Page 189 of A Vicious Love

“Then you’re lucky.”

Her father’s smile had become very thin. “Of course. Your Second Hand is welcome.”

“Mr. Calder,” I corrected.

Her father hated it. Which only made me enjoy his expression more. I let them all enjoy my silence and the possibility of what I could do next. I looked across her family again. I wanted Sienna. I needed to know she had not been hurt by one of the thousand consequences of my negligence.

“Where is Sienna?” I asked.

“She’s likely with her cousins,” her mother said.

“Likely.”

The word nearly made my vision darken.

One of the aunts smiled politely. “The girls move around all day. There are activities everywhere. She might be by the lake.”

“Might.”

“Sienna is familiar with the estate,” her father said, tone sharpening. “She has attended since childhood.”

“Nature kills people who have attended it since childhood.”

Her father frowned. “Mr. Crow, I assure you⁠—”

“You don’t know where she is.”

I turned to Reeves. He had gone still in the way that meant he had found something.

“Talk,” I said.

“Her phone last pinged near the east trail thirty-four minutes ago. No active signal. I have a heat cluster near the waterfall path. One female, sitting elevated. No immediate second body in the surrounding twenty meters.”

Sienna’s father’s expression hardened. “You’re tracking my daughter?”

“Yes,” Reeves said calmly.

Her mother’s eyes widened. “That is unacceptable.”

“So is not knowing where she is,” I said.

A younger uncle stepped forward. “This is Bellemere land.”

“And yet I found her before you did.”

Sienna’s father looked at Reeves’s tablet. “We do not permit unauthorized surveillance.”

“I do not permit my fiancée to vanish on a property full of unknown staff and scenic ways to die.”

“She hasn’t vanished,” her mother snapped. “She is at the waterfall.”

“You didn’t know that thirty seconds ago.”

Her cheeks coloured.

I stepped closer to Sienna’s father, lowering my voice enough that the women behind him leaned in despite themselves.

“Tomorrow morning,” I said, “you and I will talk. You’d be wise to listen.”