll be in contact again soon. I’ve bought a new phone, and I need you to take down the number. Don’t tell it to anyone. Buy a new phone yourself and don’t call me on anything but that.”
“Okay, I will.” Constance sounded so different. I wrote the number down with a stub of one of Lilly’s crayons, my head whirling with everything she had just told me.
“I’m frightened,” she told me. “I’m certain Rosemary was killed because of what she was trying to find out. She was worried that Kara was being trafficked. It’s possible that both Kara and Evie are in the hands of traffickers.”
I let out an expletive. “Traffickers?”
“Yes. Or worse. In our first meeting, Rosemary mentioned a strange group named Yeqon’s Saviours. It’s possible they have a connection to this. She wasn’t sure. The man my daughter’s been with is apparently a member.”
Browsing on my phone to an internet search engine, I began typing in the name. “Y-e-q-o-n?”
“Yes.”
I had a quick search, but all I found was mumbo jumbo about fallen angels.
“Gray, I have to go. The police want to talk with me again.”
The line went dead.
Wheels slowly revolved in my mind.
Evie had been gambling and dabbling in escort work and trying to make money. Someone could have offered her an incredible gig, some kind of work she could do in a week and come home again. Someone rich enough to get her out of the country without a passport. It all fit. Maybe it made a crazy kind of sense after all.