Page 67 of Married at Midnight

Viola and the men had finished their inspection and returned with no further clues. When he saw Viola leaning heavily on Aaron’s arm for support, Connor pulled one of the chairs from its row and offered it to his grandmother.

With a grateful smile, she sat. “Have you been contacted by anyone yet?”

Connor shook his head and returned his phone to his pocket.

“I’ll pay whatever they want,” Viola said with feeling as she regained some strength.

“We’ll help,” the Elvises replied at once, taking up positions around Viola, as though guarding her from whatever danger had swallowed Ellie.

James and Julie returned to the ballroom. “We can help, too,” Ellie’s father said, his face ashen. “We bought trip insurance for our cruise. All we have to do is cancel, and we can come up with several thousand to help our little girl.”

Connor looked down at James’s hand. He held a small envelope between a tissue and his index finger and thumb. “Did you find something?”

James extended the envelope toward Connor. “We found this near the door, like it had been slipped beneath.”

“Wait,” Trevor said as Connor went to grab it. He removed a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and put them on before he took the envelope from James. Carefully, Trevor broke the seal and peered inside.

“What is it?” Connor asked, his throat tight. It had to be about Ellie. It has to be.

Slowly Trevor removed several strands of burnished-gold hair and held them up. “Is it Ellie’s?”

“Yes,” Connor ground out.

“Oh, dear God,” Viola cried as she collapsed back against her chair.

“My baby,” Julie sobbed, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. “I just want her back.”

“We’ll find her,” Trevor assured them as he pulled out his cell phone. “I’ll have someone at the station run a trace on her phone. She hasn’t been missing for twenty-four hours yet, but the evidence found here suggests this is a crime, not a missing person’s case. I’m setting up a police team now.”

Connor felt as if his heart were being squeezed in a vise. He forced himself to think past the pain, ignoring the panic that threatened to drown him. “Why don’t you all go home? We’ll let you know when we hear something.”

Connor shifted his gaze from the fear and desperation in Ellie’s parents’ eyes to his father’s determined expression. “We’ll find her, son.”

Connor looked to his left, to the Elvises.

Lenny frowned and shook his head. Speaking for his friends, he said, “The Elvises are staying put.”

He turned to Viola. Her face became mutinous. “Don’t think for one minute since I’m old and feeble that I can’t stay up and wait with you. I care about that girl as much as any of you.”

The assembled group murmured sounds of affirmation, and Connor knew he’d lost that battle before it had even started. “All right. We’ll wait this out together. But there are six bedrooms in this house if anyone needs to rest.”

No one replied, and not one of the faces that stared back at him looked as if they’d be giving in to sleep anytime soon.

For better or for worse, they were all in this together.