I knew Prue would call if Kanesha came home. I trusted her. So I knew she wasn’t at home. And the first place anyone would look for her was the MLK Library. I assumed Prue had checked that too, but we headed there anyway.

Not that I expected to find her, but I would be more comfortable having covered all of the bases. Or maybe I hoped she’d pulled an all-nighter, hiding in the back somewhere so the librarians wouldn’t throw her out.
That would be a Kanesha thing to do. We made a very open floor-by-floor sweep, but it took a while, and the place was so large I was tempted to ask Thea to call in her biker gang again.
Tempted, but didn’t. Two people were likely to spook her if she was hiding. An entire bunch? Not a chance. Of course, if she really didn’t want to be found, we’d never find her. Not in this city. If she’d just run away…

…but no. That was not a Kanesha thing to do at all. She loved school, she was applying for scholarships. She would not just throw all of that away.

New boyfriend was the only answer that meant she was safe. Anything else involved dead or kidnapped. “We should check the hospitals and the morgues.”

“Being handled,” Thea said, briskly.

I hadn’t heard her call anyone. I didn’t question it. Her biker friends were doing the tedious stuff for us, doing it faster than we could. “Good. I assume we’ll get a call if they find her.”

Thea nodded. “I don’t think they will, though. My hunch is that she’s being held somewhere and somebody else will call us soon enough.”

I winced. Bait or ransom. Her for me, perhaps. “Police?”

“Not unless we have to. Cops have rules and policies on this that we don’t want to be tangled in.”

I wasn’t going to give myself up, but I might pretend to to trap them in a corner, to get her and me in the same place. “At least we know she can kick a moderate amount of butt.”

“They probably either had her outnumbered or pulled another spiked drink.”

I frowned. “Not more PCP. I don’t…”

Thea put a hand on my arm. “Come on. Let’s check other places she might be if they don’t have her.”

I agreed, but I was shivering a little, deep inside. If they had drugged her the way they had Barry…for some reason, it upset me more.

And made me remind myself yet again that I liked boys.