Snow Blind - Lori G. Armstrong [41]
“Slow down. I didn’t catch that.” His eyebrows drew together. “When? Why didn’t they get in touch with you before you left? Oh. Right.” Pause. “Amery, come on, doll, slow down. I can’t understand you.”
Doll? Eww. Then again, could be worse. At least he wasn’t calling her sugar tits.
“They’re sure?” His gaze snapped back to mine. 138
“No problem. Don’t worry; we’ll check it out. Yes, I promise. The minute I know anything. I can reach you at this number? Good.” Pause. “I know. It’ll be okay. Try not to think about it. I’ll be in touch.”
Kevin clicked his phone shut and stared at me—
through me, really—but didn’t offer a clue to the cryptic conversation.
“What’s going on?”
“Amery’s boss here in Rapid called the hotel in Las Vegas a couple of hours ago. She left an emergency message. Seems Prairie Gardens has been unable to reach Amery.”
“Why not?”
He scratched his jaw with the edge of the antennae.
“The day the blizzard hit she left her cell phone at the office. Then she spent the next day snowed in with me. She went straight from my house, to hers, to the airport, so they couldn’t reach her at home and the travel agency has been closed until today.”
“What’s so urgent?”
“Vernon Sloane is missing.”
“For how long?”
“That’s the thing. No one knows. They’re thinking since the day of the snowstorm. Since the day you saw him.”
A queasy feeling sloshed the coffee around in my stomach. “Did they talk to Luella? She was scheduled for a home visit with him later that morning.”
“No one has seen her either.” Kevin quit twirling 139
his cell phone and dropped it inside his suit jacket pocket as he stood.
“So what is the staff at Prairie Gardens doing to find him?”
“According to Amery, nothing.”
“Nothing? Then why the hell did they call her?”
“She doesn’t know. Whenever she calls back to get more information, they just put her on hold. She’s going crazy and asked if I’d—if we’d—go check it out.” He looked at me. Pleadingly.
Say no.
“Hang on. I’ll get my coat.”
140
When we arrived at Prairie Gardens, no one
would talk to us. They shepherded us to a tiny reception room in the butt-fuck Egypt part of the building and told us to wait.
Kevin tired of waiting. He called 911.
Nothing gets attention like cop cars, fire trucks, and an ambulance. The first cop on scene knew Kevin. While he was pissed off about the tactic Kevin employed to get action, on some level he understood. We waited for the manager to show up. And rather than waste time and manpower, the firefighters and the ambulance crew knocked door to door, asking if any residents had seen Vernon Sloane. By the surprised expressions, I doubted anyone had performed this task on the general populace. Why not? Why weren’t the security teams and the caretakers doing their job? For 141
Christsake, a man was missing. Didn’t anyone care?
No wonder Amery freaked out.
Dee was practically in tears as she fluttered about, trying to calm residents, insisting everything was a simple misunderstanding.
Officer Smith stayed with us when we entered Vernon Sloane’s empty apartment. Didn’t look any different than it had a couple of days ago, which meant nothing. Searching for a missing coat, boots, or a suitcase was pointless, too. The three of us were loitering outside the door when a man sashayed down the hallway. He was somewhere around fifty, with slicked-back reddishbrown hair, a face free of signs of aging, courtesy of Botox. He wore dark tan pants, a wool blazer, and a cream-colored turtleneck. It surprised me he wasn’t stroking a yippy poodle or a groomed terrier. I could give a crap about sexual orientation, but this gent was so gay he actually swished when he bypassed me.
“Officer. I’m Bradley Boner.”
Oh, yeah, I totally felt the urge to snicker like a third grader. Not only because of the guy’s name, but when he shook Dave’s hand, I noticed he wore a diamond-studded ring on his pinkie.
“You the manager?”
“Yes. And frankly, I’m disturbed by why it’s necessary to have all this”—he pointed to the EMTs