Gone Missing Read Online Free Page B

last time you talked to Fiona?” Joslyn asked.
    Ruby sobered. “It’s been several weeks. Rufus and I are a little worried. I even called her house a few times, but she didn’t answer.”
    â€œWhy do you think she’d stop coming to the museum?” Clay asked.
    â€œRufus thinks it’s because of that man who came a few weeks ago.”
    â€œWhat man?”
    â€œSome older man talked to her in the ancient Chinese art room. You should talk to Rufus about it. He was on duty that day and saw them.”
    â€œFiona didn’t say anything about what was wrong?” Joslyn asked.
    Ruby shook her head. “But I didn’t see her the last day she was here. I had taken a sick day.”
    â€œIs Rufus here today?”
    â€œHe’s wandering around, just keeping an eye on things. Tall, lanky African-American man.” Ruby reached out to grab Joslyn’s hand. “Please find out what happened to Fiona. I hope it’s nothing serious.”
    â€œWe’ll find her,” Joslyn said. Fiona had left a hole in Joslyn’s life when she left Los Angeles. Joslyn didn’t have many women friends, and she always wondered if she might not have dated her abusive ex, Tomas, if Fiona had still been there with her frank opinions and logical insights. The least she could do was find out what happened to her friend now that it looked as if she’d gotten into something dangerous after she’d left the master’s program in LA.
    They had to circle almost the entire museum before they found Rufus, an older man so slender that his guard uniform hung loosely on him. He had a short, gray beard and almost completely bald head with his curly, gray hair cut short. As they approached him, he frowned at them as if he were trying to look menacing. “Something I can help you folks with?”
    Then his eye fell on Clay, and his brows rose halfway up his forehead. “Well, I’ll be. You look just like Fiona. You must be that brother she told me about.”
    Clay grinned and shook the man’s hand. “Anything she told you about me, it wasn’t true.”
    Rufus guffawed. “She said you’d say something like that.” He nodded to Joslyn. “This your missus?”
    Joslyn felt as if her head was in a furnace, and Clay turned redder than a beet. “I’m Joslyn. I’m an old college friend of Fiona’s.”
    His handshake was firm, his fingertips calloused. “So you went to school with her in LA?”
    â€œYes, sir. She and I had most of the same classes.”
    â€œWe’re here looking for her,” Clay said. “We hear she hasn’t been around for a few weeks.”
    Rufus sighed heavily. “Don’t know what’s happened to her. I’m worried. It didn’t seem like she was into anything shady, but that man she met with the last time she was here seemed awful slick, if you know what I mean.”
    â€œWho was he?” Joslyn asked.
    â€œThis older guy, although not quite as old as me. Seems like nobody’s quite as old as me, these days.” He flashed a grin, his smile bright in his dark face. “He was sitting and chatting with Fiona, and she looked pretty shaken.”
    â€œYou didn’t hear what they talked about?” Joslyn asked.
    â€œNaw, I was standing by the door. There were some high school boys in the next room making fun of the abstract art, so I was keeping an eye on them in case they got rowdy.”
    â€œMaybe she and the guy were friends,” Joslyn said.
    â€œNo, she didn’t come in with him. She was alone when I saw her enter the front door—she gave me a smile and a wave—and this guy came and met her in the antique Chinese art room only half an hour later. She seemed surprised to see him, so I don’t think she was intending to meet him here. They only talked five or ten minutes, but it was enough to make Fiona look upset and leave the museum