Darkness Bound by Stella Cameron

corners of their mouths.
    She served three more customers before she got another set of tab masters and followed the same routine as the first time. Fortunately, the two men and one woman were too busy arguing to notice the hilarity among several nearby customers who were listening in.
    A few minutes later she prevailed, although this time she didn’t get a tip. But she did when a man came in on his own and showed signs of leaving without paying. Once more she put the extra money in the glass.
    She began to glance at the doors, watching for Gabriel to return, but it was another hour before she saw him and by then the cash register was looking healthy and her “glass for extras,” as she called it to herself, was half full.
    Unfortunately, when Gabriel returned he didn’t look like a man on the hunt for cheerful news. He joined her behind the bar, planted his hands on his hips, and stared off into space.
    He served the next couple who came in and didn’t say a word when they started to leave without paying.
    Leigh caught the expectant eyes of two women who had watched her for a very long time, their delight evident.
    Right, she thought, now or never. “Excuse me,” she called after the couple. She had heard Gabriel call the woman Merna. “Merna, can I have a word before you go?”
    Apparently irritated, Merna turned back and her companion came with her. They both had the florid faces of perpetual barflies.
    “You forgot this,” Leigh said, passing over the bill she had hurriedly prepared. She waited for Gabriel to say something but he kept quiet.
    Merna glared, first at Gabriel, then at Leigh. Without another word, her friend forked over the money and off they went.
    The two-woman audience laughed until they almost fell out of their chairs. “Got yourself a shark there, Gabriel. About time, too, from what I hear.”
    One evil stare from Gabriel and the women decided it was time to go. They left, chuckling all the way out.
    “What are you doing?” Gabriel said to Leigh.
    She threw up her hands. “Oh, my, I forgot Jazzy. I’ve got to take him out, then I’ll get back to the office.”
    “If you keep pushing people around like that, we’ll lose customers,” Gabriel said.
    Leigh took her glass from behind the whiskey bottles and emptied the money on the counter. “Tips,” she said. “Give them to the rest of the staff. And what’s the point of customers who don’t pay?”

chapter
SIX
     
    N ILES WAS CRUISING from Gabriel’s Place to Sean’s cabin on his motorcycle when he got a general alert from Island Emergency Services on his radio. A man called Cody Willet had gone missing from Langley in midafternoon.
    The missing persons report had been made by one of Cody’s fellow workers at a local government office.
    Within minutes another announcement said that Cody’s wife called off the alert because, she claimed, Cody was only having a tantrum following a “domestic.”
    Three definite kidnap victims so far, and all had been women. Niles had started to wonder if Cody was the first male, but with his return they were back to female victims. Gabriel’s Molly had been missing for three days and then turned up with no recollection of what had happened to her. Violet, another missing woman, had also returned with some infuriating amnesia, but she seemed happy enough to be back driving her small aluminum trailerfrom which she sold sandwiches, coffee, and whatever her imagination came up with.
    Only Rose, who worked for a used book store on Gulliver Lane and as a relief school bus driver, was still missing.
    A short communication from Sean wiped out all thoughts of the kidnappings. A forceful “scramble” warning was his message. Scramble was their no-questions-answered alert code. It wasn’t a question of whether Niles was needed by his brother werehounds, but of how fast he could get where they wanted him to be. A bad day was turning into a worse night.
    Sean had already left his cabin when Niles arrived.